Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Consistently wrong since 2002

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

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

The next time the wall wtreet journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

The willow is too close to the house.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

You are here: Home / Open Threads / DJT picks a side…

DJT picks a side…

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Trump gave an interview today to a pair of slobbering sycophants I’ve never heard of who apparently have a radio show? Anyhoo, y’all will be shocked to learn that Trump took the opportunity to lovingly and repeatedly lick Putin’s balls:

BUCK: Mr. President, in the last 24 hours we know Russia has said that they are recognizing two breakaway regions of Ukraine, and now this White House is stating that this is an “invasion.” That’s a strong word. What went wrong here? What has the current occupant of the Oval Office done that he could have done differently?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, what went wrong was a rigged election and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn’t be there and a man that has no concept of what he’s doing. I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.

So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well.

By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened. But here’s a guy that says, you know, “I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent,” he used the word “independent,” “and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.” You gotta say that’s pretty savvy. And you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response. They didn’t have one for that. No, it’s very sad. Very sad.

Emphasis mine, and link to the extremely icky source here.

God, that’s just grotesque. I’m sure Trump said many other stupid and appalling things about many other topics during the “interview,” but I quit reading after confirming that Donald J. Trump is still Vladimir V. Putin’s star-struck cock-holster. What a shameful spectacle.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

161Comments

  1. 1.

    waspuppet

    But — but he’s so tough! He never would have let this terrible thing happen! In other news, what happened is awesome.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Trump’s foreign policy was actally pretty genius.  By taking on the task of destroying America from within, he mollified our enemies’ desire for aggressive action against our interests.

  3. 3.

    schrodingers_cat

    This morning I was told that DJT (were he the President) coming down on the side of Putin was indulging alternate history

    Its like saying that the next day will have 24 hours is alternate history.  Orange One’s affinity for Putin is no secret. We have seen it when he was the President and we see it now.

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    Traitor in office, traitor out of office, traitor the live long day. True Patriots©™ love him so very much.

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    The invasion of Ukraine was covered in Helsinki a few years ago. Trump gave Pooty two orange thumbs up.

  7. 7.

    Gin & Tonic

    I mentioned downstairs, the Russian word here is “миротворец” or “peacemaker” – not “peacekeeper.”

  8. 8.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Excellent point. As the ancient Vulcan proverb says, “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s dousing his own clown suit with lighter fluid and firing up a blow torch.”

  10. 10.

    West of the Rockies

    Christ, this hideous, pustulent sphincter cannot stop whining about his loss…

    He cannot close soon enough. 

  14. 14.

    Ohio Mom

    @VeniceRiley: Ah ha! Water! Ukraine has it, Crimea needs it.

    Water will be increasingly at the root of wars. It is certainly a big factor in Israel’s ongoing agressions, even if that is hardly ever spoken out loud.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    It used to be rare, and notable, when a former president broke the code and waded into a political debate, especially foreign policy. Now it’s on something called “The Clay and Buck Show”

  17. 17.

    Elizabelle

    Why are we marinating in this shit?

    First Rick Scott, and now the Defendant in Chief?

    Come on.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    Ah, 2024 immigration plan has been revealed. Invade and declare Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas to be breakaway republics, put them under martial American law.

  19. 19.

    encephalopath

    Putin’s claims of liberating and protecting the Ukrainian separatists has all the sophistication of a child’s lie about getting caught stealing things out of the neighbor’s garage so of course TFG is impressed by it.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @Elizabelle:

    The Rick Scott thing is different, because it was about a policy document.  It’s more than the GOP did in 2020, and policy is supposed to be what elections are about.

  24. 24.

    jonas

    Maybe I’m not old enough to remember, but were there even any old-school, anti-Cold War leftists back in the day who publicly fellated the Soviet Union or its leaders to the extent Trump and his cronies have polished Putin’s knob?

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: I post about what interests me at any given moment. Always have, always will. It’s an open thread, so feel free to create your own marinade if mine isn’t to your liking.

  27. 27.

    randy khan

    Trump is still mad at Ukraine for not giving him the little favor he requested, so even if he weren’t a huge fan of Putin he’d probably take Russia’s side.

  28. 28.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:   That’s fine, Betty.  And you are usually very interesting.

    This is just not something I prefer to devote my attention to.  He is way past his sell date.

  30. 30.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Martin: 

    Ah, 2024 immigration plan has been revealed. Invade and declare Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas to be breakaway republics, put them under martial American law.

    Independent, but not part of the USA. We can’t have them voting here.

  32. 32.

    schrodingers_cat

    @OzarkHillbilly: Actually  I do get where he is coming from.  I for one wish that the State Dept and the administration come down heavily against Modi’s genocidal policies against Indian minorities.  I also see that Gin and Tonic is holding the Biden administration to  impossible standards.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    Anyhoo, y’all will be shocked to learn that Trump took the opportunity to lovingly and repeatedly lick …

    Whoa! Almost made me throw up my lunch.

    But you are on fire and I applaud the outrage. I wondered when Trump would weigh in on the Ukraine issue. His toadying did not disappoint.

  37. 37.

    Cermet

    Yet this will not harm the orange …bag of gas. Meanwhile, gas prices climb and while they will fall (assuming no further incursions by putin) they are likely to remain higher then before – likely hurting Dems in the mid-terms.  If putin takes all of Ukraine, sanctions by us and Europe will cause gas prices and inflation to reach new heights and harm our economy. This pointless exercise about us having to answer for russian actions in regions that use to be theirs might very well cost us our democracy if it helps that pile of sh$t rump win the presidency. Like we defend African countries that are invaded or when dictators cause deaths. But these are white christians we lump with Western Europeans that we somehow think need our help.

  41. 41.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    Betty Cracker @ Top:

    I quit reading after confirming that Donald J. Trump is still Vladimir V. Putin’s star-struck cock-holster. What a shameful spectacle.

    It’s like Trump can’t open his mouth without putting Putin’s dick in it.

  42. 42.

    CaseyL

    I’ve tuned in to multiple announcements and press conferences on punishing Putin and Russia, and the press is trying its damndest to get someone – anyone – say that the allied effort will countenance direct military action under X circumstances.

    Unfortunately, they do have a point – what if sanctions don’t move Russia? What if Russia completes its takeover of Ukraine and carries out its mass assassinations?

  44. 44.

    Suzanne

    He’s so fucken stupid as dogshit. In one breath he says it’s terrible and wouldn’t have happened if he was President, then he also calls it “genius” and “wonderful”.

    Can we build one cell for Pootie-Poot and Donnie Two-Scoops to share?

  45. 45.

    TriassicSands

    I’m sure Trump said many other stupid and appalling things about many other topics during the “interview… Betty Cracker

    I would expect that everything else in the interview was somehow tied to the Stolen Election and the greatest injustice in the history of the universe. All 13+billion years.

  47. 47.

    kindness

    I think the correct term to describe Trump is that he is Putin’s fluffer.  I am having a hard time adjusting to Republican’s loving Russian dictators.  For most of my life they were the primary enemy.  Now….

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    Trump is afraid to be interviewed by any but the most favorable interlocutors. He knows he’s a fraud: not an 800 lb. gorilla, but a 300 lb. mangy monkey.

  49. 49.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    Ah, 2024 immigration plan has been revealed. Invade and declare Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas to be breakaway republics, put them under martial American law.

    Would Americans get free avocados?

    ETA: Not diminishing this. The resentment and crazy is astounding.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border

    he’s checking twitter reactions to see if he should keep on this line on his next Tucker appearance, or Hannity or Judge Box-O’Wine, or Maria Boxowino, or Joe Rogan. Has he done Rogan yet?

  51. 51.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m having trouble figuring out what he means here. I think we’re down to two potential explanations:

    1. He wants Russia to invade the southern US
    2. He wants us to invade Mexico

    But man, I don’t even know.

  57. 57.

    VOR

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Does anyone doubt whether the rest of the Republican party will follow his lead? We’re going to see them praising Putin’s genius and bashing the President of the United States, their own country. And they will call this patriotism.

  59. 59.

    Cacti

    Former BJ front page saint Glenn Greenwald has discovered what’s responsible for Putin’s invasion.

    U.S. provocation, of course.

    Like domestic Republicans, the foreign dictator of Russia has no agency of his own.

  61. 61.

    germy

    Emphasis mine, and link to the extremely icky source here.

    I’m always reluctant to visit sources like that. I worry about cooties, cookies, spyware or whatever else my computer would be infected with.

    I’ll read them on twitter sometimes, but I’m wary of clicking on them directly.

  62. 62.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Baud: I feel like this is a simple followup from the interviewer. “What does that mean?” Who should declare what independent on the US southern border?”

  65. 65.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border

    There is something very wrong with Trump. It’s not just that he loves autocrats and big military displays. And the way he seems to preen and dance for the approval of authoritarians is startling.

    But more than all that, Trump doesn’t seem to care about human life. That Putin’s incursion threatens or harms real flesh and blood people does not seem to occur to Trump at all.

    And yet people voted for him, and want more of what he offers.

    I don’t get that at all.

  66. 66.

    TriassicSands

    @West of the Rockies: Die.  Not close.  I think I typed croak.

    There’s been a shift in my mornings. For the past five years, I’ve gotten up each morning hoping to read that Donald Trump has died¹/been killed/disappeared (leaving behind a huge, several gallon² blood stain). Now, however, when I “open” the newspaper, my hope is that it will Putin who’s turned up dead. First things first.

    The one unalterable rule of humanity: There will always be horrible people.

    ¹ The mechanism is important. If there is something that the wacko right can’t turn into a conspiracy theory that blames the Democrats, that would be best. Sigh. I doubt that exists.

    ² Obviously, not really that much. just so much there could be no doubt about the outcome.

    Note: I despised George W. Bush, but I didn’t wake up every morning hoping he was dead. Trump, I believe, has, if we’re willing to admit it, made us all worse human beings. One simply cannot oppose that level of malevolence by turning one’s cheek.

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @MisterForkbeard: Buck Sexton may be without principle in his politics, but he’s not stupid. Sexton did not want trump going but so far off the rails, and he wants him back. Sexton is one of several hosts competing in Limbaigh’s afternoon radio time slot, and this trump interview was a real catch for him.

  68. 68.

    Betty Cracker

    @kindness: Pushaw, yeah. She hoovers up $125 large in FL taxpayer dollars to be a full-time internet troll. Would redefine awful in a post-KA Conway world.

  69. 69.

    TriassicSands

    @zhena gogolia:  I think it merits attention that the former and perhaps future president is an out-and-out traitor.

    But that is true of virtually the entire Republican Party today.

  70. 70.

    Elizabelle

    Well.  Maybe Trump will dig his own grave with his microphone.  Maybe once stuff starts to stick, it will really, really stick. Get tired of him floating past everything.

    Mostly, I see that these two blogposts come from what are popular stories on the WaPost.  So, at least they are getting coverage in the MSM.

    I hope this interview inspires all his investigators to look even more closely at TFFG’s finances and ecosystem.

  71. 71.

    germy

    Putin could get up at a podium right now and just say “I am sorry I am just a smol bean” and people would probably forgive him

    — Dennis B. Hooper (@dennisbhooper) February 22, 2022

  75. 75.

    Kalakal

    @jonas: I can’t speak about US leftists of that era but one of the professors at my old university in the UK certainly did. He was eventually exposed as  a STASI agent in the ’90s and totally unrepentant. I once read one of his books in which he tried to make out that McCarthyism was the worst crime in human history and that the Holodomor and the Gulags

    a) never happened, just US propaganda

    or

    b) if they did happen were only on a small scale, weren’t that bad anyway and only affected Enemies of the People who in his opinion deserved all they got and had been treated very leniently by the benificent Workers Paradise

  79. 79.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Roger Moore: 

    Being US territory and having its residents all US citizens hasn’t given Puerto Rico any political power.

    They are allowed to vote for President.

  80. 80.

    E.

    @TriassicSands: Good point. I really fucking hated GWB and Cheney, and still do. Once GW left office I quit thinking about him entirely, although I often thought about what kind of celebration I might have when Cheney dies. But you are right, I did not wake up every morning and hope this would be the day. I am a worse person now.

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    @kindness: wow that’s very Rick Scott-Ian of DeSantis!

    Watching these two compete for furthest-right-Florida-wingnut for three years is going to be IN-TENSE

  83. 83.

    Brachiator

    @TriassicSands:

    Trump, I believe, has, if we’re willing to admit it, made us all worse human beings.

    I understand where you are coming from, but disagree. During Trump’s administration, and especially during the pandemic, I noted many people trying to do good, to spread some positivity.

    I would often wake up and among my first thoughts would be, “I cannot believe that people voted that asshole Trump into office.”

    With Biden’s election, I felt a distinct return to an era of good feeling.

    And I was supremely happy to know that Trump’s social platforms had been taken away.

    There is still a battle between good and evil.

  84. 84.

    E.

    @Kalakal: ​
      A whole lot of leftist intellectuals were completely on board with Stalin until the pogroms and gulags became utterly impossible to ignore. And even then, some held on way too long. J.P. Sartre for example, was vocal about his support. And a few others. By the time Solzhenitsyn got published most of them had given up on their utopian dream.

  87. 87.

    MomSense

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The reactions, the press coverage, etc have been so revealing when it comes to DJT.  The truth is that white people, media, the wealthy like him.  He’s good for their wallets and their bottom line and he hates the same people they do.

  88. 88.

    Montanareddog

    Trotskyites morphed into neocons. And now TFG has transformed the Republican party into tankies. They have a sick culture, obsessed with violent retribution.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    Tom Bonier
    @tbonier
    This chart shows the percent increase in total ballots cast in VA between 2017 and 2021 by age group. There is nothing here that suggests that parents of school children were driven out to the polls by closures, masks, vaccines, etc. Seniors were mobilized though.

    So funny. We’d be chasing school parents when really it was seniors.

    Tom Bonier
    @tbonier
    Republicans rode a “silver surge” to victory in VA last year. Senior turnout surged to unprecedented levels – somewhat shockingly, more voters over the age of 75 voted in the 2021 election than have in any VA election other than 2020.

    The entire “parents angry at schools” narrative appears more and more to be made up. There isn’t anything at this point that supports it.

  91. 91.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    But more than all that, Trump doesn’t seem to care about human life. That Putin’s incursion threatens or harms real flesh and blood people does not seem to occur to Trump at all.

    And yet people voted for him, and want more of what he offers.

    Not caring at all about the lives of people in Ukraine is a feature, not a bug.  One of the things his supporters like about Trump is that he doesn’t give a damn about anyone but Us, where Us is as narrowly construed as the reader wishes it to be.  This is the same asshole who loved telling stories about executing Muslims with bullets dipped in pig’s blood because that supposedly would keep them from going to heaven.  The cruelty is the point.

  93. 93.

    NotMax

    @Mallard Filmore

    Primaries only. Residents of U.S. territories do not vote in the general election; only states get electors. Only citizens of states can vote for president in the general, so a U.S. citizen of Puerto Rico who establishes residency in a state may vote.

  95. 95.

    Roger Moore

    @E.:

    Once GW left office I quit thinking about him entirely

    Because he realized the essential point that the fastest way for people to forget about his mistakes was to forget about him altogether.  And I think he had enough humanity to recognize that he had made mistakes.  Trump is too much a narcissist for that.  Everything he did was perfect because he did it, so it must be defended as vigorously as possible.

  98. 98.

    Brachiator

    @E.:

    A whole lot of leftist intellectuals were completely on board with Stalin until the pogroms and gulags became utterly impossible to ignore.

    I’ve read journals of lefties in the 1930s and 1940s who accepted the idea that the Communists might murder some anti-revolutionaries, including writers and artists. Amazingly, these people thought that they would be exempt.

    And during my college years, I knew people who absolutely declared that they would ignore human rights violations in Cuba because they thought that the Revolution was more important.

    I had one friend who did not believe that there was still oppression in the Soviet Union in the 70s until he had an opportunity to go there (long story) and had some cautious conversations with dissidents.

  99. 99.

    dr. luba

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s personal for many of us.  I have cousins of many degrees, and lots of friends over there right now.  My cousin’s son in in the army and stationed on the Belarus border.

    I try to keep busy to keep my mind off of what’s going on….

  100. 100.

    debbie

    @jonas:

    I’m old enough. No. If anyone sympathized, they kept it to themselves, lest they be arrested and tried as traitors (cf, the Rosenbergs).

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    Trump lost his re-elect. It’s worse than losing the first time because that’s all potential- Mitt Romney can always tell himself he would have done a great job and been really popular. It’s the difference between not getting a job you apply for and getting fired. An unequivocal rejection- they saw his work and said “no thanks”.  It will make him miserable for the rest of his life.

  104. 104.

    raven

    @E.: When Russia invaded Afghanistan there was a demonstrators at the University of Illinois that had signs reading
    “Hail the Red Army in Afghanistan” and “Smash Muslim Extremism in Afghanistan”!

  106. 106.

    germy

    These are significant sanctions, especially cutting off Russia from western financing. I don’t believe Putin calculated the US and Europe had it in them.

    — Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) February 22, 2022

  109. 109.

    Alison Rose

    Honestly, I’m quite impressed with Trump here.

    He managed to get through this whole thing without slipping up and calling Putin “Daddy.” That must have taken more self-control than the man has ever exerted in his life.

  110. 110.

    TriassicSands

    @Brachiator: I noted many people trying to do good, to spread some positivity.

    Spreading positivity and hoping for bad things to happen to evil people are hardly mutually exclusive.

    Trump has had a clear negative effect on all of his supporters and the response to that is, quite naturally, to think less of those people. Look at the number of people who openly either don’t care if anti-vaxxers die of COVID-19 or hope they do. I attribute that to the influence of Trump. It goes on and on.

    You don’t agree. So, I’ll put you either in the “won’t admit it” category or a freakish anomaly to be exhaustively studied by alien scientists (and you know what that means! OUCH!).

    Trump’s influence has been extraordinarily corrosive.

  114. 114.

    VeniceRiley

    I just realized the way the kids are going to fight the “Don’t say GAY” bill in Florida is by ALL OF THEM mentioning to a teacher that they are gay. All on the same day in a coordinated K-Pop resistance action.

  117. 117.

    RandomMonster

    @Baud: By taking on the task of destroying America from within, he mollified our enemies’ desire for aggressive action against our interests.

    Except it didn’t.

  118. 118.

    Citizen Alan

    @E.:

    That’s nothing. I hated Bush and Cheney, but I never really hated the people who voted for him. Back then, I considered Bush voters to be people who were misguided and misled, people who voted out of fear, or just people with different political priorities than I had. I was disappointed in them, but I still believed they mostly were people who loved their country and wanted the best for it but were wrong in the implementation. I never hated Bush voters.

    I DESPISE Trump voters. Fucking DESPISE them! To the point where the first thing I do every morning is read the Herman Cain Awards with glee. I will hate them from beyond the grave for supporting Trump.

  119. 119.

    E.

    @VeniceRiley: Wasn’t there a Robin Williams movie along that line? A bunch of firefighters standing up at once and declaring they are gay, to support a teacher?

  121. 121.

    Miss Bianca

    @CROAKER: lol, YOU TOO?!

    (Either a bunch of youse remember your TNG bigly from back in the day, or, like me, you have recently re-viewed them all.)

  122. 122.

    Citizen Alan

    @Roger Moore: I’ve said for years that no Republican has any concern whatsoever for any loss of human life beyond the extent to which it can be used to slander Democrats. That’s why people with an obsessive opposition to abortion (because it allows them to call Dems “Babykillers”) have zero concerns about America’s abyssmal miscarriage and infant mortality rate.

  124. 124.

    germy

    @Baud:

    “Today’s actions, taken in coordination with our partners and allies, begin the process of dismantling the Kremlin’s financial network and its ability to fund destabilizing activity in Ukraine and around the world,” said Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen. “We continue to monitor Russia’s actions and if it further invades Ukraine, the United States will swiftly impose expansive economic sanctions that will have a severe and lasting impact on Russia’s economy.”

  125. 125.

    Miss Bianca

    @VeniceRiley:

    I just realized the way the kids are going to fight the “Don’t say GAY” bill in Florida is by ALL OF THEM mentioning to a teacher that they are gay. All on the same day in a coordinated K-Pop resistance action.

    God, I hope so.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    Not caring at all about the lives of people in Ukraine is a feature, not a bug. One of the things his supporters like about Trump is that he doesn’t give a damn about anyone but Us, where Us is as narrowly construed as the reader wishes it to be.

    I have noted before that I think that the only people Trump really cares about are himself and his daughter-wife. And maybe his youngest son.

    He most certainly does not care about his supporters, except to the degree that they stroke and reflect his ego and grievances.

    But let me get down to the essence of my disdain and hatred for Trump, which reached its peak during the pandemic.

    Trump revealed himself to be an ignorant buffoon who did not understand science. And he showed that he did not care at all for the lives of the American people. He also could not resist playing ego games, insisting that governors kiss his ass to get access to needed supplies from the federal stockpile. And he was more concerned about the impact of the pandemic on the stock market, and so his own popularity, than he was about preventing deaths.

    There were always hints of this. Calling soldiers who died in war or who were captured losers.

    Trump hates a lot of people and groups. And he crazes validation and adulation.

    But he does not love the suckers who voted for him. He could not give a shit about them.

    This is the same asshole who loved telling stories about executing Muslims with bullets dipped in pig’s blood because that supposedly would keep them from going to heaven.

    Weird how he recapitulates some bullshit from the days of the British Raj.

  129. 129.

    germy

    @Brachiator: And maybe his youngest son.

    I remember a photo of Trump walking in the rain holding an umbrella over only himself, and his youngest son walking a few paces behind him, looking depressed in the soaking rain.

    I don’t think Trump has any sort of relationship with his youngest.

  130. 130.

    Montanareddog

    @Brachiator:

     

    Weird how he recapitulates some bullshit from the days of the British Raj

    I thought that myth is ascribed to Black Jack Pershing in the Philippines?

  133. 133.

    debbie

    @Brachiator:

    He most certainly does not care about his supporters, except to the degree that they stroke and reflect his ego and grievances.

    While watching the action on his big screen t.v. on 1/6, he complained that the rioters weren’t better dressed.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Penguin Random House, will personally donate at least $500,000 to the free-speech organization PEN America in an effort to combat book banning in the United States, PEN announced on Wednesday. Dohle said in an interview that he hoped others would follow suit, donating to the newly created Dohle Book Defense Fund, which will provide support to communities where books are being challenged.

  137. 137.

    Geminid

    @Gin & Tonic: We also have troops in Ukraine’s neighbor Romania. That’s another NATO country that Putin wants us to pull out of. We sent an additional thousand soldiers there three weeks ago, from Germany.

     

    @raven:

  139. 139.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    Weird how he recapitulates some bullshit from the days of the British Raj.

    This was supposedly something American troops did in the Philippines during the Moro rebellion.  The basic idea was that we weren’t able to crush the rebels until we started acting like complete barbarians, and that’s what we need to do in order to deal with Muslim terrorists today.

  140. 140.

    Brachiator

    @Montanareddog: 

    I thought that myth is ascribed to Black Jack Pershing in the Philippines?

    You are right.

    “Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught,” Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon. “There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!”

    The tweet referenced a false story that Trump told at rallies more than once on the campaign trail. Trump claimed that during the Moro rebellion in the Philippines between 1901 and 1913, U.S. Gen. John Pershing executed Muslim insurgents with bullets dipped in pig’s blood. Trump’s retelling of the myth has changed each time

    That story has been discredited by historians, some of whom concluded it would have been “out of character” for Pershing. But other accounts of the Philippine conflict have suggested that U.S. troops did use pigs or pig’s blood to threaten or intimidate Muslims in other situations.

    Trump just being a total asshole.

  141. 141.

    misterpuff

    @trollhattan: “There is a bear in the woods. For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it’s vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who’s right, isn’t it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear.”

    Bear Patrol!

  142. 142.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    I remember a photo of Trump walking in the rain holding an umbrella over only himself, and his youngest son walking a few paces behind him, looking depressed in the soaking rain.

    I don’t think Trump has any sort of relationship with his youngest.

    You may be right. This is just sad.

    I remember reading that Trump often used the pseudonym “Barron” and wondered if it had some weird significance for him in using it to name his son.

  145. 145.

    Bill in Section 147

    @VeniceRiley: Some poor schleb is going to feel the full weight of the boot over this. They will probably force them to wear a mask when they go shopping or some other equally extreme torture – if they don’t kill them.

  149. 149.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Brachiator:

    But more than all that, Trump doesn’t seem to care about human life. That Putin’s incursion threatens or harms real flesh and blood people does not seem to occur to Trump at all.

    And yet people voted for him, and want more of what he offers.

    I don’t get that at all.

    Look at the response of nearly the entire right-of-center America to the pandemic.  They’ve repeatedly and overwhelmingly demonstrated that they don’t give a damn that Covid’s killed nearly a million of their fellow citizens.

    So with respect to human life, they’re very much on the same page.

  150. 150.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: this is true – significant majorities of VA voters are actually fine with ‘teaching the WHOLE history of this country’ (aka see the CRT nonsense for what it is)

    We just didn’t get larger-than-expected turnout, while the GOP peeled every last occasional Republican voters out of the woodwork (literally…the rural turnout was HUGE)

  152. 152.

    Bill Arnold

    @Geminid:

    We also have troops in Ukraine’s neighbor Romania.

    Plus an ABM installation.[1] And another one under construction in Poland. Withdrawal from the ABM treaty under GW Bush was a big mistake generally (very profitable for certain arms manufacturers though), and these installations are one of the few legitimate grievances that Russia has with American forces in NATO countries. (The withdrawal by DJT from the INF treaty was also very not wise.)
    (Defense against tactical missiles/rockets is another story; these don’t threaten to defang a long-range deterrence force.)

    [1] US activates $800m missile shield base in Romania (12 May 2016)

  154. 154.

    Dan B

    @jonas: I knew some old school socialists and (shhhh!) Stalinists who believed the stories about murder and imprisonment were drummed up by the CIA and Pentagon.

    Not my preferred flavor of socialists.

  155. 155.

    Brachiator

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Look at the response of nearly the entire right-of-center America to the pandemic. They’ve repeatedly and overwhelmingly demonstrated that they don’t give a damn that Covid’s killed nearly a million of their fellow citizens.

    Fair point. And yet, there is something about Trump that is worse. He seeks a position of public prominence, where his decisions affects the lives of people, and yet behind his nationalist and white supremacist bluster is something … dead inside.

  157. 157.

    glc

    @jonas:

    You may be interested to look in detail at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Paul_Robeson

    Or not.

    There was in fact a robust political discussion going on in the U.S. through the 1950s, and a wide range of views, if one includes those not actually in power. (But this qualification would seem to make a comparison to anything Trump may profess to believe more or less meaningless.) Of course the U.S. was at one point a military ally of the Soviet Union under Stalin’s leadership, and the U.S. likes to view its allies as the good guys whatever they get up to, at least as long as the alliance holds. So if you go back far enough you don’t have to confine yourself to the left.

    “We have always been at war with Eastasia” reflected a reality on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

    In terms of discussions by people with real influence, you’d want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan whose policy of containment, much criticized from the right as a policy of surrender (or a communist plot, as the expression went), was actually implemented.

    On the issue of Stalin there were certainly a number who remained vocally supportive beyond his death, though Khrushchev’s speech to the Party in 1956 tended to put a nail in that particular coffin (a stake in that heart?).

    This all brings to mind the Mary McCarthy/Lillian Hellman clash, and the famous phrase “every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the'”.There’s a bit about that at https://newrepublic.com/article/91900/mary-mccarthy-lillian-hellman-libel-suit

    That’s a sideshow though. I’d recommend Koestler’s “Darkness at Noon” for some insight into the general phenomenon.

  158. 158.

    Noskilz

    Trump going to insist his underlings and supplicants follow his lead, so it should be interesting to see how they try to do that while navigating the upcoming elections. Pompeo seems to be all aboard that particular bandwagon.

    I don’t think that’s an approach that is going to appeal to most of the public, but the GOP has been stanning for Putin for years, so perhaps their fanbase is really into that sort of thing. We’ll just have to see what happens.

  159. 159.

    Dopey-o

    @Ohio Mom: @VeniceRiley: Ah ha! Water! Ukraine has it, Crimea needs it.

    Water will be increasingly at the root of wars. It is certainly a big factor in Israel’s ongoing agressions, even if that is hardly ever spoken out loud.

    15 years ago in a class teaching geospatial software, I advised a Palestinian student to develop an analysis of ground water in the Israeli-Palestinian region.

    She got an A. Water is the oil of the 21st century.

  161. 161.

    Another Scott

    ObOpenThread – BallsandStrikes.org:

    More Democrats in Washington are embracing the idea of expanding the U.S. Supreme Court, which seems to be on the verge of overturning Roe v. Wade, ending affirmative action, and doing various other horrible things. In an op-ed published in The Boston Globe in December, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren warned that “without reform, the court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority will continue to threaten basic liberties for decades to come.”

    But in 2021, as lawmakers debated the merits of Court expansion, their counterparts across the Potomac wasted no time following through. In 2019, Democrats won control of majorities in both chambers of the Virginia legislature for the first time since the Clinton administration. In just two years, they added six seats to the Virginia Court of Appeals, the state’s intermediate court, previously dominated by white men or former prosecutors. The expansion enabled the addition of Black women, civil rights lawyers, and former public defenders to the bench. (In Virginia, the General Assembly—both chambers combined—appoints judges by simple majority vote.) Today’s court is more diverse than ever as a result.

    […]

    The expansion was part of a bill that widened the Court of Appeals’s jurisdiction, and added judges to help with the anticipated increased workload. During debate, Republican lawmakers argued the legislature should stagger the new appointments across more than one session. Delegate Kirk Cox, for example, acknowledged that more judges were necessary, but argued that the sitting legislature “should not get to pack the court with judges of their choosing.”

    “When the bench reflects the diversity of the people who come before it, it instills in those people confidence in the administration of justice.”

    Democrats, however, were undeterred, and took the opportunity to expand the court while they had enough votes to do it. “It’s important that when individuals look at the court, that they see they, too, can be on one of the highest courts in the state,” said House Majority Leader Charniele Herring after the judges’ election in August 2021. These appointees could serve until 2029, when the legislature will decide on their reappointment.

    State appellate courts aren’t the only ones that could use expanding. Democrats in Congress have introduced a long-overdue bill that would create more than 200 new trial court judgeships, almost half of which would be located in the South. At a hearing on the bill last year, federal judges testified about the urgent need for help managing their workloads. “We cannot fulfill our obligations without congressional action to create new judgeships,” said Kimberly Mueller, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

    Adding these seats would allow Biden to bring some much-needed diversity, both professional and demographic, to the South’s federal appeals courts. While Biden has rapidly diversified federal courts in other regions, he has only recently begun to do the same in states with two Republican senators, which includes most Southern states.

    As this year’s midterm elections rapidly approach, Democrats in Washington risk losing their opportunity to act if they don’t do so soon. Virginia’s experience shows what movement on this issue could accomplish: In just two years in power, Democrats worked to expand and modernize a crucial appellate court. The result is a legal system that is more reflective of the state, and that will likely be fairer for criminal defendants, workers, and voters for years to come.

    Good, good. I hope Democrats and Biden’s people are paying attention. Of course there will be criticism. But it needs to be done.

    Fight for 15!

    Well worth a click.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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