Trump 22: Not Even Poe Could Make This Shit Up

[Ali]

20 hours ago, JMarie said:

If Prince William and Prince Harry were able to serve in the British military, Junior and Eric should have no problem serving in ours.  Eric can go to Venezuela, since he was in Uruguay earlier this year and, hey, he probably thinks all South American countries are the same.  Junior can go to Guam and check out future Trump hotel locations while he's there.

Ivanka can serve in South Korea and Jared can serve in Japan.

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"What a presidential president would have said about Charlottesville"

  Reveal hidden contents

HERE IS what President Trump said Saturday about the violence in Charlottesville sparked by a demonstration of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members:

We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides.

Here is what a presidential president would have said:

“The violence Friday and Saturday in Charlottesville, Va., is a tragedy and an unacceptable, impermissible assault on American values. It is an assault, specifically, on the ideals we cherish most in a pluralistic democracy — tolerance, peaceable coexistence and diversity.

“The events were triggered by individuals who embrace and extol hatred. Racists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and their sympathizers — these are the extremists who fomented the violence in Charlottesville, and whose views all Americans must condemn and reject.

“To wink at racism or to condone it through silence, or false moral equivalence, or elision, as some do, is no better and no more acceptable than racism itself. Just as we can justly identify radical Islamic terrorism when we see it, and call it out, so can we all see the racists in Charlottesville, and understand that they are anathema in our society, which depends so centrally on mutual respect.

“Under whatever labels and using whatever code words — ‘heritage,’ ‘tradition,’ ‘nationalism’ — the idea that whites or any other ethnic, national or racial group is superior to another is not acceptable. Americans should not excuse, and I as president will not countenance, fringe elements in our society who peddle such anti-American ideas. While they have deep and noxious roots in our history, they must not be given any quarter nor any license today.

“Nor will we accept acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by such elements. If, as appears to be the case, the vehicle that plowed into the counterprotesters on Saturday in Charlottesville did so intentionally, the driver should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The American system of justice must and will treat a terrorist who is Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or anything else just as it treats a terrorist who is Muslim — just as it treated those who perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

“We may all have pressing and legitimate questions about how the violence in Charlottesville unfolded — and whether it could have been prevented. There will be time in coming days to delve further into those matters, and demand answers. In the meantime, I stand ready to provide any and all resources from the federal government to ensure there will be no recurrence of such violence in Virginia or elsewhere. Let us keep the victims of this terrible tragedy in our thoughts and prayers, and keep faith that the values enshrined in our Constitution and laws will prevail against those who would desecrate our democracy.”

Yeah, the TT couldn't have handled one line of this.

Here's what a presidential president said:

 

[fraurosena]

That thing in the WH tweeted this:

 

What the everloving fuck? Best regards?

The contrast with my post above is astounding.

[JMarie]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

That thing in the WH tweeted this:

 

What the everloving fuck? Best regards?

The contrast with my post above is astounding.

And this is what Sally Yates, former acting Attorney General, tweeted 

Quote

The poison spewed by Nazis, white supremacists, and the KKK is not who we are as a country. Takes less than 140 characters to say it.

President Sally Yates has a nice ring, doesn't it?

[unholypoledancer]

Sitting here wondering if Bannon is smiling gleefully over this (what happened today in Virginia)....and feeling so many emotions right now, none of which are positive. Except the fact that most Americans agree with the Nazi march being wrong.

[MarblesMom]

Best regards is the best he can come up with?!  

We are doomed.

[fraurosena]

After all the awfulness yesterday, things won't be looking so good for these fuckwits tomorrow.

 

[WiseGirl]

Best regards? How did I miss that IRL? Again I am left speechless by this moron. My own vocabulary choices keep getting reduced to wtf when talking or thinking about this idiot. 

Off to a candlelight vigil for Charlottesville.  If you had told me a year ago I'd be joining a resistance movement I'd have laughed and laughed. Oh how I miss that naivete, and civility, and a president who actually thought before talking or Tweeting, who called terrorism for what it was, and the lack of Russia in the headlines  ....... @MarblesMom put it best we are doomed.

[Audrey2]

Two thoughts:

1. Best regards is how you sign a wedding or baby shower card at work for someone you don't know well, not how a leader tweets to his injured citizens.

2. These people refuse to call anything domestic terrorism that wasn't caused by a non-Caucasian. I doubt they would have called a bomb that killed 168 and injured 680 either. The perp was Caucasian.

[CTRLZero]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

After all the awfulness yesterday, things won't be looking so good for these fuckwits tomorrow.

A few years ago, there was a riot in Vancouver, BC, after a Stanley Cup game.  A website popped up called "public shaming eternus," which identified and followed some of the worst offenders. 

I'm interested in who these most recent racist clowns are, i.e., what's their story, are they really all living in their parents' basements, do they have jobs, etc.  If anyone knows of a similar website that identifies these folks, I'd appreciate being steered in that direction.  Thanks!

[AmazonGrace]

I am pleasantly surprised he didn't tweet

Condolences to the family of the murder victim, and best regards to the injured. So sad!  Hope everyone had an awesome day! 

[JenniferJuniper]

Nothing screams oppression like polo shirts and citronella.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

I'm interested in who these most recent racist clowns are, i.e., what's their story, are they really all living in their parents' basements, do they have jobs, etc.  If anyone knows of a similar website that identifies these folks, I'd appreciate being steered in that direction.  Thanks!

The mother of the driver who plowed into the crowd is a piece of work. I'm not quoting the entire article. This is the salient part:

Quote

The driver, James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old who recently moved to Ohio from where he grew up in Kentucky, was charged with second-degree murder and other counts. Field’s mother, Samantha Bloom, told The Associated Press on Saturday night that she knew her son was attending a rally in Virginia but didn’t know it was a white supremacist rally.

“I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump’s not a white supremacist,” said Bloom, who became visibly upset as she learned of the injuries and deaths at the rally.

“He had an African-American friend so …,” she said before her voice trailed off. She added that she’d be surprised if her son’s views were that far right.

You couldn't make it up. He "had an African-American friend". WTAF? "Trump is not a white supremacist." Seriously?

[GrumpyGran]

46 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

I am pleasantly surprised he didn't tweet

Condolences to the family of the murder victim, and best regards to the injured. So sad!  Hope everyone had an awesome day! 

The King of inappropriate expression. And his statements were clearly written by someone else, and honestly I was surprised he actually made the statements. Wonder who convinced him that he needed to leave the wedding and go make a statement on camera. Kelly? How did whoever convince him to not mention Hillary?

I hate it when he reads a statement. He acts like it's so unfair that he can't use his own words. No intonation, no emotion. He acted like he was annoyed that this had interrupted his Saturday evening plans.

4 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The mother of the driver who plowed into the crowd is a piece of work. I'm not quoting the entire article. This is the salient part:

You couldn't make it up. He "had an African-American friend". WTAF? "Trump is not a white supremacist." Seriously?

Sorry, mom, all the other people around him didn't have the same view of him. When they won't let you in the military, that's a bad sign. And was that his car? Nice car for a 20 year old. Or did it belong to a friend he came with?

Yeah, she's an enabler, he's a brainwashed robot.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump lit the torches of white supremacy in Charlottesville. We must extinguish them."

Spoiler

President Trump lit every one of those torches in Charlottesville.

Yes, the white supremacists have always been with us. A parade of racist bigots is no surprise to anyone familiar with our history, especially those who have been the target of hatred and violence for centuries.

But when the mob of white men marched in Charlottesville carrying flaming torches Friday night shouting “Heil Trump” as the curtain-raiser for a day of violent clashes with counterprotesters that left three people dead, they showed the world that America is once again playing with fire.

And Trump was the one with the match.

The symbolism was not subtle. Torches, witch hunts, flaming crosses — they all stretch back to our country’s founding. All those white-power bros knew exactly the kind of fear they were trying to evoke, even if their tiki torches came from Home Depot’s end-of-the-season patio sale.

The Nazi and Confederate flags were equally chilling to the millions of Americans who lost relatives in the Holocaust or in the fight against Hitler, or those with vivid memories of relentless racial oppression, including lynchings, church bombings and assassinations at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist terrorists.

Now we’re live-streaming that very same hatred while Trump looks the other way. It was 90 years ago that Fred Trump, Donald Trump’s father, was arrested for failing to disperse at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Queens that sounded a lot like the scene at Charlottesville.

Except today, there are no hoods.

Donald Trump gave everyone permission to take those hoods off with his winks, nods and refusal to take a moral stand on racial hatred and intimidation during his campaign and during the first six months of his presidency. He’d already spent years questioning the birthplace and legitimacy of President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black commander in chief. And the haters loved him for it.

On Saturday, the president stayed silent at his New Jersey golf club for hours, even as former KKK grand wizard David Duke declared Charlottesville a “turning point” for a movement that aims to “fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.”

First, he offered a vague tweet condemning hatred without any explicit reference to the hundreds of men, some wearing red Make America Great Again hats, who chanted “White lives matter,” “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us.”

It wasn’t until a 20-year-old from Ohio plowed his car into a crowd of peaceful counterdemonstrators, injuring 19 and killing one woman, that Trump addressed the terrorist attack on his own soil.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides,” he said.

Wrong.

“There is only one side,” former vice president Joe Biden succinctly replied on Twitter.

Trump is so afraid of offending his Tiki Tribe that he didn’t even own his flaccid statement with “I.”

On Sunday morning, his daughter Ivanka Trump finally called out the cancer that is at the heart of this domestic terrorism.

“There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis,” she tweeted.

She, however, is not the commander in chief.

We are the ones who have to extinguish the blaze our president sparked. Democrat, Republican, independent — it doesn’t matter. Everyone must reject what’s been unleashed in this country. And that’s already happening.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), the father of Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, tweeted: “ ‘White supremacy’ crap is worst kind of racism-it’s EVIL and perversion of God’s truth to ever think our Creator values some above others.”

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) agreed: “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.”

The torches in Charlottesville are a dangerous sideshow in America’s ongoing culture war.

We need to stop attributing the resurgence of racism to income inequality or job loss and stop tucking it into the great red vs. blue, progressivism vs. conservatism, urban vs. rural struggle that is at the heart of debate in our society.

The University of Virginia, where the white extremists marched with their lit torches, is the home of James Davison Hunter, the sociologist who helped define the contemporary American culture war. In 1992 — as the American presidential election was rocked by the debate over a TV character’s single motherhood in “Murphy Brown” — Hunter reminded us that these cultural skirmishes aren’t just rhetoric or “political froth.”

“Cumulatively, these disputes amount to a fundamental struggle over the ‘first principles’ of how we will order our life together,” Hunter wrote in The Washington Post. “Through these seemingly disparate issues we find ourselves, in other words, in a struggle to define ourselves as Americans and what kind of society we want to build and sustain.”

Yes, there are many sides in the culture war that the racists keep trying to hitch their flaming wagon to.

But this abomination that happened in Charlottesville over the weekend is not up for debate. It’s not a cultural take or a political platform. Racism, bigotry and terrorism in the name of white nationalism isn’t a “side.” It’s a poison.

And doing anything other than calling it what it is, defining it and snuffing it out is simply un-American.

The author of this piece, Petula Dvorak, sometimes gets a bit hyperbolic, but in this case, she is spot-on.

[GreyhoundFan]

Jennifer Rubin says it well: "Enough of the Confederate statues, the alt-right heroes and Trump’s moral idiocy"

Spoiler

The Post reports on the horrific events in Charlottesville, Va.:

Chaos and violence turned to tragedy Saturday as hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members — planning to stage what they described as their largest rally in decades to “take America back” — clashed with counterprotesters in the streets and a car plowed into crowds, leaving one person dead and 19 others injured.

Hours later, two state police officers died when their helicopter crashed at the outskirts of town. Officials identified them as Berke M.M. Bates of Quinton, Va., who was the pilot, and H. Jay Cullen of Midlothian, Va., who was a passenger. State police said their Bell 407 helicopter was assisting with the unrest in Charlottesville. Bates died one day before his 41st birthday; Cullen was 48.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who had declared a state of emergency in the morning, said at an evening news conference that he had a message for “all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today: Go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth.”

Not only McAuliffe but also many other politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, deplored the white nationalists and the mayhem they created, many of them telling the president he needed to denounce the hate-mongers. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — who went a step further, calling for a Justice Department investigation of domestic terrorism — were among them. (Later Saturday evening, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the FBI and U.S. attorney would be investigating.) President Trump and Vice President Pence did not take their advice. Instead, they hid behind ambiguity and moral equivalence.

The Post reports:

As news broke of a terrorist attack in Paris in November 2015, Trump immediately tweeted that he was praying for “the victims and hostages.”  Very soon after a shooting at an Orlando nightclub in June 2016, Trump tweeted that he was “right on radical Islamic terrorism.”

But he kept quiet Saturday morning as a protest led by white nationalists, who arrived with torches and chants in Charlottesville, on Friday night, turned violent. The cable networks that he usually watches showed footage of increasingly violent clashes between the white nationalists, some of whom looked like soldiers because they were so heavily armed, and the counterprotesters who showed up to challenge them.

When he belatedly spoke up, all he could muster was a vague tweet (“We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Let’s come together as one!”) and then a despicable statement evincing the kind of moral equivalence Republicans used to denounce. (“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.” In case you missed that, he repeated, “On many sides.”) In yet another tone-deaf tweet, he declared, “Condolences to the family of the young woman killed today, and best regards to all of those injured, in Charlottesville, Virginia. So sad!” Sad?? His stilted, off-key lines betray his lack of empathy and failure to comprehend the gravity of the moment.

This is not the first time Trump has played footsie with white nationalists. During the campaign, he initially pleaded ignorance of David Duke’s racism in an interview with Jake Tapper. He played to white nationalists’ fears of illegal immigrants, demonized Mexicans, made racist accusations against a federal judge, falsely accused illegal immigrants of causing a crime wave, and refused to apologize for anti-Semitic imagery. Once in office, he hired alt-right darlings including Stephen K. Bannon (who bragged that he had made Breitbart a “platform for the alt-right”) and Sebastian Gorka. As president, he has channeled the white racists’ “blood and soil” concept of nationalism in his speeches and encouraged white, Christian, working-class Americans to think of themselves as victims and to see their religion as under attack — while he championed a Muslim travel ban. Pence on Saturday was no better, sending out a mealy-mouthed tweet: “Karen & I saddened by the loss of lives in Charlottesville. Thoughts & prayers w/ families of officers & young woman. Also w/ injured victims.”

Trump did not tell the white nationalists to go to Charlottesville or to commit violence. But his campaign and presidency have given white nationalists cover, oxygen and the dream of respectability. And now, when the moment calls for some semblance of presidential leadership and denunciation of racists, he cannot bring himself to criticize a group that is unarguably part of his base (not a majority, but among his strongest fans).

This kind of stomach-turning display of moral obtuseness is precisely what opponents of Trump predicted when they warned that he was unfit for the presidency. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) on Saturday denounced white nationalism as a “scourge,” but he supported Trump even after Trump attacked a federal judge and Gold Star, Muslim parents. What did Ryan think America was getting?

If Republicans are now truly disgusted by the president they supported, they can condemn his embarrassing comments, support the FBI and Justice Department investigation, and urge that Confederate statues throughout the country be taken down. We’ve now erased the fictions that these monuments are about “Southern heritage.” No, they are giant concrete shrines to white nationalism.

“It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, they fought against it,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a memorable speech explaining his city’s decision to remove the statues. “They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for.”

If the president doesn’t grasp this, the rest of the country should. It’s time to get rid of the statues and get rid of the alt-right heroes in the White House. As for Trump, the country cannot get rid of him soon enough.

Amen to that last paragraph.

[Howl]

Ivanka, who converted to Judaism when she married Jared, didn't mince words: 

Quote

There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazis.

See, Donald, how easy it is to call out specific bad actors -- racists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis?

[47of74]

Melania got in on the act and got her ass handed to her.

Quote

Taking to Twitter on Saturday was Melania Trump as the first lady condemned what took place in Charlottesville. "Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts," Melania tweeted out, before adding, "No good comes from violence." As expected, critics of the administration were quick to fire back at Melania, while also pointing out the alleged hypocrisy of Donald Trump in the process.

Not long after sending out her tweet about the Charlottesville violence, Melania Trump was on the receiving end of heavy backlash. "WHERE IS YOUR #TRAITOR #RACIST husband and #CowardInChief?," one Twitter user wrote.Not long after sending out her tweet about the Charlottesville violence, Melania Trump was on the receiving end of heavy backlash. "WHERE IS YOUR #TRAITOR #RACIST husband and #CowardInChief?," one Twitter user wrote.

Yeah I think this is my favorite tweet;

 

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, JenniferJuniper said:

Nothing screams oppression like polo shirts and citronella.

 

"Damn liberals, stop making me act like a whiny entitled suburban shit!"

I think that oppression is working for you, Mr. White. Is your oppression holding you back, perhaps impacting you economically? I've got some ideas for you to help you out of your poverty.

Stop:

ordering every sports package your cable provider offers

buying HUGE pick-up trucks and SUVs that you don't need

buying half a dozen guns at about $700 each

buying that shit you brought to your "peaceful protest"

handing out twenties and buying rounds at the strip club

There. Saved you about $15,000 a year.

[candygirl200413]

But why are people surprised he didn't call out the neo nazi and white nationalists? It makes up a huge chunk of fuckface's base and he has three legitimate nazi's in his white house who refuse to call it out and are in support of their disgusting actions yesterday.

When I was younger, I used to be TERRIFIED as a black girl and also as someone who lives in a very predominant jewish area of the KKK, especially the robes and all that. Now that I'm older I'm actually not as terrified because they show their faces and you learn how in addition to be hateful POS, they are the biggest losers who now want to show their loser faces.

Someone on twitter outed many of the participants, and social media is coming in clutch because a few already lost their jobs.

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm not going to paste the picture, or even quote the entire article, because it may be triggering to some, but the horrifying picture really does speak volumes: "The photo from Charlottesville that will define this moment in American history". There is one part I will quote, because I think it certainly bears repeating:

Quote

This period in America is increasingly defined by violence and rage. And while Kelly’s photograph captures those elements, it gives us something more, too: The picture is a visual expression of simply how strange America feels right now.

I don’t mean to say I’m surprised that virulent racism still exists in this country. At best, the United States has been able to contain and marginalize racial hatred; we’ve never been able to eliminate it, and I doubt we ever will.

 

[GrumpyGran]

Well, here we are, Scare Americans Shitless Week is over. Thank goodness. Can't wait to see what the focus will be next week. I'm not sure if I can handle another week of my President being on vacation.

I guess he's going to Trump Tower this week? To sleep in his own bed? Plant those Obama bugs? Have private meetings? Look waaaaay down on people? Maybe he'll realize how much he misses it and decide to resign because who knew how hard it is to be President? 

[JMarie]

Do you long for the days when a White House gaffe was when Dan Quayle misspelled "potato"?  I know I sure do.

[apple1]

3 minutes ago, JMarie said:

Do you long for the days when a White House gaffe was when Dan Quayle misspelled "potato"?  I know I sure do.

Even better - the day when the president wore a tan suit...

[GrumpyGran]

14 minutes ago, apple1 said:

Even better - the day when the president wore a tan suit...

... or Nancy Reagan was in charge. I look back on her rather fondly now.