Anyone with a lick of sense realized long ago that Trump will never “pivot” to presidential behavior. A walking collection of untreated personality disorders for seven decades now, Trump ain’t changing.
But that won’t stop the faithful from waiting for the Great Trumpkin. Here’s Glenn Thrush in the NYT today:
Harvey Gives Trump a Chance to Reclaim Power to Unify
By GLENN THRUSH AUG. 29, 2017Hurricane Harvey was the rarest of disasters to strike during the Trump presidency — a maelstrom not of Mr. Trump’s making, and one that offers him an opportunity to recapture some of the unifying power he has squandered in recent weeks.
“Reclaim?” “Recapture?” Both words imply prior possession of the thing to be claimed or captured anew. “Squandered” implies possession of a thing that was previously cast aside.
Trump isn’t interested in unity. He never has been. He’s still staging campaign rallies seven months into his presidency, FFS, and, uniquely among presidents in my lifetime, Trump doesn’t do even pro forma outreach to non-supporters. Someone who is paid to analyze Trump’s presidency should know this — it’s obvious even to a casual observer.
Thrush goes on:
Now a tropical storm as it continues to inundate the Texas and Louisiana coasts, Harvey is foremost a human disaster, a stop-motion catastrophe that has already claimed at least 10 lives and destroyed thousands of structures. But hurricanes in the post-Katrina era are also political events, benchmarks by which a president’s abilities are measured. Mr. Trump is behaving like a man whose future depends on getting this right.
Really? Is that why Trump skulked alone in the Camp David conference room, modeling a campaign hat in front of an untouched notepad while Pence and other government officials managed things from the White House Situation Room?
Is that why Trump said yesterday that he pardoned fellow racist birther Arpaio as the hurricane approached the Texas coast because he wanted the announcement to get high ratings?
I tire of the “imagine how the press would have reacted if Obama had done XYZ” game. But FFS, are we now going to treat what would surely be classified as hideous optics and a career-defining gaffe if committed by not-Trump as a measure of Trump’s determination to “get this right?” Apparently so.
Also, did you know thousand-year floods are like a leaky faucet in an apartment building?
Mr. Trump, one aide said, was fascinated by the long-term effect of water damage on structures in the Gulf Coast, peppering FEMA and National Security Council briefers with detailed questions about the flooding in Houston and Galveston. As the extent of the projected devastation became apparent over the weekend during a meeting at Camp David, he shook his head in disbelief and compared the situation to problems he experienced when managing his family’s apartment buildings in New York. “Water damage is the worst,” he told one staff member, “tough, tough, tough.”
OMFG. It reminds me of the “crime — boy, I don’t know” scene in “The West Wing.” But readers are asked to view this simple-minded and fatuous comparison as a sign that Trump is uniquely “engaged” on this issue.
To be fair, Thrush did make allusions to Trump’s tendency to fuck up his team’s messaging strategy by going on Twitter rampages, etc. But it’s the dopey faith that the gilded turd might morph into a president worthy of the office that makes me want to curse and break things. Thrush will occupy that moonlit meadow forever, waiting for the Great Trumpkin to rise.
dr. bloor
This article is what happens when you tell a man who has no understanding of policy to try and sell newspapers.
Cheryl Rofer
I would think that Trump’s early tweets on Harvey would disabuse most of the fiction that Trump could be presidential about this. Yay! Wow! Biggest storm ever! Very exciting!
OTOH, there seem to have been no big mistakes yet.
lamh36
this is why Chump is trying to come to the area for a photo op so jackass like thrush can write glorious article about it and of course glorious pics of hugging cheeto??
FlipYrWhig
I’m continually amazed by the things that the inner circle says _to try to make Trump LOOK GOOD_. He always sounds like a self-involved ignoramus with a 19 word vocabulary. And that’s when they’re selectively coming up with the _highlights_. “Tough, tough, tough” is fucking idiotic.
dmsilev
@dr. bloor: Are we talking about Thrush or Trump?
Felonius Monk
He might think it’s a moonlit meadow, but Thrush is actually occupying the toilet trap where he will be sure to see the Great Orange Turd come floating by soon.
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer: I guess we should be thankful that Trump couldn’t be bothered to find some incompetent but rich hack to run FEMA but instead went the boring route of choosing an actually-qualified guy.
randy khan
I heard a bit of his statement yesterday on the radio this morning. He really sounded like he was being made to recite by his 3rd grade teacher. This, in some ways, is the most remarkable thing about him – he can’t do anything like this with any kind of semblance of human feeling. I can’t think of a public figure of any importance who was this bad at reading prepared remarks.
cervantes
Tom Tomorrow tells the tale.
randy khan
@dmsilev:
Somebody at LGM noted that Congress changed the law after Katrina to require that the FEMA director have relevant experience, so that might explain why we don’t have Eric Trump’s best friend in the job.
Bruce K
Oh, I don’t doubt that a competent, non-evil President could use the Hurricane Harvey situation to help bring the country closer together.
The problem is that, unless someone knows how to flash Trump’s BIOS and reprogram his mind, or perhaps perfect brain transplant surgery, Trump isn’t equipped to accomplish that.
James Powell
Every night I pray for the demise of the New York Times. No other institution or organization is more to blame for Trump in the White House.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Reminds me of how Karen Hughes used to try to make the Shrubb sound alert and engaged. “The President asked really great questions!” When the Chinese (if I remember the details) forced a US plane to land when the crossed briefly into their airspace, his “great questions” were “Do they have bibles? have they been allowed to exercise?”
Glenn Thrush is not responding to the twitter thrashing he’s getting about this, but he does have this precious bit of faux-earnest piety
Aleta
Feeling like Trump sees this disaster as an opportunity for limited liability developers and housing projects to exploit federal funds.
Thru the Looking Glass...
Apart from the overweening idiocy of continuing to imagine Trump will indeed ‘pivot’ and turn into something even remotely ‘Presidential’, there’s also the ugliness of reducing a natural catastrophe the scale of Harvey down to a mere ‘opportunity to recapture some of the unifying power he has squandered in recent weeks.’
So much for human suffering…
Damned ratf’ker…
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Scott Lemieux’s used the same basic metaphor (albeit as “The Great
ModeratePumpkin”) fairly often, although the usual target of these posts is the dumb-as-shit Zaid Jilani. I think any sincere acceptance of this premise should be grounds for immediate, permanent removal from the journalistic field.The Moar You Know
Why is anyone still paying attention to anything the NYT has to say? They made where they stand painfully clear back in the 1990s.
SFAW
Actually, Betty, Preznit* Lying Littledick, when inaugurated, DID have the power to unify. That he chose to strangle, knife, kick, and have his minions torture that power, 30 seconds after finishing the oath of office, does not negate that he actually had the power.
tobie
Thrush, Habermann, Cilliza, Heilman, Mibank, and Halperin are gossip columnists, and they thrive on the idea that politics is spectacle and nothing else. Trump provides them with theater in spades. He’s the crack dealer and they are the addicts and until America wizens up to his and their antics, we unfortunately have to live with them. The Thrush article sounds just nauseating. Thanks for the warning. I won’t click it to read the rest.
MisterForkbeard
@Cheryl Rofer: To be fair, all Trump has to do is:
1) Seem concerned.
2) Tell his flunkies to give aid appropriately and also act concerned.
Trump can’t quite manage #1, but #2 is actually more important.
Gin & Tonic
What the fuck does he know? I used to have work-related contact with a guy in Algiers, LA. After Katrina he had water in his house up to the second-floor ceiling. What the fuck does Trump know about that shit?
SFAW
@James Powell:
Don’t say that in front of schrodinger’s cat — she might “drop the gloves” and duke it out with you. Because you know how much she loves the NYT.
To be clear: she’d fight you because you’re not praying for FTFNYT’s demise often enough, of course.
rikyrah
The ridiculousness of that image just disgusts me and makes me go back to:
THE CURVE FOR UNQUALIFIED WHITE MEN IS REAL!
If 44 had gone off to Camp David at the beginning of a Hurricane, he never would have heard the end of it.
Period.
I do crack up at Pence getting all those ‘ Presidential’ shots in. Did you see that they tweeted out one of him, and then took it down…like the internet isn’t forever…..
I still will stand by this: I can’t see Pence becoming 46.
1. He’s up to his eyeballs in the Flynn mess
2. NO WAY Dolt45 goes down without taking Pence with him.
Peale
@SFAW: Who gave the most unhinged and divisive inaugural speech in the history of these speeches. I mean, for fuck sake, Lincoln gave his second one in the middle of a Civll War and even he knew that it was better to talk about better angels than spew bile about how he was really going to kick ass.
Kay
Just give up on the NYTimes. They think Trump is a delightful eccentric with leadership potential.
They treat him like the mayor of America, if America consisted exclusively of the GOP base, which it does not ;)
I don’t even know what to say anymore, other than “abandon ship”. They’re going no where good with this.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@SFAW: We should have that construction (h/t Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap and Elizabelle) supplant “even the liberal New Republic” in the lexicon.
Immanentize
@James Powell: Snark? Hyperbole? Don’t get out much?
I think FOX, Sinclair and the EIB Network — even Stormfront — have a lot more to do with Trump’s current position than the New York Times.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Because. they, like Dolt45 voters, will never accept responsibility for what they did during the 2016 election season.
And, we must always bring receipts to these clowns.
LAO
I outsource my opinion and adopt Mr. Beutler’s view:
ETA: Greg Sargent — Not Brian Beutler. Oops.
schrodingers_cat
Not interested in the psychopaths writing for Vichy Times, who normalized the Nazi President.
Mumbai has been hit by torrential rains (30cm) in the last 8hrs . People’s commutes are usually brutal and many are stranded en route to their homes. Unlike Joel Osteen, Mumbaikars are opening their homes, places of worship (gurudwaras, temples and mosques, churches) and schools, offices to those who are stranded.
scav
Where’s the line for the Ain’t Nuthing that Idiot could do that would Unify Me line forming? I’ve got nothing but time.
smintheus
Vast human misery, destruction, and death exists purely as a backdrop for a political hero to rise above it…says the sociopath.
Kay
Did they ever explain this bullshit they displayed on the front page on October 31st?
So that was probably the now-infamous “NY Bureau” right, planting propaganda?
No explanation.
What happens if there’s something to the Russia story? Will all these professionals who didn’t pursue it apologize? Or are we all just like “oops! The President is owned by Russia!” Seems relevant, like voters maybe needed timely info on that.
JMG
The White House beat at the Times is the pinnacle for news reporters. To report daily that said pinnacle is a car fire in a circus clown car is to demean one’s own achievement in reaching the top. Many Washington reporters from the top mainstream outlets really believe Washington is like the West Wing whereas history teaches it’s been a circus act (not this bad, however) more often than not. I mean, anyone who didn’t laugh loud and long throughout the whole Lewinsky deal has no sense of humor at all. But the media were horrified because in their minds, Presidents are above such sordid acts as getting blow jobs.
Timurid
Even though it’s not military/terror related, I’m worried that Trump will use the Harvey crisis as an excuse for an attempt to shut down the Russia investigation in the interest of “unity.”
Kay
@rikyrah:
They really do treat him like a mayor. Like what he says and does only affects a small portion of the country and is localized and easily remedied.
It’s bizarre. They’ve created a very small country, Trumpistan, and he’s doing GREAT in that imaginary place.
Cathie from Canada
I LOVE the Great Pumpkin analogy! Yes, that’s exactly what the national press is waiting for with Trump. They are, I think, starting to realize that it ain’t gonna happen, but when I see them interviewed on MSNBC they still hope against hope…..
Off Topic — month after month, I have also seen national reporters talk about how mystifying it is that Trump is acting so badly on the Russia investigation. Finally, I think they are now coming around to the idea that Trump actually has something to hide. Took them long enough.
Kay
He shouldn’t worry. The NYTimes led in lowering standards to the depths for Trump, and the rest of political media will follow.
If he isn’t down there bellowing racial slurs they’ll give him a participation trophy. One tick above “Sheriff Joe” now means “statesman”. Go back and read the coverage of the oil spill in the Gulf. Obama was expected to personally plug a giant hole in the ocean floor. That was the MINIMUM “accountability” they would accept. Trump wasn’t even in DC for hurricane and it was FINE by them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Not unrelated to the “noble savage” view they have of his supporters. We know these decent, doughty heartlanders aren’t racist, because nobody’s racist. So whatever could it be that makes these primitive yet good-hearted folk see trump as their savior? We’ll keep asking till we get an answer that isn’t racism.
scav
@Cathie from Canada: Lucy with the football also works.
gene108
I will always marvel at the US media. They made an editorial decision in how they covered the 2016 election.
They assumed the Clintons are super villains, who just have not been caught or exposed for being super villains. Despite their documented effectiveness in public office, and the millions spent investigating them only to turn up the fact Bill was not a faithful husband, somewhere in the hollowed out guts of a dormant volcano in a remote South Pacific island, they have their secret lair, where they plot schemes for world domination and the destruction of America. And one day an enterprising reporter will expose them for the villains they are and lay their secrets bare for the world to see.
While they just figured Trump has potential. I mean, if he didn’t, why are so many people supporting him? We must be missing something the saintly men of the white working class see in him, therefore we should not be too quick to judge him or do basic investigations into the thousands of lawsuits he has been involved with, the many failed businesses, the possible ties to Russian gangsters, and so on.
And the media will never admit they made a mistake in how they covered things, and will rally behind any member of their club accused of professional malpractice of journalism.
tobie
@Kay:
Eric Lichtblau has never had to account for that stunningly misleading piece. I also wonder why. This was’t even both sides journalism–he transcribed whatever his source inside the FBI told him and ignored everything Harry Reid reported to the Times. The omission was stunning.
A propos omissions, I’m also stunned that there has been no followup since June on the many stories about the Russians hacking voter rolls in 39 states, the cooperation between a FL GOP operative and the Russians, the NSA document published in the Intercept. Where the heck are the Times’ supposedly top-notch reporters?
danielx
Shorter Thrush:
PIVOT! I want my pivot and I want it now!
Also a pony.
rikyrah
@Cathie from Canada:
I love it too.
Absolutely on point.
They don’t:
1. Want to accept their responsibility for THEIR malpractice during the 2016 Election season
2. Want to accept the responsibility for their Dolt45 voting relatives. Hence, the endless articles about why we’re supposed to ‘ understand’ their vote for Dolt45.
3. Want to accept that they were basically incompetent by NOT reporting on the very REAL Russian questions.
4. They resented the brilliance of 44, and understand that Dol45, as a vessel for White Supremacy, is an international embarrassment.
Kay
Here’s what any other President would be asked. Will Trump put aside his partisan spite wall to allocate funding to rebuild Texas?
That would be the bipartisan leadership measure. Guarantee Trump won’t be graded using that scale. No “hard choices” for the giant toddler! He’ll gut food stamps instead.
rk
I’m sure it has been said before, but these journalists and cable news types remind me of the women who keep going back to their abusers and saying that “this time he really means it” and is going to change. It applies to all the media and the GOP. Just watch what happens if/when Pence becomes the President. It will be 24/7 rehabilitating the republican party. Trump will be an “aberration”, or a democrat plant and was never really a republican. These people will never learn.
Kay
@tobie:
The timing! He exonerated Trump on Russia one week before the election. Wow. WTF was that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gene108: Benghazi, the emails, the foundation… all murder investigations in search of a Clinton victim
(Good god, turned on MSNBC, a woman carrying a little dog gets out of rescue boat and walks through knee-high water to rejoin her family. She dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt and a rain poncho. MSNBC-bot dressed in (no doubt) water-proof expedition gear asked her four times if she’s “okay” as she’s walking. She’s far more polite than I probably would’ve been).
Kay
@tobie:
If there’s something to Russia there has to be some kind of reckoning. Because they will have missed the single biggest story of the election. It’s unprecedented, if they missed Russian interference and collusion in the election of a US President. That’s a big failure! I don’t know how they glide past that! All the glowing Bannon profiles in the world won’t excuse that.
geg6
@Timurid:
So a natural disaster in one large swath of Texas is a big enough thing that you think the rest of the country and all of congress will be just fine with that? Sorry, but even I’m not that paranoid.
hueyplong
One of Trump’s most glaring tells in terms of unfitness for office is his need to have a “rally” whenever he feels insufficiently reassured of his astounding popularity, i.e., constantly. I have no faith that the GOP will either impeach or convict under any but the most end-of-the-world scenarios, and I lack faith in their ability to recognize that they’re in such a scenario even if it were to present itself.
So Trump just has to melt down on his own by way of mental or other medical breakdown. It seems like the trigger would be when he held a rally and everyone ignored him and/or walked out halfway through. Looks like that nearly happened in Phoenix, and it was enough for Trump to play his most severe card– having his bodyguard tell someone he’s through (a la Comey).
tobie
@Kay: What makes the timing even worse, if that is possible, is that the Oct 31 article came on the heels of the reporting on the emails found on Huma Abedin’s laptop. The Times ran a story on Oct 29 by Amy Choznick entitled “A Scandal Too Far?: Human Abedin, Hillary Clinton, and a Test of Loyalty.”
Kay
@tobie:
I review child abuse investigations sometimes. It’s as if I missed the parent who whipped the child with the electric cord and wrote 40 pages on the parent who sometimes brings the child to school tardy because I really didn’t much care for the cut of the tardy parent’s jib and “tardy” MAY mean she’s of low character and a liar.
It’s not acceptable. It’s a failure. I failed. Have to find the cord whipping or big fail on my part.
Major Major Major Major
@hueyplong:
Well, have hope then, because that might come…
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic:
The pee tape is real?
catclub
@FlipYrWhig:
They also leak like a sieve all the idiotic things that Trump does. So maybe a wash.
tobie
@Kay: So true. Our media missed the biggest story in our lifetimes. Foreign interference in an election is far worse than Watergate. I don’t even know how to begin to explain this. Did they want Trump to win? Were they so convinced that HRC would win that they had to have her good and bloody so they could feed off her carcass for 4 years? I have no clue.
different-church-lady
The laziness of our political “analysts” knows no bounds. They will ALWAYS go with the off-the-shelf narrative.
chris
@Kay:
Wasn’t that already suggested by some congressvarmint?
schrodingers_cat
Mumbai Floods and rain update : All my near and dear ones are accounted for and safe, thank ceiling cat.
Timurid
@tobie:
Spayd’s Razor: When someone acts to enable white supremacists, the logical conclusion is that the actor is a white supremacist.
Amir Khalid
It’s bizarre that Trump is still campaigning for an office to which he was elected months ago. I’ve tried to explain it to myself by presuming that it’s because he knows he sucks at the executive job of presidenting, and would rather be candidating instead — it’s something he enjoys and is good at.
But I realise now that that can’t be it: the Dunning-Kruger effect would preclude such self-awareness. Could it be that Trump is having a miserable old time in the Oval Orifice, and so is relying on campaign rallies, with their cheering crowds and pageantry, as an emotional crutch?
LaNonna
Thankfully a professional at FEMA, dodged a bullet there. Thanks for the list of 4 star charities, the food bank gets some help from us in Italy. Also thanks to one of the Scotts for VoteRiders, brilliant way to use my little windfall. Watching and waiting, this avalanche of shoes dropping is grim, so happy to have the blog to read.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
did you listen to that first segment of Maddow last night, where she connects the BANKING/Dolt45 Crime Family stories.
I enjoyed how she mocked it by saying, ‘ maybe it’s a coincidence’.
and THIS is a ‘coincidence’.
Like I’ve been saying – not enough coincidences in the Western World.
The Russian interference….they want to try and purse their lips to blame 44 for what he supposedly didn’t do…
All the while, never once, on a consistent basis, calling the ZEGK and the Turtle on the carpet for their REFUSAL TO DO A JOINT STATEMENT WITH 44 ABOUT RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE.
That should be a question for them every phucking day….WHY did YOU REFUSE to go along with 44 , in issuing a JOINT STATEMENT ABOUT THE DANGERS OF RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN OUR ELECTION?
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid:
Duh.
gene108
@tobie:
I think they wanted Trump to win.
Sure the GOP would demand Christmas card lists, continue investigating Benghazi, and her e-mails, but the audience would get bored and tune out.
With Trump they are getting record ratings. Their struggling industry is relevant again.
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
He’s a phucking lazy, stupid, ignorant racist grifter that though, since the Black guy did it, how hard could being President be?
He’s completely unqualified for the position.
But, what he’s been doing isn’t a shock, after all, remember during the campaign, when his Campaign Manager, said that he really would do the job of President, more like a Chairman of the Board – you know, leaving the details of the day to day hard work – to others….remember the stories about what they offered to Kasich to become VP.
The utter arrogance in even putting that out into the universe.
AS IF any NON-WHITE candidate could put forth
” Oh, he’s not really going TO DO the job..he’ll delegate it, but be there for the ceremonial stuff”
OMG…..White privilege is SO real.
Never wanted to DO THE WORK of President..
Only wanted TO BE President…..
IF Axelrod or Plouffe had said that during 2008?
Not only would Obama have been immediately disqualified…
Axelrod and Plouffe would have been FINISHED PROFESSIONALLY too…
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: Absolutely. He needs to know that there are still crowds to cheer and love him. And he doesn’t really understand that when a cheering crowd shows up somewhere it doesn’t necessarily mean that all the people who _aren’t_ there _also_ love him. Plus, his sense of quantities is spectacularly out of whack. He sees “a lot” and thinks it’s essentially “infinity.” This is also why he’s always thinking, or claiming to think, that every crowd is like 10 times the size it actually is, and would be bigger still if not for the buzzkill fire marshals.
tobie
@gene108: You may well be right. That’s what I meant earlier when I said our media are crack addicts for politics-as-theater and Trump serves it up to them in spades.
Bostondreams
@Amir Khalid:
He literally filed for re-election about the time of his inauguration. It allows him to make money hawking campaign stuff and get the campaign to pay for his stupid rallies.
gene108
@rikyrah:
I think everyone already knows the answer. They wanted the Presidency to steal a Supreme Court seat and enact their agenda of massive tax cuts for the rich and gutting the social safety net.
Why bother watching those guys blubber about trying to lie about why they did it, as everyone knows, they aren’t going to tell the truth.
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
Why does he need to do that? It takes up heaps of people’s time and money and resources.
The taxpayer has to foot the bill for it.All the other kids just suck their thumbs, and they’re fine after a few minutes.Edited to strike incorrect statement.
rikyrah
If you went to @JoelOsteen’s church for shelter & found it closed, don’t worry, the Islamic Society of Greater Houston’s 21 mosques are open
— Alternative NOAA (@altNOAA) August 29, 2017
Kay
@tobie:
The email story was broken by the NYTimes . They led the coverage of it and the rest followed.
The email story was it was. Of course they should have covered it. The question will be did they miss the biggest story because they were focused on the emails.
It’s like in my example. School is important. Not being late to school is important. But that doesn’t mean I can miss an electric cord whipping and point to my carefully documented “tardy” recitation. One doesn’t explain or excuse the other. “Missed” means just that- it’s a failure all by itself.
eric
@Timurid: the answer is simpler: Bill and Hillary Clinton were more accomplished than every single MSM reporter covering them, while every single MSM reporter resented the truth of that statement.
Know your betters. That was what the Hillbilly Clintons disrespected when they came to DC. It was reported and editorialized back then and remains true today.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: Because he is a hopelessly insecure narcissist.
Tazj
@randy khan: Yes, I believe I read that too, that people had to have at least five years experience in disaster management if they were to be eligible to have a leadership position at FEMA.
I’m also tired of journalists trying to revive Trump’s presidency(although Greg Sargent says the lede to Thrush’s article is misleading and we should give it a go). I’ll pass.
I say fine, let him behave himself and not add disaster to the horrible disaster that is, but his presidency should be over. Too much has happened, I agree with other commenters that there has to be a reckoning in the form of impeachment or a criminal trial to restore the country.
Seanly
Hurricane Harvey and the rainfall it brought isn’t even a thousand year storm (0.1% chance of occurring in a given year). My company has a contract with either FEMA or Navy and is already looking for structural engineers to inspect naval facilities (unfortunately I have time sensitive items I have to get completed in my home office). But that got me talking with a hydraulic engineer in our office about the impact in Houston. He mentioned that he was looking at NOAA’s website and the rainfall in that area is just below the maximum possible event. I’d imagine that is based on some theory of how much water can be in the sky & be released in a period of time. Either our theory is way wrong or the Houston area has been hit with a one-in-a-million event.
Kay
@tobie:
It’s funny because in a way it’s the opposite of Watergate. Watergate was the state apparatus responding to information uncovered by journalists. The state was the slow-moving party, the less nimble party, the entity that took forever to investigate.
The STATE is leading this one. Media are way behind. In a way the state responded DESPITE media insisting there was nothing there. It’s the opposite of Watergate.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: His ego needs to be fed, and nothing satisfies it like adoring fans screaming.
hitchhiker
The NYT is still telling itself that its coverage was fair. Just read any tweet of Maggie or Glenn, which always gets a zillion replies asking wtf is wrong with them & why won’t they admit how badly they screwed up.
They never do.
Now we have DT (and Melania! WHY?) on the way to an ongoing infrastructure/humanitarian nightmare while North Korea gloats over scaring the eff out of Japan and some kind of shooting skirmish is happening with American troops and Turkish troops in Syria.
And Glenn Thrush wants us to focus on how the president who DEPENDS on riling up his racist base for self-esteem just might control himself when he realizes that a whole lot of these desperate people are not his fans? Are, in fact, black, Hispanic, poor, undocumented, and otherwise disposable to him?
Just know this — later, Glenn will not feel even the smallest twinge of shame.
Kay
@tobie:
The recent event that is most like it was Bush’s US Attorney scandal. They all dismissed that. There was “nothing there”
The attorney general ended up resigning as a result of it. That’s not nothing.
Roger Moore
@tobie:
Still looking for Hillary’s missing emails.
bystander
I didn’t think Betty could top “ShitMidas” but there you have it.
Any chance twitler will treat the trip like a politically rally and tell them the hurricane relief bill should have the cost of the wall added in?
Barbara
I didn’t read the article because it doesn’t permit comments. I actually wrote to the NYT and told them that henceforth I would not read any article about Donald Trump or his family members unless it allowed comments.
Kay
Trump actually isn’t that popular in Texas compared to other “red” states. He’s more popular in Ohio than he is in Texas
I’ve only been to Texas twice but that alone makes me like them :)
Barbara
@Roger Moore: The Times does have top-notch reporters, but they don’t work on its political desk. Maggie Haberman has been redeeming herself somewhat, but many of the Times reporters clearly pull their punches so they can keep the inside information spigot turned up. They sacrifice quality for quantity.
schrodingers_cat
Deleted, duplicate detected.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@hitchhiker: I think law enforcement officials are the only profession more thin-skinned than journalists (or “journalists”/chickenfuckers, as it were).
Thrush, Reynolds, Greenwald, Quagmire…yeah, it seems being forenamed Glenn is a recipe for high-order douchery.
Mike in NC
At this very moment the entire Trump family is making its way to Houston via yacht to look into opportunities to make a quick buck. Shocking, I know.
Kay
Here’s the NYTimes hometown hero sniping at Obama and insisting he isn’t a real President:
but no one is allowed to question giant toddler’s legitimacy – after all- he’s a real estate developer!
Cain
@schrodingers_cat:
This is great to hear. I need to talk to my uncle and see how things are there. He lives in Dadar.
schrodingers_cat
@Cain: My peeps live in South Mumbai and husband kitteh’s family is in Ghatkopar.
ETA: I don’t know how much you know about Mumbai, but the low lying areas or Bombay Central, Parel, Sion etc are flooded badly.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Kay: Jesus Christ, that’s not an old tweet?
Betty
Guess little Glen missed the Women’s March thingy. Unify? Words fail me.
schrodingers_cat
In case anyone is interested or worried about their loved ones,Check the Mumbai Police Twitter feed for more info.
NotoriousJRT
Trump is not the only one without interest in unity. I will not unify with him or the likes of him.
Chyron HR
@NotoriousJRT:
Not even in transforming robot dinosaurs?
mr_gravity
@Gin & Tonic: I have no history in real estate but I’m thinking fire damage is worse.
Ian G.
Reading shit like this makes you realize just how this incompetent reality TV clown managed to get people to hand their money over by the Brinks truck load only for him to squander it again and again and AGAIN.
For some fucking reason, people are just desperate to believe Trump’s bullshit. I don’t get it, but I also don’t get why people she’ll out money to watch Adam Sandler movies.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: During the campaign I remember noticing that Trump’s real base seemed to be suburbanite right-wingers in the Northeast, fuming with resentment at the liberals and minorities around them. They loved Trump far more intensely than people in deep-red states did. Southern conservatives seemed vaguely embarrassed, though they still voted for him. Maybe that’s changed, but it sure seemed that way at the time.
James Powell
@gene108:
Exactly. I would add that this assumption has been at the core of NYT coverage of the Clintons since 1992.
NotoriousJRT
@Chyron HR:
Not even in a that.
NorthLeft12
This is probably a repeat of something above, but the attempts of the media and the White House to make Deadbeat Donald some kind of expert on flood damage because he had water damage in a few of his properties!!??!!
Yeah, my basement flooded once….I had almost three inches of water down there. What a disaster!! Perhaps I should offer my expertise to the people of Houston? FFS!
That ignorant maroon probably never even personally visited the properties. Just got the bill and no doubt whined about how much it cost. I will bet a serious amount of money that he repeats this falderal at least three times during his visit…..because it is all about him.
NorthLeft12
@Ian G.: Confession time….I actually liked “The Wedding Singer”. I think it is his only movie that he does not play a violent, obscenity spewing jack ass. I cannot confirm that because I make it a point not to watch any of his movies……anymore.
NorthLeft12
@dmsilev: Did Deadbeat Donald really choose this guy? Or did he just farm out the decision to someone else, and the applicant happened not to say anything negative about Trump to the media.
I’m thinking that the scumbags who inhabit the Trump cabinet might have been smart enough to realize that FEMA Director is a real job and an incompetent performance can lead to the immediate loss of American lives. The other douchecanoes in cabinet end up killing Americans in the long term and a roundabout way, so that is something their miniscule consciences can bear.
cokane
Thrush’s emphasis is all wrong too. Harvey should be a chance for the fucking NYT White House correspondent to tell us if Trump is doing an effective job at actually executing disaster relief. Not if he is able to reboot his image.