Donald Trump and the Fellowship of the Alternative Facts (Part 14)

[Cartmann99]

Those who are familiar with Gilda Radner's Emily Litella on Saturday Night Live or Howard Beale from the movie Network , will enjoy Olbermann's latest video. 

 

[sawasdee]

@GreyhoundFan I opened your link to the programmes that are to be defunded.

There are 44.

10 are anti poverty programmes in the US, specifically aimed at low income families and individuals. Others affect US poverty, but are not as closely defined.

11 cut overseas Aid, not only to the poor, but in helping developing countries make deals with America, to the benefit of both.

Most of the rest are deregularity in spirit, removing protections or halting the repairs being done to environmental disasters caused by previous policies.

None are positive. None forward an agenda - rather, they send the US into reverse. Environmental, Arts, Cultural programmes are all hit.

No one in the US or overseas benefits from this except the super rich, who will see a downtick - actually quite small, as are most of these programmes - in their tax. But the negative effects on those who benefit today from these policies are huge.

I become more incoherent each day seeing how much damage can be done so quickly by an uneducated simpleton in the WH, and how the ripple effect will affect even more - close an environmental programme in a rural area, lose jobs. Others are very unlikely to arrive...

So fucking furious.

[47of74]

1 hour ago, sawasdee said:

@GreyhoundFan I opened your link to the programmes that are to be defunded.

There are 44.

10 are anti poverty programmes in the US, specifically aimed at low income families and individuals. Others affect US poverty, but are not as closely defined.

11 cut overseas Aid, not only to the poor, but in helping developing countries make deals with America, to the benefit of both.

Most of the rest are deregularity in spirit, removing protections or halting the repairs being done to environmental disasters caused by previous policies.

None are positive. None forward an agenda - rather, they send the US into reverse. Environmental, Arts, Cultural programmes are all hit.

No one in the US or overseas benefits from this except the super rich, who will see a downtick - actually quite small, as are most of these programmes - in their tax. But the negative effects on those who benefit today from these policies are huge.

I become more incoherent each day seeing how much damage can be done so quickly by an uneducated simpleton in the WH, and how the ripple effect will affect even more - close an environmental programme in a rural area, lose jobs. Others are very unlikely to arrive...

So fucking furious.

I think the blue states are going to have to go it alone as much as possible.  Not formally seceding, but pushing things forward through state governments and turning their backs on the Federal government and the Branch Trumpvidian controlled states.  

I see a second judge has told Donnie the Stupid to go fornicate himself;

kwwl.com/story/34913986/2-federal-judges-find-new-trump-travel-ban-discriminatory

Quote

Rejecting arguments from the government that President Donald Trump's revised travel ban was substantially different from the first one, judges in Hawaii and Maryland blocked the executive order from taking effect as scheduled on Thursday, using the president's own words as evidence that the order discriminates against Muslims.

The rulings in Hawaii late Wednesday and in Maryland early Thursday were victories for civil liberties groups and advocates for immigrants and refugees, who argued that a temporary ban on travel from six predominantly Muslim countries violated the First Amendment. The Trump administration argued that the ban was intended to protect the United States from terrorism.

In Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang - who was appointed by then-president Barack Obama - called Trump's own statements about barring Muslims from entering the United States "highly relevant." The second executive order removed a preference for religious minorities from the affected countries, among other changes that the Justice Department argued would address the legal concerns surrounding the first ban, which was also blocked in court.

"Despite these changes, the history of public statements continues to provide a convincing case that the purpose of the Second Executive Order remains the realization of the long-envisioned Muslim ban," Chuang said.

Let me take a moment to say

[GreyhoundFan]

"A day in the life of a poor American under Trump’s proposed budget"

Quote

The first thing you notice when you wake up is that it’s cold.

It’s unseasonably cold for March, sure, but it’s also colder in the house than it should be. The winter was long and heating oil is expensive — and although the government used to provide assistance with the heating bills, that support ended when the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program was cut. The house could use better insulation, too, to hold in the heat, but an upgrade like that is expensive, and the government program to assist with weatherization was cut, too. You’d happily move, but affordable housing is in short supply and cuts to a federal affordable-housing program means that you’re not moving up the Habitat for Humanity wait list anytime soon.

Breakfast. Luckily, cuts to WIC’s nutrition assistance program haven’t affected your family. But you still need to be judicious about what food is in the house, now that the Meals on Wheels program that helped your father has been cut, as a result of the elimination of federal Community Development Block Grants. Something small, then. You still get the same supplemental nutrition assistance as before, but it never went very far. Your younger son’s asthma is acting up. The county’s efforts to cut down on the air pollution that exacerbates it were slowed when the Environmental Protection Agency’s grant program was axed.

For now, the kids are off to school — one of the new charter schools near town. Three years ago, your older son’s class visited Friendship Hill National Historic Site about this time of year, but it, along with 48 other historic sites, closed after funding was cut. No field trip for your younger son, then. And no reading assistance from members of City Year, either. The elimination of AmeriCorps meant the end of such service-oriented programs. Once upon a time, your father may have been able to step in, thanks to the Senior Community Service Employment Program, but that has been cut, too.

...

The article continues on and concludes with this:

Quote

Your shift over, you start the long trip home. A planned bus route that would have cut your commute in half was shelved after a TIGER grant from the federal government was canceled, meaning that the county couldn’t afford more buses. While you’re waiting for your transfer, the weather takes a sharp turn for the worse. No snow was expected, but forecasts have been shaky recently. You know what this means, though: melting snow backing up the storm drains near your house, because you could never afford to have them fixed, and the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program was canceled before you could apply.

You finally make it home after a long day. Dinner. Your older son is starting to think about colleges, but the end of Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants means that you need to be honest with him about what you can and can’t afford. That’s a problem for another day. Like tomorrow. Tomorrow it all starts over again, and you know that it will start the same way.

Cold.

To quote the tangerine toddler: SAD. But, unfortunately, this is what will happen.

[47of74]

11 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"A day in the life of a poor American under Trump’s proposed budget"

The article continues on and concludes with this:

To quote the tangerine toddler: SAD. But, unfortunately, this is what will happen.

I'm at the point where when this stuff happens to poor people who voted for Herr Orange of saying fornicate them, this is what they voted for.  They wanted a white nationalist in the White House, they can live with their decision.

Then again there are people who did not vote for the Orange Sack of Fecal Matter who will be hurt, and I'll oppose everything said fecal matter does to hurt them.

[GreyhoundFan]

4 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

I'm at the point where when this stuff happens to poor people who voted for Herr Orange of saying fornicate them, this is what they voted for.  They wanted a white nationalist in the White House, they can live with their decision.

Then again there are people who did not vote for the Orange Sack of Fecal Matter who will be hurt, and I'll oppose everything said fecal matter does to hurt them.

I agree wholeheartedly.

 

"Here Is Trump’s Absurd Defense For His Wiretap Claim". Best sections:

Quote

...

“I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks,” Trump told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, saying he would have evidence “very soon.”

When Carlson asked Trump how he’d learned about the supposed wiretapping, Trump offered a baffling, almost information-free response, saying he found out by “reading about things.”

...

You can’t back up what you say,” Carlson told Trump.

“I have my own form of media,” the president replied. “So if I tweet two or three or four or five times a day, and if most of them are good, and I really want them all to be good, but if I make one mistake in a month — this one I don’t think is going to prove to be a mistake at all.”

Trump also said in the interview that “maybe I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Twitter, because I get such a fake press, such a dishonest press.

...

 

Oh, please. He doesn't read, except for Twitter and Breitbart.

 

Not directly about Agent Orange, but about his taxes: "Rachel Maddow’s Response To Being Called ‘Sir’ Was Absolutely Priceless"

[Cartmann99]

Just got through watching Mulvaney's (OMB dude) press conference about the budget and part of Spicer's tap dancing and petulant whining about Trump's claim that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. As someone on Twitter put it:

I'm going to go make chocolate chip cookies. I need a break from the bullshit.

 

[fraurosena]

20 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I agree wholeheartedly.

 

"Here Is Trump’s Absurd Defense For His Wiretap Claim". Best sections:

Oh, please. He doesn't read, except for Twitter and Breitbart.

 

Not directly about Agent Orange, but about his taxes: "Rachel Maddow’s Response To Being Called ‘Sir’ Was Absolutely Priceless"

In addition, here's MSNBC's hilarious take on his wiretapp (hey - I'm quoting!) defense. 

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trumps-defense-his-wiretap-conspiracy-theory-goes-horribly-awry

Quote

[...] Last night, for example, Fox News aired a new interview between Tucker Carlson and the president.

CARLSON: On March 4th, 6:45 in the morning, you are down in Florida, and you tweet, “The former administration wiretapped me, surveilled me at Trump Tower during the last election.” How did you find out? You said “I just found out,” how did you learn that?

TRUMP: I had been reading about things. I read in – I think it was January 20th, a New York Times article where they were talking about wiretapping. There was an article, I think they used that exact term. I read other things. I watched your friend Bret Baier the day previous, where he was talking about certain, very complex sets of things happening, and wiretapping. I said “Wait a minute, there’s a lot of wiretapping being talked about.” I have been seeing a lot of things.

Let’s pause here for a moment. To hear the president tell it, when he told the world that he’d “just found out” about an illegal surveillance operation launched against him by Barack Obama, that was apparently a lie. The New York Times mentioned wiretapping in January, and Fox’s Bret Baier mentioned it again more recently, but neither report made any mention of Obama targeting Trump.

Also note Trump’s vague references to “things”: he’s read some “things,” he’s read “other things,” and he’s “seeing a lot of things.” This wouldn’t work for a child delivering a book report about a book he hasn’t read, and it sounds even worse when a president is defending accusations of an illegal espionage operation.

The interview continued:

CARLSON: Why not wait to tweet about it until you can prove it? Don’t you devalue your words when you can’t provide evidence?

TRUMP: Well, because the New York Times wrote about it. Not that I respect the New York Times. I call it the failing New York Times. But they did write on January 20 using the word “wiretap.”

This isn’t coherent. Why did Trump share a conspiracy theory he couldn’t prove? Because two months ago, a newspaper he doesn’t trust published a piece that offered literally no proof to substantiate his conspiracy theory. Maybe the president didn’t understand the question.

This, however, was probably the most striking exchange:

CARLSON: Right, but you are the president. You have the ability to gather all the evidence you want.

TRUMP: I do, I do, but I think that frankly, we have a lot right now, and I think if you watch – if you watched the Bret Baier and what he was saying, and what he was talking about and how he mentioned the word wiretap, you would feel very confident that you could mention the name. He mentioned it, and other people mentioned it.

This is alarmingly nutty. For months, Trump has looked past the official information available to the president through his own administration, preferring instead to rely on reports from news outlets he doesn’t seem to fully understand. In this case, Tucker Carlson tried to remind him that he has access to real evidence that could tell him whether his conspiracy theories are true or not, and Trump immediately responded by pointing to a Fox News report – which once again, did not in any way bolster his conspiracy theory.

The president went on to say that in his conspiracy-theory tweets, he put the word “wiretap” in quotes. “Nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes, but that’s a very important thing,” Trump said.

A Slate report added, “It is hard to fully describe how clownish the president of the United States looks during this portion of the interview.”

If the goal of the appearance was to renew fears about Trump’s stability, he succeeded beautifully.

I highly recommend reading The Maddow Blog. There are articles up right now discussing the tangerine toddler's not denying punishing his base with his healthcare plan, the fact that the parasitic presidunce may have blurted out classified information, and a round-up of Thursday's campaign rally, to name a few. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Joint Statement from Senate Intel Committee Leaders on Wiretapping Evidence at Trump Tower"

Quote

WASHINGTON – Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) made the following joint statement regarding evidence that Trump Tower was wiretapped during the 2016 election:

“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016.”

 

[47of74]

37 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Joint Statement from Senate Intel Committee Leaders on Wiretapping Evidence at Trump Tower"

 

Yeah how long until Herr Orange starts calling Sen. Burr a Democrat?  That seems to be the favorite go to of the GOP and their media toadys when a Republican needs to be distanced from - put that he's a Democrat on the chyron and claim that he was a closet Democrat.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Why is the Trump presidency such a rolling disaster?". It's too long to quote, but a good analysis.

 

Not that it will happen, but it would be nice: "What if every Republican started telling Trump that he is wrong?". Best quote:

Quote

...

If we have learned anything from Trump’s my-travel-ban-can-never-be-invalidated attitude, and my-health-care-will-cover-everyone posturing, it is that when the truth comes out, it makes all Republicans look foolish and prevents them from achieving desired political ends. His lies become attached to their policies and become a political weight around their own necks.

...

 

"Donald Trump, Steve King — and some very happy white nationalists". The article talks about Agent Orange's fondness for Andrew Jackson. The best (and scariest) quote:

Quote

...

The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, applauded as “fitting” Trump’s honoring of this “white supremacist extremist,” as it calls Jackson. The group created a poster for supporters to display featuring a portrait of Jackson underneath a reference to a quote from Bannon: “Like Andrew Jackson’s populism, we’re going to build an entirely new political movement.” Beneath the Jackson portrait the poster says, with adorning swastikas, “The new face of the Republican Party: DailyStormer.com.”

...

Lovely, just lovely.

[JMarie]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"A day in the life of a poor American under Trump’s proposed budget"

The article continues on and concludes with this:

To quote the tangerine toddler: SAD. But, unfortunately, this is what will happen.

Trump's never needed any of the programs mentioned in the article, so why should anyone else need them??????

[onekidanddone]

Trump would throw his own children and grand children under a bus if he could make some money doing it.

[GreyhoundFan]

9 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Trump would throw his own children and grand children under a bus if he could make some money doing it.

Truer words were never spoken/written.

 

 

"Trumpism is losing, again and again"

Quote

Wednesday was arguably the worst day of the Trump presidency — at least since he went to the CIA headquarters to insist his inauguration crowd was bigger than President Obama’s. His second Muslim travel ban was put on hold by another federal judge. His health-care bill is taking on water. In his Michigan appearance he did not even mention it. In Tennessee he seemed intent on getting it behind him. (The Post reported, “Though health-care reform was a major promise of his campaign and a signature pillar of the Republican Party’s platform for most of the last seven years, Trump made it clear Wednesday that he would much rather be dealing with the tax code than with health care, which he recently said ‘nobody knew’ could be so ‘complicated.'”)

And to top it off, a right-wing European politician — a man who shares Stephen K. Bannon’s right-wing nationalism — got clobbered in the Dutch elections

...

Maybe Trump and Trumpism in practice are a lot less impressive than voters believed in the campaign. After all, Trump’s career has been defined by hyping shoddy products (steaks, vodka, airlines, chocolate, etc.). Once the sales pitch ends and the product must stand on its own, the results can be underwhelming as Trump University students found out. In business Trump has always gone on to the next new thing, never acknowledging failure but never proving success.

...

Trump’s salvation may lie in abandoning his populist hooey and dropping his anti-Obamacare and anti-immigrant efforts. If he acted more like a plain-wrap Republican he might do a whole lot better. After all, he gets good marks for a sober Supreme Court pick (45-39) and for an economy improving without his doing much of anything. Staying off Twitter would help as well (16 percent approve, 32 percent want him t0 be more cautious and 50 percent disapprove).

Right now, Bannon’s priorities and philosophy seem to be losers. Trump loves to win, so he might consider jettisoning Bannon’s agenda and philosophy. Alternatively, he can stick with his current agenda and watch his poll numbers slide downhill.

 

[PsyD2013]

The Orange Ass admits that the Affordable Healthcare Act replacement will screw over his base.  My contempt for this steaming pile of orange fecal matter is on par with the sheeples who voted for him.

 

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-health-care-admission-dd759907622f#.b2q24jkh7

[GreyhoundFan]

Okay, I found this quite funny, in a sad kind of way: "If Donald Trump’s Staff Were Spokespeople For Other Historic Events". I can't copy because it's mostly fake Tweets, but the best one is:

 

 

[47of74]

A heroic artist got MAGA tattoed around his butthole;

huffingtonpost.com/entry/make-america-great-again-anus-tattoo_us_58cac967e4b0ec9d29d9bba0?jpoa3wxf3k7c766r

Quote

Queer performance artist Abel Azcona has taken his critique of Donald Trump to the next level: by tattooing the words of the president’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” in a circle around his anus.

The tattooing of the phrase occurred in the Defibrillator Gallery in Chicago amongst a crowd of eager onlookers earlier this week. Azcona, who has engaged in more than 500 performance projects and over 100 individual exhibitions around the world, told The Huffington Post that he considers the bold statement to be a queer, political act. 

“I always worked my body as a weapon and a political tool,” Azcona said. “For more than 12 years I have been performing political and social performances and exhibitions that have led me to jail, detention or death threats. I believe in the empowerment of the body and of the pain. The anus is a pleasure zone for many people, and an area of sin for others. I think demystifying what the anus is, and writing a fascist political motto like that in my anus, is a clearly critical and subversive action.” 

Azcona went on to say that anyone who faces marginalization or discrimination at the hands of the Trump administration has a responsibility to speak out in whatever way that they see fit.

Good place for it.

[GreyhoundFan]

3 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

A heroic artist got MAGA tattoed around his butthole;

huffingtonpost.com/entry/make-america-great-again-anus-tattoo_us_58cac967e4b0ec9d29d9bba0?jpoa3wxf3k7c766r

Good place for it.

I was going to say wow, but I think I'll go with ow, as in OUCH.

 

More Russia: "Trump adviser Flynn paid by multiple Russia-related entities, new records show". The article begins:

Quote

Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign as national security adviser amid controversy over his contacts with Russia’s ambassador, collected nearly $68,000 in fees and expenses from Russia-related entities in 2015, a higher amount than was previously known, according to newly released documents.

The records show that the bulk of the money, more than $45,000, came from the Russian government-backed television network RT, in connection to a December 2015 trip Flynn took to Moscow. Flynn has acknowledged that RT sponsored his trip, during which he attended a gala celebrating the network’s 10th anniversary and was seated near Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. His speakers bureau took a cut of the fee.

The newly released documents show that Flynn was also paid $11,250 that year by the U.S. subsidiary of a Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab, and another $11,250 by a U.S. air cargo company affiliated with the Volga-Dnepr Group, which is owned by a Russian businessman. The cyberfirm and the airline said the payments were made for speeches Flynn delivered in Washington.

...

 

[47of74]

I just saw this tweet.

My personal message to that guy would be to kiss my ass.  He stood up to be counted with the enemy of every good and decent thing this country ever stood for.  An enemy that pisses and shits all over the Constitution and whines on twitter like the little orange ferret faced fuck that he totally is when called on his horseshit.  Sorry, nope.  Doesn't work that way.

[GreyhoundFan]

I don't think this has been posted. If it has, I'm sorry -- there's just so much out there. The WaPo did an annotated transcript of the tangerine toddler's interview with Tucker Carlson. Since I can't stand listening to either, I read the transcript. Good gravy, there are some crazy things said. Some of the notations are great. I think of all the things said and commented, this is my favorite:

Quote

CARLSON:  So it showed that you paid about a little less than 25 percent federal taxes on your income that year, which was more than a lot of people, but it's still less than the 40 percent that wage earners, people do investments (ph) would be paying.  Is it fair to have a tax system -- I know you're doing tax reform soon -- where wage earners pay twice the tax that investors do?

TRUMP:  Well I actually paid less than that, and it is not fair, because the income was actually $250 million for the year, and if you notice, there was about $100 million in tax deductions and depreciation and various other charges.  So actually the income was at the 250 level, and if you look at it, it's really a lower number, and no, I don't think it's fair.  And I've been complaining about it for a long time.

To which, The WaPo's Chris Cilizza noted:

Quote

Classic Trump: I actually made a lot more money than even the tax returns said.

Sidebar: I am rich.

 

[JMarie]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Truer words were never spoken/written.

 

 

"Trumpism is losing, again and again"

 

Quote

Wednesday was arguably the worst day of the Trump presidency

I'd have to say today (Thursday) was worse.

[RoseWilder]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I don't think this has been posted. If it has, I'm sorry -- there's just so much out there. The WaPo did an annotated transcript of the tangerine toddler's interview with Tucker Carlson. Since I can't stand listening to either, I read the transcript. Good gravy, there are some crazy things said. Some of the notations are great. I think of all the things said and commented, this is my favorite:

To which, The WaPo's Chris Cilizza noted:

 

Here's another crazy thing he said: 

WTF? It's as if the Republicans are trying to alienate their entire base. 

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, RoseWilder said:

Here's another crazy thing he said: 

WTF? It's as if the Republicans are trying to alienate their entire base. 

The fact that he said it is one thing, the fact that he said it on Fox News is what made my head explode. Are Trump's fans going to send death threats to Tucker Carlson, and somehow find a way to blame him for this?

[Cartmann99]

Good article at Esquire by Charles Pierce. It's about that dumpster fire of a budget Trump's wanting Congress to approve:

Quote

 

Every year, during the run-up to Halloween, when Jim DeMint goes to Hell's mega-mall and sits on Satan's lap, he has a list of things he wants for the holiday. The parents of the assembled demons and imps behind him in line often get frustrated because the list is so long. On Thursday, the Trump Administration released its proposed national budget. It's been a long time coming, but DeMint and the rest of the greasy barbarians at Heritage finally got most of what they asked for.

This proposed budget isn't extreme. Reagan's proposed budget in 1981 was extreme. This budget is short-sighted, cruel to the point of being sadistic, stupid to the point of pure philistinism, and shot through with the absolute and fundamentalist religious conviction that the only true functions of government are the ones that involve guns, and that the only true purpose of government is to serve the rich.

 

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53897/trump-budget-meals-wheels/

[fraurosena]

 

The Tangerine Toddler living up to his name...