Trump 21: Tweeting Us Into the Apocalypse

[AuntK]

9 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Bwa-haha!

Poland's First Lady pulls a Macron-move on the presidunce! 

because

I LOVE this so much! The look on his face is priceless!

I do think Melania's dress is ugly, not because it's sleeveless (!), but because of the skirt.  I'm sure it's a designer original that costs more than my entire wardrobe, but that's my opinion.  

[GreyhoundFan]

5 minutes ago, AuntK said:

I do think Melania's dress is ugly, not because it's sleeveless (!), but because of the skirt.  I'm sure it's a designer original that costs more than my entire wardrobe, but that's my opinion.  

I agree about the dress. If it didn't have that red thing on the front, but just the pink/purple stripes, it wouldn't be bad, but that red thing makes her hips look big. And she's probably a size two, so it is a challenge to make her look big.

[fraurosena]

The tangerine toddler's tweets today in preparation of the blow-back he knows  will inevitably follow.

 

 

As usual, the comments are a must read.  But beware, the reactions of teh BT's and pepe's are 

[Childless]

10 hours ago, AuntK said:

I LOVE this so much! The look on his face is priceless!

I do think Melania's dress is ugly, not because it's sleeveless (!), but because of the skirt.  I'm sure it's a designer original that costs more than my entire wardrobe, but that's my opinion.  

It is ugly.  So was that $50,000 monstrosity of a jacket she wore a few weeks back.  Just because something is expensive, doesn't mean it looks good.

I'm more partial to Michelle Obama and Ivanka Trump's style.  Simple and professional with somewhat muted colors.  It just presents a classier, cleaner look.  Busy patterns give me headaches.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The Daily 202: Europe trip shows how the Trump Doctrine is situational and always in flux"

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: Just seven weeks ago, in Saudi Arabia, President Trump assiduously avoided using the term “radical Islamic terrorism.” Not long ago, he vociferously attacked Barack Obama for not uttering those very words. But pragmatists in the administration, such as National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, warned the commander-in-chief that this rhetoric is counterproductive.

The term made a comeback in Poland on Thursday. “We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism, and we will prevail,” Trump said in Warsaw.

Comparing the president’s two major foreign policy speeches reveals the extent to which the Trump Doctrine is forever in flux and offers a window into the internal maneuvering to define it.

“This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations,” Trump told Arab leaders in Riyadh. “This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life and decent people.”

In Warsaw, though, Trump referred 10 separate times to a clash of civilizations. “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” he told a crowd that included people who had been bused in by the ruling party to cheer for him. “Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?” The president concluded by confidently declaring that “the West will never, ever be broken”: “Our values will prevail, our people will thrive and our civilization will triumph.”

Compare that to his message in Riyadh: “America will not seek to impose our way of life on others, but to outstretch our hands in the spirit of cooperation and trust. … We are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship.”

-- Trump has also changed his tune on NATO since the last trip. In May, he caught McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis off guard by nixing language from a carefully prepared speech that reaffirmed the United States commitment to mutual defense obligations under Article 5 of the NATO charter. Ahead of the speech at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, senior administration officials told reporters that Trump would deliver the lines. His decision to cut them was seen as a win for White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon and senior adviser Stephen Miller.

Yesterday, the president delivered the line that these aides had wanted him to say in May: “The United States has demonstrated not merely with words but with its actions that we stand firmly behind Article 5.”

-- Boiling it down, McMaster got what he wanted from Trump on NATO this time but not on “radical Islamic terrorism.” And vice versa for Bannon and Miller.

This reflects the messiness of the ongoing war for the soul of Trumpism that rages on inside the administration, pitting the nationalists against the globalists. Neither faction is likely to ever decisively win out over the other. Trump, who puts a premium on keeping his options open, seems determined to never let himself get defined as one or the other for very long. Just as we saw throughout his campaign, he enjoys not just being unpredictable and improvisational but having competing power centers underneath him. Because he lacks many core convictions, he’s ideologically flexible.

That means that proximity to power matters far more in this White House than normal ones. Fairly or not, Trump has earned a reputation for doing whatever the last person he talks with suggests when trying to make up his mind. That makes facetime especially valuable.

-- Trump’s top aides are divided on a host of big questions, including whether to consider scaling back sanctions on Russia. Mattis and McMaster have hawkish views while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has seemed more open to it. Two fresh news stories reflect other battle lines:

The military’s ability to determine troop levels in Afghanistan has secretly been curtailed. The Wall Street Journal’s Dion Nissenbaum reports: “A few days after (Trump) gave his Pentagon chief the unilateral authority last month to send thousands of American troops to Afghanistan at his own discretion, the White House sent classified guidance that effectively limits the number of forces. The memo, sent by (McMaster) to a small group of administration officials, said that the president would let (Mattis) send no more than 3,900 troops to Afghanistan without coming back to confer with the White House. … The conflicting messages reflect divisions that have surfaced in the Trump administration as it tries to develop a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan.”

Tera Dahl, deputy chief of staff at the National Security Council and a former columnist for Breitbart, is leaving the White House. BuzzFeed’s John Hudson reports: “Dahl entered the White House with strong ties to members of the nationalist wing … including Bannon, whose website she wrote for, and NSC aide Sebastian Gorka, whose wife worked with Dahl at the Council on Global Security, a now-defunct counterterrorism think tank that warned about the dangers of Islam. During her time at the White House, Dahl became a key ally of Keith Kellogg, the NSC's chief of staff who maintains a strong personal relationship with the president. White House aides said tensions between Kellogg and McMaster have created an uncomfortable working environment at the NSC … One source said (Dahl) is likely to be nominated to a position at the US Agency for International Development.”

-- All of this contributes to the mixed messages that Trump sometimes sends. Consider his posture on Russia:

In his scripted speech, which went through the traditional vetting process of the national security apparatus, Trump was firm: “We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in the Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes, including Syria and Iran, and instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and defense of civilization itself.”

In his unscripted press conference, however, Trump refused to endorse the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia interfered in last year’s election. “Nobody really knows for sure,” he insisted, noting that the same agencies also thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. “They were wrong and it led to a mess,” he said.

-- When presidential pronouncements appear to be all over the place, they pack less of a punch. That’s why everyone pays so much attention to Trump’s Twitter feed. It is the clearest window into what he truly thinks. Ahead of his meeting with Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Hamburg, the president posted a stream of tweets this morning that were clearly not written by staff:

...

TWELVE TAKES ON TRUMP’S WARSAW SPEECH:

• Post columnist Eugene Robinson: “Viewing the fight against terrorism as some kind of civilizational Armageddon is wrong. Trump seems to view himself as the West’s defender against 1.6 billion Muslims, almost all of whom want only to live in peace. We need a capable president, not a crusader in chief.”
• The Post’s Editorial Board: “Trump wants us to defend ‘our values.’ Which ones?”
• Walter Shapiro for The Guardian: “Trump's warning about 'western civilisation' evokes holy war. About all that was missing from Trump’s Warsaw war cry was a rousing chorus of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’”
• Bloomberg’s Marc Champion: “Trump Just Redefined Western Values Around Faith, Not Democracy.”
• The Atlantic’s Peter Beinart: “When the president says being Western is the essence of America’s identity, he’s in part defining America in opposition to some of its own people.”
• WorldViews’s Ishaan Tharoor: “Trump appealed to the blood-and-soil nationalism and Christian triumphalism that has defined his political brand and that of the far right in Europe. … The most glaring omission in Trump's speech — though no longer surprising — was of any discussion of democracy or human rights.”
• The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board calls it “Trump’s defining speech”: “Six months into his first term of office, Mr. Trump finally offered the core of what could become a governing philosophy. It is a determined and affirmative defense of the Western tradition.”
• Politico’s Annie Karni: “Trump hands a victory to Polish nationalists. Historians and observers say the president's decision to break with tradition by skipping a trip to Warsaw's Holocaust memorial plays into the ruling party's message.”
• The Associated Press’s Ken Thomas: “Trump’s Poland visit a study in breaking norms.”
• The libertarian Reason Magazine’s Matt Welch: “The president's Warsaw speech takes a paranoid view of internal threats while downplaying the central role that international exchange has played in the rise of the West.”
• Breitbart’s story about the speech, meanwhile, compares Trump to “another Western leader of indomitable resolve: Winston Churchill.”
• Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said it was Trump’s best speech and called it Reaganesque on Fox News.

...

The "Trump Doctrine" is basically whatever he feels at the moment, especially if it makes him feel better or more important and/or puts money in his pockets.

[GreyhoundFan]

"This is one of President Trump’s most bizarre tweets yet — for 3 reasons"

Spoiler

It's a very big day for President Trump: the day he meets and sits down with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time. So naturally he got it started with a strange tweet.

...

When it comes to strange tweets, Trump is, well, no stranger. But this one is inexplicable in so many ways that I thought it worth a quick recap.

1. It fails the smell test spectacularly: Okay, even if we grant that perhaps foreign leaders are talking about Russian hacking of the 2016 election or even second-guessing how it was dealt with, this would be an extremely specific and insider-y thing to zero in on. Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, hasn't really been in the news for months, nor has the Democratic National Committee's decision not to turn over its servers. Perhaps the leaders might be talking about President Barack Obama not doing more about Russia before the election after Trump broached the topic Thursday, but this is weirdly specific fare for leaders at the Group of 20 summit.

2. The FBI requested the servers: There is no indication that the CIA, which deals with foreign intelligence and surveillance, was involved.

3. Podesta wouldn't have had control over this decision: He was not a DNC official, and even if you argue that Clinton's campaign could have exerted control over such a thing, she wasn't the Democratic nominee when the situation came to a head. A quick timeline:

• July 22: WikiLeaks releases hacked DNC emails
• July 25: The FBI confirms it is investigating the matter
• July 26: Clinton is officially nominated at the Democratic National Convention

Then-FBI Director James B. Comey confirmed in January that the FBI had sought access to the DNC servers and been rebuffed, but there is no indication this was Podesta's decision. And it would be somewhat odd if it were. Either Trump knows something we don't and he's disclosing new information here, or he's confused.

The latter seems to be the most likely explanation. It looks a whole lot like, in his effort to stir the pot, Trump is conflating Podesta's own hacked emails with the DNC's.

And it actually wouldn't be the first time he had appeared to do this. Back in January, he referred to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's admonition that a 14-year-old could have hacked Podesta's emails by tweeting, “Why was DNC so careless?”

...

Never mind that the DNC had nothing to do with Podesta's emails when they were hacked in March 2016. Also, Podesta's emails appear to have been attacked in a different manner than the DNC's, using a much-simpler phishing method rather than malware.

So Trump's tweet then didn't make sense — nor does his tweet today.

...

Update: Podesta has responded.

...

And here's House Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (Calif.):

... <I love Schiff's response>

Idiot-in-chief strikes again.

[GrumpyGran]

23 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"This is one of President Trump’s most bizarre tweets yet — for 3 reasons"

  Reveal hidden contents

It's a very big day for President Trump: the day he meets and sits down with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time. So naturally he got it started with a strange tweet.

...

When it comes to strange tweets, Trump is, well, no stranger. But this one is inexplicable in so many ways that I thought it worth a quick recap.

1. It fails the smell test spectacularly: Okay, even if we grant that perhaps foreign leaders are talking about Russian hacking of the 2016 election or even second-guessing how it was dealt with, this would be an extremely specific and insider-y thing to zero in on. Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, hasn't really been in the news for months, nor has the Democratic National Committee's decision not to turn over its servers. Perhaps the leaders might be talking about President Barack Obama not doing more about Russia before the election after Trump broached the topic Thursday, but this is weirdly specific fare for leaders at the Group of 20 summit.

2. The FBI requested the servers: There is no indication that the CIA, which deals with foreign intelligence and surveillance, was involved.

3. Podesta wouldn't have had control over this decision: He was not a DNC official, and even if you argue that Clinton's campaign could have exerted control over such a thing, she wasn't the Democratic nominee when the situation came to a head. A quick timeline:

• July 22: WikiLeaks releases hacked DNC emails
• July 25: The FBI confirms it is investigating the matter
• July 26: Clinton is officially nominated at the Democratic National Convention

Then-FBI Director James B. Comey confirmed in January that the FBI had sought access to the DNC servers and been rebuffed, but there is no indication this was Podesta's decision. And it would be somewhat odd if it were. Either Trump knows something we don't and he's disclosing new information here, or he's confused.

The latter seems to be the most likely explanation. It looks a whole lot like, in his effort to stir the pot, Trump is conflating Podesta's own hacked emails with the DNC's.

And it actually wouldn't be the first time he had appeared to do this. Back in January, he referred to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's admonition that a 14-year-old could have hacked Podesta's emails by tweeting, “Why was DNC so careless?”

...

Never mind that the DNC had nothing to do with Podesta's emails when they were hacked in March 2016. Also, Podesta's emails appear to have been attacked in a different manner than the DNC's, using a much-simpler phishing method rather than malware.

So Trump's tweet then didn't make sense — nor does his tweet today.

...

Update: Podesta has responded.

...

And here's House Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (Calif.):

... <I love Schiff's response>

Idiot-in-chief strikes again.

Holy Crap. Shouldn't he have been focusing on, I don't know, the day ahead? A YUUUGGGEEE day for him. Wonder what triggered the Podesta ire? Maybe the handlers just throw random, harmless stuff at him to keep him from tweeting something explosive. They know they can't keep him from tweeting. Someone probably leaves an old article about Podesta on the nightstand so that it's there when he wakes up.

[GreyhoundFan]

Good freaking grief: "Ahead of meeting with Peña Nieto, Trump ‘absolutely’ still wants Mexico to pay for border wall"

Spoiler

HAMBURG — President Trump told reporters on Friday that he “absolutely” still wants Mexico to pay for a border wall in the United States, ahead of a private meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the Group of 20 summit.

The comment came after Trump and Peña Nieto gave remarks and as a group of journalists was being escorted out of the room, leaving Peña Nieto no time to respond. He and other Mexican leaders have consistently made clear that their country will not pay for the massive wall that Trump has promised to build along the U.S. southern border.

As reporters left the room, Darlene Superville of the Associated Press asked Trump: “Mr. Trump, do you still want Mexico to pay for the wall?” Trump responded: “Absolutely.”

This was the first face-to-face meeting that Trump has had with Peña Nieto since his inauguration, although the two met when Trump visited Mexico City during the campaign. Mexico's president was scheduled to visit Washington early in Trump's presidency, but the two leaders canceled the trip amid a war of words about the border wall. The two leaders have spoken on the phone since then, most notably when Peña Nieto called Trump to help persuade him not to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Ahead of the private “expanded meeting,” Peña Nieto and Trump delivered remarks while seated side-by-side in large white chairs and flanked by their top aides.

Trump lauded the “successful day” he has had so far. He was joined by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, senior adviser Jared Kushner and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.

“We’re negotiating NAFTA and some other things with Mexico, and we’ll see how it all turns out, but I think we've made very good progress,” Trump said.

Peña Nieto, who spoke through an interpreter, said the meeting will help the two countries continue a “flowing dialogue,” especially “for the security of both nations especially for our borders.” He noted that “migration” is an issue that has “occupied” both administrations. And he added that “it is the co-responsibility to deal with organized crime issues.”

After the meeting, the White House released a statement that said the president "emphasized the strong bilateral relationship that the United States enjoys with Mexico and noted the importance of renegotiating NAFTA to help workers in both countries," along with thanking Peña Nieto for Mexico’s partnership on the Central America conference last month that Vice President Pence attended. The statement notes that the two leaders "also discussed regional challenges, including drug trafficking, illegal migration, and the crisis in Venezuela." There was no mention of the wall.

Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray Caso said that the meeting went "very well" and was "productive," according to remarks distributed by Mexican government's international press office. The conversation mainly focused on NAFTA, and Videgaray said that negotiations will start on Aug. 16 and he expects that the three countries involved will agree upon "a meaningful, constructive modernization of the agreement" that benefits all of them.

"The issue of the wall was not discussed, was not part of the conversation," Videgaray said.

When asked if the U.S.-Mexico relationship is improving, Videgaray responded: "Certainly the relationships are good. We have some significant and very public differences, but overall the relationship is good and these meetings prove that."

The picture at the beginning of the article is telling -- the TT looks like a toddler in timeout.

[GrumpyGran]

17 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good freaking grief: "Ahead of meeting with Peña Nieto, Trump ‘absolutely’ still wants Mexico to pay for border wall"

  Reveal hidden contents

HAMBURG — President Trump told reporters on Friday that he “absolutely” still wants Mexico to pay for a border wall in the United States, ahead of a private meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the Group of 20 summit.

The comment came after Trump and Peña Nieto gave remarks and as a group of journalists was being escorted out of the room, leaving Peña Nieto no time to respond. He and other Mexican leaders have consistently made clear that their country will not pay for the massive wall that Trump has promised to build along the U.S. southern border.

As reporters left the room, Darlene Superville of the Associated Press asked Trump: “Mr. Trump, do you still want Mexico to pay for the wall?” Trump responded: “Absolutely.”

This was the first face-to-face meeting that Trump has had with Peña Nieto since his inauguration, although the two met when Trump visited Mexico City during the campaign. Mexico's president was scheduled to visit Washington early in Trump's presidency, but the two leaders canceled the trip amid a war of words about the border wall. The two leaders have spoken on the phone since then, most notably when Peña Nieto called Trump to help persuade him not to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Ahead of the private “expanded meeting,” Peña Nieto and Trump delivered remarks while seated side-by-side in large white chairs and flanked by their top aides.

Trump lauded the “successful day” he has had so far. He was joined by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, senior adviser Jared Kushner and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.

“We’re negotiating NAFTA and some other things with Mexico, and we’ll see how it all turns out, but I think we've made very good progress,” Trump said.

Peña Nieto, who spoke through an interpreter, said the meeting will help the two countries continue a “flowing dialogue,” especially “for the security of both nations especially for our borders.” He noted that “migration” is an issue that has “occupied” both administrations. And he added that “it is the co-responsibility to deal with organized crime issues.”

After the meeting, the White House released a statement that said the president "emphasized the strong bilateral relationship that the United States enjoys with Mexico and noted the importance of renegotiating NAFTA to help workers in both countries," along with thanking Peña Nieto for Mexico’s partnership on the Central America conference last month that Vice President Pence attended. The statement notes that the two leaders "also discussed regional challenges, including drug trafficking, illegal migration, and the crisis in Venezuela." There was no mention of the wall.

Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray Caso said that the meeting went "very well" and was "productive," according to remarks distributed by Mexican government's international press office. The conversation mainly focused on NAFTA, and Videgaray said that negotiations will start on Aug. 16 and he expects that the three countries involved will agree upon "a meaningful, constructive modernization of the agreement" that benefits all of them.

"The issue of the wall was not discussed, was not part of the conversation," Videgaray said.

When asked if the U.S.-Mexico relationship is improving, Videgaray responded: "Certainly the relationships are good. We have some significant and very public differences, but overall the relationship is good and these meetings prove that."

The picture at the beginning of the article is telling -- the TT looks like a toddler in timeout.

Well, he took the A-team with him. Lots of handlers. But I'm worried there may be too many meetings for him. I don't think he can be behaviorally  appropriately for that long.

And who believes Melania couldn't get out of the guest house today because of protesters? How did he get out? Methinks there was a spat last night and she's punishing him.  

[GreyhoundFan]

11 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

I don't think he can be behaviorally  appropriately for that long.

He can't be behaviorally appropriate for 10 minutes. I'm sure his handlers have been scrambling to keep him occupied without tiring him out. Melania certainly doesn't seem engaged at all, so I'm not surprised about the cancelled side trip.

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting take on the orange manbaby's speech patterns: "This linguist studied the way Trump speaks for two years. Here’s what she found.:

Spoiler

“Great people.” “Believe me.” “Not good.”

These two-word expressions are among some of the staples of the 45th president of the United States’ vocabulary. Although President Trump’s political career is just a few years old, he has already become associated with several simple phrases — “make America great again,” “build the wall” — and even single words — “win,” “sad,” “great.”

Trump is a “unique” politician because he doesn’t speak like one, according to Jennifer Sclafani, an associate teaching professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics.

“He is interesting to me linguistically because he speaks like everybody else,” said Sclafani, who has studied Trump’s language for the past two years. “And we’re not used to hearing that from a president. We’re used to hearing somebody speak who sounds much more educated, much smarter, much more refined than your everyday American.”

During a February news conference, Trump seemed to give credit to the power of his words for helping him become president.

“That’s how I won,” Trump told reporters gathered at the White House. “I won with news conference and probably speeches. I certainly didn’t win by people listening to you people, that’s for sure.”

Sclafani, who recently wrote a book set to publish this fall titled “Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style, Metadiscourse, and Political Identity,” said Trump has used language to “create a brand” as a politician.

“President Trump creates a spectacle in the way that he speaks,” she said. “So it creates a feeling of strength for the nation, or it creates a sense of determination, a sense that he can get the job done through his use of hyperbole and directness.”

The features of Trump’s speech patterns include a casual tone, a simple vocabulary and grammar, repetitions, hyperbole and sudden switches of topics, according to Sclafani.

As for the criticism that Trump sounds erratic when he changes subjects in the middle of a speech or sentence, Sclafani said that “this is something that we all do in everyday speech.”

“It’s just unusual to hear it from a president speaking in a public, formal context,” she added.

Sclafani said Trump also sets himself apart by the words he doesn’t use. Trump started his sentences with “well” less frequently than other Republican contenders during the 2016 GOP primary debates, she said.

Omitting the word “well” at the start of a sentence helped Trump come across as a straight talker who wouldn’t try to escape a question asked by a moderator, Sclafani said.

“When we hear ‘well’ coming from other candidates, we’re more likely to perceive their responses as being dodgy,” she said. “And when we hear no ‘well’ from Donald Trump, we don’t notice that there is no ‘well’ there, but by contrast he comes off as sounding more straightforward and more direct.”

During a 2015 rally in South Carolina, Trump explained how he feels about his vocabulary.

“I know words,” he said. “I have the best words.”

I agree with the linguist's point about starting a sentence with "well". I used to have a coworker who was very tentative. Whenever asked a question in a meeting, he would start his answer with "well" or "um". Our boss was vicious and loved to dig into people he saw as weak. Needless to say, he would grab onto this coworker and not let go, like a dog with a bone. I tried to coach the coworker into speaking more decisively, but he just couldn't do it.

[47of74]

 Question: Has Donnie Dumbfornicate performed actual oral stimulation of Putin's sexual organs live on TV yet?

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

 Question: Has Donnie Dumbfornicate performed actual oral stimulation of Putin's sexual organs live on TV yet?

If I'm not mistaken they've seen each other on a couple of occasions and they are done with their private time. Both seemed a bit nervous but there was no obvious aggression. I think the build-up to this may have caused both of them enough anxiety to result in some moderation. Putin didn't wear big white Mickey Mouse hands, so maybe he was a little worried about how it would go over on the world stage. 

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Interesting take on the orange manbaby's speech patterns: "This linguist studied the way Trump speaks for two years. Here’s what she found.:

  Hide contents

“Great people.” “Believe me.” “Not good.”

These two-word expressions are among some of the staples of the 45th president of the United States’ vocabulary. Although President Trump’s political career is just a few years old, he has already become associated with several simple phrases — “make America great again,” “build the wall” — and even single words — “win,” “sad,” “great.”

Trump is a “unique” politician because he doesn’t speak like one, according to Jennifer Sclafani, an associate teaching professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics.

“He is interesting to me linguistically because he speaks like everybody else,” said Sclafani, who has studied Trump’s language for the past two years. “And we’re not used to hearing that from a president. We’re used to hearing somebody speak who sounds much more educated, much smarter, much more refined than your everyday American.”

During a February news conference, Trump seemed to give credit to the power of his words for helping him become president.

“That’s how I won,” Trump told reporters gathered at the White House. “I won with news conference and probably speeches. I certainly didn’t win by people listening to you people, that’s for sure.”

Sclafani, who recently wrote a book set to publish this fall titled “Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style, Metadiscourse, and Political Identity,” said Trump has used language to “create a brand” as a politician.

“President Trump creates a spectacle in the way that he speaks,” she said. “So it creates a feeling of strength for the nation, or it creates a sense of determination, a sense that he can get the job done through his use of hyperbole and directness.”

The features of Trump’s speech patterns include a casual tone, a simple vocabulary and grammar, repetitions, hyperbole and sudden switches of topics, according to Sclafani.

As for the criticism that Trump sounds erratic when he changes subjects in the middle of a speech or sentence, Sclafani said that “this is something that we all do in everyday speech.”

“It’s just unusual to hear it from a president speaking in a public, formal context,” she added.

Sclafani said Trump also sets himself apart by the words he doesn’t use. Trump started his sentences with “well” less frequently than other Republican contenders during the 2016 GOP primary debates, she said.

Omitting the word “well” at the start of a sentence helped Trump come across as a straight talker who wouldn’t try to escape a question asked by a moderator, Sclafani said.

“When we hear ‘well’ coming from other candidates, we’re more likely to perceive their responses as being dodgy,” she said. “And when we hear no ‘well’ from Donald Trump, we don’t notice that there is no ‘well’ there, but by contrast he comes off as sounding more straightforward and more direct.”

During a 2015 rally in South Carolina, Trump explained how he feels about his vocabulary.

“I know words,” he said. “I have the best words.”

I agree with the linguist's point about starting a sentence with "well". I used to have a coworker who was very tentative. Whenever asked a question in a meeting, he would start his answer with "well" or "um". Our boss was vicious and loved to dig into people he saw as weak. Needless to say, he would grab onto this coworker and not let go, like a dog with a bone. I tried to coach the coworker into speaking more decisively, but he just couldn't do it.

Who is this woman? No, I don't speak like Donald Trump. I try to use complete sentences. And I'm thrilled that she's writing a book to teach others how to communicate like him. 

[GreyhoundFan]

1 minute ago, GrumpyGran said:

Who is this woman? No, I don't speak like Donald Trump. I try to use complete sentences. And I'm thrilled that she's writing a book to teach others how to communicate like him. 

I think many of us here on FJ are well-spoken, but many of the BTs I've seen interviewed appear incapable of anything over a junior high level. I hope that future politicians won't adopt the donnie dumbfuck vocabulary. However, as I stated earlier, I agree that starting a sentence with "well" does make the speaker sound indecisive or equivocating.

[JMarie]

20 hours ago, AuntK said:

I LOVE this so much! The look on his face is priceless!

I do think Melania's dress is ugly, not because it's sleeveless (!), but because of the skirt.  I'm sure it's a designer original that costs more than my entire wardrobe, but that's my opinion.  

Her dress was "only" $2229 -- cheap for them, but a fortune for us regular Americans

https://www.stylebop.com/en-us/women/midi-dcoupage-dress-269541.html?tmad=c&tmcampid=19&tmclickref=7799179&utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=cj&utm_campaign=image_us&campaign=affiliate/cj/us

 

[GreyhoundFan]

John Podesta wrote a quick op-ed about the crap twitler tweeted about him: "John Podesta: Why is Trump tweeting about me when he should be doing his job?"

Spoiler

MOREHEAD, Ky.

Weaving through the mountains on a cross-country road trip with my wife, I was quite surprised to discover that — at least according to President Trump — I am the talk of the Group of 20 meeting.

Trump tweeted: “Everyone here is talking about why John Podesta refused to give the DNC server to the FBI and the CIA. Disgraceful!”

Really? Everyone? I’ve been at my share of global summits, so I sort of doubt that. The world leaders certainly have more important topics to grapple with. To take one issue close to my heart: how to deal with the challenge of climate change now that the president has declared that the United States will be withdrawing from the Paris climate accord. Or how to deal with the leadership vacuum now that Trump has turned his back on our traditional allies in Europe and Asia.

On one level, the president’s tweet is so obviously wrong and so evidently self-serving that the temptation is simply to ignore it. But, because he is the president, his words warrant a response.

First, I had nothing to do with the Democratic National Committee — I chaired Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. So there was no DNC server for me to refuse to give and I was never asked for one. Second, the CIA has no role in domestic intelligence-gathering — in fact, it’s prohibited. The CIA would never ask anyone at the DNC for a server. Whether the FBI asked the DNC for access to a server, I don’t know, beyond what I’ve read.

What I do know is this, which is why I’m choosing to respond to Trump’s tweet: The Russians stole my emails. When they did that, they committed a crime. They also invaded my privacy, and the privacy of a multitude of friends, family and colleagues with whom I communicated. That, combined with vicious lies spread by the alt-right media such as the so-called Comet Ping Pong conspiracy, exposed them to potential harm, as was evidenced by the shooting at Comet. The crime the Russians committed, as the intelligence community has concluded, was for the purpose of helping Trump get elected president.

So the responsible thing for a U.S. president to do, in these circumstances, is to have the backbone to stand up against Russian interference in U.S. democracy — not to question, as Trump did on Thursday, the competence of our own intelligence community and to publicly doubt, once again, the conclusion that Russia was behind the hacking. Trump talks big on Twitter, but when he came face to face with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, we heard him say what an honor it was to meet him. It has been reported that Trump asked Putin about the election hacking, giving Putin the chance to issue an obligatory denial, despite all the evidence gathered by the U.S. intelligence community. One can only hope that Trump made clear to Putin that the United States won’t tolerate continued Russian interference in elections, as we’ve seen in the United States, France and now in Germany and across Europe. (This is one conversation that it would be nice to have a tape of.)

As president, Trump is supposed to be doing his job representing the United States in a respectable fashion to make sure we maintain and enhance our standing around the world. Instead, he has his face glued to his phone. It’s really sad that the U.S. president can’t get his head in the game even at the G-20 summit of world leaders.

God only knows what our president will be tweeting by the time my wife and I get to Utah.

Well-said!

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s leaks crackdown sends chills through national security world"

Spoiler

National security officials across the federal government say they are seeing new restrictions on who can access sensitive information, fueling fears in the intelligence and security community that the Trump administration has stepped up a stealthy operation to smoke out leakers.

Officials at various national security agencies also say they are becoming more concerned that the administration is carefully tracking what they’re doing and who they’re talking to — then plotting to use them as a scapegoat or accuse them of leaks.

One U.S. official voiced concern over even talking to superiors about a benign call from a reporter. The agency this official works for had started limiting staff access to information, they said, and it would make it far easier to figure out who was talking to people in the media.

There was suspicion, the official said, that the agency was even tracking what they printed, to keep tabs on what information they were accessing.

“I’m just trying to keep my head down,” another U.S. intelligence official recently told POLITICO.

A half dozen officials across the national security community described to POLITICO a series of subtle and no-so-subtle changes that have led to an increasingly tense and paranoid working environment rooted in the White House’s obsession with leaks.

President Donald Trump has regularly vented about his intense frustration with anonymously sourced stories, and has specifically targeted federal government entities, including intelligence agencies like the CIA and FBI, and the State Department.

That the White House itself leaks to reporters was something of a joke in the administration’s early months in office. But after Trump grew angry about leaks earlier this year, "there was something of a crackdown" inside the White House, one senior administration official said.

There was a particular frustration in the White House about the investigative and national security leaks — along with the details of Trump's foreign phone calls — that led White House officials to call the FBI and ask for leak investigations.

The reverberations have spread in the weeks since, and several national security officials outside the White House have spoken of a strategic thinning of the ranks — limiting the number of people involved in certain sensitive matters, so that if something leaks, the suspects are obvious.

“The circles on this are so small,” one U.S. intelligence official said of the various Russia investigations that have cast a shadow on Trump’s White House.

Information on Trump and Russia has been so limited there would be fewer and fewer sources, the official said, putting those who are talking at risk. “Confirming [Russia news] is almost impossible,” the official said.

In some cases, the official added, information has been so “choked down” that if something comes out in the press, “it’s either a bogus leak” or, the official said, the relevant agency will know exactly where it came from. And, the official said, they had heard several other government organizations had started doing the same.

The concern isn’t limited to official communication channels. As Trump himself continues escalating his war with the media, how far the administration would go to keep tabs on the workforce is an unsettling unknown.

“There’s an increasing concern that they may be moving beyond monitoring official communications,” the second U.S. official said. It’s “likely the case,” the official said, that the administration could be tracking the personal communications channels of federal employees — especially those close to the White House — including personal email accounts.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined to comment on fears of a crackdown but said the administration takes leaks seriously.

“This administration understands the importance of safeguarding classified and sensitive information. Those that leak classified and sensitive information threaten our national security,” Spicer said.

But Steven Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, said the drive against leaks — something that was also prominent under the Obama administration — has taken on a more aggressive tone under Trump.

“What’s happening now is there seems to be a broader objection not to any individual leak so much as to the fact of independent reporting that is at odds with the White House narrative,” Aftergood said.

Since taking office, Trump has systematically attacked the U.S. intelligence and national security community, accusing its members of viciously motivated leaks as stories have piled up about his botched phone calls with foreign leaders, his alleged pressure campaign on intelligence leaders to back him in the Russia probe, and his reported disclosure of highly classified material to Russian leaders.

“The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!” Trump tweeted on Feb. 15.

He fired off two more tweets on Feb. 24 that read, “The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security "leakers" that have permeated our government for a long time. They can't even...... find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has apparently heeded Trump’s guidance, launching multiple investigations and delivering a public scolding during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on June 13 to “persons in our intelligence agencies.”

“I fear that some people may find that they wish they hadn't leaked,” Sessions ominously warned.

While Sessions spoke vaguely of active investigations, several intelligence officials told POLITICO those probes are being closely guarded.

“There’s been some [crimes reports] sent over and there’s more in the process,” one intelligence official said they had heard, though the official stressed the majority of the information was unconfirmed rumor.

Traditional leak investigations tend to follow a set path. After a sensitive, anonymously sourced story comes out, the relevant agency conducts an internal assessment into the leak. If it finds sufficient cause, it will send a “crimes report” to the National Security Division at the Justice Department, which will review the incident. If the incident is determined to be serious enough, the Justice Department will send it to the FBI to formally investigate.

The FBI declined to comment, citing their long-standing practice of not commenting on whether or not they have open investigations.

As these probes move along and other ones likely crop up, intelligence officials say internal gotcha operations are underway, though it’s unclear how many agencies are running probes. The stories that have angered Trump the most involve the FBI and CIA.

Underscoring the anxiety is Trump’s well-established penchant for retaliation and the fact that he now sits behind the levers that control the full weight and force of the U.S. government. And the crackdown mentality can be traced back to the West Wing and to Trump’s longtime obsession with the sources of media reports.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus has repeatedly asked aides not to leak information at his 8 a.m. daily meeting, and the request has become something of a joke among other aides. "Reince told us not to leak again this morning," one senior administration official said in May, laughing.

The constant leaking inside the White House, several administration officials say, comes from a president who encourages infighting and factions — and aides who see their agenda getting done through stories.

Aides who leaked to the press have become more wary, however, because Trump was asking senior aides who was leaking information about the White House, and some officials were tattling on each other.

Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner has repeatedly complained about chief strategist Steve Bannon leaking damaging information about him to others, according to people who have spoken to him. White House officials say the two now have struck something of a detente, and Kushner no longer feels that way.

Trump himself was a longtime anonymous source for the New York Post and other papers in New York and has often planted stories about himself.

One senior administration official said some people in the White House are accused of leaking more than others, "but some of the people who say they never talk to the press are the ones talking to the press all the time."

"If you're not talking, someone else is talking about you," one administration official said.

The obsession with leaks that is acutely felt in the White House has clearly extended to the national security community. However, there is tentative optimism that the National Security Division is sufficiently insulated from political pressure by career prosecutors, and won’t bow to the pressure to be Trump’s attack dogs, should such a directive go out.

But as anxiety grows — and as the fog surrounding the Trump-Russia question gets thicker — there is a tangible fear of the unknown. No one knows how far Trump and his affiliates would go to silence their critics, or the reporters they talk to.

Rumors have ricocheted among national security officials and journalists in recent weeks that Trump- or GOP-related operatives have hired private eyes to try and intimidate reporters, or run rogue operations to find their sources. Some U.S. officials voiced concern to POLITICO that the White House could be seeking amenable employees in different agencies to do its bidding, effectively sanctioning its own, parallel — and informal — intimidation measures.

The Obama administration was known to be hostile toward reporters’ sources, prosecuting more leak investigations than any of the previous administrations combined. But there was a standard — though still worthy of criticism — that leak prosecutions involved clear and present threats to national security.

“There is an established procedure for initiating leak investigations. And it includes a finding by an agency that not only is the leak accurate, but that it also damaged national security in a way that can be articulated,” Aftergood said. “There are many leaks that simply do not meet that standard.”

But that bar, under Trump, appears to be recalculated. There are early indications that the White House considers the release of embarrassing information a transgression tantamount to the unauthorized disclosure of state secrets. Under Trump, there is concern that the full weight of these probes could be used to find political dissidents within the ranks — with the violation not being rooted in a criminal statute, but instead in Trump’s expectation of loyalty.

And there’s a feeling of fundamental unfairness, as leaks continue flowing out of the White House.

“They don’t mind the leaking as long as they control it,” one of the U.S. officials said.

This administration is getting more and more crazy.

[Cartmann99]

11 hours ago, Childless said:

I'm more partial to Michelle Obama and Ivanka Trump's style.  Simple and professional with somewhat muted colors.  It just presents a classier, cleaner look.  Busy patterns give me headaches.

I agree. The average woman is going to wear each outfit more than once, so picking things that are not quite as memorable, and that can be mixed and matched with existing pieces and accessories is more cost effective.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Tillerson says Trump ‘pressed’ Putin on Russia’s hacking. The evidence suggests he didn’t press very hard."

Spoiler

The big question heading into Friday's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit was whether President Trump would confront him about Russian hacking in the 2016 election.

The answer was a resounding maybe. It depends, apparently, on how loosely you define “confront.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was present at the meeting, said afterward that Trump did indeed “press” Putin on Russian interference at multiple junctures.

“The president opened his meeting with President Putin by raising the concerns of the American people regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election,” Tillerson told reporters. “They had a very robust and lengthy exchange on the subject. The president pressed President Putin on more than one occasion regarding Russian involvement.”

Okay. Sounds pretty serious.

But then Tillerson said repeatedly that the meeting was about the future and not the past. “But I think what the two presidents — I think rightly — focused on is how we move forward,” he said. Later, he would add that Putin's contention that Russian didn't hack represented an “intractable disagreement” and said, “There was not a lot of re-litigating things from the past.”

That sure doesn't sound like a ton of pressing. Indeed, it kind of sounds like Trump did bring it up, Putin denied it, and then they largely “moved forward” without “re-litigating” the past. Tillerson's comments sure seem to be accepting of the fact that there was no progress on that front.

Which is pretty much how Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described it. In a separate briefing from Tillerson's, Lavrov said that Trump accepted Putin's explanation that Russia didn't hack and even said Trump talked about how people in the United States were “exaggerating” the situation.

...

“President Trump said that this campaign [against Russia] has already acquired a rather strange character, because for many months these accusations have sounded, but not a single fact has been produced,” Lavrov said, according to The Washington Post's David Filipov.

The White House is quibbling — anonymously — with the idea that Trump accepted Putin's denial. And it certainly wouldn't be out of character for Lavrov and Russia to mislead; they have incentive to do so.

But at this point, the White House and Trump haven't really given us much reason to doubt that Trump didn't really press all that hard. Tillerson's comments are particularly telling, with all the talk about moving forward and not “re-litigating” the past. Those words were chosen for a reason, and if they weren't, it's a really unfortunate choice to have used them.

And more than anything, it's Trump's past public comments that make it difficult to believe that he truly confronted Putin with much vigor. Every time Trump is asked about this issue, he equivocates, qualifies and deflects. He can't just say that he thinks Russia hacked and that it must be dealt with; he has to say that other countries probably hack too, he has to cast doubt upon the intelligence community, and he has to point the finger at President Barack Obama for not doing more. Case in point was Thursday during a news conference with Poland's president, when he did all of that.

Trump has never been firm in his comments about Russian hacking, including at times labeling the whole thing a “hoax” and suggesting that it might have been some kid in his parents' basement rather than the Kremlin. There is basically nothing in the public record that suggests Trump would push back particularly hard if Putin just denied the whole thing. Indeed, that was the same position Trump used to have and almost seems to wish he could have again — if it weren't for all those politicians in both parties who are hugely worried about Russia.

The White House is often asking us to believe that Trump is a different president behind closed doors — that he’s a guy who might one day question the intelligence behind the Russia investigation and then the next day hold Putin’s feet to the fire on it. But that’s asking everyone for a whole lot of suspension of disbelief.

We'll have to see what else comes out about this meeting, but Tillerson's readout of it suggests that Trump pretty much just checked a box and moved on to other things — which perhaps shouldn't surprise any of us.

Maybe Lavrov was lying! But if the Russians are giving an inaccurate account of the meeting, perhaps Trump should say so publicly on this issue of such import. We'll hold our breath.

More than anything, his failure to say much of anything tough publicly suggests that whatever he said behind closed doors wasn't so tough either.

Yeah, I'm guessing the only thing that was tough was the TT having to get on his 70 year old knees in front of Putin.

[GreyhoundFan]

I'd say so: "Is Donald Trump a TV Addict?"

Spoiler

For a man who famously doesn’t drink, television has been Donald Trump’s drug of choice his entire adult life. During his playboy years in New York, after he made sure he was photographed with a beautiful woman on his arm, his most urgent desire was to “make a beeline for his apartment and the TV,” the Washington Post’s Marc Fisher, co-author of Trump Revealed, told me. “He liked to settle in and watch through the night with a big bag of candy.” In the beginning, he was a sports junkie; then, as he started to become more politically aware, he shifted to news.

Now, Trump’s obsession with television is so consuming that the former reality-TV show star experiences the reality of his presidency through flat-screens in the West Wing. A thorough Washington Post report about Trump’s viewing habits describes a man never more than a few feet from a TV, whether tuned in to CNN, Fox, Fox Business or MSNBC. Trump has even been known to shush staff and visitors so he can focus on what’s airing, or to yell at screens showing negative coverage of him. The Post estimated that Trump logs more than five hours of TV viewing a day, starting his morning with “Fox & Friends” and ending with marathon sessions in the private residence, often reviewing the day’s events on TiVo (“one of the greatest inventions of all time,” he told Time). All this tube time grinds away at him. Witness his recent, much-denounced Twitter attacks on the co-hosts of “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, and on CNN for its coverage of him.

The man clearly has a habit, but what if it’s something more than that? Could the 45th president be a television addict? And if so, what does that mean for his presidency? Psychologists and other experts agree that people whose TV watching gets out of control can take steps to master their compulsion. But to do so requires the recognition that their behavior needs to change. So, ponder the likelihood of Trump acknowledging that.

The question of whether one can truly be addicted to TV, in the clinical sense, is a matter of some debate. Historically, addiction was understood to mean being in the grip of strong, overpowering urges, but the modern definition narrowed to describe a substance dependence—drugs, alcohol, nicotine—that results in physiological withdrawal, as Steve Sussman, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California and author of the textbook Substance and Behavioral Addictions, has described. Now, the pendulum again swings to encompass behavioral compulsions. For example, the last revision of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders included “gambling disorder”—though shopaholics, sex addicts and compulsive television watchers do not yet have their own designations. All the experts I spoke with said that whether you consider excessive television watching an addiction or an “addiction,” there is no doubt that heavy users feel compelled to watch, and bereft and agitated when they can’t.

Sussman told me that television dependency is probably the first addiction many of us experience. Think of children, glassy-eyed in front of the screen, and the tantrums they throw if it’s turned off. Since its invention, television has been noted for its enslaving power. In a 2013 paper titled “Hidden Addiction: Television,” Sussman and co-author Meghan Moran, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote that only a few years after television became widely available in this country in the late 1940s, researchers began expressing concern about its grip. They cite a 1954 study—the first known on television addiction—suggesting that the condition could lead to “generalized apathy, neglect of responsibilities, negativism, and fantasy.”

A 2003 article in Scientific American Mind, by professors Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and titled, “Television Addiction is No Mere Metaphor,” helped to explain television’s strangely seductive power. It turns out that before both television and Trump, Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov in 1927 described what he called the orienting response. This is the instinctive focus we give to novel visual or auditory stimuli. Such action makes evolutionary sense: As a species, we had to be excellent at detecting predators (or food) lurking nearby. Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi note that a study from the 1980s found that the nature of television, with its incessant, ever-changing sights and sounds, is perfectly designed to trigger our orienting response. Regardless of subject matter, we find it hard to turn away.

We know that television watching can set off powerful physiological reactions. Press the remote and the sense of relaxation is instantaneous, Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi write, with the orienting response slowing the heart and quieting the body, so the brain can gather information. That sounds great, but when the screen goes black, people can quickly return to what the authors call “dysphoric rumination”—a state of unpleasant, roiling, repetitive thoughts. Heavy watchers forced to go cold turkey described being angry, jangled and volatile. Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi note the existential dilemma of obsessive media consumers whose electronic life seems “more important, more immediate and more intense than the life they lead face-to-face.” It would be interesting to find out, after the upcoming G-20 summit, if Trump’s first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin provides him the same intensity as watching an episode of “Morning Joe.”

According to Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, research shows that those who tend to be anxious in unstructured situations, and easily bored and distracted, are more vulnerable to television addiction. Sussman and Moran write that the condition is more likely to occur when an individual feels “insecure in identity, feels alienated socially, feels unable to act or learn to act appropriately in social contexts, and is preoccupied with TV viewing as a means of solitary and social play.” They note that in severe cases, “one’s ability to continue to function in roles at work or at home could become jeopardized as the result of one’s television addiction.” As an example, they describe people who “may try to work at home as often as possible to be able to watch TV.” Of course, if you live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, working at home—and watching as much television as you want—is a perk of the office.

So, does Trump’s television watching rise to the level of addiction? The hours he spends are not out of sync with the rest of America. Nielsen says adults on average watch more than four hours a day of television, and people over age 65 watch more than seven. (Estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are considerably lower.)

Of course, if you consider Trump’s cohort to be not the rest of us but previous presidents, his viewing habits are unprecedented, according to the Atlantic, and so is the role television plays in how he discharges his duties. He is a man so consumed with media consumption that he monitors the appearances—and appearance—of members of Congress, complimenting or criticizing what they said and how they looked. As the Post has reported, everyone seeking to influence Trump, from members of Congress to foreign visitors, tries to get booked on cable as a way of delivering a message directly to him. Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) once actually addressed the president directly on “Morning Joe,” asking him to call to talk about prescription drugs. Trump did.

If the role of television in the life of Trump was once a means of distraction and relaxation, it no longer serves that function. Today, television provides no escape. It’s as though the president is in an endless episode of “The Twilight Zone” (a series he likely would have watched when young) or “Black Mirror” (a recent series he likely hasn’t). Anywhere he clicks on cable news, he’s all anyone is talking about. For someone with Trump’s limitless ego needs, how gratifying; for someone with Trump’s exquisite sense of offense, how enraging. Because, unless he is docked at that island of constant praise that is Fox, he’s bound to encounter someone saying something disparaging of him. Trump keeps vowing he has stopped watching any show that criticizes him, but the Washington Post notes he often “hate watches” his perceived enemies. Perhaps it’s an evolutionary need: If there are predators closing in, better to be on the alert and vanquish them with a weapon our hominid ancestors could not even conceive: the tweet.

At the same time, despite all his bluster about “fake news,” Trump is “very trusting of what he learns on TV,” Marc Fisher says. Many television viewers have a sense that they know the people they regularly watch on screen, but now that Trump is president, he actually does know them. “When he knows people, he trusts their information,” Fisher says. “‘Fox & Friends’ are part of his family. That was true for ‘Morning Joe,’ and that’s why he feels so spurned and betrayed.”

During the campaign, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Trump whom he talked to for military advice, and Trump famously replied, “Well, I watch the shows.” Of course, if you’re president of the United States, trust in television pundits isn’t exactly reassuring. A veteran Republican consultant told the Post that White House aides despair of Trump’s viewing habits because they know a comment he hears on Fox could cause an abrupt change of position. In the conservative National Review, Kevin Williamson recently wrote, “I’d wager that Trump could list at least three times as many cable-news commentators as world leaders. He is much better versed in CNN’s lineup than in NATO’s.”

Seth Norrholm, an associate professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, concludes, based on Trump’s public behavior, that the president has an extreme case of narcissism, and believes Trump’s time as star of “The Apprentice” has affected his expectations as president. In the show, Norrholm says, Trump was the undisputed emperor of an artificial kingdom, all-powerful and beyond criticism—and that is what he would like his White House experience to be. Norrholm believes Trump’s current television obsession confirms for Trump his sense of his own importance, while constantly and maddeningly going off Trump’s preferred script. Narcissists often try to avoid reality, Norrholm says, which is generally full of ego injury, and when they can’t protect themselves—as perhaps when they are hate-watching cable news—“they get depression and paranoia.”

David M. Reiss, a psychiatrist in private practice in Southern California, also believes Trump is severely narcissistic based on the president’s public behavior. A basic struggle of the narcissist is to distract from inner “emptiness and loneliness,” Reiss explains, and cable television in particular is highly effective at this because it is “intended to grab you emotionally.” Reiss says he thinks Trump has never been that interested in analyzing the news, but instead uses television viewing for emotional arousal.

For Trump today, watching television is no longer so distracting or relaxing as it once might have been, Reiss says, but it now likely serves a unique need, by validating the narcissist’s continuous sense of grievance. Reiss says, “Television does away with the cognitive dissonance of ‘Why am I angry?’” Trump can conclude he is angry because he’s watching television, and considering what people are saying about him, it makes sense to feel apoplectic. “When someone criticizes him, it gives him consistency between his inner and outer experience,” Reiss says. “Then it also gives him a target he can vent at.” Reiss expects Trump’s hate-watching to continue and his rage to build because “the grandiosity now has a reality to it.” That Trump really is the most powerful person in the world will make “all the pathology worse,” Reiss says.

What does Trump’s TV watching mean for the rest of us? If his dependency is affecting his mood, how he spends his time, even his thinking on policy—clearly, the effects could be serious. But there is yet another potential consequence: In the 1970s, two social scientists, Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin Defleur developed what they called the Media System Dependency theory, which holds that during strange and unsettled times, when a society is experiencing unusual conflict and change, people become more dependent than ever on the media. As the ratings for cable news soars, perhaps Trump is making television addicts of us all.

 

[47of74]

Someone else was at today's meeting too....

50 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'd say so: "Is Donald Trump a TV Addict?"

  Hide contents

For a man who famously doesn’t drink, television has been Donald Trump’s drug of choice his entire adult life. During his playboy years in New York, after he made sure he was photographed with a beautiful woman on his arm, his most urgent desire was to “make a beeline for his apartment and the TV,” the Washington Post’s Marc Fisher, co-author of Trump Revealed, told me. “He liked to settle in and watch through the night with a big bag of candy.” In the beginning, he was a sports junkie; then, as he started to become more politically aware, he shifted to news.

Now, Trump’s obsession with television is so consuming that the former reality-TV show star experiences the reality of his presidency through flat-screens in the West Wing. A thorough Washington Post report about Trump’s viewing habits describes a man never more than a few feet from a TV, whether tuned in to CNN, Fox, Fox Business or MSNBC. Trump has even been known to shush staff and visitors so he can focus on what’s airing, or to yell at screens showing negative coverage of him. The Post estimated that Trump logs more than five hours of TV viewing a day, starting his morning with “Fox & Friends” and ending with marathon sessions in the private residence, often reviewing the day’s events on TiVo (“one of the greatest inventions of all time,” he told Time). All this tube time grinds away at him. Witness his recent, much-denounced Twitter attacks on the co-hosts of “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, and on CNN for its coverage of him.

The man clearly has a habit, but what if it’s something more than that? Could the 45th president be a television addict? And if so, what does that mean for his presidency? Psychologists and other experts agree that people whose TV watching gets out of control can take steps to master their compulsion. But to do so requires the recognition that their behavior needs to change. So, ponder the likelihood of Trump acknowledging that.

The question of whether one can truly be addicted to TV, in the clinical sense, is a matter of some debate. Historically, addiction was understood to mean being in the grip of strong, overpowering urges, but the modern definition narrowed to describe a substance dependence—drugs, alcohol, nicotine—that results in physiological withdrawal, as Steve Sussman, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California and author of the textbook Substance and Behavioral Addictions, has described. Now, the pendulum again swings to encompass behavioral compulsions. For example, the last revision of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders included “gambling disorder”—though shopaholics, sex addicts and compulsive television watchers do not yet have their own designations. All the experts I spoke with said that whether you consider excessive television watching an addiction or an “addiction,” there is no doubt that heavy users feel compelled to watch, and bereft and agitated when they can’t.

Sussman told me that television dependency is probably the first addiction many of us experience. Think of children, glassy-eyed in front of the screen, and the tantrums they throw if it’s turned off. Since its invention, television has been noted for its enslaving power. In a 2013 paper titled “Hidden Addiction: Television,” Sussman and co-author Meghan Moran, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote that only a few years after television became widely available in this country in the late 1940s, researchers began expressing concern about its grip. They cite a 1954 study—the first known on television addiction—suggesting that the condition could lead to “generalized apathy, neglect of responsibilities, negativism, and fantasy.”

A 2003 article in Scientific American Mind, by professors Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and titled, “Television Addiction is No Mere Metaphor,” helped to explain television’s strangely seductive power. It turns out that before both television and Trump, Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov in 1927 described what he called the orienting response. This is the instinctive focus we give to novel visual or auditory stimuli. Such action makes evolutionary sense: As a species, we had to be excellent at detecting predators (or food) lurking nearby. Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi note that a study from the 1980s found that the nature of television, with its incessant, ever-changing sights and sounds, is perfectly designed to trigger our orienting response. Regardless of subject matter, we find it hard to turn away.

We know that television watching can set off powerful physiological reactions. Press the remote and the sense of relaxation is instantaneous, Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi write, with the orienting response slowing the heart and quieting the body, so the brain can gather information. That sounds great, but when the screen goes black, people can quickly return to what the authors call “dysphoric rumination”—a state of unpleasant, roiling, repetitive thoughts. Heavy watchers forced to go cold turkey described being angry, jangled and volatile. Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi note the existential dilemma of obsessive media consumers whose electronic life seems “more important, more immediate and more intense than the life they lead face-to-face.” It would be interesting to find out, after the upcoming G-20 summit, if Trump’s first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin provides him the same intensity as watching an episode of “Morning Joe.”

According to Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, research shows that those who tend to be anxious in unstructured situations, and easily bored and distracted, are more vulnerable to television addiction. Sussman and Moran write that the condition is more likely to occur when an individual feels “insecure in identity, feels alienated socially, feels unable to act or learn to act appropriately in social contexts, and is preoccupied with TV viewing as a means of solitary and social play.” They note that in severe cases, “one’s ability to continue to function in roles at work or at home could become jeopardized as the result of one’s television addiction.” As an example, they describe people who “may try to work at home as often as possible to be able to watch TV.” Of course, if you live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, working at home—and watching as much television as you want—is a perk of the office.

So, does Trump’s television watching rise to the level of addiction? The hours he spends are not out of sync with the rest of America. Nielsen says adults on average watch more than four hours a day of television, and people over age 65 watch more than seven. (Estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are considerably lower.)

Of course, if you consider Trump’s cohort to be not the rest of us but previous presidents, his viewing habits are unprecedented, according to the Atlantic, and so is the role television plays in how he discharges his duties. He is a man so consumed with media consumption that he monitors the appearances—and appearance—of members of Congress, complimenting or criticizing what they said and how they looked. As the Post has reported, everyone seeking to influence Trump, from members of Congress to foreign visitors, tries to get booked on cable as a way of delivering a message directly to him. Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) once actually addressed the president directly on “Morning Joe,” asking him to call to talk about prescription drugs. Trump did.

If the role of television in the life of Trump was once a means of distraction and relaxation, it no longer serves that function. Today, television provides no escape. It’s as though the president is in an endless episode of “The Twilight Zone” (a series he likely would have watched when young) or “Black Mirror” (a recent series he likely hasn’t). Anywhere he clicks on cable news, he’s all anyone is talking about. For someone with Trump’s limitless ego needs, how gratifying; for someone with Trump’s exquisite sense of offense, how enraging. Because, unless he is docked at that island of constant praise that is Fox, he’s bound to encounter someone saying something disparaging of him. Trump keeps vowing he has stopped watching any show that criticizes him, but the Washington Post notes he often “hate watches” his perceived enemies. Perhaps it’s an evolutionary need: If there are predators closing in, better to be on the alert and vanquish them with a weapon our hominid ancestors could not even conceive: the tweet.

At the same time, despite all his bluster about “fake news,” Trump is “very trusting of what he learns on TV,” Marc Fisher says. Many television viewers have a sense that they know the people they regularly watch on screen, but now that Trump is president, he actually does know them. “When he knows people, he trusts their information,” Fisher says. “‘Fox & Friends’ are part of his family. That was true for ‘Morning Joe,’ and that’s why he feels so spurned and betrayed.”

During the campaign, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Trump whom he talked to for military advice, and Trump famously replied, “Well, I watch the shows.” Of course, if you’re president of the United States, trust in television pundits isn’t exactly reassuring. A veteran Republican consultant told the Post that White House aides despair of Trump’s viewing habits because they know a comment he hears on Fox could cause an abrupt change of position. In the conservative National Review, Kevin Williamson recently wrote, “I’d wager that Trump could list at least three times as many cable-news commentators as world leaders. He is much better versed in CNN’s lineup than in NATO’s.”

Seth Norrholm, an associate professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, concludes, based on Trump’s public behavior, that the president has an extreme case of narcissism, and believes Trump’s time as star of “The Apprentice” has affected his expectations as president. In the show, Norrholm says, Trump was the undisputed emperor of an artificial kingdom, all-powerful and beyond criticism—and that is what he would like his White House experience to be. Norrholm believes Trump’s current television obsession confirms for Trump his sense of his own importance, while constantly and maddeningly going off Trump’s preferred script. Narcissists often try to avoid reality, Norrholm says, which is generally full of ego injury, and when they can’t protect themselves—as perhaps when they are hate-watching cable news—“they get depression and paranoia.”

David M. Reiss, a psychiatrist in private practice in Southern California, also believes Trump is severely narcissistic based on the president’s public behavior. A basic struggle of the narcissist is to distract from inner “emptiness and loneliness,” Reiss explains, and cable television in particular is highly effective at this because it is “intended to grab you emotionally.” Reiss says he thinks Trump has never been that interested in analyzing the news, but instead uses television viewing for emotional arousal.

For Trump today, watching television is no longer so distracting or relaxing as it once might have been, Reiss says, but it now likely serves a unique need, by validating the narcissist’s continuous sense of grievance. Reiss says, “Television does away with the cognitive dissonance of ‘Why am I angry?’” Trump can conclude he is angry because he’s watching television, and considering what people are saying about him, it makes sense to feel apoplectic. “When someone criticizes him, it gives him consistency between his inner and outer experience,” Reiss says. “Then it also gives him a target he can vent at.” Reiss expects Trump’s hate-watching to continue and his rage to build because “the grandiosity now has a reality to it.” That Trump really is the most powerful person in the world will make “all the pathology worse,” Reiss says.

What does Trump’s TV watching mean for the rest of us? If his dependency is affecting his mood, how he spends his time, even his thinking on policy—clearly, the effects could be serious. But there is yet another potential consequence: In the 1970s, two social scientists, Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin Defleur developed what they called the Media System Dependency theory, which holds that during strange and unsettled times, when a society is experiencing unusual conflict and change, people become more dependent than ever on the media. As the ratings for cable news soars, perhaps Trump is making television addicts of us all.

 

I remember growing up I watched a lot more television than I do now.  These days my TV can go several days without being used.  Of course it's mainly been replaced by the internetz.

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, JMarie said:

Her dress was "only" $2229 -- cheap for them, but a fortune for us regular Americans

https://www.stylebop.com/en-us/women/midi-dcoupage-dress-269541.html?tmad=c&tmcampid=19&tmclickref=7799179&utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=cj&utm_campaign=image_us&campaign=affiliate/cj/us

Are those pink shoes in the picture of the dress actually in style right now?!?  

From the front, they look like the sort of shoes my grandma had to wear in the 1970s because she had a lot of trouble with her feet. The  heel is kind of interesting, but the view from the front is just too orthopedic looking for me.

https://www.stylebop.com/en-us/women/leather-sandals-271885.html

 $549 for my grandma's old shoes?!? *laughs hysterically*

 

[47of74]

Guess who fuck face is blaming for not being able to snag a hotel for the summit?

Quote

The White House is blaming the Obama administration for leaving President Donald Trump without a proper hotel during this week's G20 summit.

Every top-shelf lodging was already booked by the time the Trump White House began making inquiries – but that, two White House officials say, is because their predecessors never booked rooms for an American delegation.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

6 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Guess who fuck face is blaming for not being able to snag a hotel for the summit?

 

I'm surprised he isn't blaming CNN and/or Hillary. And, you know that if things had gone better in November, her administration would have been organized and made reservations plenty early for this summit.