Trump, October 2017: Apologize for untruth, u bum

how much worse could it get jk a lot worse

yeah don't answer

I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017

...Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017

Honestly I shrug at that one.

I though Rick was department of energy. You're barking up the wrong tree, Trump! Sad!

Anyway, this is truly insane. So does this mean Rex was seeing North Korea on the sly? And Trump found out and ... is now undermining the effort?

I remember when I used to assume, as a vague background sort of thing, that I would live to see the age of 50. It's nice being free of the anxiety of wondering who will care for me in my old age.

That news was reported yesterday -- IIRC Tillerson himself said that contacts had been made and were ongoing. Two to one says Trump didn't know and is trying to claw back, yes.

Presumably he only heard about it today because he spent the entirety of the last two days demanding updated lists of people who said he was doing great in Puerto Rico, and/or of people in various situations and locales following his orders to stand up for the national anthem.

I mean the other explanation is equally obvious and likely -- braggadacio aside Trump said "Yeah yeah, talk to them," the news goes public and he realizes it looks like he caved.

the news yesterday that tillerson and the state department had back channel talks with north korea was seriously the only piece of even moderately good news with this administration last week, good job Donald blowing that to pieces this morning

Don't worry! Ron Johnson tells high school students that food, shelter, and health care aren't rights.

https://www.facebook.com/wisn12/videos/10159493605030284/

I can't imagine what Tillerson must be thinking, probably hoping for a Trump stroke like many of us.

Is anyone in the white house advising Trump to pursue this "Madman diplomacy" route or is he actually acting unilaterally? What the fuck is going on?

Is anyone in the white house advising Trump to pursue this " Madman diplomacy" route or is he actually acting unilaterally?

I'm trying to keep count and I believe he's doing 12D chess by now.

If McMaster or Kelley or someone sternly told him to knock it off before he got us all killed, would he just fired them? Has anyone tried something like this or are they all just cowed by his vindictiveness?

I doubt they're particularly cowed by him but i also doubt they can control him, "they can only hope to contain him."

And as history has proven again and again, containment always wins out in the end!

I have to say, the crossed arms and disappointed facial expressions are not impressive.

Being nice to Rocket Man hasn't worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won't fail.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017

Kim Jong Un is 33 years old

IT came up a couple of months back that trump was probably confusing 3 generations of NK leadership, didn't it?

oh my fucking god

Well, Castro and Noriega and Qaddafi and Saddam were there for basically ever, tbf. Also Mao and Stalin. So it's an understandable confusion.

I won't fail.

To quote a favorite trumpism, we'll see.

please, please die soon

I doubt he will give us that favour. Someone has to push him...

lol remember when the vmas introduced post-9/11 giuliani with this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU1stt0okdM

Where has that goof been for the last few months, anyway. (Not that I want him to flap his lips even more.)

he's been dead almost fourteen years, I'm told

https://www.axios.com/inside-trumps-crazy-train-2491643924.html

🤔

The Democrats should maybe take a harder stance against Trump's push toward nuclear war. Is there any reasonable excuse why absolutely all of them aren't publicly pro-impeachment now?

An excellent Twitter thread.

1/ If you pause for a moment and consider Trump’s self-inflicted wounds, the incompetence is truly stunning. There’s no 3D chess.

— Isaac Saul (@Ike_Saul) September 27, 2017

all the Kims look alike to Yam since he looked at the eclipse

Look Out Kim Deal!

Snopes and State Dept say Marketwatch story I posted last week about evacuee reimbursement in PR is false:

http://www.snopes.com/is-the-trump-administration-puerto-rico-evacuees/

Don't worry! Ron Johnson tells high school students that food, shelter, and health care aren't rights.

I grudgingly like it about that guy that, unlike most of his co-partisans, he sometimes just drops the veil and tells people what his actual vision for the country is.

food may not be a right and shelter may not be either, but gun ownership is a sacred right iirc.

Which, of course, people should use to keep the government from coming in and taking these other things they don't actually have.

My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2017

The presidential version of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in case of tragedy. Suprised he didn't end it with 'Sad!'

Reads like a particularly insincere condolence card, a poor response even by his own abysmal standards

... warmest?

That had me poking an eye out, too.

That is a truly bizarre statement. Condolences and sympathies aren't warm, they're deep.

xp

I wonder how hard it is for him to not refer to the victims of tragedies as 'losers'.

don't give him any ideas

The Democrats should maybe take a harder stance against Trump's push toward nuclear war. Is there any reasonable excuse why absolutely all of them aren't publicly pro-impeachment now?

― Nerdstrom Poindexter

does it matter if they're pro-impeachment or not? the republicans aren't going to favor his removal from office, ever. elections aren't for another year. don't they do enough empty gum-flapping as it is?

Must be smart with these old white gunmen.

"Warmest condolences" is such a weird phrase. I googled it, taking away search results from this week, and the phrase mostly just appears in articles about how to write condolence cards. I haven't seen an example of it used in situ.

https://healingtheheartpetloss.com/pages/tips-for-writing-condolence-message
http://metro.co.uk/2017/01/24/what-do-you-say-when-someone-dies-sympathy-messages-to-say-or-write-6400772/

I'm already in a FB fight with my stupid old white woman aunt over this morning's awful news. (This is a person who has spent months condemning the removal of Confederate statues and NFL protests, but attributes last night's tragedy to "you can't control crazy" and "I LOVE this country and its freedom.") Her first post this morning?

I have been watching the news. But tell me, has the President been blamed on FB yet?

My reply: At least you're thinking of the real victim here, Donald Trump.

What about your smart young brown man aunt

yea I've got no patience for this now either. my gun-nut buddy just posted something like "tell me again why I should give up my rights so YOU can be happy?" and I posted "it's not about happiness it's about not getting shot you dolt"

Gun laws need to change ASAP, but I'm not sure either 2nd amendment fundamentalism or "mental health" is an adequate explanation for this sick mass shooting phenomenon.

Something is deeply, deeply wrong in America right now.

male rage?

'right now'

xp not to "politicize." but there is a pattern.... that no one will cop to because it means reframing america's ideas about identity and otherness, and if my facebook discussions are any indication men really don't want to do this.

kind of curious about how many people still interact with acquaintances, relatives (friends?) who support trump online - almost enough to start a poll on the matter but there are enough trump threads as it is.

I agree with you. This is a male problem and it has to do with entitlement and an unwillingness to process emotions.

Xp

Even the alt right, to bring this back to Trump, largely grew out of gamergate/mra culture. Misogyny is a root cause of the civilizational fracture we are seeing.

mental health? the president has made me crazier than i used to be by about two notches. (for the record, i am not going to kill anybody ever.) i don't want to generalize my personal experience, but i don't feel like i'm alone in this response.

i definitely feel a lot more depressed and tense this year, and it's manifested itself physically as well. it could also be my age mind you. but...

Yeah what I meant by putting that in quotes is that mental health is linked to social and environmental factors. When it comes up in discussions around shootings though sometimes it is taken as a simple explanation for the violence -- i.e. If mentally ill people got the help they needed, we wouldn't have these issues. But really I think the antisocial forces manifested in these shootings are systemic. Better access to mental health care is part of the picture, stricter gun laws are part of the picture -- these things will make us safer -- but still: why are so many American men drawn to kill?

i for one am shocked that a country founded on genocide and built with slavery which spends hundreds of billions on eternally extending the military-industrial complex and makes access to guns easier than access to healthcare would have a gun violence problem

xp because it's the mark of a true action hero, whether on the battlefield or in popular culture? (even katy perry's dumb taylor swift diss rhymes "basket" with "casket")

trump calling for football to restore the tough hit during that batshit alabama speech is probably indicative here as well.

(xposts)

Trump is definitely depressing me on top of my usual fucking problems

My therapist told me people keep talking to her about Trump too - and I'm in the UK

, to bring this back to Trump,

if you will, please

Kind of can't believe Trump hasn't already tweeted "this would never have happened at one of my properties"

still plenty of time for that tbf

I'm sure that within 3 days the world will be roiling over some Trump tweet about how Country is the real patriotic American music

honestly can't fathom trump consuming any piece of popular culture that he isn't directly mentioned/lionized in

he is living in his ego bubble and hopefully it will burst soon.

three and a quarter years to go!

cant wait for him to latch onto this "LV shooter was actually ISIS" thing

three and a quarter years to go!

we'll see...

we'll all be dead before the end of 2018, let's be honest

Oh hey btw Congress let CHIP's funding expire

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-chip-funding-20170929-story.html

The consequences will be dire in many states, which will have to curtail or even shut down their children’s health programs until funding is restored. Hanging in the balance is care for 9 million children and pregnant women in low-income households.

wonder what the rational behind that wa-

9 million children and pregnant women in low-income households.

oh, i see

Fuck

does it matter if they're pro-impeachment or not? the republicans aren't going to favor his removal from office, ever. elections aren't for another year. don't they do enough empty gum-flapping as it is?

― bob lefse (rushomancy), Monday, October 2, 2017 5:37

Yeah obviously the GOP will never do anything. It's about getting a message out with the appropriate level of severity. The public needs to be alarmed and made to push back against the idea of getting into a nuclear war. Trump's messaging is increasing the likeliehood NK will overreact. Currently we're sleepwalking into it. People were more engaged in fighting ACA repeal. They should be doing the same and much more on this issue. prepare the public for the possibility of NK doing atmospheric and reiterate that war can not be seen as an option in that case.

I apologize for the dumb question in advance, but are people really believing NK actually has nuclear weapons? I thought it was understood they were a bunch of blowhards with no technical capabilities.

they've had nuclear weapons for years

They have nuclear weapons. The technology they are still developing is long range missiles.

Currently we're sleepwalking into it.

The favored verb is "stumbling."

"have a way of escalating."
"stumbles into a ruinous war"https://t.co/HG4Iah4C7S pic.twitter.com/MHfFO2vJqj

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) October 1, 2017

it's amusing to me our president threatens North Korea with genocide at least once a week and we still do the "stumbling" routine.

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) September 27, 2017

I meant sleepwalking in terms of activists, liberal and left media, anti-war politicians etc.

we have no leverage

Same could be said with the recent healthcare fights.

Xpost some argue they have long range capacity. http://www.theroot.com/why-we-should-fear-a-north-korean-nuclear-attack-expla-1818763114/amp

Really, the only effective public protest I can envision would be "throwing your bodies on the gears," as the Berkeley guy said 50+ years ago. Disruptive civil disobedience and fucking business-as-usual up, on a mass scale, not nice marches. (And I'm sure we would see a massive response with gunfire from the current state.)

a mass protest / sit-in / march at NRA HQ would scare the shit out of me. you can imagine how many fucknuts would flock to that scene & open fire

Same could be said with the recent healthcare fights.

not true, the legislature responds to pressure and there were things to vote on.

foreign policy/military policy is now completely in the hands of the executive, there is no stopping it or influencing it if the executive is not open to being influenced and guess what

The news was making me feel shitty so I figured, hey, I'll watch some lighthearted episodes of Newsradio while I do stuff around the house. I shit you not: back-to-back, an episode about Mr. James absurdly running as an unqualified billionaire president followed by another with a b-plot about a hilarious Dilbert strip which was capped off with a Scott Adams cameo. And now I want to die.

there is no escape, OL, come get a hug

I still like that the campaign theme song for Mr James aborted presidential run was "Life's Been Good"

Yeah what I meant by putting that in quotes is that mental health is linked to social and environmental factors. When it comes up in discussions around shootings though sometimes it is taken as a simple explanation for the violence -- i.e. If mentally ill people got the help they needed, we wouldn't have these issues. But really I think the antisocial forces manifested in these shootings are systemic. Better access to mental health care is part of the picture, stricter gun laws are part of the picture -- these things will make us safer -- but still: why are so many American men drawn to kill?

― Treeship

it's a good question, and i am all for addressing the toxic mess "masculinity" has become in the 21st century. i also see a long list of problems here, some of which are easier to fix than others. addressing toxic masculinity is worth doing, but not just because it leads to mass murder; addressing the causes of mass murder is necessary, but toxic masculinity wouldn't be my first port of call.

Meanwhile, the usual garbage

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/02/jared-kushner-email-account-white-house-243389

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trumps-dog/2017/10/02/0ed509a0-a78c-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html?utm_term=.9c7ac3526018

See Rex.

Rex is a big dog. Rex is the top dog. Rex has a good job. Rex can fly! Rex has a jet. Fly, Rex, fly. Rex flies to other lands. Rex sits. Rex shakes. Rex speaks. When Rex speaks, Rex thinks he speaks for the U.S.A.

See Donald. Donald owns Rex. Rex is Donald’s dog. Donald is loud. Donald is big. Donald is bigger than Rex. Donald is mean to Rex. When Rex speaks, Donald tweets. Donald tweets like a bird. Tweet, Donald, tweet. Donald’s tweets hurt Rex. Donald says: Bad, Rex! Do not speak, Rex. Rex, you do not speak for the U.S.A. Only Donald speaks for the U.S.A.

...

DANG.

old throbbing gristle sounds so good in 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-watchdog-opens-probe-into-travel-by-interior-secretary-ryan-zinke/2017/10/02/3f24fbf8-a7ad-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_zinkeprobe-745pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

cheap-ass rich people.

The news was making me feel shitty so I figured, hey, I'll watch some lighthearted episodes of Newsradio while I do stuff around the house. I shit you not: back-to-back, an episode about Mr. James absurdly running as an unqualified billionaire president followed by another with a b-plot about a hilarious Dilbert strip which was capped off with a Scott Adams cameo. And now I want to die.

― this is ridcolus (Old Lunch), Monday, October 2, 2017 4:34 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://68.media.tumblr.com/ff07337704e6f97a4a21639cb2cc4814/tumblr_nwmfkkJVt71tpri36o1_500.gif

weirdly I also watched these two episodes last night. somehow the presence of Scott Adams was much more disturbing than the Trump parallels

I immediately skipped to another episode when Adams showed up, the one where Phil Hartman was fretting about a psychic having predicted his death. And then I turned the TV off.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/353571-trump-what-happened-in-las-vegas-is-in-many-ways-a-miracle

he really does have the best words

managing to go lower than expectations every time

ok even I have to admit that's pretty jaw-dropping

"What happened in Las Vegas is in many ways a miracle. The police department has done such an incredible job, and we’ll be talking about gun laws as time goes by,” Trump told reporters.

“But I do have to say how quickly the police department was able to get in was really very much of a miracle. They’ve done an amazing job.”

eh, he's obviously talking about the police response being a miracle. this is nothing.

TBF (as loath as I am TBF to Trump), he's talking about the swift police response being miraculous.

xpost

I wish news orgs would refrain from issuing headlines that mislead the reader into believing that Trump said something mind-blowingly offensive when there are so very many instances in any given day when similar headlines would be wholly accurate.

yeah, it's entirely unnecessary, but CLICKS

Yeah, as much of a moron as he already is on a daily basis, the frequent willful misreading of his statements is tiresome and pointless.

Going all the way back to "bigly" (I'm on team "big league")

Trump: "I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, you've thrown our budget out of whack"

— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) October 3, 2017

god what a fucking dick

See? It takes him no time at all to vividly illustrate his crippling sociopathy with a single utterance.

It's not miraculous that the police responded. This is still an example of this insane fartballoon's inability to process anything in terms other than that of the huckster, slathering inelegant and inappropriate adjectives of praise onto whatever subject that circumstances require to come out of his mouth.

“In Texas and in Florida, we get an ‘A+’, and I’ll tell you what, I think we’ve done just as good in Puerto Rico and it’s actually a much tougher situation,” he continued.

he was *THIS* close to giving himself a grade for Puerto Rico even as the power is still out for everyone

this close to saying "I" and not "we", too.

"Just as good" sets my teeth on edge, even tho I know he's a moron.

we’ll be talking about gun laws as time goes by

Sure you will.

We absolutely will be talking about them. Talking and talking and talking. So much talking.

a friend posted on FB that his abuela's best friend died in PR because he couldn't get to a hospital in time

But the budget

Trump to PR official: "So what’s your death count? Sixteen? You can be very proud, only sixteen instead of thousands in Katrina."

— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) October 3, 2017

sic otm

progress of a sort

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/in-wake-of-las-vegas-shootings-no-plans-to-bring-gun-silencer-bill-to-house-floor-ryan-says/2017/10/03/04575ce6-a848-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_house-guns-1225pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.70985d5c6e7a

(bill almost certainly would have passed)

Opponents of the measure say that the silencer provision, in particular, could make it harder to identify a shooter during an incident such as the one in Las Vegas.

But Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), the bill’s sponsor, said in an interview Monday that the silencer provision would have had little bearing on the massacre in Nevada — pointing to media reports that the shooter may have had more than a dozen firearms, some of which may have been illegal.

“He’s already breaking the law shooting an automatic weapon that wasn’t registered, so what’s going to stop him, had he chosen to shoot a suppressed weapon, to do that?” Duncan said. “The thing is, and the thing he probably realized is, it doesn’t make any difference — it’s still loud.”

"i mean what can ya do right fellas??"

I wonder how long we have until every American will be required to be constantly discharging at least one firearm (except while sleeping or using the restroom).

We should abolish all US laws. I mean, people are just gonna break them anyway, right?

Okay Jeff Duncan, can we talk about the more than a dozen maybe illegal firearms then. Or is this not a good time?

Actually 23 at the hotel, 19 at his home? Does any of this seem excessive? In any way?

Just out of curiosity: by the time the Constitution had been amended a second time, had weapons tech progressed beyond that shit where you had to tamp some gunpowder down into a gun before you could shoot it one time?

Except? Where do you think the phrase "Shoot the shit" comes from?

Posts obv.

https://thinkprogress.org/united-nations-gay-death-penalty-36e6a5101ec9/

The United Nations approved a resolution Friday condemning the use of the death penalty in a discriminatory fashion, including its use to punish “apostasy, blasphemy, adultery, and consensual same-sex relations.” But the United States joined a minority of states who voted against it . . .

Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE were among the 13 countries that joined the United States in rejecting the resolution, which was introduced by Belgium, Benin, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, and Switzerland. A total of 27 countries supported it.

The resolution notably doesn’t call for the end to the death penalty. It simply condemns its usage in a discriminatory fashion. Besides the implications for people with same-sex orientations, ILGA also notes that when used to punish adultery, the death penalty is disproportionately imposed on women.

Just keepin' our options open, I guess.

had weapons tech progressed beyond that shit where you had to tamp some gunpowder down into a gun before you could shoot it one time?

nope. a well-trained soldier could fire at a rate of about one round per 90 seconds, until his gun got too hot and could explode in his hands or in his face.

Roffle

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/tom-price-ouster-paul-ryan-243413

John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, called the Wisconsin Republican minutes before the departure was announced Friday afternoon. It was a heads-up call, one White House official said.

Ryan urged Kelly to reconsider and touted the Georgia Republican’s experience in Congress and work in the administration, one of the people familiar with the call said.

Price has long had the speaker’s ear on policy matters and was part of Ryan’s old “Jedi Council,” a group of fiscal conservative rabble-rousers who used to powwow when Republicans were in the minority.

But Kelly made clear that Price was out, and the call quickly ended, one of the people said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/13/the-men-who-wrote-the-2nd-amendment-would-never-recognize-an-ar-15/?utm_term=.6f7c2fa3a491

There's apparently a supposed prototype gun that's held up as proof that automatic/repeating fire(?) weapons did exist, experimentally, at the time of the constitution, and this one prototype gun has been held up in legal arguments and used as the basis for policy.

Soooo there's a BONKERS TWITTER THREAD that I can't find right now, in which someone reveals that the famous prototype gun is a FAKE, manufactured in fact BY HIS GRANDFATHER. It gets more bonkers from there. If anyone has seen it, pls link.

trump throwing rolls of paper towels into the crowd at chapel. “A lot of love in this room,” he says pic.twitter.com/Q2wDEsYWfQ

— Justin Sink (@justinsink) October 3, 2017

I wish news orgs would refrain from issuing headlines that mislead the reader into believing that Trump said something mind-blowingly offensive when there are so very many instances in any given day when similar headlines would be wholly accurate.

oh I definitely agree with this but the fact that the president is rushing to find the silver lining in a historic massacre seems a bit tone deaf to me, idk

GOT IT.

So in the 1970s the Smithsonian acquired a rifle that right wingers use as evidence that the founding fathers anticipated machine guns. 1/x

— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) October 2, 2017

Ryan's old “Jedi Council,” a group of fiscal conservative rabble-rousers who used to powwow

METAPHOR. OVERLOAD. CANNOT. COMPUTE.

Did they smoke a peace pipe and have a luau while thy muckraked, hobnobbed, and had a come-to-Jesus meeting about overthrowing the galactic empire?

lol

Thank you for that, in orbit. I trust that an automatic weapons ban will be forthcoming now that we have the facts in order. No, wait, sorry, I forgot that we live in that other world.

we do have an automatic weapons ban!

We even have a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to enforce it!

Sorry, I meant more broadly a ban on all guns that don't involve loose gunpowder and relatively intensive manual labor.

I might conceivably get behind the second amendment if it were limited to muskets.

Just keepin' our options open, I guess.

any country with the death penalty is probably open to charges of discriminatory use if you crunch the numbers

https://dawm7kda6y✧✧✧.cloudfr✧✧✧.net/uploads/2017/10/AP_17276642848116-804x536-8378✧✧✧@2✧.j✧✧
https://dawm7kda6y✧✧✧.cloudfr✧✧✧.net/uploads/2017/10/AP_17276642868375-804x536-bd6f✧✧✧@2✧.j✧✧

“What is your death count as of this moment?” Trump said. “Sixteen people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud.”

Then, during a tour of the devastation, he told survivors to “have a good time.”

“Great to see you,” Trump added.

During a later appearance where he handed out supplies, the President “tossed rolls of paper towels into the crowd,” according to a White House pool report.

“There’s a lot of love in this room,” he said. “Great people.”

https://i.imgur.com/PybaC0V.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Uq875VS.jpg

god, why can't a room like that erupt into spontaneous booing and jeering and heckling, just once

Sixteen people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud.”

http://catchupblog.typepad.com/catch_up_blog/images/2007/03/20/hilarious_2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/IjSvCgZ.jpg

"I wish news orgs would refrain from issuing headlines that mislead the reader into believing that Trump said something mind-blowingly offensive when there are so very many instances in any given day when similar headlines would be wholly accurate."

I agree; for instance, his comment today that Katrina was a 'real catastrophe'. I'm pretty sure I know what he meant; it sounds bad, but I don't think he meant it to be as bad as it sounds. He's just incapable of making anything sound good, ever.

https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/e/e1/Maude_getting_hit_with_a_t-shirt.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20150817002958

well, I wrote that before he started lobbed TP at a room full of people so maybe I'm wrong.

“What is your death count as of this moment?”
“What is your death count as of this moment?”
“What is your death count as of this moment?”

How many deaths
can you count at this moment,
when you're standing before me
with rolls of TP?

we elected fucking david brent pic.twitter.com/vOFI0JPnaT

— Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) October 3, 2017

It's not unimportant to call out the president on his basic inability to construct sentences in the language he's been using for seventy years, but it's maybe slightly more important to differentiate between instances where he clumsily cobbles words together as a showcase for his basic lack of humanity and instances where he trips over a box of magnetic poetry and accidentally assembles a sentence that could be mistaken for an example of the former.

Insecure much?

Pence’s chief of staff floats ‘purge’ of anti-Trump Republicans to wealthy donors https://t.co/ZghvzUUjLD via @politico

— Matt Sarelson (@MSarelson) October 3, 2017

it's maybe slightly moreimportant to differentiate between instances where he clumsily cobbles words together as a showcase for his basic lack of humanity and instances where he trips over a box of magnetic poetry and accidentally assembles a sentence that could be mistaken for an example of the former.

i agree with this, but there's also a space in the middle of these two instances that shares aspects of both. for example, trump's notorious campaign announcement. the consensus transcription was "They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people" was an example where trump hovered between the two, imo. i think everyone's transcription of "they're rapists" was totally wrong. i think he really said was "they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, [and] their rapists." that was the cadence of his delivery and context of his message. that's also obviously a fucked up thing to say and single out (you can't imagine him ever highlighting the rapist immigrants from a country of white people), but it's different then a declarative "they're rapists." he's just so incredibly fucking stupid and careless that he somehow managed to say it in that way and then was also too dumb to explain it in a coherent way afterward.

United States rejects UN resolution condemning use of death penalty to target LGBTQ people https://t.co/LGX5pTk4e7 pic.twitter.com/jaoNzsX2e7

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 3, 2017

what is the conceivable rationale for this

i posted it 34 mins ago

Not pissing off the Saudis.

Oil

what is the conceivable rationale for this

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Uk4c2uoOF3o/hqdefault.jpg

KM that has bothered me as well. Nothing seems to matter, but if it did, I'd say it's important to criticize what was actually said rather than try to hear the worst possible interpretation of everything in order to keep the outrage fire burning as bright as possible.

xposts

i am starting to get a real panicky sense that the badness of the bad shit that is going on right now, attitudes towards migrants, respect for the dignity of fellow humans, the sense that people can collectively do anything positive, is going to accelerate into something quite a bit worse and i feel really powerless abt it :/

well, I wrote that before he started lobbed TP at a room full of people so maybe I'm wrong.

"Don't become addicted to PAPER TOWELS!"

KM that has bothered me as well. Nothing seems to matter, but if it did, I'd say it's important to criticize what was actually said rather than try to hear the worst possible interpretation of everything in order to keep the outrage fire burning as bright as possible.

definitely not trying to blame the victims (the world) here, but since this was pretty much the first big wave of publicity surrounding the trump campaign and that quote was EVERYWHERE, and being mischaracterized everywhere, i think that it helped trump convince his dunce army that the media really was out to get him from the get go. they were likely going to end up voting for him anyway, i know. but still, i wish that hadn't happened.

basically i think it is the intersection of the "is journalism dying" thread with this one that is panicking me - and the supreme court - and the gerrymandered congress - the feeling that suddenly we have found ourselves with absolutely no checks on the exercise of avarice and the scapegoating of the powerless

"suddenly"

it has always been this way, as far as I can tell

sad but true

not pretending this feeling of sudden precarity makes sense, but i've got it all the same

and DJP i think i know where you're heading with that, and i get it (well, i don't, but i get YOU right now i think)

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló says the federal government has denied the U.S. territory's request for its citizens to redeem food stamps for ready-to-eat hot meals, amid widespread food shortages and power outages in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

The nearly 1.3 million people on food stamps in Puerto Rico — almost 40 percent of its population— are unable to use the benefits of the federal program to buy fasts food or pre-prepared meals at supermarkets, according to The New York Times.

Food-stamp recipients are usually prohibited from buying hot foods and other items that can be eaten “in store” such as sandwiches, soup or pizza.

Puerto Rico requested the administration temporarily lift the restrictions on the program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

So far, the administration has refused, even after granting similar waivers in Texas after Hurricane Harvey and in Florida after Hurricane Irma.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/353685-trump-admin-denied-puerto-rico-request-to-let-hurricane-victims-use

Yeah... probably didn't help

xposts

I agree; for instance, his comment today that Katrina was a 'real catastrophe'. I'm pretty sure I know what he meant; it sounds bad, but I don't think he meant it to be as bad as it sounds. He's just incapable of making anything sound good, ever

the issue isn't that he's callous or heartless (which he is, of course), just that he has like...no sense of human emotion or empathy whatsoever. he responds to major tragedies with "best regards" and "warmest condolences". he visits sites where disaster strikes and offers up a "have fun" at the end. he feels it necessary to tell a nation without power that they shouldn't believe the "fake news". its like the world does not exist beyond his television ratings.

Funny doings

GOP congressman Rohrabacher met Kremlin-linked lawyer Veselnitskaya 2-months before she met with Trump Jr. https://t.co/SOPZDE0OHH

— Anthony De Rosa 🗽 (@Anthony) October 3, 2017

And even funnier how it works

USA Today: Jared and Ivanka moved personal email accounts to Trump Org computers amid scrutiny of private email use. https://t.co/86a1xkyDqf

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 3, 2017

USA Today: The move was made days after Kushner's personal email account 1st became public, shortly after Mueller requested relevant docs. https://t.co/UvTbsoK82p

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 3, 2017

the issue isn't that he's callous or heartless (which he is, of course), just that he has like...no sense of human emotion or empathy whatsoever. he responds to major tragedies with "best regards" and "warmest condolences". he visits sites where disaster strikes and offers up a "have fun" at the end. he feels it necessary to tell a nation without power that they shouldn't believe the "fake news". its like the world does not exist beyond his television ratings.

― frogbs, Tuesday, October 3, 2017 5:09 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

All he really knows how to do is entertain, and his only motivation to do it is to inflate his own ego.

definitely not trying to blame the victims (the world) here, but since this was pretty much the first big wave of publicity surrounding the trump campaign and that quote was EVERYWHERE, and being mischaracterized everywhere, i think that it helped trump convince his dunce army that the media really was out to get him from the get go. they were likely going to end up voting for him anyway, i know. but still, i wish that hadn't happened.

this was kind of the Trump magic though, be so vague and obtuse that everyone can see whatever they want to see. which is how you end up with half the nation thinking he's a Nazi sympathizer and the other half saying "he denounced the Nazis a dozen times, YOU IDIOTS", which is like, technically true, but still. a sizeable chunk of this country thinks that a dude who appointed Ben Carson to a Cabinet position and is apparently buddies with Don King couldn't possibly be a racist. there's like, no bar there.

I officially quit. America is beyond saving.

Equifax has landed a $7.25 million government contract to help the IRS detect fraud.

The deal was finalized last week, according to the federal government website that tracks contracts.
The timeline is notable; earlier in September, the credit monitoring firm announced a massive security breach that may have exposed the personal information of as many as 145.5 million people.

Equifax (EFX) is now tasked with helping the agency "verify taxpayer identity and to assist in ongoing identity verification and validations needs," according to contract details posted online.

The agreement was first reported by Politico.

The posting identifies the contract as a "sole source order," which indicates that the government thinks Equifax is the only company that can do the job. The designation also means the government doesn't need to open up a competitive bidding process to let other companies make a pitch.

I’m kinda curious how many more people wind up radicalizing due to the ongoing shitshow, either the more recent breakdowns or from the current tenure.

Anyway, as I suspected

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/us/politics/republican-tax-plan-state-and-local-deduction.html

lol

no way are they getting this done by December

SO many other sacred cows in the crosshairs too.. like htf you gonna get rid of the mortgage deduction?

and get deficit hawk dorks like Corker and Paul to vote for it?

The comments in Puerto Rico today were stunning.

It gets dumber.

Trump on his visit to Puerto Rico: "From what I'm hearing it's the first time that a sitting president has done something like this.” pic.twitter.com/RVGxahmRR9

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 3, 2017

i mean it was def the first time a president used a tshirt cannon to deliver supplies, for sure

Name me one other president who has thrown toilet rolls at people

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/353685-trump-admin-denied-puerto-rico-request-to-let-hurricane-victims-use

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló says the federal government has denied the U.S. territory's request for its citizens to redeem food stamps for ready-to-eat hot meals, amid widespread food shortages and power outages in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

Name me one other president who has thrown toilet rolls at people

― Zelda Zonk

Paper towels, man, this is why people hate the mainstream media!

surprised the IRS doesn't also make you sign into their site with a Yahoo! account

Nothing to see!

For lunch on April 26, Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, dined with top executives from Southern Company, one of the nation’s largest coal-burning electric utilities, at Equinox, a white-tablecloth favorite of Washington power brokers.

That evening, it was on to BLT Prime, a steakhouse inside the Trump International Hotel in Washington, for a meal with the board of directors of Alliance Resource Partners, a coal-mining giant whose chief executive donated nearly $2 million to help elect President Trump.

Before those two agenda items, Mr. Pruitt met privately with top executives and lobbyists from General Motors to talk about their request to block an Obama administration move to curb emissions that contribute to climate change.

It was just a typical day for Mr. Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general. Since taking office in February, Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. chief has held back-to-back meetings, briefing sessions and speaking engagements almost daily with top corporate executives and lobbyists from all the major economic sectors that he regulates — and almost no meetings with environmental groups or consumer or public health advocates, according to a 320-page accounting of his daily schedule from February through May, the most detailed look yet at what Mr. Pruitt has been up to since he took over the agency.

from what i'm hearing from the voices in my head

White-tablecloths = 'fancy'?

can't fault pruitt's work ethic i guess

NBC News reporting this morning that Tillerson tried to resign but Pence talked him out of it.

Tillerson ''I didn't want this job…my wife told me I'm supposed to do this"
Pence "OBEY WIFE"

'OBEY MOTHER' shurely

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-ivanka-trump-and-donald-trump-jr-avoided-a-criminal-indictment

I’m kinda curious how many more people wind up radicalizing due to the ongoing shitshow, either the more recent breakdowns or from the current tenure.

― Hit to Death in the "Galactic Head" (kingfish)

i'm kind of curious as to what those of us who are "radicalizing" (which i am, but primarily in the etymological sense of looking more deeply at the roots of things and wanting to address things from that perspective) are going to wind up doing when trump is gone. not having a say in _when_ things happen, i'm spending most of my time considering what to do when there are options besides "resist".

seize the means of production iirc

find it kind of hard to be impressed with yet another story about the time someone almost resigned

the idea is that the story pushes them/trump further

Seriously, any chickenshit loudmouth can just threaten to resign (see: me every other day at my job).

Tillerson denies calling Yam "a moron"

yeah, he called him a fucking moron

A Yellow-Bellied Maroon.

TILLERSON: donald trump is the smartest, bravest, warmest, kindest, richest, classiest, fairest, loyalest, handsomest man I have ever known

— Kilgore Trout (@KT_So_It_Goes) October 4, 2017

Tillerson then started blinking irregularly (three short blinks, three long blinks, three short blinks). There was visible sweat running down his neck.

(which i am, but primarily in the etymological sense of looking more deeply at the roots of things and wanting to address things from that perspective) are going to wind up doing when trump is gone. not having a say in _when_ things happen, i'm spending most of my time considering what to do when there are options besides "resist".

I am trying to figure out what mechanisms are available to actually democratize the country despite its ancient prototype of a constitution full of stupid bugs thunk up by slave-owning drunks, and then how to promulgate some solutions so they become real. I like the long game, and “enfranchisement” is a cause I can fight for without running afoul of the Hatch Act.

seize the means of production iirc

― more bemused than human (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 4 October 2017 12:49 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I want this to happen to all of these people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CehDxi_qImY

First the people will rise up and seize Facebook and google. Then we will seize all the fast food restaurants. Then we will try to figure out how to get Facebook back up because it keeps crashing. Then we will be ask the former employees of google how to update their search results because we can’t figure that out either. Then both sites will go down but well at least be able to make fast food because enough of us still remember how to do that. Then the automated cashier kiosks preordered before the revolution will arrive so we’ll all be relegated to fry cook duty. #revolution

Then Amazon will buy the US and make Prime mandatory and everything will be perfect again, just like before.

no biggie. hillary was a terrible candidate (who didn't win by enough). targeted ads (by russians) in swing states. podesta

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-advertising/wisconsin-michigan-were-key-targets-of-russia-linked-ads-on-facebook-cnn-idUSKCN1C90AE

Just now, @SRuhle: "My source didn't just say he called him a moron. He said he called him an f-ing moron."

— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) October 4, 2017

Tillerson's going to be fired by the end of the week

Sessions must have the Pee Tape.

What a bunch of maroons.

fucking maroons

Like, the only joy I'm able to find in the decimated shambles of our current political landscape is the schadenfreude of watching these venal motherfuckers slowly realize that Trump really is the heap of human waste he's publicly presented himself to be over the course of decades. WHO COULD HAVE KNOWN? WHO???

if only there had been some kind of clue

Tbf, it's probably hard for anyone in this administration to keep track of who has called Trump a moron and how often. I bet it gets confusing!

Reporter: Secretary Tillerson, did you call Trump a moron?
Rex: No. I mean, I don't think so. Wait ... maybe? No, definitely not. Except that one time ... oh, ok, yeah. Now I remember. Maybe.

I guess it's not so much a realization that Trump is a shitbag as it is a realization that they somehow weren't the chosen ones with the magic touch capable of elevating or circumventing the bag of shit.

hope springs eternal. it's like people who are constantly drawn to prospective romantic partners that they think they can "save"/fix-up.

"I can do it, I'm the ONE! I'm SPECIAL!"

but actually they are just enabling morons

Kelly has to be reaching his breaking point by now. He did an admirable job of keeping Trump from waggling his dick in public for, what, all of two weeks? But the septuagenarian toddler always wins out in the end.

Also, as someone noted -- good job taking a report from one outlet and immediately blowing it up into a 'oh we can all talk about this?' story.

Trump loves talking about his subordinates and how he has to discipline them. It's familiar territory to him, The Apprentice redux

Tbf, it's probably hard for anyone in this administration to keep track of who has called Trump a moron and how often. I bet it gets confusing!

Reporter: Secretary Tillerson, did you call Trump a moron?
Rex: No. I mean, I don't think so. Wait ... maybe? No, definitely not. Except that one time ... oh, ok, yeah. Now I remember. Maybe.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 4 October 2017 15:48 (twelve minutes ago) Permalink

Jesus, this was literally a plotline on VEEP.

Meantime, I am simple, and easily entertained.

Someone dressed like the Monopoly guy is photobombing the Senate's Equifax hearing https://t.co/zrZzUYh0nH pic.twitter.com/Vnd14kQFam

— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) October 4, 2017

The video clip is even better.

SCREAMING. A+ troll

h/t @EvanSparks via #equifaxbreach hearing https://t.co/rggknj8hlw pic.twitter.com/3Hawi3RmGh

— Shoshana Weissmann (@senatorshoshana) October 4, 2017

And Corker, I notice, has rapidly moved into 'give no fucks' territory:

Corker unplugged: tells press in capitol Rex, Mattis are standing in breach against "chaos" & carps that others in admin undermining Rex

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) October 4, 2017

(Corker also apparently shot down at least some parts of the tax reform 'plan' the other day and irritated people. So, I have no love for the guy, but if he's going to spend the next year and some months making things less easy for Trump, by all means.)

yeah he said he wouldn't back a tax plan that adds a penny to the debt, Hatch almost lost his shit at that one.

Oh good!

Asked to respond to Corker’s criticism, Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wound up to lay into his colleague: “Anybody who says you can’t have any deficit, is not living …” he started, before catching himself. “Let me put it this way, is acknowledging that it’s impossible to even get there unless you have” deficits, Hatch said.

what is "there" – heaven?

Putin’s rectum

my favorite queercore band

BTW, dude's right. This isn't news, but now that it's been confirmed, this IS a big deal.

Let's not forget that Dan Scavino outed himself as Trump's twitter surrogate today. This seems like kinda a big deal. pic.twitter.com/5H12kDaflX

— Kilgore Trout (@KT_So_It_Goes) October 4, 2017

why is that a big deal, I would assume the White House Director of Social Media handles POTUS tweets.

Lol Alfred I thought almost the same thing as soon as I posted that. And then I went to the uk politics thread and thought “I wonder if the new Putin’s Rectum album, Centrist Dad Transformer, is any good?”

not having a say in _when_ things happen, i'm spending most of my time considering what to do when there are options besides "resist".

I'm just planning on dying at 50.

Shit, 50 feels positively aspirational.

shit i just realized if Trump wins again he won't leave office until I'm 50. i'm both old and also feeling like that's too far into the future.

Guys if I’m going to erode away the Senate and give Guam a representative in the House and force all congressional districts to be regular polygons then I need all decent Americans to outlive the fucking moron, ok?

I may outlive him at 50

he's goin out like Elvis

Probably more like G.G., tbh.

Odd little detail

Gen. Kelly was originally going to be on AF1 to Vegas with Trump today but was pulled off flight, I'm told.
WH not answering Qs about it.

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 4, 2017

gambling problem?

OMG HOW IS THERE A TWEET FOR EVERYTHING https://t.co/SBr3UX5f04

— Doug Farrar (@BR_DougFarrar) October 4, 2017

Original tweet being

An interesting cartoon that is circulating. pic.twitter.com/OPG2R2ytkr

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2014

Trump passed out yellow bags of rice and then started tossing rolls of towels into the crowd as if he were shooting free-throws. The crowd laughed and cheered him on. When he contemplated doing the same with the cans of chicken, the crowd gently told him no.

The church is also distributing water purification kits, and a member explained the process to the president.

“Wait,” Trump said, “you put it in dirty water?”

“And then you can drink it after 10 to 12 hours,” she explained.

“Would you do it? Would you drink it?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

“Really?” Trump said, a disgusted look coming across his face.

“Really,” she said.

“Is this your company or something?” Trump asked the woman, seeming suspicious of the aggressive pitch.

“No,” she said, “I’m part of the church.”

Trump can't fathom drinking anything that doesn't either issue from or have the color of gold.

he loves only gold
he loves gooooooooold

How is he not down there trying to sell them Trump brand water?

went bankrupt iirc

I need someone to explain to me why this is ironic

An interesting cartoon that is circulating. pic.twitter.com/OPG2R2ytkr

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2014

fuck me I finally saw the caption I am the worlds dumbest person. A moron if u will.

fucking morons, how do they work?

move over trump there is a new world's dumbest man in town

i'm kind of curious as to what those of us who are "radicalizing" (which i am, but primarily in the etymological sense of looking more deeply at the roots of things and wanting to address things from that perspective) are going to wind up doing when trump is gone. not having a say in _when_ things happen, i'm spending most of my time considering what to do when there are options besides "resist".

This is a convo better had in the social activism thread, but yeah, this is a point I’ve seen brought up here and there, as to what’s going to happen when the dude is not at the head of this terrible organization, even tho the organization still exists.

There’s always political organizing, I guess. As sustainable and sustained collective action gets the goods.

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2017/10/birmingham_mayoral_runoff_live.html

“Would you do it? Would you drink it?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

“Really?” Trump said, a disgusted look coming across his face.

Dont forget this is a guy who, its been said, is a massive germophobe.

could you, would you, with a kit

he probably didn't didn't shake Angela Merkel's hand that one time because she's German. he's not the brightest guy.

no wonder he likes to launder his money

The cleanest money, believe me.

I get the feeling Trump's already bored going to disaster sites and having to feign compassion. Throwing towels makes it interesting for him again.

More importantly it puts the "fun" back in "for gods sake please help us with disaster relief funding"

i'm curious about how they rounded up a friendly crowd for him to throw paper towels at

me too. I would imagine there are handlers whose job it is to ensure that Trump never has to deal with any negative interaction, but still, opinion of Trump in PR has got to be pretty low right now

that said, IDK if I'd have the guts to be rude to Trump on national TV, and watch as my entire extended family gets doxxed and bombarded with death threats

Ooh, drama.

Report: Tillerson, Mattis, Mnuchin forge "suicide pact" in the event Trump wants one of them gone https://t.co/hHWBbnMvlQ pic.twitter.com/DWARJgQKGW

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 4, 2017

Mnuchin looks like a walking suicide pact normally

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/814RhZSXoLL._SY445_.jpg

https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840x2160/327248-Sarah-Kay-Quote-Remember-that-good-things-come-in-threes-and-so-do.jpg

Reporter: If one of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge?
Tillerson, Mattis, Mnuchin: Yes.

Hmmm

Reuters: Mueller's probe has taken over the investigation into the Trump dossier.https://t.co/3TnBtbnYVr

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 4, 2017

“The NBCNews story has just been totally refuted by Sec Tillerson and VP Pence. It is #FakeNews. They should issue an apology to AMERICA!” Trump wrote.

After Tillerson’s statement, a NBC correspondent put out a tweet quoting MSNBC anchorwoman Stephanie Ruhle as saying: “My source didn’t just say he called him a moron. He said he called him an f-ing moron.”

i'd be okay with all three of them taking a suicide pact

A 'make it look like suicide' pact.

seize the means of production iirc

― more bemused than human (bizarro gazzara)

woop woop

US Senate Intelligence Committee is ridiculous. Did not approach me or WikiLeaks for testimony or information, at all, ever. Unprofessional.

— Julian Assange 🔹 (@JulianAssange) October 4, 2017

lmao

Ass(ange)hurt

looool

Rumors of Kelly resignation coming....? Could just be twitteridiots idk

Yeah, saw that too. It's a little weird he was pulled from the Vegas flight last minute.

Meanwhile: aw, so sad.

Angry GOP donors close their wallets. "I'm sick and tired of nothing happening." https://t.co/a7RaY72wfn

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) October 5, 2017

The 'something' those newly tight-fisted donors want to see happening is the destruction of the government and establishment of an oligarchy, so it is imperative that they continue to be disappointed. What stinks worst is how close they are to realizing the next big steps toward that goal.

"All women love Donald Trump." A 1992 letter to the editor in @NYMag. pic.twitter.com/d5ui1CLNiQ

— Edward Hart (@tedhartii) October 5, 2017

Wow, I didn't know John Barron was Trump's secretary!

"the most beautiful women, the most successful women"
odds that this was dictated from the donald?

Finding old evidence of Trump's penchant for untruth, his self-infatuation and self-aggrandizing has become a parlor game. But it's not as if we didn't already have carloads of evidence of this, with new instances every single day.

This is bad.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plans-to-declare-that-iran-nuclear-deal-is-not-in-the-national-interest/2017/10/05/825c916e-a9e3-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html

what the fuck

Under what is described as a tougher and more comprehensive approach, Trump would open the door to modifying the landmark 2015 agreement he has repeatedly bashed as a raw deal for the United States. But for now he would hold off on recommending that Congress reimpose sanctions on Iran that would abrogate the agreement, said four people familiar with aspects of the president’s thinking.

All cautioned that plans are not fully set and could change. The White House would not confirm plans for a speech or its contents. Trump faces an Oct. 15 deadline to report to Congress on whether Iran is complying with the agreement and whether he judges the deal to be in the U.S. national interest.

how many times has he pulled this shit, trying to leave everyone in suspense about what he'll do? or in some cases even AFTER he does something, like ending DACA and then confusingly telling Dreamers "don't worry" after nancy pelosi told him to tweet it out?

trying to leave everyone in suspense about what he'll do?

nothing matters more to him than ratings

and undoing anything obama did because he doesnt understand how politics or governing works just destroying your enemies

sad thought: i'm pretty sure at one point or another trump has suggested a live television reveal of his decision in a two-part prime time television event, only to have the idea shot down by someone, probably someone who is not his child or his child' husband. i realize he already sort of did this with his Gorsuch reveal, but i mean like a true, apprentice style competition style show with some guy who will eventually host a game show saying "COMING UP, the shocking conclusion of Will Trump Cancel the International Deal to Limit Iran's Nuclear Capabilities" just before commercial break

they're also trying to have their cake and eat it too by having trump 'decertifying' it and then congress moving in to do .. something to make sure the dead doesnt blow up.

not sure the other parties to the deal will be so accommodating to doing the world's dumbest man a favor

There was a story in September iirc about Mattis Tillerson and McMaster and others trying to convince him to recertify and he reluctantly agreed and hated having to do it. Worrying to see Nikki Haley retweet Tom Cotton’s insane regime change argument this week.

The administration has begun discussing possible legislation to “strengthen” the agreement, congressional aides and others said. That is the “fix it or nix it” approach suggested by both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a leading Republican hawk on Iran.

Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Benjamin Netanyahu (R-Israel) are on the motherfucker

nice. the fuckface from Arkansas who drafted an open letter to sabotage the nuclear deal under Obama is now a leading foreign policy voice for our game show president

from the Trump email propaganda machine:

“VEGAS SURVIVOR: SHOT IN LEG OR NOT, I’M STANDING FOR MY PRESIDENT”
- Todd Starnes, Fox News

Todd Starnes of Fox News reports on Las Vegas shooting victim, Thomas Gunderson, who, despite having been shot in the leg, told his family he was “going to stand up and shake my president’s hand – out of respect for him and our leaders and our nation,” when President Trump visited a Las Vegas hospital. Starnes writes Gunderson is currently suffering from a gunshot wound that tore through muscles in his calf and the resulting nerve pain, quoting him saying “it’s hard to stand – very painful.” Nevertheless, Gunderson stood and shook President Trump’s hand all while “grimacing in pain,” before stating “that was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.” Starnes concludes by saying the interaction “was a gentle reminder that we are a united people – one nation under God.”

While the president was mostly thinking about lunch and banging the gunshot victim's wife.

trump pluribus grabem

Nevertheless, Gunderson stood and shook President Trump’s hand all while “grimacing in pain,” before stating “that was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.” Starnes concludes by saying the interaction “was a gentle reminder that we are a united people – one nation under God.”

Trump responded by saying "Have a great time!!"

"You're doing a great job!"

Trump then picked up a roll of bandages and tossed them at Gunderson like he was taking a three point shot.

well he did swish all those free throws at MSG in a topcoat

Meanwhile, remember the IRS controversy?.

Meanwhile

.@RepTimMurphy (R-PA) is out. Unusual statement from @SpeakerRyan announcing his resignation. pic.twitter.com/MoUjAIDvnF

— Cameron Joseph (@cam_joseph) October 5, 2017

what's unusual about that.

in your face, Chump: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Jerry-Brown-signs-bill-making-California-a-12255884.php

is he the abortion man i can't keep these dudes straight xp

yes that's him

"we thank him for his any years of tireless work on mental health issues here in Congress"

Work not nearly done though amirite

What in the

New: White House chief of staff John Kelly's personal phone has been compromised for months https://t.co/dVn5u3YKjp

— Sudeep Reddy (@Reddy) October 5, 2017

Hey, some people just don’t want to give up their Razr V3

looking forward to tomorrow night

AND THEN

BREAKING: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team met with Christopher Steele, author of the Russia dossier https://t.co/hZGVzbl4vn pic.twitter.com/m509SkoZez

— CNN (@CNN) October 5, 2017

PISS TAPE PISS TAPE
[crowd joins in] PISS TAPE PISS TAPE

Trump on Wednesday said he was “very honored” by Tillerson’s unscheduled remarks to reporters, and called the NBC News report “a totally phony story.”

In private, however, Trump was “furious” about the report, Mitchell reported, citing five unnamed senior administration officials, and White House chief of staff John Kelly abandoned plans to travel with him to Las Vegas in order to “manage the fallout.”

turns out Kelly got off the flight to Vegas yesterday to deal with the damage control to the president's fee fees

Oh good, a “calm before the storm”

Gave me chills tbh

TRUMP: "Maybe it's the calm before the storm."
...
REPORTER: "What storm Mr. President?"
TRUMP: "You'll find out." (via Satellite News) pic.twitter.com/bWMzGrDPNa

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 5, 2017

ok enough

where are the cubans and their sonic attacks when we truly need them to make this fucker deaf.

WHAT THE FUCK, FUCK THIS FUCKING FUCK, WHY WON'T HE DIE

Trump doesn't understand healthcare or tax reform or foreign policy, but he definitely understands being called "a fucking moron".

Anyone see the footage of Trump talking suggestively about "the calm before the storm."

Fucking psychopath.

starting to feel like tomorrow might be a big news day

He's going to bomb Puerto Rico

We're in some grand moment of the psychopath in the US. The "Wolf Moon" I call it, when the predators all come out into the open.

I wonder how this came to be? If there's any system, ideology, belief system, that encourages this kind of thing... if only it had a name.

the way he says "the calm before the storm" repeatedly is very Deckeresque

I forget how great an impression that is

He's just trying to unnerve Kim Jong Un and play to his base with that calm before the storm shit. But he has the power to order some heinous stuff in our name, so you can't entirely put it past him. This is what we get for letting so many past presidents order up acts of war a la carte using any convenient justification they find lying about under the sofa cushions.

Yeah I agree that that’s probably why he said that but it’s legitimately dangerous in that threats like that could cause NK to overreact or miscalculate. Kind of aggressively in the opposite of the deterrence that’s needed.

there's like a 95% chance it's just an off-the-cuff remark made so he can wag his little pud around in front of the media

Only 5% chance of nuclear annihilation, sweet

Thus far any Trump "wait and see..." has largely been placeholder boilerplate. He's like a dude who can't hear well who just nods and smiles. It's gonna be ... just you wait ... you'll get your answer in two weeks ... blah blah ...

there's like a 95% chance it's just an off-the-cuff remark made so he can wag his little pud around in front of the media

Exactly. Did you see the I'm-shitting-my-pants-right-now smile he had on while he said it?

Dwelling on the content of every single nonsense thing he says is meaningless, masochistic and exhausting, and it only reinforces Trump's ego.

And yet his flippancy genuinely causes death and distress - it's hard not to care.

After months of taking credit for job growth under Obama's last fiscal year, expect him to blame this on Obama.

US lost 40K private sector jobs in September, breaking record streak

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) October 6, 2017

Oh good, a “calm before the storm”

― stet

is this really what "calm" looks like to the man? good lord. mr. president, i've been listening to wall-to-wall new-age music all year to try and keep my shit together. your turn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrgQwx6rYpM

So anyway, Tillerson out by the end of the day, y'figure?

Tillerson implies Mattis and Mnuchin as well, unless they were full of shit about their pact. That would be pretty stormy but if it's what we THINK will happen, then surely Mr. "We're too predictable" will fire Kelly instead.

Either way, chaos within the administration is the best we can hope for, because it eats up time that would otherwise be spent on fucking over the poor and downtrodden.

gottta admit i'm morbidly curious about the kind of swivel-eyed mutants trump will dig up to replace tillerson/mattis/mnuchin - feels like we're right on the cusp of treasury secretary alex jones or secretary of state jesse ventura

Dilbert guy eagerly waits by the phone

Mnuchin not getting burned by the travel expense thing too?

I wonder if Trump would be willing to resign if someone offered him the cable infotainment outlet he was clearly angling for before he accidentally won the election. Let's Kickstarter this, people.

I mean, like, this 'calm before the storm'-type bullshit is clearly the type of material he would've been using as a pundit and now has to repurpose as a way of casually terrifying the entire world. As with a child, we need to redirect.

allegedly mulling Mike Pompeo for SoS

Bolton or GTFO

BRING THE STACHE

how long till mueller is fired?

I don't know why he doesn't just go ahead and get it over with. People will be all 'THAT SUX, U A CRIMINAL DOOD' on their Twitters for like twelve hours and then he'll make some untoward comment about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's ass and everyone will forget all about the earlier transgression.

And then he'll nuke both Koreas and people will say 'U A BAD MAN!!!1!' and then he'll poop in a mall fountain and people will be all 'U MONSTER, FOUNTAINS ARE WHERE WE MAKE OUR WISHES!1!11!' and most importantly no one will actually do a goddamn thing to prevent Trump the Living Id from reifying whatever fancy enters his diseased mind.

maybe he'll misspell another word on twitter

Swing Left is now targeting Ryan's seat in 2018. A wave election unseating him would be p funny.

Ryan's as vulnerable from the right as Cantor was. The torches-and-pitchforks crowd hates him, presumably for not yet having made black people illegal and gun ownership mandatory.

Does having the R vote split between torches/pitchforks and suit-wearing incrementalists offer an opportunity for a D pickup? I have no idea of the dynamics of his district.

hey, no one predicted Tom Foley losing his seat in '94.

I have no idea how likely it is, his District is gerrymandered as hell BUT he is also hugely unpopular so Dem activists evidently smell blood in the water

The thing about “calm before the storm” that weirded me out is that he said it at a dinner with military commanders. and in the very middle of saying it, while reporters were asking if he was talking about Iran or NK, he muttered something about how great our military is.

how long till mueller is fired?

Ain't happening at this point. Whatever Trump is still venting about in private he's been noticeably more quiet on this front in public over this past couple of months; at some point it's been made clear to him that doing so is the worst possible move.

yes the context and the way he said it made me feel ill. xp

if allegations are true about his involvement with russia prior to and during his candidacy, running for president in the first place was the worst possible move

at some point it's been made clear to him that doing so is the worst possible move

which totally works, because he never does those things

The prospect of being hanged etc.

Meantime:

Nice @KenDilanianNBC / @maddow scoop: Sources close to Steele say he has been in talks w/ the Senate Intel Committee https://t.co/sOH8gBWxko

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) October 6, 2017

#ScumbagInChief Trump uses a Spanish accent to say "#PuertoRico" twice during a #HispanicHeritageMonth event pic.twitter.com/nXhJdhGyNh

— Miss Myrtle (@MissMyrtle2) October 6, 2017

GTFO!!!

he then donned a sombrero

Trump uses a Spanish accent to say "Puerto Rico" twice during a Hispanic Heritage Month event pic.twitter.com/v5qFTiqSjM

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) October 6, 2017

oops. sorry carne asada. oof.

#tacobowl

he is the least racist person you've ever met

I've said as much before, but a screenwriter for a shitty '80s action movie would've been asked to dial it back a notch after submitting a draft featuring a villain as over the top in every single way as Donald Trump.

The villain? Don't you mean the hero??

'Come on, man, this guy isn't believable at all. He's evil in every single way a person can be evil and he doesn't have a single redeeming quality. He doesn't even seem to enjoy being a villain, he's just...depressed and petulant. And what kind of a name is 'Donald'? I know you can do better than this, Jeph.'

Did he think pronouncing it that way was more respectful? Maybe? Or was he really mocking Puerto Ricans while the island is suffering?

Imagine if choose your own adventure books were just normal books but the choosing part is whatever alternate reality you prefer?

Showing (or even emulating) respect towards others has never been a concern of Donald Trump's.

"and get this he always uses the middle initial, always calls himself Donald J. Trump"

"c'mon"

"and his wife looks like this"

"haha"

"she wears stilettos to the hurricane cleanup"

"this is gold"

"IT ALL HAPPENS, MAN!"

"what??"

"...unless you don't answer that phone"

*phone starts ringing*

Reminiscent of G.D. Spradlin's pronunciation of "Corleone" during his meeting with Michael #clemenzaposts

think it's important to remember that he was on the Howard Stern show roughly 800 times

Trump uses a Spanish accent to say "Puerto Rico" twice

he learned this from his daily exposure to NPR

damn you, Mandalit del Barco!

Speaking of 80s action movies, anyone catch this?

Marvel and @northropgrumman join forces! Come check out the #MarvelNYCC booth tomorrow at 3pm EST. pic.twitter.com/pb5V1tj19L

— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) October 6, 2017

https://fffmovieposters.com/wp-content/uploads/59780-1024x809.jpg

(H/t to maura)

(Could also go in the Marvel movies thread, but I wanted a a mention of it here for context)

Love to have our lives threatened daily

Asked to clarify President Trump's "calm before the storm" comment: "We're never going to say in advance what the president is going to do." pic.twitter.com/GaZGclIx27

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 6, 2017

TBF, it is awfully hard to preemptively announce the actions of someone who's entirely reactive.

HuckSan always has a look on her face like she's frustratedly waiting for her son to get out of the bathroom

xpost e.g. That thing yesterday where Trump heard the phrase 'calm before the storm' for the first time and decided to try it out for himself. He had no idea he was going to do that until the words left his mouth. Or that he was going to spend the evening cutting pictures of his daughter out of old issues of Us Weekly.

Yeah, I can never tell if Sanders really has to poop or if she really had to poop and didn't quite make it in time.

HuckSan always has a look on her face like she's frustratedly waiting for her son to get out of the bathroom

― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Friday, October 6, 2017

or waiting at supermarket deli counter for her turn: she's got 41 and the monitor says "Now serving 56"

repeating "calm before the storm" like that was giving me howard hughes vibes. he had no idea what it meant, it just sounded good, he desperately wanted someone to notice him saying it and the reporters were all desperate to be the one to get him to answer "what does that mean?" and of course he didn't have an answer, because it meant nothing.

god all these people are so awful

https://i.imgur.com/1IGDvci.jpg

look at mattis praying

using heat vision to cut into rafter above Trump's head

Must. Control. Pimpslap. Must. Control. Pimpslap.

Hmmm.

ABC News: Robert Mueller's team met behind closed doors today w an unknown group of attorneys & chief judge of US District Court in DC

— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) October 6, 2017

ACLU on it's game

You're going to want to read this thread by our Voting Rights Project Director ⬇ https://t.co/cmNAk14gPq

— ACLU (@ACLU) October 6, 2017

More on that new Mueller thing

MINI-THREAD: What does news that Mueller met with the Chief Judge of the D.C. federal court and a group of attorneys mean? https://t.co/PvI5xMWbXL

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) October 6, 2017

This is absolutely shocking. Only at 2/3 with your own party?

AP Poll: Trump at 67% approval with Republicans https://t.co/fl2T6PKWSm

— Adrian Gray (@adrian_gray) October 6, 2017

Let me know when Republicans start losing seats. Until then ...

i thought we all agreed that he'd never go below like 80% with Rs

and yet

https://i.imgur.com/y7a4SBl.jpg

This is absolutely shocking. Only at 2/3 with your own party?

what prompted this cuz yeah it is p shocking

A lot of Trumpers are "Independents". Self-reported party membership meaningless in this age of preening special-boy vanity, imo.

Definitely a factor.

Let me know when Republicans start losing seats. Until then ...

they are losing seats

(in state legislatures/special elections)

Holy shit is that poll accurate

a socialist won in Mississippi!

I think Gallup's most recent poll shows more GOP support than APs

that 67% is such a precipitous drop it does make me wonder if there's some sampling error there, poll has to be an outlier

Key paragraph in AP article:

Presidential approval remains on a downward trend. Thirty-two percent of Americans say they approve of the way President Trump is handling his job and 67 percent disapprove. His approval rating is down from 42 percent in March and 35 percent in June. While 67 percent of Republicans still approve of the job the president is doing, support among Republicans has decreased significantly since March when 80 percent of Republicans expressed approval. Twenty-eight percent of independents and 5 percent of Democrats say they approve of Trump’s handling of his job. Among Democrats, this also represents a decline since March when 11 percent said they approved.

xposts Can I just... the gall of these ruddy moustachio'd F150 fucks to dare believe that they are capable of independent thought is such a persistent thorn to me. They are by far the most uniform demographic in america

it is kind of an odd drop.

While 67 percent of Republicans still approve of the job the president is doing, support among Republicans has decreased significantly since March when 80 percent of Republicans expressed approval

in contrast, the weekly averages of the gallup approval ratings show that he was also hovering in 80s among republicans back in March, and still currently sits at 80.
(http://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx)

I think Trump's core problem with Republicans is the complete inability of the Republican Congress to pass any kind of substantive legislation. They could forgive all the chaos in the WH and overlook Trump's general incompetence if only there were some offsetting accomplishments to compensate for all the embarrassments. Trump's lack of leadership or focus stands out like a sore thumb. It's wearing the R's down.

Well, Trump isn't helping, that's for sure.

they must be so tired of winning

I also go back to some of the post election interviews. When Trump voters were asked how long they gave him to turn things around they hilariously said 6 months to a year. Feel like a lot of people gave him the benefit of the doubt because he was 'just starting'. We're almost a year in...

coming up to 1/4 of the way through (please, thoughts of 1/8, no, stop, omfg, oof)

reminds me of trying to run a mile on a track when you're really out of shape. as you come out of one of the corners and stare at the long straight stretch leading back to the starting point, you go through a last temptation of christ sort of flashforward/out of body experience, supercut montage of all the terrible moments so far, barfing behind the bleachers, eye contact with a kid in cargo pants who shouldn't be there, and then you realize you have three more fucking laps. NIGHTMARE TIMELINE

barfing behind the bleachers, eye contact with a kid in cargo pants who shouldn't be there,

tell me more

There is apparently an enmity between Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley: https://t.co/VO6PDmgDBC pic.twitter.com/PLonWRVCFi

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) October 6, 2017

no surprise that's attributed to a "senior administration official". the knives have been out for months now.

I am genuinely surprised we haven't had a cabinet resignation yet today.

I think they are all resigned.

"Team of Fxxks" - Doris Kearns Goodwin (c) 2021

That one shot where all those clowns were around the desk glowering that they keep drawing 'X's upon exit would be good to fit in on a cover mockup like the Lincoln book.

Tombot OTM!
I keep checking like, "has someone been fired yet?"

https://www.axios.com/trump-phones-schumer-for-help-on-health-care-miffing-some-in-gop-2493868663.html

lol

Probably the most interesting/worrrying detail in the NYer Tillerson profile.

Explain how the prospect of North Korea having a capability they already possess is worse than a war that would provoke them to use it. pic.twitter.com/6GXN8uwB6o

— John Delury (@JohnDelury) October 7, 2017

Granted, Andrew McCarthy at the National Review, but that's kinda the point -- he's been (understandably) viewing the course of the various investigations re Russia with a somewhat gimlet eye over time, but he is a former federal prosecutor, knows how investigations work, and increasingly he's been more and more openly skeptical of Trump's et al.'s claims that there's nothing there. His latest:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452427/trump-dossier-russia-collusion-investigation

...isn't him going "Yeah it's all real and they colluded" by any means, but he does pretty crisply spell out, for his own audience, a fair amount of what Mariotti and others have noted for theirs: that whatever the mix of info in the dossier, there's enough which clearly justifies further investigation at this point, and that the DOJ and FBI's actions in terms of not providing more on the dossier to the Congressional committees is a clear red flag that at least some of it is true.

doesn't everyone believe, at this point, that everything in it is true with th epossible exception of piss tape?

More convoluted than that.

This story just now, meantime, complements the above in interesting ways:

https://nytimes.com/2017/10/07/us/politics/trump-russia-legal.html?referer=https://t.co/3xBTMgzSfr?amp=1

Trump's lawyers have to be dreaming if they think Mueller is going to make a public statement clearing him, right?

It certainly seems like wishful thinking on Cobb’s part in particular.

Nah. This kind of statement paves the way for framing the lack of an indictment against Trump as an exoneration of all wrongdoing, "just as we said all along".

So you think Mueller would go along with their request?

No. It is well to bear in mind that the NYT story clearly came entirely out of Trump's legal team, so they're saying what they think will most help Trump, not what they actually think or what their real strategy is. The assertion that they are cooperating with Mueller is just as self-serving as the statement they expect a statement clearing Trump. It's all just Trump's lawyers maneuvering for advantage using the NYT as their instrument.

Ok, misunderstood your first response

did he just declare war on NK over Twitter

uh, I'm scared

jfc

I wonder how “sorry, but” translates into all other languages. Tossing in a meaningless “sorry” is a common English trope but it actually makes no sense in many situations

I remain as stunned by all of this as I was when he started winning primaries. It's unreal to me that no one can rein him in.

I guess the goal is to make the North Korea regime fire its nukes since he made it clear we absolutely intend to attack them first?? Ho hum let’s talk about net neutrality or tax reform matters in th face of this or whatever.

I can still occasionally be startled to hear a news reader say "Today, President Trump..." because how could Donald Fucking Trump be president?

Should there be mass anti-war protests on the streets right now? How serious is this?

9 minute before that, he tweeted about his upcoming interview with his press secretary's father. that's sure to be a real hard hitting interview.

Probably X-Post. People seemed more upset when he bombed the empty airfield in Syria for some reason. People were only anti-war during the election I guess.

This tweet only happened several minutes ago

So many things to be Anti- right now...

Although honestly it’s probably just bluster/massively bad intimidation strategy. But again the danger is it makes a North Korean action (that they don’t want to take) out of fear of imminent attack much more likely.

Who the fuck knows if he's serious or not.

he's also, purposefully or not, conditioning everyone to normalize and downplay this shit. like just this thursday night, still recently upthread, when he did his "calm before the storm" bullshit at a meeting of military officials, and it scared the shit out of a lot of people (rightly so), and also prompted a lot of "ah, don't worry. he's just letting some steam off! he's just trumpin' around, no big deal!". it's all totally normal and nbd until it isn't

he's trying to play the good cop/bad cop routine, but without a good cop

This tweet only happened several minutes ago

― Treeship, Saturday, October 7, 201

This isn’t the first time he’s done. People weren’t appropriately upset before then.

it's such an obvious insight that i feel like i'm annoying af to point it out again and again, but it is a persistent pattern in american politics for presidents to turn to foreign affairs as their domestic power dwindles. trump didn't have much sway or interest in the domestic arena in the first place. remember when he implied during the campaign that he'd leave the domestic agenda up to pence and others? but he's still the commander in chief. he still has the power to make fucking terrible decisions that kill many, many people, including some from the US but mainly people from other countries. i can't believe so many people are so blasé about trump and the possibility of him instigating a serious and tragic war, given everything we know about how incredibly dumb and thoughtless he is, his complete lack of empathy, his total empty sense of understanding of world history and his disconnection from what it would actually mean to be in a family that isn't insulated from the entire world by mountains of cash

So tempted to report that tweet.

Twitter should be boycotted. They've banned people for speech that was much less damaging than this.

NK has ICBMs that could hit the United States, but do not (currently) have a *nuclear-tipped* ICBM that is capable of hitting us.

they have a shitload that could hit neighboring companies though which is one reason not to needlessly antagonize them. it's the most irresponsible thing he does as President, is stoke these fires without any real thought behind it.

*countries

Xpost Agreeed. Twitter has some statement about why they didn’t ban him the last time he threatened nuclear war that was total bullshit. It’s 100% the fact that he gets their platform attention.

It's possible he wants to start a nuclear war. He's an adrenaline junkie who needs bigger and bigger fixes.

He such a worthless "oh look what they MADE us do" type of butthole, he'll not stop til something goes off.

he's a real estate asshole from NYC, how could anyone have predicted this

I don't mean to sound crazy -- and I don't really think this is the case -- but does anyone ever fear that this is no longer the real world but hell? This slow, teasing slide toward possible destruction is torturous. If so, I know the things I've done to possibly deserve this but i feel bad for you fine people.

well if it is I couldn't think of a finer bunch of people to liveblog the apocalypse with

If I were about to launch a nuclear first-strike against another country, I'd be certain to telegraph my intention in advance, so as to ensure that it would be as ineffective as possible against high-value military targets, but still would kill millions of civilians.

Reading those tweets on my lunch break in a plaza in downtown SF. It's fleet week here so there are war planes screaming overhead in formation and it's all just too surreal.

I can still occasionally be startled to hear a news reader say "Today, President Trump..." because how could Donald Fucking Trump be president?

― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, October 7, 2017 4:07 PM (

otm -- it happens a couple times a week

we've elected a "hitler finds out..." video as president and every day something reminds me of that

https://i.imgur.com/beWOopd.jpg

I thought that was the tesla guys idea. Or was it that we're an Xbox game?

it's an alduous huxley quote. but also, let's just say it was donald trump's

good god, my anxiety levels are really spiking just about now

NK isnt going to bomb Seoul becuz Trump tweets something. His tweets are the lunatic ravings of a dotard and everyone knows it.

Yr anxiety = trump's intended effect

I am sanguine. We will survive this. I got beer and whisky to drink, chili to cook, a kid to raise, a basement to turn into an atelier, and a day job besides. The lowest day I had this week was when I had to stay home from work and couldn’t really get away from the news.

one day, trump will be gone, and if we haven't already we'll have to face up to the fact that he wasn't the problem. this is why nothing at all the president says or does bothers me - because i believe in my heart that things are going to get much, much worse.

These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood.

a basement to turn into an atelier

well LAAAH DEE DAAAHHH mr fancy

Today, President Luthor...

Vastly unfair to Mr Luthor tbh

true nuff, he usually had a plan

Trump is more like Otis

Yeah c'mon luthor is an actual smart person/scientist

I think living around, and working among, and having been a member of, the armed forces makes me a lot less worried about dumb shit this particular fuckhead says. There are a shitload of people in the hierarchy between POTUS and the actual implementation of ragnarok, and the vast majority of that shitload is composed of remarkably decent people who do not wish death on anyone, much less themselves.

Most Americans don't know a real veteran, much less anybody in the reserves or on active duty. I can tell you, even at my age, with my inactive reserve status long expired, while I still would be a good soldier and go and die for you guys and my family, none of us wants to be any part of a capital-W War. We would much rather continue to hold up penthouse magazine centerfolds in the windows of the DMZ watchtowers and let our fellow riflemen take pictures from across the parallel.

and yeah, because my metier does not provide me an atelier, I gotta DIYier

gonna be an awesome ART SPACE when we're through

and if it wasn't clear, yes I just revealed how the US Army invented porn sharing with the DPRK

I hope you're right, Tomboto. I personally knew a military officer who reveled in killing and torturing people. A night of a red sun of blood would be his dream come true.

Hopefully there aren't many of like him in the forces.

I can figure that through whatever back channels to NK are happening someone is saying, don't worry what he says online, he's a f'ing moron and the the NK guy probably says yeah I can relate in probably some type of coded terms.

that's exactly what the "red phone" is for, in real life. State calls this category of stuff "confidence building measures" (CDM). I suspect the ones we need are still in place.

Of course, if I'm wrong, we're all fucked and this decade is baked manure.

I always figured there was probably a good movie if the right angle could be found about the SALT talks.

Yr anxiety = trump's intended effect

― Οὖτις,

pfffft

just to be clear, that's my lips making that noise, followed by my butt making that noise at the same time, and ending with just my butt making that noise

i am concerned by trump being able to count the nuclear arsenal of the united states as one of his assets for the next 3+ years. remember the recent report by bulletin of the atomic scientists:

The US nuclear forces modernization program has been portrayed to the public as an effort to ensure the reliability and safety of warheads in the US nuclear arsenal, rather than to enhance their military capabilities. In reality, however, that program has implemented revolutionary new technologies that will vastly increase the targeting capability of the US ballistic missile arsenal. This increase in capability is astonishing—boosting the overall killing power of existing US ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three—and it creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.

what do you think someone as stupid as trump would do with information like this? hopefully tomboto is right about the people standing between trump's brainstem and the launch codes. call me crazy, though, but i find little comfort in trusting that an vindictive madman - our president - will be thwarted by a group of people whose motives and abilities i know nothing about.

just ask yourself the sad question: do you think that trump actually understands 1/100th of the likely consequences of a nuclear strike? given everything we know about him? honestly. do you think he gets it? imagine having a conversation with him about it, just you and him, and he describes to you what he thinks would happen if the US launched a nuclear weapon. he is so incredibly fucking stupid about every issue. it doesn't matter that you could understand the basics of it by perusing wikipedia for 20 minutes. he is that dumb. he is ignorantly ignorant. his mind IS rumsfeld's Known Unknown.

we spent half a century freaking the fuck out about nuclear confrontations, and now that most of the people that were around for the last one are dead, we laugh about it even as an insane real estate conman controls the military.

Οὖτις - just cause you play like you've eaten out Diane Feinstein doesn't give license to constantly act so damn sage. Who gets off on knowing the workings of the minds of sociopaths?

It's scary. Brinkmanship is fucking terrifying. It's also really always uncertain.

oὖτις isn't shy; i'm pretty sure he'd have told us had he eaten out dianne feinstein

tbf she's no amy klobuchar

I personally knew a military officer who reveled in killing and torturing people. A night of a red sun of blood would be his dream come true.

Hopefully there aren't many of like him in the forces.

― carpet_kaiser, Saturday, October 7, 2017 10:01 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you met a person, congrats, thank you for your extrapolations

i have known, professionally, literally hundreds of soldiers (both enlisted and commissioned), and only a handful have admitted to revels of killing and torturing (pop: 1)

you continue to be the worst poster

wrt Trump’s awareness of what would happen in a nuclear attack, he said something at that rally in Alabama a couple weeks back re: our missile defense system: “the percentage of success is so very high”.

Just a reminder that a year ago yesterday "Grab 'em by the pussy" became a thing.

Super glad that made such an impact and prevented the election of human excrement to the office of president. Wonder what ever happened to that scumhole after we collectively asserted our unwillingness to entertain such a profoundly regressive and worthless candidate? I assume he's starving to death under a bridge somewhere, since justice is totally a thing that totally exists.

you continue to be the worst poster

and yet and yet

Οὖτις - just cause you play like you've eaten out Diane Feinstein doesn't give license to constantly act so damn sage.

you continue to be the worst poster

― gbx, Sunday, October 8, 2017 2:17 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wow, I'm just talking about my life here. So if I'm the "worst poster" because of it, which is just talking about my own life, then I must have the "worst life", according to you.

That's a pretty messed up sentiment. Nuts to that.

just to be clear, that's my lips making that noise, followed by my butt making that noise at the same time, and ending with just my butt making that noise

― Karl Malone

combo bronx cheer/fart is a good look, but not as classy as the combo sneeze/fart

Most Americans don't know a real veteran, much less anybody in the reserves or on active duty. I can tell you, even at my age, with my inactive reserve status long expired, while I still would be a good soldier and go and die for you guys and my family, none of us wants to be any part of a capital-W War. We would much rather continue to hold up penthouse magazine centerfolds in the windows of the DMZ watchtowers and let our fellow riflemen take pictures from across the parallel.

― El Tomboto

i don't know "most americans", but i have known plenty of "real veterans" in my life, generally to my benefit. i trust y'all. trust you more than i would trust myself in the same situation. the institution that gave the world the acronym TARFU is made for times like these.

at the same time, it's no longer a question of individual virtue, whether or not any person or group of people are "good" or not. the situation continues to deteriorate by the day. in ordinary circumstances, how the military reacts to civilian orders is of paramount importance - the way the military chose to implement JCS 1067, for instance, goes a long way towards validating your argument.

however, if the president orders a nuclear first strike on north korea, there is, by design, nobody in the military, nobody in the _country_, who has the authority to counteract that order. i worry that at some point military troops will have no option left besides open defiance of their commander-in-chief, at which point we are all utterly screwed.

Is it possible that someone in the military is encouraging Trump's brinksmanship? Is he really acting in defiance of the counsel of Mattis and McMaster and if so what should those two do about it?

I know there are military people who think it's important to "take a tough stance," "leave nothing off the table," etc. but surely Trump's recklessness in this case is going beyond that.

Makes sense to me that he is being encouraged, but it is being processed through his garbage brain and coming out wrong. Like a crazy grandpa mishearing some information and conveying it half right in the worst possible way.

They need to take his fucking twitter away.

More and more people are suggesting that Republicans (and me) should be given Equal Time on T.V. when you look at the one-sided coverage?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017

apparently he considers Alec Baldwin's impression 'coverage'

it is, really, very unfair and fake and failing, that you never see trump's words or deeds covered in print or on video.

I'm sure if he keeps angling Lorne could be convinced to bring him back.

They need to take his fucking twitter away.

― Treeship

Trashing Corker, who has already clearly moved into 'yeah, fuck you buddy' territory = not smart.

the latest paper towels quote could've been written by any of us

Trump, as so often, called the media “fake.” And then he, it seemed, took credit for coining the word “fake.”

“I think one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with is ‘fake.’ I guess other people have used it, perhaps, over the years, but I’ve never noticed it,” he said.

that's weird that he didn't notice everyone else constantly referring to fake news directly after the election, when everyone was talking about the actual fake news that was all over facebook and wondering if it had much of an influence on the election. and then a couple days after that he started saying fake news all the time, referring to any news that made him look bad, which was pretty much all news. weird that he didn't notice that. hm

oh my god

the day after the election, nov 9, 2016, everyone was talking about (actual) fake news. like this:

But I’ve come to think that the rise of fake news — and of the cheap-to-run, ideologically driven aggregator sites that are only a few steps up from fake — has weaponized those filter bubbles. There were just too many people voting in this election because they were infuriated by made-up things they read online.

trump didn't mention fake news on twitter until december 10, 2016 (at least according to https://www.axios.com/the-outlets-and-topics-trump-deems-fake-news-2449858042.html)

Goddamn.

It's a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.

— Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) October 8, 2017

wow what an own

I will be amused at claims re fake news on this one.

Senator Bob Corker "begged" me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee. I said "NO" and he dropped out (said he could not win without...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2017

He "begged" him, and Trump said "no". Wink wink.

""""""""""""""""""""""

He's crazy

maybe he'll kill himself

wow, three whole tweets on that one. not even possible war with north korea rated that. this bob corker must be one bad dude.

What percentage of Trump supporters honestly, in their hearts, believe that his account of what happened with Corker?

It's so absurd.

a robot with sunglasses and a cowboy hat named TRUMPISM 5.0 seems very convinced

what is belief anyway?

it's what makes magnets work

Pence left the 49ers game cos Trump told him too if anybody kneeled.

he can have a heart attack too, lil spineless cumstain

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/00/93/6c/00936c7fb5508d4640017d16b811c56a--gods-plan-savior.jpg

Makes sense to me that he is being encouraged, but it is being processed through his garbage brain and coming out wrong. Like a crazy grandpa mishearing some information and conveying it half right in the worst possible way.

― Josh in Chicago,

I think there’s truth to that when considering that there was the LA Times story reporting that he was advised against making it personal w KJU in the UN speech but called an audible, thought he knew better. Also Mattis has always thrown in that war with NK would be “catastrophic” which isn’t what we’d hear during Iraq war lead up rhetoric iirc.

wait a minute i seem to remember the Iraq War being a personal thing. no matter since both sides owned that shit. ah the good old days when the media worked with the president to sell us a war.

would you just

he was advised against making it personal w KJU in the UN speech but called an audible, thought he knew better.

what on earth does this mean

https://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes.com/politics/la-fg-trump-northkorea-20170922-story,amp.html

called an audible

This is jargon from American football, meaning he changed the plan at the last moment.

does the phrase make more sense in that context?

barely, if at all. the point of calling an audible is to alert your teammates to the change while not revealing it to the opposition. it does at least convey the idea that the guy in charge changed plans while standing at the podium.

good thing 89% of Democrats just handed the Trump defense branch even more money than he asked for. im sure they zinged his tweets that day tho

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/senate-pentagon-spending-bill.html

on the topic of good members of the armed forces standing between Trump and the end of the world, this Radiolab story really distressed me. Their conclusion was that essentially there aren't any real checks standing in the way of a president who has decided (for whatever reason, valid or idiotic) to launch nuclear weapons.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/nukes/

Well well well.

As Corker noted, most every GOP senator shares his alarm about Trump.

He just said it on the record & unsparinglyhttps://t.co/0CC6IViawe

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) October 9, 2017

His recklessness threatens WWIII, but "I like him, and wish him no harm." OK, I guess?

It’s touching, the press’s belief in the existence of reasonable Republicans.

how will they program the Trump robot at Disney World?

"Our politicians are stupid. And the Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning. And they send the bad ones over because they don't want to pay for them. They don't want to take care of them. Why should they when the stupid leaders of the United States will do it for them?" *Battle Hymn of the Republic plays*

http://ihorror.com/wp-content/uploads/trump11.jpg

Nobody could have done what I’ve done for #PuertoRico with so little appreciation. So much work! pic.twitter.com/k2jAkIpfjI

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2017

"You try to help these Puerto Ricans and you spend several hours listening to boring people talk at you and then there's all those signatures on the pieces of paper that get thrust at you, and are they grateful? No! They just complain about the lack of food, water and electricity, as if I could be doing any more than I already have! Sucks to be so awesome and no one seems to notice."

fucking hell, speechless. What a self-aggrandizing clueless choad.

kia kaha usa (and all the rest of us as well)

o god

White House confirmed Stephen Miller once jumped into a girls’ track meet to prove men are stronger than women. https://t.co/Zosu192ZFy

— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) October 9, 2017

that entire profile is O_O

i knew miller was a supreme asshole, but many of those anecdotes were new to me. he is like a comic book character, just unbelievably prickish

some anonymous diplomat: “At the beginning,” he said, Trump was “a fascination.” As the months have passed, he said, “all this perplexing noise from Washington, it becomes background noise. And the United States is a bit less important than before.”

this seems like the likeliest outcome of Trump's twitter-as-foreign-policy bullshit. At some point the rest of the world is just going to ignore it.

I assume that's what Corker's trying to signal too, as Foreign Relations chair -- "Just ignore him guys, we're not really going to nuke you."

Really enjoyed a round of golf with President @realDonaldTrump today.

President Trump shot a 73 in windy and wet conditions!

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 9, 2017

i can only assume they were playing nine holes

That course is a par-72. The Senior PGA was held there this year. Look at the scores of the world's top seniors https://t.co/BLQPH4K7rx pic.twitter.com/JTQSgZGaHr

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 9, 2017

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLufjIDUMAA6NQJ.jpg:small

Wow, Don you're REALLY GOOD at golf!! You should totally ditch this lame day job and join the senior tour!

does graham play a lot of golf? maybe he doesn't realize that you don't really call it a 73 when someone uses 54 mulligans

Huckleberry Butchmeup is better at pontificating.

According to the Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll, the Republican president's popularity is eroding in small towns and rural communities where 15 percent of the country's population lives. The poll of more than 15,000 adults in "non-metro" areas shows that they are now as likely to disapprove of Trump as they are to approve of him.

In September, 47 percent of people in non-metro areas approved of Trump while 47 percent disapproved. That is down from Trump's first four weeks in office, when 55 percent said they approved of the president while 39 percent disapproved.

The poll found that Trump has lost support in rural areas among men, whites and people who never went to college. He lost support with rural Republicans and rural voters who supported him on Election Day.

And while Trump still gets relatively high marks in the poll for his handling of the economy and national security, rural Americans are increasingly unhappy with Trump's record on immigration, a central part of his presidential campaign.

Forty-seven percent of rural Americans said in September they approved of the president's handling of immigration, down from 56 percent during his first month in office.

Poll respondents who were interviewed by Reuters gave different reasons for their dissatisfaction with the president on immigration.

A few said they are tired of waiting for Trump to make good on his promise to build a wall along America's southern border, while others said they were uncomfortable with his administration's efforts to restrict travel into the United States.

"There should be some sort of compromise between a free flow of people over the border and something that's more controlled," said Drew Carlson, 19, of Warrensburg, Missouri, who took the poll.

But Trump's "constant fixation on deportation is a little bit unsettling to me."

The Trump administration would not comment about the Reuters/Ipsos poll. (For a graphic depicting poll results, see: http://tmsnrt.rs/2yuVIun)

To be sure, Trump is still much more popular in rural America than he is elsewhere.

Since he took office, "I like him less, but I support him more," said Robert Cody, 87, a retired chemical engineer from Bartlesville, Oklahoma who took the poll.

He'll cruise to reelection.

quiet, you

Feinstein running again next year, wd be 91 at the end of term

for the love of God, California, primary her

oh I think that is definitely going to happen, hopefully from De Leon. And the top two vote-getters from the primaries end up on the final ballot (regardless of party) so the odds are it's going to be Feinstein vs. another Dem for the actual vote.

imo two-scoops is still okay, "drumpf" was never funny and now is like a terrifying instant return to those days when he could never win the election and so I hate it even more than before