Trump 36: We Shall Overcome

[Snowless]

8 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for the win!

 

And they say Democrats don’t have balls!  Go Tulsi!  She had the guts to say what a lot of people were thinking.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

The Coward in Chief will speak with the overseas troops... by teleconference, of course.

 

[fraurosena]

I wonder what's on the presidunce's mind this Thanksgiving...

 

[onekidanddone]

7 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I wonder what's on the presidunce's mind this Thanksgiving...

 

Peas and carrots could just be Secret Service code names for Trump and Pence.  Trump is a pea brain and Pence is a root vegetable with his head suck far up his ass.

[fraurosena]

So the presidunce thanked the Saudi's for the low oil prices. This is what the consumer will notice about that:

 

[fraurosena]

He can't let a sentence go by without showing the deep, dank depths of his utter stupidity.

Steam... Did he watch cartoons last night before bed?

[fraurosena]

The presidunce showcasing what an abhorrent and reprehensible piece of shit he is. 

 

[Ali]

2 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The presidunce showcasing what an abhorrent and reprehensible piece of shit he is. 

 

The most pro life President ever...

[Audrey2]

26 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

He can't let a sentence go by without showing the deep, dank depths of his utter stupidity.

Steam... Did he watch cartoons last night before bed?

I posted a similar image before, but Trump's new Space Force (or even new aircraft for the Air Force).

[AmazonGrace]

28 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

He can't let a sentence go by without showing the deep, dank depths of his utter stupidity.

 

Wait till he hears about the wheel. 

[fraurosena]

Sketch for the updated Air Force One:

[Audrey2]

Ordering new submarines for the Navy, since I don't understand the newfangled Nuclear stuff.

Think the Army could use some new tanks as well.

[AmazonGrace]

Trump is grateful for Trump. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

I don't get it. This isn't even a good con artist. 

 

How the hell doesn't he get laughed out of the house? 

[onekidanddone]

29 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

I don't get it. This isn't even a good con artist. 

 

How the hell doesn't he get laughed out of the house? 

Making America Grate Again.

[GreyhoundFan]

@AmazonGrace posted excerpts from Dumpy's "message" today. Here's the WaPo's take: "‘HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!’: Rhetorical bedlam erupts as President Trump speaks to the world from Mar-a-Lago"

Spoiler

PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump’s Thanksgiving began, as his days often do, with an all-caps tweet: “HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!”

Minutes later, he tweeted of potential “bedlam, chaos, injury and death,” a harbinger of what would be a frenetic Thanksgiving morning.

Over the span of a few hours, the president would mix the traditional pablum of Thanksgiving tidings with renouncing the findings of his Central Intelligence Agency, threatening Mexico, criticizing court decisions, attacking Hillary Clinton over her emails, misstating facts about the economy, floating a shutdown of the government — and per usual, jousting with the news media.

Asked what he was most thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day — a question that for commanders in chief usually prompts praise of service members in harm’s way — Trump delivered a singularly Trumpian answer.

“I made a tremendous difference in our country,” he said, citing himself.

Trump opened the public part of his day by hosting a televised conference call with military officers around the world that, while intended to spread cheer and inoculate him from criticism of his absence from war zones, quickly morphed into an effort to enlist them in his domestic priorities.

In the slathered-in-gold center foyer of his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump sat at a small table covered in a black tablecloth, holding a script as aides scurried about. An American flag stood nearby, and a crystal chandelier dangled above. Behind him, servers arranged the tables for a Thanksgiving feast.

Beneath a gold ceiling, Trump told troops representing five branches in five countries overseas about “barbed wire plus . . . the ultimate” that was blocking migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Loquacious and hopping from topic to topic, he debated the merits of steam catapults vs. electromagnetic ones for aircraft carriers and whether the United States was being treated poorly on trade. On both occasions, perplexed officers on the other end of the phone seemed to disagree with his conclusions.

He blamed “the world” for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, disputing the analysis from the CIA that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was to blame. In fact, Trump said inexplicably, the crown prince hated the death even more than Trump did.

Explaining why he needed to keep a close alliance with Saudi Arabia, he cited lower oil prices. That leads to lower gas prices, he said, before saying the news media had unfairly blamed him for traffic jams caused by cheap gas.

In recent weeks, Trump has stumbled when it came to demonstrating his support for the military — skipping a military cemetery memorial service outside Paris, declining to visit Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day and mocking a Navy SEAL who led the raid to capture Osama bin Laden, saying bin Laden should have been found far earlier.

Asked Thursday whether it was enough to call troops from his palatial resort and later visit officers at a nearby station, he retreated to a familiar boast.

“Nobody’s done more for the military than me,” Trump said.

Sometimes, he praised those on the other end of the line, but often by extension he praised himself.

“A as in the best,” he said of one Coast Guard officer’s school, likening it to his alma mater. “Going to that school is like going to the Wharton School of Finance if you happen to be doing what you do.”

A Navy commander in Bahrain, a U.S. ally, became the foil to discuss trade.

“As you know, trade for me is a very big subject,” Trump said, adding that the United States was getting ripped off.

“We don’t have any good trade deals,” Trump complained.

The commander seemed confused and told the president of abundant goods being carried across nearby waters. “We don’t see any issues in terms of trade right now,” the officer said.

Trump quickly moved on to hurricane response, bragging several times about the improving brand of the Coast Guard.

“Waves like record-setting. It’s been record-setting. The one hurricane in Texas they say dumped more water, and it was more violent in terms of water, than anything we’ve ever had in the country,” he said, referring to rescues they had undertaken.

He complained at length that a new Navy ship was using electromagnetic catapults to propel planes off ships. He said steam was better and was incredulous the military would consider otherwise. “Would you go with steam or would you go with electromagnetic? Because steam is very reliable, and the electromagnetic, unfortunately, you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly,” he asked.

“You have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plants that we have here, as well. But we’re doing that very well. I would go, sir, with electromagnetic,” the officer responded.

Trump repeatedly asked military commanders what they were seeing in their regions, a conversation not usually held on a televised broadcast. He asked if those serving in Afghanistan were enjoying themselves. (Later, he demurred when asked by reporters whether he would pull troops out of the country.)

He bragged during part of the conversation about sending troops to the Mexico border, a mission that is controversial and seen by many as a waste of time. He expressed no second-guessing about the constitutionality of signing an order giving soldiers the right to use lethal force at the border, although many in his government harbor such concerns.

As he spoke, a soccer net was being set up on the large front lawn, and his daughter Ivanka Trump and her children were spotted in leisurewear near the mangrove bushes.

The subsequent 55-minute question-and-answer session with reporters had a similar antic air. He claimed to know little about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or the Justice Department’s desire to prosecute him. (In the past, Trump has said, “I love WikiLeaks!”)

Falsely, the president said the gross domestic product percentage was “going down to minus 4, 5, 6 percent” when he took office, describing the country as “teetering” under President Barack Obama. (It was a positive 2.1 percent in the last quarter of 2016.)

He offered, without evidence, that Clinton had “probably” deleted more than 100,000 emails, a continuation of his long campaign to impugn her for using a private email system. At the same time, he defended Ivanka Trump’s use of a private email account for government business as “very innocent.” He said Ivanka’s private emails were all “in the Historical Society”; her lawyer has said they were forwarded to an official government server.

He disclosed that he was interviewing job candidates at Mar-a-Lago, although no jobs are known to be open. He has let his frustration with several Cabinet officials be known, and the president said Thursday that embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was “in there trying.” And he offered effusive, unprompted praise for Hope Hicks, a former top aide.

By 11:15 a.m., he had arrived at a nearby Coast Guard station, where he greeted troops and posed for pictures for 14 minutes in a sweltering kitchen, in front of a tray of submarine sandwiches the troops would soon eat for lunch. He served no turkey but told Coast Guard officials there that he would give them $100 if they could break par at his golf course.

By noon, Trump disappeared behind the towering hedges of that course. Thursday night, he was enjoying a spread in the gilded Mar-a-Lago ballroom. The menu included turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, ribs, Chilean sea bass, Florida stone crab, beef tenderloin and Caesar salad, among other dishes. Surrounded by family, he pointed at the cameras and waved while other club­goers angled to get in the camera shot.

This reality show needs to be cancelled.

[Ozlsn]

31 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

This reality show needs to be cancelled.

Should never have gotten past the pilot...

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

The Presidunce pulled out of planned Mueller team meeting at Camp David after receiving list of questions

Quote

President Donald Trump withdrew from a planned meeting with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team after his lawyers saw the list of questions the president would be asked, according to a new report released by The Associated Press.

The date for the meeting had been set for January 27, 2018, and was to take place at the presidential retreat of Camp David. But as the date approached and Trump’s team received a list of questions to be answered, the White House soured on the meeting.

Trump has still not spoken to Mueller’s team regarding its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Though the president had said he would be willing—even happy—to speak to the special counsel and his colleagues, White House lawyers convinced Trump to steer clear of a direct meeting because they believe he would be a bad witness and might even put himself in legal jeopardy by lying to investigators.

The January meeting plan fell apart when John Dowd—Trump’s attorney who resigned in March 2018—sent a letter to Mueller disputing his authority to even question the president.

According to the AP, Trump’s legal team made the decision to torpedo the interview after Mueller’s lead prosecutor, James Quarles, dictated over the phone a list of 16 topics the special counsel wanted to cover.

These included Trump’s interactions with former FBI Director James Comey, his knowledge of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s interview with the FBI and his involvement in a statement issued regarding the Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and a group of Russians linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Dowd said all answers could be found in the mass of documents and witness statements already collected, adding that the investigation had been “a considerable burden for the president and his office, had endangered the safety and security of our country, and has interfered with the president’s ability to both govern domestically and conduct foreign affairs.”

This week, Trump sent handwritten answers to the special counsel’s team in lieu of a face-to-face meeting. With characteristic bluster, the president told reporters last week he had answered the queries “very easily,” despite what he claimed were “tricked up” questions to try and catch him out.

Even now, the president will only answer questions related to possible collusion with Russia, avoiding queries about potential obstruction of justice. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, this week emphasized to Axios that the president would not consider questions of this nature, and cast doubt on Mueller’s legal right to even ask them.

Giuliani also suggested Trump’s handwritten answers might not be enough for Mueller, and that follow-up questions could be on their way.

The former mayor of New York City said the president’s legal team would consider any further queries from Mueller. “We'll consider them and answer them if necessary, relevant and legal,” Giuliani told CNN. “If it was something that would be helpful, relevant—not a law school exam.”

 

[fraurosena]

 

[47of74]

Yeah the farmers are getting stung by fuck head's policies

Quote

American farmers are struggling to find storage for crops that would usually be sold overseas, with some being forced to leave produce rotting in fields as a last resort, as the trade conflict between the US and China continues.

Farmers in some US states are being forced into plowing their crops under — effectively burying them under soil in fields — as there is not enough room to store them in storage facilities, and they are unable to sell their products thanks to Chinese tariffs, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

All grain depots and silos are almost full, meaning farmers have to find their own storage solutions or allow their crops to rot. Neither option is particularly palatable.

The problem is most acute for soybean farmers. China is the largest importer of soybeans in the world, but since the start of the trade war it has slapped US soybeans with a 25% tariff and turned to Brazil in an attempt to meet domestic demand.

Hate to say it but they brought it on themselves by voting for fuck head so it's hard for me to dredge up any sympathy for them now.

[fraurosena]

*sniggers*

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More snark from the wonderful Alexandra Petri: "This is exactly what I meant by ‘Make America Great Again’"

Spoiler

This, specifically, is exactly what I thought of when I wanted to Make America Great Again. To the letter. Donald Trump has delivered on his promise, to me and to other voters.

I wanted a president who would stand up to our greatest threats (journalists, White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner comedians, the institution of First Dog, the French, generals, John McCain) and embrace America’s truest allies (Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia in general, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, anyone with a cool new trick for voter suppression).

I was sick of President Barack Obama apologizing for America. I want a president who apologizes for Saudi Arabia. That is what greatness is. I’m not alarmed by this. It is always what I had in mind, from that first day when I saw him ride down the escalator. I have exactly as much love and support for the Saudi regime as I don’t have for refugees seeking to immigrate to this country, or the independent judiciary, as a concept. I’m honored that Donald Trump is representing this deeply held ideal of mine: that democracy is kind of meh and America’s greatness has always lain in its deference to autocrats. “Whatever is happening in the rest of the world is fine, and we should just leave it,” as whoever FDR beat in the election used to say. “America First!”

I’ve always felt a deep love for the Saudi royal family, and everyone in my place of worship agrees. I was always writing in to Fox News saying, “Why aren’t you praising Saudi Arabia more strongly? Where is your loyalty to MBS? I see the op-ed writers, but not you!” Now I feel complete. I loved that sword dance, and the thing with the orb. This, specifically, was always my dream.

I have always ranked unforgivable crimes as follows:

• Personally insult or show disloyalty to Donald Trump, even a single time — THE MOST UNFORGIVABLE
• Insult Donald Trump during a comedy routine: MAYBE LITERALLY THE WORST CRIME
• Leak from the White House: AWFUL
• Be a lady who is not so attractive for the president to look at: SHAME!
• Be a journalist who asks a normal question: BAD
• Send witches to hunt our wonderful president: BOO!
• Adultery (by a Democrat): STILL A BIG NOPE

Then way, way down deep at the bottom of the list, scarcely even visible: Order the murder of a journalist.

Finally we have a president who can stand up to people who have too long gone unchallenged: Gold Star Mothers, Gold Star Fathers, POW senators, our intelligence agencies and the admiral responsible for the raid on Osama bin Laden. One thing that motivated me when I went to the polls was the thought of seeing someone really lay into the guy who got bin Laden. My eagle soars a little higher just at the thought of it. America First!

Reading the presidential statement on the slaying of Post journalist and Virginia resident Jamal Khashoggi, I felt my heart swell with patriotic pride. This is what America has always been about: not even trying to reach for higher moral ground. The world is a creepy place. Bad things happen. America First! I have always thought of America as less of a city on a hill and more of a city under a hill.

When I see Lady Liberty, I see a lady who is burning a lamp. Lamps need oil! We must keep oil cheap. That’s the lesson I take from her. Never disrupt your ties to Saudi Arabia for any reason.

I am reminded of the immortal words of the Declaration. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that a close relationship with Saudi Arabia is worth sacrificing almost any principle, that we only paid lip service to principles, that the world is an ugly place.”

Whom can we trust? The CIA, or a foreign regime noted for its human rights abuses? Who can say? We can never know. We cannot know. We must embrace the uncertainty. The mark of greatness is having enough power to do whatever you what, countenance whatever you want. When you’re a star, they let you.

America’s Greatness has always lain in its subservience to the exigencies of personal greed. That was the thing I wanted us to bring back. I wanted us to countenance more murders and stand for less. Hatred, fear and accepting the ugliest aspects of the status quo: That’s what I believe in! That’s what I voted for.

The only thing I love as much as standing for the national anthem is standing for nothing. This is what greatness is. I feel great already.