Trump 22: Not Even Poe Could Make This Shit Up

[GreyhoundFan]

I love Alexandra Petri. "Chaos? What chaos? No chaos here!"

Spoiler

The good news is, this is not chaos. “No WH chaos!” President Trump tweeted on Monday morning.

(He said this as Anthony Scaramucci ran past him, covered in bees, and jumped into a lake. Metaphorically speaking.)

On the one hand, the president has a point. The White House had just gotten rid of Scaramucci as its communications director, and for any other workplace, that would not have been a sign of chaos at all. That would be a sign that it had read, seen or heard anything that Scaramucci had said at any point, noticed what an obvious nonsense person he was and realized that hiring him had been the result of one particularly egregious typo. But this is the Trump White House, where hiring Scaramucci in the first place, a man given to profanity-laced tirades, was assumed to be a permanent move that would give him Great Power and that the people on the Internet whose job it is to hope that the White House knows what it is doing all immediately wrote to say was Just What The White House Needed.

But maybe John Kelly, a retired general, will impose order on the White House now. Every time there is a staff shake-up (or, more usually, every time Jared Kushner is tasked with a new policy boulder to roll endlessly and pointlessly up a hill), you get several inspiring stories that imply in the warmest terms that This Is The One True Sane Guy In The Room, and when Trump tried to crush a bird in his hand just to prove he could do it, This One Brave Man said not to. In Kelly’s case, the optimistic story says that when Trump wanted to build a big wall and fire the FBI director, he said no in no uncertain terms (or, I guess, in some slightly uncertain terms, because he is still there working for Trump, and Trump did fire the FBI director). But the point stands that this sort of story is now leaking to fill us, in theory, with hope.

It has been too long since I remembered the feeling of hope. Scaramucci’s 10 days in the White House felt like 10 of those days from the Bible where each day is enough time for the earth to be formed and life to evolve out of nothingness. Geological epochs have passed, and I have withered and lost my youth and all my limbs are now fossils.

Meanwhile, Kushner is leaking to the White House interns that the Trump campaign was TOO INCOMPETENT TO COLLUDE WITH ANYONE (Kushner continues to be both a particle and a wave; his collusion cat is always dead, though), and then the interns told a reporter. This is a fine defense and not a sign of chaos or panic on anyone’s part.

This also seems to be the defense Trump plans to use, as a source told The Post: He doesn’t feel as though he has done anything wrong, and therefore he assumes he hasn’t. This could be a fine policy if we were 100 percent sure that he had taken at least a couple of those online quizzes where you prove you aren’t a sociopath. Also, it turns out that Trump dictated the erroneous statement about his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer. But that is fine, because there are worse ways he could be dictating. Save it for statements, not the American people.

And a lawsuit is alleging that the Trump White House was behind the bogus story on Fox News (retracted, with ZERO resignations) that Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich was murdered for being the real source behind WikiLeaks. It must be almost relaxing to live in a world where the biggest problem is the hypothetical misdeeds of the Hillary Clinton administration.

Anyway, no chaos.

Also, among other details in the various stories about Reince Priebus’s departure, came the news that the Oval Office has a fly problem. I invite you to go through every story that has been written about the past six months and picture everyone in the stories swatting flies. It makes them much funnier. Here, for instance, is one from January’s New York Times.

President Trump, who flew across the country on hundreds of nights during the 2016 campaign to sleep in his own bed, has now spent five straight days in the unfamiliar surroundings of the White House. His aides said privately that he seemed apprehensive about the move to his new home, but Mr. Trump has discovered there is a lot he likes. AND EVERYTHING WAS COVERED IN FLIES.

“These are the most beautiful phones I’ve ever used in my life,” Mr. Trump said in a telephone interview Tuesday evening, AS HE SWATTED AN ENORMOUS HORSEFLY. THE WHOLE OVAL OFFICE WAS PACKED WITH FLIES, BUZZING AND HUMMING AND DARTING FROM ONE SURFACE TO THE NEXT.

“The world’s most secure system,” he added, laughing. “The words just explode in the air.” JUST LIKE A FLY WOULDN’T. What he meant was that no one was listening in and recording his words. THREE FLIES LANDED ON HIS HAND, AND HE MADE REINCE PRIEBUS SWAT THEM.

The president sat at his desk — the one used by former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, among others — at the end of his fourth full day in office. ALSO THERE WERE FLIES EVERYWHERE, DANDLING THEIR TINY LEGS AND RUBBING THEM AGAINST ONE ANOTHER AND BUZZING. HE WAS THEIR LORD, THE LORD OF THE FLIES.

But Scaramucci is gone, and Kelly agreed that Monday was a Great Day. “Yes sir,” he tweeted. He is going to run the organization like a finely tuned machine. Like a car, say, driving off the edge of a cliff.

I have hiccups from laughing so hard at the image of "The Mooch" running, covered in bees, and jumping in a lake.

[AmazonGrace]

Politico published the WSJ interview transcript from last week 

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/01/trump-wall-street-journal-interview-full-transcript-241214

Quote

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful. So there was – there was no mix.

 

Quote

 

WSJ: What do you think is a reasonable corporate rate? We’ve heard 20 percent, but –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, you know, we’re going for 15 (percent). We’re going to see, and we’ll see. But, you know, I don’t want to say anything about negotiation. I mean, we are asking for 15 percent, and we think we’re going to grow tremendously.

So I deal with foreign countries, and despite what you may read I have unbelievable relationships with all of the foreign leaders. They like me. I like them. You know, it’s amazing. So I’ll call, like, major – major countries, and I’ll be dealing with the prime minister or the president. And I’ll say, how are you doing? Oh, don’t know, don’t know, not well, Mr. President, not well. I said, well, what’s the problem? Oh, GDP 9 percent, not well. And I’m saying to myself, here we are at like 1 percent, dying, and they’re at 9 percent and they’re unhappy. So, you know, and these are like countries, you know, fairly large, like 300 million people. You know, a lot of people say – they say, well, but the United States is large. And then you call places like Malaysia, Indonesia, and you say, you know, how many people do you have? And it’s pretty amazing how many people they have. So China’s going to be at 7 or 8 percent, and they have a billion-five, right? So we should do really well.

But in order to do that – you know, it’s tax reform, but it’s a big tax cut. But it’s simplification, it’s reform, and it’s a big tax cut, 15 –

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[onekidanddone]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I love Alexandra Petri. "Chaos? What chaos? No chaos here!"

  Reveal hidden contents

The good news is, this is not chaos. “No WH chaos!” President Trump tweeted on Monday morning.

(He said this as Anthony Scaramucci ran past him, covered in bees, and jumped into a lake. Metaphorically speaking.)

On the one hand, the president has a point. The White House had just gotten rid of Scaramucci as its communications director, and for any other workplace, that would not have been a sign of chaos at all. That would be a sign that it had read, seen or heard anything that Scaramucci had said at any point, noticed what an obvious nonsense person he was and realized that hiring him had been the result of one particularly egregious typo. But this is the Trump White House, where hiring Scaramucci in the first place, a man given to profanity-laced tirades, was assumed to be a permanent move that would give him Great Power and that the people on the Internet whose job it is to hope that the White House knows what it is doing all immediately wrote to say was Just What The White House Needed.

But maybe John Kelly, a retired general, will impose order on the White House now. Every time there is a staff shake-up (or, more usually, every time Jared Kushner is tasked with a new policy boulder to roll endlessly and pointlessly up a hill), you get several inspiring stories that imply in the warmest terms that This Is The One True Sane Guy In The Room, and when Trump tried to crush a bird in his hand just to prove he could do it, This One Brave Man said not to. In Kelly’s case, the optimistic story says that when Trump wanted to build a big wall and fire the FBI director, he said no in no uncertain terms (or, I guess, in some slightly uncertain terms, because he is still there working for Trump, and Trump did fire the FBI director). But the point stands that this sort of story is now leaking to fill us, in theory, with hope.

It has been too long since I remembered the feeling of hope. Scaramucci’s 10 days in the White House felt like 10 of those days from the Bible where each day is enough time for the earth to be formed and life to evolve out of nothingness. Geological epochs have passed, and I have withered and lost my youth and all my limbs are now fossils.

Meanwhile, Kushner is leaking to the White House interns that the Trump campaign was TOO INCOMPETENT TO COLLUDE WITH ANYONE (Kushner continues to be both a particle and a wave; his collusion cat is always dead, though), and then the interns told a reporter. This is a fine defense and not a sign of chaos or panic on anyone’s part.

This also seems to be the defense Trump plans to use, as a source told The Post: He doesn’t feel as though he has done anything wrong, and therefore he assumes he hasn’t. This could be a fine policy if we were 100 percent sure that he had taken at least a couple of those online quizzes where you prove you aren’t a sociopath. Also, it turns out that Trump dictated the erroneous statement about his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer. But that is fine, because there are worse ways he could be dictating. Save it for statements, not the American people.

And a lawsuit is alleging that the Trump White House was behind the bogus story on Fox News (retracted, with ZERO resignations) that Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich was murdered for being the real source behind WikiLeaks. It must be almost relaxing to live in a world where the biggest problem is the hypothetical misdeeds of the Hillary Clinton administration.

Anyway, no chaos.

Also, among other details in the various stories about Reince Priebus’s departure, came the news that the Oval Office has a fly problem. I invite you to go through every story that has been written about the past six months and picture everyone in the stories swatting flies. It makes them much funnier. Here, for instance, is one from January’s New York Times.

President Trump, who flew across the country on hundreds of nights during the 2016 campaign to sleep in his own bed, has now spent five straight days in the unfamiliar surroundings of the White House. His aides said privately that he seemed apprehensive about the move to his new home, but Mr. Trump has discovered there is a lot he likes. AND EVERYTHING WAS COVERED IN FLIES.

“These are the most beautiful phones I’ve ever used in my life,” Mr. Trump said in a telephone interview Tuesday evening, AS HE SWATTED AN ENORMOUS HORSEFLY. THE WHOLE OVAL OFFICE WAS PACKED WITH FLIES, BUZZING AND HUMMING AND DARTING FROM ONE SURFACE TO THE NEXT.

“The world’s most secure system,” he added, laughing. “The words just explode in the air.” JUST LIKE A FLY WOULDN’T. What he meant was that no one was listening in and recording his words. THREE FLIES LANDED ON HIS HAND, AND HE MADE REINCE PRIEBUS SWAT THEM.

The president sat at his desk — the one used by former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, among others — at the end of his fourth full day in office. ALSO THERE WERE FLIES EVERYWHERE, DANDLING THEIR TINY LEGS AND RUBBING THEM AGAINST ONE ANOTHER AND BUZZING. HE WAS THEIR LORD, THE LORD OF THE FLIES.

But Scaramucci is gone, and Kelly agreed that Monday was a Great Day. “Yes sir,” he tweeted. He is going to run the organization like a finely tuned machine. Like a car, say, driving off the edge of a cliff.

I have hiccups from laughing so hard at the image of "The Mooch" running, covered in bees, and jumping in a lake.

Eat a spoon full of sugar.  Really, know it sounds disgusting, but it works on hiccups.

[AmazonGrace]

Quote

 

resident Trump, who flew across the country on hundreds of nights during the 2016 campaign to sleep in his own bed, has now spent five straight days in the unfamiliar surroundings of the White House. His aides said privately that he seemed apprehensive about the move to his new home, but Mr. Trump has discovered there is a lot he likes. AND EVERYTHING WAS COVERED IN FLIES.

“These are the most beautiful phones I’ve ever used in my life,” Mr. Trump said in a telephone interview Tuesday evening, AS HE SWATTED AN ENORMOUS HORSEFLY. THE WHOLE OVAL OFFICE WAS PACKED WITH FLIES, BUZZING AND HUMMING AND DARTING FROM ONE SURFACE TO THE NEXT.

 

So what you're saying is that the White House is bugged? 

http://amp.timeinc.net/golf/tour-news/2017/08/01/president-donald-trump-relationship-golf-more-complicated-now?source=dam

SI spoke with numerous people who have teed it up with Trump over the years and all report that he doesn't play a round of golf so much as narrate it, his commentary peppered with hyperbole. "Is this not the most beautiful asphalt you've ever seen in your life?" he'll say of an ordinary cart path. At the turn he'll ask, "Have you ever had a better burger?"

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

 

[Destiny]

 

Wait WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST READ???????

I bet the residents of Great Britain are surprised to learn this. JFC the man is dumb.

[onekidanddone]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

SI spoke with numerous people who have teed it up with Trump over the years and all report that he doesn't play a round of golf so much as narrate it, his commentary peppered with hyperbole. "Is this not the most beautiful asphalt you've ever seen in your life?" he'll say of an ordinary cart path. At the turn he'll ask, "Have you ever had a better burger?"

Can't he ever just shut up? His need for constant approval and self aggrandizement are astounding. How can his supporters no notice this?

Sometimes I have to read his transcripts a few times because they are so rambling and inane I wonder if I forgot how to read.  Then I get it, he just can't speak in cohesive sentences. It physically hurts to hear him or read what he says.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Can anyone get a handle on the president who handles everything?"

Spoiler

For a man with such small hands, President Trump handles an awful lot of things.

As a businessman, he handled golf courses, casinos, hotels, bankruptcies and, by his own account, a number of unsuspecting women. When you’re a star, they let you do it.

Now he’s president and he handles, well, everything. “We have some interesting situations that we’ll handle,” he reported at this week’s Cabinet meeting. “. . . We’ll take care of them. We’ll take care of them very well.”

Fox News’s John Roberts asked about the latest North Korea missile launch. “We’ll handle North Korea,” Trump said. “We’re going to be able to handle North — there will be — it will be handled. We handle everything.”

Now the man who handles everything has a handler.

Retired four-star Gen. John F. Kelly, Trump’s new chief of staff, is by all accounts an ideal fit. He has the stature, the independence and the brass to tell the president to cut the nonsense. He has shown sensible skepticism about Trump’s proposed border wall, his firing of James B. Comey and more. Let’s wish him well.

But I fear Kelly — “General,” as Trump calls him — does not appreciate just how out of hand this president is, or how allergic he is to the sort of discipline Kelly aims to impose. Trump alone does the handling, and I’m not just talking about the awkward public touches he has had with everybody from Ivanka Trump to Angela Merkel. He has no capacity to be tamed, shamed or restrained.

Trump gave Kelly assurances that he would have full authority in the White House, which is essential. But he gave Kelly’s predecessor Reince Priebus the same assurances, and they were meaningless. As Preet Bharara — fired as U.S. attorney after Trump personally asked him to stay on — can tell you, Trump is not bound by his word.

The latest reminder of this comes from The Post’s stunning report this week that the president himself dictated the misleading statement in July issued by his son Donald Trump Jr. about the younger Trump’s 2016 meeting with Russians who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. The president, aboard Air Force One, dictated the statement even though his aides were arguing for a full disclosure by his son to get in front of the Russia revelations — and even though emails and Donald Trump Jr.’s subsequent statements would quickly demolish the one the president dictated about Russian adoptions.

This should alarm Kelly, because it is a reminder that this president is fundamentally dishonest. This is why allies can’t deal with him, Congress can’t negotiate with him — and those who work for him can’t trust him.

Kelly’s professional life has been working within the chain of command. But Trump’s professional life has been all command and no chain. As owner and chief executive of a family company, he didn’t have public shareholders or an independent board of directors to review his commands. He ruled by whim, and his managers — family members and other loyalists — didn’t question his edicts.

This real-life experience for Trump wasn’t unlike his reality TV show, in which contestants — subordinates — stroked his ego. It’s also how he has run the White House so far. Recall his first full Cabinet meeting, at which the doomed Priebus thanked Trump “for the opportunity and blessing that you’ve given us,” while others dueled to be the most effusive in praising Trump.

No wonder Trump still thinks he’s on set at “The Apprentice.” “We’ll see you in the board room,” Trump announced Monday morning, before heading to the Cabinet Room for a Cabinet meeting. Was it just a slip of the tongue that made him call the hallowed chamber — where presidents since Theodore Roosevelt have presided — by the name of the room where he fired people on “The Apprentice”? It was not. “We’ll see you in the board room,” he repeated moments later. (In the room for the Cabinet meeting: Trump aide Omarosa Manigault, late of “The Apprentice.”)

Now Kelly supposes he can give this president discipline. It’s desperately needed to stop the chaos. Even as Kelly was starting his new job, Trump was tweeting about the “fake news media,” threatening to “hurt the insurance companies” that participate in Obamacare and, apparently forgetting his promise to be the voice of the “forgotten men and women,” boasting that “Corporations have NEVER made as much money as they are making now.”

But how to restrain Trump? Even Vice President Pence, who has constitutional job security, has stopped trying. He actually told Fox News on Tuesday that “I’ll always support whatever decisions that the president makes.”

I can’t dismiss out of hand the possibility that Kelly will be the first person ever to get a handle on Trump. But it’s the unlikeliest outcome. Hands down.

Interesting take.

[GrumpyGran]

On 7/31/2017 at 9:31 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

Yeah, but that's probably so small that we'd miss it when throwing...

Well, as specified in the article, he doesn't have a dog, which is good for all dogs. That's probably the nicest thing about him.  I live in the Washington DC area, which is considered part of the south (kind of), but because I'm in a metropolitan area, there are few obvious Agent Orange supporters, but if I drive about an hour away, there are MAGA signs in yards and people wearing repulsive AO shirts and hats. I have to resist (!) throwing something at them. Right before the election, someone hung a huge T/P 2016 banner across four lanes of traffic. I had to go that way a couple of times, so I flipped it off each time. I never felt so angry and disappointed by W signs, even though I despised him too. Agent Orange and his ilk have just taken me to an unhappy place.

Once again I'm behind, apologies but I have to comment on this. Where I live I don't see a lot of overt Trump support but this is a vacation area so everybody knows where their bread is buttered. Yesterday at the car dealership I discovered, as I have recently at the Physical Therapist, that a lot of places are going to "brand" TV in their waiting rooms so as not offend anyone. No Fox, no alternative.

And last week in Birmingham, Alabama, the largest city in the state, there wasn't a lot of Trump love, but again, Jefferson County was Hillary country. As was Montgomery County, where the capitol of Alabama resides. Here in South Carolina, Richland County, where our state capitol is- Hillary. And in my birth state of Mississippi, almost every county on the Misssissippi River went for Hillary. These are a mix of urban people and very poor people and the party needs to find a way to expand on this.

Best of all, in Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi... you got it, Hillary Clinton kicked Donald Trump's ass 59% to 39%. We southerners do have a sense of humor.

[onekidanddone]

A few weeks before the election Mr. Onekid and i were driving through Garrett and Washington counties in western Maryland. Lawn sign after lawn sign for Trump that, while making sick was expected.  One lawn sign alone in a sea trump virus dared to stand up and proclaim claim with it's head heals high  yes he would face the fear and proudly say

I am voting for  Nixon/Agnew.

This no lie, we really saw it. The sign looked really new and not like it had been stuck in a basement since 1968

[sawasdee]

Britain - or Great Britain - geographical name for the island containing England, Scotland and Wales.

British Isles - Geographical name for islands containing England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland.

United Kingdom - name of the political entity comprising England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Helps to know the names of who you are dealing with as head of state.....

[apple1]

8 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

A few weeks before the election Mr. Onekid and i were driving through Garrett and Washington counties in western Maryland. Lawn sign after lawn sign for Trump that, while making sick was expected.  One lawn sign alone in a sea trump virus dared to stand up and proclaim claim with it's head heals high  yes he would face the fear and proudly say

I am voting for  Nixon/Agnew.

This no lie, we really saw it. The sign looked really new and not like it had been stuck in a basement since 1968

Sounds like someone with 1) a sense of humor, and 2) making a point.

I am old enough that I LIVED through Nixon (although NOT old enough to have voted in that election). At this point, I believe we have a more crooked president than Nixon.

Yes - I think that person was making a point. A good point.

[GreyhoundFan]

Chelsea spoke up after the TT called the WH a dump: "Chelsea Clinton defends staff at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. after Trump reportedly calls the place ‘a real dump’"

Spoiler

Does President Trump find the accommodations at the White House slightly less than four-star worthy?

In a new story published on Golf.com about Trump’s links obsession, the hotelier-turned-POTUS reportedly told some of his golf buddies that he prefers staying at his own properties rather than at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, because the executive mansion is “a real dump.”

Trump explained his frequent visits to his Bedminster, N.J., golf club to several members, according to the report, with this bad Yelp review: “That White House is a real dump.”

A White House official denied that this occurred, the website notes.

But the quality of the D.C. lodging got a defender in someone with more experience in the White House lifestyle than Trump. “Thank you to all the White House ushers, butlers, maids, chefs, florists, gardeners, plumbers, engineers & curators for all you do every day,” Chelsea Clinton tweeted Tuesday evening, citing the highlighted quote disparaging the place she called home for eight years.

Trump has reportedly enjoyed the perks of living at the prestigious address since January (waiters cater to his preferences with a constant stream of Diet Cokes and two scoops of ice cream for dessert instead of the standard one), and he’s been known to proudly offer tours to VIP visitors.

But he has spent a good deal of time away from the White House, including 21 of his first 26 weekends, by CNN’s count, mostly at his luxury Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., where the Versailles-like decor is closer to that of his own Manhattan penthouse in Trump Tower than the historic White House digs.

As in previous administrations, the Trumps hired a private decorator to transform their living quarters, and in accordance with tradition, it’s not usually shared with the public.

And he found a way to bring to Washington some of the comforts he’s used to: first lady Melania Trump hired Timothy Harleth, a senior manager at Washington’s Trump International Hotel, to serve as chief usher, overseeing the staff that runs the White House.

I'm really annoyed about his comments. The WH is beautiful and it should be a huge honor to reside there.

[PsyD2013]

If the TT believes that the White House is a "real dump", perhaps he should resign and return to his gold encrusted residences as a private citizen.

[Penny]

If he does not like the White House, he can quit and go back to Dump Tower. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Parents should be repulsed by Trump’s playing of the father card"

Spoiler

“The president weighed in just as any father would, based on the limited information that he had,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, effectively confirming The Post’s report that President Trump personally drafted Donald Trump Jr.’s misleading statement about his meeting with a Russian lawyer proffering dirt on Hillary Clinton.

“As any father would.”  That phrase contains so much — so much, indeed, that Sanders invoked it twice. The president, she continued, “offered suggestions like any father would do.” The paternal invocation seeks to harness — it hijacks — the primal ferocity of parental love in the service of political self-preservation. Your kid’s in a bit of trouble — no matter that he’s a 39-year-old man, he is still your child — so he turns to you for help: “Hey, pop, what should I say?”

He needs advice, not really any different from deciding how much life insurance to buy, or whether this stock looks like a good investment. In well-functioning families, sons turn to their fathers for guidance; fathers are the fount of wisdom and judgment. Who can fault a parent for rising to a child’s defense?

But of course for all of Sanders’s treacly effort to Hallmarkize this touching family moment, it was anything but. This was less “Father Knows Best” than “Father Stonewalls Best.” Parents everywhere, fathers and mothers alike, should be repulsed by this playing of the parent card.

“As any father would.” Fathers are supposed to teach their children the difference between right and wrong. My father taught me not to lie. Donald Trump Jr.’s father taught him to shade the truth — in this case, so much that it was in total eclipse. “The statement that Don Jr. issued is true. There’s no inaccuracy in the statement,” Sanders said. No technical inaccuracy, perhaps, but little actual truth.

“We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up,” Trump Jr.’s statement read. In fact, and it took multiple iterations for the full facts to emerge, Trump Jr. eagerly accepted the meeting, and invited top campaign officials, in hopes of getting the goods on Clinton. “Primarily’’ was the tell, the classic Trumpian hedge behind which Sanders so unconvincingly hid.

“As any father would.” Fathers are supposed to put their children’s well-being above their own; that selflessness is the essence of being a parent. Trump Jr.’s attorney, Alan Futerfas, told The Post that he and his client had been “fully prepared and absolutely prepared to make a fulsome statement” about the meeting. Then the president intervened, dictating edits in the statement to his aide Hope Hicks, and gambling foolishly that the real facts wouldn’t emerge.

When, inevitably, they did, it made Trump Jr. look bad — “If it’s what you say, I love it,” he told the Russian attorney of her Clinton offer — but also provided evidence of some willingness on the part of the Trump campaign to collude with the Russians. Whose interest was the president so frantically scrambling to protecting here, his son’s or his own?

To the last line: sadly, the TT will only ever look out to protect his own interests.

[Cartmann99]

Poor Donald, I'm so sorry that the White House is just not tacky enough for you and Melania. 

On a happier note, here's a few  tweets from when President and Mrs. Obama lived in the White House.

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

I get upset thinking about the possibility of Trump tearing out Mrs. Obama's gardens just to be spiteful. 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Garrison Keillor: "We will survive this"

Spoiler

So. We have a vulgar, unstable yo-yo with a toxic ego and an attention-deficit problem in the White House, and now we can see that government by Twitter is like trying to steer a ship by firing a pistol at the waves — not really useful — but what does it all add up to? Not that much, if you ask me, which you didn’t, but I’ll say it anyway.

We will survive this. He will do what damage he can, like a man burning books out of anger that he can’t read, but there will still be plenty of books left.

I went to my high school class reunion last week and the gentleman’s name never came up. He has been front-page news for months, every bleat, blurt, yelp and belch. His every gaseous eruption is played over and over on cable news. But among my old classmates, not a word. They spoke with awe and reverence of their grandchildren (we’re the class of 1960), some about travel, plumbing projects, beloved old cars, stories of youth and indiscretion, nothing about death or President Trump. After five hours with them, I have no idea whether they lean left or right. Remarkable.

Marvin Buchholz and Wayne Swanson are still farming, though they, like the rest of us, are 75 or close to it. They both know what sweet corn is supposed to taste like. Dean Johnson is still tinkering with cars. Rich Peterson is in terrific shape, thanks to teaching physical education all these years. His parents ran Cully’s Cafe out back of the Herald office where I wrote sports when I was 16, and I’d come in to eat hot beef and gravy on white bread and potatoes while reading my own immortal words in black type. They loved that boy, and he turned out well.

Bob Bell and I discussed some classmates whom I considered lowlifes and hoods because they wore black shirts with white ties and drove old cars with flame decals and loud mufflers, but he saw a better side to them and stood up for them, and good for him. His dad was an attorney, so Bob grew up with the idea that everyone deserves a good defense.

Carol Hutchinson was a librarian, Vicky Rubis a schoolteacher, Mary Ellen Krause worked at the town bank, one of the spark plugs who kept our hometown’s enormous Halloween parade going all these years. Carl Youngquist and I remembered our basketball team of 1958, a good bet to win State, but we lost in the early prelims to a bunch of farm boys from St. Francis. St. Francis! It was like Rocky Marciano being KOed by Mister Peepers.

It’s a privilege to know people over the course of a lifetime and to reconnoiter and hear about the ordinary goodness of life. By 75, some of our class have gotten whacked hard. And the casualty rate does keep climbing. And yet life is good. These people are America as I know it. Family, work, a sense of humor, gratitude to God for our daily bread and loyalty to the tribe.

If the gentleman stands in the bow and fires his peashooter at the storm, if he appoints a gorilla as head of communications, if he tweets that henceforth no transcendentalist shall be allowed in the armed forces, nonetheless life goes on.

He fulfills an important role of celebs: giving millions of people the chance to feel superior to him. The gloomy face and the antique adolescent hair, the mannequin wife and the clueless children of privilege, the sheer pointlessness of flying around in a 747 to say inane things to crowds of people — it’s cheap entertainment for us, and in the end it simply doesn’t matter.

What matter are tomatoes. There is an excellent crop this year, like the tomatoes of our youth that we ate right off the vine, juice running down our chins. There is nothing like this. For years, I dashed into supermarkets and scooped up whatever was available, tomatoes bred for long shelf life that tasted like wet cardboard, and now I go to a farmers market and I’m astonished all over again. A spiritual experience. The spontaneity of the tomato compared to the manufactured sweetness of the glazed doughnut. An awakening takes place, light shines in your soul. Anyone who bites into a good tomato and thinks about Trump is seriously delusional.

It's true that life goes on, but life would be better if the TT and the Repugs weren't in power.

[nokidsmom]

Regarding the Trumpster thinking the WH is a dump, I guess it's all relative though personally I think it's a beautiful and classy residence.   There's just not enough gold in the place for Trump, that's it.   Too classy and not enough tacky.

I can only imagine what decorating horrors the decorator employed for the personal spaces was told to install.   You can bet there's a gold toilet in there somewhere.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Good one about hypocrisy: "The White House was shocked — shocked, I tell you — by Anthony Scaramucci’s potty mouth"

Spoiler

One of the more remarkable aspects of Anthony Scaramucci being let go as White House communications director Monday is the stated reasoning for it: He was too vulgar, and the White House — and the Trump women — couldn't have their good name attached to his potty mouth.

“Two sources close to President Donald Trump said Scaramucci's profane remarks last week to The New Yorker magazine 'disgusted' and 'offended' some close to the president, including Melania Trump, and — crucially — Ivanka Trump, who had initially advocated for Scaramucci's hiring,” NBC News reported.

The Washington Post's Robert Costa got a similar version of events from his sources:

...

And incoming White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also alluded to it at Monday's briefing: “Look, the president certainly felt that Anthony's comments were inappropriate for a person in that position, and he didn't want to burden Kelly, also, with that line of succession.”

...

Like Trump himself, this is pretty rich.

This is the White House, mind you, whose president was caught on tape years ago talking about grabbing women by their genitalia, adding “I did try and f--- her” and “I moved on her like a b----." As a candidate, Trump used vulgar words that we don't generally print, including one beginning with “P” for Ted Cruz. He promised to “bomb the s---" out of the Islamic State. He alluded to Megyn Kelly's menstrual cycle, and his use of the word “schlonged” was debatably vulgar. Trump's years of appearances on Howard Stern's show produced a volume of vulgar and sexually charged content.

And when the “Access Hollywood” tape came out in October, the Trump team and those around him had quite a different take on men talking in those terms. Melania Trump, who was reportedly offended and taken aback by Scaramucci's words, explained that her husband had been “egged on” into “boy talk.” Similarly, the campaign repeatedly referred to it as “locker-room talk.”

“The boys, the way they talk when they grow up and they want to sometimes show each other, 'Oh, this and that,' and talking about the girls,” Melania Trump said.

To be fair, Melania Trump also said Trump's words on that tape were inappropriate. But yet again, we seem to have an instance in which the Trump family and advisers seem to be aghast at something that shouldn't be all that unfamiliar to their delicate sensibilities.

In mid-June, Ivanka Trump complained in an interview about the “viciousness” of politics. “There’s a level of viciousness that I was not expecting,” she said. “I was not expecting the intensity of this experience.” A couple days prior, Eric Trump had said, “I've never seen hatred like this, and to me they're not even people.”

As I noted at the time, candidate Trump had himself set some kind of modern record for bare-knuckle political tactics. Here's the list:

• Called his chief opponents “Lyin' Ted,” “Crooked Hillary” and “Little Marco”
• Suggested “Lyin' Ted's” father may have taken part in the Kennedy assassination
• Said he would put “Crooked Hillary” in jail when elected president
• Seemed to allude to potential violence again and again and again
• Continued his years-long effort to question the legitimacy of President Barack Obama's U.S. birth and, by extension, his entire presidency
• Appeared to mock a reporter's physical handicap
• Suggested that a judge was inherently biased against him because of the judge's Mexican heritage
• Said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wasn't a war hero because he was captured

It's perhaps normal to see the best in your own family and your political allies — to give the benefit of the doubt to those you love and know well in a way you wouldn't with an interloper like Scaramucci.

Huckabee Sanders also seemed to be drawing the line at somebody who is actually in the White House — as opposed to someone who aspired to it. A reported asked Monday: “Obviously, the president is not a stranger to salty language. Can you specify what exactly he found inappropriate or disturbing about that?” Sanders responded: “I said he found it inappropriate for a person in that position.”

The problem here, as with many things for Trump, is that he forfeited the moral high ground on this kind of thing a long time ago. That makes the White House's and these anonymous sources' reasoning for Scaramucci's firing look Pollyanna-ish, at best, and disingenuous at worst.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This will be an interesting test for Kelly. It looks like the message is more subdued than the usual psychotic rants. So, I'm guessing it was written/coached by a staffer and there will be a pre-dawn twitter storm with the TT's real thoughts. "Trump signs what he calls ‘seriously flawed’ bill imposing new sanctions on Russia"

Spoiler

President Trump has signed a bill imposing new sanctions on Russia, ending immediate hopes of a reset of U.S. relations with the Kremlin and marking a defeat for his administration, which had expressed concerns that the legislation infringed upon executive power.

In a statement outlining his concerns, Trump called the bill “seriously flawed,” primarily because it limits his ability to negotiate sanctions without congressional approval.

“By limiting the Executive’s flexibility, this bill makes it harder for the United States to strike good deals for the American people, and will drive China, Russia, and North Korea much closer together,” Trump said in a statement on Wednesday morning. “The Framers of our Constitution put foreign affairs in the hands of the President.”

“This bill will prove the wisdom of that choice,” he added.

White House officials said that the president signed the measure on Wednesday morning, nearly a week after it was passed by the Senate with a veto-proof majority. The bill was also approved in the House last week by an overwhelming bipartisan majority.

Trump said that he signed the bill, despite his reservations, for the sake of “national unity.” In a second statement accompanying his signing of the legislation, Trump called some of the provisions in the legislation “clearly unconstitutional.”

And he questioned Congress's ability to negotiate sanctions based on its inability to approve the Republicans' health care legislation.

“The bill remains seriously flawed — particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate,” Trump said. “Congress could not even negotiate a healthcare bill after seven years of talking.”

Russia has already retaliated against the United States for the new sanctions, announcing that it would order the U.S. Embassy to reduce its staff by 755 people and seize U.S. diplomatic properties.

In addition to adding sanctions, the bill requires congressional review for any actions the administration might seek to take to lift sanctions in the future.

The measure also imposes sanctions against North Korea and Iran for those countries' nuclear weapons programs.

Trump noted that he supported tough measures to punish the three regimes, and said that he will honor the review period prescribed in the bill.

Trump added that he would “give careful and respectful consideration” to other provisions that direct the administration to undertake diplomatic initiatives and require the administration to deny entry to the United States of certain foreign individuals, without exceptions for diplomats.

“My Administration will give careful and respectful consideration to the preferences expressed by the Congress in these various provisions and will implement them in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations,” Trump said.

The White House had expressed concerns publicly and directly to lawmakers about the provision embedded within the bill that essentially prevents Trump from lifting existing sanctions without congressional approval, which comes after the administration had signaled that it hoped to ease tensions with Russia.

The administration also said it was worried about the impact of the bill on U.S. businesses doing business in Russia.

The new sanctions also further retaliate against Russia for its alleged meddling in the 2016 election, despite Trump's continued denial that Russia was responsible for a government-led effort to influence the campaign, a conclusion reached last year by the U.S intelligence community.

Trump has called the ongoing investigations in Congress and by a special counsel into Russian interference in the 2016 election a “witch hunt.” He has also repeatedly insisted that while Russia could have been responsible, other countries might also have been at fault.

That Congress would tie Trump's hands on this issue reflects a deepening concern about the administration's posture toward Russia, which critics have characterized as naive.

In a statement late last week, the White House signaled that Trump would eventually sign the measure, and a White House official added that the administration had worked to negotiate critical elements of it.

Yet even as Putin moved quickly to retaliate against the United States, Trump has not issued any statement — written or otherwise — on the Kremlin's actions.

Yeah, I don't think he'd ever use the term "encroaches" -- this must have been a staffer.

[onekidanddone]

4 hours ago, apple1 said:

am old enough that I LIVED through Nixon (although NOT old enough to have voted in that election). At this point, I believe we have a more crooked president than Nixon.

I did as well.  I remember watching him take off from the White House lawn waving his arms. I was nine. The whole Nixon looking pretty good right now still rings in my head.

[sawasdee]

Jennifer Rubin on Sen. Flake's book, asking the GOP to examine itself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/08/02/what-can-jeff-flake-do-now/?utm_term=.9ff2b6d8d078#comments

The comments are well worth a read. The feeling that the GOP has betrayed principle for power for too long is widespread there, and there is what seems to be a genuine plea to return to patriotism rather than partisanship.

One commenter remarks that until the gerrymandering of the last few years is undone, the GOP is held hostage by its extremists, and that it is in the interests of the Repuglicans to make representation more representative of the actual votes.

I truly feel that at present, the US is one of the world's more corrupt, or perhaps endangered, democracies, where government does not represent the majority view. The combination of gerrymandering, voter suppression,the very strange institution known as the Electoral College which has to reject a majority popular vote, the barefaced hijacking of a Supreme Court nomination by the Repugs (and thus continued control of the third arm of government,despite the wishes of a duly elected president - they could have rejected for cause, but to refuse even a hearing of the nomination process was hijacking), the rollback of legislation designed to protect and advance the disempowered, the acceptance of outright falsehoods uttered by the Head of State, the denigration of the mainstream media, the cries of 'fake news' to any criticism of the executive, the refusal of the second arm of government to address the latter three - these are not the marks of a strong democracy.

What truly terrifies me is that they may be the hallmarks of a slide into authoritarianism and dictatorship.

Please tell me I'm wrong.

ETA Am I right in believing that the Democrats actually received more votes for House seats in the last election, but because of gerrymandering, are in a substantial minority? I'm sure I read this somewhere.....

ETA 2 No, Repugs got more votes - but they have a substantially greater percentage of seats than they did votes. Democrats got a larger number of votes for Senate seats.

And I haven't even mentioned Russia!