Trump 35: Still an Asshole to Everyone but Ivanka

[Destiny]

Previously in the clusterfuck that has become national politics, the Orange Menace continued his single-minded attempts to destroy our reputation with the world, and now he thinks he can take on Google. Sigh.

Continued from here:

 

[AmazonGrace]

He's got to take on Google and hide negative news about him so if/when he gets impeached no one will find out.

I think he will also outlaw fact checks.

[GreyhoundFan]

"President non grata: Trump often unwelcome and unwilling to perform basic rituals of the office"

Spoiler

Shunned at two funerals and one (royal) wedding so far, President Trump may be well on his way to becoming president non grata.

The latest snub comes in the form of the upcoming funeral for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), which, before his death, the late senator made clear he did not want the sitting president to attend. That the feeling is mutual — Trump nixed issuing a statement that praised McCain as a “hero” — only underscores the myriad ways Trump has rejected the norms of his office and, increasingly, has been rejected in turn. 

Less than two years into first term, Trump has often come to occupy the role of pariah — both unwelcome and unwilling to perform the basic rituals and ceremonies of the presidency, from public displays of mourning to cultural ceremonies. 

In addition to being pointedly not invited to McCain’s funeral and memorial service later this week — where former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush will both eulogize the Arizona Republican — Trump was quietly asked to stay away from former first lady Barbara Bush’s funeral earlier this year. He also opted to skip the annual Kennedy Center Honors last year amid a political backlash from some of the honorees, and has faced repeated public rebuffs from athletes invited to the White House after winning championships. 

“We’re not talking about a president going and having a rally in a state that voted against him,” said Tim Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University who previously served as the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. “We’re talking about a president who can’t even go and participate in a ritual where presidents are usually welcomed, and that is one of the consequences of his having defined the presidency in a sectarian way.”

Trump’s bitter feelings toward McCain came to dominate the first 48 hours after the senator’s death, as the president ignored repeated entreaties to offer any thoughts on McCain and flew the flag above the White House at full-staff for much of the day on Monday. He ultimately, and grudgingly, caved to public and private pressure Monday afternoon and issued an official proclamation to lower the flag in honor of McCain’s death. 

“Despite our differences on policy and politics, I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country and, in his honor, have signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff until the day of his interment,” Trump said in a statement.

Trump’s conspicuous absences at both McCain’s and Barbara Bush’s funerals offer perhaps the starkest examples of the ways in which Trump finds himself ostracized from some of the duties other presidents performed as almost de facto aspects of their job.

“It is a tearing of the fabric of the presidency that he’s not invited, but I understand why he’s not invited because he’s personalized the presidency in a way no previous occupant of the presidency has done,” Naftali said. “Donald Trump has never accepted the fact that he is the head of state.”

A senior White House official rejected the notion of Trump as persona non grata, saying for example that it is not the norm for sitting presidents to attend the funerals of former first ladies, in part because of the disruption it causes. Obama, for instance, did not attend the funeral of former first ladies Betty Ford or Nancy Reagan when he was in office. Instead, Michelle Obama went in his place, much as Melania Trump attended Bush’s funeral.

The official added that Trump has hosted and attended events not in line with traditional Republican orthodoxy, specifically pointing to his various meetings with labor unions soon after taking office, as well as his attendance at the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum last year despite controversy surrounding his visit. 

Yet Trump has also found himself excluded from — or opting out of — other, more routine parts of the presidency. During a trip to the United Kingdom in June, his visit with Queen Elizabeth II was undermined by reports in the British press that she was the only member of the royal family willing to meet with him. And two months earlier, the president notably did not receive an invitation to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, though the duo — who are reportedly no fans of Trump — eschewed nearly all political guests. 

Trump also skipped last year’s Kennedy Center Honors after three of the five honorees said they either would or might boycott the traditional White House reception pegged to the celebration. And Trump has faced high-profile rebellions from athletes he’d hoped to honor.

In June, for example, the president hastily disinvited the entire Philadelphia Eagles team from a White House event in honor of their Super Bowl championship after growing frustrated that, to protest some of his policies, the team had planned to send only a small delegation of players. The party went on, sort of, albeit without the guests of honor.

Previous presidents have also dealt with defectors, of course, and a number of athletes and teams have still visited Washington to be feted by Trump. 

In many cases, the rejection is mutual. Trump — who prefers the comforts of his Trump-branded resorts and restaurants — rarely ventures far from his cosseted bubble. He is generally uncomfortable crossing into hostile territory, and prefers to frequent places where he is likely to be lauded, rather than rebuked.

“We’ve kind of elected this apex predator, and you don’t sit T-Rex down at the dinner table,” said Alex Castellanos, a Republican media consultant and strategist. “I think civilized society doesn’t want him behaving crudely at the dinner table, and he has no interest in their pretensions.”

At his recent rallies, Trump has taken to expounding on his lack of acceptance by the so-called elites, proclaiming it a badge of pride. And his disdain for what he terms political correctness is similarly applauded by many of his supporters.

“The thing to realize is that Donald Trump’s base revels in him playing the transgressive jerk,” said Rick Wilson, author of “Everything Trump Touches Dies” and a veteran of Republican campaigns. 

Wilson added that with McCain in particular, the funeral snub perhaps stings more than most, in part because Trump can’t abide not being the main focus of adulation. “You know what is making Donald Trump the craziest right now is he’s not the center of attention,” Wilson said. “He’s crawling the damn walls because they’re running story after story on John McCain and he hates it because he’s not the center of attention.” 

Trump also has sometimes struggled in the role of consoler in chief, another key demand of the presidency. When he visited hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico last year, he drew widespread scorn for describing his trip as “lovely” and tossing paper towels into the crowd as if shooting baskets, even as his administration struggled to cope with the deadly tragedy. He came under condemnation again this year when, during a listening session for those affected by the Parkland school massacre, he held note cards with a basic reminder of emotional empathy printed in black Sharpie: “I hear you.”

Andrew H. Card, chief of staff under President George W. Bush, said that he struggles with the current political climate in part because he was raised to believe the president, whoever he or she is, is deserving of respect, and that he thinks both sides are to blame.

“When the president doesn’t appear welcoming, it’s his problem, he’s created a problem,” Card said. “When others refuse to accept an invitation, I think that’s wrong.”

But, he added, a paradox is that Trump in many ways has created the very environment he now chafes against. “I do think the president gives permission for what I would consider to be rude behavior,” Card said, “and yet he reacts so poorly to other people’s rude behavior.”

 

[47of74]

He's got to take on Google and hide negative news about him so if/when he gets impeached no one will find out.

I think he will also outlaw fact checks.

 

Maybe someone should tell Spanky McFuckface that if he wasn’t such an asshole he wouldn’t be facing such much negativity in Google searches.

 

Edit. Fucking autocorrect

[AuntK]

Amazing how he keeps ignoring McCain questions! But the YELLING going on at the close of whatever that was with President Kenyatta! How totally unprofessional and undignified! And who, pray tell, was the tart in the WaPo video above in the tight dress with her boobs hanging out? Doesn't anybody in the WH know how to dress for work? That dress should have NEVER seen the light of day! 

Nobody wants T-rump at their event - not surprising at all.  He is rude, racist, sexist and narcissistic. Not to mention a LIAR.  I can't understand how anybody can spend 30 seconds in his presence.

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Dana Milbank: "Donald Trump, constitutional scholar"

Spoiler

There oughta be a law!

The great lawgiver Donald Trump arose before the sun Tuesday pondering one of the finer points of jurisprudence and, at the tender hour of 5:24 a.m., composed his own mini law-review article on Twitter.

His Honor had determined that Google searches for “Trump News” were “RIGGED” so that “almost all stories & news is BAD.” He asserted that mainstream news articles (“fake news”) got priority over material friendly to Trump. “Illegal?” he asked.

Why, yes. Yes, it is illegal. We know this because no less an authority than Trump himself already established a precedent, last month finding Twitter guilty for failing to give Republicans sufficient prominence. “We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once!” he vowed.

The law according to Trump is not always Solomonic. Last week, he decreed that “flipping” — a fixture of trial law in which little fish get immunity to testify against bigger fish — “almost ought to be illegal.” This may have had something to do with his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, potentially flipping against him.

By contrast, Trump ruled that Cohen’s actual crimes ought to be legal. “Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime,” Trump tweeted after Cohen admitted he attempted to affect the election by using unreported funds to buy the silence of women alleging affairs with Trump.

The bedrock principles of Trumpian jurisprudence can be summarized in his own words:

“No. 1, there is no collusion.”

“No. 2, collusion is not a crime, but even if it was a crime, there was no collusion.”

A corollary holds that obstruction of justice is also not a crime because “it would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened! Witch Hunt!”

By contrast, everything done by special prosecutor Robert Mueller can be placed in one of three baskets of criminal offenses: “illegal,” “ILLEGAL!” or “SO ILLEGAL!”

First-year students of Trumpian jurisprudence are puzzled to learn that some crimes are legal and some legal acts are criminal. This confusion comes from a textual discrepancy. The U.S. Constitution, as written, has seven articles. But Trump’s Constitution has 12.

During the campaign, Trump informed a group of lawmakers who asked for his views of Congress’s Article I powers: “I’m for Article I. I’m for Article II. I’m for Article XII.”

Trump’s discovery of five previously nonexistent articles in the Constitution gives him broad leeway in interpreting law — making him a modern-day Hammurabi or Confucius.

Though lower courts such as the Supreme Court ruled the “individual mandate” in Obamacare constitutional, Trump struck it down as “so unconstitutional.” The Constitution gives Congress the power to tax, but Trump claimed he alone can cut taxes on investors. Trump, perhaps using his Article IX authority, also determined that trade deals are “unconstitutional” if “there’s no end date” in them.

The common thread to Trumpian law: Stuff he and his allies do is legal, even if previously outlawed; stuff his opponents do is illegal, even if previously kosher.

For example, Trump declared in June that polls showing him doing poorly are a form of “suppression” and “should be illegal.” He decreed it “perhaps illegal” for a lawyer to tape a client after Cohen did that to him. He said California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s threatened release of testimony in the Trump/Russia case is “possibly illegal,” while a similar release by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) is “probably illegal.”

Much of what the Obama administration did: illegal. What the Democratic National Committee did to Bernie Sanders: illegal. Leaks published in the Amazon Washington Post: illegal. James B. Comey’s memos: “so illegal.” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch’s actions: “totally illegal!” The actions of those investigating Russian election interference: “illegal surveillance,” “illegal activity,” an “illegal scam,” an “illegal Rigged Witch Hunt,” “totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL.”

By contrast, when Trump’s former campaign chairman was convicted last week, Trump called the prosecution a “disgrace.” And former sheriff Joe Arpaio, convicted of criminal contempt, got a Trump pardon because he “was very unfairly treated by the Obama administration.”

Just as “fake news” means “unflattering news,” Trump’s view of illegality is less about the crime than the perpetrator. After securing the release of American basketball players imprisoned in China for shoplifting, Trump decided that “I should have left them in jail!” — because one of their fathers was unappreciative of Trump.

Now, following Trump’s early-morning Google tweet, White House official Larry Kudlow says “we’re taking a look” at regulating Google searches.

Of course, there’s a more compelling explanation than search-engine bias for all the bad news Trump is finding on the Web. It’s called reality. But that doesn’t matter. As Article XII of the Constitution clearly states, the merits of the case do not affect the verdict.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Unfortunately for Trump, his allies aren’t any smarter than he is"

Spoiler

As I and others have spent the past couple of years arguing, the character of a president determines the people who are drawn to him. If you’re honest and principled, honest and principled people will want to work for you, and if you’re dishonest and corrupt, dishonest and corrupt people will want to work for you.

We’re seeing that play out now in courtrooms and across the federal government, as more and more of President Trump’s associates are revealed to be just like him, albeit usually on a smaller scale.

The fact that Trump’s supporters are reflections of Trump can be seen in another way: Because Trump is petty, vindictive, obsessed with conspiracy theories and usually unable to assemble facts into a logical argument in favor of what he’s doing or would like to do, those who defend him most vigorously share all those traits and weaknesses.

Consider a couple of stories in today’s news. Let’s begin with the latest investigation by the crack team of Keystone Kops that has assembled to watch Trump’s back in the House, as reported by Kyle Cheney of Politico:

First the spotlight was on Jim Comey and Andrew McCabe, then Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

Now, Republicans — intent on proving that political bias is behind the sprawling investigation of President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia — are elevating a new bureaucratic target: Justice Department official Bruce Ohr.

Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), both top Trump allies, are taking breaks from their August recess to lead a closed-door interview Tuesday with the former associate deputy attorney general, who was demoted earlier this year amid growing scrutiny from conservatives. In recent weeks, Trump has tweeted about Ohr nine times, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes recently predicted Ohr would become a key figure in House investigators’ sights.

Since it’s happening behind closed doors we can’t be sure what went on in this meeting. But given how previous iterations of this charade have gone, I’m guessing it involved Republicans such as Meadows and Jordan asking some ridiculous questions positing vast conspiracies, Ohr patiently explaining why those questions were absurd, then Republicans responding by shouting the same questions much louder.

Republicans have fixated on Ohr, a widely respected public servant who has spent years investigating the Russian mob, because he was a contact for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who had cooperated with American intelligence long before he approached our government with troubling information he had learned about then-candidate Donald Trump. In addition, Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele.

None of that is inappropriate, nor was it concealed — Ohr logged all his contacts with Steele. But since Republicans have constructed an insane fantasy in which had it not been for the Steele dossier then the FBI would never have even suspected there was anything fishy going on with regard to Trump and Russia, they’ve decided Ohr must be at the center of the conspiracy.

And Trump, going on whatever he saw on “Hannity” the night before, has lobbed blistering but always vague attacks at Ohr. “I think that Bruce Ohr is a disgrace with his wife Nellie,” the president said not long ago. “For him to be in the Justice Department and to be doing what he did, that is a disgrace.” I am 99.9 percent sure that if someone had immediately asked, “What specifically did Ohr do that is a disgrace?”, Trump would have been utterly unable to say.

In a saner world, Republicans would have looked at Ohr and said, “Okay, we were hoping this guy might be the nexus of a sinister anti-Trump conspiracy, but I guess not.” That, however, is not how these people roll.

Republicans still haven’t been able to come up with an answer to this basic question: If there was an anti-Trump conspiracy driving the FBI investigation of the Russian contacts with the Trump campaign in 2016, why did the bureau so assiduously avoid leaking to the public that the investigation existed? In other words, why did this alleged conspiracy to torpedo Trump’s campaign not do the one thing that might actually have harmed Trump’s campaign, but instead carefully adhered to Justice Department guidelines so as not to harm Trump’s campaign?

Seriously: Ask a Republican that question and see what happens. They’re likely to sputter incoherently for a few moments, then point over your shoulder and shout “Look over there!” When you turn back you’ll see them running in the other direction.

But that’s not all. Here’s another report from the Atlantic’s Natasha Bertrand, on how the GOP investigation into the anti-Trump conspiracy is going. Bertrand reports that Nunes traveled to London this month, “seeking out new information” on Steele:

According to two people familiar with his trip across the pond who requested anonymity to discuss the chairman’s travels, Devin Nunes, a California Republican, was investigating, among other things, Steele’s own service record and whether British authorities had known about his repeated contact with a U.S. Justice Department official named Bruce Ohr. To that end, Nunes requested meetings with the heads of three different British agencies—MI5, MI6, and the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ…

But those meetings did not pan out—Nunes came away meeting only with the U.K.’s deputy national-security adviser, Madeleine Alessandri. The people familiar with his trip told me that officials at MI6, MI5, and GCHQ were wary of entertaining Nunes out of fear that he was “trying to stir up a controversy.”

Inspector Devin is on the case! I wonder if he brought his Super Detective Kit With Trench Coat and Magnifying Glass.

Meanwhile, with many of the president’s close associates being convicted of or pleading guilty to crimes, his legal defense is in the comically incapable hands of Rudy Giuliani, the most incompetent lawyer we’ve seen since, well, since Trump’s former “personal lawyer” Michael Cohen.

It’s tempting to look at this extraordinary assemblage of nincompoops and conclude that Trump will inevitably receive his comeuppance for whatever misdeeds he has committed. Sadly, that is not always how the world works. If it were, Trump would never have become president in the first place.

 

[Howl]

I find the identical expression on each man's face fascinating.  It perfectly epitomizes Evangelical facial rictus resulting from selling your soul to the Devil: 

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

I find the identical expression on each man's face fascinating.  It perfectly epitomizes Evangelical facial rictus resulting from selling your soul to the Devil: 

Everybody sing!

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine...

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[apple1]

10 hours ago, Howl said:

I find the identical expression on each man's face fascinating.  It perfectly epitomizes Evangelical facial rictus resulting from selling your soul to the Devil: 

Anybody know the names of these guys? I don't recognize any of the faces (except Trump, of course).

[Drala]

11 hours ago, Howl said:

I find the identical expression on each man's face fascinating.  It perfectly epitomizes Evangelical facial rictus resulting from selling your soul to the Devil: 

When I read about this, I was reminded of Dante's Inferno.  I googled the eNotes Summary, looking for the circle in hell into which Dante would put these guys.  Definitely circle 8, they would probably fit in more than one of the ditches Dante describes for flatterers, hypocrites, and influence peddlers.

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh FFS: "Trump, without citing evidence, says China hacked Hillary Clinton’s emails"

Spoiler

President Trump asserted early Wednesday, without citing evidence, that Hillary Clinton’s emails were hacked by China, and he said the Justice Department and the FBI risked losing their credibility if they did not look into the matter.

Writing on Twitter, Trump alleged that much of the former secretary of state’s emails that was hacked contained classified information and called it “a very big story.”

“Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps ... their credibility will be forever gone!” Trump wrote in a tweet posted shortly after midnight.

Trump provided no details about the alleged hacking, but his tweets came shortly after the online publication of a story by the Daily Caller asserting that a Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington area hacked Clinton’s private server while she was secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails.

The publication cited “two sources briefed on the matter.”

In an earlier tweet Tuesday night, Trump wrote: “Report just out: ‘China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.’ Are they sure it wasn’t Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!”

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment Wednesday morning. A spokesman for the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has long focused on Clinton’s use of a private server as secretary of state and contends that the FBI did not sufficiently investigate the matter. During the 2016 campaign, in which Trump faced off against Clinton, former FBI director James B. Comey announced that the FBI had found no basis to bring charges against Clinton, the Democratic nominee.

In a July 2016 statement, Comey said the FBI “did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked.” But, he added: “Given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence.”

A 500-page Justice Department inspector general report on its investigation of Clinton’s email situation released in June made no mention of hacking of Clinton’s email by Chinese actors.

Trump’s calls to investigate Clinton and others on “the other side,” as he put it in a recent tweet, have grown louder as the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election continues.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is probing whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia and whether Trump has sought to obstruct the investigation.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said accusations about Chinese hacking were nothing new.

“This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard this kind of accusation,” Hua told a daily news briefing.

“China is a staunch defender of cybersecurity,” she added, without specifically mentioning Trump or Clinton. “We firmly oppose and crack down on any form of Internet attacks and the stealing of secrets. China advocates that the international community jointly respond to cybersecurity threats through dialogue and cooperation, on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.”

 

[AmazonGrace]

"Many people are saying" 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"How Trump relies on his cable news cabinet as much as the real one"

Spoiler

After watching Sean Hannity on Fox News, President Trump tweeted at Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate former rival Hillary Clinton. After listening to Tucker Carlson, he directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to launch a study on bogus reports of murdered white farmers in South Africa.

And after Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs highlighted a questionable claim about Google search results, Trump took to Twitter early Tuesday to complain — prompting his top economic adviser to promise an investigation.

“We’re taking a look at it,” Larry Kudlow told reporters when asked whether the administration thinks Google searches should be regulated.

Cable television news hosts and commentators are among the first voices that Trump hears in the morning and the last he listens to at night. Now he is increasingly relying on those voices in making decisions — often running afoul of his actual advisers in the process.

Many of Trump’s Cabinet secretaries and senior advisers have a cable news shadow. Dobbs might be considered Trump’s television treasury secretary, Hannity his chief of staff and Carlson his secretary of state. Fox’s Jeanine Pirro serves as a de facto attorney general, railing against Sessions and the special counsel’s Russia probe, while regular Fox analyst Pete Hegseth was under consideration to be the actual secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Carlson said in an interview with The Washington Post that he doesn’t think about whether the president is watching his Fox show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” and that he was “really surprised” by Trump’s response to last week’s episode on white South African farmers.

“The president tweeted it, and I had nothing to do with it,” Carlson said. “I’m glad he did, because I think the story deserves more attention than it has gotten in this country.”

That Trump reacts so frequently to what he sees on television, rather than what he is reading or being told by aides, underscores the outsize role that commentators and cable programming decisions play in Trump’s administration.

Among his other cable-fueled directives in recent weeks, Trump tweeted disapproval of Federal Reserve interest rate increases that echoed criticism leveled by Dobbs, a vocal Trump supporter. He has repeatedly attacked Sessions and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, citing cable figures such as Fox News Channel’s Gregg Jarrett.

This month, Trump ordered the revocation of John Brennan’s security clearance after the former CIA director said on MSNBC that remarks Trump made at his friendly Helsinki summit with Vladi­mir Putin were “nothing short of treasonous.” The president threatened to do the same to former intelligence officials and CNN analyst Philip Mudd, a former CIA official whose television commentary Trump called “unglued.”

Other presidents have received plenty of advice and ideas from outside the Cabinet Room. Nearly 200 years ago, President Andrew Jackson vexed critics by relying on a “kitchen cabinet” of informal advisers assembled after his purge of officials from the parlor, or official, Cabinet.

Trump’s 21st-century approach, by contrast, uses Twitter and the bully pulpit to amplify cable commentary that would otherwise reach only a small fraction of Americans.

Aides, in turn, try to influence the cable hosts who influence the president.

When Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin led a delegation to China in May, he announced on “Fox News Sunday” that the United States was “putting the trade war on hold.” But soon after, others in the delegation, including China hawk Peter Navarro, found an alternative audience with Dobbs to criticize Mnuchin’s message.

Then Dobbs’s criticisms were picked up on “Fox & Friends” the following day by host Brian Kilmeade. Before long, and on the basis of those media messages, the president made an abrupt change in policy, said an adviser who was not authorized to speak to the news media.

Stuart P. Stevens, a Republican political consultant and writer who was Mitt Romney’s senior strategist in the 2012 presidential election campaign, decried Trump’s reliance on the “insane feedback loop of Fox.”

“Here’s a guy who has access to the most sophisticated intelligence ever available, that cost billions to produce, that people have died for,” Stevens said. “And he’s relying for his information on something you can buy for like $2.98 a month with your cable subscription.”

One major risk for Trump is bad information — as illustrated in the recent flaps over South Africa and Google.

Trump fired off predawn tweets Tuesday complaining that “96%” of Google search results for “Trump news” were “RIGGED” against conservative media outlets.

The night before, Dobbs had cited a conservative blog report claiming that 96 percent of Google search results for Trump were from “left-leaning news outlets,” defined to include mainstream organizations such as the Associated Press, CNN and The Washington Post. He also interviewed pro-Trump commentators Diamond and Silk, who claim their online videos are suppressed by technology companies.

Google rejected the allegations in a statement Tuesday: “We don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.”

On South Africa, The Post’s Fact Checker found that the president’s first claim about land seizures is mostly false, while Trump’s second claim — that South African farmers are being killed on a “large scale” — is a fiction spread largely by white supremacist fringe groups.

The State Department, which Pompeo now heads, and the CIA, where he was director until earlier this year, both have access to accurate data about the murder rate for white farmers in South Africa that would have been easily obtainable by Trump, had he asked for it.

Carlson’s original broadcast did not address the alleged killings of white farmers but included erroneous references to a proposed expropriation policy in South Africa that has not been implemented.

Carlson said in The Post interview that the political left has a reflexive opposition to whatever Trump does that “basically puts Trump in the driver’s seat.”

“He’s living in your head and his hands are on the steering wheel,” Carlson said.

When asked whether cable news hosts are really in the driver’s seat because of their influence on the president, Carlson said that “in general, if you start seeing your job as an effort to influence policy, then you should go get a policy job.”

Marc Lotter, a former special assistant in the White House who now serves as a surrogate on cable, said Trump’s references to TV programming help him connect with Americans who may be concerned about the same topics.

“I don’t think it should be underestimated that the president receives information from a variety of sources. Not only does he consume media, but he is also getting all of the intelligence briefings and background briefings that one would expect,” Lotter said.

Trump receives less printed reading material than recent presidents, but he does hold regular in-person briefings and discussion sessions with aides. His first official meeting of the day is often an 11 a.m. intelligence briefing, leaving most of his mornings open for “executive time” that includes a heavy diet of cable news.

“Presidents throughout generations have all used new communication tools,” said Lotter, citing Franklin D. Roosevelt’s use of the radio and Ronald Reagan’s use of television.

Fox News is by far Trump’s favorite source of voices for his shadow cabinet, while personalities at other networks serve primarily as foils. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, for example, have fallen out of favor with Trump, while CNN’s Chris Cuomo regularly spars with Trump officials.

Many cable hosts have found their way into the administration. Kudlow was named director of the National Economic Council after a long career at CNBC, and the list of emigres from Fox includes White House communications director Bill Shine and State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox host, was recently named vice chair of America First Action, a super PAC supporting the reelection of pro-Trump politicians.

Trump’s reliance on cable television, and his comfort level with its personalities and priorities, should not surprise anyone, said Stevens, the Republican political consultant.

“He consumes information the same way he did when he was not president,” Stevens said. “He relates to the world the way the world relates to him, and it is what it appears to be: a guy sitting around watching television.”

 

 

[SilverBeach]

Dump is a sick, paranoid, morally bankrupt excuse for a human being. He has no business being POTUS, a cat or dog could do a better job. America has reached rock bottom by tolerating this delusional idiotic fool. I hope the stain of working for him, (looking at you SHS), or supporting him actively or passively is permanent. Wake me up when the nightmare is over.

[Rachel333]

So presidential

 

[Destiny]

2 hours ago, SilverBeach said:

Dump is a sick, paranoid, morally bankrupt excuse for a human being. He has no business being POTUS, a cat or dog could do a better job. America has reached rock bottom by tolerating this delusional idiotic fool. I hope the stain of working for him, (looking at you SHS), or supporting him actively or passively is permanent. Wake me up when the nightmare is over.

Luna would like to be president. Her platform includes mandatory naps and play time, no rough blankets, and wet food twice a day. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Cartmann99]

6 hours ago, apple1 said:

Anybody know the names of these guys? I don't recognize any of the faces (except Trump, of course).

I think the guy in the blue suit with glasses is Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council.

 

[Gobsmacked]

26 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

I think the guy in the blue suit with glasses is Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council.

 

He looks so plastic.  I wonder how long he takes to recharge every night? 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump complained about his Google results. Good thing he didn’t try that search from Europe."

Spoiler

President Trump became aware this week of the results when people Google his name and, according to his Twitter feed, he didn’t like it all.

“Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media,” Trump wrote Tuesday morning. “They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!”

Amid all the bad news when American readers check Google for “Trump news,” here’s at least one piece of good news for the president: It could be much worse — if they tried to do the same from abroad.

Google’s algorithm is still somewhat of a mystery, and results may be influenced by cookies, past search requests or location. But researchers who have examined whether conservatives and liberals are shown different stories have concluded that there are no significant differences, as long as users are based in the same country or at least pretend they are.

So, what if Trump had decided to Google himself from an incognito browser on Wednesday morning from, say, Italy?

He almost certainly would have come across a piece published by the newspaper La Stampa with the headline: “Donald Trump says that Google is rigged but maybe he does not know how it works,” in which the author says technology rather than political bias explains which content is featured by Google. Readers would also have come across a story about an artist prohibiting Trump from using one of his songs, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling lashing out against Trump and a summary of Trump’s recent attacks on the European Union. Then there’s the story of Trump failing to properly draw the American flag.

In Germany, Trump would have woken up to a story about charges against his political allies with the ominous headline, “It’s not yet the end, but ...” Conservative and liberal media outlets both dedicated coverage to criticism of Trump over his tweets following the death of Sen. John McCain on Saturday, with Germany’s conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper criticizing Trump for governing in a way “that leaves little room for bipartisanship.”

Readers interested in more Trump news would have been able to watch the video of a 3-year-old unable to recognize her mother after being separated from her at the Mexican border (headline: “This video hurts”), an analysis of the likelihood of Trump’s impeachment, a commentary on why Trump’s North Korea strategy is doomed and, finally, a story on Trump being “clueless next to his phone,” as the White House struggled to connect him with the Mexican president this week while cameras were rolling.

French, Dutch and Belgian readers Googling Trump news on Wednesday found stories about Trump complaining about Google, even though the RTBF news channel warned its readers that Trump had provided “no further details” to back up his claims. Another Belgian broadcaster wondered “why Donald Trump is starting a war with Silicon Valley?” and a Dutch site offered an update on porn star Stormy Daniels, to whom Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen transferred $130,000 in a hush money payment.

Meanwhile, France’s conservative Le Figaro newspaper examined how “Donald Trump is struggling to focus on artificial intelligence.” Judging from the French-language results for Trump news, it’s not looking good for a president “surrounded by court cases” (Le Monde), facing “storm after storm” (AFP), while being as lonely as a “coal miner” (Liberation), according to pieces published by three of the biggest French media outlets and news agencies in recent days.

In Poland, readers were presented a more domestic take on U.S. politics after Poland’s Newsweek magazine (which is distinct from the U.S. version) compared Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to Trump on its most recent cover, artificially transplanting Trump’s hair onto Morawiecki’s head.

In a statement accompanying the cover, the magazine’s editor in chief explained that both politicians were “liars” and “the exact opposite of Senator McCain.”

“This cover will not appeal to the prime minister,” commented Wiadomosci, a website owned by a private Polish TV network.

In general on Google’s European sites, there didn’t appear to be a shortage of Trump stories published by papers with conservative or right-wing editorial pages Wednesday. Yet even so, positive takes on the U.S. president were missing.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[Gobsmacked]

No newspapers/media anywhere in the world can write positive things about Dumpy McFuckface because (IMO) there ARE NO positive things to write.  The Addled Apricot ( I just love that description!!!) is to f-----g stupid to realise it. 

There is absolutely no point blaming Professor Google, algorithms or not. ( I haven't a clue how it works).

His Humpers are mired in a game of 'The Emperor's new suit'.

(hope that makes sense. Wine!)