Donald Trump and the Deathly Fallout (Part 15)

[fraurosena]

3 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Hey guys, did you know?

The Parasitic Presidunce Loves Signing Things

 

Although...

... it doesn't deter him from showing off his handywork. No less than 12 (twelve!) photo's of him holding up his signature 'grace' this article.

Quoting myself, I know. But I just found this gem of a tweet in reaction to the article above:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

 

 

@fraurosena, several weeks ago, Bill Maher said something about how the tangerine toddler holds up everything he signs like a kindergartner asking mommy to put his artwork on the refrigerator.

[fraurosena]

1 minute ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

 

 

@fraurosena, several weeks ago, Bill Maher said something about how the tangerine toddler holds up everything he signs like a kindergartner asking mommy to put his artwork on the refrigerator.

To me it's just another addition to the evidence of his senility... 

[47of74]

I remember seeing several handwriting experts commenting on the tapeworm's signature;

thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2017/02/01/trump-signature-analysis/

Quote

“He simplifies to the point where they are zig-zags to the exclusion of other connecting forms. This can be used by very intelligent people,” she said.

“It is also the favourite signature of very aggressive and, actually, very violent people. You can decide where you think he fits on the spectrum.”

Those angles – and a lack of loops – also pointed to another key takeaway from the New Yorker’s signature, according to Ms Becker.

“There’s no empathy. It’s, ‘I’m going from place to place in this very big, consistent way and there’s no concern for anybody else’.

Violent and sociopathic.  Two terms that fit said tapeworm to a T.

[fraurosena]

The Tangerine Toddler's Modeling Agency Is Shutting Down

Quote

One of President Donald Trump's favorite businesses will go the way of Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Airlines, and Trump Magazine: his embattled New York modeling firm, Trump Model Management, has officially told its business associates around the world to prepare for its closure, according to an email obtained by Mother Jones.[...]

Mother Jones reported before the election that Trump's modeling agency had a history of employing foreign models who said they violated immigration rules by working in the United States without work visas. That investigation also detailed how Trump Models forced its recruits to pay sky-high rent to live in crammed living quarters, while levying a dizzying number of fees and expenses on its talent that left some models in deep debt to the agency.

Since Trump's election, models and staff members have been fleeing his agency. Industry sources told Mother Jones last week that this was a direct result of Trump's divisive politics, which have made his brand toxic in the modeling world.

All I could think when I read this was this meme. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Publicity Stunts Aren’t Policy"

Quote

Does anyone still remember the Carrier deal? Back in December President-elect Donald Trump announced, triumphantly, that he had reached a deal with the air-conditioner manufacturer to keep 1,100 jobs in America rather than moving them to Mexico. And the media spent days celebrating the achievement.

Actually, the number of jobs involved was more like 700, but who’s counting? Around 75,000 U.S. workers are laid off or fired every working day, so a few hundred here or there hardly matter for the overall picture.

Whatever Mr. Trump did or didn’t achieve with Carrier, the real question was whether he would take steps to make a lasting difference.

So far, he hasn’t; there isn’t even the vague outline of a real Trumpist jobs policy. And corporations and investors seem to have decided that the Carrier deal was all show, no substance, that for all his protectionist rhetoric Mr. Trump is a paper tiger in practice. After pausing briefly, the ongoing move of manufacturing to Mexico has resumed, while the Mexican peso, whose value is a barometer of expected U.S. trade policy, has recovered almost all its post-November losses.

In other words, showy actions that win a news cycle or two are no substitute for actual, coherent policies. Indeed, their main lasting effect can be to squander a government’s credibility. Which brings us to last week’s missile strike on Syria.

The attack instantly transformed news coverage of the Trump administration. Suddenly stories about infighting and dysfunction were replaced with screaming headlines about the president’s toughness and footage of Tomahawk launches.

But outside its effect on the news cycle, how much did the strike actually accomplish? A few hours after the attack, Syrian warplanes were taking off from the same airfield, and airstrikes resumed on the town where use of poison gas provoked Mr. Trump into action. No doubt the Assad forces took some real losses, but there’s no reason to believe that a one-time action will have any effect on the course of Syria’s civil war.

In fact, if last week’s action was the end of the story, the eventual effect may well be to strengthen the Assad regime — Look, they stood up to a superpower! — and weaken American credibility. To achieve any lasting result, Mr. Trump would have to get involved on a sustained basis in Syria.

Doing what, you ask? Well, that’s the big question — and the lack of good answers to that question is the reason President Barack Obama decided not to start something nobody knew how to finish.

So what have we learned from the Syria attack and its aftermath?

No, we haven’t learned that Mr. Trump is an effective leader. Ordering the U.S. military to fire off some missiles is easy. Doing so in a way that actually serves American interests is the hard part, and we’ve seen no indication whatsoever that Mr. Trump and his advisers have figured that part out.

...

One might have expected that experience to serve as a lesson. But no: The U.S. fired off some missiles, and once again Mr. Trump “became president.” Aside from everything else, think about the incentives this creates. The Trump administration now knows that it can always crowd out reporting about its scandals and failures by bombing someone.

So here’s a hint: Real leadership means devising and carrying out sustained policies that make the world a better place. Publicity stunts may generate a few days of favorable media coverage, but they end up making America weaker, not stronger, because they show the world that we have a government that can’t follow through.

And has anyone seen a sign, any sign, that Mr. Trump is ready to provide real leadership in that sense? I haven’t.

 

[fraurosena]

Tomahawk missiles.

This is a bit of a fluff piece, but one fact stood out:

Quote

[The US] fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at the airbase. 

Each of those missiles cost $1.5 million, and in all, those 59 missiles cost $90 million. 

Holy fuck! 

9 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

But outside its effect on the news cycle, how much did the strike actually accomplish? A few hours after the attack, Syrian warplanes were taking off from the same airfield, and airstrikes resumed on the town where use of poison gas provoked Mr. Trump into action. No doubt the Assad forces took some real losses, but there’s no reason to believe that a one-time action will have any effect on the course of Syria’s civil war.

Especially when viewed in light of this. What a waste... 

[GreyhoundFan]

42 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Tomahawk missiles.

This is a bit of a fluff piece, but one fact stood out:

Holy fuck! 

Especially when viewed in light of this. What a waste... 

Yes, it's ridiculously expensive. Of course, it's not like he'd forgo going to Mar-a-Lago or anything else to save taxpayer money.

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, Mr. "I NEVER settle lawsuits" has settled again: "Trump Organization settles restaurant suit with second chef, Geoffrey Zakarian"

Quote

The Trump Organization has settled a legal dispute with a second celebrity chef who backed out of a deal to open a restaurant in President Trump’s hotel in downtown Washington.

The agreement between Trump and famed chef Geoffrey Zakarian, announced Monday by lawyers, comes three days after the Trump Organization settled a similar breach-of-contract lawsuit he filed against celebrity chef José Andrés.

The details of both settlements were kept private.

“After an intense, two -year legal battle, we are pleased we were able to amicably resolve our differences and wish Geoffrey continued success,” read a statement Monday from Donald Trump Jr., who with his brother, Eric, runs the Trump Organization while their father is in the White House.

New York real estate developer Louis Ceruzzi, who had backed the restaurant, added that he was “glad” both sides were able to “work together cooperatively” to reach a settlement and wished Trump International Hotel “the very best success going forward.”

The settlements with the chefs were reached after Trump often boasted he would never settle a lawsuit.

...

 

 

 

"Trump is crippling his own administration"

Quote

PRETTY SOON, the Trump administration may trot out 100 or 200 new appointees to high-level positions in the U.S. government that require Senate confirmation. We hope these appointees are at least well along in the pipeline. As it stands now, President Trump is falling behind the pace of his recent predecessors in filling jobs in vital areas such as public health, foreign policy and military affairs, among others. While every administration moves too slowly, a prolonged period of empty chairs could hamper crisis management and weaken U.S. policy over the long term.

According to a tracker maintained by The Post and the Partnership for Public Service, of 553 high-level positions requiring Senate confirmation, only 22 have been confirmed, 24 formally nominated and awaiting confirmation, and 29 announced and waiting formal nomination. Similarly, the nonpartisan White House Transition Project, looking at historical trends and several metrics, says Mr. Trump is on track for the “worst performance in three decades” in terms of getting people appointed and confirmed to high-level positions. The project points out that at this point in other presidencies, there was a growing list of people nominated, a weighted historical average of 91 positions over a field of 970 presidential appointments, but in Mr. Trump’s case this number has been stuck for weeks at about 40.

What is the problem? We hear that the Trump White House has been examining people with a business background, often with very complex commitments, and some nominees are finding the labyrinth of ethics requirements and disclosure to be too forbidding. Also, strict loyalty testing — apparently excluding anyone who signed a “never Trump” letter or criticized Mr. Trump during the campaign — may be limiting the field. The White House has already rejected, unwisely, some potential nominees suggested by Cabinet members. Another factor is that Mr. Trump started out with far fewer résumés than were on hand when George W. Bush and Barack Obama took office.

Maybe it is all part of Mr. Trump’s plan to starve the government. He told Fox News in February, “When I see a story about ‘Donald Trump didn’t fill hundreds and hundreds of jobs,’ it’s because, in many cases, we don’t want to fill those jobs.” He added, “A lot of those jobs, I don’t want to appoint, because they’re unnecessary to have.”

...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Don’t fight Trump with conspiracy theories. What’s there is damning enough."

Quote

Maybe we should muzzle the wag-the-dog talk.

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell led off his show Friday night with an alarming report: Russian President Vladimir Putin may have told Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to launch last week’s chemical attackto let President Trump respond militarily — thereby boosting Trump’s standing in the United States and dispelling the belief that he is too close to Putin.

“It’s perfect,” O’Donnell said, telling viewers “what you won’t hear is proof that that scenario that I have just outlined is impossible, because . . . with Donald Trump anything is possible.”

I’m a fan of O’Donnell, and it is technically true that we can’t prove that Putin didn’t orchestrate the attack to boost Trump. But by that logic, we can never prove to everybody’s satisfaction that there wasn’t a second gunman on the grassy knoll, that Vincent Foster wasn’t murdered, that there wasn’t a controlled demolition inside Building 7, that former president Barack Obama didn’t forge his birth certificate, or that the government isn’t controlling our minds with fluoride.

But speculation without evidence is at best distraction, and at worst it allows Trump’s defenders to discredit the whole story about Trump’s contacts with Russia and Russia’s attempts to tilt the election his way.

Certainly, Trump’s behavior has shown that he’s capable of anything. But we don’t need to speculate. Putin did conspire to help Trump win the presidency. That’s damning enough without letting allegations of a chemical-attack conspiracy cloud the whole thing in paranoia.

The chemical conspiracy, as The Post’s Avi Selk noted, debuted on a left-wing site called the Palmer Report. This is part of a larger phenomenon that has already taken root online, where in some quarters full-blown cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome have already broken out. Trump won the presidency and now governs by creating a parallel universe with alternative facts. There’s a temptation among his opponents to respond in kind. But the way to counter Trump is to speak the truth, not to fight him with more fake news.

...

Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth government professor, explained in the New York Times in February why left-wing conspiracy theories appear to have gained since the election: “Political psychology research suggests that losing political control can make people more vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories.” How else could people have fallen for the satirical report in a British outlet alleging that Queen Elizabeth II said she can legally kill Trump with a sword if he enters Buckingham Palace?

That would indeed be newsworthy, if true. But here’s something even more newsworthy: The Putin regime meddled in U.S. elections to help secure the victory of a president to whom it has had extensive ties. And that one happens to be true.

 

[JMarie]

On ‎4‎/‎5‎/‎2017 at 7:30 PM, JMarie said:

Now it's 48 companies.  In just two days.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/advertisers-continue-drop-fox-news-oreilly-factor/story?id=46605563

 

I watched the O'Reilly Factor tonight, so you don't have to.  These are the commercials that aired at 8PM:

MyPillow (all by itself)

--------

WaxRx (gross earwax removal thing, probably thrilled to be aired during prime time)

Fox Business Channel, about upcoming Trump interview

Deadliest Catch, new season starting on Discovery

Progressive Insurance

---------

Athene (annuities)

Qunol (CoQ10 supplement)

PCMatic (antivirus software)

-------------

Visiting Angels (homecare)

Coventry Direct (they'll buy your life insurance)

Fox News on Sirius

-----------

Fox News primetime lineup

PBS war miniseries

PCMatic (again)

Raymour & Flanigan (furniture)

--------------

Fastlife (life insurance)

Australian Dream (pain cream)

TheraBreath (toothpaste and mouthwash)

 

So there it is.  Not a very impressive lineup.  I only watched for the commercials, and I did other stuff when O'Reilly came back on.  He did have an interesting segment on the guy who was forcibly removed from the plane, with someone who runs a passenger rights group saying that the airline did everything wrong.  No mention of the Alabama governor, though.

 

[Audrey2]

Wow, @JMarie, those commercials are about as good as the commercials on The Duggars Counting On!

[GreyhoundFan]

"In the battle over Obamacare’s future, Trump just blinked. Bigly."

Quote

Ever since the GOP repeal-and-replace bill crashed, President Trump has confidently vowed that it’s only a matter of time until Democrats come groveling to him on their knees, begging for a deal that will save them from the collapse of the Affordable Care Act. In other words, Trump and Republicans needn’t take any steps to shore up the ACA’s exchanges, because they have all the leverage in the battle over its future — indeed, they have suggested, the ACA’s implosion is inevitable, ongoing and already nearly complete.

But Trump just blinked. And in so doing, he inadvertently revealed that despite the bluster coming from him and Republicans, the politics of the battle over the ACA’s future tilt against them.

The Trump administration has now quietly announced that it will refrain from taking an important step that could have pushed the ACA’s individual markets toward collapse. Specifically, The Post and the New York Times report that the administration will keep on paying so-called “cost-sharing reductions” to insurance companies to cover their reimbursement of out-of-pocket costs for about 7 million lower-income customers.

If Trump stopped the payments on his own, it could cause insurers to flee the exchanges, which would melt them down, potentially leaving at least 10 million people without coverage. Trump could do this right now. Here’s how: House Republicans had sued the Obama administration to block the payments, and last year a federal judge ruled that they are invalid but kept them going, pending the former administration’s appeal. Trump could drop that appeal, which would cause the payments to stop. But the Trump administration has decided not to do this — at least for now — and to keep the payments going.

“The withdrawal of the cost-sharing reductions would essentially torch the exchanges in most states,” Nicholas Bagley, a law professor and health policy expert at the University of Michigan, told me. “The Trump administration must think that it would be blamed for that. They’re admitting the politics are against them, at least with respect to something that has the potential to devastate the exchanges in a hot minute.”

Instead, by keeping up the payments, the administration has sent a signal to insurers that they should not exit the exchanges, at least for now. The administration does deserve credit for doing the right thing and averting the human toll that pushing the exchanges into collapse would have unleashed. But in pure political terms, this amounts to a concession of weakness.

Remember, Trump has said that, despite the failure of the GOP health bill, the ACA is currently in a state of catastrophic collapse — and thus that GOP efforts to repeal it will continue. This argument was badly undercut by the Congressional Budget Office’s finding that the exchanges will likely remain stable, and by a recent Standard & Poor’s report finding that there’s no “death spiral” and that the markets could soon become profitable for insurers.

...

It's interesting how Agent Orange is capable of being quiet when he wants to be, but the rest of the time, he screams and hollers.

[onekidanddone]

13 hours ago, JMarie said:

I watched the O'Reilly Factor tonight, so you don't have to.  These are the commercials that aired at 8PM:

MyPillow (all by itself)

--------

WaxRx (gross earwax removal thing, probably thrilled to be aired during prime time)

Fox Business Channel, about upcoming Trump interview

Deadliest Catch, new season starting on Discovery

Progressive Insurance

---------

Athene (annuities)

Qunol (CoQ10 supplement)

PCMatic (antivirus software)

-------------

Visiting Angels (homecare)

Coventry Direct (they'll buy your life insurance)

Fox News on Sirius

-----------

Fox News primetime lineup

PBS war miniseries

PCMatic (again)

Raymour & Flanigan (furniture)

--------------

Fastlife (life insurance)

Australian Dream (pain cream)

TheraBreath (toothpaste and mouthwash)

 

So there it is.  Not a very impressive lineup.  I only watched for the commercials, and I did other stuff when O'Reilly came back on.  He did have an interesting segment on the guy who was forcibly removed from the plane, with someone who runs a passenger rights group saying that the airline did everything wrong.  No mention of the Alabama governor, though.

 

Looks like a line up of the lower tier commercials like the ones on the oldies re-run stations. Cheap ads and ads for Fox on Fox.  Way to go Bill'O the Clown. 

[fraurosena]

Wow. The Tangerine Toddler really doesn't want to show his tax returns. So much so, that he's willing give up on his promised tax overhaul.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-gives-up-on-tax-overhaul-plan-918421571632

[47of74]

28 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Looks like a line up of the lower tier commercials like the ones on the oldies re-run stations. Cheap ads and ads for Fox on Fox.  Way to go Bill'O the Clown. 

Yeah most of those companies I never even heard of before. 

I remember hearing a couple times that Rush Limbaugh was to the point where the only thing that aired on some stations was PSAs, that they were having a hell of a time finding anyone willing to advertise on his show.  Maybe something similar is going to happen with Butthole O'Really where he becomes the kiss of death for companies looking to advertise.

[GreyhoundFan]

No big surprise here (updated figures): "Trump on pace to surpass 8 years of Obama's travel spending in 1 year"

Quote

Donald Trump's travel to his private club in Florida has cost over an estimated $20 million in his first 80 days as president, putting the president on pace in his first year of office to surpass former President Barack Obama's spending on travel for his entire eight years.

The outsized spending on travel stands in stark relief to Trump's calls for belt tightening across the federal government and the fact that he regularly criticized Obama for costing the American taxpayer money every time he took a trip.

Given variations in each trip, estimating the security costs around a presidential trip is difficult. But a 2016 Government Accountability Office report about a four-day trip Obama took to Florida in 2013 -- one similar to Trump's trips -- found the total cost to the Secret Service and Coast Guard was $3.6 million.

To date, Trump has spent six weekends -- and a total of 21 days -- at Mar-A-Lago, his private Palm Beach club. The total estimated costs for those trips are around $21.6 million.

Obama, by contrast, spent just under $97 million on travel in his eight years as president, according to documents reviewed by Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog. These trips included personal trips - including ski trips to Aspen and the Obama's annual family vacation in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts -- and work trips, like a visit to Everglades National Park on Earth Day in 2015.

Trump's frequent weekend travel makes it all but certain the 45th President will surpass Obama's spending in his first term, likely within months.

The spending comes as Trump asks the federal government to slash non-defense spending by $54 billion, including deep cuts to the State Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency and the wholesale elimination of other federal programs. The proposed cuts, which are unlikely to be adopted in total, will correspond with $54 billion in increases to defense spending.

Trump's frequent trips to Florida will likely end soon. Businesses in Palm Beach County have been told to expect the president to visit through May, but that Trump will likely stop visiting after that because the weather in the area begins to get stiflingly hot.

Instead, many expect Trump will then start making frequent trips to his penthouse apartment at Trump Tower in New York City -- where first lady Melania Trump has been living for the first part of 2017 as their son, Baron, finishes school -- and his private Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster Township, New Jersey.

Trump is said to be particularly fond of his New Jersey property. Ivanka Trump was married there, and Trump used the country club as president-elect to put together his government after winning November's election. In a sign of his love for the club, Trump has expressed a desire to be buried on the property.

But as much as the trips are a budget problem for Trump, they are also a public relations issue.

The president was an outspoken critic of Obama's travel, routinely slamming his predecessor on Twitter for his holiday trips home to Hawaii.

"The habitual vacationer, @BarackObama, is now in Hawaii. This vacation is costing taxpayers $4 milion +++ while there is 20% unemployment," Trump tweeted in 2011 with an incorrect unemployment figure.

Trump later tweeted: "President @BarackObama's vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars——Unbelievable!"

...

Despite these comments, Trump and his family have proven to be an expensive first family to protect.

Not only does Trump travel frequently, but New York City officials have said it costs between $127,000 to $146,000 a day to protect first lady Melania Trump when she is in New York and the president is not there.

Trump has yet to visit New York as president.

The extensive needs of the Trump family have put strains staffing on the Secret Service, too.

Dozens of agents from field offices across the country, including New York, have been temporarily pulled off their normal criminal investigation duties to work two-week rotations protecting members of the large Trump family, Secret Service officials told CNN.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said earlier this month that the Department of Homeland Security will ask for additional funding to protect Trump.

"They need a lot more agents, not just because of the Trump era, although that is additional because he has a lot of children and grandchildren," Kelly told senators on the Homeland Security Committee. "We need more agents and we need more uniformed personnel."

Kelly also acknowledged the strain the Secret Service is under.

"We need a larger Secret Service," Kelly said, "because we need to get some of these people a little bit of time at home with their families."

 

[Audrey2]

I think Trump will use the New Jersey golf course home more often than New York. My understanding of summers in New York, based on what I've read and heard, is that anyone who can spends weekends and the month of August away from New York. 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is an interesting, if lengthy, article: "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong." The article begins:

Quote

Until Nov. 8, 2016, historians of American politics shared a rough consensus about the rise of modern American conservatism. It told a respectable tale. By the end of World War II, the story goes, conservatives had become a scattered and obscure remnant, vanquished by the New Deal and the apparent reality that, as the critic Lionel Trilling wrote in 1950, liberalism was “not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition.”

Year Zero was 1955, when William F. Buckley Jr. started National Review, the small-circulation magazine whose aim, Buckley explained, was to “articulate a position on world affairs which a conservative candidate can adhere to without fear of intellectual embarrassment or political surrealism.” Buckley excommunicated the John Birch Society, anti-Semites and supporters of the hyperindividualist Ayn Rand, and his cohort fused the diverse schools of conservative thinking — traditionalist philosophers, militant anti-Communists, libertarian economists — into a coherent ideology, one that eventually came to dominate American politics.

...

 

 

 

 

"Trump says he created 600,000 jobs. Not true"

Quote

President Trump says he has created 600,000 jobs so far. It's a false statement.

"We've created over 600,000 jobs already over a very short period of time and it's going to really start catching on now," Trump said Tuesday at the White House, flanked by his top advisers and the CEOs who are members of his Business Advisory Council.

He repeated the statement later at a press conference: "Already we've created more than almost [sic] 600,000 jobs."

Official government data does not back up that claim.

According to CNNMoney's Trump Jobs Tracker, 317,000 jobs have been created since Trump took office. The president is trying to take credit for nearly double that number of jobs.

The ultimate authority on how many jobs are created (or lost) each month is the US Labor Department. CNNMoney's 317,000 figure includes how many jobs the Labor Department reported were created in February (219,000) and March (98,000).

A White House spokesman said Trump is including all the job added in January as well (216,000). Trump was only in office for 11.5 days that month.

But even if you give him all of the gains for January, that still only brings the tally to 533,000 jobs created so far in 2017.

The math doesn't quite add up to 600,000.

Trump likes to count job promises

There's ongoing debate over whether a president should take credit for creating jobs at all. Most of the hiring is done by the private sector. But there's a case to be made that government policies on taxes, regulations, trade, etc. do influence whether businesses want to hire or not.

"The president's comments touting the administration's economic record accurately reflect the growing optimism about his policies and the future outlook for the country," a White House spokesman told CNNMoney.

Trump has frequently said he's influenced companies like Ford, Charter Communications, General Motors and ExxonMobil to hire more workers, even though some of the businesses themselves refuse to give Trump credit for their hiring decisions.

Then there's the fact that some of the jobs these companies are touting as new hires are part of projects that were in the works long before Trump was elected. (CNNMoney has a running fact check of these announcements here).

Trump vs. Obama

The bottom line is: Yes, business and consumer optimism has picked up since Trump won the election. That is likely a factor in some hiring decisions by businesses. But the reality is the economy has added an average of 178,000 jobs a month so far this year. That's very close to, and even slightly lower than, the average last year (187,000 a month) when President Obama was in office.

 

[JMarie]

Well, this certainly took a while.  Maybe Trump can put these women in his unfilled Cabinet positions.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/11/mitt-romneys-binders-full-of-women-have-been-found/22035783/

[GreyhoundFan]

5 minutes ago, JMarie said:

Well, this certainly took a while.  Maybe Trump can put these women in his unfilled Cabinet positions.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/11/mitt-romneys-binders-full-of-women-have-been-found/22035783/

That would be nice, but not likely. The only woman he wants to have a say is Ivanka.

[AnywhereButHere]

Apparently, The Orange Emperor will be heading back down to Mar-A-Lago for the Easter weekend. He can bluster his way through throwing missles at Syria and antagonizing N. Korea, but he can't handle a bunch of kids at an Easter Egg Roll. 

http://uproxx.com/news/trump-easter-egg-roll/ 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/us/politics/white-house-easter-egg-roll-trump.amp.html

It seems fluffy in comparison to all of the other crap this White House has shoveled these past few months, but just provide more proof on how utterly inept they are. There is no planning, no forethought with these people. 

[IrishCarrie]

Eric Trump has been for in Ireland for the last couple of days, dealing with the Trump golf resort in Doonbeg, County Clare. He'd flown in by helicopter from the Trump resort in Scotland and his secret service detail had arrived ahead of him to check out the security arrangements.

Our main evening news bulletin did a piece on it, primarily because local Gardai (the Irish police force) had been roped in to secure all the approach roads to the resort and examine all vehicles entering and leaving.

It's not any kind of news outside Ireland but our police force are currently going through a major crisis. There's been a few scandals within the force in the last year or two and numbers are very low, with morale very poor.

So how do you think the Irish people feel when we see our (overworked, demoralised, under constant pressure, yet hardworking and committed) Gardai filmed on the back roads of Clare checking cars going into a golf resort? A good use of their time and energy, hmmm? Um, nope.

Its only happened once and we're mightily irritated. So I'd like to send my best wishes and sympathy to anyone who lives near Mar A Lago or the 5th avenue tower or any other Trump property.

TRUMP IS A SELFISH WANKER!!!!!!!!!

Ahem. 

Thank you, I needed that. Over and out. 

[GreyhoundFan]

52 minutes ago, AnywhereButHere said:

Apparently, The Orange Emperor will be heading back down to Mar-A-Lago for the Easter weekend. He can bluster his way through throwing missles at Syria and antagonizing N. Korea, but he can't handle a bunch of kids at an Easter Egg Roll. 

http://uproxx.com/news/trump-easter-egg-roll/ 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/us/politics/white-house-easter-egg-roll-trump.amp.html

It seems fluffy in comparison to all of the other crap this White House has shoveled these past few months, but just provide more proof on how utterly inept they are. There is no planning, no forethought with these people. 

People outside the DC area often don't know what a big deal the WH Easter Egg Roll is to the residents here. There are locals who are obsessed. The WaPo did an article on a woman who has the wooden commemorative eggs from more than 20 years, but can't bring herself to go this year because of Agent Orange. People used to stand in line for days, now they go crazy for the lottery for tickets, and some people sell their (free) tickets for a lot of money. It sounds stupid and fluffy, but it's being going on forever, and people here take it seriously. It's also a big photo-op for the first family. Sadly, I doubt either the tangerine toddler or Melania will want to put any effort in or enjoy the festivities. Instead of Barack and Michelle looking like they are having fun, we'll have Agent Orange looking annoyed and bored, and Melania looking pinched.

 

26 minutes ago, IrishCarrie said:

Eric Trump has been for in Ireland for the last couple of days, dealing with the Trump golf resort in Doonbeg, County Clare. He'd flown in by helicopter from the Trump resort in Scotland and his secret service detail had arrived ahead of him to check out the security arrangements.

Our main evening news bulletin did a piece on it, primarily because local Gardai (the Irish police force) had been roped in to secure all the approach roads to the resort and examine all vehicles entering and leaving.

It's not any kind of news outside Ireland but our police force are currently going through a major crisis. There's been a few scandals within the force in the last year or two and numbers are very low, with morale very poor.

So how do you think the Irish people feel when we see our (overworked, demoralised, under constant pressure, yet hardworking and committed) Gardai filmed on the back roads of Clare checking cars going into a golf resort? A good use of their time and energy, hmmm? Um, nope.

Its only happened once and we're mightily irritated. So I'd like to send my best wishes and sympathy to anyone who lives near Mar A Lago or the 5th avenue tower or any other Trump property.

TRUMP IS A SELFISH WANKER!!!!!!!!!

Ahem. 

Thank you, I needed that. Over and out. 

To the bolded, I so agree! I'm really sorry to read about the Gardai. It's difficult when the police are overworked and demoralized. That's what's going on with the Secret Service here. They are stretched beyond thin trying to protect the orange tick and his family.

[Howl]

On 4/10/2017 at 11:49 PM, JMarie said:

I watched the O'Reilly Factor tonight, so you don't have to.  These are the commercials that aired at 8PM:

<snip>

So there it is.  Not a very impressive lineup.  I only watched for the commercials, and I did other stuff when O'Reilly came back on.  He did have an interesting segment on the guy who was forcibly removed from the plane, with someone who runs a passenger rights group saying that the airline did everything wrong.  No mention of the Alabama governor, though.

@JMarie, thank you for taking one for the team!  Still laughing about this: No mention of the Alabama governor, though.

O'Reilly Factor appears to be one step away from the Super Bass-O-Matic: