They both can't be Fredo, can they? Junior and Eric

[Howl]

Yup, all red MAGA hat and no cattle....

That's a Texas expression used to indicate that the person is a pretentious blowhole.  It's the cactus form of Well, bless his heart! 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump Jr. griped that CNN didn’t run his dad’s commercial. ‘This ad is racist,’ the network replied."

Spoiler

Donald Trump Jr. had a grievance to air Saturday morning.

CNN had refused to run an election ad released by his father, President Trump, earlier this week, a video that featured Luis Bracamontes — an undocumented immigrant who was convicted in the murder of two California sheriff’s deputies — in an apparent attempt to drum up fears about immigration.

“I guess they only run fake news and won’t talk about real threats that don’t suit their agenda,” Trump Jr. tweeted, linking to a shorter, 30-second version of the ad. “Enjoy. Remember this on Tuesday. #vote #voterepublican"

CNN’s public relations department promptly fired back at the president’s eldest child, repeating a statement that the network’s reporters had made last week: The ad was racist.

“CNN has made it abundantly clear in its editorial coverage that this ad is racist,” CNN PR tweeted. “When presented with an opportunity to be paid to take a version of this ad, we declined. Those are the facts.”

The full ad, released and tweeted out by the president on Halloween, showed a smiling and unremorseful Bracamontes as he bragged in the courtroom: “I killed [expletive] cops. They’re [expletive] dead. I don’t [expletive] regret that [expletive]. . . . I will break out soon and I will kill more.” (In the advertisement, the actual expletives are heard.)

There is no subtlety to the message the ad is trying to telegraph: Migrants are killers and criminals, and Democrats comprise the party that enable them.

Indeed, the ad “dispenses with whatever restraint Trump may have exercised with his divisive immigration rhetoric,” as The Washington Post’s media critic Erik Wemple described in a recent column:

In his tweet promoting the video ad, Trump writes, “It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now!” As the ad cycles through Bracamontes’s chilling threats in the courtroom, a banner reads, “DEMOCRATS LET HIM INTO OUR COUNTRY.”

The focus then switches to footage of a migrant caravan overwhelming fences at a checkpoint, and then to a Fox News clip in which a migrant tells a translator that he plans on seeking a pardon for the “felony he committed … attempted murder.” Again, the multitudes splash across the screen, with this banner, “WHO ELSE WOULD DEMOCRATS LET IN?”

... The video stigmatizes a large group of people of color as criminals — killers bent on coming in and killing the law-abiding residents of the United States. It’s another in the long list of shocking-but-not-surprising developments in the Trump presidency. This is Trump’s remarks about Mexico’s “rapists” in video format.

As Wemple noted, after the ad was released, a slew of media outlets dispensed with the usual equivocations — “racially charged,” “racially tinged” and the like — and described the commercial as outright “racist” (CNN), “divisive” (NBC News) and “fearmongering” (HuffPost).

Moreover, the lines about Democrats letting Bracamontes stay in the country didn’t hold up to a fact check, as The Post’s Eli Rosenberg reported. Bracamontes was deported in 1997 and 2001, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, according to local newspapers at the time. Bracamontes also apparently was arrested, then released, in Phoenix in 1998.

If Trump Jr. was miffed by CNN’s retort, though, he didn’t show it. The president’s son, who once claimed to be so busy running the family business that he had nearly “zero contact” with his father, has been aggressively campaigning for several Republican candidates in recent weeks.

Throughout Saturday, Trump Jr. retweeted others critical of CNN, including attacks on CNN anchor Don Lemon, who had recently said that “the biggest terror threat in this country is white men.” Trump Jr. also shared a clip of a CNN interviewer talking to who she thought was a random person at a rally for Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum. The person turned out to be Gillum’s mother.

“No wonder you’re the fakest name in news. #fakenews,” Trump Jr. tweeted at CNN.

Like his son, President Trump has regularly attacked CNN on Twitter and in his rally speeches. The president once tweeted a doctored video clip that showed him slamming a man representing “CNN” to the ground. Another time he retweeted an image depicting “CNN” squashed beneath his shoe.

On Saturday, CNN representatives included an apple emoji in its reply to Trump Jr., a reference to the “Facts First” campaign the station launched last year to try to fight claims by Trump — and his supporters — that the network is “fake news.” Though CNN’s “Facts First” video never called out Trump by name, it hinted at tactics used by the president.

“This is an apple. Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana,” the ad said. “They might scream banana, banana, banana over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana.

“But it’s not. This is an apple.”

 

[Cartmann99]

Why would anybody go out of their way to see these idiots?

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Lying and stupidity seem to be both nature and nurture in the Dumpy family: "Donald Trump Jr. tries to cast doubt on the vote in Florida by sharing an already-updated story from 2012"

Spoiler

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, has tweeted excoriations of the “fake news” media more than 50 times since his father was inaugurated. Often, Trump Jr. is taking outlets to task for not updating or correcting stories that include some often-minor inaccuracy. At one point, he appeared to sincerely call out the Onion as fake news, which it is. He’ll retweet stories from Breitbart or other conservative publications bashing the mainstream media or pick up someone else’s tweet and slap the “fake news” label on it.

And sometimes Trump Jr. himself shared misleading or inaccurate information. On Monday, he did so despite the information itself having been debunked.

In the article he was sharing.

President Trump and his allies have been pushing to cast the vote-counting that’s continuing in Florida as fraught with illegal ballots and broadly questionable. There’s no evidence that anything untoward is happening; the Florida secretary of state’s office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement both say they’ve seen no evidence of illegal activity. Trump and Gov. Rick Scott (R) aren’t thrilled that, as more votes are being counted, Scott’s lead in the Senate race in the state is narrowing. Scott has sued to stop that counting on the apparently unfounded grounds that votes are being illegally cast, and Trump is leveraging his social-media bullhorn to back him up.

Trump Jr., who acts as an informal liaison between the president and the more energetic components of Trump’s political base, has repeatedly shared stories on Twitter making the same case. On Monday afternoon, he posted this:

How it came to his attention isn’t clear. But Media Matters' Matthew Gertz noted that it had been shared by a Trump supporter named David Wohl (father of pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Jacob Wohl) and Charlie Kirk, head of the conservative group Turning Point USA. Kirk’s track record on sharing news stories isn’t that solid; on multiple occasions he’s been caught sharing untrue information on Twitter. Over the weekend, he criticized the media for not reporting that the first Asian American woman elected to Congress was Young Kim (R-Calif.), which the media didn’t report because 1) she hasn’t yet won her race (she’s trailing) and 2) she isn’t the first Asian American woman elected to Congress.

Trump Jr.'s story, you will see if you click the link, is from 2012. It’s been floating around for years in part because the headline is so captivating: 200,000 noncitizen voters would, indeed, be a substantial number. Voter fraud claims often work this way. A large number indicating vast malfeasance is introduced, such as President Trump’s claim that 1.8 million dead people were listed as voters and would cast Democratic ballots in 2016. But the reality is something wildly different. Yes, a lot of dead people are still listed as active voters, because grieving families for some reason don’t prioritize canceling voter registrations while standing graveside. There’s no evidence, though, that any significant number of identities of dead voters were used to cast ballots in 2016 — or have been in any year. That’s the pattern, over and over. Big number used to suggest a big problem, but the reality is a minor or nonexistent violation of the rules.

Take that 2012 story, for example. Here’s an update on the claims it made.

“The initial list of 180,000 names was whittled to 2,625, according to the Florida Department of State. The state then checked a federal database and stated it found 207 noncitizens on the rolls (not necessarily voting but on the rolls). That list was sent to county election supervisors to check and it also turned out to contain errors. An Aug. 1, 2012, state elections document showed only 85 noncitizens were ultimately removed from the rolls out of a total of about 12 million voters at that time.”

From “200,000” to … 85. In total, 0.0007 percent of Florida voters were found to be improperly registered. There’s no evidence that any of those voters cast any ballots — especially in 2018, six years after they were removed from the voter rolls.

Where did the above update on the old figure come from? It came from the same article Trump Jr. shared.

At some point, the Florida NBC affiliate that wrote the story added the above update verbatim at the very top of the story. It was some point before Trump Jr. shared the article, which we know because the New York Times’s Astead W. Herndon tweeted his approval of the inclusion of an update seven minutes before Trump Jr.'s tweet. In other words, at the time that Trump Jr. tweeted the article, the article itself already debunked the point that Trump Jr. was trying to make.

The younger Trump doesn’t have the same obligation to be accurate in his social media as do mainstream media outlets. It’s just a bit ironic to bash the media for its purported inaccuracies while sharing misleading information that has already been demonstrated as inaccurate. Trump’s tweeting is amazing, but not shocking at all anymore.

The next tweet from Trump Jr. after he shared the 2012 story about voting in Florida was a retweet of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling Newsweek “fake news.”

 

[fraurosena]

Fredo-dumb attempting to be more abhorrent than senior.

 

[AmazonGrace]

9 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Fredo-dumb attempting to be more abhorrent than senior.

 

Deleted because it was fake I think

[fraurosena]

14 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Deleted because it was fake I think

It says something though, that we wouldn't put it past him.

[AnywhereButHere]

I have a friend who posts a lot of articles from The Onion. It usually takes me a few minutes to realize that what I just read was satire, and even then, I'm like, well damn - it could be true!

[Audrey2]

5 minutes ago, AnywhereButHere said:

I have a friend who posts a lot of articles from The Onion. It usually takes me a few minutes to realize that what I just read was satire, and even then, I'm like, well damn - it could be true!

I suspect this administration is harder for The Onion to lampoon. With all of Trump's ridiculous behaviors, what he really says and does is what The Onion would have made up for a normal president.

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm so glad the taxpayers are able to pay for junior's business trips. End sarcasm: "Taxpayers’ cost for Trump Jr.’s business trip to India nearly $100K, documents show"

Spoiler

Donald Trump Jr.’s trip to India to sell his family’s luxury condominium projects cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $100,000, documents obtained by The Washington Post show.

The Department of Homeland Security, responding to a Freedom of Information request, released 47 pages of purchase orders, requisition forms and planning worksheets showing Trump Jr.’s February trip cost more than $97,805 for hotel rooms, airfare, car rental and overtime for Secret Service agents. The costs were incurred on a February tour of four Indian cities — New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata — where the Trump family has licensed its name to luxury high-rise projects.

Trump Jr., 40, is the executive vice president of the family real estate company that the president still owns, although the elder Trump says he has stepped back from day-to-day control.

During his tour, Trump Jr. walked the red carpet, attended a ribbon-cutting at a high-rise overlooking the Arabian Sea in Mumbai, hosted champagne dinners for buyers and had a private tête-à-tête with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. Full-page glossy newspaper ads offered those who put down a $38,000 deposit on a new luxury project outside New Delhi a chance to dine with the president’s son, prompting charges of conflict of interest. His team boasted to reporters that it had sold $100 million worth of the pricey flats, including $15 million in a single day.

The Secret Service is authorized by law to protect the president and his immediate family, although Trump Jr. briefly waived his protective guard last fall while on a moose-hunting trip to the Yukon. The idea that U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for Secret Service travel while the Trump children are on trips to promote the family’s brand overseas has prompted criticism from both Capitol Hill and watchdog groups.

Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that because the president has not placed his assets in a blind trust, as other presidents have done, he still effectively controls his real estate empire and benefits from his children’s travels. Both Trump Jr. and the president’s other son, Eric, have traveled widely to promote the Trump brand, including trips to Dubai and Vancouver, B.C.

“The issue is that essentially the president still owns his businesses, and these trips are being done to make the president money. Essentially the government is spending money for the president’s private businesses,” Libowitz said.

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to emails or return calls for comment. In a statement, Jeffrey Adams, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said for security reasons the agency could not discuss “the means, methods, resources, costs, or numbers utilized to carry out our protective responsibilities.”

The Trump family will face tighter scrutiny going forward now that the Democrats have regained control of the House of Representatives, experts say. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), who has been a frequent critic of the strains Trump’s family has placed on the Secret Service’s budget, is expected to assume control of the powerful House Oversight Committee next year.

Democrats began investigating the costs of Trump’s family travel last year, but the effort did not get far. They are now awaiting the results of two reports from the Government Accountability Office — one on the costs of presidential travel and a second on the security at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in Palm Beach, Fla., the committee said.

Chuck Young, managing director of public affairs for the GAO, says the family travel study is expected in mid-December and will include travel in 2017. That means Trump Jr.’s India trip is not in the study’s scope.

During the nearly week-long trip protecting Trump Jr., Secret Service agents following Trump crisscrossed the country, staying in a variety of luxury hotels, including the Oberoi in New Delhi and the Four Seasons in Mumbai, where rooms range from $150 to nearly $500 a night. The promotional events were for properties where the Trumps have licensing deals, not properties the Trump Organization owns.

The documents released by DHS are incomplete. The Mumbai figures show an estimate of the total trip cost as $25,174, including $18,785 for rooms at the Four Seasons and $6,389 for car rentals, cellphone use and payment of local staff. Purchase orders of the final hotel bills with the General Services Administration show the government actually paid $15,166 for rooms during what it called “Don Jr Visit to Mumbai” and another bill for $3,501, a bit less than the estimate.

The documents for the New Delhi days of the trip show only the hotel receipts — about $27,000 — which adjusted down to $15,360 because a member of the group whose name was redacted “will settle his hotel invoice on his own,” according to the documents.

The government spent a similar amount — about $97,830 — for hotel stays for Secret Service and embassy staffers for Eric Trump’s trip last year to Uruguay, a Post review of purchasing orders found. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released a report in July showing the Secret Service spent $200,000 on airfare, hotel rooms and other expenses when Trump Jr. and Eric Trump went to the United Arab Emirates to open a golf resort last year.

 

[mamallama]

Remember the Republican apoplexy over every family trip the Obama's took?

[GreyhoundFan]

Aw, Quesay's panties are in a bunch: "Eric Trump tweets that George Conway shows ‘utter disrespect’ to Kellyanne"

Spoiler

It’s no secret that George T. Conway III, the conservative attorney and husband to White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, is a critic of President Trump. Known for posting subtle digs at the administration on his Twitter feed of more than 180,000 followers, he’s broadened his audience in recent months by slamming the president in op-eds published in the New York Times and The Washington Post.

On Monday night, the president’s son snapped.

“Of all the ugliness in politics, the utter disrespect George Conway shows toward his wife, her career, place of work, and everything she has fought SO hard to achieve, might top them all,” Eric Trump wrote on Twitter.

Kellyanne Conway is a “great person,” he added, and her husband’s actions “are horrible.”

Eric Trump didn’t indicate what, if anything, had prompted him to speak out. But his comments came hours after George Conway implied that President Trump’s Monday morning tweetstorm, in which Trump appeared to be trying to discourage longtime adviser Roger Stone from testifying against him in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe, could be considered witness tampering.

In a move that could be considered an obstruction of justice, according to legal experts who spoke with The Washington Post, Trump praised Stone for promising never to testify against him. “Nice to know that some people still have ‘guts!’” he wrote.

Moments later, Conway shared the president’s tweet and added some thoughts of his own. “File under ’18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512,'" he wrote, referencing the federal witness-tampering statute.

While other legal scholars had come to the same conclusion, Conway’s comments, in particular, raised eyebrows because of his personal ties to the administration. “The husband of a top Trump White House adviser just essentially accused Trump of breaking the law with witness tampering,” tweeted Mother Jones reporter David Corn. “File under ‘This is a Big Deal.’”

Conway shot back, “File under ‘Stating the obvious.’”

Eric Trump’s tweet accusing Conway of disrespecting his wife’s White House position followed about nine hours later. Although Conway didn’t respond directly to the president’s son on Twitter, he chose to retweet a selection of rebuttals posted by others.

First, he shared a tweet from CNN legal analyst Renato Mariotti, who had asked Eric Trump, “How does noting that your father engaged in witness tampering today disrespect Kellyanne Conway?”

Next, Conway retweeted the author Reza Aslan, who had written, “Wait. Did I miss something? Did George Conway pay money to have sex with a porn star right after his wife gave birth?”

The third and final post that Conway shared came from Ian Bassin, the executive director for the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy, who had his own spin on Eric Trump’s comments.

“Of all the ugliness in politics, the utter disrespect the Trumps show toward the rule of law, the presidency and its place of work, and everything this nation has fought SO hard to achieve might top them all,” Bassin’s tweet said. “Donald Trump is terrible person and frankly his actions are horrible.”

The Conways' marriage — a pairing of one of the president’s most fervent defenders and an increasingly high-profile dissenter — has become a source of fascination to outsiders over the past year, as the couple’s apparent disagreements have played out on George Conway’s Twitter feed.

“Is the message that Conway is sending here aimed at his wife — or her boss?” The Post’s Karen Tumulty wondered in April. “Is this his way of trying to sabotage her job — or rescue her from it?” Maybe, she speculated, “his tweets are a lifted eyebrow, to let the rest of us know that the Conway household is not divorced from reality, but in on the joke.”

As Tumulty noted, Conway has repeatedly declined to discuss his Twitter presence with reporters, preferring to let his tweets speak for themselves. “I don’t think she likes it,” he admitted on the Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery” in November. “But I’ve told her, I don’t like the administration, so it’s even.”

Speaking to The Post’s Ben Terris in August, Kellyanne Conway described her husband’s public criticism of her boss as “disrespectful” — the same charge that Eric Trump leveled Monday. “I think it disrespects his wife,” she said, referring to herself.

But George Conway hasn’t backed off his critiques of the president. In November, he co-wrote a New York Times op-ed arguing that the president’s decision to appoint Matthew G. Whitaker as acting attorney general was unconstitutional.

“You mean Mr. Kellyanne Conway?” Trump replied when reporters asked him for his thoughts on the piece. “He’s just trying to get publicity for himself.”

A week later, with her husband back in the news again for stating that he would sooner move to Australia than vote for Trump a second time, Kellyanne Conway briefly changed her Twitter bio to “The ‘Kellyanne Conway’ in ‘Kellyanne Conway’s Husband.’”

“It doesn’t affect me or my job at all,” she told “Fox News Sunday” in November, later adding, “I’m sure the feminists are really cheering me on today, an independent, strong, strong-willed, strong woman in a very powerful position that disagrees with her husband.”

 

[onekidanddone]

13 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Aw, Quesay's panties are in a bunch: "Eric Trump tweets that George Conway shows ‘utter disrespect’ to Kellyanne"

  Reveal hidden contents

It’s no secret that George T. Conway III, the conservative attorney and husband to White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, is a critic of President Trump. Known for posting subtle digs at the administration on his Twitter feed of more than 180,000 followers, he’s broadened his audience in recent months by slamming the president in op-eds published in the New York Times and The Washington Post.

On Monday night, the president’s son snapped.

“Of all the ugliness in politics, the utter disrespect George Conway shows toward his wife, her career, place of work, and everything she has fought SO hard to achieve, might top them all,” Eric Trump wrote on Twitter.

Kellyanne Conway is a “great person,” he added, and her husband’s actions “are horrible.”

Eric Trump didn’t indicate what, if anything, had prompted him to speak out. But his comments came hours after George Conway implied that President Trump’s Monday morning tweetstorm, in which Trump appeared to be trying to discourage longtime adviser Roger Stone from testifying against him in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe, could be considered witness tampering.

In a move that could be considered an obstruction of justice, according to legal experts who spoke with The Washington Post, Trump praised Stone for promising never to testify against him. “Nice to know that some people still have ‘guts!’” he wrote.

Moments later, Conway shared the president’s tweet and added some thoughts of his own. “File under ’18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512,'" he wrote, referencing the federal witness-tampering statute.

While other legal scholars had come to the same conclusion, Conway’s comments, in particular, raised eyebrows because of his personal ties to the administration. “The husband of a top Trump White House adviser just essentially accused Trump of breaking the law with witness tampering,” tweeted Mother Jones reporter David Corn. “File under ‘This is a Big Deal.’”

Conway shot back, “File under ‘Stating the obvious.’”

Eric Trump’s tweet accusing Conway of disrespecting his wife’s White House position followed about nine hours later. Although Conway didn’t respond directly to the president’s son on Twitter, he chose to retweet a selection of rebuttals posted by others.

First, he shared a tweet from CNN legal analyst Renato Mariotti, who had asked Eric Trump, “How does noting that your father engaged in witness tampering today disrespect Kellyanne Conway?”

Next, Conway retweeted the author Reza Aslan, who had written, “Wait. Did I miss something? Did George Conway pay money to have sex with a porn star right after his wife gave birth?”

The third and final post that Conway shared came from Ian Bassin, the executive director for the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy, who had his own spin on Eric Trump’s comments.

“Of all the ugliness in politics, the utter disrespect the Trumps show toward the rule of law, the presidency and its place of work, and everything this nation has fought SO hard to achieve might top them all,” Bassin’s tweet said. “Donald Trump is terrible person and frankly his actions are horrible.”

The Conways' marriage — a pairing of one of the president’s most fervent defenders and an increasingly high-profile dissenter — has become a source of fascination to outsiders over the past year, as the couple’s apparent disagreements have played out on George Conway’s Twitter feed.

“Is the message that Conway is sending here aimed at his wife — or her boss?” The Post’s Karen Tumulty wondered in April. “Is this his way of trying to sabotage her job — or rescue her from it?” Maybe, she speculated, “his tweets are a lifted eyebrow, to let the rest of us know that the Conway household is not divorced from reality, but in on the joke.”

As Tumulty noted, Conway has repeatedly declined to discuss his Twitter presence with reporters, preferring to let his tweets speak for themselves. “I don’t think she likes it,” he admitted on the Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery” in November. “But I’ve told her, I don’t like the administration, so it’s even.”

Speaking to The Post’s Ben Terris in August, Kellyanne Conway described her husband’s public criticism of her boss as “disrespectful” — the same charge that Eric Trump leveled Monday. “I think it disrespects his wife,” she said, referring to herself.

But George Conway hasn’t backed off his critiques of the president. In November, he co-wrote a New York Times op-ed arguing that the president’s decision to appoint Matthew G. Whitaker as acting attorney general was unconstitutional.

“You mean Mr. Kellyanne Conway?” Trump replied when reporters asked him for his thoughts on the piece. “He’s just trying to get publicity for himself.”

A week later, with her husband back in the news again for stating that he would sooner move to Australia than vote for Trump a second time, Kellyanne Conway briefly changed her Twitter bio to “The ‘Kellyanne Conway’ in ‘Kellyanne Conway’s Husband.’”

“It doesn’t affect me or my job at all,” she told “Fox News Sunday” in November, later adding, “I’m sure the feminists are really cheering me on today, an independent, strong, strong-willed, strong woman in a very powerful position that disagrees with her husband.”

 

I understand his upset. After all it isn't like his father or brother ever showed disrespect their own wives.  Oh err never mind.

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, onekidanddone said:

I understand his upset. After all it isn't like his father or brother ever showed disrespect their own wives.  Oh err never mind.

I loved this reply:

 

[Howl]

On 11/16/2018 at 7:22 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm so glad the taxpayers are able to pay for junior's business trips. End sarcasm: "Taxpayers’ cost for Trump Jr.’s business trip to India nearly $100K, documents show"

I'm still wondering how it could cost Melania more for a  few hours stay in a hotel room than Jr.'s entire trip.

[GreyhoundFan]

Kimberly needs to hide Udvay's phone: "‘It’s funny cuz it’s true’: Donald Trump Jr. trolls Ocasio-Cortez with meme implying socialists eat dogs"

Spoiler

Donald Trump Jr. mocked Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) Thursday night with a meme that implied the newly-elected congresswoman’s democratic socialist views would lead to Americans eating dogs.

The meme is made up of two photos stitched together. The top image is of Ocasio-Cortez along with the text: “Why are you so afraid of a socialist economy?” The second picture, this time showing President Trump, provides a blunt answer: “Because Americans want to walk their dogs, not eat them.”

The president’s eldest child shared the meme to his 1.5 million Instagram followers along with the caption, “It’s funny cuz it’s true!!!" His post also included several laughing-crying face emojis and American flag icons.

As of early Friday morning, the picture had more than 49,000 likes and roughly 1,600 comments. In an email to The Washington Post, Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, said they had no comment.

Ocasio-Cortez, who pulled off one of the biggest upsets during the primaries when she unseated 10-term incumbent Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) in June before winning last month’s midterm election, is a self-described democratic socialist. Though she has yet to officially take office, the 29-year-old Bronx native has already come under fire for her policy proposals, namely their anticipated costs.

As Vox reported in an August story, the cost of a democratic socialist agenda that touts a single-payer health care system, guaranteed jobs and free college “would require astonishingly high expenditures that would cause the federal deficit to skyrocket.”

Ocasio-Cortez has provided some ideas for how to foot this bill. In July, she told Trevor Noah during an appearance on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” that increases in corporate tax and taxes on the wealthy could be one option, HuffPost reported. She also argued on CNN in August that the “Medicare for All” plan could ultimately be cheaper than the country’s current healthcare system.

The meme’s suggestion is likely a reference to the reports of starving people in Venezuela having to eat dogs, cats and zoo animals due to the country’s spiraling economic crisis brought on by corruption and failed socialist policies. But, Ocasio-Cortez, as The Post’s Paul Waldman wrote in October, advocates for a version of European social democracy, not the Hugo Chavez-style economy in Caracas.

Trump Jr.'s post is the latest social media attack that Ocasio-Cortez has faced from prominent Republicans. Over the past several weeks alone, the young Democrat got into heated Twitter battles with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Mike Huckabee.

On Instagram, the post garnered many positive comments, as one user wrote, “100000 likes!!! So true! Venezuela is a clear example of how that theory doesn’t work. People are starving!”

“This is hilarious!,” another commenter posted.

Others, however, were more critical, slamming the meme as “outright disgusting” and a “juvenile attack.”

Several people also drew attention to first lady Melania Trump’s “Be Best” anti-bullying initiative, which focuses on cyberbullying.

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

She's not even in the Congress yet and all the racist misogynistic RW assholes have already identified themselves by tweeting about her.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[infooverload]

 

I chuckled at her tweeting back basically you dummy in a month I'll be making sure subeonas are raining all over the place. Have a nice day, (Dumb ass implied, because I'm trying to stay in professional bitch tone.)

[AmazonGrace]

Fredo does corruption https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1071819263663579137?s=19 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Donald Trump Jr. says his dad ‘regifted’ monogrammed presents — including one that he gave him"

Spoiler

President Trump reportedly hesitated before saddling his oldest son with the name Donald Jr. “What if he’s a loser?” he initially worried, according to Ivana Trump’s 2017 memoir.

But as it turns out, the shared moniker has one major advantage: It means the president can pass belts, polo shirts and wallets with the “DJT” monogram along to his son.

The president’s penchant for regifting monogrammed goods was revealed during a red-carpet interview with “Extra” at a Tuesday night party hosted by the Daily Mail in New York. When Donald Trump Jr. was asked to name the best or worst gift he has ever received from his father, he didn’t hesitate before answering.

“Well, I’m the namesake, so I got regifted all the things that were monogrammed for him at times,” Trump Jr. replied. “There was one Christmas where he may or may not have given me the gift I had given him the year before because I monogrammed it. And I’m like, ‘I know you didn’t get this.’"

His father asked how he knew, Trump Jr. said. He answered: “Because I gave it to you last year.”

It should be noted that Trump Jr. was laughing and smiling as he told this story, and doesn’t seem to harbor any resentment. During the same interview, he talked about how he was looking forward to spending the holidays with his father.

But according to the experts at the Emily Post Institute, an organization known for training corporate executives on manners and civility, regifting personalized gifts — such as anything that’s been monogrammed or engraved — goes against the basic rules of etiquette. The reason? If either the original gift-giver or the recipient found out, their feelings could be bruised.

Plus, the institute warns, “It’s inherently deceitful, and good etiquette is about not only being respectful and considerate, but also honest. Honest in this case means being authentic and genuine, as well as not telling a partial truth. When you wrap a present and give as though you bought it yourself it says, ‘I got this for you’ while leaving out the rest, ‘… from someone else who gave it to me,’ which, if the recipient did know, would likely be interpreted as lazy or short on thoughtfulness or effort on your part.”

But that’s not to say that regifting is always considered out of bounds. If the gift is brand new and comes in its original packaging, and is something that the new recipient will definitely want, then it’s potentially fair game to pass it along, the Emily Post Institute says. In those cases, gift-givers are encouraged to be transparent. For example, the institute suggests telling a friend, “I received two copies of this book and want you to have one.”

The etiquette institute’s gift-giving guide doesn’t offer any specific pointers about when it’s acceptable to give someone the exact same present they gave you last year. But it seems safe to say that the answer is never.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Avenatti just now wishing Jr Happy New Year 

 

(If it's what you say I love it, especially later this evening.)

[GreyhoundFan]

"A Trump family aide tried to get a HUD colleague fired by name-dropping Eric Trump"

Spoiler

Just three weeks into the Trump presidency, Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump family aide and freshly minted HUD senior adviser, had a personnel problem she deemed serious enough to invoke her powerful connections.

In a flurry of emails to the Office of Presidential Personnel in February 2017, Patton sought to remove Maren Kasper, the White House liaison to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, because Patton felt undermined.

“Dr. Carson & his team deem her divisive and disruptive, as do I,” Patton wrote to John DeStefano, assistant to Trump and then director of presidential personnel, and his deputy director, Sean Doocey, on Feb. 8. “If it helps, Eric Trump agrees that it’s best to nip this potential problem in the bud & told me to call Jared [Kushner], if necessary, but I prefer to go through you all first.”

The emails were obtained by the liberal watchdog group American Oversight through a public records request and the 504-page response was shared with The Washington Post.

The correspondence about Kasper highlighted the extent to which top Trump officials scrutinized their appointees’ personal loyalties in the early days of the administration. In a series of emails, which took place before HUD Secretary Ben Carson was confirmed, Patton and White House officials discussed their colleagues' support for Trump.

Patton wrote in another email that Carson’s team was “dismayed by the pace of [Kasper’s] removal” and suggested that the White House or Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, “simply advise [Kasper] that ‘ . . . she’s done such a great job laying the ground work at HUD that Labor (or whatever) permanently needs her talents there now . . .’ Thoughts?

The less drama, the better.”

Twenty-four hours later, Patton followed up: “This is effectively Code Red status now.”

Patton wrote in a Feb. 9 email that Kasper had expressed anti-Trump opinions, advising another member of the HUD transition team to stay with the agency for the duration of Trump’s first term instead of joining his reelection team.

“She told a beachhead member who expressed her desire to rejoin the campaign again in 2 years not to bother," Patton wrote. "That she’d be better off staying at HUD for 4 since he won’t win a second term. [insert eye roll]”

Patton, in other emails that day, said that Carson’s deputy chief of staff, Shermichael Singleton, was threatening to leave if Kasper wasn’t transferred by the end of the day — or the following morning, at the latest.

“I know Carson prefers to have both him & me here in lieu of her,” Patton wrote, after Doocey responded with a link to an October 2016 op-ed by Singleton in The Hill in which he wrote that Trump is “unfit to be president and undeserving to represent the Republican Party.”

Patton, who now oversees HUD’s New York and New Jersey region, said Monday that Eric Trump never inserted himself into HUD personnel matters, and that she did not reach out to Kushner about her problems with Kasper.

“The early days of this administration experienced many learning curves and I was no exception,” Patton said. “Eric made it very clear to me not to involve him in any government issues and to go through proper channels. It was wrong of me to misspeak.”

Eric Trump declined a request for comment, and the emails show no evidence that he took any action. Kasper did not respond to a request for comment.

As it turned out, Kasper was not immediately transferred.

On Feb. 11, 2017, Patton sent an email to the White House apologizing for what she had characterized as a “misunderstanding” about Carson’s wishes. The White House had been prepared to move Kasper, but Carson, who had never advocated for Kasper’s removal, intervened, Patton told the Post.

Instead, Singleton was fired on Feb. 15, 2017 for his earlier writings criticizing Trump, according to media reports at the time. Kasper, who Patton says she now admires, was transferred to the Government National Mortgage Association in June 2017 to serve as executive vice president.

Singleton, who had worked on Carson’s 2016 presidential campaign, told the Post Monday that he fully backed Patton’s attempt to remove Kasper.

“My loyalties had to be with Dr. Carson,” Singleton said. “I wanted to make sure he could get through unscathed and Maren had her own agenda that I thought conflicted with Dr. Carson’s best interests.”

Eric Trump has generally steered clear of federal policy and personnel matters since his father won the presidency. His sister Ivanka Trump and her husband, Kushner, serve as White House advisers.

Eric and his brother, Don Jr., withdrew as honorary co-chairman for a “Camouflage & Cufflinks” fundraiser connected to the 2017 inauguration after outside groups raised ethics questions about their participation.

However Eric’s wife, Lara, has worked on several animal welfare issues over the past two years, meeting with White House officials as well as Cabinet members. She has advocated connecting homeless pets with veterans, preventing wild horses and burros from being euthanized, and enforcing policies related to “puppy mill” operations with greater stringency.

 

[Howl]

The Trump purity test was in high gear during the transition.  I'm sure this scenario played out everywhere across all governmental agencies during that time. 

Nice to see this blatant name dropping memorialized in archived emails!  

Edited January 1, 2019 by Howl

[onekidanddone]

Ugh the ad on my phone