Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

This fight is for everything.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

People are complicated. Love is not.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

So many bastards, so little time.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / He Can’t Help Himself – Open Thread

He Can’t Help Himself – Open Thread

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Yesterday, Donald Trump tweeted about the Russian explosion at Nenoksa.

A number of experts hastened to criticize on the grounds that the United States doesn’t have a program like Russia’s Burevestnik [NATO designation Skyfall], or, if we do, it must be highly classified.

But there’s something else worth noting. This may be the first time Trump has criticized Russia in any way.

And of course, it’s a dick-measuring contest. He can’t help himself.

 

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    Occam’s Razor still says Putin was sold a bill of goods.

    One might think the experience of Lysenkoism would have tempered credulity, but no-o-o-o.

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    Love this :)

    2019 ‘Doodle for Google’ competition winner honors mom with illustration

    A Georgia teen is giving thanks with help from Google.

    You may have noticed Tuesday’s Google Doodle, but this doodle is no regular illustration. It’s a competition winner.

    A Georgia teen is giving thanks with help from Google. Arantza Peña Popo is the winner of Google’s annual “Doodle for Google” competition.

    Arantza Peña Popo is the winner of the search engine’s annual “Doodle for Google” competition.

    The high school senior’s design is called “Once You Get It, Give It Back”.

    Google’s theme for this year’s competition was “When I grow up, I hope…” and Arantza’s design depicts her dream of helping her mother do all the things she hasn’t been able to do yet.

    The doodle shows an order version of Arantza, in the future, caring for her mother in front of framed picture of the two of them in their younger years.

    Arantza says her mother “lights up any room she’s in”.

    More than 200,000 submissions were entered into the 2019 competition.

    In addition to the illustration being displayed as the website’s main image for the day, Arantza will also receive a $30,000 college scholarship as well as a $50,000 technology award for her high school.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    Open Thread?

    Scientists in Switzerland are working on a vaccine called “HypoCat” to lessen a specific protein that makes humans allergic to them, according to a report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

    The vaccine for cats would minimize their secretions of the Fel d 1 allergen, a protein of which approximately 10% of the population in the Western hemisphere is allergic
    [snip]
    The Fel d 1 allergen is present in cat dander, which then ends up all over couches, clothes, and everything in the cat’s vicinity. An allergic reaction is your immune system believing it’s under attack when that protein is inhaled. Source

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    Promoting White Racism: What Green Cards for the Rich is Really About
    By Spandan

    Donald Trump doesn’t want immigrants from shithole countries because, as he would put it, they are just such a drag on the “modern welfare state”. Poor immigrants don’t deserve a green card, the Trump administration announced yesterday.

    Trump’s acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services and sodomy-obsessed Virginia Republican who lost the governorship in the state in 2013 – the first time in a long time the party opposed to the president had lost the Virginia governor’s race, by the way – announced that, basically, if you meet the qualifications for immigration carved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, you will no longer be eligible for a green card.

    The policy isn’t just cruel and inhumane, and it isn’t just diametrically opposed to the values America has upheld through each wave of immigration. The policy is a lie based on two demonstrably provable falsehoods of immigrants and poor people costing taxpayers too much.

    It has been shown time and again through empirical evidence that immigrants are a net positive to America and to its treasury. In fact, not only do immigrants overall contribute more to the tax base than they receive in benefits, the greatest net plus to the treasury comes from the children of poor immigrants – who, on average, contribute a net $400 more per person to the US tax base than do other native-born Americans.

    The notion that the poor are a drag on our system is equally false. In 2016, for example, the federal government spent $877 billion in benefits and services to low-income individuals and families. That sure sounds like a lot, until you realize that the same federal government in 2017 spent over $1.6 trillion in tax expenditures or deductions that skew heavily to people of means. Keep in mind that this was before even greater tax expenditures kicked in for the rich kicked in under Trump’s tax cuts.

    Let me say that again. The federal government spends TWICE as much to help rich people than it spends to help poor people. At least.

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    Michelle Obama Athletic Complex opens at Whitney Young High School
    By Meghan Kluth
    Monday, August 12, 2019 6:36PM

    CHICAGO (WLS) — A new West Loop sports complex is honoring the former First Lady Michelle Obama.

    Monday Whitney M. Young Magnet High School cut the ribbon on the new Michelle Obama Athletic Complex and the community celebrated with a block party.

    The $4.8 million complex took about four years to complete. School principal Dr. Joyce Kenner said the field has been in the making for the last 10-15 years, adding how much of a privilege it is to name it after their most esteemed alum — the former First Lady.

    “It’s important to me because she really embodies staying fit and being involved,” said Principal Kenner, “and then she was so excited about us presenting the idea to her.”

    Michelle Obama graduated from Whitney Young in 1981, and her friends and classmates couldn’t be more proud.
    ………………………….

    The Michelle Obama athletic complex was funded by tax-increment financing dollar, and replaced the old field that only had a baseball diamond.

    The field is equipped for soccer, football, baseball, softball, lacrosse and track fields so the students and community can stay fit.

    The prestigious CPS selective enrollment school is 44 years old. Alumni and community members said the new facility is long overdue.

  11. 11.

    Gravenstone

    And of course, it’s a dick-measuring contest. He can’t help himself.

    I almost look forward to his dick getting publicly cut off by Putin in the upcoming days. I half expect that to be a literal punishment.

  13. 13.

    The Moar You Know

    This may be the first time Trump has criticized Russia in any way.

    Uncle Vlad is just letting him a little off the leash here. Russia will never be criticized on anything substantive under this administration.

  14. 14.

    Gin & Tonic

    Posted this in a dying thread yesterday, but here’s what the esteemed New York Times had to say about this explosion: “officials have said nothing publicly about the blast on Thursday, possibly one of the worst nuclear accidents in Russia since Chernobyl.”

    Chernobyl was not and is not in Russia.

  15. 15.

    Jinchi

    @Wag:

    correction– WAS highly classified

    Of course, Trump is such a BS artist that he’s probably not a very good intelligence asset for foreign intelligence agencies. Was he leaking a classified project? Was he simply making it up on the spot? Who knows? Can you really leak classified information if nobody believes a word you say?

    I’d recommend getting 2 or 3 confirming reports before I’d put a wager on it.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    Thank you president* Fox News Alert, as always, glad to see you are ON IT! Jackass.

    Meanwhile, my RWNJ dad continues to try and make hay out of Biden’s gaffes and his son’s business whatever over in Ukraine. I asked him if those two were equal to the laundry list of trumpov & Co crimes (and I gave him the full list), then emailed 5 seconds later with “WRONG ANSWER! Dem minutiae is actually, and always, greater than actual GOP crimes, haven’t I taught you anything?” Followed by “IOKIYAR” copied about two hundred times.

    I slept like a baby. I hope he went to bed at least a little grumpy from the cognitive dissonance.

    I’m going to ask him today: “If Joe Biden’s gaffes were the subject of one of Hillary Clinton’s EMAILZ!, which one of them should be locked up?” And then email him five seconds later with “WRONG ANSWER! The entire Biden and Clinton Death Machine Clans should already be locked up, and the Obamas should be under house arrest. Just because.”

  17. 17.

    gvg

    Supposedly the Russian media has been making fun of Trump fairly recently. I wonder if someone showed that to Trump?

  18. 18.

    The Dangerman

    And of course, it’s a dick-measuring contest.

    They have micrometers at the White House?

    ETA: Wonder how the shooting in Riverside will play? Once again, the wonders of an assault weapon (there is video out; damn, there is video everywhere). That’s my area (was my area, more correctly) but I visit there fairly frequently (National Cemetary is a pitching wedge away). Scary stuff, a bit of a war zone there last night. Need more coffee.

  19. 19.

    rikyrah

    Epstein death may put alleged co-conspirators in new legal peril

    Rachel Maddow looks at questions raised about whether the non-prosecution agreement for Jeffrey Epstein and any co-conspirators he may have had, as well as the non-disclosure agreements Epstein has his employees sign, are still valid after Epstein’s death or whether prosecutors will now have new avenues of inquiry as a result.

    Open questions, alleged accomplices keep Epstein case ongoing

    Julie K. Brown, investigative reporter for the Miami Herald, talks with Rachel Maddow about how Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged victims reacted to news of his death and how the Epstein investigation is likely to continue as open questions and alleged co-conspirators remain.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    Found out from watching LarryO that the ‘ACTING’ head of the Federal Prisons has, in fact, never worked in a prison. He’s the typical mediocre White man, who has gone from job to job, with little qualifications for them…continuing to Fail Up.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    Russia’s Burevestnik [NATO designation Skyfall]

    I swear, at first I thought Trump had got reality mixed up with a James Bond movie. Because that sounds like his kind of confusion.

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    @gvg: They make fun of Trump a lot, according to a woman on Twitter who represents a Russian media watchdog group that posts clips and translations. I suppose they’re rightly proud that their fourth-rate kleptocrat helped install a buffoon in the highest office of their chief geopolitical foe. It was quite an accomplishment.

  26. 26.

    Frankensteinbeck

    This may be the first time Trump has criticized Russia in any way.

    He’s thrown out the occasional ‘Russia did a bad thing and I will be a tough guy and stop them, not like that wimp Obama!’ They’re rare and get lost between his love letters to Putin, but they happen. This sounds more like an expression of sympathy used as an excuse to brag about how awesome Trump’s military technology is. That is a well established obsession of his, and he is also well established to have no idea what he’s talking about when he crows about it.

  28. 28.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Chernobyl was not and is not in Russia.

    I think they posted a correction to that.

    I have been thinking about at least tweeting that whatever this is, it is microscopic compared to Chernobyl. The bureaucratic response to it is similar, however.

  30. 30.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I think they posted a correction to that

    Thanks. I’m not a subscriber, and their paywall is getting more onerous, so I would not have seen that.

  31. 31.

    Jeffro

    Btw looks like Julian Castro bought ad time on “Fox and Friends” to try and directly provoke trumpov about his racism (and elevate Castro’s own profile w/ Dems). See…THAT is smart, new, outside-the-blessed-box thinking, Dems! (And cheap, too – apparently it’s ‘microtargeted’ to Fox audiences just in/around Bedminster, while the president* is there.

    It’s a whole new world out there, Democrats. Fire at will, but fire smartly!

  32. 32.

    The Dangerman

    Putin’s Missile Is Far Better Than Trump’s Missile

    No doubt but isn’t this like saying my cat is smarter than Trump (he is); I mean, water wet, sky blue, etc.

  33. 33.

    Capri

    @rikyrah: If you are overweight you can have no other health problem per our medical establishment. It’s a terrible situation – but have seen this in my own life.

  34. 34.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    Putin is probably the kind of guy who thinks that Trofim Lysenko didn’t fail Russia with his delusional ag science, it was Russia that failed Lysenko.

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    When he says “Not good!” he means “It’s great!”
    It’s like watching a demented uncle who was never that sharp to begin with. Only he managed to get himself in charge of the family reunion and you HAVE to attend because mom says so. The reunion lasts four years.

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    Stacey Abrams launching “Fair Fight 2020” to protect voting rights in 20 key states. Awesome! Looking forward to seeing the GOP spin on people being able to actually exercise their franchise and then losing those arguments.

  39. 39.

    ThresherK

    Is Skyfall the common idiom name for this explosion thing, or did Trump make it up? I really haven’t been paying attention.

    I can imagine Putin selling Trump on the idea that Antifa wants to make all the gold in Fort Knox radioactive.

  40. 40.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @gvg:

    Supposedly the Russian media has been making fun of Trump fairly recently. I wonder if someone showed that to Trump?

    According to my Russian dissident on line friend the Russia media has been openly mocking Trump since the election and “Boneless” is their favorite nickname for Trump. People have commented about the smirks on the Russian’s faces when they talk to Trump.

    Also apparently the word is Putin wasn’t over joyed to see Trump elected because the Russians get what kind of a useless idiot Trump is and the Russian press described Putin as the dog who caught the big yellow bus after the 2016 election.

  42. 42.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @ThresherK: Skyfall is the NATO designation for what Russians call Burevestnik (translates as storm petrel). I wish they would keep to one name, but English-speakers have trouble with Russian words, even when they’re in Latin letters.

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    @ThresherK:
    The US dollar isn’t based on gold anymore, and hasn’t been for many decades. Why is there still a gold stockpile in Fort Knox?

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    Candidates who’ve qualified for next month’s debates:

  45. 45.

    Major Major Major Major

    While the US has worked on some crazy shit, and as Cheryl noted has over the years experimented with nuclear propulsion intended for spacecraft, I dunno, a nuclear-powered missile still seems too stupid for us to actually be working on.

    @Betty Cracker: whatshisface rich asshole qualified too, I saw. Steyer?

  50. 50.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Jeffro:

    Btw looks like Julian Castro bought ad time on “Fox and Friends” to try and directly provoke trumpov about his racism (and elevate Castro’s own profile w/ Dems).

    Surely the people who yelled at Sanders and Buttigieg for going on the network will also yell at Castro for directly giving the network cash money.

  51. 51.

    Major Major Major Major

    @rikyrah:

    ETA ah, he needs one more poll. With a random walk on margins of error he just might get one with near-0 support.

  54. 54.

    Jeffro

    @Major Major Major Major: They can try, but the WaPo article about it says he spent under $3k. Not bad. Shoot, I might cut an ad myself for that amount. Just me pointing at a picture of his slovenly orange self and laughing for 30 seconds.

  55. 55.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Amir Khalid: I remember a morning after some bad chiles rellenos when “nuclear at both ends” would have been an apt description. Didn’t seem like a genius idea at the time.

  56. 56.

    rikyrah

    @Capri:

    @rikyrah: If you are overweight you can have no other health problem per our medical establishment. It’s a terrible situation – but have seen this in my own life.

    I know it in my own life too…You might be overweight, but you KNOW your body…you KNOW when something isn’t as it’s always been.

  57. 57.

    rikyrah

    @Amir Khalid:

    @ThresherK:
    I believe you’re almost the first person in this thread to mention the James Bond canon.

    Might be the first to mention it, but it crossed my mind too, but then, I thought it was a bit obscure to mention..glad to know other Bond fans here.

  58. 58.

    J R in WV

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @Amir Khalid: I remember a morning after some bad chiles rellenos when “nuclear at both ends” would have been an apt description. Didn’t seem like a genius idea at the time.

    I once got an order of bad fried clams up in new england, for lunch, tasted fine, BUT…
    By mid-afternoon I was disturbed, and by dark I was nuclear at both ends and dreaming that I saw tiny clams dancing on my toes. Food poisoning is a hell of a drug!! Recovered by the next day, but moving very slow.

  59. 59.

    Gravenstone

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Putin may not have been thrilled to have Trump actually win, but I imagine he’s been overjoyed by the damage Trump and his cronies have been inflicting on our country and government since taking office.

  60. 60.

    Mainmata

    Well, as you well know, the US did have a Skyfall program in the 1950s (maybe up to the early ’60s?) , which was a costly failure but we certainly have not had anything comparable for more than 50 years AFAIK.

  61. 61.

    Mainmata

    @Gin & Tonic: You’re absolutely right though Trump does not know that, as evidenced by his statement the other day that the Soviet Union changed its name to Russia when the Communist era ended. The NYT should know better but they’ve gotten sloppy at copy-editing.

  62. 62.

    patrick II

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Not just the Russian media have mocked Trump. A member of thier Parliament mocked him on the floor of the Parliament. He called him “our man”. The members laughed.
    Trump hates to be laughed at, it’s too bad we can’t make him see that.

  64. 64.

    Citizen Alan

    @ThresherK:

    Fat Bastard wishes he could be as cool (and as rich) as Auric Goldfinger. There are no Bond villains lame enough to be parallels to Fat Bastard.

  66. 66.

    PST

    @rikyrah: Michelle Obama Athletic Complex is just a mile from where I live. I’m working from home today, so when I saw rikyrah’s post I thought I should wander over at lunchtime and see it. Then I realized that I see it every time I walk the dog over to Skinner Park. I just didn’t know it.

  68. 68.

    chris

    @VOR: Now I feel old! As a teen I got Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision from the library. It was my first O-god-the-end-is-nigh book. Spent several weeks waiting for the world to do a somersault :-)

  69. 69.

    ET

    While I am sure dick measuring is pure tRump, I am curious about who wrote/conceived the rest because there is no way in Hell tRump knew what Skyfall was/is.

  70. 70.

    Brachiator

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Yesterday, Donald Trump tweeted about the Russian explosion at Nenoksa.

    The good news is that Trump is paying some attention to his advisors.

    The bad news is that I am not sure that Trump is drawing the right conclusions from the information he is given.

  71. 71.

    Bill Arnold

    And of course, it’s a dick-measuring contest. He can’t help himself.

    This is disconcertingly like an Idiocracy[0] variation on Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals (1987 paper by Carol Cohn. Linked by Cheryl previously.)

    [0] ” At the time, Judge also compared Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump—who later won and became President of the United States—to the movie’s dim-witted wrestler-turned-president[1], Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho. When asked about predicting the future, he remarked, “I’m no prophet, I was off by 490 years.” ”
    [1] Donald Trump bodyslams, beats and shaves Vince McMahon at Wrestlemania XXIII

  72. 72.

    Tehanu

    @randy khan:

    Personally, I think it was a successful missile explosion. It exploded, didn’t it?

    Exactly, I noticed that too. Dump is sooooo stupid.
    @Mainmata:

    The NYT should know better but they’ve gotten sloppy at copy-editing.

    You’re too kind. “Gotten sloppy” is a polite way of saying that they’re too damn cheap to pay copy editors (and have been for years). Orwell wept.

  73. 73.

    sm*t cl*de

    But there’s something else worth noting. This may be the first time Trump has criticized Russia in any way.

    I think you are missing the underlying theme of the tweet: “Putin is right to develop new warhead-delivery systems; Russia has a legitimate grievance; any radioactive contamination is all the fault of the US for starting this new arms race”.

  74. 74.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Mainmata:

    the US did have a Skyfall program in the 1950s (maybe up to the early ’60s?) , which was a costly failure

    IIRC (checking Whackyweedia is for wimps!), people managed to keep Project Rover going until after Apollo 11.

  76. 76.

    Barney

    Cheryl giving live commentary on the Russian radioactive explosion on BBC Radio 4. Congratulations!

    (But note she’s introduced as blogging at Nuclear Diner – Balloon Juice doesn’t have the kudos. :(

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