Junior and Eric 2: Udvay and Quesay

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is disgusting:

I don't mind him having that weapon... but only if he signs up for the military with it and goes to fight in that active war his daddy is doing his damnedest to start.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Donald Trump Jr.’s rifle shows how obsessed the right still is with the Crusades"

Spoiler

Over the weekend, Donald Trump Jr. picked up a rifle inscribed with medieval Christian iconography, a molded knight’s helmet and a magazine picturing Hillary Clinton behind bars, and went shooting. He shared the photos of this weapon on Instagram.

This gun, dubbed the “Crusader,” has been in the news before, when it caused controversy for its anti-Islamic imagery. This new version, as with the original, was marketed as something to be used by American citizens against Islamic terrorists and is described on the seller’s website as “inspired by some of the most fierce warriors who fought in nearly 200 years of epic conflicts known as the Crusades. … Technology evolves, warriors never change.”

The key element here is the molded helmet. Unlike actual helmets of the 12th century, which would almost all have been quite similar to those shown in the Bayeux Tapestry, the helmet on the gun fully encloses the face. It’s a much later type of helmet — and one that importantly speaks not to the real Middle Ages but to an Internet fantasy version. Specifically, it iconographically winks at the popular “Deus vult” rallying cry and “Templar” meme that is hurled at Muslims by white supremacists in the United States and Europe, directed at political leftists in Brazil and even scrawled on the walls of a Planned Parenthood facility last week, allegedly by an extremist who tried to burn the building down.

As such, this decorated weapon plays into a right-wing fascination with the European Middle Ages, one built on fantasy and almost always linked back to the violence of the Crusades and an imagined apocalyptic war between the West and “Islam.” Its iconography, carefully documented in Trump Jr.’s photos, signals a commitment to a vision of a world defined by a clash between Christians and Muslims, thereby emboldening some of the most dangerous tendencies in right-wing America.

As others have pointed out, a strain of apocalyptic Christianity has long underwritten the contemporary Republican Party’s view of presidential power under Trump. Evangelical leaders hailed the administration’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem in an apocalyptic mode. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who pushed for the airstrike to kill Qasem Soleimani, has been open about seeing Muslim-Christian relations within a religious framework.

This is what makes Trump Jr.’s Instagram post troubling. The gun itself implicitly signals the administration’s alignment with the heavily-armed fringe. But that would be true of almost any gun he might brandish: The fact that it’s a “crusader” gun, however, further suggests to some on the right that Trump understands ongoing confrontations in the Middle East in the correct terms; for white evangelicals as a prelude to apocalypse, while for white supremacists a chance to avenge the crusaders and “win” this time.

As medieval scholars like us have been saying at least since George W. Bush proclaimed the war in Iraq a “crusade,” medieval holy wars were not some glorious conflict between good white guys and bad nonwhite guys, but were rather armed conflicts between a wide variety of groups that stretched across Europe and into both southwestern and northwestern Asia. Medieval people did develop sophisticated ideas about when it was acceptable to kill in God’s name, ideas that sometimes led to terrible violence, but the Crusades were never a coherent thing for the vast majority of the time they were supposedly playing out.

Instead, they came to be codified only as an institution at the very end of the Middle Ages, then given force by colonialist European historians of during the 19th century — all long after Latin Christian Europeans ruled in Jerusalem from 1099-1189. In other words, they were used to artificially give precedent to modern European expansion, letting the colonial powers argue, for example, that the French and English belonged in the Middle East in the early 20th century because kings Philip Augustus and Richard the Lion-Hearted had been there before. In sum, the myths about crusading — which, like all myths, survive and spread because they are stories that are useful in contemporary moments — have allowed people not only to justify violence against those who do not share their specific religious identities, but also cast other kinds of conflict into the framework of holy war.

That’s precisely what this gun does. The “Crusader” gun plays on a mythological past to suggest the company’s products are essential to the culture wars of today and tomorrow. The stakes of that culture war are clear: Along with the guns, they also sell a shirt advocating waterboarding, a poster depicting Crusader-wielding gunmen holding off antifa protesters, one implying their weapons should be used against “libturds,” and still another shirt with an image of a medieval crusader holding the crusader rifle under the banner of Psalm 144:1, a verse that was also often etched on the blade of medieval swords and that the Christian invaders cited as inspiration when they took Jerusalem in 1099. The makers write that they chose this Psalm to “hoist the flag of our faith. … The war is here. We have a duty to defend our homeland and our way of life.” The metaphorical targets of the Crusader gun are clear from the context; they are the enemies in this apocalyptic conflict, enemies both foreign and domestic. Indeed, that’s reinforced by Trump Jr.’s magazine depicting Hillary Clinton behind bars, making clear the links in the conservative imagination between liberals and infidels.

During the 2014 electoral campaign, a former Navy SEAL named Ryan Zinke was running for Congress in Montana when he referred to Clinton as the “Antichrist.” Zinke won a competitive primary and then the race, and won again in 2017. Then Trump Jr. recommended Zinke to the president, who named him interior secretary. This could all be coincidence, but it speaks to the fluency with which modern conservatives can cast political struggles as apocalyptic. And apocalyptic struggles are zero-sum, the ends justifying all means, the enemy worthy of nothing but earthly fury and fire from the sky. In the words of another shirt from the retailer of Trump Jr.’s gun: “If God be for me, it matters not who is against me.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

As if Udvay would ever serve the country:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Quesay's wife is just as nasty and ugly as the rest of the Dumpy family:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm guessing the only reason she married Quesay is for his share of the family green (money).

[GreyhoundFan]

The president’s elder sons and campaign manager, not subject to federal gift laws, appeared to enjoy the hospitality of a GOP lobbyist:

But Hunter Biden is a problem...

[GreyhoundFan]

Udvay needs some aloe for the burn Ana gave him:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I wish Udvay would just STFU:

 

[JMarie]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Udvay needs some aloe for the burn Ana gave him:

 

I'm confused. Why should Pelosi be praying for Trump?

[GreyhoundFan]

19 hours ago, JMarie said:

I'm confused. Why should Pelosi be praying for Trump?

She frequently says that she prays for Twitler. I took junor's crap to mean that he doesn't believe she actually prays.

 

Udvay needs to drop his phone in the toilet so he can't tweet anymore.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Why would anyone want to compare themselves to OJ? It just goes to show you Quesay's level of stupidity.

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by GreyhoundFan

[Dandruff]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Why would anyone want to compare themselves to OJ? It just goes to show you Quesay's level of stupidity.

 

It kind of is like OJ...though not a comparison I would think a relative with half a brain would want to make.

[mamallama]

I think that's a parody account.  

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by mamallama
ETA: so hard to tell these days

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, mamallama said:

I think that's a parody account.  

 

Yes, but it references this Express article. I didn't think that was parody.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Yes, but it references this Express article. I didn't think that was parody.

I don't know how smart Ivana Trump was, although I can guess, but remember Junior gets half of his intelligence DNA from his father- which puts him at about the intelligence of a turnip!

[mamallama]

I wish I could read it but that site keeps freezing my computer.  It is like OJ but Johnny Cochrane won by mounting an actual defense not intimidating the jury.

[SPHASH]

17 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

I don't know how smart Ivana Trump was, although I can guess, but remember Junior gets half of his intelligence DNA from his father- which puts him at about the intelligence of a turnip!

Ivana is < redacted > , she married Agolf Twitler!

Edited February 9, 2020 by HerNameIsBuffy
redacted hate soeech

[fraurosena]

Good question. Too difficult to answer though.

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by fraurosena

[Audrey2]

So, I just saw this headline on Yahoo:

Trump's son gets permit allowing him to hunt Alaska grizzly bear

Is anyone else rooting for the bear?

[Dandruff]

1 hour ago, Audrey2 said:

So, I just saw this headline on Yahoo:

Trump's son gets permit allowing him to hunt Alaska grizzly bear

Is anyone else rooting for the bear?

 

I'm assuming a full contingent of secret service officers will be there, armed to the teeth, and it'll cost the taxpayers a bundle.

No hope for the bear.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Only 32 years?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Donald Trump Jr. says he'll debate Hunter Biden and release his taxes"

Spoiler

In an interview for "Axios on HBO," Donald Trump Jr. told me he wants to debate Hunter Biden over who has benefited more financially from their father's government service.

Driving the news: "We can go full transparency, we show everything, and we can talk about all of the places where I am supposedly grifting but Hunter Biden isn't," said the president's eldest son, who still runs the Trump Organization with his brother Eric.

• After I pressed Don Jr. on his book deal and paid speeches during Trump's presidency, he replied, "If you looked at my tax returns, which maybe we could talk about in this debate."
• So you'll release your tax returns, I asked.
• "If we do it both, 100%," Don Jr. said. "Let's talk about who profited off of whose public service. Happy to do it. Let's make it happen."
• The other side: TJ Ducklo, national press secretary for the Biden campaign, said in response: "It is hard to believe anything a Trump says on tax returns when Donald Sr. has lied for years about releasing his."

Why it matters: After spending much of the past year aggressively attacking Joe Biden over his son's business dealings with a corrupt energy company in Ukraine while he was vice president, Republicans mostly stopped talking about Hunter when it looked like his father wouldn't make it through the primaries.

• But now that Joe Biden has had a resurgence, Republicans are gearing up for investigations on Capitol Hill designed to undermine the vice president's chances in the fall.

What's next: Biden's allies have hit back, saying Democrats should fight fire with fire by subpoenaing Trump's children.

• Former Obama aide Tommy Vietor tweeted: "The House Oversight Committee should start investigating the business dealings of Don Jr, Eric Trump, Ivanka and Jared. We should welcome a conversation about the children of corrupt politicians."

The bottom line: Don Jr. has now publicly embraced that conversation.

• A source close to Don Jr. told Axios that his debate challenge was a direct response to "Biden allies, earlier in the week, threatening him and his siblings."
• "From our point of view," the source added, "Don is already one of the most scrutinized people on planet Earth and is more than prepared to respond to Democrat attacks. The same can't be said about Hunter Biden."

 

Prison can't come soon enough for Junior.

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Donald Trump Jr. says he'll debate Hunter Biden and release his taxes"

  Hide contents

In an interview for "Axios on HBO," Donald Trump Jr. told me he wants to debate Hunter Biden over who has benefited more financially from their father's government service.

Driving the news: "We can go full transparency, we show everything, and we can talk about all of the places where I am supposedly grifting but Hunter Biden isn't," said the president's eldest son, who still runs the Trump Organization with his brother Eric.

• After I pressed Don Jr. on his book deal and paid speeches during Trump's presidency, he replied, "If you looked at my tax returns, which maybe we could talk about in this debate."
• So you'll release your tax returns, I asked.
• "If we do it both, 100%," Don Jr. said. "Let's talk about who profited off of whose public service. Happy to do it. Let's make it happen."
• The other side: TJ Ducklo, national press secretary for the Biden campaign, said in response: "It is hard to believe anything a Trump says on tax returns when Donald Sr. has lied for years about releasing his."

Why it matters: After spending much of the past year aggressively attacking Joe Biden over his son's business dealings with a corrupt energy company in Ukraine while he was vice president, Republicans mostly stopped talking about Hunter when it looked like his father wouldn't make it through the primaries.

• But now that Joe Biden has had a resurgence, Republicans are gearing up for investigations on Capitol Hill designed to undermine the vice president's chances in the fall.

What's next: Biden's allies have hit back, saying Democrats should fight fire with fire by subpoenaing Trump's children.

• Former Obama aide Tommy Vietor tweeted: "The House Oversight Committee should start investigating the business dealings of Don Jr, Eric Trump, Ivanka and Jared. We should welcome a conversation about the children of corrupt politicians."

The bottom line: Don Jr. has now publicly embraced that conversation.

• A source close to Don Jr. told Axios that his debate challenge was a direct response to "Biden allies, earlier in the week, threatening him and his siblings."
• "From our point of view," the source added, "Don is already one of the most scrutinized people on planet Earth and is more than prepared to respond to Democrat attacks. The same can't be said about Hunter Biden."

 

Prison can't come soon enough for Junior.

I would absolutely love it if Hunter Biden said "OK, junior, I call your bluff. Let's do this."