Trump 25: Stephen King’s Next Horror Story

[fraurosena]

3 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

Does Sinterklaas hang around until Christmas? He is magnificent!

It makes me think that our Santa Claus is anti-social. He's barely in the house for five minutes! 

No, he came out from Spain where he lives for most of the year (yeah, he's got a sweeter deal than Santa, who has to live in the subzero climate of the North Pole) in his steamboat (what can I say, he's old-fashioned) last Saturday, and he'll be leaving after the 'Delicious Evening' of the 5th of December.

Instead of elves, he has al lot of 'Pieten' (helpers all named Piet for some reason I have never been able to fathom). He stays around until the 5th of December, when he brings the children their presents on his horse (called, of all things, Amerigo) that can walk over the roofs of houses, so the presents can be dropped though the chimney (sounds familiar, doesn't it). 

During the weeks he is in the country though, little children can 'put out their shoe' at night (usually with a carrot in it for Amerigo). They sing a Sinterklaas-song (of which there are many) over it before they go to bed, and in the morning they will find a treat or small present for their efforts. Some retailers will also let children 'put out their shoe' in their shops, and on a certain date they can come pick up whatever present or goodies are in them.

Globalization has introduced Santa Claus (or the 'Christmasman' as we tend to call him) to our country, and it has become more and more common for people to find presents under the Christmas tree too (although not as many or as grand as with Sinterklaas). We don't mind that at all though. We just enjoy getting the best of both worlds. 

[Botkinetti]

@fraurosena Canadians also celebrate thanksgiving. Our holiday is the second Monday in October giving most of us a long weekend. 

Part of my job in a bank was processing wires so every year we would get a break on volumes and then remember it was " American " thanksgiving. To us it was just Thursday. Always wondered if American bankers were more aware of  " Canadian "thanksgiving because they caught a break in October.

[fraurosena]

1 minute ago, Botkinetti said:

@fraurosena Canadians also celebrate thanksgiving. Our holiday is the second Monday in October giving most of us a long weekend. 

Part of my job in a bank was processing wires so every year we would get a break on volumes and then remember it was " American " thanksgiving. To us it was just Thursday. Always wondered if American bankers were more aware of  " Canadian "thanksgiving because they caught a break in October.

Ha, I learned a new thing today! 

Does the Canadian version of thanksgiving have the same origin/history as the American one? 

[OtterRuletheWorld]

I  watched the video of Trump pardoning Drumstick.  He mentioned that Drumstick was raised in Douglas County, Mn.  Big surprise -- Douglas County went to Trump 65%.

Tater and Tot were raised in Northwest, Iowa in Sac County. It is a red county. I don't find it shocking that these Turkeys have come from a red county. At all.

[GreyhoundFan]

11 minutes ago, Botkinetti said:

@fraurosena Canadians also celebrate thanksgiving. Our holiday is the second Monday in October giving most of us a long weekend. 

Part of my job in a bank was processing wires so every year we would get a break on volumes and then remember it was " American " thanksgiving. To us it was just Thursday. Always wondered if American bankers were more aware of  " Canadian "thanksgiving because they caught a break in October.

Here in the US, we have Columbus Day, a federal holiday, on the same day as Canadian Thanksgiving. So, American bankers are off that day too.

[Botkinetti]

@fraurosena I realized from your question that I actually had no idea of the origins of our thanksgiving. Did a quick search and one article ( if I had the vaguest idea how to link I would ) said that one origin was being thankful that we had not gone through the bloodshed of the Civil War. Another was the crisis of faith brought on by Charles Darwin so Protestant ministers petitioned for a day to thank God for the harvest.

The reason ours is on a Monday apparently is because the railroads petitioned for a long weekend so people could visit their families by rail.

Never knew any of this so I am now sure I will be boring family members with my new knowledge next October .

[fraurosena]

6 minutes ago, Botkinetti said:

@fraurosena I realized from your question that I actually had no idea of the origins of our thanksgiving. Did a quick search and one article ( if I had the vaguest idea how to link I would ) said that one origin was being thankful that we had not gone through the bloodshed of the Civil War. Another was the crisis of faith brought on by Charles Darwin so Protestant ministers petitioned for a day to thank God for the harvest.

The reason ours is on a Monday apparently is because the railroads petitioned for a long weekend so people could visit their families by rail.

Never knew any of this so I am now sure I will be boring family members with my new knowledge next October .

Curious, I googled too. I found this on Wikipedia. Apparently, your thanksgiving is the Canadian version of the European Harvest festivals.

Also this is said about the historical origins:

Quote

According to some historians, the first celebration of Thanksgiving in North America occurred during the 1578 voyage of Martin Frobisher from England, in search of the Northwest Passage. His third voyage, to the Frobisher Bay area of Baffin Island in the present Canadian Territory of Nunavut, set out with the intention of starting a small settlement. His fleet of fifteen ships was outfitted with men, materials, and provisions. However, the loss of one of his ships through contact with ice, along with many of the building materials, was to prevent him from doing so. The expedition was plagued by ice and freak storms, which at times scattered the fleet; on meeting again at their anchorage in Frobisher Bay, "... Mayster Wolfall, a learned man, appointed by Her Majesty's Counsel to be their minister and preacher, made unto them a godly sermon, exhorting them especially to be thankful to God for their strange and miraculous deliverance in those so dangerous places ...". They celebrated Communion and "The celebration of divine mystery was the first sign, scale, and confirmation of Christ's name, death and passion ever known in all these quarters." (The notion of Frobisher's service being first on the continent has come into dispute, as Spaniards conducted similar services in Spanish North America during the mid-16th century, decades before Frobisher's arrival.)

 

BTW, if you want to link articles, you can either simply copy/paste the text in the address bar of your browser directly into your post, or you can copy that address, then select (part of) the text in your post, click on the 'chain' icon above your post and paste the address into the pop-up that shows up when you click the chain icon. This is what I did above with the word 'this' in my first sentence.

[Botkinetti]

@fraurosena

http://time.com/4971309/canadian-thanksgiving-2017-history/

Thank  you for explaining how to do this. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"A year ago, Trump called for unity. He’s repeatedly demonstrated what he thinks that means."

Spoiler

If LaVar Ball had wanted to avoid President Trump’s ire, he should have had the presence of mind to ensure a vote for Trump’s tax bill by running for the Senate.

Instead, as a Trump critic with access to a microphone, Ball has been a focus of Trump’s rage for several days running. The father of LiAngelo Ball, one of the UCLA basketball players arrested in China for shoplifting, the elder Ball has refused to pay Trump the fealty the president clearly feels he deserves for his son’s escaping jail time in the country. While LiAngelo pointedly thanked Trump (after the president hinted that he should), LaVar declined to do so in an interview on CNN Tuesday.

“If I was going to thank somebody, I was going to thank President Xi,” he said, referring to the president of China. He added more thoughts on the president of the United States: “If he said he helped, that’s good for his mind. If you helped, you shouldn’t have to say anything.”

So, on Wednesday morning:

... < tweet from twitler >

Trump once said that his tweets may not be presidential in the traditional sense but, instead, are “modern-day presidential,” as though he has redefined the meaning of the word to his benefit. Americans, broadly speaking, would prefer a traditionally presidential president, with 70 percent in a recent poll suggesting he change his approach to Twitter.

For Trump, though, the medium has an obvious benefit: He uses it to encourage and rile up his base of support to his own political advantage. His base, those who fervently approve of him, also approves of the way he behaves in office. A Pew Research poll from August found that a majority of those who approve of Trump’s job performance approved of him because of his approach and personality more than his policies and political values. Trump encourages the base and the base loves it.

... < chart >

The latest iteration of his fight with Ball happened the day before Thanksgiving. Last year, Trump used Thanksgiving as an opportunity to try to assuage the concerns of Americans who hadn’t voted for him and many of whom had taken to the streets in protest after his win. It was his first extended statement as president-elect, and it had a deliberate theme.

“It’s my prayer that on this Thanksgiving we begin to heal our divisions and move forward as one country, strengthened by shared purpose and very very common resolve,” Trump said.

“This historic political campaign is now over. But now begins a great national campaign to rebuild our country and to restore the full promise of America for all of our people,” he later continued. “I’m asking you to join me in this effort. It’s time to restore the bonds of trust between citizens because what America is unified there is nothing beyond our reach, and I mean absolutely nothing.”

It was, in short, a call for unity, ostensibly for building an America in which his voters and Hillary Clinton’s came together for one American Dream. Bonds of trust between citizens restored! An ideal modern-day America.

As president, though, Trump has fostered the divisions that he leveraged to get elected. Not only on Twitter, though certainly there. His policies have been broadly focused on his political base, which itself isn’t unusual, but he’s also spent a great deal of energy on undoing policies enacted by his predecessor.

Over the weekend, Politico noted that Trump still tracks polls obsessively, as he did early in the campaign when the numbers were more favorable. The polls he sees, though, are generally “designed to make him feel good,” Politico’s Josh Dawsey and Steven Shepard wrote, often only including the opinions of that same core base of support.

A pollster who’d worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign explained the rationale to Dawsey and Shepard.

“[T]hey don’t really care where all Americans stand on the issue of tax reform,” he said. “Because 35 to 40 percent of Americans are never going to support anything he does. Why should I spend my money trying to find out what they think?”

In that sense, disunity is self-reinforcing. If you believe that your opponents will never change their minds — and 57 percent of Trump opponents said they wouldn’t in an August poll — then there’s no point in trying to actually join with them in unity. Set aside that 40 percent say they could be persuaded to support Trump.

Set aside, too, that this is not a newly emergent phenomenon. It is not the case that Trump tried to actually appeal to those who’d opposed him, as noted above. His inaugural speech quadrupled down on the divisive rhetoric of his campaign, and he wasted no time in making the changes that he’d pledged in the primary and which he’d never moderated. Trump’s call for unity was never about both sides coming together. It was about his opponents accepting and embracing him because he was president.

It was about fealty.

In that sense, the feud with Ball is the perfect capstone to the past year. It’s a literal manifestation of Trump’s insistence that he get credit for good things whether it’s presidential to demand it and whether that credit is actually due. It’s Trump’s version of unity: He deserves love and admiration, the end.

This may be modern-day presidential in the sense that the president in this modern day acts this way. But there’s a reason that former presidents didn’t act this way: They were actually more deliberate about leading a united United States.

I didn't remember his statements from last Thanksgiving. This year has been such a whirlwind shitshow that I'm having trouble remembering last week.

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Globalization has introduced Santa Claus (or the 'Christmasman' as we tend to call him) to our country

Good Lord, Christmasman, it makes him sound like a creepy guy who lurks at the edge of the woods. Maybe we need more separation between Halloween and Christmas. Or maybe I shouldn't watch Bad Santa.

[fraurosena]

30 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

Good Lord, Christmasman, it makes him sound like a creepy guy who lurks at the edge of the woods. Maybe we need more separation between Halloween and Christmas. Or maybe I shouldn't watch Bad Santa.

Well, to be really accurate, we call him "De Kerstman" which literally translates to "The Christman"... I'm not sure if that makes it less creepy though. 

On the subject of Halloween, we do things just a tad differently here. We don't have a scary All Hallows Eve celebration.

What we do have that is quite similar, is Sint Maarten (St. Martin) on the 11th of November. Little children buy or make paper lanterns (not to worry, they're lighted with a tiny battery light) and go around all the doors singing for treats. No tricks or pumpkins are involved.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

3 minutes ago, apple1 said:

I (obviously) feel awful for the Johnson family.

However - It's not particularly wrong that the casket was kept closed. It quite possibly is actually a kindness. I highly doubt that there were "viewable" remains.

Sorry to be so blunt.

She clearly asked to see the remains. The procedure says (I read this on an article that I may be able to find again) that in these cases they comply with the requests of the family, after making clear with the family that the remains are in a very bad shape. They denied her this opportunity and didn't communicate her that they didn't find the whole body. I don't think this is kindness, it is ignoring her will or worse acting as if they know better than her. Personally I can understand her being quite angry over this.

[fraurosena]

Good grief.

"Just tell the presidunce that he's brilliant and say the connection is bad and hang up."

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From the wonderful Alexandra Petri: "I am President Trump, and I think women are very special"

Spoiler

“Women are very special. I think it’s a very special time, a lot of things are coming out, and I think that’s good for our society and I think it’s very, very good for women, and I’m very happy a lot of these things are coming out. I’m very happy it’s being exposed.”

— President Trump

“Women are very special.” “It’s a very special time.” “A lot of things are coming out.”

This is some form of code or cipher. I do not understand it.

At the same news briefing, President Trump said he does not want to see a “liberal person” in Roy Moore’s seat, in spite of the grotesque and predatory things that women (even Trump voters!) say that Moore has done.

“We don’t need a liberal person in there,” Trump said. It was 40 years ago, he said. We have to listen to Moore, too, he said.

But “it’s a very special time.” It is “good for our society.” It is “good for women.” “Very happy it’s being exposed.”

These are the words to a picture book for children, but the pictures are all wrong. Even the words don’t really go together. Maybe it is a villanelle. Maybe it is a nonsense verse, or an overlong haiku.

“Women are very special.”

Trump faces allegations of a range of sexual misconduct from 17 women. We remember the tape. I remember the tape. Does Trump remember the tape? “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he said. He said other things, too, that I don’t need to repeat, because you know what they are.

“It’s a very special time.”

Trump thinks it would be better not to have a liberal person in the Senate seat.

[Begins to laugh hysterically. Cannot stop laughing. Frogs begin to fall out of throat. Walks into a cave and screams until throat is hoarse. Continues to scream for a long time until the echoes die away. Turns into a bat and flies off into the sun.]

“A lot of things are coming out.”

There are allegations against Moore that are coming out, but Moore is denying them and that is what matters to Trump. That, and the “R” next to Moore’s name. Trump is forever preserving the wrong elephants.

It is “good for our society.” “It’s very, very good for women.” “Very happy it’s being exposed.”

These words mean nothing. They are a yearbook signature. “Very happy it’s being exposed.” Have a great summer. We don’t need to see a liberal person in what could be Moore’s seat.

Sometimes I think words have meaning. But maybe that is foolish of me. I should know better, now, than to think that what people say should have some relation to reality.

“Special time.” “Special” is one of the six words Trump seems to be well acquainted with. He wheels it out all the time, and it means all kinds of things. Women are special, which might mean special like a relationship with Britain or special like a golf tournament or special like an evening with a foreign despot.

Perhaps it is no surprise Trump would use “special” in a context like this. The word is cheerfully meaningless and does not contain too many syllables.

Why am I sitting here expecting words from Trump’s mouth to have meaning?

“Very happy it’s being exposed.”

“A lot of things coming out.” “That’s good for our society.”

Phlegm. Hatstand. Timpanum. Litotes.

Maybe this has broken me. I want to open a print dictionary and see if the words are even still there. I want to go stand on the side of a cliff and scream and scream and see if there is an echo.

It’s a very special time.

 

[Cartmann99]

His incessant need for praise is tiresome:

 

[fraurosena]

50 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

His incessant need for praise is tiresome:

 

Poor LeVar Burton. Branch Trumpvidian reading comprehension is... not good.

Trump Supporters Are Confusing LeVar Burton With LaVar Ball, And It’s Painful

Quote

For 23 years, LeVar Burton attempted to teach the joys of reading to millions of youngsters on the PBS series “Reading Rainbow.”

If only Trump supporters had paid heed to that message.

It seems that a lot of Trumpers are confusing Burton with basketball dad LaVar Ball, or just assuming all LaVars are alike.

Ball, the father of Los Angeles Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball, trolled Trump on CNN Monday by refusing to thank the president for getting his younger son LiAngelo and two of his UCLA basketball teammates out of China after they were charged with shoplifting.

From Ball’s interview: 

“I don’t have to go around saying ‘thank you’ to everybody. He didn’t call me. I didn’t shake his hand. He didn’t have to say nothing, but I’m just saying. I have to know what somebody is doing before I say ‘thank you.’ I’m not just going to go around saying thank you."

Many people, especially Trump supporters, didn’t appreciate Ball’s comments and immediately went to Twitter to send rude comments to him.

Instead, many of those comments went to LeVar Burton instead:

@CNN @ChrisCuomo I wonder what you did to piss off your producers that they made you sit through that shit-show of an interview with @levarburton.... what an arrogant asshole!!

— Jamie Lenz (@Jamieboy05) November 21, 2017

Burton attempted to handle the obvious mistake with good humor and gritted teeth in a tweet to Ball

But Burton also had to deal with razzing from his fellow cast members from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

A few of Burton’s fans tried to subtly explain there may have been a slight misunderstanding. 

After that last post, the Trumpers couldn’t LeVar well enough alone. 

HuffPost reached out to LaVar Ball and will update this post if he responds.

 

[AmazonGrace]

That awkward moment when you're the master race

[JMarie]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Poor LeVar Burton. Branch Trumpvidian reading comprehension is... not good.

Trump Supporters Are Confusing LeVar Burton With LaVar Ball, And It’s Painful

 

Was Lil Popsicle hoping for some major street cred when he picked his name?  'Cause it ain't happening.

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

His incessant need for praise is tiresome:

 

He's like an orange John Shrader: "ME ME ME, IT'S ALL ABOUT MEEEEEEEE!"

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s team insists he has a ‘full schedule’ an hour before he goes golfing"

Spoiler

President Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach, Fla., for the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s the Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, a day that can generally be fairly described as low-key for most people. In fact, you’re not even reading this right now; you’re driving to a relative’s house or you’re trying to remember what you need to get at the grocery store.

“Low-key” is also how deputy White House press secretary Lindsay Walters described the day to the press pool Wednesday morning. Trump would make a few calls this week, she said, but otherwise not much going on.

Less than 10 minutes later, though, the White House asked the press pool for a correction.

“While the White House communications staff expects the press pool to have a ‘low-key day,'” the update from The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson wrote, “the president will NOT have a low-key day and has a full schedule of meetings and phone calls.”

Got that? Not Trump on vacation at Mar-a-Lago. Trump working hard at what he calls the “Winter White House.” Trump tweeted to that effect Wednesday morning.

... < tweet >

Trump calls it the “Winter White House” so that people will see his time there as an extension of his normal work life. In one sense it is: A president is never actually off-duty. In most senses, though, it isn’t. Trump’s calendar is generally clear when he’s at Mar-a-Lago (or at his club in Bedminster, N.J.), with time instead reserved for playing golf.

But Trump consistently wants to give Americans the impression that he’s working when he’s at one of his private clubs. This is the president, after all, who on the campaign trail insisted that he probably wouldn’t have time to play golf if elected. It’s why he always talks about phone calls and meetings that aren’t on his official calendar, taking advantage of the public’s assumption that a president is working 24/7 to provide cover for the time he spends at leisure.

So we get a parade of tweets like these.

... < multiple tweets >

Over the course of his presidency, Trump has spent all or part of 98 days at properties associated with his private business — once every 3.1 days. He’s probably played golf 60 times, once every 5.1 days. We say “probably” because Trump doesn’t like to admit when he’s playing golf, again because he wants to give the impression that he’s always working. His former press secretary Sean Spicer once tried to argue that Trump rarely played golf and that, when he did, it was often strategic.

When Spicer said that, in mid-March, Trump had only played golf 10 times.

About an hour after Johnson sent out her update about how Trump wouldn’t be having a “low-key” day after all, another update from the press pool: Trump was departing Mar-a-Lago for destination unknown. Ten minutes later, the destination was revealed: The president is spending his morning at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

Clearly part of that “full schedule” of meetings and calls.

... < great chart >

He does have a "full schedule", a full schedule of golfing and tweeting.

[AmazonGrace]

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. 

-Abraham Lincoln-

Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.

-Theodore Roosevelt-

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. 

-John F. Kennedy-

We should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations. 

-Barack Obama- 

IT WAS ME!

-Donald J. Trump-

[Howl]

Quote

 

Alexanda Petri wrote: Phlegm. Hatstand. Timpanum. Litotes.

Maybe this has broken me. I want to open a print dictionary and see if the words are even still there.

 

Litotes:  ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary (e.g., you won't be sorry, meaning you'll be glad ).

I know I"m not the only person who had to look this up. 

[AmazonGrace]

1 minute ago, Howl said:

Litotes:  ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary (e.g., you won't be sorry, meaning you'll be glad ).

I know I"m not the only person who had to look this up. 

I wanted to but was too lazy

thanks

 

Could somebody thank him now? 

[fraurosena]

9 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Could somebody thank him now? 

Sure. Here ya go:

"Thank you. And goodbye. You may leave now."

[GreyhoundFan]

"On Trump’s Thanksgiving menu: Grievances and calls for gratitude — for him"

Spoiler

PALM BEACH, Fla. — This Thanksgiving, President Trump doesn’t seem to be thankful for very much — and seems frustrated that Americans aren’t expressing more gratitude for him.

At a time when many reflect on the blessings in their lives and help those in need, the president has thanked himself for the booming stock market and promised to cut welfare programs. He has demanded more credit for the release of three college basketball players who were arrested for allegedly shoplifting in China — tweeting Wednesday that “IT WAS ME” who got them out — and called the father of one of the players an “ungrateful fool.” He also revived the controversy over football players who kneel during the national anthem to protest racial inequality and sought to cast doubt on the women who have accused Senate candidate Roy Moore of preying on them when they were teenagers.

The holiday week, in other words, serves as a reminder that Trump doesn’t take a break from airing his grievances — not even in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. As he tweeted in 2013: “Happy Thanksgiving to all — even the haters and losers!”

Of course, that’s why many of his supporters adore him. They love that he doesn’t waste time uttering flowery holiday sentiments pulled from greeting cards and instead speaks his mind without any filter, or a spell-checker.

But ahead of Thanksgiving — the all-American celebration of gratitude, unity and family — the president’s attacks and provocations may remind some Americans of that one troublemaking uncle they will soon have to face.

The president has not completely opted out of the warm and fuzzy parts of Thanksgiving. Before leaving Washington on Tuesday, Trump good-naturedly participated in one of the White House’s more ridiculous traditions by pardoning a turkey named Drumstick. Standing in the Rose Garden, Trump recognized a food pantry near the White House and thanked members of the military, law enforcement officers, first responders and the “wonderful citizens of our country.”

“This Thursday, as we give thanks for our cherished loved ones,” Trump said in scripted remarks, “let us also renew our bonds of trust, loyalty and affection between our fellow citizens as members of a proud national family of Americans.”

Just before Trump formally pardoned the bird, he said, “I feel so good about myself doing this.”

Trump has yet to participate in another presidential Thanksgiving tradition: volunteering at a food pantry, helping serve meals to the homeless or visiting members of the military. (On Wednesday, Vice President Pence visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.)

On Thanksgiving Day or in the days leading up to it, Barack Obama and his family would volunteer at a food bank or help serve a hot meal to the homeless. George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Baghdad on Thanksgiving in 2003 to have dinner with troops serving there. During Bill Clinton’s first Thanksgiving in the White House in 1993, he and his family helped prepare dinner for the homeless at a church in Washington.

Such events are often viewed as nothing more than photo ops and logistical nightmares for organizers. But as Trump spent Wednesday firing off angry tweets from what he calls “the winter White House” and then retreating to one of his private golf courses, social media platforms filled with photos and remembrances of how previous presidents spent this time of year.

Trump kicked off the week with a 6:25 a.m. tweet Monday reviving the controversy over professional football players kneeling in protest. He called for the National Football League to suspend an Oakland Raiders player who, Trump alleged, “stands for the Mexican Anthem and sits down to boos for our national anthem.”

Thirty minutes later, Trump shifted into third person to tweet a prediction: “Under President Trump unemployment rate will drop below 4%. Analysts predict economic boom for 2018!” He didn’t mention how he often said during the campaign that the unemployment rate was an inaccurate measure of what American workers were actually experiencing.

Later that day, Trump announced at a Cabinet meeting that once Republicans pass a tax bill — which analysts say will mostly benefit the wealthy — he wants them to overhaul welfare. The White House has yet to explain what that would entail and which programs would face changes.

On Tuesday, after pardoning Drumstick, Trump was preparing to board Marine One on the way to Florida when he was stopped by a question from a reporter: “Mr. President, are you ready to talk about Roy Moore at all?”

After avoiding the topic for more than a week, Trump decided to engage, attacking Moore’s Democratic opponent and noting that the Alabama candidate for Senate has denied the allegations against him, which include pursuing teenage girls as young as 14 when he was in his 30s and sexually assaulting a 16-year-old waitress.

“Look, he denies it,” Trump said. “He says it didn’t happen. And, you know, you have to listen to him also.”

Trump did not have that sort of patience for three basketball players from the University of California at Los Angeles who were arrested in China after allegedly stealing designer sunglasses. The players were released soon after the president’s visit to China earlier this month, and Trump has taken full credit — while accusing the players, who are all black, of not being adequately grateful to him.

LaVar Ball, the father of one of the players, has played down Trump’s role in the release, evidently infuriating the president.

“It wasn’t the White House, it wasn’t the State Department, it wasn’t father LaVar’s so-called people on the ground in China that got his son out of a long term prison sentence — IT WAS ME. Too bad! LaVar is just a poor man’s version of Don King, but without the hair,” Trump tweeted at 5:25 a.m. Wednesday, referring to the boxing promoter who campaigned for Trump during last year’s election.

“Just think,” the president continued, overflowing into a second tweet, “LaVar, you could have spent the next 5 to 10 years during Thanksgiving with your son in China, but no NBA contract to support you. But remember LaVar, shoplifting is NOT a little thing. It’s a really big deal, especially in China. Ungrateful fool!”

Fifteen minutes later, Trump tweeted about the NFL contemplating leaving teams in the locker rooms for the national anthem: “That’s almost as bad as kneeling! When will the highly paid Commissioner finally get tough and smart? This issue is killing your league!. . .”

Trump didn’t complete that thought and went on to retweet missives from two conservative radio personalities who sided with him.

Later in the day, after a visit to his golf club here in South Florida, came a Thanksgiving reflection: “51 Million American to travel this weekend — highest number in twelve years (AAA). Traffic and airports are running very smoothly!”

You know what I'd be most thankful for? (other than a quick impeachment and imprisoning of the TT, Pencey, Junior, Jared, Lyan, et.al.) I'd be most thankful if he lost his phone in a sandtrap or water feature at Mar-a-Loco.