Trump 25: Stephen King’s Next Horror Story

[OtterRuletheWorld]

Turning down wagyu in Japan seems absolutely horrifying to me. Maybe he felt American style Kobe beef was the right thing to do? I don't even know what kind of beef he likes, but honestly, I cannot imagine turning down Japanese wagyu. I don't know if that is what was offered to Trump, but I would imagine the Japanese thought it would be the polite thing to offer and then it was turned down....

[candygirl200413]

I'm crying of utter embarrassment (again!).

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Like this man really loves making us look just beyond horrible.

[Howl]

I was thinking Trump would come home early, but then I read he was planning on some one-on-one time with Vlad, so he'll have to hang in there for that. 

Haven't heard of any indictments dropping this morning, so that's a bit disappointing. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump, in Japan, talks tough on the ‘menace’ of North Korea, trade"

Spoiler

TOKYO — President Trump continued his tough line on both North Korea and trade Monday, standing alongside Japanese Prime Minster and promising to work in solidarity with Japan to confront “the North Korean menace.”

At an afternoon news conference with Abe here, Trump declared, “the era of strategic patience is over,” and promised to counter “the dangerous aggressions” of a country whose leader the president has repeatedly dubbed “Rocket Man.”

“The regime continues development of its unlawful weapons programs, including its illegal nuclear tests and outrageous launches of ballistic missiles directly overly Japanese territory,” Trump said. “We will not stand for that.”

In his own remarks, Abe affirmed Trump’s stance, saying Japan supports the president’s previous comments that “all options are on the table” and similarly favors an approach of increasing pressure on North Korea rather than continuing dialogue with the nation.

Responding to a question — directed at Abe — about news reports that Trump had previously suggested to the Japanese prime minister that the “samurai” nation should have simply shot down the North Korean missiles that flew over it before crashing into the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, the president answered instead on Abe’s behalf.

“He will shoot them out of the sky when he completes the purchase of lots of additional military equipment from the United States,” Trump said. “The prime minister is going to be purchasing massive amounts of military equipment, as he should. And we make the best military equipment by far.”

Trump’s remarks came during his second full day in Japan — the first stop on a five-country, 12-day swing through Asia — and follows a series of events and meetings designed to underscore the close personal relationship between the two leaders.

On Sunday, Abe and Trump golfed nine holes at a country club here — jovially exchanging a fist-bump at one point — and Abe made sure that Trump, a picky eater, was served a burger specially made with American beef. He also designed several golf caps mimicking Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hats from the campaign trail: “Donald & Shinzo: Make Alliance Even Greater,” read Abe’s twist on the Trump’s signature slogan.

And on Monday, the two men both fed koi in a pond at one of the nation’s palaces — a quintessential photo opportunity. The two men spooned out bits of fish food from wooden boxes until Abe poured the remainder of the flakes from his container into the pod. Trump then did the same.

But despite the warm remarks on both sides — “Indeed, how many hours of dialogue did we have?” Abe even asked, at one point, recalling their friendship that dates back to the prime minister’s trip to Trump Tower before Trump had even been sworn in — Trump took a hard-line on trade earlier in the day Monday, scolding Japan for the “massive trade deficits” between the nations.

“For the last many decades, Japan has been winning, you do know that,” Trump told a gathering of business leaders here. “We want fair and open trade, but right now our trade with Japan is not fair and it’s not open. But I know it will be, soon. We want free and reciprocal trade, but right now our trade with Japan is not free and it’s not reciprocal, and I know it will be.”

In the news conference, Trump largely avoided a question about whether his tough stance on trade puts him on a collision course with China. But he did say the U.S. was facing a “very unfair trade situation” with China, which he visits later this week, and reiterated his belief that “reciprocal” trade between the U.S. and any nation is his preference.

Trump, who still has more than a week left on his trip through the region and appeared in high spirits when he first arrived in Japan, seemed to have wilted by the time he stepped behind his lectern Monday afternoon. He spoke in a largely flat monotone, and leaned on the lectern at points.

Gone were his trademark flourishes, which reappeared only a handful of times, such as when he took part of Abe’s question to tout the U.S.’s fighter jets and missiles (“the best military equipment by far”) and promise that Japan would be able to take on future North Korea missiles with precision after buying U.S. systems (“He will shoot them out of the sky”).

I guess the TT isn't getting enough naps. If he's so exhausted at this point in the trip, I shudder to think about the next week+. But, of course, he has so much more stamina that Hillary.

[GreyhoundFan]

I don't know if anyone remembers the cyclist who flipped off Agent Orange's limo as he was leaving yet another golf excursion at his club in Northern Virginia. Here's an update: "She flipped off President Trump — and got fired from her government contracting job"

Spoiler

It was the middle-finger salute seen around the world.

Juli Briskman’s protest aimed at the presidential motorcade that roared past her while she was on her usual cycling path in Northern Virginia last month became an instantly viral photo.

Turns out it has now cost the 50-year-old marketing executive her job.

On Halloween, after Briskman gave her bosses at a government contracting firm a heads up that she was the unidentified cyclist in the photo, they took her into a room and fired her, she said, escorting her out of the building with a box of her stuff.

“I wasn’t even at work when I did that,” Briskman said. “But they told me I violated the code of conduct policy.”

Her bosses, who have not returned a request for comment, showed her the blue-highlighted section 4.3 of their social media policy when they canned her. (I’m not naming the company yet to give its officials a chance to respond.)

“Covered Social Media Activity that contains discriminatory, obscene malicious or threatening content, is knowingly false, create (sic) a hostile work environment, or similar inappropriate or unlawful conduct will not be tolerated and will be subject to discipline up to an including termination of employment.”

But Briskman wasn’t wearing anything that connected her to the company when she was on her ride, nor is there anything on her personal social media accounts – where she wordlessly posted the photo without identifying herself — to link her to the firm.

She identifies herself on her LinkedIn account, but makes no mention of the middle-finger photo there.

Wait. It gets even more obscene.

Because Briskman was in charge of the firm’s social media presence during her brief, six-month tenure there, she recently flagged something that did link her company to some pretty ugly stuff.

As she was monitoring Facebook this summer, she found a public comment by a senior director at the company on an otherwise civil discussion by one of his employees about Black Lives Matter.

“You’re a f****ing Libtard a**hole,” the director injected, using his profile that clearly and repeatedly identifies himself as an employee.

In fact, the person he aimed that comment at was so offended by the intrustion into the conversation and the coarse nature of it — he challenged him on representing his company that way.

So Briskman flagged the exchange to senior management.

Did the man, a middle-aged executive who had been with the company for seven years, get the old “subsection 4.3” boot?

Nope. He cleaned up the comment, spit-shined his public profile and kept on trucking at work.

But the single mother of two teens who made an impulsive gesture while on her bike, on her day off?

Adios, amiga.

Briskman is not a strident activist.

In fact, after years of working all over the world as part of the nation’s diplomatic corps, she’s usually pretty reserved.

“I think I gave money for clean water once,” she said.

During the Women’s March the day after the inauguration, she couldn’t make it into D.C. Instead, she said she stood in somber protest outside the CIA with a sign that read “Not My President.”

That day on her bike, she wasn’t planning on making a statement.

She was feeling much like many other Americans who are frustrated with Trump’s behavior and the way he’s performed as president .

“Here’s what was going through my head that day: ‘Really? You’re golfing again?’,” Briskman said.

She had been pounding out her daily exercise, a little shorter than usual because she was still recovering from running the Marine Corps Marathon, when the phalanx of black cars passed her.

She’d been chewing on the state of the nation during her ride – imagining the devastation in Puerto Rico, furious that young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children could be deported, despondent over the deaths and devastation in Las Vegas, concerned about her friends in the diplomatic corps who said their daily job is now being the laughing stock of the world – when the presidential golfing procession interrupted her meditation.

“I was thinking about all this, tootling along, when I see the black cars come and I remember, oh yeah, he was back on the golf course,” she said.

So she did what millions of Americans do on the road every day.

Hail to the Chief, RESIST-style.

But she couldn’t just ride off. Or watch it whoosh away. The motorcade stopped, bisecting her usual route. She knew it wouldn’t be wise to cut between the cars. And she didn’t want to stay with her routine and look like she was stalking the motorcade when it turned where she usually turned. So as she decided to change the route, and punctuated the final insult with another one-fingered salute.

She had no idea the sentiment had been snapped by photographer Brendan Smialowski for AFP and Getty Images. And that night, it started popping up all over.

A few of her friends thought they recognized her, tagged her on the photo and asked.

“I said ‘Yeah, that’s me. Isn’t it funny?’ ” she said. Ha ha. And she posted it is her Facebook cover photo and her Twitter profile picture, so now her 24 Twitter followers could guess that it was her.

The next few days, though, it started getting nasty at the yoga studio, where she is a part-time instructor — something she does mention on Facebook. Some threatening emails came, Briskman said.

“They told the owner of the studio she should fire me,” she said. So she quickly removed mention of the studio and it was all back to ommm at the yoga place and in her life. She wasn’t a celebrity. The back of her head was.

But knowing that connection had been made, Briskman wanted to make her bosses aware of the situation.

“It was just a heads-up,” she said.

It didn’t take long for her head to roll.

And now, heads are shaking.

Briskman is working with the American Civil Liberties Union on a case against the company.

Her bosses told her they do support her First Amendment rights. But they wanted her to “be professional,” she said.

Does Briskman regret that middle finger, that reflexive moment that wasn’t all pussy hat and protest signs, that wasn’t calculated resistance but rather a totally relatable, plain-old, working woman, living-my-life, what-the-heck-is-going-on-in-our-world reaction?

Nope. “I’d do it again,” she said.

Resist. sister.

It's sad that she got screwed when the man who did something so much worse didn't lose his job or face any significant blowback.

[formergothardite]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

seemed to have wilted by the time he stepped behind his lectern Monday afternoon. He spoke in a largely flat monotone, and leaned on the lectern at points.

If he is wilting this fast then he will be in big trouble by next week. Rufus knows what he will start blabbering about. 

[GreyhoundFan]

10 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

If he is wilting this fast then he will be in big trouble by next week. Rufus knows what he will start blabbering about. 

Plus the fact that the mass shooting in Texas was committed by a white male must exhaust him. If it has been an ebil Moose-lamb (to quote Melissa McCarthy's Spicey) or other person of color, he would have been energized. The tweets would have been flowing non-stop.

[VixenToast]

27 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I don't know if anyone remembers the cyclist who flipped off Agent Orange's limo as he was leaving yet another golf excursion at his club in Northern Virginia. Here's an update: "She flipped off President Trump — and got fired from her government contracting job"

  Hide contents

It was the middle-finger salute seen around the world.

Juli Briskman’s protest aimed at the presidential motorcade that roared past her while she was on her usual cycling path in Northern Virginia last month became an instantly viral photo.

Turns out it has now cost the 50-year-old marketing executive her job.

On Halloween, after Briskman gave her bosses at a government contracting firm a heads up that she was the unidentified cyclist in the photo, they took her into a room and fired her, she said, escorting her out of the building with a box of her stuff.

“I wasn’t even at work when I did that,” Briskman said. “But they told me I violated the code of conduct policy.”

Her bosses, who have not returned a request for comment, showed her the blue-highlighted section 4.3 of their social media policy when they canned her. (I’m not naming the company yet to give its officials a chance to respond.)

“Covered Social Media Activity that contains discriminatory, obscene malicious or threatening content, is knowingly false, create (sic) a hostile work environment, or similar inappropriate or unlawful conduct will not be tolerated and will be subject to discipline up to an including termination of employment.”

But Briskman wasn’t wearing anything that connected her to the company when she was on her ride, nor is there anything on her personal social media accounts – where she wordlessly posted the photo without identifying herself — to link her to the firm.

She identifies herself on her LinkedIn account, but makes no mention of the middle-finger photo there.

Wait. It gets even more obscene.

Because Briskman was in charge of the firm’s social media presence during her brief, six-month tenure there, she recently flagged something that did link her company to some pretty ugly stuff.

As she was monitoring Facebook this summer, she found a public comment by a senior director at the company on an otherwise civil discussion by one of his employees about Black Lives Matter.

“You’re a f****ing Libtard a**hole,” the director injected, using his profile that clearly and repeatedly identifies himself as an employee.

In fact, the person he aimed that comment at was so offended by the intrustion into the conversation and the coarse nature of it — he challenged him on representing his company that way.

So Briskman flagged the exchange to senior management.

Did the man, a middle-aged executive who had been with the company for seven years, get the old “subsection 4.3” boot?

Nope. He cleaned up the comment, spit-shined his public profile and kept on trucking at work.

But the single mother of two teens who made an impulsive gesture while on her bike, on her day off?

Adios, amiga.

Briskman is not a strident activist.

In fact, after years of working all over the world as part of the nation’s diplomatic corps, she’s usually pretty reserved.

“I think I gave money for clean water once,” she said.

During the Women’s March the day after the inauguration, she couldn’t make it into D.C. Instead, she said she stood in somber protest outside the CIA with a sign that read “Not My President.”

That day on her bike, she wasn’t planning on making a statement.

She was feeling much like many other Americans who are frustrated with Trump’s behavior and the way he’s performed as president .

“Here’s what was going through my head that day: ‘Really? You’re golfing again?’,” Briskman said.

She had been pounding out her daily exercise, a little shorter than usual because she was still recovering from running the Marine Corps Marathon, when the phalanx of black cars passed her.

She’d been chewing on the state of the nation during her ride – imagining the devastation in Puerto Rico, furious that young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children could be deported, despondent over the deaths and devastation in Las Vegas, concerned about her friends in the diplomatic corps who said their daily job is now being the laughing stock of the world – when the presidential golfing procession interrupted her meditation.

“I was thinking about all this, tootling along, when I see the black cars come and I remember, oh yeah, he was back on the golf course,” she said.

So she did what millions of Americans do on the road every day.

Hail to the Chief, RESIST-style.

But she couldn’t just ride off. Or watch it whoosh away. The motorcade stopped, bisecting her usual route. She knew it wouldn’t be wise to cut between the cars. And she didn’t want to stay with her routine and look like she was stalking the motorcade when it turned where she usually turned. So as she decided to change the route, and punctuated the final insult with another one-fingered salute.

She had no idea the sentiment had been snapped by photographer Brendan Smialowski for AFP and Getty Images. And that night, it started popping up all over.

A few of her friends thought they recognized her, tagged her on the photo and asked.

“I said ‘Yeah, that’s me. Isn’t it funny?’ ” she said. Ha ha. And she posted it is her Facebook cover photo and her Twitter profile picture, so now her 24 Twitter followers could guess that it was her.

The next few days, though, it started getting nasty at the yoga studio, where she is a part-time instructor — something she does mention on Facebook. Some threatening emails came, Briskman said.

“They told the owner of the studio she should fire me,” she said. So she quickly removed mention of the studio and it was all back to ommm at the yoga place and in her life. She wasn’t a celebrity. The back of her head was.

But knowing that connection had been made, Briskman wanted to make her bosses aware of the situation.

“It was just a heads-up,” she said.

It didn’t take long for her head to roll.

And now, heads are shaking.

Briskman is working with the American Civil Liberties Union on a case against the company.

Her bosses told her they do support her First Amendment rights. But they wanted her to “be professional,” she said.

Does Briskman regret that middle finger, that reflexive moment that wasn’t all pussy hat and protest signs, that wasn’t calculated resistance but rather a totally relatable, plain-old, working woman, living-my-life, what-the-heck-is-going-on-in-our-world reaction?

Nope. “I’d do it again,” she said.

Resist. sister.

It's sad that she got screwed when the man who did something so much worse didn't lose his job or face any significant blowback.

Ehhhh, she kinda did it to herself when she told her bosses it was her. She shouldn't have said anything. I wouldn't have. That being said, this is Really crappy and firing is not justified, imo. 

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

If he is wilting this fast then he will be in big trouble by next week. Rufus knows what he will start blabbering about.

Actually this could be good. I'm attributing this to the strange bed syndrome that he seems to have. Which makes me wonder if he doesn't really sleep in some kind of hyperbaric chamber like Michael Jackson. You'd think they would take that with him when he travels.

But he may just wind down. I'm picturing him sleeping his way through a Putin tea party. Maybe they'll have a sleepover. 

[GreyhoundFan]

9 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

Actually this could be good. I'm attributing this to the strange bed syndrome that he seems to have. Which makes me wonder if he doesn't really sleep in some kind of hyperbaric chamber like Michael Jackson. You'd think they would take that with him when he travels.

I thought vampires sleep in coffins...

[GrumpyGran]

9 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I thought vampires sleep in coffins...

If he were a vampire, the steaks would be rare. Maybe a wraith? I need to go back and watch all the Supernatural episodes again. All 12 seasons.

[Howl]

He's a self-professed germophobe, so that could be part of the stress.  

[candygirl200413]

Want to retract my previous post, the Japense Prime Minister dumped the food first and then fuckface followed. Didn't want to spread fake news

Spoiler

 

 

After the 30 second mark.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s message of mistrust is sinking in, even in journalism’s new ‘golden age’"

Spoiler

In the year since Donald Trump was elected president, the national news media has congratulated itself on a new golden age of accountability journalism.

And it’s true in many ways. The scoops have been relentless, the digging intense, the results important.

But in another crucial way, the reality-based press has failed.

Too often, it has succumbed to the chaos of covering Trump, who lies and blusters and distracts at every turn.

Of course, given the differences among news organizations, generalizing is a fraught exercise. Nonetheless, each news cycle is an exhausting, confusing blast of conflicting claims, fact-checking, reactions and outrage.

How big was the Inauguration Day crowd? What contact did Michael Flynn have with Russians? Why was James B. Comey fired? Is Puerto Rico being ignored after the hurricane? Did Trump insult a Gold Star widow when he telephoned her?

Trump drives the news, all day and every day, a human fire hose of hyperbolic tweets, insults, oversimplification and bragging.

Keeping track of it is hard enough. Making sense of it almost impossible.

“There’s a lot of he said/she said, so I believe maybe half of what I hear,” said Shannon Heald, one of the many outside-the-Beltway voters I’ve talked to about the news media.

A registered nurse who lives in Chautauqua County in western New York, Heald told me she sometimes tunes out the whole confusing mess.

I’ve heard other news consumers complain about the protective amnesia that sets in — “Trump Brain,” as some call it. They blame it on the relentless cascade of information.

Believing half of what the media tells you — and either tuning out or forgetting the rest — doesn’t sound like a golden age of anything.

“I don’t think we’ve figured out how to deal with the Trump noise machine,” said Daniel Dale, a Canadian who covers Washington for the Toronto Star, which gives him both an insider’s and outsider’s perspective.

“It’s hard to prioritize,” Dale told me. “The balance may be out of whack.”

And then there’s the huge influence of Fox News, which early last week was discussing hamburger emoji as the rest of the national media was reporting the indictments of Trump associates.

My colleague Monica Hesse — after writing about the sexual-harassment scandal sweeping the nation — fielded calls last month from several readers who said they had never heard of the famous “Access Hollywood” video on which Trump bragged about grabbing women by their genitals.

When there’s no agreed-upon reality — no Walter Cronkite as the most trusted man in America — we’re all in trouble.

This feeling of mistrust and disagreement on facts is backed up by public opinion polls: One reported last month that 46 percent of Americans believe the news media simply makes things up about Trump.

The president has been sowing those seeds of mistrust for many months, and cultivates them daily with extra-strength fertilizer.

Reporters “have so-called sources that, in my opinion, don’t exist,” Trump told Lou Dobbs of Fox Business recently. “They just ― they make it up. It is so dishonest. It is so fake.”

Of course, that’s not true. Reporters for legitimate news organizations do not make things up. Those few reporters who fabricate sources get fired and are driven out of the business.

News organizations have tried to push back with mottos and ad campaigns cropping up like mushrooms: CBS touts “Real News.” CNN trotted out “Facts First.” And the New York Times offered “The Truth is More Important Than Ever.”

They’ve struggled with whether to label Trump’s falsehoods as lies, and then sometimes made long lists of them.

These efforts are valiant, but they are pen knives up against machine guns.

One of the casualties of our shiny-object, tweet-chasing journalism is the relative lack of focus on matters of policy.

Last month, for example, as the news media obsessed for days over Trump’s phone call to the Gold Star widow Myeshia Johnson — Was Gen. John Kelly lying about Rep. Frederica S. Wilson? Is it inappropriate to question a four-star general? — Congress voted to take away a major consumer protection.

That didn’t get ignored, exactly; it did get drowned out.

There’s a basic problem here. The old ways just don’t work in the new environment.

“If nothing the president says can be trusted, reporting what the president says becomes absurd,” wrote New York University professor Jay Rosen. This runs up against the journalistic code: to respect the voters’ choice, to respect the office of the presidency and to respect what they do for a living.

And so, Rosen notes, journalists normalize. They report the lies, but they search for ways to “tell the good news about Trump” to balance that.

Which is why we have had round after round this past year of supposed “pivots” and “this was the moment when Trump became presidential.” There was no more embarrassing example than the president’s showy bombing of Syria in April, when the cable news pundits fell all over themselves to praise Trump’s gravitas.

Just after the election last year, I wrote a column urging journalists to scrutinize — not normalize — this new president.

As it turns out, we’ve done plenty of both.

There’s been great accountability journalism, but a very poor signal-to-noise ratio.
Citizens are left with a confusing, chaotic picture — one that many doubt is true, and many others have decided to block out.

That isn’t good enough.

As we enter Year Two of Trump’s presidency, it’s time to build on the successes and bear down, hard, on remedying the failures.

"...extra-strength fertilizer..." yeah, that's a good description of what spews forth from the TT.

[GrumpyGran]

30 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump’s message of mistrust is sinking in, even in journalism’s new ‘golden age’"

  Reveal hidden contents

In the year since Donald Trump was elected president, the national news media has congratulated itself on a new golden age of accountability journalism.

And it’s true in many ways. The scoops have been relentless, the digging intense, the results important.

But in another crucial way, the reality-based press has failed.

Too often, it has succumbed to the chaos of covering Trump, who lies and blusters and distracts at every turn.

Of course, given the differences among news organizations, generalizing is a fraught exercise. Nonetheless, each news cycle is an exhausting, confusing blast of conflicting claims, fact-checking, reactions and outrage.

How big was the Inauguration Day crowd? What contact did Michael Flynn have with Russians? Why was James B. Comey fired? Is Puerto Rico being ignored after the hurricane? Did Trump insult a Gold Star widow when he telephoned her?

Trump drives the news, all day and every day, a human fire hose of hyperbolic tweets, insults, oversimplification and bragging.

Keeping track of it is hard enough. Making sense of it almost impossible.

“There’s a lot of he said/she said, so I believe maybe half of what I hear,” said Shannon Heald, one of the many outside-the-Beltway voters I’ve talked to about the news media.

A registered nurse who lives in Chautauqua County in western New York, Heald told me she sometimes tunes out the whole confusing mess.

I’ve heard other news consumers complain about the protective amnesia that sets in — “Trump Brain,” as some call it. They blame it on the relentless cascade of information.

Believing half of what the media tells you — and either tuning out or forgetting the rest — doesn’t sound like a golden age of anything.

“I don’t think we’ve figured out how to deal with the Trump noise machine,” said Daniel Dale, a Canadian who covers Washington for the Toronto Star, which gives him both an insider’s and outsider’s perspective.

“It’s hard to prioritize,” Dale told me. “The balance may be out of whack.”

And then there’s the huge influence of Fox News, which early last week was discussing hamburger emoji as the rest of the national media was reporting the indictments of Trump associates.

My colleague Monica Hesse — after writing about the sexual-harassment scandal sweeping the nation — fielded calls last month from several readers who said they had never heard of the famous “Access Hollywood” video on which Trump bragged about grabbing women by their genitals.

When there’s no agreed-upon reality — no Walter Cronkite as the most trusted man in America — we’re all in trouble.

This feeling of mistrust and disagreement on facts is backed up by public opinion polls: One reported last month that 46 percent of Americans believe the news media simply makes things up about Trump.

The president has been sowing those seeds of mistrust for many months, and cultivates them daily with extra-strength fertilizer.

Reporters “have so-called sources that, in my opinion, don’t exist,” Trump told Lou Dobbs of Fox Business recently. “They just ― they make it up. It is so dishonest. It is so fake.”

Of course, that’s not true. Reporters for legitimate news organizations do not make things up. Those few reporters who fabricate sources get fired and are driven out of the business.

News organizations have tried to push back with mottos and ad campaigns cropping up like mushrooms: CBS touts “Real News.” CNN trotted out “Facts First.” And the New York Times offered “The Truth is More Important Than Ever.”

They’ve struggled with whether to label Trump’s falsehoods as lies, and then sometimes made long lists of them.

These efforts are valiant, but they are pen knives up against machine guns.

One of the casualties of our shiny-object, tweet-chasing journalism is the relative lack of focus on matters of policy.

Last month, for example, as the news media obsessed for days over Trump’s phone call to the Gold Star widow Myeshia Johnson — Was Gen. John Kelly lying about Rep. Frederica S. Wilson? Is it inappropriate to question a four-star general? — Congress voted to take away a major consumer protection.

That didn’t get ignored, exactly; it did get drowned out.

There’s a basic problem here. The old ways just don’t work in the new environment.

“If nothing the president says can be trusted, reporting what the president says becomes absurd,” wrote New York University professor Jay Rosen. This runs up against the journalistic code: to respect the voters’ choice, to respect the office of the presidency and to respect what they do for a living.

And so, Rosen notes, journalists normalize. They report the lies, but they search for ways to “tell the good news about Trump” to balance that.

Which is why we have had round after round this past year of supposed “pivots” and “this was the moment when Trump became presidential.” There was no more embarrassing example than the president’s showy bombing of Syria in April, when the cable news pundits fell all over themselves to praise Trump’s gravitas.

Just after the election last year, I wrote a column urging journalists to scrutinize — not normalize — this new president.

As it turns out, we’ve done plenty of both.

There’s been great accountability journalism, but a very poor signal-to-noise ratio.
Citizens are left with a confusing, chaotic picture — one that many doubt is true, and many others have decided to block out.

That isn’t good enough.

As we enter Year Two of Trump’s presidency, it’s time to build on the successes and bear down, hard, on remedying the failures.

"...extra-strength fertilizer..." yeah, that's a good description of what spews forth from the TT.

This, so much this. They drown out facts with verbal chaos. People who voted for Dumpy want very much to believe that they made a smart choice, the best choice so they will cling to the voice that tells them that they did make the right choice. Sadly most of them aren't capable of advanced critical thinking or are buoyed by seeing someone like them in power. He feeds them.

The fight in 2018 will be a monetary one. The most money buys the loudest, longest message. 

[GreyhoundFan]

The latest on Mar-a-Loco's hiring of foreign workers: "Trump, who urged people to ‘hire American,’ secures 70 foreign workers for Mar-a-Lago"

Spoiler

As winter approaches and the days get shorter, Florida is preparing for an influx of snowbirds, the nickname given to people who’d rather winter in the Sunshine State instead of, well, anywhere the temperature isn’t 83 degrees on Thanksgiving Day.

And with the tourists comes a temporary boost for the industries that serve them.

Those winter employment opportunities are typically menial and by definition temporary jobs that can be hard to fill. So Florida employers turn to immigrant labor by the thousands — people who are granted a temporary visa and spend a few months working in Florida. Demand meets supply, and beefed-up businesses hum along without much controversy.

Unless, of course, those businesses happen to be owned by the president of the United States — particularly one who has blasted companies for hiring immigrants over American workers.

President Trump recently won permission from the Labor Department to hire 70 cooks, maids and servers to work at his ritzy Mar-a-Lago Club for the tourist season, according to the Palm Beach Post. That’s six more than Trump hired last tourist season. He’s contributing to an influx of 2,159 immigrant workers snapping up the temporary jobs in Palm Beach County.

The county’s unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent in September, according to the newspaper — the lowest level in a decade. And people ensconced in jobs with decent wages and long-term prospects are less likely to seek out the area’s most menial jobs during the winter months.

But for Trump, it’s a politically fraught issue.

As The Washington Post’s David A. Fahrenthold reported in July:

Trump built his campaign last year in part on an appeal to American workers angry that their jobs had been taken by immigrants or laborers overseas. In his inaugural address, Trump said that under his leadership the country would “follow two simple rules: buy American, and hire American.”

. . . Trump has celebrated American companies and American labor, including an event at the White House where the president climbed into the cab of an American-made firetruck.

This summer, in an official proclamation, the president dubbed July 17, 2017 “Made in America Day,” a time to “recognize the vital contributions of American workers and job creators to our Nation’s prosperity and strength.”

That same week, Mar-a-Lago was applying for H-2B visas to hire non-American workers. Mar-a-Lago is only open during Palm Beach’s winter season, when members descend from colder climates.

Before being granted permission to hire foreigners, Trump’s two Florida clubs — he also owns a golf course in Jupiter — had to show that no one else wanted the jobs. That included calling old employees and putting ads in the newspaper.

It’s unclear whether the Trump Organization had made an extra effort to try to fill the jobs.

In July, the club placed an ad on Page C8 of the Palm Beach Post: “3 mos recent & verifiable exp in fine dining/country club,” the ad said. “No tips,” Fahrenthold reported.

The ad, which ran twice, gave no email address, mailing address or phone number and instructed applicants to “Apply by fax.”

During a debate of Republican presidential candidates in 2016, Trump defended the practice:

“It’s very, very hard to get people. But other hotels do the exact same thing. . . . This is a procedure. It’s part of the law,” he said. “I take advantage of that. There’s nothing wrong with it. We have no choice.”

Washington Post contributor Lori Rozsa found several U.S. citizens willing to work at one of Trump’s luxury properties during a local job fair near Mar-a-Lago.

“Oh, my God, working at Mar-a-Lago is my dream job,” Sky Chester, a job hunter with experience in the service industry, told Rozsa. “I would do anything: make beds, scrub toilets, whatever they need. Just to get my foot in the door at Mar-a-Lago would be amazing. That place is the top of the top.”

Rekiya Overstreet was similarly enthusiastic about possibly working at Trump’s resort.

“I would work there, absolutely,” Overstreet said. “I think it would be a great opportunity. But I think they prefer to hire foreign workers.”

 

[GrumpyGran]

14 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The latest on Mar-a-Loco's hiring of foreign workers: "Trump, who urged people to ‘hire American,’ secures 70 foreign workers for Mar-a-Lago"

  Reveal hidden contents

As winter approaches and the days get shorter, Florida is preparing for an influx of snowbirds, the nickname given to people who’d rather winter in the Sunshine State instead of, well, anywhere the temperature isn’t 83 degrees on Thanksgiving Day.

And with the tourists comes a temporary boost for the industries that serve them.

Those winter employment opportunities are typically menial and by definition temporary jobs that can be hard to fill. So Florida employers turn to immigrant labor by the thousands — people who are granted a temporary visa and spend a few months working in Florida. Demand meets supply, and beefed-up businesses hum along without much controversy.

Unless, of course, those businesses happen to be owned by the president of the United States — particularly one who has blasted companies for hiring immigrants over American workers.

President Trump recently won permission from the Labor Department to hire 70 cooks, maids and servers to work at his ritzy Mar-a-Lago Club for the tourist season, according to the Palm Beach Post. That’s six more than Trump hired last tourist season. He’s contributing to an influx of 2,159 immigrant workers snapping up the temporary jobs in Palm Beach County.

The county’s unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent in September, according to the newspaper — the lowest level in a decade. And people ensconced in jobs with decent wages and long-term prospects are less likely to seek out the area’s most menial jobs during the winter months.

But for Trump, it’s a politically fraught issue.

As The Washington Post’s David A. Fahrenthold reported in July:

Trump built his campaign last year in part on an appeal to American workers angry that their jobs had been taken by immigrants or laborers overseas. In his inaugural address, Trump said that under his leadership the country would “follow two simple rules: buy American, and hire American.”

. . . Trump has celebrated American companies and American labor, including an event at the White House where the president climbed into the cab of an American-made firetruck.

This summer, in an official proclamation, the president dubbed July 17, 2017 “Made in America Day,” a time to “recognize the vital contributions of American workers and job creators to our Nation’s prosperity and strength.”

That same week, Mar-a-Lago was applying for H-2B visas to hire non-American workers. Mar-a-Lago is only open during Palm Beach’s winter season, when members descend from colder climates.

Before being granted permission to hire foreigners, Trump’s two Florida clubs — he also owns a golf course in Jupiter — had to show that no one else wanted the jobs. That included calling old employees and putting ads in the newspaper.

It’s unclear whether the Trump Organization had made an extra effort to try to fill the jobs.

In July, the club placed an ad on Page C8 of the Palm Beach Post: “3 mos recent & verifiable exp in fine dining/country club,” the ad said. “No tips,” Fahrenthold reported.

The ad, which ran twice, gave no email address, mailing address or phone number and instructed applicants to “Apply by fax.”

During a debate of Republican presidential candidates in 2016, Trump defended the practice:

“It’s very, very hard to get people. But other hotels do the exact same thing. . . . This is a procedure. It’s part of the law,” he said. “I take advantage of that. There’s nothing wrong with it. We have no choice.”

Washington Post contributor Lori Rozsa found several U.S. citizens willing to work at one of Trump’s luxury properties during a local job fair near Mar-a-Lago.

“Oh, my God, working at Mar-a-Lago is my dream job,” Sky Chester, a job hunter with experience in the service industry, told Rozsa. “I would do anything: make beds, scrub toilets, whatever they need. Just to get my foot in the door at Mar-a-Lago would be amazing. That place is the top of the top.”

Rekiya Overstreet was similarly enthusiastic about possibly working at Trump’s resort.

“I would work there, absolutely,” Overstreet said. “I think it would be a great opportunity. But I think they prefer to hire foreign workers.”

 

 

This happens here too. A few thoughts about it: If the businesses here paid a decent wage and did not require long hours Americans might apply for the jobs. Here the jobs start around mid-May and end sometime in September, I think.

The businesses do advertise the jobs and I don't know how many US residents end up with jobs here. My problem with this practice is that the foreigners who come here for the jobs are at risk. They have little protection from predatory vacationers and management. And the living conditions aren't good and are in less than ideal areas.

Whoops, meant to quote @GreyhoundFan's post above about Mar-a Lago.

And apparently I did that.

[fraurosena]

I wanted to post this here, as a reminder to you all. Not to make you feel sad, or nostalgic, but to remind you all that this is still America. This is still who you are, even if you feel covered in alt-right slime at the moment. You are still a country of chances. A country of compassion. A country of hope. So... Yes, you can!

Now say it again, with conviction. Yes, we can!

[AmazonGrace]

I swear this man has dementia. He manages to make no sense even while giving a scripted speech.  (yes those are his words in the video, not a transcription error) 

 

[GrumpyGran]

33 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

I swear this man has dementia. He manages to make no sense even while giving a scripted speech.  (yes those are his words in the video, not a transcription error) 

It's like his head is a lottery machine. Words just popping around in there. He reaches in and pulls random ones out.

And what was that thing Melania was wearing when she got off the plane? Was she mocking traditional Korean dress?

[fraurosena]

Yessss!

ObamaCare signups surge in early days to set new record

Quote

A record number of people signed up for ObamaCare in the first few days of open enrollment this year compared to the same period in previous years, several sources close to the process told The Hill.

The surge in sign-ups, which was confirmed by an administration official, comes despite fears from Democrats that enrollment would fall off due to the Trump administration's cutbacks in outreach and advertising. 

On the first day of enrollment alone, Nov. 1, one source close to the process told The Hill that more than 200,000 people selected a plan for 2018, compared with about 100,000 last year. More than 1 million people visited healthcare.gov that day, compared to about 750,000 last year, the source said.

It is still early in the process and it is unclear how the final sign-up numbers will come out. Sign-ups early in the enrollment season are often people renewing their coverage, not new enrollees. 

Standard & Poor’s forecasted last week that enrollment could drop by as much as 1.6 million people below last year’s level of 12.2 million signups, in part due to uncertainty from the administration's actions. 

The enrollment period is also about half as long this year, ending Dec. 15.

But the spike in sign-ups is some positive news for supporters of the health-care law who have been worrying about its fate under Republican control of Washington.

“The first few days of Open Enrollment for the Federal Health Insurance Exchange went smoothly," said a spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the health-care law. "The website performed optimally and consumers easily accessed enrollment tools to compare plans and prices."

Acting Health and Human Services Secretary Eric Hargan said in a speech last week that the administration wants the sign-up period to be "as consumer friendly as possible."

The administration cut the outreach budget by 90 percent and cut back on grants to outside groups, called navigators, that help people enroll.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump promotes his New Jersey golf course during speech to South Korea parliament"

Spoiler

SEOUL — The world was watching as President Trump stepped to the microphone in the heart of South Korea’s National Assembly to deliver a high-stakes speech to rally fellow leaders against North Korea. What better time for the president to talk about ... his New Jersey golf course?

Not long after he began his remarks, broadcast live on television feeds from Tokyo to Seoul to Washington, Trump took a moment to praise South Korea on the nation’s remarkable economic rise after the Korean War six decades ago. In doing so, he talked about the people’s prowess in engineering, technology, medicine, music and education.

Then he got to golf. “Korean golfers are some of the best on Earth,” he said, drawing applause. Waiting a beat, he smiled and added: “And you know what I’m going to say — the women’s U.S. Open was held this year at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.”

The president continued to note that Sung Hyun Park, a South Korean, won the tournament and seven more of her compatriots finished in the top 10.

“Congratulations. Now, that’s something. That is really something,” Trump said, enjoying more applause.

To Trump’s critics, including Democrats and some journalists, the plug was more evidence that the former New York business mogul is determined to use the office of the presidency to promote his personal brand.

Critics have suggested that such behavior represents a misuse of power and opens the president up to charges of inappropriate influence. Many foreign government delegations, for example, have stayed at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Trump has spent 95 out of the 277 days of his presidency at a Trump-branded property, according to the New York Times.

... < tweets about the speech >

Reporters in the room for Trump’s speech said his South Korean audience greeted the president’s plug with enthusiasm, perhaps happy that he was lavishing praise on their country’s female athletes at a time when there remains widespread uncertainty about Trump’s relationship with President Moon Jae-in.

Continuing on with his prepared remarks, Trump then offered some well-wishes in advance of the 2018 Winter Olympics to be held in South Korea.

“You will do a magnificent job,” he said. “Good luck.”

Because it's all about putting more money his his slimy pockets...

[fraurosena]

What do you do when you lose bigly? You hark back to when you won something, inflate it, and act as if your loss hasn't happened.

 

[onekidanddone]

On 11/7/2017 at 2:04 PM, AmazonGrace said:

I swear this man has dementia. He manages to make no sense even while giving a scripted speech.  (yes those are his words in the video, not a transcription error) 

 

It reads like a middle school student's paper written at the last minute trying to bull shit their their way through an essay question for a test.  The kind of test they didn't study for because of the many many reasons that are because people that don't study much were going to not remember the questions of the study tests.

[Cartmann99]

23 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

What do you do when you lose bigly? You hark back to when you won something, inflate it, and act as if your loss hasn't happened.

 

Is that Hope Hicks that Stephen Miller has his arm around? I thought she had darker hair?

I'm having flashbacks to that night a year ago. My husband was teaching a lab that night, and all of you were keeping me from completely losing it as that horrid night dragged on.