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

[AmazonGrace]

 

Is it me or is Jr bad at standing?

1.  

[candygirl200413]

and.so.stiff!!

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Oh, Fredo-dumb, today is not a good day for you is it? First Daddy-dearest provides evidence you wilfully met with Russians to get dirt on Hillary, and now this pic of you and the real life red sparrow goes viral...

[AmazonGrace]

Who is the short dude

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From the wonderful Alexandra Petri: "A list of things Donald Trump Jr. has probably Googled in the past two days"

Spoiler

What follows is a non-exhaustive list of things I assume Donald Trump Jr. has Googled in the two days following this tweet:

• mugs that say “wonderful son”
• is it illegal if you do it to earn your father’s love
• is it possible to do something wrong if you don’t know any laws and furthermore are rich
• where in your online dating profile should you put the phrase “wonderful son” should it be before hunting or after hunting
• part in the bible when God calls Jesus “my wonderful son”
• clubs for wonderful sons to meet and network
• is there anything better than “wonderful son” that your dad can say about you or is that the peak
• was Darth Vader a good dad
• should you share a tweet on your Instagram that says something wonderful about you but also implies you might have committed a crime
• but what if it literally says you are wonderful
• if someone says “my wonderful son” WITH a comma does that mean that they love you most
• are people allowed to arrest you if you have money
• what did Paul Manafort do wrong
• people have to tell you if you are committing a crime otherwise that just would not be fair
• Cat Stevens song about fathers and sons
• playlist that is just the Cat Stevens song about fathers and sons
• father-son activities
• fathers and sons
• fathers and sons NOT the novel
• how old is too old for take your son to work day
• casual ways to ask people to play catch
• is it weird to show someone a drawing you made of them that you are proud of if it has been more than 20 years
• can’t stop crying listening to “Father and Son”
• Cat Stevens concert tickets
• are there any famous Goya paintings of Saturn being nice to his children just hanging out
• should I be taller now that I have confirmation of my father’s regard
• casual replies to people who know something about you is different but don’t realize that it is that your father sees you as the wonderful son you are
• “Death of a Salesman” tickets
• is there a part of “Death of a Salesman”where Willy Loman calls his son wonderful
• should you capitalize “wonderful son” in a tattoo
• “it’s a wonderful son” movie
• what is the fewest dollars you can have and never go to jail
• how many dollars does Donald Trump have
• you can only break a law if you understand that laws apply to you, yes??
• are you sure that seems wrong
• Ask Jeeves can you break a law if nobody tells you
• incognito browse so law enforcement cannot see what you are googling
• how rich do you have to be to never get in legal trouble
• if you did something that was maybe a crime but it was boring and weird does it count
• oppo research is legal always yes
• hair oil
• most beautiful words in the English language
• it definitely doesn’t count as breaking the law if someone doesn’t explicitly say to you ‘do you want to do something illegal and break the law’
• can white people do crimes
• cops have to tell you they are cops it is the law
• law requiring Russian spies to tell you they are Russian spies
• is there a paint color called “wonderful son”
• wonderful son art
• wonderful son playlists
• carry on my wonderful son
• ways to work the phrase “wonderful son” into conversation
• matching father-son outfits that are subtle
• best sons ever
• should I go blonde

 

[Smoochie]

20 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

LOL you got it, and of course the follow up tweet ... "I hardly knew him"  and waiting for the "But Chelsea ... fill in the blank!"

Edited August 7, 2018 by Smoochie

[GreyhoundFan]

"Dissecting Donald Trump Jr.’s red-herring-filled defense of the Trump Tower meeting". I can't quote because of the notes, but it's a good read.

[Howl]

On 7/28/2018 at 5:43 PM, AmazonGrace said:

Is it me or is Jr bad at standing?

Society half turn with chest out; he's nailed it.  At least he's not holding his crotch, like the face mask guy. 

Edited August 8, 2018 by Howl

[AmazonGrace]

Samantha Bee and the Forrest Gump of collusion 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Fredo, Fredo, Fredo: "Trump’s approval hits 50 percent — in a doctored poll graphic shared by his son"

Spoiler

... < screencap from Instagram >

Donald Trump Jr. shared a doctored image that makes his father's Gallup presidential approval rating look 10 points higher than it actually is —  surprising even people who have otherwise become numb to factual distortions from Trump's inner circle.

Trump Jr. did not acknowledge countless requests to correct the obviously manipulated image after he posted it to Instagram late Wednesday. It was deleted Friday afternoon, by which time tens of thousands of people had seen, shared or endorsed his father's bogus 50 percent approval rating.

Here, as best we can piece together, is how the fakery started.

The image was originally a still frame from a CNN video that aired  this week. Ironically, the network had been attempting to fact-check President Trump's recent claim that he had “better [approval] numbers than Obama at this point, by far.”

So CNN's John King pulled up a graphic based on Gallup's presidential approval polls and various economic measures. While Trump outperformed his predecessor in terms of the deficit, employment rates and gross domestic product (Barack Obama became president during a deep recession, King noted), he clearly lagged behind Obama on the top line:

Trump had a 40 percent approval rating, compared with Obama's 45 percent at the same point in his presidency.

King was hardly the first reporter to disprove one of Trump's polling boasts, but the CNN segment annoyed many of the president's hardcore supporters. “Trump is near 50% approval. CNN is absolute Fake news,” reads a typical complaint on Reddit's far-right “The_Donald” board.

Something like a consensus formed on that forum — Trump's real approval rating ought to be 50 percent. No one cited any data. Maybe they were recalling outlier polls that have put Trump's numbers higher, like several from Rasmussen Reports, which the president tends to cherry pick and promote. Maybe they were following an axiom that Trump once put forward: “Whatever Trump's poll number is, add nine.”

In any case, someone soon pasted a “50%” where CNN's “40%” had been, and the crudely doctored freeze frame began to spread across the Trump Internet.

“Trumps doing big things people! No one can take him down!” wrote an Instagram user who shared the image several hours before it ended up on Trump Jr.'s page, in front of his 1.2 million followers.

“Amazing,” Trump Jr. wrote. “I guess there is a magic wand to make things happen and @realdonaldtrump seems to have it. #MAGA #amreicafirst.”

The initial surge of comments that followed Trump Jr.'s post were overwhelmingly positive — Trump fans thrilled at the president's inflated approval rate.

But within minutes, people began to inform Trump Jr. that something was wrong.

“Yes, that 'magic wand' is Photoshop's Magic Wand tool,” chrisconradie1 wrote to Trump Jr., referring to the software of choice for fake photo makers. Re-creation below:

... < video >

Quite a few people noticed that this wasn't even a quality hoax.

The "50%” was misaligned with the text on the original CNN graphic, and its background was a different shade of red. Also, by zooming in one could see that the original "40%” was still visible underneath the fake number.

It's still unclear how Trump Jr. found the fake image, or why he decided to share it, or left it up for a day and a half. Neither he nor a representative responded to questions from The Washington Post sent Friday morning — but by midafternoon, the bogus image had disappeared from his Instagram account.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Cue the vomiting emoji: "‘A natural’: Donald Trump Jr. emerges as a campaign star, despite Russia baggage"

Spoiler

President Trump was watching Fox News Channel with aides in his private dining room off the Oval Office recently when Donald Trump Jr. flashed across the giant flat screen.

“Don’s gotten really good,” Trump said, according to someone who was present. “My people love him.”

The remark suggested a swell of unexpected pride from Trump about his namesake son, whose relationship with his father has been difficult at times but who has emerged as the president’s political alter ego and an in-demand campaign celebrity ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Trump Jr.’s increasing prominence also comes at a time of heightened scrutiny by the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, who is examining his role in a Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-aligned lawyer. Trump has fretted to confidants about the fate of his eldest son, concerned he may be in legal jeopardy regardless of whether he knowingly conspired with Russian agents to obtain dirt on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

But if Trump Jr. is rattled, he is not showing it. He boarded a propeller plane this past week for his annual vacation in the wilderness of the Canadian Yukon, where he is out of cellular range. Through an aide, he declined an interview request for this story.

In a statement to The Washington Post, the president defended his son’s meeting with Russians.

“Don has received notoriety for a brief meeting, that many politicians would have taken, but most importantly, and to the best of my knowledge, nothing happened after the meeting concluded,” Trump said.

Trump is determined to be the central Republican force in the fall campaign, and Trump Jr. is poised to be a key player in a strategy aimed at galvanizing the president’s most ardent supporters. And for many in Trump’s political base, seeing Trump Jr. in the crosshairs of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III may be more of a benefit than a drawback.

“In a normal Republican universe . . . a guy like Don Jr., with all that baggage, would be very problematical,” said Republican strategist Mike Murphy, a Trump critic. “But in the new Trump universe, with different laws of gravity, every campaign is seen as just a big Republican primary. So it’s all Trump all the time.”

Another plus, according to some Trump allies, is that Trump Jr. serves as a physical reminder to Trump voters that failure in November raises the specter of impeachment.

“He is fundamentally educating the American people that we must have a Republican House in November, because the alternatives are first and foremost the impeachment of his father,” said David Bossie, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager.

Trump Jr. — who, together with brother Eric, took over the family’s real estate and branding company when their father became president — is planning an aggressive fall schedule of appearances from Montana to Texas to New York to help Republicans maintain their Senate and House majorities.

“He can bridge anyplace,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). “It’s genuine. He’s not there because, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go make this trip.’ He wants to be there. . . . He connects with people.”

In many ways, Trump Jr. carries the spirit of his father’s “Make America Great Again” movement. Like the president, he uses social media to fan conspiracy theories, air grievances and troll adversaries. He busts through boundaries of political correctness and relishes public feuds, especially with those he deems liberal elites.

“Don is a chip off the old block,” said Cliff Sims, a former White House and Trump campaign staffer. “He’s a savage on Twitter and a force of nature on the stump.”

Trump Jr. attracts plenty of controversy along the way. He co-hosted a Washington screening earlier this month of “Death of a Nation,” a film by conservative firebrand Dinesh D’Souza (whom the president pardoned) alleging ties between the Democratic Party and Nazis. In an interview there, Trump Jr. compared the Nazi platform in the early 1930s to today’s Democratic National Committee platform. 

During the 2016 campaign, Trump Jr. sparked a public outcry when he likened Syrian refugees to a bowl of Skittles that included a few that “would kill you.” A spokesperson for Wrigley, the company that makes the colorful candy, condemned the analogy: “Skittles are candy. Refugees are people.”

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump Jr.’s connection to his father’s political base is authentic. “All you need to do is look at his tweets to realize he speaks to the base and they love him,” Spicer said.

Trump Jr., 40, and his wife, Vanessa, who have five children, are currently in the middle of a divorce. He has been dating former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Of the president’s five children, Trump Jr. has perhaps the most complicated relationship with his father. He was 12 when Trump’s contentious divorce with first wife Ivana burst into public view, and he reportedly did not speak to his father for a year. Later, after college, he lived for a year in Aspen, Colo., another apparent attempt to distance himself from family complications.

Trump and Trump Jr. speak infrequently, according to people close to both men. Trump has long doubted whether his son could live up to his expectations. Ivana Trump recalls in her 2017 memoir that when she suggested naming their son Donald Jr., Trump told her, “You can’t do that! What if he’s a loser?”

Trump said his namesake has turned out to be “a wonderful son” who has taken to the new family business: politics.

“Don has proven to be a very good public speaker and was a very likable presence on the campaign trail,” Trump said in the statement to The Post. “People like when he represents me in front of groups of people. I always get a favorable response. . . . Don likes and enjoys politics, but he likes seeing great results for the American people even better, and that is why he is involved. He truly believes that I am making America great again and loves being a part of it.”

Murphy suggested that deploying Trump Jr. as a campaign surrogate only serves to stroke the president’s ego.

“Somewhere in the White House there’s a ‘yes’ man telling the president how great it is that Don Jr. is going to make 28 stops next week,” Murphy said. “It’s all about pleasing the emperor.”

While both father and son love to rail against the coastal elite, the president is an unabashed credentialist and still privately craves the approval of the establishment institutions he claims to despise. Trump Jr., by contrast, truly does not care about being accepted by high society, people close to him said.

Trump Jr., an avid outdoorsman, typically travels with a slim entourage, sometimes just a lone Secret Service agent. On his Instagram account, he posts photos of his children playing (affectionately dubbed “the monsters”), and memorializes his hunting and fishing expeditions.

“You see Republican activists and donors come up to him wanting to talk about hunting,” said former Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller, who has traveled with Trump Jr. “They want to talk about shooting, they want to talk about specific types of fishing and they want to get into details of outdoors life.”

Campaigning last month in Montana for Senate candidate Matt Rosendale, Trump Jr. told a rollicking crowd in Great Falls that he feels at home because he used to spend a month every summer out West, living in the back of his truck and exploring the land.

“I’m, as many of you probably know, [a] big shooter, big hunter, big fisherman,” Trump Jr. said. “That’s why I also feel ridiculous in this suit, but we’re just going to do it, okay?”

Trump Jr. intends to return in September to stump for Rosendale, and also is making plans to campaign next month with Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas as well as with Senate candidates Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee, Kevin Cramer in North Dakota and Josh Hawley in Missouri.

Trump Jr. also is scheduled to headline August fundraisers in New York for Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) and Mike Braun, the Republican Senate nominee in Indiana. The president’s son seems at home with the wealthy donor class, according to Wayne Berman, a Blackstone Group executive who has helped arrange some fundraisers featuring Trump Jr.

“He fits in with the finance crowd because a lot of them are interested in things other than politics and a lot of them are interested in the real estate business, which he talks about with depth and specificity,” Berman said.

Trump Jr. coordinates his campaign travel with the White House and the Republican National Committee largely through his political adviser, Andy Surabian, a former Trump campaign and White House official who previously worked for Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist. 

Trump Jr.’s friends described him as charitable and a man of high character, in marked contrast to the caricature of his father as a narcissist.

Zeldin recalled that during his congressional delegation trip last Christmas to the Middle East to visit U.S. troops, Trump Jr. asked him to call him from a base in Jordan. When Zeldin called, Trump Jr. had him put his phone on speaker so he could wish the Special Operations forces a “Merry Christmas.”

This was the kind of political touch that critics say is sometimes missing from the president, who has yet to visit troops in a war zone. 

McCarthy tells of riding with Trump down Pennsylvania Avenue to an event where Trump Jr. would be speaking.

“The president said to me, ‘He really likes this and he’s really good at it,’ ” McCarthy recalled. “My comment back was, ‘He is a natural.’ ”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Sigh: "Taxpayers’ bill for Trump Jr.’s business trip to India: $32,000 and counting, documents show"

Spoiler

NEW DELHI — Government records show that taxpayers spentmore than $32,000 on hotel rooms for the security detail that accompanied Donald Trump Jr. to India earlier this year to promote his family’s luxury real estate projects — with many bills still unaccounted for.

A review of General Services Administration purchase orders shows that the government paid $15,166 for rooms for “Don Jr Visit to Mumbai” and another bill for $3,501, as well as $13,468 for hotels in the western Indian city of Pune, for a total of $32,135.

A third purchase order during the same time frame in the city of Kolkata lists an additional $9,880 for a “VIP visit.” Officials at the U.S. Consulate in Kolkata declined to identify the VIP in question. The costs of the hotel rooms for the entourage’s stay in the capital — likely a hefty portion of the tab — as well as the airfare and transportation expenses remain unclear.

Trump Jr. came to India in February on a whirlwind promotional trip during which he was feted with champagne toasts and met buyers of four Trump luxury residential real estate projects in Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and outside the capital, New Delhi.

Asked about the cost of Trump Jr.’s trip, Catherine Milhoan, a spokeswoman for the Secret Service, said: “As a matter of practice, the U.S. Secret Service does not comment on the specifics of protectees’ trips.” A State Department spokeswoman said the department does not discuss the details of security matters.

The Trump Organization did not respond to emails requesting comment.

This week, Quentin L. Kopp, vice chairman of the San Francisco Ethics Commission, filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the Secret Service is failing to comply with his Freedom of Information Act request seeking details on the cost of Trump Jr.’s India trip.

“It’s private business at the expense of taxpayers,” Kopp said Tuesday outside the federal courthouse in San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’m a taxpayer. I resent it.”

The government has not yet produced the documents that Kopp is seeking. The hotel and other bills worth $32,135 were found by The Post on the GSA website.

The Secret Service is authorized to protect the president, vice president and their immediate family members — although Trump Jr. voluntarily gave up his protection for a brief period last year while on a moose-hunting trip in the Yukon.

But ethics expects have criticized the protection expenses incurred by Trump Jr., 40, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, his brother Eric and sister Ivanka while on promotional trips for the family’s real estate business.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said in a July report that documents it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the Secret Service spent more than $200,000 on airfare, hotel rooms and other expenses when Don Jr. and Eric Trump went to the United Arab Emirates to open a luxury golf club last year.

Trump Jr.’s trip to India sparked considerable controversy after front-page ads in Indian newspapers urged buyers to pay a $38,000 booking fee to reserve luxury rental units in a new Trump Towers project in the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon in exchange for a meeting with the president’s son, sparking $15 million in sales in a single day. He also had been scheduled to deliver what was billed a foreign policy speech, the topic of which was hastily changed to a “fireside chat,” after an outcry from Capitol Hill.

“I’m here as a businessman,” Trump Jr said at the time. “I’m not representing anyone.”

 

[AmazonGrace]

 Fredo is trying so hard to make daddy love him

[GreyhoundFan]

I love some of the responses to Quesay here.

My favorites:

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Not sure if Roger Stone is a particularly reliable source of insights into Mueller's brain but the thought of Junior wankmaggot wearing orange cheered me up.

 

 

[fraurosena]

Let's not forget Fredo-dumber. Apples, even rotten ones, don't fall far from the tree after all.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Cartmann99]

Dim went hunting this weekend:

That's Representative Steve Scalise R-LA next to Dim.

Kim's there too:

I think beards look nice on some men, but Dim's is giving me flashbacks to this toy I had as a child:

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Audrey2]

19 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Would it be bad to say that I was thinking...Where are the gators?

[AmazonGrace]

3 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

Would it be bad to say that I was thinking...Where are the gators?

Did you read his caption