Trump 22: Not Even Poe Could Make This Shit Up

[JMarie]

6 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

That's more than my monthly mortgage payment. 

And at 860 square feet, the Ivanka suite was bigger than my first (one-bedroom, not studio) apartment.

[onekidanddone]

Well fucking shit! What ever happened to his "America First" and no nation building thing. Oh yea I forgot.. because oil.

Trump won’t ‘rule out a military option’ in Venezuela

ETA:  The lives of American troops don't mean squat to him. If you aren't a billionaire or somebody who could make him money you aren't worth a toss. And what is all that shit with "We won't talk about it".  Hey shit stain, you just talked about it.

Hey FJ have I ever told y'all  how much I hate this guy?

Quote

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Trump said Friday that he is “not going to rule out a military option” to confront the autocratic government of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and the deepening crisis in the South American country.

“They have many options for Venezuela — and, by the way, I'm not going to rule out a military option,” Trump told reporters at his private golf club in New Jersey on Friday evening. "…We're all over the world, and we have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away. Venezuela is not very far away, and the people are suffering, and they're dying. We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if necessary."

When asked by a reporter whether this military option would be led by the United States, Trump responded: “We don't talk about it, but a military operation, a military option is certainly something that we could pursue.”

Venezuela is edging toward the economic brink after an internationally condemned election last month created an all-powerful legislature loyal to Maduro. The government is sharply intensifying its crackdown on dissent, issuing arrest warrants for rebellious mayors, targeting unfriendly politicians and menacing average citizens who speak their minds.

Since the July 30 vote, the value of the local currency, the bolívar, has fluctuated more wildly than ever, a significant feat for a country saddled with the world’s highest inflation rate. As a result, street prices for staples such as bread and tomatoes have doubled in less than two weeks. New estimates from the large Venezuelan data firm Ecoanalítica suggest that the economy could shrink 10.4 percent this year, exacerbating a four-year nose dive that some economists already call worse than the United States’ Great Depression.

Potentially more dangerous, analysts say, is the prospect of a sovereign debt crisis that could bring the country to a whole new level of economic pain.

 

[Cartmann99]

I'm sure that Trump's announcement had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Venezuela owes Russia an boatload of money :

Quote

Russia’s largest oil company disclosed another advance payment to Venezuela’s state producer after the U.S. sanctioned President Nicolas Maduro on Monday.

Rosneft PJSC paid $1.02 billion to Petroleos de Venezuela SA in April for future crude supplies, the state-run Russian producer said in an earnings statement on Friday. That follows advance payments of about $1.5 billion in 2016 and comes a day after Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin pledged to stick with investment plans in the crisis-torn Latin American nation.

The South American country became Rosneft’s largest source of crude outside Russia through deals with late President Hugo Chavez and after it acquired shares in Venezuelan producers, led by PDVSA, as part of its purchase of TNK-BP in 2013. Bets on a Venezuela default are climbing as political turmoil in the oil-dependent nation compounds a crude price crash and declining production.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-04/rosneft-aids-venezuela-s-state-oil-producer-with-prepayment

[47of74]

2 hours ago, JMarie said:

And at 860 square feet, the Ivanka suite was bigger than my first (one-bedroom, not studio) apartment.

Jesus.  That's larger than my first apartment too by a couple hundred square feet.  My first one was a one bedroom deal too.   

[JMarie]

3 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

Well fucking shit! What ever happened to his "America First" and no nation building thing. Oh yea I forgot.. because oil.

Trump won’t ‘rule out a military option’ in Venezuela

ETA:  The lives of American troops don't mean squat to him. If you aren't a billionaire or somebody who could make him money you aren't worth a toss. And what is all that shit with "We won't talk about it".  Hey shit stain, you just talked about it.

Hey FJ have I ever told y'all  how much I hate this guy?

 

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

[fraurosena]

Authoritarian state, here we come!

Trump Is Going After Legal Protections for Journalists

Spoiler

Last week, the Washington Post published leaked transcripts of President Donald Trump’s January phone calls with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Even with the administration beset by daily embarrassing leaks, this one was shocking, going well beyond the mere embarrassing portrayals of daily White House dysfunction. It is fair to presume that such transcripts are classified, and when asked about them, National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton said only that he “can’t confirm or deny the authenticity of allegedly leaked classified documents.”

So nobody should have been surprised that on Friday morning, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats held a press conference condemning the many leaks and vowing investigation and prosecution of those responsible. Sessions called for “discipline” in executive agencies and Congress to stem leaks. He indicated that since January, the Department of Justice has tripled the number of active leak investigations, and he announced a new FBI counterintelligence unit to manage them.

But then Sessions got to the press: “One of the things we are doing is reviewing policies affecting media subpoenas. We respect the important role that the press plays and will give them respect, but it is not unlimited. They cannot place lives at risk with impunity. We must balance the press’s role with protecting our national security and the lives of those who serve in the intelligence community, the armed forces, and all law-abiding Americans.” Coats reiterated that the administration is “prepared to take all necessary steps to … identify individuals who illegally expose and disclose classified information.”

This marks a serious intervention in a delicate, decades-long balancing actbetween the federal government and professional journalists. A change in the policy about press subpoenas could have grave consequences for the government and press alike.

A subpoena is the legal tool that forces an individual to testify or produce evidence. When subpoenas are issued to journalists (or their communications providers) in leak investigations, it is most often for the purpose of identifying a leaker: Match the relevant reporter’s telephone records to an individual with access to the classified information — or better yet, force the reporter to testify directly as to the source — and you’ve got your leaker. But you’ve also compromised the press’s ability to protect their sources, undermining their ability to do their job.

Reporters who refuse to reveal their sources in compliance with such subpoenas risk contempt charges. To enforce subpoenas, courts and Congress have the authority to bring contempt charges against those who refuse to comply with lawful orders. Contempt charges aim to compel compliance with the order and can include jail time. In 2005, New York Times reporter Judith Miller famously submitted to jail time for contempt rather than reveal a confidential source in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. (After two and a half months in jail, Miller was released earlywhen Scooter Libby gave a waiver authorizing the government to question reporters about his conversations with them and Miller agreed to testify.)

Testimony that may otherwise be required by law might be nevertheless protected by a privilege. Such privileges include the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, marital communications privilege, attorney-client privilege, and executive privileges. The question is whether such a privilege does or should apply to reporters, exempting them from revealing sources.

While the Constitution limits government intrusion on the freedom of speech and of the press, the law does not offer absolute protection for journalists against revealing their sources. Congress has not enacted robust protections and the Supreme Court has not interpreted the First Amendment as itself embodying such a privilege — nothing approximating a broad “press privilege” relieving reporters from revealing sources.

Such a privilege is protected at the state level in nearly all states. New York’s statutory press privilege, for instance, broadly protects professional journalists against contempt charges “for refusing or failing to disclose news obtained or received in confidence or the identity of the source of such news coming into such person’s possession in the course of gathering or obtaining news for publication.”

But no such privilege has been recognized uniformly at the federal level. In 1972, the Supreme Court rejected a broad First Amendment press privilege in Branzburg v. Hayes. Justice Lewis Powell joined the five-justice majority to reject an unqualified press privilege against revealing confidential sources, but wrote a puzzling separate concurrence suggesting some limited privilege subject to a balancing against the government’s interest in a particular case. The state of the law remains uncertain but what we do know is that there is currently no broad, unqualified First Amendment privilege against revealing confidential news sources. (Importantly here, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia has agreed that even if there is a First Amendment press privilege to not reveal sources, the privilege is not absolute.)

Instead, since 1970, the executive branch has voluntarily restrained itself by limiting the situations in which it will subpoena reporters in investigating leaks. Those self-restraints are codified in federal regulation. Those regulations explicitly recognize the need to “strike the proper balance among several vital interests: Protecting national security, ensuring public safety, promoting effective law enforcement and the fair administration of justice, and safeguarding the essential role of the free press in fostering government accountability and an open society.”

In striking that balance, the Justice Department explains that subpoenas directed to the news media are “extraordinary measures, not standard investigatory practices.” As such, press subpoenas are to be approved by the attorney general (or other high-ranking DOJ officials in certain limited cases) and are to be issued only where the information is “essential” and only “after all reasonable alternative attempts have been made to obtain the information from alternative sources.”

A system of mutual restraint thus governs in the face of indeterminate legal boundaries. Reporters don’t want to go to jail and the government doesn’t want to provoke a sweeping Supreme Court ruling or congressional enactment of an absolute press privilege. So reporters notify the government of stories to be published and often respect government requests to hold stories for some period of time for national security reasons. The government reserves the right to subpoena in extraordinary cases, but agrees to correspondingly extraordinary procedures.

But critical to making this delicate system work is that the government maintains credibility — that the public believes the government pursues leak investigations, particularly those investigations that directly implicate press freedoms, for legitimate national security reasons, not simply because the leak is embarrassing. When the president lambasts leakers for imperiling national security and threatens to subpoena the press over embarrassing leaks, but then retweets news stories he finds favorable even if they are based on highly sensitive classified defense information, he erodes that credibility. He erodes the government’s foothold in that delicate balance with the press.

It is unclear what the attorney general’s statement about press subpoenas portends for Justice Department policy and for the delicate balance that has held for decades. Some legal commentators have noted that the department itself has a lot to lose in upsetting the status quo and potentially forcing an adverse First Amendment ruling. What is likely a more immediate threat to the balance is a president who lacks any regard for its fragility and for the importance of the government’s credibility in its preservation.

 

[fraurosena]

An example of how they spin the utterances of a babbling idiot.

For those of you who can't read the text, I've copied it under the spoiler:

Spoiler

This is what the official press release stated:

President Donald J. Trump spoke yesterday with Guam governor Eddie Calvo. President Trump reassured governer Calvo and our fellow American's on Guam that United States forces stand ready to ensure the safety and security of the people of Guam, along with the rest of America. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly spoke separately to governor Calvo earlier in the day. 

Here's what the presidunce actually said:

Good morning, good morning, it's great to speak to you, and I just wanted to pay my respect. And we are with you 1000%. You are safe. We are with you 1000%. And I wanted to call you and say hello. How are you?

[...]

Well, we're going to do a great job, don't worry about a thing. They should have had me eight years ago. I wish. Nobody with my thought process. Because that was the time, but uh, and frankly you could have said that for the last three presidents. But your gonna be taken care of. You've become - Eddie, I have to tell you, you've become extremely famous. All over the world they are talking about Guam, and they're talking about you. And I think your tourism, I can say this, your tourism, you're going to go up like tenfold with the expenditure of no money, so I congratulate you. It looks beautiful. You know I'm watching. They're showing so much. It's a big story in the news, it just looks like a beautiful place. So beautiful. 

[...]

You just went to 110 (percent occupancy), I think. So look, governor, I just want to let you know. We're with you 1000%. You have nothing - you notice he hasn't spoken recently. He doesn't talk so much anymore. And we'll see how it all works out, but you're not going to have a problem. You don't - this is between you and I, but you don't talk like they talk. You can't do that. And you can't do that with people like us. So I just wanted to pay my respects and say you seem like a helluva guy.

tl;dr

Guam is in the news all over the world, so tourism will go up tenfold and it's a beautiful place and Calvo is extremely famous now and a helluva guy. Oh, and we're with them 1000% so don't worry.

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘War and Peace’ is all about Trump. Who knew?"

Spoiler

As a former Moscow correspondent for The Post, I probably should not admit this, but until this summer I had never read Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.”

Now I can report from the far shore:

It is as long as everyone says.

It is as good as everyone says. No, better.

It is about Donald Trump and how we should respond to his presidency.

You doubt that last one? Then listen to this:

“A man of no convictions, no habits, no traditions. . . . The incompetence of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of his opponents, the frankness of the deception, and the dazzling and self-confident limitation of the man raise him to the head . . . and without attaching himself to any one of them, advances to a prominent position,” Tolstoy writes.

Eerie, right? The dazzling and self-confident limitation of the man.

Okay, I dropped a couple of words from the passage. Tolstoy actually wrote “the seething parties of France,” and “the head of the army.” He was in fact describing not our president but Napoleon, for whom the Russian author harbored a magnificent contempt.

But the masterpiece does resonate, not only for that coincidence of description — and not only because, these days, everything seems to be about Donald Trump.

In his novel framed by Napoleon’s invasion of and retreat from Russia in 1812, Tolstoy asks: What moves events? Is it, as commonly assumed, “great men” such as Napoleon and Czar Alexander I? Or is it the separate decisions of thousands of individuals: soldiers, peasants, shopkeepers, lords?

It is the latter, Tolstoy says. Their actions flow together into a force that czars and generals can only pretend to control.

Which, if even only partly true, seems to have some lessons for today.

Trump has been posited as a threat in many directions: to the rule of law, to civility and truth, to America’s standing in the world as a beacon of freedom and democracy. But maybe no threat is more serious than his assault on the idea of America as a nation that welcomes newcomers and outsiders and allows them, in their turn, to become American.

From announcing his candidacy with a warning about Mexican rapists pouring across the border to inaugurating his presidency with a ban on immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries, to embracing just a few days ago a proposal to sharply limit immigration of unskilled workers, Trump has exploited fears of non-white, non-Christian, non-English-speaking “others.”

This is particularly dangerous because it speaks to a sentiment that existed long before Trump came along — that always has existed in American political culture.

Let’s pause to stipulate that you can oppose immigration without being racist. Until we fulfill John Lennon’s vision (“Imagine there’s no countries .  . . ”), we are all in one sense arguing about numbers, not principle. I can make a case that the current annual limit of 1 million legal immigrants is better for the economy, and the country, than Trump’s proposed 500,000, and that 2 million might be better still. But even my higher cap would leave millions more on the outside wanting to come in.

What is a matter of principle is how you define being an American: Is it a question of blood, of how long you and your ancestors have been here, of whether you accept America as a Christian nation? Or is it based on your devotion to its foundational idea — that all men and women are created equal?

That battle is being fought in the courts, and it will be fought in Congress. But the essential battle for the nation’s soul will be fought by every one of us, every day.

It is a battle we will win by embracing each other’s humanity: by welcoming the mosque down the street, helping a “dreamer” stay in school, translating a form for the parent at the next desk at back-to-school night. It is a battle, as Tolstoy would have understood, that will be won or lost by the nation’s soldiers, farmers and shopkeepers, and by its nurses and factory workers and teachers and office workers, too; by each of us, day by day, encounter by encounter.

Tolstoy wasn’t totally right about history. Even the mountebanks, the leaders of no convictions, can shift the course of events. But the rest of us, impelled by the generosity that has made America a great country, may have more power than we think.

I do agree with the author.

[CTRLZero]

A West Coast Plea - Seattle Times
 

Spoiler

 

You may very well hate us. After all, you were rejected by a margin of nearly 5 million votes in the three states on the West Coast mainland, where more than 1 in 7 Americans live. We are the reason you lost the national popular vote by such a historic margin. Since you’ve been president, you’ve never set foot in our time zone.

But now our very existence is in your hands. Look at a map, that circle from North Korea outward. There’s Guam, a U.S. territory, threatened this week with a pre-emptive strike, at 2,100 miles. Then comes Alaska, which is closer to the nuclear-armed hermit nation, at just over 3,000 miles, than it is to Washington, D.C.

Farther out, Seattle; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco and Los Angeles may all be within range of missiles that North Korea tested last month. It looks as if the North could fit a nuclear bomb the size of a garbage can to one of those missiles, though whether it could survive re-entry is another matter.

Are we scared? Unnerved? Well, yes, a little. I’ll let Leon Panetta, the wisest of West Coasters and former secretary of defense, speak for us:

“You’ve got two bullies chiding each other with outrageous comments,” he told Politico this week. He worried that the bully in Bedminster may feel that the bully in Pyongyang is “attacking his manhood,” an age-old trigger for war. The similarities between the two of you are unavoidable: the preening, the insecurity, the pathological narcissism, the chronic lying, the bad haircuts.

Of course, you never had your uncle executed or ordered the assassination of a half-brother, as Kim Jong Un did. But we sometimes can’t tell the statements between the two of you apart. Was it Kim or your magnificence who said you would turn the other’s capital city into a “sea of fire”? Or force the other’s country to suffer “fire and fury like the world has never seen?”

It doesn’t make for an easier night’s sleep here on the humidity-free West Coast that one of your top advisers, Sebastian Gorka, has been trying to sound like you, ratcheting up the my-nukes-are-bigger-than-yours brinkmanship. “We are not just the superpower,” he said. “We are now a hyperpower.” If only he were talking about a Marvel Comics character.

And it’s equally unsettling that your evangelical adviser, the Texas pastor Robert Jeffress, is now giving you cover from the Bible. “God has endowed rulers full power to use whatever means necessary — including war — to stop evil,” he said, speaking for God.

This is not “The Celebrity Apprentice.” The huff-and-puffing could easily escalate into the slaughter of millions of people. Seoul, with a metro population of 26 million, is as close to its enemy in the north as Washington is to Baltimore.

When President Barack Obama kidded you at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in 2011 for having to make a decision after your steakhouse team failed to impress, he said: “You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir.”

At the time, Obama had just authorized the raid, after dutiful and reasoned deliberation, to take out Osama bin Laden. At that same dinner, he ended on a serious note, asking everyone to “remember our neighbors in Alabama,” recently devastated by storms.

That would be the Alabama where Obama got barely 39 percent of the vote in 2008 — about the same percent you received in Washington and Oregon. Once the election is over, as he and nearly every occupant of the White House has learned, you are the president of all the people.

Your default mode is to threaten and sue and demean and lie — as you’ve done your entire career. You even sue comedians, as you did Bill Maher after he compared you to an orangutan’s spawn. And this week, your first major statement after threatening nuclear war was to lie about how you had upgraded our nuclear arsenal.

We West Coasters can’t go our separate way on nukes, as we’re doing on climate change, vowing to adhere to the Paris accord even as you turn your back on the rest of the world. We don’t have a shield. We don’t control the nuclear code.

Sanctions, like those just approved by the United Nations, are a good deterrence. You need to work with China. It will take more than “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake,” more than calling President Xi Jinping of China a good guy one day, a bad guy the next. Diplomacy is hard. But it beats the alternative.

I know you don’t read. But somebody on your staff — perhaps the well-read defense secretary, James Mattis — could summarize “The Guns of August,” by Barbara W. Tuchman. She details the missteps, the idiocy of powerful men with powerful weapons, leading the world into a war that would kill 17 million people. The path to destruction, to mass murder, to horror is there. So is the way out.

© 2017, New York Times News Service
Timothy Egan is a New York Times columnist.

 

Another plea for grown-up behavior. 

(My apologies if this has already been posted.  So many threads to read while I'm assembling my buckets-o-doom...)

 

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

All over the world they are talking about Guam, and they're talking about you. And I think your tourism, I can say this, your tourism, you're going to go up like tenfold with the expenditure of no money, so I congratulate you.

So...he's framing the possibility of nuclear attack as free advertising for the tourism trade.  Well, why am I not surprised? 

[GreyhoundFan]

@CTRLZero -- last night on his show, Bill Maher kept saying, ostensibly to KJU, "Remember that Dennis Rodman lives in Los Angeles, he's your friend" and showing a map with a star in the area of LA.

[GrumpyGran]

I have a fantasy in my head right now. It's a wishful fantasy.

Right about now he's strutting around on his golf course, waiting to crash a wedding. He turns around and there stands Angela Merkel, holding a golf club. "Stop it. Now!" Then one good whack between the legs and another one to the side of the head. She turns and strides away. There is discreet applause from the gallery.

I have to have something in my head now to keep all the bad thoughts at bay.

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from George:

[candygirl200413]

Fuckface as well as Malaria tweeted about how the violence needs to stop in Charlottesville right now. Which now my eyes are stuck due to rolling them because they caused this.

[AuntK]

On 8/11/2017 at 2:19 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

This week we have seen a vivid display of chief of staff John F. Kelly’s inability to bring coherence and sanity to the administration. He apparently cannot tone down the president’s inflammatory and impulsive outbursts nor can he deter the faction loyal to senior White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon from its mission to undermine sane national security officials.

In the mind-numbing press conference on Thursday, Trump retained his perfect score. He’s never criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin. Asked about expelling our diplomats from Russia, he sounded, even for him, ridiculously obsequious. “I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down our payroll, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll,” Trump told reporters from his New Jersey golf club. “There’s no real reason for them to go back. I greatly appreciate the fact that we’ve been able to cut our payroll of the United States. We’re going to save a lot of money.”

This is appalling on many levels. First, it suggests Putin can take free swings at America because Trump will bend over backwards to invent excuses for his Russian soulmate. The statement signals abject weakness on Trump’s part, virtually inviting Putin and other adversaries to throw out our people. And, to boot, Trump is confused on the facts. The expelled diplomats remain employed by the U.S. government; we haven’t saved any money. Putin however has gained the upper hand (again) with Trump, raising a legitimate concern as to whether Putin “has something” on Trump.

On top of that Trump’s remarks amount to a gratuitous insult to an already demoralized State Department (as well as other employees working at the embassy). “Having served in Moscow myself I know that service there is difficult in the best of times,” says former ambassador Eric Edelman. “In recent years, American diplomats have been harassed and beaten up by Putin’s thugs from the special services.  Trump’s comments, which were probably intended to demonstrate that he is not fazed by Putin’s actions, conveyed total disregard and disrespect for what our diplomats do every day.” He concludes, “He has given Putin a pass to do what he will with official Americans in Moscow and he will be responsible for the consequences.  It was an incredibly irresponsible thing to say.”

So where is Kelly? Did he not prepare a reasoned, logical response for the president or does he simply have no sway with the president?

Then there’s the case of deputy assistant  Sebastian Gorka, a darling of the alt-right who hasn’t managed to qualify for a security clearance. Nevertheless, apparently with the full backing of the president, he goes on TV to insult and undermine the legitimate spokesman for America’s foreign policy, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson. On BBC earlier in the day, Gorka admonished Tillerson for trying the reassure the American people we are not on the brink of war. (“Americans should sleep well at night.”) The nerve of Tillerson, eh? Gorka declared, “The idea that Secretary Tillerson is going to discuss military matters is simply nonsensical.” Actually, what is nonsensical is allowing Gorka to invent his own foreign policy and insult the people actually in charge of foreign policy. Gorka must have realized he blew it. Later in the afternoon he tried to blame the whole thing on the media. (Ho-hum. Are there no creative excuses?) “I was admonishing the journalists of the fake news industrial complex who are forcing our chief diplomat into a position where they are demanding he makes the military case for action when that is not the mandate of the secretary of state,” he babbled incoherently on a Fox News appearance. Tillerson should not put up with this. Unless Gorka goes, Tillerson should quit.

Once again we have to ask if Kelly is the chief of staff in name only. Gorka has no expertise or clearance and is a blatantly destructive force in the administration. (You’ll recall the same pro-Bannon faction went on a seek-and-destroy mission against H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser.) Gorka’s continued presence in the administration tells us Kelly is not really in charge of the White House staff.

As long as Trump slobbers publicly over Putin, insults our own Foreign Service and keeps Bannon and his ilk on staff, Kelly’s hands are tied. Put differently, unless we see Trump’s tantrums, Bannon and Gorka disappear, we will know Kelly is failing — and so is the president.

I do wonder what Putin has on Agent Orange, it can't just be golden showers pictures.

I think there is a great deal of money involved, and, I suspect, some heinous, unspeakable crime. . .

[onekidanddone]

3 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

So...he's framing the possibility of nuclear attack as free advertising for the tourism trade.  Well, why am I not surprised? 

Follow the money. I bet the Trump brand stands to make money in Guam.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Beyond North Korea, here are eight other things Trump told reporters on Friday"

Spoiler

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — As President Trump continued to aggressively threaten North Korea on Friday, he made a smattering of other comments to reporters on issues ranging from U.S. diplomats getting kicked out of Russia to the deepening crisis in Venezuela to whether Vice President Pence would run for president in 2020.

Here's a quick rundown of them:

1) Trump said he was just joking when he thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for kicking out U.S. diplomats. A day earlier, Trump was asked by reporters about Putin expelling 775 U.S. diplomatic and technical staff members from Russia in retaliation for sanctions levied against his country. Trump responded: “I want to thank him because we're trying to cut down our payroll, and as far as I'm concerned I'm very thankful that he let go a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll.” He didn't crack a smile, but White House aides insisted the president was joking. As Trump took questions from reporters at his private golf club Friday evening, he confirmed that he was “absolutely” kidding. He added that he plans to respond to Russia's action by Sept. 1.

2) He suggested U.S. military involvement in Venezuela. Trump told reporters that he is “not going to rule out a military option” to confront the autocratic government of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and the deepening crisis in the South American country.

“We're all over the world, and we have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away. Venezuela is not very far away, and the people are suffering, and they're dying,” Trump said. “We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if necessary.”

When asked by a reporter whether this military option would be led by the United States, Trump responded: “We don't talk about it, but a military operation, a military option is certainly something that we could pursue.”

3) He dismissed the possibility that Pence would mount a separate campaign for president in 2020. Talk about the possibility of a Pence campaign has been percolating since last weekend, when the New York Times ran a story about several Republicans running “shadow campaigns” in anticipation of the possibility that Trump might not seek reelection or would be weak enough to draw a credible GOP challenger. Pence — who has been courting Republican donors and hitting far more political events than Trump — strongly denounced the report, professing his loyalty to the president.

“He’s been terrific,” Trump said of Pence, “he’s been a great ally of mine.”

4) Trump kept bashing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), despite warnings from other Republicans that the sparring could hurt his agenda on Capitol Hill. “I don’t make anything of it,” Trump said when asked what he thought about other Senate Republicans coming to McConnell’s defense. “We should have had health care approved. … And not only didn't it happen, it was a surprise and a horrible surprise. It was very unfair to the Republican Party and it was very unfair to the people of this country, so I was not impressed.”

“Now, can he do good? I think so,” Trump said, ticking off other priorities, including tax cuts and infrastructure spending.

5) He is still hoping for health-care reform, despite its dramatic failure in the Senate. “Things will happen with respect to health care,” he said. “And I think things will happen maybe outside of necessarily needing Congress, because there are things that I could do as president that will have a huge impact on health care, so you watch.”

6) He is still evaluating the U.S. role in Afghanistan. When asked by a reporter whether he has the right generals positioned in Afghanistan right now, Trump said that he is “going to make a determination … in a very short period of time."

7) Trump is loving his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, a retired Marine general.  He told reporters that Kelly “has done a fantastic job” and is “a respected person, respected by everybody.” While Trump's previous chief of staff, Reince Priebus, was given the nickname “Reince-y,” the president said that he has dubbed Kelly “Chief.”

“Chief. I call him, 'Chief.' He's a respected man,” Trump said. “He's a four-star from the Marines and he carries himself like a four-star from the Marines, and he's my friend — which is very important.”

8) He's excited to return home to Trump Tower on Sunday for the first time since becoming president. Trump acknowledged that his visit was sure to snarl traffic, shut down major roads and annoy his fellow New Yorkers, but he's going anyway. He added that he will travel to the District on Monday for “a very important meeting” and “a pretty big press conference,” but he wouldn't reveal any more details.

I hate how he is treating the presidency as a reality show -- stay tuned for next week's episode when we might take away healthcare from millions AND as a bonus, escalate the war in Afghanistan. Sigh.

[AuntK]

Yeah, I'm SURE Guam's tourism is going to go up 1000% since everyone is seeing the pictures of how beautiful it is!  WTF? Can he HEAR what he is saying?  I know his brain isn't working! Yes, thousands of tourists with their families will be lining up to flock to an island that this GIANT ASSHOLE has drawn a huge target on! He is just a fucking stupid, foolish, senile, damn asshole! Too damn stupid to be embarrassed!  

Now I have to go to the ATM for cash for the swear jar. . .

[fraurosena]

Ugh. Just... uuuurrrrrrrgh! 

Trump condemns Charlottesville violence but doesn’t single out white nationalists for blame

Spoiler

President Trump on Saturday condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the spate of violence unfolding in Charlottesville and called for “a swift restoration of law and order” -- but avoided placing blame on any particular party for the hate-fueled upheaval.

Trump spoke after hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members clashed with counterprotesters in the streets and three cars later collided in a pedestrian mall packed with people, killing one person and injuring at least 10 others. 

In his remarks, at his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Trump spoke out against “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.”

“It’s been going on for a long time in our country, not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It’s been going on for a long, long time,”  Trump said, adding that he wanted to study the episode to learn what is wrong with the country.

He ignored shouted questions from reporters about what he thought of the white nationalists at the event who said they supported him and were inspired by his campaign.

Trump’s comments came at an event where he signed the Veterans Affairs Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017, which provides funding to extend a program that allows veterans to seek care at private medical offices instead of just at Veterans Administration facilities.

The Republican president in in the midst of a 17-day working vacation in Bedminster.

Trump said he had spoken earlier Saturday to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) about the events in Charlottesville, adding: “We agreed that the hate and the division must stop, and must stop right now. We have have to come together as Americans with love for our nation.”

Trump tweeted earlier Saturday on the situation in Charlottesville, saying “there is no place for this kind of violence in America.”

In one tweet, Trump said, “We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for.” The tweet, however made no mention of the white nationalists, whose gathering was central to the violence.

His messages came about an hour after first lady Melania Trump tweeted about the protests, saying "Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence. #Charlottesville."

His ambiguity shows which side he sympathizes with.

[anniebgood]

He disgusts me. I am appalled at the speech he gave..." on many sides". He is aligning himself on the side of hate. 

If the car driver had been a Muslim he'd have jumped on it like white on rice. It's domestic terrorism. 1 dead. How many more things have to happen before he actually acts like a president. 

Ana Navarro on CNN called him out. But his advisors will protect him and bring him folders of happy things about him from spurious news sources. Have to polish his ENORMOUS ego. 

We are the laughingstock of the world. He should be ashamed. 

[fraurosena]

Here's the real reason for the ambiguity... 

 

[sawasdee]

Oh  America - how did the 'shining city on the hill' become this?

Charlottesville today is a blot on your history. And it's tRump's pen that sputtered.

[fraurosena]

The King of Horror gets right to the heart of it:

 

[Cartmann99]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

@CTRLZero -- last night on his show, Bill Maher kept saying, ostensibly to KJU, "Remember that Dennis Rodman lives in Los Angeles, he's your friend" and showing a map with a star in the area of LA.

This crapfest of a day has completely broken my brain. I read KJU as KJV, and was wondering how I'd missed that Dennis Rodman and Los Angeles are in the KJV version of the Bible. 

[JMarie]

3 hours ago, AuntK said:

Yeah, I'm SURE Guam's tourism is going to go up 1000% since everyone is seeing the pictures of how beautiful it is!  WTF? Can he HEAR what he is saying?  I know his brain isn't working! Yes, thousands of tourists with their families will be lining up to flock to an island that this GIANT ASSHOLE has drawn a huge target on! He is just a fucking stupid, foolish, senile, damn asshole! Too damn stupid to be embarrassed!  

Now I have to go to the ATM for cash for the swear jar. . .

Guam does boast several golf courses.

[GreyhoundFan]

"What a presidential president would have said about Charlottesville"

Spoiler

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

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

Here is what a presidential president would have said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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