Sarah Huckabee Sanders Version of Covfefe

[fraurosena]

We have a Spicer thread, but as we're seeing more and more of his replacement, SHS, I've started a separate thread for her. 

Although, with this latest tweet of hers I'm not sure this thread is going to be a long one, as none of us will know what she's saying if this is a prediction of future communications. covfefe, anyone?

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Coconut Flan

[formergothardite]

Covfefe might make more sense than that. 

[Audrey2]

Does she have a child? If so, did her child get ahold of her Twitter account? It looks like the same type of message my Sweetie's grandson has sent when he's grabbed Grandpa's phone and is "texting". With so many picture symbols, it doesn't look like a butt/purse post.

[fraurosena]

8 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

Does she have a child? If so, did her child get ahold of her Twitter account? It looks like the same type of message my Sweetie's grandson has sent when he's grabbed Grandpa's phone and is "texting". With so many picture symbols, it doesn't look like a butt/purse post.

If this is a kid's tweet sent from her phone, what on earth is that child doing with a government issued phone which could contain sensitive information/ security information/ classified information? That is one hell of a security risk! 

Not that this administration cares much for breaches of security when even the presidunce himself shares classified intelligence with the Russians...

[Audrey2]

@fraurosena, unfortunately, you know this administration. They can explain away any inappropriate behavior by anyone with an R after their name. 

 

My other thought is, the Tangerine Toddler also has a cell phone from which he tweets, and his tweets are only marginally better than Sarah's!

[fraurosena]

Just now, Audrey2 said:

@fraurosena, unfortunately, you know this administration. They can explain away any inappropriate behavior by anyone with an R after their name. 

 

My other thought is, the Tangerine Toddler also has a cell phone from which he tweets, and his tweets are only marginally better than Sarah's!

That's only because he probably hasn't figured out how to use emoji's yet.

[GrumpyGran]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

We have a Spicer thread, but as we're seeing more and more of his replacement, SHS, I've started a separate thread for her. 

Although, with this latest tweet of hers I'm not sure this thread is going to be a long one, as none of us will know what she's saying if this is a prediction of future communications. covfefe, anyone?

 

Wait, this isn't really her twitter account, right? One of those fake ones? Because if not, what the holy hell? Was she drunk? Truthfully I'm surprised they're not all drunk all the time but how can you have her job, whatever it is, and put something like this out? Trump, we expect it. But she's one of the Trump Translators.

Oh, and thanks for starting this thread @fraurosena, I know you did it just for me. And here I thought I might be using it just to snark on her wardrobe weirdness but maybe she going to be more interesting than I thought.

[AnywhereButHere]

Good god. Is she trying to speak in code to the Russian handlers? Or maybe it's her version of semaphore? The whole lot of them have lost it. Enter White House - check brain at door.

[fraurosena]

2 minutes ago, AnywhereButHere said:

Good god. Is she trying to speak in code to the Russian handlers? Or maybe it's her version of semaphore? The whole lot of them have lost it. Enter White House - check brain at door.

Ahhhh! So that was what Spicey was searching for in the bushes...

[candygirl200413]

So she ended up saying that it was her son Huck (3 years old). But yeah why is her son anywhere close to a government issue phone? But like many of you said, this administration doesn't GAF because why care about security of this nation?

[kpmom]

1 hour ago, candygirl200413 said:

So she ended up saying that it was her son Huck (3 years old). But yeah why is her son anywhere close to a government issue phone? But like many of you said, this administration doesn't GAF because why care about security of this nation?

They don't GAF about national security unless it's Hillary and her emails. 

[JMarie]

There is no way she'd have any kind of job at the White House if her father wasn't a former Republican governor.

[fraurosena]

On 11-6-2017 at 0:42 AM, candygirl200413 said:

So she ended up saying that it was her son Huck (3 years old). But yeah why is her son anywhere close to a government issue phone? But like many of you said, this administration doesn't GAF because why care about security of this nation?

And why was that phone not locked? A government issue phone should be locked whenever you're not using it. The level of DGAF is astounding, as locking a phone automatically when not in use can simply be programmed. It's not that difficult. 

[Jane M.]

Can't wait for the SNL version of that tweet.

[PreciousPantsofDoom]

On 2017-6-11 at 10:27 PM, fraurosena said:

And why was that phone not locked? A government issue phone should be locked whenever you're not using it. The level of DGAF is astounding, as locking a phone automatically when not in use can simply be programmed. It's not that difficult. 

My phone is locked when not in use and 1) Its not a government issue phone, 2) I don't have a toddler, 3)If I was to tweet out something stupid because I somehow thought it was funny (?) And it turned out I had misjudged the appeal of my great humor, then I would own it, sheepishly apologize, and move on.  Not make it worse by throwing my child under the bus and  indicating that I am careless with my government phone. 

[GreyhoundFan]

SHS really fits in, doesn't she? "Sarah Huckabee Sanders lambastes fake news — and then promotes a journalist accused of deceptive videos"

Spoiler

You could be forgiven for getting a sense of whiplash if you watched the White House briefing Tuesday.

In the span of a few seconds, deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders attacked the media for inaccuracies and then turned around and urged them to watch a new video from conservative undercover video journalist James O'Keefe, who has stood accused of deceptive editing and tactics. Huckabee Sanders even qualified — twice — that she couldn't vouch for the accuracy of O'Keefe's new video. But she nonetheless said everyone should watch them.

The comments at Tuesday's briefing were spurred by three journalists resigning after CNN retracted a story about the White House and the Russia investigation that it acknowledged wasn't thoroughly vetted.

Huckabee Sanders was asked why those resignations were apparently insufficient for President Trump, who continued tweeting attacks at CNN and other media outlets Tuesday morning. Here's the full, remarkable quote (emphasis added):

I don't know that it's that the response isn't good enough for the president. I think it's the constant barrage of fake news that is directed at this president, probably, that has garnered a lot of his frustration. You point to that report; there are multiple other instances where that outlet that you referenced has been repeatedly wrong and had to point that out or had to correct it. There's a video circulating now — whether it's accurate or not, I don't know — but I would encourage everyone in this room and, frankly, everybody across the country to take a look at it. I think if it is accurate, I think it's a disgrace to all of media, to all of journalism.

O'Keefe's video features a CNN health and medical producer apparently complaining about the cable channel's coverage of the Russia investigation and saying it's being done for ratings.

But O'Keefe's brand of journalism has repeatedly been called into question — both for his methods and the way his videos are edited. The Post's Paul Farhi summed it up last year:

The techniques employed by O’Keefe and his associates, they say, fall far outside journalistic norms. Mainstream news organizations discourage the methods that he regularly employs to expose questionable practices, usually by liberals or Democrats.

Among the more problematic is Project Veritas’s associates’ use of aliases and false identities to gain access to the people it stings. The organization acknowledges that its people posed as political donors to trick the two Democratic operatives into speaking with them for the “rigging” videos.

…

An even bigger issue, however, has been the way in which O’Keefe has edited some of his videos.

In 2009, he and an associate posed as a pimp and prostitute to infiltrate ACORN, a community social-services agency. The resulting video showed ACORN members offering the pair advice on how to set up a brothel. It also showed outtakes of O’Keefe and his partner dressed in the flamboyant attire of street hustlers, suggesting they had appeared that way when they spoke to the officials. In fact, the footage of the pair in costume was spliced into the video after the ACORN meetings, a fact the video didn’t mention.

Congress subsequently defunded ACORN, leading to its demise. O’Keefe was later sued by one of his subjects, who claimed his privacy had been invaded by the surreptitious filming; O’Keefe settled the matter for $100,000, admitting no guilt.

O’Keefe’s 2011 sting of NPR executives was fraught with discrepancies between what one of the executives said and how his comments were framed in the video. Then-NPR executive Ron Schiller was quoted in the video as saying that tea party activists were “seriously racist people.” But the raw footage of the encounter showed that Schiller was quoting two Republicans who viewed the activists that way, not that he held such views.

In other words, when you are lecturing journalists on the importance of accuracy and ethics, citing O'Keefe probably isn't a great idea. And really, the juxtaposition of those two things from Huckabee Sanders at Tuesday's briefing says it all.

The White House is far less concerned about accuracy than it is about its own version of the truth — it is less concerned about facts than about its own, alternative facts. If it and the president himself showed a greater regard for accuracy in their own dealings with the news media, these complaints would be easier to take seriously. The media makes mistakes, and this week proved it! But citing O'Keefe fits well with a particularly long paper trail suggesting the White House's accuracy crusade is hopelessly one-sided and self-serving.

 

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

There's a video circulating now — whether it's accurate or not, I don't know — but I would encourage everyone in this room and, frankly, everybody across the country to take a look at it. I think if it is accurate, I think it's a disgrace to all of media, to all of journalism.

This. This right here. WTF? You stand there and whine about "fake news" and then have the ignorant mindlessness to say this? You just outed yourself. Admitted that you search for items that support the agenda and don't even bother to verify their accuracy. And yet you have the entitlement-fueled hubris to think that this  is some type of comparison? Do you understand what your job is? Soon, even Daddy won't be able to save you.

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, GrumpyGran said:

This. This right here. WTF? You stand there and whine about "fake news" and then have the ignorant mindlessness to say this? You just outed yourself. Admitted that you search for items that support the agenda and don't even bother to verify their accuracy. And yet you have the entitlement-fueled hubris to think that this  is some type of comparison? Do you understand what your job is? Soon, even Daddy won't be able to save you.

 Their lack of integrity never ceases to disappoint. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘I don’t like bullies’: Reporter explains why he confronted Sarah Huckabee Sanders"

Spoiler

Brian Karem, the reporter who confronted deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a news briefing, said he did so because he’s had enough of the Trump administration’s bullying of the media.

“I don’t like bullies and I don’t like the entire situation of the press and free speech being castigated for no other reason than we either get stories wrong — which happens, and it should be then responsibly corrected — or because we report news the president doesn’t like — which seems to happen even more often than getting stories wrong,” Karem, executive editor of two Maryland newspapers, wrote in a column explaining his outburst during the Tuesday briefing.

Sanders was in the middle of blasting the media, specifically the use of anonymous sources and the now-retracted CNN story on Russia ties with the Trump campaign, when Karem interjected.

Here’s part of the tense exchange:

KAREM: Come on, you’re inflaming everybody right here, right now with those words. This administration has done that as well. Why in the name of heavens — any one of us, right, are replaceable. And any one of us, if we don’t get it right, the audience has the opportunity to turn the channel or not read us.

SANDERS: I think —

KAREM: You have been elected to serve for four years at least. There’s no option other than that.

SANDERS: I think —

KAREM: We’re here to ask you questions.

Karem said he attended the news briefing to ask a question about health care. But it later became apparent to him that the on-camera briefing was to bash the press, he told The Washington Post.

“We all know in this business people who’ve been injured trying to get the news, people who’ve died trying to get the news. I was jailed trying to get the news,” he said. “To just have us all [be called] enemies of the people, fake news … I’m tired of being bullied.”

During the question-and-answer portion of the briefing, Sanders went on a largely uninterrupted tirade against the media, slamming CNN in particular for the network’s Russia story that resulted in a retraction and subsequent resignation of three journalists. She also encouraged people to watch a video that purportedly showed a CNN employee criticizing the network, while acknowledging that she did not know whether the footage is accurate or not.

...

Sanders’s criticism of the media ate up nearly five minutes of a 17-minute question-and-answer session, The Post reported. Before that, reporters sat through a 40-minute briefing by Energy Secretary Rick Perry about the White House’s “energy week.”

The briefing also was reportedly a half-hour late. White House press secretary Sean Spicer was scheduled to lead the on-camera briefing, but Sanders subbed for him instead.

Because of all of that, it appears, Karem’s anger boiled over.

“You’re here to provide the answers, and what you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country who look at this and say, ‘See, once again, the president’s right and everybody else out here is fake media,'” he told Sanders. “And everybody in this room is only trying to do their job.”

In response, Sanders circled back to the media’s “dishonesty.”

“And I think it’s outrageous for you to accuse me of inflaming a story when I was simply trying to respond to his question,” she told Karem, as she moved on to the next question.

In his column published on Playboy Magazine where Karem is also a contributor, he compared the Trump administration’s “half-truths and lies” to “day-old cookies at a bake sale” that the White House is selling to the public.

He slammed the White House for the briefing’s delay.

“I think it’s incredibly rude to always keep 100 people waiting. Just make time for the briefing later — I’m fine with that,” he wrote. “But please, as my Southern parents taught me, if you commit to be somewhere on time — then do it. This administration rarely does.”

But he also defended Sanders and Spicer who, Karem said, have tried to some extent to be open while working for a president who lambastes the press regularly on Twitter. 

“The fact is: I like Sarah Sanders. I like Sean Spicer. I like most of the people I’ve met who work in this administration,” he wrote. “They’re personable and, as far as I can tell — with a few notable exceptions — decent people.”

...

Just the day before, CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta confronted Spicer about cameras during news briefings. The White House has, at times in the past few days, barred cameras and live audio broadcasts, breaking a long-standing tradition of on-camera briefings.

“Maybe you should turn the cameras on, Sean. Why don’t we turn the cameras on? Why don’t we turn the cameras on? Why not turn the cameras on, Sean? There is a room, the lights are on,” Acosta asked during Monday’s briefing.

Spicer, appearing to ignore Acosta’s barrage of questions but answering similar ones from other reporters, said only that the White House “will continue to mix things up.”

“Some days we’ll have them, some days we won’t,” Spicer said about cameras.

Karem’s confrontation with Sanders seems to have resulted in a newfound fame among admirers — and haters.

“I don’t want this to be about me. The issue is respecting the press,” he said, adding that the attention on him will be short lived. “I guess today, I’m the flavor of the moment, and it’s only momentary and the flavor will change tomorrow.”

Here’s a sampling of some of the social media reactions about Karem’s outburst:

...

Yeah, she's no better than Spicey.

[apple1]

13 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"‘I don’t like bullies’: Reporter explains why he confronted Sarah Huckabee Sanders"

  Reveal hidden contents

Brian Karem, the reporter who confronted deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a news briefing, said he did so because he’s had enough of the Trump administration’s bullying of the media.

“I don’t like bullies and I don’t like the entire situation of the press and free speech being castigated for no other reason than we either get stories wrong — which happens, and it should be then responsibly corrected — or because we report news the president doesn’t like — which seems to happen even more often than getting stories wrong,” Karem, executive editor of two Maryland newspapers, wrote in a column explaining his outburst during the Tuesday briefing.

Sanders was in the middle of blasting the media, specifically the use of anonymous sources and the now-retracted CNN story on Russia ties with the Trump campaign, when Karem interjected.

Here’s part of the tense exchange:

KAREM: Come on, you’re inflaming everybody right here, right now with those words. This administration has done that as well. Why in the name of heavens — any one of us, right, are replaceable. And any one of us, if we don’t get it right, the audience has the opportunity to turn the channel or not read us.

SANDERS: I think —

KAREM: You have been elected to serve for four years at least. There’s no option other than that.

SANDERS: I think —

KAREM: We’re here to ask you questions.

Karem said he attended the news briefing to ask a question about health care. But it later became apparent to him that the on-camera briefing was to bash the press, he told The Washington Post.

“We all know in this business people who’ve been injured trying to get the news, people who’ve died trying to get the news. I was jailed trying to get the news,” he said. “To just have us all [be called] enemies of the people, fake news … I’m tired of being bullied.”

During the question-and-answer portion of the briefing, Sanders went on a largely uninterrupted tirade against the media, slamming CNN in particular for the network’s Russia story that resulted in a retraction and subsequent resignation of three journalists. She also encouraged people to watch a video that purportedly showed a CNN employee criticizing the network, while acknowledging that she did not know whether the footage is accurate or not.

...

Sanders’s criticism of the media ate up nearly five minutes of a 17-minute question-and-answer session, The Post reported. Before that, reporters sat through a 40-minute briefing by Energy Secretary Rick Perry about the White House’s “energy week.”

The briefing also was reportedly a half-hour late. White House press secretary Sean Spicer was scheduled to lead the on-camera briefing, but Sanders subbed for him instead.

Because of all of that, it appears, Karem’s anger boiled over.

“You’re here to provide the answers, and what you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country who look at this and say, ‘See, once again, the president’s right and everybody else out here is fake media,'” he told Sanders. “And everybody in this room is only trying to do their job.”

In response, Sanders circled back to the media’s “dishonesty.”

“And I think it’s outrageous for you to accuse me of inflaming a story when I was simply trying to respond to his question,” she told Karem, as she moved on to the next question.

In his column published on Playboy Magazine where Karem is also a contributor, he compared the Trump administration’s “half-truths and lies” to “day-old cookies at a bake sale” that the White House is selling to the public.

He slammed the White House for the briefing’s delay.

“I think it’s incredibly rude to always keep 100 people waiting. Just make time for the briefing later — I’m fine with that,” he wrote. “But please, as my Southern parents taught me, if you commit to be somewhere on time — then do it. This administration rarely does.”

But he also defended Sanders and Spicer who, Karem said, have tried to some extent to be open while working for a president who lambastes the press regularly on Twitter. 

“The fact is: I like Sarah Sanders. I like Sean Spicer. I like most of the people I’ve met who work in this administration,” he wrote. “They’re personable and, as far as I can tell — with a few notable exceptions — decent people.”

...

Just the day before, CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta confronted Spicer about cameras during news briefings. The White House has, at times in the past few days, barred cameras and live audio broadcasts, breaking a long-standing tradition of on-camera briefings.

“Maybe you should turn the cameras on, Sean. Why don’t we turn the cameras on? Why don’t we turn the cameras on? Why not turn the cameras on, Sean? There is a room, the lights are on,” Acosta asked during Monday’s briefing.

Spicer, appearing to ignore Acosta’s barrage of questions but answering similar ones from other reporters, said only that the White House “will continue to mix things up.”

“Some days we’ll have them, some days we won’t,” Spicer said about cameras.

Karem’s confrontation with Sanders seems to have resulted in a newfound fame among admirers — and haters.

“I don’t want this to be about me. The issue is respecting the press,” he said, adding that the attention on him will be short lived. “I guess today, I’m the flavor of the moment, and it’s only momentary and the flavor will change tomorrow.”

Here’s a sampling of some of the social media reactions about Karem’s outburst:

...

Yeah, she's no better than Spicey.

I cannot stand watching or listening to her. I would rather have Spicer any day. At least Spicer doesn't try to pretend to be nice - or professional. What you see is what you get.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump has never ‘promoted or encouraged violence.’ She is very wrong."

Spoiler

Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was dispatched Thursday to defend President Trump's tweets about MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski that have earned almost universal condemnation, even from Republicans. In doing so, she made a whopper of a claim.

When a reporter at Thursday's news briefing noted that just two weeks ago, after the shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice, the political world talked of cooling the rhetoric to avoid such violence, Sanders was quick to respond: "The president in no way, form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence. If anything, quite the contrary."

This is laughable.

Even if you don't believe Trump has technically incited violence (which he has been sued for), he clearly nodded toward violence at his campaign rallies. Sometimes it was veiled; other times it was unmistakable. Sometimes he was talking about self-defense, but it was clear he was advocating for a “form of violence.”

Here's a little trip down memory lane:

August 2015

...

Trump attacked Bernie Sanders for letting Black Lives Matter protesters hijack his stage and said that kind of thing would be physically stopped at one of his events.

“I don’t know if I’ll do the fighting myself or if other people will,” he clarified.

November 2015

“Get him the hell out of here, will you, please?” Trump said of a protester. “Get him out of here. Throw him out!”

The next day, after video emerged of the protester being treated roughly, Trump said the man was “so obnoxious and so loud” that “maybe he should have been roughed up.”

February 2016

Trump said after someone threw a tomato at a rally: “If you see somebody with a tomato, knock the crap out of them.”

March 2016

...

“We have had a couple [protesters] that were really violent, and the particular one when I said I'd like to bang him, that was a very  —  he was a guy who was swinging, very loud and started swinging at the audience and the audience swung back, and I thought it was very, very appropriate.”

Trump added: “He was swinging, he was hitting people, and the audience hit back, and that’s what we need.”

March 2016, again

Talking about someone rushing the stage: “I don't know if I would have done well, but I would have been out there fighting, folks. I don't know if I'd have done well, but I would've been — boom boom boom boom.”

Trump then mouthed, “I'll beat the crap out of you.”

March 2016, again

“Part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore, right?”

March 2016, again

...

“In the good old days this doesn't happen because they used to treat them very, very rough.”

March 2016, again

Trump suggested he would pay the legal fees of those who remove protesters if they get sued.

“Get him out,” Trump said. “Try not to hurt him. If you do, I'll defend you in court, don't worry about it.”

She is annoying me more every day.

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump has never ‘promoted or encouraged violence.’ She is very wrong."

She is annoying me more every day.

Think about her daddy the Duggar apologist and you will know the rotten apple does not fall far from the tree.

[GreyhoundFan]

"So that’s why Sarah Huckabee Sanders wants the cameras off"

Spoiler

It’s easy to see why Sarah Huckabee Sanders wants the TV cameras off during her White House news briefings.

There is, for one, the matter of her boss constantly proclaiming things that range from the inexplicable to the patently wrong. There’s also the metastasizing Russia scandal, which keeps rendering previous Trump White House statements inoperative, as Richard Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler used to say.

But above all is a more simple explanation: Sanders has no earthly idea what’s going on in the White House she purports to represent.

And so, at Monday’s off-camera briefing, she stood on the podium, frequently cocking her left eyebrow and raising the left corner of her lips to convey displeasure at the line of questioning. Then, as frequently, she opened her mouth and, with a heavy Arkansas twang, said a lot of nothing.

The Post’s Philip Rucker asked about other Trump campaign meetings with Russians such as the newly discovered one in which Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort reportedly sought the goods on Hillary Clinton. “I am not sure,” she said. “I’ll check and get back to you.”

John Gizzi from Newsmax asked if Trump raised the subject of Russia’s human rights abuses during their meeting. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ll have to ask.”

Another reporter asked if Trump trusts Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

“I haven’t asked.”

Was their meeting recorded?

“I’d have to ask. I’m not sure.”

And on it went. Sanders said she’d need to “have further conversations” before terming Russia an ally or an adversary.

The kerfuffle over the White House briefings is misplaced. The Trump White House move to have fewer briefings and to move them off camera is just a symptom. The real problem is that the people giving the briefings don’t have a clue; they can’t, as Trump put it, “stand at podium with perfect accuracy.”

Or a semblance of dignity. The humiliations that ruined Sean Spicer will do the same to Sanders or whoever fills the role. Trump doesn’t seem to tell his people what he’s doing, if he knows himself. ABC News’s Jon Karl published a list last month of 26 times Sanders and Spicer said they would “get back to you” but never did. There are, surely, many more.

Sanders did everything possible to avoid drawing attention to herself at Monday’s briefing, but to no avail. It wasn’t televised, but reporters were standing in the aisles. She brought out Marc Short, Trump’s legislative director, to deliver a diversionary statement about Democrats’ “needless obstruction” of Trump’s nominees. But the distraction failed when half a dozen reporters used the opportunity to quiz Short about the floundering effort in the Senate to pass Trumpcare.

Sanders stepped onto the podium and gave her colleague the hook. She read a six-minute statement about Trump’s “powerful and historic speech” in Poland and how he “successfully achieved his objectives” in Germany, then gave reporters exactly 15 minutes to question her before walking out of the room.

She called first on her “fellow Arkansan” Frank Lockwood from the Democrat-Gazette. But this was no safe harbor: He asked about Trump’s tweet targeting Chelsea Clinton. “At what point is the president going to put Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Bill Clinton in the rear-view mirror?” he asked. “He won the election.”

Sanders attempted to argue that the Clinton tweet was justified by an “outrageous attack against a White House senior adviser” — the derision set off by Ivanka Trump taking her father’s chair at the G-20 summit.

Then came a barrage of questions about Donald Jr.’s newly reported meeting with the Russians, which negated, as CBS’s Major Garrett noted, the White House’s “long history of blanket denials” that there had been campaign contacts with the Russians.

“There was simply no collusion,” she said, eyebrow cocked and lip corner raised.

“That’s a different question,” Garrett pointed out.

Sanders repeated that there wasn’t any collusion.

It didn’t go much better with questions about Trump’s weekend tweet touting a new “cyber security unit” with Russia and then, 12 hours later, another tweet disavowing the project. “I am not sure there were specific details discussed,” Sanders said. She also declined to echo Trump’s tweeted suggestion Monday morning that former FBI director James Comey had leaked classified information — which means he would have perjured himself when he said he didn’t. “Uh, I think there are a lot of questions out there and a lot of reports,” Sanders demurred.

In fairness to Sanders, there are no good answers to these questions. Trump, with his reckless tweets and nonsense claims, leaves his mouthpieces in an impossible position. No less an authority than former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said after Trump’s vulgar tweet about Mika Brzezinski that “he makes my daughter’s job very difficult.”

But that’s no excuse. Sanders has agreed to interpret the nonsensical and to rationalize the indefensible. Like Spicer, she will fail.

She's as big an idiot as Spicey.

[GrumpyGran]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"So that’s why Sarah Huckabee Sanders wants the cameras off"

  Reveal hidden contents

It’s easy to see why Sarah Huckabee Sanders wants the TV cameras off during her White House news briefings.

There is, for one, the matter of her boss constantly proclaiming things that range from the inexplicable to the patently wrong. There’s also the metastasizing Russia scandal, which keeps rendering previous Trump White House statements inoperative, as Richard Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler used to say.

But above all is a more simple explanation: Sanders has no earthly idea what’s going on in the White House she purports to represent.

And so, at Monday’s off-camera briefing, she stood on the podium, frequently cocking her left eyebrow and raising the left corner of her lips to convey displeasure at the line of questioning. Then, as frequently, she opened her mouth and, with a heavy Arkansas twang, said a lot of nothing.

The Post’s Philip Rucker asked about other Trump campaign meetings with Russians such as the newly discovered one in which Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort reportedly sought the goods on Hillary Clinton. “I am not sure,” she said. “I’ll check and get back to you.”

John Gizzi from Newsmax asked if Trump raised the subject of Russia’s human rights abuses during their meeting. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ll have to ask.”

Another reporter asked if Trump trusts Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

“I haven’t asked.”

Was their meeting recorded?

“I’d have to ask. I’m not sure.”

And on it went. Sanders said she’d need to “have further conversations” before terming Russia an ally or an adversary.

The kerfuffle over the White House briefings is misplaced. The Trump White House move to have fewer briefings and to move them off camera is just a symptom. The real problem is that the people giving the briefings don’t have a clue; they can’t, as Trump put it, “stand at podium with perfect accuracy.”

Or a semblance of dignity. The humiliations that ruined Sean Spicer will do the same to Sanders or whoever fills the role. Trump doesn’t seem to tell his people what he’s doing, if he knows himself. ABC News’s Jon Karl published a list last month of 26 times Sanders and Spicer said they would “get back to you” but never did. There are, surely, many more.

Sanders did everything possible to avoid drawing attention to herself at Monday’s briefing, but to no avail. It wasn’t televised, but reporters were standing in the aisles. She brought out Marc Short, Trump’s legislative director, to deliver a diversionary statement about Democrats’ “needless obstruction” of Trump’s nominees. But the distraction failed when half a dozen reporters used the opportunity to quiz Short about the floundering effort in the Senate to pass Trumpcare.

Sanders stepped onto the podium and gave her colleague the hook. She read a six-minute statement about Trump’s “powerful and historic speech” in Poland and how he “successfully achieved his objectives” in Germany, then gave reporters exactly 15 minutes to question her before walking out of the room.

She called first on her “fellow Arkansan” Frank Lockwood from the Democrat-Gazette. But this was no safe harbor: He asked about Trump’s tweet targeting Chelsea Clinton. “At what point is the president going to put Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Bill Clinton in the rear-view mirror?” he asked. “He won the election.”

Sanders attempted to argue that the Clinton tweet was justified by an “outrageous attack against a White House senior adviser” — the derision set off by Ivanka Trump taking her father’s chair at the G-20 summit.

Then came a barrage of questions about Donald Jr.’s newly reported meeting with the Russians, which negated, as CBS’s Major Garrett noted, the White House’s “long history of blanket denials” that there had been campaign contacts with the Russians.

“There was simply no collusion,” she said, eyebrow cocked and lip corner raised.

“That’s a different question,” Garrett pointed out.

Sanders repeated that there wasn’t any collusion.

It didn’t go much better with questions about Trump’s weekend tweet touting a new “cyber security unit” with Russia and then, 12 hours later, another tweet disavowing the project. “I am not sure there were specific details discussed,” Sanders said. She also declined to echo Trump’s tweeted suggestion Monday morning that former FBI director James Comey had leaked classified information — which means he would have perjured himself when he said he didn’t. “Uh, I think there are a lot of questions out there and a lot of reports,” Sanders demurred.

In fairness to Sanders, there are no good answers to these questions. Trump, with his reckless tweets and nonsense claims, leaves his mouthpieces in an impossible position. No less an authority than former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said after Trump’s vulgar tweet about Mika Brzezinski that “he makes my daughter’s job very difficult.”

But that’s no excuse. Sanders has agreed to interpret the nonsensical and to rationalize the indefensible. Like Spicer, she will fail.

She's as big an idiot as Spicey.

She's the target du jour right now. But I do think that none of these front people are given any information any more. There's an article somewhere on this forum about speculation that they are so paranoid about leaks now that only a very few chosen have the whole story. Everyone else is running around with nothing but gossip and half-stories.

This explains why we get nothing but "his tweets are his thoughts", "you'll have to ask him", "in the past, he's been very clear", and the most stunning, "I don't know." Then why are you here? Why am I paying you $180,000 a year? So Spicy now hides gratefully in the hedges, Kellyanne has reverted to campaign idiocy and Sanders is left to do the heavy lifting.

[GreyhoundFan]

The star of the remake of "Clueless" had another briefing: "‘I just don’t know.’ Another answer-starved White House news briefing, annotated". Since it's annotated, I can't quote, but I just loved this part:

Spoiler

Also on the Hill, the President was glad to see David Nye confirmed as a U.S. District Judge in Idaho by a vote of 100-0. It's unfortunate, though, that this clearly eminently qualified nominee who was reported out of committee by a voice vote faced more than 30 procedural hurdles forced by Senate Democrats before his unanimous vote. Senate Democrats continue to show the American people that they'd rather play political games with these critical nominations than work with this administration. As the Majority Leader said, if they continue at this rate, it will take the Senate almost 11.5 years to confirm the remaining presidential appointments.

As the notes point out, Nye was nominated by Obama in April 2016 and his confirmation was held up by Repugs until January 2017.