The story about Ivanka Trump prevailing upon her father to bomb Syria because she was distressed about coverage of the recent chemical weapons attack in Syria has been bubbling up in comments all day, thanks in part to the efforts of valued commenter rikyrah, but it deserves its own post. I have two default assumptions about this and every other story involving quotes from anyone named Trump: 1) The Trumps are lying, and 2) They’re bad at their jobs.
The Trump people have run a ham-handed (though revoltingly successful) media strategy trying to position Ivanka and Jared as a moderating and humanizing influences on the shitgibbon since Day One. My guess is this story is of a piece with that effort, and maybe specifically to push back on the alarm from the Bannonite faction that Trump might distinguish between good and bad Muslims.
According the Eric “Qusay” Trump (the one with the most acute case of “resting sociopath face”), the shitgibbon decided to bomb Syria at the behest of knockoff handbag-and-shoe peddler Ivanka — note that in the article from which the story orginates, that appears to be pure speculation on the part of Qusay. Moreover, Qusay says the bombing totally proves Trump isn’t Putin’s poodle:
Choice excerpts of Qusay’s comments via The Telegraph:
“…Trump pledged to improve relations with Mr Putin during his campaign for the White House but his new administration has been plagued with allegations of close entanglements with Russian officials.
Eric Trump said his father was merely arguing that the US should try to be “best friends with other superpowers” if that was possible and described allegations of links with the Russian regime as “ridiculous”.
He said: “If there was anything that Syria did, it was to validate the fact that there is no Russia tie…”
He added: “Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence. I’m sure she said ‘listen, this is horrible stuff.’ My father will act in times like that.
“And by the way, he was anti doing anything with Syria two years ago. Then a leader gasses their own people, women and children, at some point America is the global leader and the world’s superpower has to come forward and act and they did with a lot of support of our allies and I think that’s a great thing.”
Mr Trump rejected claims his father had acted impulsively after seeing the images, saying the President was “a great thinker, practical not impulsive.” He added: “I’m proud he took that action and believe me he thinks things through.”
It’s a load of incoherent horseshit, sprinkled with unconvincing personal qualifiers, proving that Qusay is a chip off the old block. But if you believe, as I do, that it’s very likely a badly crafted raft of lies, an interesting set of possible objectives emerges. First, they’re trying to have it both ways by framing the shitgibbon-ordered bombing as a tough guy move and also a humanitarian action.
And second, they’re trying to act like the shitgibbon is standing up to Russia, which he isn’t and never will. As many folks speculated shortly after the bombing, the most likely outcome is that Trump will “negotiate” a deal that lifts the sanctions on Russia in exchange for reduced patronage for Assad. That “Shart of the Deal” outcome would be a huge win for Putin, Exxon and Trump. And that was always the aim.
Mnemosyne
I want all the people who whined that they couldn’t possibly vote for Hillary because they hated the idea of a “political dynasty” just that much to bend over so I can give them the kick in ass they so richly deserve. Assholes.
syphonblue
So….he doesn’t warn the US people. Doesn’t warn the US Congress. Doesn’t warn anybody in the United States of America.
He warns Putin, though.
But there’s no Russia tie.
Who buys this shit?
Mike G
Trump is a quisling whose administration has more Russian connections than Aeroflot.
D58826
At this point all I can say about the entire thing is a very very very deep sigh!!
David Evans
He warns Putin in order to avoid killing Russians. Which is a good thing.
zach
More important Syria story today: http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-accuses-russia-cover-syrian-chemical-weapons-attack/
This is how a war with Russia starts. The only things disclosed at the briefing, apparently, are that Russia’s using it’s propaganda apparatus to promote its version of the story (duh? how’s that different from inviting the Daily Caller to this briefing) and that intelligence community assessments are consistent with Syrian military responsibility (which plays right into Russian propaganda that we learned not to trust US intel assessments used to justify war in 2003).
If we have real evidence of Syrian military responsibility for a sarin gas attack, have Haley present it to the UN in open session yesterday.
schrodingers_cat
Ivanka should stick to designing shoes and clothes. BTW can you guys imagine if Dem President had a daughter with such an obviously Russki sounding name.
ETA: Is Ivana T, originally from Russia? Nah, she is Czech.
syphonblue
@David Evans: It’s not a problem with him warning Putin. It’s a problem with him warning ONLY Putin.
zach
Also worth noting re: Eric Trump, allowing him to lobby the government for war is one aspect of why letting the Trump kids run the Trump business to isolate it from Donald is a joke… if that weren’t self evident even if they were vaguely disciplined about it.
Gretchen
@syphonblue: Exactly. The whole thing was probably Putin’s idea to make the Russia story go away.
And why do the kids always refer to Trump as “my father”? Does he make them call him Mr. Trump in private?
MattF
One can attempt to parse what a Trump is saying– e.g., say, “What could that possibly mean?”. But it’s pointless. There is simply no relationship between the words and whatever concrete objects a dictionary may say that the words relate to. Words are used to confuse and disorient a listener– a minute later, different words with different meanings could be used. Something could be actually happening, but the function of the words is only to take up space in your head.
zach
@schrodingers_cat:
There’s already a million-item-long list of things Trump’s done that would’ve been fodder for decades-long conspiracy theories and congressional inquiries had it been Obama. Most obvious for me is Ivanka’s kids serenading Xi Jinping in Chinese… imagine if that were Sasha/Malia.
Corner Stone
@zach: “Free Beacon” ? Hard pass.
zach
@Corner Stone: Also Daily Caller story on the briefing dropped at the same time; same background briefing. Either it’s only conservative outlets or others taking time to verify and try and get folks on the record (LOL journalism).
Pretty rich to have an on-background meeting using RT/Sputnik stories as evidence of Russian complicity where you only invite wingnut media…
Edit: Also today’s briefing comes after yesterday’s briefings to a wider range of media (also on background) claiming Russia had drones over the site before the attack… w/ lots of articles jumping to the conclusion that this mean Russia knew in advance that there’d be a chemical attack
hovercraft
From the morning thread
So the beltway and older women and men in general are the target, then yes she’s been successful, the rest of us not so much.
Plus her ratings along with Melania’s are low for the First Women of the US.
Another Scott
@zach:
Who talks like that?
“found to be working with Syrian regime military” – what does that mean? Why the weird construction?
“Found”, by whom (US intelligence? DAESH? Someone else?)? Can we trust that what they “found” was accurate?
Were they working on the aircraft that bombed/rocketed the town with Sarin? Were they working on the munitions? Is there some other Syrian military that isn’t Syrian regime military?
They want us to think that “Russian forces” were working on the plane that dropped the gas, but they don’t say that. Why?
If they were, and they have evidence, then they should say so. Or say why they’re not saying so.
Reporting like that stinks.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Arclite
Best friends???! WTF, is this an episode of 90120 International?
“Hey Russia, wanna be besties?”
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
She sucks at that too, her clothes and shoes are awful, the one thing she had going for her was her celebrity, now for most of her demographic targets, her name is shit.
Corner Stone
Why do I hear, “Shart of the Deal!” being sung at me in loud volumes by an 80’s Hair Band as the open for a really bad game show?
Don’t turn your back
Never know what they can steeeeaalll
Guess wrong spotlight fades to black
That’s the Shart of the Deeealll!!
Shart of the Deal!
Lizzy L
From the NYT just now:
D58826
@zach:
Actually I’m not sure that is something to be all that upset about. If that was the ONLY thing
The Moar You Know
The office Trump tool tried to hit me with “see, Trump isn’t Putin’s bitch”. I just laughed. I told her nobody believed that, including her, but nice try. She just bowed her head and left. They know he’s a total failure. Sad, as some nobody said once.
These people are an embarrassment to truly bad people everywhere. They are so fucking bad at being supervillains that if you wrote this all as fiction, everyone would accuse you of an utter lack of imagination. If you wrote it as comedy, that might work.
zach
@D58826:
I think it’s adorable. But if it Sasha and Malia Obama did the same thing it’d be drug up as evidence of Obama as literal Manchurian candidate every time China was in the news on Infowars or whatever.
Quinerly
A very, very testy Spicer today. Of course, he had throw out Susan Rice’s name. Red meat for whatever base they have left. Love to vilify Susan Rice. Bonus Spicer! “even Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons.”
hovercraft
@Arclite:
The entire purpose of Twitlers presidency is to say, look at me everyone, I’m the smartest, most powerful man in the world, the most popular and the smartest, everyone loves me, and they all want to be my BFF.
The world was supposed to be bowled over by his smarts and charm, and fall at his feet to give him everything he wants. Turns out no one’s as impressed as he expected them to be. SAD!
Thoroughly Pizzled
@The Moar You Know: Perhaps this is what Mel Brooks has been working on lately.
Librarian
“Other superpowers”? How many superpowers are there?
ruemara
@The Moar You Know: I think this is a Seth Rogin script.
@Librarian: There’s flight, telekinesis, teleportation, telepathy, super strength, invulnerability… quite a few, actually.
Quinerly
Spicer more and more incoherent in these press briefings. Only caught part of it today…this Hitler comparison is so bizarre…”even Hitler didn’t use chemical warfare.” WTF? Does he know ANYTHING?
Marcopolo
Anyone else watching when Spicey just said “even Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons on his people” to point out how bad Assad was? Wow!
And yes, the reporter he was talking to did mention to Spicey he’d just stepped in it big time.
Just saw Quinerly beat me by a few secs :)
hovercraft
Donald Trump and Paul Ryan are the problem — a staff shake-up won’t fix anything
It’s not Steve Bannon’s fault the GOP’s policy agenda is incoherent.
Updated by Matthew Yglesias@[email protected] Apr 11, 2017, 8:10am EDT
The Trump administration knows it hasn’t gotten off to a very impressive start, with Shane Goldmacher reporting that officials are increasingly panicked about a likely impending wave of stories about a first 100 days devoid of major achievements and Maggie Haberman reporting that “some form of overall review” is in the works that could be used to generate a shake-up.
Meanwhile, tensions between chief strategist Steve Bannon and the rising star of chief son-in-law Jared Kushner have been openly aired in multiple media outlets. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, too, has been on thin ice since the beginning of the administration and appears to be taking blame, in particular, for the dismal fate of Trump’s health care efforts where his relationships on Capitol Hill were supposed to be crucial.
Kushner is a political neophyte, but he previously orchestrated the ousters of Corey Lewandowksi, Paul Manafort, and Chris Christie from their places near the top of the Trumpworld pyramid. He also appears to have been instrumental in bringing people with subject matter knowledge but no personal ties to Trump into the fold. Still, the fundamental issue with any new staff shake-up will remain exactly the same as with previous staff shake-ups — Trump is the real problem, and he isn’t going to fire himself in favor of someone well-suited to being president.
What’s more, beyond Trump’s personal failings, there’s genuinely little reason to believe that the GOP’s current legislative struggles have anything to do with the White House. Long before Trump came on the scene, conservative ideologues on Capitol Hill constructed a set of alternative facts about repealing the Affordable Care Act that served as a useful electioneering strategy but simply don’t work as a governing agenda.
The chaos in the Trump White House is a symptom of Trump’s presence in the Oval Office, not bad staffing. And his ability to secure the GOP nomination in the first place is a symptom of the larger rot in the conservative movement. A staff shake-up can’t fix this because it fundamentally can’t be fixed…….
The constant staff merry-go-round reflects the fact that Trump himself is bad at his job. He is impulsive, uninformed, and while often disengaged from the details of things, he’s also unwilling to relinquish control and delegate authority in a clear way.
Paul Ryan made a hash of the GOP legislative agenda
But the most fundamental problem with the Republican Party legislative agenda has very little to do with Trump…….
It’s hard to make progress on a bait and switch
This bait-and-switch agenda is reasonably clever if you accept the key premise that Republicans must find some kind of way to advance an unpopular tax-cutting agenda. But it’s objectively difficult to pull off because inability to communicate honestly about what you’re doing undermines internal communication, and because the practical consequences of enacting an agenda that delivers the opposite of what was promised are inherently problematic.
To the extent that Trump has anything to do with these problems, it’s that the intellectual and ideological shambles of modern conservatism made the Republican Party primary process more vulnerable to takeover by a mountebank like Trump than it should have been. But the shambles itself long predates Trump, and fixing it would require something much bigger than a staff shake-up.
House Speaker Paul Ryan constructed an ambitious yet rickety framework that has proven unable to withstand contact with reality. The plan was to:
* Rapidly repeal the Affordable Care Act through the budget reconciliation process, while promising an unspecified replacement down the road
* Move on quickly to tax reform, also using the budget reconciliation process, taking advantage of the fact that ACA repeal constitutes a large tax cut to do a revenue-neutral reform
* Shift to the longer-term project of scaling back all federal support for low-income families
catclub
@Quinerly:
1. How do you describe Zyklon B?
2. Standard military understanding is you don’t use chemical weapons against someone who can use them back on you. So helpless civilians are the usual targets. Competent opposing armies, not so much.
Splitting Image
@hovercraft:
Funny how a woman who is virtually indistinguishable from any of the women on Fox News appeals to the Fox News demographic… and nobody else.
Raoul
In October, I visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin, and a couple days ago visited Omaha Beach and the American Normandy Cemetery.
Today Sean Spicer, our U.S. Press Secretary, denied on camera, even while being pressed on the question, that Hitler used gas on his own people while talking about the Assad regime. This sears the conscience and should shock us all.
Few holocaust survivors remain, and many of our D-Day and WWII vets are passing on.
The forgetting — or willful denial — of history, catastrophe and global wars of liberation may well doom us to horrible repetitions.
I do not assent to this. None of us should!!
zach
@Lizzy L:
Everyone should read the declassified report and decide for themselves if that’s sufficient evidence to justify going to war over.
FWIW, it’s not an intelligence assessment. It’s a political document.
That’s not evidence, and it’s eerily reminiscent of rhetoric that ramped up this time 15 years ago…
catclub
@hovercraft:
understatement of the year entry.
hovercraft
Oh look another con artist, the ever so moderate Susan Collins who always votes with the Turtle anyway after pretending she won’t. Sadly she’d probably win.
LISTEN: Sen. Susan Collins Mulling A Run For Maine Governor In 2018
Frankensteinbeck
Deleted, because while I still have confidence in the general message, I am not sure I’m right on all details.
zach
@Quinerly:
Jesus, the Trump administration isn’t even competent enough to gin up a war without stepping in it.
Quinerly
@Raoul:
Nice summary. Thanks for being more coherent than I was in my two posts from my phone. I’m appalled by Spicer’s comments. The world should be. Walked in from yard work and only caught the tale end. Couldn’t believe what I actually heard with my own ears.
catclub
@zach:
yep.
also this is not true at all:
There is no evidence that using chemical weapons on defenseless civilians leads to their use on extremely capable USA. Iraq used them on the Kurd, but not on the US ( neither 1990, nor 2003).
Chris
@catclub:
Jesus fucking Christ. They just can’t stop digging.
D58826
@zach:
Oh that is true enough.
And it was a bit of a pitch for Americans to learn a second language
hovercraft
@Quinerly:
No.
Sorry I take that back, he knows how to lie, not well or convincingly, but he can lie very rapidly.
Ajabu
@Mike G:
Nice turn of phrase, Mike. Kudos!
?eric
so gas showers are not chemical weapons? Happy Passover!
Adam L Silverman
The story of Ivanka convincing her father to do something actually originated in the Sunday Times on 9 April. That reporting, subsequently followed up on by the Independent later on the 9th, indicates that Britain’s Ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, notified the Prime Minister that US action was forthcoming and that it was the result of Ivanka intervening with her father.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/first-shock-then-trumps-war-lz7d65w07
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ivanka-trump-donald-bomb-air-strikes-sir-kim-darroch-syria-chemical-attack-sarin-idlib-province-a7674951.html
Raoul
@Quinerly: I hang on to shreds of hope because at both sites, many people were visiting. Most were not Americans, which I guess isn’t that surprising given the long distance travel (and being low or at best ‘shoulder’ season for ex-US travel when I visited each). But a lot of people still seem to want to have some connection to or grasping of history, even if our political leaders have moved into full on Orwell territory.
“Never forget” wasn’t just a goddamed slogan, folks. Our French and German and other global citizens are still doing the work to remember. We have to do a whole lot better.
hovercraft
@Chris:
It’s all they have, what else is he going to do, go out and stand there for 45 minutes without saying anything? Then again, that’s basically what he does now, but at least he gives the fact checkers something to do.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
ITYM ripping off other designers.
zach
@Frankensteinbeck:
Counterpoints: (1) The bombing set the precedent that Trump will act more severely and even sooner before the evidence is in when it comes to unilateral retaliation after a claimed chemical attack. (2) Trump’s debt to Putin will be honored just as much as his debt to everyone else. In an era where you can claim that literally any type of evidence is fabricated with some credibility, Trump will be damaged but not destroyed by anything that can be dropped unless there’s some sealed, legal record of it (tax returns, etc) or he’s stupid enough to lie about some relevant, verifiable fact.
TenguPhule
The Laws of Family Trump.
1, They’re always lying.
2. They’re always guilty of any crime they accuse others of.
3. Given a choice of options, they will inevitably pick the one with the worst consequences for everyone else.
4. They will steal anything that isn’t nailed down. And if they can convince a person in authority that the nails actually belong to them, it isn’t nailed down.
D58826
@catclub: And we dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan. I don’t think the nuclear threshold has gotten any lower.
The Moar You Know
@catclub: Steve Bannon’s “rap name”, obviously.
Adam L Silverman
@Marcopolo: This is what happens when all the Jewish American White House staffers are on paid time off for Passover…
TenguPhule
@Quinerly:
Whitewashes Nazis and we have always been at war with Oceania. A twofer!
?eric
@Adam L Silverman: is Kushner paid?
TenguPhule
@zach:
By warning his targets ahead of time so they can move all the important stuff and thus end up wasting millions in armaments on empty real estate.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Ivanka is the diminutive/affectionate form of Ivana, a Czech name. Russian only has Ivan as a man’s name. This isn’t a Russian name at all.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: Are there any of them actually left? Any self-respecting Jew with the survival instincts of a mouse should have found a safer workplace by now.
David Evans
@syphonblue: True, but there was no urgency about warning the American public, they weren’t going to be endangered.
azlib
@catclub:
I am sure the Hitler reference did not sit well with Jared for obvious reasons.
Adam L Silverman
@zach: That is no way, shape, or form an unclassified Intel Community report. This is what a declassified Intel report looks like:
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
Richard Shindledecker
Glad to see the Qusay and Uday meme taking hold. let’s crown their sister Princess incest.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh how quaint, you still think “facts” would have made a difference. You should know by now that “alternative facts” are deployed whenever necessary, and Jared will just wave it side, of course no offense was intended or taken.
zhena gogolia
@David Evans:
The State Department? Our actual allies?
Richard Shindledecker
And their step mom the Queen of implants.
zhena gogolia
@David Evans:
Вы живете в Петербурге или в Москве?
Adam L Silverman
@?eric: Nope, he and Ivanka are unpaid. So in their case unpaid leave. Or just Tuesday.
Marcopolo
@Adam L Silverman: actually, even if one had been watching from the row of staff chairs against the wall to the right of Spicey, they wouldn’t have been able to stop him. Being inarticulate and stepping in it are Spicey’s superpowers! Unless you’re implying that the hitler line was gamed out ahead of time and not off the top of his head–which would make it all that much worse.
hovercraft
@?eric:
So far only by the Chinese, though to be fair, they pulled back on that, the glare of sunlight was a little too harsh, but don’t worry he’ll get his payday.
Frankensteinbeck
@David Evans:
He already has the American public’s checkbook, and every event/weekend at a Trump property is him writing a large check to his own bank account. There’s still a lot of money to be made from Russia and China.
Corner Stone
@?eric: In silver pieces.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule:
zach
@Adam L Silverman: Tell me about it… but here’s the sub-headline from the New York Times: “The White House released a declassified four-page report that details United States intelligence on the chemical weapons attack.”
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: I didn’t think that needed sarc tags, but apparently it did.
Chris
@hovercraft:
How hard is it not to say “Hitler didn’t gas people?”
How hard is it to find almost anything to say that’s not that?
In fact, how hard can it possibly be to sell the Syrian intervention by invoking Hitler, without sounding like you’re complimenting Hitler? It’s easy: “Assad gassed his own people! That’s terrible! Only people like Hitler and Saddam do that!” As opposed to “Hitler didn’t do that?”
For God’s sake, comparing people you don’t like to Nazis has been a staple of every political argument since 1945. How do you fuck that up?
Adam L Silverman
@Marcopolo: I was being a smartass. I have no idea if it was a prepositioned talking point.
Adam L Silverman
@zach: Interestingly the CIA FOIA reading room is offline.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
You found a better picture, someone posted a pic in one of the earlier threads where they all looked like they were waiting to see the dentist. Still find it curios that Twitler, Ivanka and Jared didn’t attend.
Percysowner
Spice clarified his Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons statement
Translation: The people in the concentrations camps weren’t actual GERMANS, they were “other” or maybe not even people, but certainly not his own people.
Marcopolo
@Adam L Silverman: And line that comes to mind is “it would be imprudent not to speculate.”
But the timing of this thought-turd and Passover: really you can’t make this shite up.
Chris
@hovercraft:
A comment about this retweeted by an Israeli blogger I like:
“You don’t invite Pharaoh to Seder.”
Marcopolo
@hovercraft: I suppose there wasn’t anyone there from whom they thought they could make a buck.
liberal
@catclub: I heard Matthew Meselson give a talk at MIT decades ago in which he claimed chemical weapons, pound for pound, weren’t more effective than high explosive.
Now, perhaps that’s assuming the targets are wearing CW gear, but I don’t remember that caveat.
Thus, the main reason not to use it against an opposing army is that it’s not all that effective. And assuming there wasn’t that caveat, the main reason to use them against a civilian population would be as a terror weapon, not based on any calculus regarding efficacy. (I suppose the calculus might change if they’re used in an enclosed space.)
Gregg Easterbrook, who in general is horrible, did have a really good essay claiming that the only true WMD are nukes. Though I’d amend that to include any biological weapons where the agent is capable of secondary spread past initial victims.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
I guess I’m the one who needs to use //, I never do though, you should all know by now that I love to snark when I’m not raging.
TenguPhule
@Chris:
By being Nazi-supporters. Hence, the desire to whitewash their heroes, who’s only crime was to lose the war.
zach
@TenguPhule:
Allowing us to claim that we were acting responsibly to the international community but setting the precedent for escalation… anti-Assad forces in Syria possess and use chemical weapons; they don’t all like each other… you don’t have to believe in suicidal false flag conspiracies to see what comes next… another Tomahawk strike in response to the next alleged or real attack, this time without warning, probably taking out anti-aircraft/radar with the excuse that we can’t attack chemical weapons facilities and want to enforce a no-fly zone… probably with some dead Russians in the aftermath.
Who knows, maybe this is all a conspiracy to establish a phony anti-Putin credibility for Trump… if it is, literally everyone who’s been demanding we invade Syria since before the 2013 attack has been fooled into thinking they’re running the show now. Alternatively, Trump’s decided he didn’t need Putin anymore, dropped or demoted most of the Kremlin-backing people in the White House, and sees GW Bush’s 2001-2004 run to reelection as a good template to follow.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: None of those people appear to have any survival instincts at all. Nobody is going to miss them.
p.a.
@Adam L Silverman: was Bannon behind the camera? Might explain the nervous smiles…
TenguPhule
@zach:
Hah hah no. Trump is always going to inform Russia first. Because Putin has Trumps little balls in the palm of his hand and he has itchy fingers.
hovercraft
The Daily Show’s Hasan Minhaj will host this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner
The comedian, a first-generation Indian American and Muslim, is a particularly smart and pointed choice.
Donald Trump has said he won’t be attending this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, but there will still be a comedian at the podium cracking jokes about him — and a perfectly fitting one, at that.
Fewer than three weeks before the April 29 event, the White House Correspondents’ Association, which puts on the annual event, has finally announced a host: The Daily Show’s Hasan Minhaj. This is somewhat surprising, if only because it hasn’t been clear whether the dinner would have a host at all, or what the dinner itself will even be.
The president and his staff are skipping the dinner for the first time in decades. (Or, as some have labeled their decision, “boycotting,” given the Trump administration’s antagonistic relationship with the press.) Some media outlets, including the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, have canceled or pulled out of the parties they usually sponsor in conjunction with the dinner. Comedians like James Corden have reportedly passed on the chance to host, even though past hosts have often confronted presidents they didn’t agree with. (See: Stephen Colbert roasting George W. Bush in 2006.)
Comedian and Full Frontal host Samantha Bee is even throwing an alternative dinner in Washington, DC, on the same night, to celebrate the free press “while we still can.”
marcopolo
On a lighter note, I have no idea how to link a tweet but I just saw Rahm Emanuel get booed by the crowd at the dedication of a Chicago street to Javy Baez. It was delicious!
Will see if this works:https://twitter.com/paschutz/status/851837938006732800
p.a.
Shorter Spicer: “let me try a different shovel in this hole I’m digging.”
zach
@TenguPhule:
You don’t need to posit Putin having the goods on Trump what’s played out to make sense.
For Putin, Trump was a no-brainer. Hillary meant sure escalation in Syria, push for global action on climate change, support for things Russian opposes in Eastern Europe, and a more competent foe if push ever did come to shove. For Trump, all he had to do was look the other way for a few months and he got hundreds of millions worth of free underground advertising out of it that couldn’t be tied to him.
Adam L Silverman
@Chris: He wouldn’t eat the food.
My guess is the Kushner’s either had family to their rental home in DC or went to the family seder at the family home in NJ.
rikyrah
I was heartened by the piece in The Hill, saying that younger women had Ivanka’s number. That she’s as phony as a $3 bill, and that the youth can see through it.
Three cheers to our poster Kay, who nails this unqualified piece of garbage to the wall everytime she posts about her.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
The picture looks pitiful. From the chairs, to the place settings, it looked like absolute utter trash.
Aleta
The Trumps plant fake stories and the media obliges them.
Betty Cracker
@zach: Would a video of Trump shagging Russian hookers be damaging in the context of his weirdly consistent deference to Putin, his campaign manager’s sole pro-Russian change to the party platform, etc.? Yeah, even in this cynical and polarized age, that would be a big fucking deal. A lesser but still pretty big deal would be a revelation that Trump is up to his oddly untanned eyelids in hock to Russian mobsters.
That said, I do worry about Trump getting a war-jones because he is a narcissist who thrives on attention and lording it over other big shots, and what focuses more ego-affirming attention on a president than running a war? But this dust-up with Putin is almost certainly kabuki to justify a coming capitulation on sanctions, IMO. It bears watching any time a Republican rattles sabers, but honestly, I’m more concerned about what that idiot might do in Korea.
Adam L Silverman
@liberal: The problem with chemical and biological weapons is that if even the smallest thing goes wrong – the wind shifts – you can wind up hitting your own troops instead of the enemy/intended target.
Adam L Silverman
@marcopolo:
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: I’m pretty sure the place settings are the fancy looking plastic plates and flatware. The White House kitchen isn’t kosher so they most likely had the event catered.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
It’s most certainly kabuki, but I don’t even think any justification is needed other than “I had to drop bombs because it makes me look decisive, presidential, and manly.”
Miss Bianca
“Best friends with other superpowers”? BEST FRIENDS?? Jesus Chicken-Fried Christ, is this guy supposed to be the leader of the fucking Free World, or is he a middle-school tween talking about whom to invite to a My Little Pony sleepover?
ETA: Or what Arclite said.
zach
@Betty Cracker:
He’ll use the R. Kelly ‘ghost sex defense‘; don’t you think Trump supporters are more easily swayed by conspiracy theories than a Cook County jury? Hell, if Russian intel leaked a sex tape of the highest quality I wouldn’t believe it wasn’t doctored unless there was a lot of corroborating evidence…
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: It is not so much what he will do, as what will the other side of this unbalanced on both sides, equation, do in response. There is no actual strategy here, just impulse. Last week’s attack on Syria has confirmed to the DPRK leadership and Kim Jong Un that building a nuclear deterrent is a rational thing to do. But that may be the only thing that Kim and the DPRK leadership does that those outside the DPRK context would recognize as rational. As a result the normal projection of force that sending a carrier group demonstrates is predicated on the people on the receiving end of the message actually being connected enough to our context to receive the message we’re sending. I’m not sure that’s the case. And if it is not, then the Carl Vinson is a very large target.
Corner Stone
Hey Adam,
Not to drag you down, but it looks like the John Schindler/Louise Mensch faction is trying to bag on Malcolm Nance. Any thoughts?
MomSense
@hovercraft:
It’s probably the only way we will ever get her out of the Senate. Fuck.
MomSense
@Corner Stone:
I think Mensch is a bit nuts. She accused BLM and Ferguson protests of being a Russian op.
Corner Stone
@MomSense: She’s not a “bit” nuts. She is full on fucking crazeballs.
Betty Cracker
@zach: Not gonna touch that link with a 10-foot mouse, but the point isn’t to sway Trump’s supporters, who are morons capable of disbelieving their lying eyes if Trump shagged their own wives and daughters right in front of them. I’m talking about reasonable people, who would certainly be suspicious of anything from Russian intel, but in the context of Trump’s history of fanboi squeeing over Putin, etc., would probably believe a tape that was verified as authentic by experts in the US, etc. Especially since Trump is well-established as a sleazy prick around women. It would be damaging, IMO. (Of course, I thought the “Access Hollywood” tape was a fatal blow to his campaign, so what do I know?)
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: She also thinks Putin assassinated Andrew Breitbart. Like Corner said, crazeballs.
Bill Arnold
Agreed with many here that the the Ivanka/Eric Trump stories in the original post feel transparently crafted for effect. If anything they boost the credibility of the (scary) conspiracy theories currently circulating alleging, roughly, that Russia orchestrated the attack to a) make D Trump more “Presidential” and b) to bolster spurious arguments like E Trump’s that the Russians can’t possibly be supporting Trump if they support Assad.
liberal
@Corner Stone: Yeppers.
liberal
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, there’s that, too, I guess.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: It has been going on for weeks. There appears to be two components. The first is that Mensch is claiming that Jamali wasn’t really a double agent for the US against Russia, but rather was actually a Russian Intel plant that duped the US during a CI investigation. The bridge to Nance is that Jamali is now his protege and Nance, who is one of the NBC/MSNBC national security advisors (though they’ve recently not been referring to him this way), got Jamali a paid contributor position with MSNBC. Another component of this seems to be that Schindler, who was an officer in the US Navy has an issue with Nance based on the latter being a senior Navy non-commissioned officer. So you’ve got an officer/NCO issue. Honestly, I’ve read through all of the various tweets and I really can’t tell what is really being alleged, beyond some issues Schindler is raising about what Nance really did as Navy Intelligence and therefore that he may not have the counterintel experience he claims to have. I think it’s a sideshow and ultimately unimportant.
I’ve dealt with subject matter experts that actually are complete frauds – as in claiming credentials they don’t have, like doctorates. Got one fired – took two years. Another I was unable to dig out because he’s backed by an SES who is covering his own ass because he hired him, so if the fraud goes, people will ask uncomfortable questions. I’ve had deconflicted other bogus SMEs who were just nuts and/or didn’t actually have the expertise they claimed. I’ve had a run in with Seb Gorka via email about a year ago. When I sent him my full, updated CV he broke contact. He actually has the credentials he claims, he’s just doesn’t have the deep expertise he claims/purports to have. I tried not to broadcast this stuff all over as it doesn’t do any good.
liberal
@Betty Cracker:
I completely agree. OTOH, I haven’t seen anyone discuss how much control the South Koreans have over the situation. I mean, I’m sure they don’t think much of the North, but at the same time they’re almost certainly not thrilled about a war being started, in a time and place not of their choosing.
liberal
@Adam L Silverman:
This is my surprise face.
liberal
@Adam L Silverman:
According to the Iron Law of Institutions, agents’ incentive is to preserve and grow their power within an institution, not so much do what’s good for the institution itself. In that sense, sadly, they might be very rational.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: @Corner Stone: @Betty Cracker: And as I’ve indicated several times: she seems to have some good sources with the Intel Community, she got the FISA warrant story correct, and at times she appears to be successfully punching above her weight class based on her reputation as a Tory MP backbencher. What seems to be the issue is she’s building the information she has into an explanatory narrative on her website and via twitter. It is likely that some of that narrative may be correct and some incorrect because of whatever patterns she’s seeing. Until the CI investigation is complete we will not know one way or the other.
The problem with this stuff is that it is easy to get lost in the wilderness of mirrors even when one has good sources, good source material, and a skeptics eye.
Adam L Silverman
@liberal: That’s a good look for you!
Adam L Silverman
@liberal: It is bounded rationality in the Weberian sense. The contextual background and boundaries are important. And because we have far too few people with deep expertise in regard to North Korean politics, society, religion, economics, decision making, etc it is very, very difficult to tailor the messaging to the context of those we’re trying to message to.
Bill Arnold
Upbeat amusing news:
To save money, Kentucky Coal Museum turns to solar panels
(via)
MisterForkbeard
@hovercraft: If I had to guess, I’d say that Trump/Jared/Ivanka didn’t attend not because they hate jews… but because it was a dinner for STAFFERS. They would have had to mingle with the common government employees and that’s not acceptable.
It’s probably even more unacceptable when the staffers think you’re a piece of shit, which is what we keep hearing from White House leaks.
sherparick
I am reading a book about the late Roman, Christian Empire as it transitioned from “Roman” to “Byzantine” (Greek speaking, although in Greek they called themselves Romans). The court of Justinian had less intrigue and family ownership of the state then United States under Trump.
But Movement Conservatives are okay with it because:
A. It will destroy the non-military, non-law enforcement part of the Federal Government, they hope.
B. And the real prime directive of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party, cut taxes for rich people.
Citizen Alan
@zach:
I will never forget as long as I live the fact that in 2011, two different conservative newspapers ran editorials complaining about the fact tha Sasha and Malia Obama had sushi for their school lunch on Pearl Harbor Day. That was actually a thing that happened.
John Weiss
You know, in my opinion, one could have gone out to West Texas and picked rednecks at random and would’ve come up with a better President and a better Cabinet than what the stupid people picked. I mean that.
Sorry to say.
Geeze, what a bunch of stupid fuckers.
jw