Trump 33: Making Norman Bates Look Like a Choir Boy

[fraurosena]

19 hours ago, JMarie said:

could you imagine what a book report from him would look like

It'll be a tweet, of course!

 

[AmazonGrace]

Narrator: his books were ghostwritten, and he means, pore over.

 

[Cartmann99]

Honestly, I'd be shocked if he allowed witnesses to be there:

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

Wapo is a discgrace.

[AmazonGrace]

When the man with the best words gets trolled by a dictionary 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Narrator: his books were ghostwritten, and he means, pore over.

 

Maybe he had had Def Leppard's song, "Pour Some Sugar On Me" stuck in his head.

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[JMarie]

http://money.cnn.com/2018/07/03/media/fox-news-trump-obama-iran-deal/index.html

Quote

President Donald Trump appeared to rely on a dubious Fox News report Tuesday morning to unleash an attack on his predecessor, accusing President Barack Obama, without any real evidence, of granting citizenship to 2,500 Iranians as part of nuclear deal negotiations.

"Just out that Obama Administration granted citizenship, during the terrible Iran Deal negotiation, to 2,500 Iranians - including to government officials," Trump tweeted. "How big (and bad) is that?"

Jeff Prescott, the former senior director on Obama's National Security Council, called Trump's allegation "absurd and entirely false."

Prescott shared with CNN immigration data from the Department of Homeland Security which showed that the number of Iranians naturalized in the United States over the course of the Obama and Bush administrations was relatively consistent.

"There was no connection between the Iran nuclear deal and immigration policy," Prescott added.

The unsubstantiated claim first gained attention with a Monday story on Fox News' website that relied on the word of an Iranian cleric who is also a member of the country's parliament.

The article, written by Chris Irvine, a Fox News senior editor, cited an Iranian news agency that cited an Iranian newspaper that quoted the single Iranian cleric, who said the Obama administration provided citizenship to 2,500 unidentified Iranians during nuclear deal negotiations.

The article itself quoted, toward the end of the story, the network's own commentator, former Obama State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, saying, "This sounds like totally made up BS." The story said the Department of Homeland Security and State Department declined to comment, and that a representative for former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson could not be reached.

Prior to the Fox News article, the claim had not received any noticeable attention from the US media.

But after Fox News published its story, other outlets, primarily in the conservative media space, published similar stories. Those outlets included The Daily Mail, The Gateway Pundit, and TownHall.

The claims were also shared on Twitter by Fox News host Sean Hannity and frequent Fox guests David Clarke and Charlie Kirk.

On Tuesday morning, just hours before Trump's tweet, the story made its way to Fox News' airwaves on "Fox & Friends First," the network's early morning show. It also later aired on "America's Newsroom," a late-morning news program on Fox News.

"It shouldn't be lost on anyone that this is a case of Donald Trump parroting Fox News, which is peddling the claims of an Iranian hardliner," Prescott told CNN.

Jake Sullivan, a former Obama official who was involved at the start of the Iran nuclear negotiations, also skewered Trump for relying on Fox News' thin report to make what he called a "completely false" claim.

"What is interesting about this is that what happened is a hardline crank in Iran just randomly made this comment, Fox News writes a story on it, and then Trump tweets it," Sullivan said on "The Situation Room."

"He had every opportunity to call people in his own Department of Homeland Security and State Department to ask whether or not this was true. And they would have told him it wasn't," Sullivan added. "Instead, he relies on Fox News. And the scary thing is that he's increasingly relying on sources like Fox News to get his intelligence rather than the professionals in his own government."

Neither a spokesperson for Fox News nor the White House responded to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.

This would not be the first time Trump has tweeted false or questionable claims that have originated in right-wing media. The President has a long history of stoking conspiracy theories that target his political rivals.

 

[Audrey2]

34 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Oh crap! As someone who lives in the beautiful, forested Pacific Northwest (and who loves to hike), prepare for Zinke and Trump deciding to clear cut the national forests in 3..2..1... (referring to the top set of quotes, couldn't make the bottom set of tweets go away.)

[AmazonGrace]

Anything to distract from the witch hunt

The dangers of electing someone who has absolutely no clue what he's doing

[AmazonGrace]

[47of74]

Author Tim O'Brien had this to say about Spanky McFornicateFace's latest claims....

Quote

A biographer of President Trump hit back at Trump’s tweet touting himself as the author of “many best selling books,” saying that ghostwriters had written all of the president’s books.

 

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Ann Coulter tweeted a bitchy response to Merriam Webster, saying that it's obsolete and archaic.

Apparently you have to be against dictionaries to support this president.

[CTRLZero]

We had dinner with friends last night, one of whom is a physician.  She attended a continuing education course on personality disorders.  Guess who was used as an example of narcissistic personality disorder? 

[Cartmann99]

WaPo column by Max Boot about Trump and the Republican party. The part about Trump eating immigrant children sounds like the sort of snarky thing one of us would say.

Quote

“Should I stay or should I go now?” That question, posed by the eminent political philosophers known as The Clash, is one that confronts any Republican with a glimmer of conscience. You used to belong to a conservative party with a white-nationalist fringe. Now it’s a white-nationalist party with a conservative fringe. If you’re part of that fringe, what should you do?

Veteran strategist Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s 2008 campaign, is the latest Republican to say “no more.” Recently he issued an anguished Twitter post: “29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of the Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life,” he wrote. “Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.”

Schmidt follows in the illustrious footsteps of Post columnist George F. Will, former senator Gordon Humphrey, former representative (and Post columnist) Joe Scarborough, Reagan and Bush (both) aide Peter Wehner, and other Republicans who have left the party. I’m with them. After a lifetime as a Republican, I re-registered as an independent on the day after Donald Trump’s election.

Explaining my decision, I noted that Trumpkins “want to transform the GOP into a European-style nationalist party that opposes cuts in entitlement programs, believes in deportation of undocumented immigrants, white identity politics, protectionism and isolationism backed by hyper-macho threats to bomb the living daylights out of anyone who messes with us.” I still hoped then that traditional conservatives might eventually prevail but, I wrote, “I can no longer support a party that doesn’t know what it stands for – and that in fact may stand for positions that I find repugnant.”

I am more convinced than ever that I made the right decision. The transformation I feared has taken place. Just look at the reaction to President Trump’s barbarous policy of taking children away from their parents as punishment for the misdemeanor offense of illegally entering the country. While two-thirds of Americans disapproved of this state-sanctioned child abuse, forcing the president to back down, a majority of Republicans approved. If Trump announced he were going to spit-roast immigrant kids and eat them on national TV (apologies to Jonathan Swift), most Republicans probably would approve of that too. The entire Republican platform can now be reduced to three words: Whatever Trump says.

And yet there are still principled #NeverTrump conservatives such as Tom Nichols and Bill Kristol who are staying in the party. And they have a good case to make. Kristol, for one, balks “at giving up the Republican party to the forces of nativism, vulgar populism, and authoritarianism.” As he notes, “It would be bad for the country if one of our two major parties went in this direction.”

No one anticipated Trump’s takeover. It’s just possible, these Republicans argue, that we might be equally surprised by his downfall. Imagine what would happen if special counsel Robert S. Mueller III finds clear evidence of criminality or if Trump’s trade wars tank the economy. I’m not saying that’s likely to happen, but if it does, it might — just might — shake the 88 percent GOP support that Trump currently enjoys. That, in turn, could open the way for a credible primary challenge that wouldn’t deny him the nomination but that — like Gene McCarthy in 1968, Ronald Reagan in 1976 and Pat Buchanan in 1992 — could help to defeat him in the general election and wrest the party from his grasp.

Personally, I’ve thrown up my hands in despair at the debased state of the GOP. I don’t want to be identified with the party of the child-snatchers. But I respect principled conservatives who are willing to stay and fight to reclaim a once-great party that freed the slaves and helped to win the Cold War. What I can’t respect are head-in-the-sand conservatives who continue to support the GOP by pretending that nothing has changed.

They act, these political ostriches, as if this were still the party of Ronald Reagan and John McCain rather than of Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller — and therefore they cling to the illusion that supporting Republican candidates will advance their avowed views. Wrong. The current GOP still has a few resemblances to the party of old — it still cuts taxes and supports conservative judges. But a vote for the GOP in November is also a vote for egregious obstruction of justice, rampant conflicts of interest, the demonization of minorities, the debasement of political discourse, the alienation of America’s allies, the end of free trade and the appeasement of dictators.

That is why I join Will and other principled conservatives, both current and former Republicans, in rooting for a Democratic takeover of both houses in November. Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must first be destroyed before it can be rebuilt.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-left-the-republican-party-now-i-want-democrats-to-take-over/2018/07/03/54a4007a-7e38-11e8-b0ef-fffcabeff946_story.html?utm_term=.7a0293ace92d

[JMarie]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Ann Coulter tweeted a bitchy response to Merriam Webster, saying that it's obsolete and archaic.

Apparently you have to be against dictionaries to support this president.

I think it's Ann Coulter who's obsolete and archaic.

[fraurosena]

30 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

[...] a vote for the GOP in November is also a vote for egregious obstruction of justice, rampant conflicts of interest, the demonization of minorities, the debasement of political discourse, the alienation of America’s allies, the end of free trade and the appeasement of dictators.

 

30 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must first be destroyed before it can be rebuilt.

The paragraph you bolded is indeed noteworthy, @Cartmann99! Who knows, maybe Max Boot is one of us!

The sentences I posted above aren't snarky, but I think they do convey the most important messages in his article.

[47of74]

2 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

We had dinner with friends last night, one of whom is a physician.  She attended a continuing education course on personality disorders.  Guess who was used as an example of narcissistic personality disorder? 

I'm guessing either Anakin Skywalker or Spanky McFuckface.

(Psychological professionals have said Skywalker probably suffered from a personality disorder).

[AmazonGrace]

 

Trumpkin telling Trump wrote Art of the Deal to the guy who wrote Art of the Deal. (His name is even on the freaking cover)

[CTRLZero]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

I'm guessing either Anakin Skywalker or Spanky McFuckface.

Ha ha!  At FJ and beyond we have so many to choose from, but the latter is correct.  The good doctor related that the person giving the conference somehow managed to convey the orange example in a professional manner.  Alas, I would have been snickering.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Apologies to Billy Joel, but he'll always be POTUS to me"

Spoiler

Despite the mountains and cornfields and interchange developments, a two-thousand mile round trip drive to Wisconsin can devolve into tedium without something to listen to. Luckily, there was plenty of news on the radio.
 

One report, out of Milwaukee, said Harley-Davidson was shifting production overseas because of increased tariffs on motorcycles sold in Europe and some workers at the company could end up losing their jobs as a result. But they didn't seem to blame President Trump's tariff policy for that.

One worker explained, "I mean, he wouldn't do it for no reason. I look at him as a very smart businessman. And, I mean, if he feels that's what he needed to do, that's what he needed to do."

Yet I couldn't help but think that if Obama had initiated the exact same trade policy, these workers would be screaming.

Other stories followed, including one on how Republicans have bonded with Trump. The worse the news coverage and headlines get about the president, the more his supporters feel moved to defend him. The bad press is simply tiresome they say, and they feel the president is not getting enough credit for the many good things he's accomplished. While they are bothered by Trump's tendency to lie, they don't trust that the media are telling the truth either. The story said despite the constant criticism, Trump's approval rating among Republicans was 90 percent; the only modern Republican president more popular with his party in his first term was George W. Bush when the country united after Sept. 11.
 

Even a hardened news junkie can only listen to this stuff for so long. It was time to call up some tunes to wash these inexplicable reports out of my mind and lift my spirits. I put on some Billy Joel, seemingly the perfect antidote.

But as the long miles droned on, the news and the music tended to merge in my mind:

"He can kill with a tweet, he can wound our allies. He can ruin the country with his casual lies. He can rant with abandon, blame others with glee. He behaves like a child, but he'll always be POTUS to me.

"He has led us to love him, the more they denounce him. And come the midterms, the red wave will trounce 'em. He appeals to our hurt and our bigotry. Yeah, read fake news all you want, but he'll always be POTUS to me.

"Oooh, he takes care of his base. The wall will be built! America's first! I.C.E. rocks! Oooh, he never gives in. The swamp has been drained! I heard it on Fox.

"And he'll promise you more than the Garden of Eden. And while you're failing, make you believe you're succeeding. Trade war closed my plant, no tax cut for me. But I blame the Dems, for he'll always be POTUS to me.

"Oooh, he can pardon himself. He takes care of his friends, no matter the crime. Oooh, he never shows doubt. They can flip all they want. They'll never do time.

"The Supreme Court and Congress are your personal tool. You can do as you please, you're nobody's fool. And you can't be convicted, you'll get off scot-free. And the most Mueller can do is throw shadows at you, but you'll always be POTUS to me."

 

[GreyhoundFan]

It is rare for me to agree with George Will, but he is quite correct in this assessment: "Trump’s summit with Kim could foretell catastrophe with Putin"

Spoiler

“There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”

— President Trump, June 13

“North Korea is upgrading its nuclear research center at a rapid pace, new satellite imagery analysis suggests.”
— The Wall Street Journal, June 27

As the president prepares, if this time he does prepare, for his second summit, note all that went wrong at the first. If he does as badly in his July 16 meeting with Vladimir Putin in Finland as he did with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, the consequences could be catastrophic.

An exceptionally knowledgeable student of North Korea, the American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt, writing in National Review (“Kim Wins in Singapore”), says the one-day meeting was for the United States “a World Series of unforced errors.” The result was that North Korea “walked away with a joint communique that read almost as if it had been drafted by the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] ministry of foreign affairs.”

Kim, says Eberstadt, is “the boss of a state-run crime cartel that a U.N. Commission of Inquiry wants to charge with crimes against humanity.” Au contraire, said America’s president, who slathered Kim with praise: Kim, with whom Trump has “a very special bond,” is a “talented man” who “loves his country,” which reciprocates with “a great fervor.” Trump called Kim a “very worthy negotiator,” which might actually have made sense if Kim had been forced to negotiate for the concessions that Trump dispensed gratis.

North Korea, Eberstadt says, is committed to what he calls its “racial socialism,” which motivates Kim’s “central and sacred mission,” which is “nonnegotiable” — the unconditional reunification of the Korean Peninsula. This presupposes extermination of the South Korean state, which requires the policy Kim announced last New Year’s Day — to “mass-produce nuclear warheads and missiles and speed up their deployment.”

Eberstadt: “Such a program would not be necessary for regime legitimation, or for international military extortion, or even to ensure the regime’s survival: All of those objectives could surely be satisfied with a limited nuclear force. Why then threaten the U.S. homeland?” America is the guarantor of South Korea’s security, and if Washington can be made to blink at a time and place of Pyongyang’s choosing, the U.S.-South Korea alliance will end, as will the U.S. security presence there. Hence the delusional nature of Trump’s belief: One one-day meeting sufficed to cause the North Korean regime to abandon its raison d’etre.

In addition to the legitimation supplied to Pyongyang by the pageantry of the summit for which Trump obviously hungered, the official record of the Singapore deliberations reveals no U.S. interest in Pyongyang’s atrocious human rights practices (“unparalleled in the modern world,” Eberstadt says) that raise doubts about the fervor with which North Koreans appreciate the supreme leader’s love for them. In return for Trump’s promise to halt military-readiness operations, Kim gave nothing — no inventory of his nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, nothing beyond North Korea’s decades-old commitment to “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula , an opaque goal that means only that Pyongyang is not clearly committed to anything — beyond a pre-summit promise to decommission a no-longer-useable nuclear test site. The New Year’s Day vow has not been disavowed.

Singapore was, Eberstadt believes, probably the greatest diplomatic coup for North Korea since 1950 and a milestone on “the DPRK’s road to establishing itself as a permanent nuclear power.” And the sanctions that were the Trump administration’s strategy of “maximum pressure” will be difficult to maintain now that a “defanged” — Eberstadt’s description — Trump has declared the nuclear threat banished.

The most dangerous moment of the Trump presidency will arrive when he, who is constantly gnawed by insecurities and the fear of not seeming what he is not (“strong”), realizes how weak and childish he seems to all who cast a cool eye on Singapore’s aftermath. The danger is of him lashing out in wounded vanity. Meanwhile, this innocent abroad is strutting toward a meeting with the cold-eyed Russian who is continuing to dismantle one of Europe’s largest nations, Ukraine. He is probably looking ahead to ratcheting up pressure on one of three small nations, Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia, each a member of the NATO alliance that, for the first time in its 69 years, is dealing with a U.S. president who evinces no admiration for what it has accomplished or any understanding of its revived importance as the hard man in Moscow, who can sniff softness, relishes what Singapore revealed.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 He's going to get the most sycophantic candidate because of course he is.

[AmazonGrace]