Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

When we show up, we win.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

This fight is for everything.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Second rate reporter says what?

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

So many bastards, so little time.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Sad Trombone Open Thread: Protecting “Dear Leader” From His Own Insecurities

Sad Trombone Open Thread: Protecting “Dear Leader” From His Own Insecurities

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(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
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When the “Big Guy” is so transparent in his many insecurities, good minions don’t need explicit instructions in advance. Per NBC:

… “A request was made to the U.S. Navy to minimize the visibility of USS John S. McCain, however, all ships remained in their normal configuration during the President’s visit,” Rear Admiral Charlie Brown, chief of information, said in a statement to NBC News.

“There were also no intentional efforts to explicitly exclude Sailors assigned to USS John S. McCain,” the statement said.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Friday he’d asked his chief of staff to “look into” the reported request from the White House to move the ship “out of sight” during Trump’s visit.

“Our business is to run military operations and not become politicized,” Shanahan told reporters during a news conference in Singapore. “I would not have moved the ship,” he added.

“The Navy is fully cooperating with the review of this matter tasked by the Secretary of Defense. Our forward-deployed Naval forces continue to stand ready to execute their assigned missions,” Brown, the Navy spokesperson, said Saturday…

(Jeff Danziger via GoComics.com)
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If Prince Harry is forbid by protocol (i.e., his granny) from doing as Betty suggested below and punching the Mango Menace, maybe he can see that any & every protocol officer assigned to the Squatter-in-Chief’s team announces themselves as a McCain?

(Matt Davies via GoComics.com)
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ETA:

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    MattF

    It’s no secret that QE really liked the Obamas. That alone is enough to piss off the Orange One.

  2. 2.

    Hilfy

    Jack Ohman–Great Cartoonist. Cartoonists and comedians keep us sane in these days of Trumpism.

  4. 4.

    MattF

    Hilarious NYT article about the, um, problems of a Trump-branded condominium being built in Uruguay. A sample:

    In addition, some of the people who have agreed to buy condos have faced legal problems in their home countries, including allegations of tax evasion. According to real estate records reviewed by The New York Times, the buyers included at least 21 anonymous companies in offshore jurisdictions like Panama and Belize.

    Well, golly.

    ETA: Forgot the URL:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/business/trump-uruguay-punta-del-este.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

  6. 6.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SiubhanDuinne: It is part of its hull number. It is a destroyer armed with guided missiles and the number is therefore prefaced with DDG. So DDG-56 = USS John S. McCain.

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: The McCain‘s designator is DDG 56. DDG is the designator for Arleigh Burke class destroyers and stands for Destroyer, Guided Missile. The ship’s motto is Fortune Favors the Brave and the nickname for the ship is Big Bad John. The numbering on US destroyer designators is all hosed up because they reclassed them as frigates for a while, then went back to destroyer, then the Arleigh Burke class came online. Because of this The Arleigh Burke‘s designator is DDG 51, even though it is the first of its class of destroyers.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    “I would not have moved the ship,” he added.

    Would get have resigned? I guess he didn’t technically get a direct order from the CiC, but not because Trump is shy about abusing his authority.

  12. 12.

    dww44

    Just returned from my local Barnes & Nobles. One of the things I was interested in was the physical copy of the Mueller Report. Much to my surprise there were 2. The plain bare bones one, showing the redacted portions, was the Washington Post one. The other was a red, white, and blue one published or controlled by the Justice Department with a foreword by Alan Dershowitz. My antenna went immediately up and I thumbed though the copy, albeit briefly. Maybe they do include the redacted portions, but I didn’t see any. I’d buy the Washington Post copy if I were buying.

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    @Sab: @Adam L Silverman:
    @Another Scott:

    Thank you, all. I almost always leave Balloon Juice slightly more informed than I was going in.

    (And pre-emptively, I might have too many links in this comment to avoid moderation. If this is the case, I’m relying on you to spring me from jail, @Adam).

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    It’s his sheer insecurity that continues to amaze. He’s President of the United States (God help us all), John McCain is dead, and if there wasn’t a fuss raised, basically nobody besides the people directly involved would have known or cared that the USS McCain was in proximity to him. And yet, his insecurity and ego is such that someone on the staff, rightly fearing a temper tantrum, ordered a (literal) cover-up. Thus creating a controversy out of nowhere.

  25. 25.

    Mike in NC

    The Jack Ohman cartoon up top is good, but aren’t the crappers in Trump Tower made of solid gold, or is it just the handles?

    ETA: Sab got there first.

  27. 27.

    hells littlest angel

    One of Trump’s lesser unforgivable offenses is making John McCain seem like a good guy by comparison.

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    The wine I’m drinking came from a bottle, not a box.

    It is a normal colour of wine.

    I’m drinking it from a glass, not a plastic cup.

    I’m not using a straw.

  33. 33.

    RAVEN

    Patrol-torpedo boats were only given a numerical hull designation, unlike their larger counterparts. Crews were allowed to give their boats a nickname, and often got creative. Nicknames for some of PT-305’s squadron mates were USS Cherry (PT-304), La-Dee-Da (PT-308), Oh Frankie (PT-309), and Sea-wolf (PT-313). PT-305 was given two confirmed nicknames during the war, the first coming from a crew mishap, as told by Baker First Class Benedict Bronder, from Minnesota. Bronder came aboard PT-305 with the first crew in 1943.

    “The one we had was Sudden Jerk,” he said. “And the way they got that (was) they were backing in to park it and they sped up a little bit too much and when it come back, it hit where it was tied up. And they said ‘That was a sudden jerk!’ and then they said, ‘That’s a good name!’ It didn’t ruin anything on the boat, but that’s where it got the name Sudden Jerk.” She carried that name throughout 1944 and into 1945, when a new crew renamed her. Stay tuned for the story of the Half Hitch!

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    And do you really think I would drink blush Zinfandel?

    I think you are capable of horrors as yet unnamed. This is merely the beginning.

  41. 41.

    Sab

    @debbie: What’s with everyone wearing the long ties? Did you notice Rob Rosenstein’s tie in his departure ceremony? I guess he wants a judgeship?

    So in the future we will have to consider tie length in confirmation hearings, as it seems to be an actual indicator of political corruption. And when they complain we will righteously scream that they started it.

    I hate the times we are in.

  42. 42.

    sdhays

    @hells littlest angel: Not only that, he keeps bringing the m*ther f*cker up ALL THE TIME so we can’t even let him fade into the mists of history. We still have to talk about John Freaking McCain because of the large (empty) apartment zombie McCain is living in Trump’s pumpkin-like noggin.

    If he didn’t keep bringing the jackass up every couple of weeks or so, how long would it take for Meghan McCain to get fired for being a nobody (because too many people would have forgotten who her lousy father is)? 6 montsh? A year?

  43. 43.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Sab: I have a meeting with opposing counsel on Tuesday. I’m going with a red tie down to my knees. They should fold immediately.

  45. 45.

    hells littlest angel

    @sdhays: She wouldn’t look out of place standing on a streetcorner shouting, “I am John McCain’s daughter!”

  46. 46.

    Raven

    RIP Leah Chase.

    Leah Chase, the nation’s pre-eminent Creole chef, always knew what to feed her famous customers.

    The Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. liked barbecued ribs, and James Baldwin preferred gumbo. The singer Sarah Vaughan ordered stuffed crab to go, and Nat King Cole always wanted a four-minute egg.

    She once had to stop President Barack Obama from putting hot sauce in her gumbo — a real culinary sin — and, despite pressure from a city still angry over the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, she fed President George W. Bush crab soup and shrimp Clemenceau on the second anniversary of the storm that nearly closed her restaurant, Dooky Chase’s, for good.

    We went there for lunch when we were in the Easy for the Sugar Bowl.

  55. 55.

    J R in WV

    I see that Trump attended church today, as Franklin Graham announced it was Pray for President Trump Sunday today.

    The service was around 2:30, and President Trump came to church directly from his gold links nearby.

    I was prepared to be appalled that Trump was wearing his golf clothes into the church, but then I saw that the pastor was also wearing golf clothes — so new to me, a pastor wearing a polo shirt to lead prayer!

    Whatever keeps the rubes happy and giving, right?

  56. 56.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @hells littlest angel:

    She wouldn’t look out of place standing on a streetcorner shouting, “I am John McCain’s daughter!”

    Doesn’t she already do this five days a week on The View?

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @J R in WV:

    Their religion. Their politics. Their dress code. Don’t bother me none.

    It’s when they start hurting people who aren’t them that I care.

  58. 58.

    Sab

    @debbie: You can’t get a Court appointment unless you wear your tie halfway to your knees.

    I think Federalist Society should be disqualifying, and I pretty much think Yale should be also (sorry Hilz and Bill, that was Eons ago.) Yale doesn’t have grades. How the phuck do they evaluate anyone except by what clique they wete in? Certainly not by their work product.

    Yale is top ranked because of it’s judicial appointees, and after Kavanaugh we knew how that worked. Had he ever had an actual normal doing the work and billing the client for work job?

  61. 61.

    Aleta

    Heard Emily King last night at Central Park free! summer stage. Unbelievable.

    Remind Me, studio version

    Been without it for so long
    Forgot what it feels like

    Been asleep inside this dream, trying to wake up
    Waiting for something to come and rescue me, give me a reason…
    yes

  62. 62.

    sdhays

    @Sab: The Ivy league in general doesn’t deserve the position it’s been given as the gatekeepers of our legal system. There was a discussion awhile ago about how Kamala Harris went to a state school (and not Berkeley!!) so she must actually be a crap lawyer or something stupid like that. It was absurd. Having all of our top justices go through Harvard or Yale has a distorting effect on our legal system, and not a good one. We should be looking to broaden the pool of schools you can go to and still clerk for Supreme Court Justices and have a hope to even be named a judge yourself, and most of those schools should be public.

  63. 63.

    FelonyGovt

    OT (sorta) I attended the California Democratic Party Convention in San Francisco this weekend. I am feeling so much better after listening to some of our Presidential candidates. There are some fine ones, including some I didn’t know much about including Klobuchar, Booker, Inslee and Beto. (I didn’t bother going to see Bernie.).

    It was also wonderful seeing so many committed Democrats, including a surprising number of young people.

  65. 65.

    FelonyGovt

    @Baud: There was a bit of dissension around the election of a new party Chair (the previous guy had to resign because of harassment allegations), and some of the Bernie Bros booed Hickenlooper, which I thought was disrespectful. Otherwise pretty peaceful.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @FelonyGovt:

    The Vox article said they booed another moderate. Delaney?

    ETA

    Yes.

    Sunday, former Maryland Congressman John Delaney faced the same fate as the former governor. Delaney used part of his speech to reject Medicare for all, and reportedly received “sustained boos.”

  67. 67.

    JPL

    Is anyone else watching CNN”s townhall. Seth Moulton is a jerk, but Tim Ryan sounds sincere in his beliefs. Of course, I wouldn’t vote for him but I do think he understands what happened in the areas where wages dropped.

  68. 68.

    FelonyGovt

    Could be, he was today and I didn’t attend at all today.

    ETA I’m sure the Bros we’re there in force today because their hero was speaking, and many of the (other) delegates were had probably already left.

  69. 69.

    Mike in NC

    We were given a box of Cabernet not too long ago. Sells for $20 and the label claimed it held 35 glasses. Wasn’t bad (free wine usually isn’t).

  71. 71.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Mike in NC: there’s plenty of drinkable boxed wine these days, such as Black Box and Provisions. It’s not just Franzia anymore.

  72. 72.

    Harbison

    @sdhays:

    Hastings is a TTT, has nothing to do with it being a state school.

    We’ve hired people from there before, but they had other attributes that made them attractive to compensate for the lack law school screening.

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Been saying that for years. It’s gold spray paint. It was on sale for $1/can, $.50 if you bought it by the case. Even cheaper if by the truck load. Being the cheap fuck he is, he went for the truck. Now it’s all gone. That’s why he ran for president, figured he could get the government to buy another truck load for him.

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:
    Wouldn’t want to offend his simpleton ass.
    It’s his tie, it must be the right length.
    I think he’s trying to make up for a short coming in other areas, if you get my drift.

  82. 82.

    RAVEN

    The young lady singing the Canadian National Anthem has turned it over to the crowd. . . nice touch.

  86. 86.

    Ruckus

    @Sab:
    I know some medical schools don’t do grades, it’s pass/fail.
    But given some of the students, that might actually be a better way. The process is supposed to be learning, not a competition. The trick is that pass has to actually mean something. Proficiency, competency. I’ve seen people who worked for grades rather than learning. Or their counterparts, those who only worried about the minimum, so they could have a piece of paper. Which they devalued to it’s absolute bare minimum.

  90. 90.

    Patricia Kayden

    Nothing is normal with this White House regime. We have a Man Baby about to embarrass the hell out of us on a state visit to England. Sigh.

  94. 94.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Sodium, sodium, sodium, sodium, sodium, sodium, sodium, sodium, Batman! ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

    Ha! I’m doing it to the tune of “Stodola Pumpa”:

    ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ “Sodium sodium sodium chloride, Sodium chloride, Sodium chloride; Sodium sodium sodium chloride, Sodium chloride, Chlor chlor chlor!” ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

  99. 99.

    p.a.

    Let’s try this one more time…
    WTF anyone else unable to comment the last 4, 5 days? Happened before too.

  102. 102.

    Ruckus

    @RAVEN:
    Have heard of it but other than that, no.
    Have known a couple of people from New Orleans over the years. Have even been there once.
    Had a kid on my crew said he was from Bayou Lafourche. but the best I can tell that’s a river slightly south of New Orleans proper. He wasn’t big city. He was barely small town. Good kid.

  104. 104.

    Citizen Alan

    @sdhays:

    Agreed. I am certain that the quality of education you get at Harvard or Yale is no better than what you’d get at any of the top 50 public state colleges/universities in the country. The advantage of those two schools is that there is a non-trivial chance your freshman dorm roommate is related to a Senator or CEO. Other than networking opportunities, Harvard and Yale don’t impress me at all.

  105. 105.

    West of the Rockies

    @p.a.:

    Haven’t had that problem. I also haven’t gotten any of the pRon some people have… Not sure how I feel about that.

  106. 106.

    HeleninEire

    Just made my arrangements to visit Dublin for my birthday in September. I miss my Dublin friends.

  107. 107.

    RAVEN

    @Ruckus: I’ve been so into creole and cajun cooking for nearly 40 years so I was very familiar. My buddy is diver/welder on the rigs and I think they go out of Bayou Lafourche.

  108. 108.

    Ruckus

    @germy:
    I’m reading your link, and listening to Ray Charles sing America the Beautiful.
    Irony is not lost, it is in full force today.

  109. 109.

    geg6

    Good, open thread. Patting myself on the back here. Best dinner I’ve made in one pan ever. It’s a Greek lemon garlic chicken and rice and I made a traditional Greek salad (traditional meaning no lettuce) for a side. OMG! You people should be begging me for this recipe.

  111. 111.

    Sab

    @Ruckus: The practice of medicine isn’t supposed to be an adversarial system. The practice of accounting isn’t supposed to be an adverarial system. Neither is engineering or any number of other fields.

    The practice of law, by its nature, is adversarial. So we have these schools where everyone got in by greasing the skids, and then they aren’t judged competetively by their work, and they get out and practice in courts dominated by alumni/judges who also got into law school and onto the bench by greasing the skids, and everyone knows who is and is not connected.That’s not adversarial. That’s corrupt.

    I am exaggerating, but not by much, and every judicial appointment makes it less of an exaggeration.

  113. 113.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Sab:

    The practice of medicine isn’t supposed to be an adversarial system.

    You’ve never played golf with any doctors, have you?

  114. 114.

    Jay

    @Sab:

    The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System, Library Edition Bruce Gibney

  115. 115.

    Sab

    @Steve in the ATL: Diane Black is absolutely right that “everyone being equal is not what this country was founded on.” This country was founded on the work of people who actually built it being counted as 3/5 of a person and not allowed freedom, security or intactness for their families, voting rights or property. That’s why I am not an “originalist” and think that whole line of thinking is a crock. We are about two hundred years and a very bloody Civil War past that thinking.

  117. 117.

    Sab

    @Sab: He was a pathologist. When he was reading a slide he didn’t say “I’m right and I win.” He sent slides out to other places, Cleveland Clinic, Navsl War College, Institutes of Health to get a second or third opinion. It wasn’t about winning. It was about getting it right.

    Law is about winning. Your client isn’t paying you to get it right. They are paying you to win.

    Medical patients are paying you to get it right.

    The courts are supposed to bring balance back into the system to get it right. The whole corruption of legal education entry and advancement, especially in the courts, destroys the balance.

  118. 118.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Sab: your theory is correct, but the reality is that getting into medical school is so competitive that it ends up full of type A assholes who can’t help themselves.

  120. 120.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Steve in the ATL: Some of them are cool though. But your general point is quite correct. Which is not to say that there aren’t some brass plated assholes in law, of course.

    I’m turning to a nice red blend, having finished billing for the week. You have mail.

  124. 124.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @dww44: Seen on the shelf at Kramerbooks (I was in DC the last couple days): Michael Cohen’s House Testimony.

    Didn’t get it, got some other cool fiction and non-fiction, $100 worth. I knew that was going to happen when I walked in there, but I went in anyway.

    Anybody read the Obama/Biden thriller Hope Never Dies? It looks fun, but at the same time too painful to read right now given how far we’ve fallen in just two years and how much I miss Obama being in the White House.

  125. 125.

    Suzanne

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    how much I miss Obama being in the White House

    Mr. Suzanne and I are watching the NBA game, and the camera panned over to show BHO is there watching the game in person. We got a bit emotional.

  131. 131.

    prostratedragon

    Just some of the rich details from the article about the Punta del Este punt. One early paragraph begins,

    “Of course not,” Richard Sampallo, a director of the union that represents the construction crew, said when asked if it will be finished by the end-of-2020 target. At the current pace, he estimates it may take another four years, at which point it will have been roughly a decade since it got underway.

    The man is a cock-eyed optimist, as the article’s survey of other recent TO international projects indicates. Of course, it wouldn’t be a TO property without the classiest associates, like YY Development, who actually acquired the land and are supposed to be developing the property, and …

    Mr. Yellati’s brother-in-law, Mr. Dujovne, Argentina’s future economics minister. Mr. Dujovne, whose father’s architecture firm was designing the tower, was a prominent economist and television talk show personality. Mr. Dujovne was involved in the purchase of the land and later tried to sell condos to his contacts in Buenos Aires, according to people familiar with his role.

    Mr. Dujovne’s litany of disavowal uses text by now familiar to us all. I’ll bet other countries just love to see the T family on their horizon, love to. It was a mere two (2) years from ceremonial to actual groundbreaking, whereupon the comedy really got under way, due in part to the severly undercapitalized developers (who got them in on it?), with Eric T making annual visits to “supervise” construction and pass on high end requirements, like the brand of appliances. However

    Those high-end touches were expensive. The project’s developer and broker were listing some apartments at roughly $7,000 per square meter, about 30 percent higher than competing luxury properties. Some units’ price tags were above $2 million.

    The high prices dampened demand, according to people familiar with the deal. So, YY divided two large units on each floor into three separate smaller apartments. That added 25 less-expensive units to the tower. But it also meant that dozens of the units in the beachside property now have no view of the ocean.
    [My emph]

    Perhaps best of all, there is one (1) electrician working on the building, top floors are missing windows, and the usual enormous “T” sign is beginning to rust — beachfront hazard I suppose.

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