Trump visited Israel’s Holocaust memorial today. National embarrassment ensued:
Notes left at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial museum. Trump on left, Obama on right. So horribly tone deaf. pic.twitter.com/e15A0yq0Op
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) May 23, 2017
Here are larger versions of the photos in case you can’t make out the notes in the tweet:
The Trump administration is up to its raccoon-like eyeballs in scandal, corruption and legislative vandalism, and that’s where the focus rightly belongs. But the daily national pantsings are unbearable in their own right. It may become necessary to ration face-palms.
NorthLeft12
Deadbeat Donald’s message sounds like one of his tweets. What a surprise.
I guess he could have just written SAD! and moved on.
Robin G.
If I facepalm any harder I’ll break my own nose.
Miss Bianca
And yet…to a certain portion of the American electorate…the daily pantsing is stilll some sort of rebel yell. Not content with the President committing daily offenses against the rest of their citizenry, they look on with some sort of goofy pride at the unravelling of American gravitas and influence abroad. God save the mark…
hedgehog mobile
Christ, what an asshole. He has no idea what Yad Vashem is, does he?
Bobby Thomson
Never forget as a marketing slogan. Christ.
Villago Delenda Est
“Gift shop doesn’t have enough TRUMP branded merchandise. My daughter Ivanka will contact you to fix this!”
Tom
@hedgehog mobile: No. SATSQ
lollipopguild
@hedgehog mobile: I am surprised he wasn’t signing MAGA hats and throwing them to people.
A Lurker
Now I am, admittedly, not a great expert on the history of sloganeering, but isn’t “Never Forget” a 9/11 thing, not the Shoah?
dedc79
His attention span for writing is apparently as short as his attention span for reading.
hedgehog mobile
@Tom: I know, I know…
schrodingers_cat
His signature is in which language? Its unintelligible.
But her emals!!!
Oh come on, for fuck’s sake!
SFAW
@A Lurker:
Never mind. I was going to make a comment, realized I was clueless as usual.
ArchTeryx
@Miss Bianca: Wonder if they’d be so smug when all the cheap crap from China that they depend on from their local Wal Mart were to suddenly triple in price – or disappear altogether.
They can rebel yell all they like, but they ain’t an island.
dr. bloor
Surprised he’s not drawing pictures of the electoral map underneath his signature these days.
cope
@Villago Delenda Est: Followed by “Nice little holocaust memorial ya got here, shame if anything happened to it”.
SFAW
I noticed they managed to erase Shitgibbon’s comment where he wrote “And I hear you people are good with money, too. Me being a billionaire, that means we have a lot in common!”
dedc79
@A Lurker: I thought for the Holocaust it was “Never Again” meaning no more genocides ever again. And boy have we all failed to live up to it.
The Moar You Know
Christ what an embarrassment
hovercraft
Speaking of which, the “Deep State” is fighting back….
Ethics Office Rejects WH Attempt To Block Disclosure Of Ethics Waivers
In a scathing letter issued late Monday, the Office of Government Ethics rejected a request from the Office of Management and Budget that OGE suspend its request that federal agencies turn over copies of ethics waivers granted to former lobbyists hired under the Trump administraion.
“The unusual nature of your letter highlights OGE’s responsibility to lead the executive branch ethics program with independence, free from political pressure. Accordingly, OGE declines your request to suspend its ethics inquiry and reiterates its expectation that agencies will fully comply with its directive by June 1, 2017. Public confidence in the integrity of government decisionmaking [sic] demands no less,” OGE Director Walter Shaub Jr. wrote in a letter to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney……….
“OGE is exercising its authority and independence appropriately. OGE’s April 28, 2017, directive is supported by ample legal authority and compliant with applicable procedures,” Shaub wrote at the end of his lengthy Monday letter to Mulvaney. “I want to assure you that a request from the Director of the Office of Management and Budget is not something that I decline lightly.”…………..
Full letter at the link.
Mike in DC
@A Lurker:
Kinda. Never Again/Nie Wieder is generally associated with the Shoah, as I recall.
Thoroughly Pizzled
The hell is wrong with his g’s?
Aleta
I’m pretty sure he just wrote his name on the note he put into the Western Wall.
hovercraft
@A Lurker:
Never Forget is associated with the Holocaust, so at least one thing Javanka whispered in his ear stuck.
I guess I’m impressed that he really can write, the sentiment expressed on the other hand reads just like one of his tweets. Yet sadly his hatred of Iran means that all the people he’s met with the last few days have greeted him as a conquering hero. I wonder if his briefers explained to him this morning that the money to fund suicide bombers like the one in Manchester, comes from Saudi and the Gulf States he has now hitched his wagon to?
Elizabelle
Melania’s signature looks like a feminine version of his. Even more vertical, though. Interesting.
RobertDSC-iPhone 6
I can’t anymore. His buffoonery is too much.
clay
@Aleta: I know it’s probably taboo, but I was hoping someone would take his Wailing Wall note and share.
hedgehog mobile
@Miss Bianca: I know.
randy khan
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
He writes in mixed upper and lower case (compare how he writes “e” and “a” in the middle of words. The “g” is one of the letters he writes in lower case.
hovercraft
On the vandalism front:
DeVos: School Choice Opponents Are Akin To ‘Flat-Earthers’
………….“In order to succeed, education must commit to excellence and innovation to better meet the needs of individual students,” DeVos said. “Defenders of our current system have regularly been resistant to any meaningful change. In resisting, these ‘flat-earthers’ have chilled creativity and stopped American kids from competing at the highest levels.”…………….
Her own history of policy advocacy, though, heavily favored the Republican Party. And she was not subtle about her expectations.
“My family is the biggest contributor of soft money to the Republican National Committee,” she wrote in Roll Call in 1997, the New Yorker and others noted last year. “I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect something in return. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues. We expect a return on our investment.”
I fucking hate these people!
schrodingers_cat
@randy khan: Why? Some kind of a teenage/childish rebellion that he never outgrew? Looks ugly.
His entire persona is that of a teenage rebel. Sad when you are 70.
Wyatt Derp
“Never forget” how mean the media is to me. I can’t think of anyone who has suffered more than me!
Mike J
@clay: Obama’s was stolen and published.
Ian G.
Well, this is the same clown who “always wanted to win” a purple heart. He’s a mental four year old, and no four year old is going to understand the solemnity of Yad Vashem. I’m waiting for Trump’s selfie at the WTC this coming September.
In the meantime, I’m going to check Jen Rubin’s Twitter feed to see if the steam pouring out her ears is visible.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
The antidote to the moron in chief’s idiocy is this astonishing speech by Mayor Mitch Landrieu about the removal of the NOLA statues celebrating the cult of the lost cause (his words). I think it’s one of the most important speeches ever given. Mitch Landrieu is WOKE. Wonder if he has any national ambitions., because he looks like a typical Fox watching Trump loving dumbass, but allelujah, the guy gets it.
Laura
@hovercraft: and to think I was mistaken that Michelle Rhee was the lowest, most odious of the school privatizers.
Today I have learned that Rhee is merely a goon squad toady, and that DeVos funds and directs the toadies. So there’s that.
Mike in NC
Was he trying to sell his MAGA caps at Yad Veshem? “So amazing! Tremendous!”
Citizen_X
@schrodingers_cat: As cartoonist Keith Knight pointed out, his signature looks like pointed hoods at a Klan rally.
jacy
@randy khan:
Mixing upper and lowercase letters in handwriting is a form of dysgraphia, and can indicate a learning disability. Can also indicate an inability to concentrate thoughts — which can be due to mental illness or something simply transitory such as fatigue.
clay
@Mike J: Is that right? Well, maybe someone will do likewise with Trump’s.
swiftfox
@Miss Bianca: Similar to Dick Cheney wearing the Cabelas jacket to the 2005 liberation camp memorial.
Elizabelle
Aside from being a moron, Trump has nice handwriting. Not speaking of his signature, which is kind of aggressive. But his printing has personality, an expansive personality, and it’s actually kind of feminine. (The circle in the exclamation point.)
I like the way he wrote “It.” Architectural. The Rs look like they’re from the Rolls Royce logo. The Ms and Ns are distinctive.
There. We have something nice to say about der Trump. Completely leaving aside content, or lack thereof.
We’d all be safer if he’d set his sights on calligraphy or graphic design.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: You are too nice.
hovercraft
Steve M. took a dive into the fever swamps and he found out the rational they are using to explain the daily deluge of bad news for the Shitgibbon, it’s the biggest conspiracy evah!
If you click through you can read the whole thing, but hear is his attempt to distill el Rushbo’s exposition to the ditto heads.
Barbara
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I read an abridged version in the Washington Post. And out of all of his lines here is the one that strikes me most:
“Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?”
The idea that you can hold down millions of people without hurting yourself seems to pervade modern conservative voting patterns.
chopper
jesus h fucking christ. did he think this was a high school yearbook or something? “stay cool and have a rad summer!”
TS
@hovercraft: hehehehe – from your link
Chris
@hovercraft:
Well, hard to blame them for believing it. After all, that’s what they and Official Washington did for Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
I’m not sure how true that is. I think a huge part of it is that they’re getting their daily news- to the extent that they get daily news- from media dedicated to minimizing, disputing, and flat out ignoring those daily pantings. People who depend on Fox- much less Breitbart or InfoWars- aren’t worried about that stuff because they are only being told about it in the context of how those mean Democrats and evil Lamestream Media are blowing everything out of proportion.
hovercraft
I hate Morning Ho, but when he’s calling you dumb……………
“I’ve spoken to so many people over the past week who have the same story as me, that every time you were told you can’t do this. they were like, ‘You know what? We’re real estate developers in Manhattan, we know — those people in Washington don’t know what they’re talking about and thank you for your warnings, but we’re going to do things different because we’re smarter than you. We’re going to turn Washington upside down,’ ” Scarborough said.
“Well, it ended up they weren’t smarter than everybody in Washington, D.C.
“In fact, they were by a margin of a thousand more stupid than everybody in Washington, D.C. because no president has been stupid enough to get in the trouble Donald Trump has gotten into in the first four months.
“So far from being brilliant and above everybody else that the president and people around the president felt they were, they are dumber than any lot that’s ever been inside the white house,” he said.
“It’s really sad,” Mika interjected.
MattF
@hovercraft: “A conspiracy so vast…” But only one of many such.
germy
Unfair!
What, you want him to write a book, like the Kenyan Usurper?
“A great honor to be here with all my friends” is more than enough. And “So amazing will never forget” was a beautiful touch. It actually put a lump in my throat.
Oh, wait. That’s GERD.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: Trump terminates OGE Officials in 1….2….3….
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Barbara:
I think the line that stuck out for me was about being on the wrong side of humanity. Not just history, but humanity. So eloquent and honest.
hovercraft
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
For every hero, there are hundreds of losers like this jackass:
Mississippi lawmaker says Louisiana leaders should be ‘lynched’
The tirade was in response to Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s removal of the NOLA statues.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle:
Fuck that. And fuck him.
hovercraft
@TS:
That’s the problem with all of their over the top rhetoric about Obama and everything he ever did, you can find statements or in the case of the Shitgibbon tweets denouncing or supporting what they now say is fine or terrible. This group of morans doesn’t have the skill or even the desire to do anything subtly so the hypocrisy just screams out. SAD!
bemused
@schrodingers_cat:
I hadn’t paid attention to his signature before now but it is what I would have guessed, unreadable as if the signator is concealing who he is. Or maybe it just reveals there is no there there.
randy khan
@schrodingers_cat:
Darned if I know. It’s not common, but it’s not exceedingly unusual, either. I’ve certainly seen it before.
Also worth noting is that he didn’t use cursive, so it’s less formal than Obama’s entry. Granted, that’s consistent with the actual text of what he wrote.
Punchy
@Patricia Kayden: And zeros out their Dept. budget, and puts everyone in the office on the No Fly List, and garnishees their wages for new taxes he just imposed on them….
randy khan
@germy:
Bill Ayers actually wrote Obama’s entry.
Captain C
@Villago Delenda Est: “She can partner with Bannon and Miller to design and give you some great merch, the best, bigly! You’ll get sick of winning, it’ll be so good.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@NorthLeft12:
Actually, that would have been better. It’s Trump’s bizzare attempt to be upbeat visiting a mermorial to mass murder that’s the offensive part.
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
I wouldn’t be surprised. The thing is that eventually everything comes out, though I’m still waiting to hear what Angella Reid, the first woman to hold the position of White House Chief Usher did to earn his ire, other than being a black woman that is. I’m sure she also has a “story to tell.”
bemused
@hovercraft:
Huh, that reminds me of Karl Rove who said they/Bush administration would create their own reality.
Seems to be a common GOP fantasy world, imo.
schrodingers_cat
deleted
Betty Cracker
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: We had a thread on that last night. It was a terrific speech. I wish everyone in the country could hear it.
john (not mccain)
I’m surprised he didn’t close his note with “And HUGEST thanks to Germany for making this beautiful building possible!”
Hurling Dervish
The Israelis were dismayed when Trump trimmed his visit to Yad Veshem down to 15 minutes. Signing this must have taken five of those minutes. So he was there for ten minutes. No wonder he didn’t have much to say.
schrodingers_cat
deleted
Amir Khalid
RIP Sir Roger Moore.
germy
@randy khan:
His father?
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: And this is why if your uncle is drowning, you throw him an anvil. Not worth saving.
SiubhanDuinne
Not everyone here is a fan of Charles P. Pierce, I know, but his column today (prompted by Manchester) is really worth reading, and I hope you will.
Here’s the link.
I do enjoy CPP when he is in full snark mode, which is the case in the great majority of his political commentary. But I absolutely love him, in an awestruck kind of way, when he waxes poetic and philosophical, when he is as filled with righteous anger as an Old Testament prophet, when he sets aside the snark for the sublime. This is one of those columns. Charlie brought me to tears this morning, and not for the first time.
MattF
@hovercraft: Well, the statement comes unusually close to being an actual apology. Should have left off ‘wish’ and ‘any’.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: He was not my favorite Bond, but he had his moments, for sure. He’s tossing back some Vodka martinis with M and Q right now…
chopper
@Amir Khalid:
i was about to post that. RIP.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Betty Cracker:
I figured I missed it being discussed here. Haven’t felt well and just got around to reading it myself. Mitch Landrieu should be on a Dem unity tour with Maxine Waters, and Wilmer should be forced to read this speech to his cult of the lost cause.
Viva BrisVegas
Due my influence in high places, I managed to get a look at the note that Trump left in the Western Wall in Jerusalem:
Dear God,
Having a wonderful time.
Wish you were here.
Regards, Donnie
germy
@Villago Delenda Est: I always thought of him as The Saint.
chopper
@Viva BrisVegas:
“my wall is gonna be bigger and more beautiful”
msdc
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Keep growing that coalition!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hovercraft: Live by the conspiracy and die by the conspiracy. Trump is the president and that makes him The Man. This is like Shadow President Obama; so is Trump a small hand wuss or or just lying he can’t control his own goverment like the Always Hard Alpha Male Plus he claims to be?
randy khan
@germy:
Well played.
Immanentize
@germy: Yes — Simon Templer — and his Volvo P-1800.
Barbara
@SiubhanDuinne: I want to like Charles Pierce but like many men and more than a few women he simply refuses to acknowledge the blind spot that exists in him when it comes to women. That blind spot is misogyny and it is a big reason why we have been stuck with a walking catastrophe as president.
hovercraft
I was wondering how long the blame Obama crowd would take Seems it was last night.
Shep Smith Scolds James Woolsey for Criticizing Obama in Response to Manchester Attack
James Woolsey, former CIA director and one-time Trump adviser, wasted no time before using the apparent terrorist attack in Manchester, England as an excuse to criticize the policies of Barack Obama.
Speaking with Fox News’ Shepard Smith, Woolsey said:
“Things are kind of coming to a head. I think the radical Islamists–and I would call them that–have decided to pick up the pace with the terrorist attacks and I think we’ll probably see some more. And we now have a president who is pretty straightforward that he is at war with them. He is not going to soft-pedal that. He calls them evil. And we haven’t had a situation like that. We did not have, in the eight years of the Obama administration, a president who wanted to fight and win a war–“
At this point, Smith interjected, noting that President Obama had, in fact, “fought a number of wars and certainly didn’t say that he didn’t want to win them.”
The Fox News host went on: “Mr. Woolsey, with great respect, it’s very early to make this a political matter.”
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: My uncle is not so stupid, thank Ceiling Cat. But there is one of dad’s childhood friend who will swallow any propaganda put out by RWNJ in India, he is an arm chair Hindutva warrior.
SFAW
@john (not mccain):
You forgot Poland!
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
One fewer person stealing my name. Though, in fairness, he did get there first. He will be missed.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: Word. That and the references stuck in the 1980s and earlier.
Barbara
@hovercraft: I wondered how soon someone would try to take political advantage. At least it wasn’t done through a tweet. They are incorrigible.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@msdc:
7 out of 10 white male voters voted for Trump, up to 90% in Mitch’s neck of the woods. Mitch fits every stereotype, yet, he defies it. White Southerners need to see a white Southern politician going against stereotype and being a true ally of the black voters that voted against Trump by almost 90%. Smashing stereotypes of the white male supremacist is a part of smashing white male supremacy, so you can gfy.
SFAW
@germy:
Get your memes right. His father is Frank Marshall Davis.
germy
@Immanentize:
I saw “Live and Let Die” in a theater when it first came out, and I remember thinking “Why is The Saint playing James Bond?”
To me he’ll always be The Saint, and Sean Connery will always be Bond.
Roger was a great Saint.
hovercraft
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes.
You see he’s like Obama in that one respect a strongman and a weakling. I’m not sure how they reconcile the two and find them both admirable, though I suppose they could twist it to be he’s a strong hero fighting evil so when evil triumphs it’s not a sign of his weakness but a testament to just how much evil there is, but with them behind him eventually he’ll triumph over it.
retr2327
@hovercraft: Oh come on. A conspiracy like that would be child’s play after the whole global warming hoax . . .
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hovercraft: James Woolsey isn’t just a “Saddam did 9/11” guy, he says Saddam teamed up with Iran to do 9/11.
Roger Moore
@germy:
You and approximately nobody else. I think responses to my name give a fair idea of how people thought about the guy, and I must get at least a thousand James Bond references for every Simon Templar reference.
Chyron HR
@msdc:
Democrats bad! Republicans good! Thus spake the Berning Man!
rikyrah
Will someone answer the following for me:
1. WHEN is the CBO score coming out?
2. WHY would the GOP have to vote on Trumpcare again?
hovercraft
Trump seeks to sell off half of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
As part of its 2018 budget, the Trump administration is proposing to reduce by half the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a cushion against global price shocks and supply disruptions. The administration said it expects the drawdown to reduce the federal deficit by $16.6 billion, part of a package of deficit reduction measures over the next 10 years…………….
………..The sales would start at half a billion dollars in the next fiscal year and climb to $3.9 billion, for a total of $16 billion over the next decade. A policy brief floated by the conservative Heritage Foundation, a group that has exerted a major influence on the Trump budget, suggests selling off the entirety of the SPR over a two-to-three-year period (a more radical proposal than the Trump idea)
“The SPR has not served its purpose, as Presidents have used the SPR as a political tool or failed to release reserves in a timely and impactful manner,” Heritage fellow Nicolas Loris wrote in 2015. “It is time for Congress to recognize it is not the government’s role to respond to high prices. Congress should therefore pull the plug and drain the SPR once and for all.”……………
“The risk of complete collapse in Venezuela is just one of many reminders that the world remains vulnerable to oil price shocks, and those will be felt by U.S. consumers at the pump just as much today even though we import less oil than we used to because oil is a global commodity,” said Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
“The SPR is a 40-year-old national security asset that helps to protect the U.S., in partnership with other countries, from potential oil supply disruptions and price spikes. It would be foolish to sell it off just because our imports have fallen or to fill short-term budget holes, especially when oil prices are so low.” (Bordoff was President Barack Obama’s National Security Council adviser on energy and climate.)
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Just went through his Wikipedia page.
Good lord, what a fucking clown.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Slate answers your question about why the GOP will have to vote on TrumpCare again.
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore:
Ahem.
germy
@Roger Moore:
Well, I’ve always been an outlier.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
That character seems to have fallen out of popular awareness decades ago. They tried to revive interest with a movie in the nineties, but that didn’t end up going so well. I could see him being revived today, but kind of hope he isn’t, there’s more than enough reboots happening already.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: The CBO score comes out tomorrow according to this link.
MomSense
My god how embarrassing this whole thing is. Next time America, don’t pick the biggest asshole from the country club to be president.
Chris
@hovercraft:
He really does want to be America’s Yeltsin. Hold a garage sale for everything in the country, all so the oligarchs can have their profits.
El Caganer
@hedgehog mobile: Of course he does. “Yad Veshem is somebody who’s done an amazing job, and is getting recognized more and more.”
Chris
@MomSense:
In fact, don’t pick anybody from the country club, unless it’s the fucking waiter, janitor, or valet. We’ve had more than enough rich idiots fucking the country up.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’d ask why the hell is a nut job like that on TV, oh, it’s FOX, but then I google Woolsey on CNN and get a ton of hits, also quite a few on MSNBC! I hate the media, why are fucking morons like this allowed to pollute the public discourse when we have real serious things to discuss?
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
The Avengers, Secret Agent (Danger) Man and The Saint were my entre to Brit teevee and I hold them all dear to my heart for their mix of humour and drama and introducing my kid self to teevee aimed more to adults yet not leaving me in the dark.
RIP Sir Roger
Alain the site fixer
What a schlemiel
hedgehog mobile
@El Caganer: *snorts*
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
1. Tomorrow
2. see # 107
Alain the site fixer
@hovercraft: Greatly increasing the size of the SPR was the one good thing GWB did. Truly, no matter how mad I was at him, I always spared him complete scorn because doing that was investing in our ability to stabilize markets, bully OPEC, and keep ourselves afloat for a year or more should there be some critical supply issue or shortage.
To sell off half of it is to sell our future well-being and power. Is he really trying to destroy us? Are we missing the big picture here?
Peale
@hovercraft: Before 1/20/17: Terrorists are attacking Europe because Obama is weak! They are laughing at us.
After 1/20/17: The Terrorists are attacking Europe because Trump is strong and they’re afraid of him! They aren’t laughing now! Because Trump wants to win!
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: Well…. Maybe you just run around with a younger crowd. Although I’m not that old. Reruns, my friend, reruns.
hovercraft
@Alain the site fixer:
Yes, kickbacks, why do you think good old Rex is there?
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
I can’t answer #1, but there are several reasons why the House would at least want to vote on TRyancare again. All of those reasons basically boil down to one way or another than a badly written House version would not meet all of the arcane requirements for reconciliation. If it doesn’t meet all those requirements- which include but are not limited to being primarily budget related, meeting the deficit reduction goals of the reconciliation instructions, and only being germane to committees that received reconciliation instructions- then it can’t be passed using reconciliation and the Democrats can and will filibuster it. And they only get one shot at it this year. They’d rather try a third time in the House than send it to the Senate and have it trashed because it failed some obscure procedural requirement.
Chris
@Alain the site fixer:
Overthinking it. People like this were locusts in 1990s Russia, they were locusts in 2000s Iraq, and they’re locusts in 2010s America. All they see in a country is a bunch of stuff waiting to be broken down and its parts sold off.
@Peale:
It really is amazing how blatantly the script changes depending on whether there’s a Democrat or a Republican in the White House so that the exact same event can be covered in completely different ways to allow for bias. And has been going on to some degree or other since the early 1950s.
Peale
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s a deep state conspiracy to discredit Trump by trotting out representatives of the deep state to support him using foolish ideas!
Immanentize
@trollhattan: My Dad had a fully expressed crush on Emma Peel. I loved each of those shows, growing up. But TV was more important in my family than movies because we had very little money for that kind of stuff.
Ruviana
@SiubhanDuinne: I agree, I thought this was excellent and very poignant, much like Scalzi’s Thoughts and Prayers post.
trollhattan
@Alain the site fixer:
All I can figure is dumping the reserve erases one modest damper on oil company gouging during a supply crisis. Our SoS probably has opinions and obviously, Heritage is against any such gummint meddling.
msdc
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
What happens when they see you insulting that true ally because you don’t like the way he looks?
Btw, for any readers who aren’t aware, this is what Mitch Landrieu looks like. What a dumbass, right?
You weren’t smashing stereotypes, you were indulging in them.
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
Dad had lots of company in that regard. “Mrs. Peel, we’re needed.”
Encountering Diana Rigg in Game of Thrones has been quite the reunion.
Amir Khalid
Trump’s dismaying lack of sensitivity — that visitors’ book entry, untidy grammar and all, reads like he was at a tourist attraction, rather than a place commemorating the victims of a great atrocity — looks really, really bad even if not seen side-by-side with Obama’s graceful and eloquent thoughts. On this tour,Trump has shown himself to be vain; utterly self-centred; careless with sensitive information; and worst of all, needing his hosts to coddle him and even teach him what to do at public events. How is he to speak for America when he has serious private meetings with them? For the love of God, don’t let him out of the country again.
msdc
@Chyron HR: …um, okay? Not sure who or what this is aimed at.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
You’re alive! … But how …?
PST
@Citizen_X:
I always thought it looked like he was trying to draw a crown.
hovercraft
@Amir Khalid:
You mean he wasn’t? Gosh darn he studied so hard!
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize:
Sounds like a very sensible man.
PST
Obama’s comment is so beautiful and appropriate that you have to wonder whether it was composed in advance or something he can produce on demand. I was struck by the way his reference to remaking the world has in it an echo of tikkun olam, and that is just something mentioned in passing.
Frankensteinbeck
@hedgehog mobile:
He just took a tour, and he doesn’t know. Isn’t that pathetic?
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
There’s a gun nut sort-of-militia in the South, redneck as it gets, whose founding principle and public battle cry is that racial division is being used to hold the poor down. That the only way to fix things is to help each other, accepting all people as brothers and sisters, because crushing one poor person crushes the rest. I wish they were more than a fringe.
@hovercraft:
You know, this is good reference! Trump is what they thought Obama was, and can be used to explain why they believed seemingly contradictory things. You will note how Trump is corrupt, and tries to rule absolutely and by fiat. This is exactly because he is an immature, cowardly toddler. Trump is everything racists think black people are.
Kenneth Kohl
@NorthLeft12:
I’m just relieved he didn’t scribble “Losers”
Seriously, WTF is wrong with this guy? (rhetorical, I know…).
4
hedgehog mobile says:
May 23, 2017 at 10:08 am
Apparently, Jared/Ivanka didn’t get a chance to cover this on the flight from SA.
(Please forgive my piss-poor tech “skills” here ;/
Kenneth Kohl
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, it is pretty bad.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: But… being out of the country means he’s not here, which counts as a good thing, IMO. And, a close-up look gives you-all out there a view of how appalling Trump really is. Think of it as a learning experience.
cope
@rikyrah:
1) Tomorrow.
2) They think it’s fun?
Amir Khalid
@Chris:
The Saint was briefly rebooted as a TV show in the 1980s, as I recall (it aired here in Malaysia), but it didn’t have the magic of the original. The movie with Val Kilmer was simply terrible.
Shana
@Roger Moore: so funny. True story: a friend named Bill Wyman who was for many years a rock critic for SF, Chicago, and DC alternative weeklies The Reader, City Paper etc. was sued by the Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones and told to stop using his name. Turns out my friend was born with his name and the one from the Stones took it as his name about 3 years after my friend was born. Case was thrown out.
chopper
@Alain the site fixer:
what’s amazing is the idea of selling off half the SPR during a time of relatively low oil prices.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Between The Saint, Danger Man (Secret Agent), and The Avengers that was quite a high-water mark of British TV.
Monala
@jacy: The similarities of the two signatures makes me wonder if Melania wrote the note.
Elizabelle
@PST: I’m guessing (semi-) composed in advance, or at least BHO gave a lot of thought to what he wanted to express, before he stepped up to the visitor’s book.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: We’re trying to figure out a way to keep him out!
SiubhanDuinne
@Kenneth Kohl:
I think you mean, the flight from the Middle East.
Kenneth Kohl
@SiubhanDuinne: yep. I always enjoy Pierce. I think he is an extraordinary writer.
Brachiator
Trump is truly a small man with small hands and an even smaller soul.
Rand Careaga
@hovercraft:
I look in vain for an apology to the people he wanted lynched. “I am so sorry I forgot to use the indoor voice.”
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
@Citizen_X:
@PST:
Here, from 2015, is a pretty interesting article by a graphologist giving short analyses of all the major candidates’ signatures.
Rand Careaga
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m pretty sure that anyone who doesn’t care for Charles Pierce is an individual who lacks a rich interior life.
Gindy51
@Alain the site fixer: He’s doing it on Vlad’s orders….. the potential buyers will scarf it up for low prices, then “something” happens and they sell high. We will be left holding the bill. Incredibly stupid and of course short sighted.
Quinerly
@clay:
I heard that the note he left was actually the Electoral College win map.?
Quinerly
Apologies if this has been posted. Interesting read. https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/23/donald-trump-speaking-style-interviews/
SiubhanDuinne
@Rand Careaga:
There are several people here who simply find his style annoying to read. I’m (obviously) not among them, but I get it as a reason.
But CPP can make me laugh, cry, and think — often in the same day, and on one or two occasions in the same piece. Glad you’re also among his fans.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
You and I see a memorial, Trump sees evidence of good business practices.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
When oil prices are at rock bottom. Of course he is.
Treason will not prosper.
NotMax
He was there for what – 15 minutes total?
First draft leaked*: “Thanks to Adolf who made all this possible.”
*Not intended to be a true statement. Maybe.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I’m kind of impressed he didn’t say anything about his amazing electoral college blowout. Manbaby steps…
debbie
There is no starker example of the difference between these two presidents. We are doomed.
J R in WV
The “Strategic Petroleum Reserve”… any chance it may be used to power the military in an actual real war, with no chance of receiving any fuel from the Middle East?
But if we sell it for useless gold, what will we do if there’s a war with a superpower with plentiful oil? Is there such a superpower? Oh, wait!… Russia makes most of its foreign currency from oil and gas sales. So the sale of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve would only make sense if we never ever had any chance of winding up in a desperate war with Russia?
Am I missing anything here? Some things seem so simple and easy. Strategic Petroleum Reserve… hmmm.
pluky
@A Lurker: Pace ha Shoah, it’s ‘Never Again’.
pluky
@SiubhanDuinne: SA – Saudi Arabia, not South America in this case.