I’ve come to dislike Trump’s adult children almost as much as I abhor their despicable father. I realize it isn’t their fault that they are trophy-wife crotch-fruit sired by a narcissistic con man. And as the daughter of a gentleman with appalling political views, I do understand keeping filial affection and partisan affinity separate. But the Trumplings are actively trying to foist their buffoonish oaf of a father off on the rest of us, so fuck them.
Anyhoo, by choice, I missed most of last night’s GOP hate-fest, but I did catch the bit when Trump’s pampered, obnoxious princelings “threw Donald Trump over the top” with the New York delegation’s votes, thus officially securing the nomination for their lying, racist demagogue father, even if they aren’t registered to vote in New York themselves.
Then Trump himself appeared on the Jumbotron, his second visitation in as many days at the party convention, where candidates traditionally only show up on the final night to accept the nomination.
Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter once said her father had to be “the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.” TR was a humble soul compared to Trump, who can’t resist being the entire wedding party and funeral procession. But the background that framed Trump in his pre-acceptance acceptance announcement looked suspiciously like an upscale shower stall:
Honest to dog, y’all — I think that flag is hiding a soap tray and shampoo caddy. Even the acoustics sounded restroom-like when the miniscule-fingered, gerbil-headed, apricot-hued nutsack spoke.
So why was Trump broadcasting from the can? Could it be he was driven there by an enraged Mrs. Trump, who had just chased him around the penthouse — flinging bejeweled Jimmy Choo stilettos at him like martial arts stars — in retaliation for the humiliation of making her read a plagiarized speech? Maybe!
Open thread.
FlipYrWhig
A friend of mine taught Donald Trump Jr. his freshman year in college ~20 years ago, and said he was a run-of-the-mill fratty prick.
dr. bloor
Nah. If he was really in the bathroom, he would have made a point of showing everyone his solid gold crapper.
Dadadadadadada
I’m betting a bout with norovirus. Or subtle mockery of his acolytes that are suffering from norovirus.
Anya
Trump’s children, Uday, Qusay and Ivanka are as vile as their father. They encourage him and cheer him on. Qusay is literally mini me to Donald’s mean, bully, vile vilgarian. I hate how the media props these assholes.
Dadadadadadada
Also, there’s no defending the Trump kids who spoke, but the reaction shots of Eric Trump show a man who is very, very uncomfortable with his choices. We know he didn’t vote for Dear Old Dad, so maybe he really is not that into this whole turn-America-fascist thing.
I see he’s slated to speak tonight. Wouldn’t it be awesome to see him denounce the old man? What would the RNC do, cut his mike, turn off the power, call in airstrikes?
rikyrah
You always slay me calling them Uday and Qusay
BWA A HA HA HA HA HA
rikyrah
Remind me again – isn’t today when we get the REALITY behind Ferret Head’s supposed Campaign Finance Reportings from last month?
JPL
This tweet sums up the Trump family link
raven
You got to fight for your right. . .
comrade scott's agenda of rage
The fact he’s doing this from a bathroom is appropriate on sooooooo many levels.
JPL
Donald Trump could be the next President of the United States, unless MSM decides to cover Hillary in a fair manner.
According to the NYTimes, Trump’s VP will handle domestic and foreign policy. Pence is as scary as Trump.
JPL
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Donald Trump, taking multi-tasking to a new and improved level. Now get the man the TP
The Fat Kate Middleton
Oh, Betty … this may be your best post ever: “trophy-wife crotch fruit” … “gerbil-headed, apricot-hued nut sack”. The whole thing is weapons-grade humor. And, of course, there’s the bathroom speculation. Thank you,
MomSense
The tower Trump is a seriously tacky building. When you walk inside the lobby they have ugly tile like that all along a back wall (to the right of the faux gold escalators) with a late 70s early 80s tacky water feature and ledges for plants. Then you can go down into a sunken area that is some sort of bar or club or maybe overpriced eating place. There is a distinct eau de public pool about the area.
When the thing first went up we used to walk through it on cold days because it made a wind free shortcut. Otherwise it is Tacky with a capital T. Last summer I took my kid there. He rode the escalators then took a selfie outside giving the building the finger. The security guards did not seem to mind.
O. Felix Culpa
In a victory for voting rights: Wisconsin residents who can’t obtain photo identification will still be able to vote in November’s general election, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, carving out an exception to state law that requires all voters to show photo IDs at the polls.
msb
And he’s saying , ” I am OZZZZZZ!” Where’s the green smoke and belches of flame?
Litlebritdifrnt
As I have said before, every time I look at the Trump sons I am reminded of the Kray twins, they have that same creepy vibe about them.
gene108
@JPL:
I remember the 1992 convention, when Pat Buchanan called for a Culture War and it was reported as being beyond the pale of civilized political discourse.
But 2016 is infinitely worse and the MSM is just glossing over it. If someone reads from the script, without totally screwing up*, they are considered to have “hit the speech out of the park”.
The fix is in. I do not know what changed, but the MSM put their thumbs on the scale in 2014 with non-stop fear mongering about Ebola and ISIS and they are trying to do it again by giving Republicans a pass on their calls to imprison Hillary for imagined crimes, Jeff Sessions saying a President can issue an Executive Order to ban legal immigration, to the non-stop lies in every speech.
* Don, Jr said something about pouring Sheetrock and hanging concrete. He flubbed the line, corrected himself, and was considered to have given the best speech since the Gettysburg Address.
JPL
If Melania’s speech is still being discussed tomorrow, expect Trump to mention it Thursday night. I don’t plan on tuning in though. Life is short enough.
bupalos
While the proper ending for that is “enquiring minds want to know,” Cracker consistently pours from the top shelf. I put her up with Charles Pierce. Truly Florida’s finest export and I’m not even trying to be backhanded there.
rikyrah
@gene108:
nothing has changed.
Where were you in 2012, when Steve Benen was putting out a post damn near every week on ‘The Lies of Mitt Romney’, and the MSM went around covering for Willard.
This is par for the course.
When they did their best to write AROUND the core of Ferret Head’s support – which is nothing but WHITE RESENTMENT/RACISM…
That should have told you something.
Kathleen
@dr. bloor: Even his poop is solid gold!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Melania isn’t chasing the Donald around being angry for being forced to read a plagiarized speech – all signs point to her, or a friend she relies on who does marketing material for a Trump property – lifting the plagiarized text. She’s as big a fraud and liar as her husband. The doubling down on the denial, lying and excuses about how and who seems to be the story the press is digging in with – the blatant disregard for the incontravertable truth, and treating them like idiots. There is no interest in the celebration of hatred, fear and naked white supremacy, except as to how it’s “playing” politically. As someone on twitter also mentioned, if Obama had 5 children by 3 different women, would the media be using words like ‘blended’ and ‘modern’ to describe his family? Like Villago always says, the Village needs to be burned down. All of them.
Catherine D.
I’m pretty sure the Trumplets couldn’t vote in the NY primary because they weren’t registered Republicans. If they hadn’t been registered to vote at all, they could have done it by March 25. But the deadline for changing parties is something like 6 months before the primary.
Kathleen
@JPL: That’s the problem. Not one Rethug is less scary. And seeing how media are tongue bathing him can you imagine how much worst it would be if the candidate were more “sane”?
Dadadadadadada
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I like to think that Melania plagiarized on purpose, in the hope of causing yet another unacceptable Trump scandal.
At this point I just have to believe that SOMEONE inside the Trump campaign has figured out what Trump is, and is doing all they can to bring it down from the inside.
jonas
@MomSense: It really is — and for years I’ve watched Trump give interviews in his “luxurious” penthouse, which is decorated like some kind of rococo nightmare. Trump voters are people who look at that stuff and think “how classy!”
Gin & Tonic
An award-winning investigative journalist for the Ukrainian site Ukrainska Pravda was killed by a car bomb this morning in Kiev/Kyiv. He was a Belarusian by birth, Pavel Sheremet, although I believe he might have been a Russian citizen – however he lived and worked in the Ukrainian capital. President Poroshenko has asked for assistance from the US FBI in investigating this assassination.
While mourning this tragedy, it is useful to remember that in many parts of the world, being a reporter/journalist is an honorable, difficult and often dangerous profession, and not just stenography or horse-race coverage.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Dadadadadadada:
So it definitely is Melania who wrote it. The question is why? Ignorance or arrogance or spite? That family is a combination of Shakespeare, the Godfather, the Tudors and the Medicis, except tacky.
MattF
@Dadadadadadada: I think not. First, Daddy Trump himself would detect any hint of disloyalty– I’m certain that’s one of his special talents. Second, note the way Trump habitually exacts public humiliation on everyone around him. Do you think he acts differently in private? Not.
The uncomfortable, minimal truth here is that the people surrounding Trump have accepted the humiliations they suffer as part of the deal. A less minimal and more uncomfortable truth is that some of them like it that way.
jonas
@Dadadadadadada: At this point I just have to believe that SOMEONE inside the Trump campaign has figured out what Trump is, and is doing all they can to bring it down from the inside
You’re giving them entirely too much credit. This happened because Trump runs a completely amateurish campaign operation that hires lazy hack speechwriters who — probably just like they did in school — crib shit off the internet rather than doing the work they were paid to do. Can you imagine a White House run by these idiots?
amk
@Catherine D.: in short, the trumplets are lazy and ignorant.
bupalos
Loving the vagaries of CNN’s headline style and article lineup today:
In slot 2 we have
In slot 3 we have
The sad part is this probably helps Ryan, if anything.
The Czar of All the Stupids
For my money, the phrase “gerbil-headed, apricot-hued nutsack” needs to be one of the tags y’all use, like “General Stupidity”…
Will future presidential campaigns ever be quite this… colorful… and exciting?
And for what it’s worth, yes, I’m desperately praying Trump gets beaten like a cheap tin drum this fall…
Felonius Monk
Is it too much to hope that the Drumpf campaign is truly in the toilet?
And I nominate the term “crotch-fruit” for entry into the Balloon Juice Lexicon.
Percysowner
@JPL: In some ways, Pence is scarier than Trump, because, like Ted Cruz, Pence is a True Believer. He believes in stopping not only abortion, but contraception. He truly believes that criminalizing homosexuality is doing God’s will. Both men would be a disaster for this country, but Pence could be worse as long as Trump doesn’t decide to start bombing countries that diss him.
schrodinger's cat
What’s wrong with Trump’s eyes? Why are they so squinty?
LAO
Anyone else feel like a character in a Kurt Vonnegut novel? I “knew” it was coming — but I’m still shocked by Trump’s nomination as the Republican candidate for President.
DanF
It would be wrong not to speculate.
srv
What’s the point? That Trump’s bathroom is nicer than any liberals living room or study? Of course it is.
If only government could be as self-regulating as Wall Street:
Real America speaks:
gogol's wife
Every time I see a picture of him I think, “How can anyone want to vote for someone with such an ugly, vile face?”
danielx
Friend of the daughter unit’s was over for dinner last night. She just spent a month in Europe and said virtually every European with whom she spoke was asking pretty much the same question: you guys aren’t really going to elect this nutcase….are you? Her response, bless her heart, was “not if I have anything to do with it, and not with MY vote”.
This post is BJ hall of fame worthy. Never ever change, Betty, we like you just the way you are.
SFAW
@msb:
He was told by “the best, smartest person ever! The smartest!” that lighting farts is no longer a thing.
Joel
nm delete
SFAW
@schrodinger’s cat:
Being out in the sun a lot will do that to you. After all, he has to get in some serious ray-catching time to get that beautiful tan.
max
But the Trumplings are actively trying to foist their buffoonish oaf of a father off on the rest of us, so fuck them.
They seem to be of a type, but in the end, those types recur endlessly, so screw it. It’s their loon of a daddy that’s the problem.
So why was Trump broadcasting from the can?
To prove he could.
Could it be he was driven there by an enraged Mrs. Trump, who had just chased him around the penthouse — flinging bejeweled Jimmy Choo stilettos at him like martial arts stars — in retaliation for the humiliation of making her read a plagiarized speech?
His can is the highest quality can, the most elite, elegant and posh can, his can is so thrillingly huge it’s the very center of the can action, such as making loud boasts to people in a arena in Cleveland, clearly a city for losers.
‘Big Brother is Watching You…While Sitting in the Can’
max
[‘Trump cannot can the can can action.’]
SFAW
@Litlebritdifrnt:
If only Spiny Norman were real.
SFAW
@bupalos:
No disrespect to Betty, truly, but: better than Carl Hiaasen?
Ruckus
@LAO:
I’m not shocked by his nomination. This really is who they are. People talk about the southern strategy, this isn’t a strategy, this is who they are. Yes there seem to be people on the republican side who dislike drumpf, maybe even as much as we do, but he’s their nominee because that’s who the majority of them are. I’ll ask the question, how different are any of the assholes they coughed up to run? 17 of them and none of them actually any better than the outlandish jackoff they chose. Not better in any way.
gene108
@rikyrah:
It is the scale of vile that was on display Monday and Tuesday night. I watched every minute on CSPAN.
Everything was a lie, from we are less safe (par for the course lie) to calling for Hillary’s imprisonment on imaginary charges to Don, Jr saying he and his dad can operate heavy construction equipment with ease.
But they had all pre-dialed in stories about how great Monday night was.
It is par for the course that unless a politician says nigger, nigger, nigger the MSM will find ways to tap dance around calling the speaker racist.
And Trump did not formerly cross that line.
But they have usually been willing to call out the openly crazy at Republican conventions before. They may gloss over the disingenuous mangling of the truth about military preparedness (Bush, 2000), but if someone started going completely off the rails like Guliana or Christie, they would call it out.
O. Felix Culpa
In advance of the FEC fundraising reports to be issued today, it appears that Trump fundraising in New Mexico is not going so well. We’re a small state population-wise, but hopefully a bellwether for results around the country.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Ruckus: I’d make the argument that in a sense, we’ve already dodged a bullet, because every single last one of the GOP candidates this cycle were quantifiably worse. Just a horrible group of literally the worst people this country has to offer.
Peale
@JPL: And Trump will focus on outer space? Seriously, when W brought in Cheney it was an admission that W still needed training wheels. Do Republicans really think that its cute to run toddlers for the office?
Betty Cracker
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: You really think she wrote it? The marketing friend — that’s plausible. ML herself, I have my doubts. Even if she is capable of writing a lengthy speech in English (albeit with stolen chunks), I doubt she has the inclination. It’s a lot of work to write a speech, even a platitude-laden, shitty, partially plagiarized speech.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This has probably been covered already, but remember Third Eye Blind?
I’m not sure what makes me feel older, thinking that Third Eye Blind was popular twenty years ago, or the phrase “Snapchat’s head of news”
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
The really ugly spin-off of the GOP hate-fest is that the hate is so intense it’s rubbing off on us – injecting reflected visceral hate into our own hearts. It’s not that these malevoent assholes don’t deserve our anger and condemnation – rather that the intense angry burning reaction we’re feeling in response to them is ourselves getting infected by their hatefulness. We’re trapped aboard the cruise ship of our country with these hate-infected folks, and we’re getting sick just from the nasty germs they’re coughing up into the air and on every surface of the ship.
Joel
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: they’re more like the late-era Habsburgs, after generations of inbreeding had taken its toll.
Iowa Old Lady
I just got back from the Y where the talk turned to politics. Usually people avoid giving strong opinions because this really is a politically diverse area, but this got ugly. One woman went on and on about how Clinton should be in jail. She was a criminal. The silent majority has been silent too long. If you don’t watch Fox, you don’t know what’s going on.
MattF
@Joel: The analog of the Habsburg jaw is the Trump squint.
rikyrah
Day Two: Delegate Alienation Equals Half-Empty Arena
by Martin Longman
July 20, 2016 9:45 AM
The Washingtonian reported a month ago that the DC delegation to the Republican convention was so unhappy with Donald Trump as their party’s nominee that they could make trouble in Cleveland. The District’s Republicans only gave Trump 14% of their votes in the primary. Their 19 delegates were awarded to Marco Rubio (10) and John Kasich (9).
But there was a problem.
Even though all 19 DC delegates are pledged to either Rubio or Kasich, DC’s party bylaws dictate that if only one candidate is up for nomination at the convention, delegates are obliged to support that candidate (read: Trump). It’s one of the main reasons DC real estate agent Kevin Cain gave up his spot: “I do not want my name on record in any way as having ever voted for, contributed to, or otherwise assisted [Trump] or his campaign,” Cain announced in a Facebook post last month.
Bob Kabel, a DC GOP delegate who secured a coveted spot on the convention’s Rules Committee, says he has some sympathy for the crisis of conscience in which some delegates find themselves, but ultimately, the rules are the rules. “It’s an unhappy situation,” he says. “But they know the rules. They’ve bought into it. They’re all adults.”
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Yes indeedy, now we can all point and laugh while he tells us it’s not as crappy as we think. I mean they told us all day yesterday that the two speeches were not the same, so they can once again tell us not to believe our lyin eyes.
rikyrah
The Obama Derangement Syndrome: “Left” and Mainstream Media’s Common Disease
Spandan Chakrabarti
July 18, 2016
……………………………….
What do Mother Jones’ recalcitrance to correct an anti-Obama headline and CNBC’s decision to bill a Trump-supporter’s bona-fides as an “Obama official” without mentioning the fact that he was fired and let nearly a million intelligence documents get stolen have in common?
Obama Derangement Syndrome, of course.
The click-baiting media has desperately pursued biased storylines against President Obama, and when there isn’t actually something to stick the president with in a particular story, such as in Mother Jones’ case, they have deflected critics of their own establishment brotheren onto the president. After all, Mother Jones may be “left” media, but they are still media, and it would be a horrendous breach of floating heads etiquette should they choose to headline the fact that ABC screwed up.
It shouldn’t be that surprising seven and a half years into the Obama presidency. Though for different reasons both the Left and what is known as the “mainstream” media have been relentless in throwing monkey wrenches in the process as the President has tried to make generational change. To this day, Americans remain by and large unaware of many of the most important reforms in the Affordable Care Act that enacted the most expansive Patient’s Bill of Rights, the Dodd Frank financial reform law that is the most critical re-regulation of the banking industry since the 1930s, the auto rescue that save millions of jobs. Thanks to the our Fourth estate’s spectacular failures, too many Americans, less than a decade removed from the worst financial calamity in nearly a century, believe that the financial rescue President Obama implemented to stop the bleeding was unneeded, or worse, a giveaway.
But now that the economy has recovered, now that 20 million additional Americans have health insurance, now that American auto is roaring, now that despite all the monkey wrenches, President Obama is on his way to become one of the most consequential American political figures of all time, the media echo chamber is taking aim one last time, at President Obama’s legacy.
hovercraft
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
You don’t think that we have a right to be angry? Angry at the republican party, nearly half of the country, who has fostered this crap on us? Angry at that segment of the population who seem to have hate as the basis for every political ideal they have? How can you not be angry? It’s not anger that is the problem, it’s a natural emotion, it’s what you do with it that is important. Expressing that anger is not wrong, because it’s real, it’s valid, especially in this case.
MomSense
@Iowa Old Lady:
Sounds like my dinner last night. The anger, name calling, and wild conspiracies are chilling. A few of us tried last night to inject some truth and perspective but they really are set in their beliefs. May I also say that I find the racism, ignorance, and prejudice to be so overwhelming. These people used to be happy, open minded, and had a diverse group of friends in college. I honestly think they would report neighbors and coworkers if told it was to keep them safe.
I kept thinking about former teachers and my stepdad who lived through this in Europe during WW II and I wanted to cry I was so furious. On the drive home I heard Christie with his show trial working up the audience into a frenzy of lock her up and I couldn’t fucking believe we have let things get to this. My prayer is that this is a vocal minority of disgusting death cultists but just to be sure we need to destroy them at the polls in November. Imagine if Hitler had nukes??? That’s where we are and I really don’t think it is an exaggeration.
Immanentize
@The Fat Kate Middleton: I agree:
Cannot be said enough.
A former woman Dean and friend once noted that science had determined that intelligence in boy children is more directly received from the mother’s gene pool while girl intelligence is genetically more mixed between parents. Which is why, the researchers suggested, you get more boy savants than female ones.
My Dean friend thought that this was God’s punishment for old men who married trophy wives in order to sire male heirs.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ruckus:
Agreed. That said, I read cmorenc’s comments as referring to the ugly emotion of hatred, which is different from anger and much more poisonous. WRT anger, the most productive response is as fuel for positive action: organizing, registering voters, and supporting GOTV for Hillary in person or via donations to the relevant organizations.
ETA to correct copy/pasting errors. Second cup of coffee is brewing.
O. Felix Culpa
It appears I is in moderation. Please release me, let me go…
Shell
What the hell is left?
***
Forget the novovirus,,,the most nauseating thing last night was the assertion that Trumps kids were trying to paint him as some kind of blue-collar billionaire.
rikyrah
Obama and Trump: Polar Opposites
by Nancy LeTourneau
July 19, 2016 12:25 PM
Republicans who have been unhappy with Donald Trump as their party’s presidential nominee have been known to blame his ascension on President Obama. That is not terribly surprising. We’ve all seen how the so-called “party of personal responsibility” is loath to examine how their own history led to the creation of this Frankenstein-like candidate.
But there are times when the “Thanks, Obama” meme actually deserves some examination. If you start from the premise that Trump’s rhetoric and support springs from anger (bordering on hatred) stemming from Obama Derangement Syndrome, it will come as no surprise that the GOP is about to nominate someone who is the polar opposite of the object of that anger.
There are some obvious ways that Obama and Trump are opposites. One is a Black man born to humble beginnings. The other is a White man born to wealth and privilege. When it comes to political positions, Trump has been all over the map while Obama has been strikingly consistent over time. Obama emerged on the national political scene with a speech that was all about uniting Americans across our differences. Trump’s political career was launched with birther accusations about our first African American president. A couple of things have emerged recently about Trump that take the comparison a little deeper. I’d like to highlight some of them that are the most important to recognize.
D58826
This is not going to end well.
The GOP has been feeding the base red meat about Hillary for 25 years and Obama for 8. They have, by and large, failed to deliver on the promises in that red meat. Hence the anger and Trump.
If ‘old little hands’ win in November he will be under tremendous pressure from the base to follow thru on sending the Clintons and Obama to jail. At which point we will be a truly certified banana republic.
If Hillary wins, the House will impanel any number of Benghazi like committees and will find it very hard to resist the itch to impeach. The GOP in the senate will continue to obstruct everything so that Hillary could not get Santa Claus approved as a toy distributor to children.
Humdog
Years ago I saw a documentary about the Kent State shootings. What I remember most vividly was the interviews from the period with regular citizens. There was this typical looking housewife with flat A sounds like a Michigander or Wisconsinite who told the reporters with a smile that she thought the police should have shot and killed more students. The students have to learn they cannot gather together and protest the government, she said. She looked like a mom who’d’ve made you an apple pie and she called for the murder of innocent children for daring to gather on campus without official sanction looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
I comforted myself by thinking, this was the past, we have come beyond this. Republican conventions bring back a shuddering memory of this woman and her ilk, louder today than they were then. It is an alienating feeling, like monsters live among us and that I have been fooling myself that we have progressed much. But we have progressed and that is part of what is making them so loud and angry now. Can we hold to progress? Are my fellow Americans as horrified as I am? A scary number do not seem to be.
Immanentize
@max:
LBJ used to make senators, etc. come talk to him while he was on the throne making dirt. Just ’cause.
And in case Raven is unavailable — “Fuck LBJ”
cmorenc
@Ruckus:
Yes, we indeed do have ample justification to be angry – but what I realized last night listening to e.g. Christie’s speech and Donald Jr’s speech was that the emotion they were provoking in me was pure acid-dripping hate of the sort that’s corrosive rather than constructive to my own human spirit – the very kind of vile hatefulness they are infected with, even though I and we feel out basis for feeling that way is more rational and just. The emotion we’re feeling is still pure vile hate.
LaterThanYouThink
I like to think of them as #LittleCaesars, especially jr. Just a jumble of pizza toppings on top of the same old pie.
Aleta
American Flag (TM) shower curtains will be sold at the White House gift shop.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: They had a rehearsal space one hallway down from mine in SF for a long time. And later, one hit song. Glad they’re capable of doing something meaningful, even if it’s only pissing off anti-science imbeciles for a night.
Waldo
Can’t blame the guy for multi-tasking unpleasant obligations. Why just this morning I activated a credit card while sitting on the throne. Best use of the time since I canceled Men’s Health.
bemused
Hilarious. Frantic Joe Scarborough pleads for Trump to stop letting his kids run his campaign and get professional pols on board. Trump won’t hire any professionals and even if he did, he would never listen to them.
japa21
@MomSense:
As long as a person’s place in the world is not threatened that person can be very happy and appear to be open-minded. Once they see that place even possibly threatened by a POC, women, other minority they become insecure to the point of downright fear. And anger is fear’s offspring. And anger brings out all those things that a person didn’t have to recognize in themselves when they felt secure.
ETA: One of those things that can come out is hate, often self-hatred for feeling how they feel and then projecting that hate onto others who they see as responsible for causing those feelings to surface.
schrodinger's cat
@cmorenc: I am not feeling vile hate, I am determined to fight for what I believe is right. Doing nothing is not an option.
cmorenc
It’s too much to begrudge Tiffany Trump for her fond account of her relationship with her dad growing up. I have two (now adult) daughters, and even though I’m a vastly better human being than Donald Trump, I understand how daddy’s little girl can wrap many otherwise mean SOB dads into treating their daughter with doting, loving care, guiding them to have confidence and make something of themselves. She stayed within the parameters of that relationship in her speech, and I really don’t begrudge her that.
Donald, Jr. on the other hand is a piece of work just like his dad – with the same vile, predatory disposition, and his IGMFU political soul (just like dad) was on full display, except he might well be a hard-core true believer conservative, unlike his chameleon dad who’s merely willing to dress up in the clothes of conservatism to win power and conquest.
cmorenc
@O. Felix Culpa:
Exactly-this. Anger can be constructive, but it can also fester into something poisonous to the soul, spirit, self, however you wish to frame that -hate is poisonous to it.
patrick II
When republicans are accused of being racist their more rational defenders acknowledge that there is some racism but that you can’t say all republicans are racist because of a few bad apples. But here we have a candidate who kicks off his campaign by saying an entire group of people are murderers and racists and on the basis of nothing else, no real policy, no sincere religiosity, goes to the top of the polls and eventually wins the republican nomination. Then the republican convention’s first night is about hate of “others”, building a wall, encouraging a religious war, and the second night mostly about hate of their opponent.
At this point republicans who are still willing to vote for the republican standard bearers can no longer rationally do so while pretending that racism, hate, and fear are not the driving forces of Trumps candidacy and the republican party.
It is so clear that even a tv news anchor should be able to say it. But I guess not.
Emma
@MomSense:
They will. One of the most interesting “security” apparatus in Cuba was the Committee for Defense of the Revolution. The neighborhood watch taken to fascist levels. One of its members was a guy who LITERALLY owed his daughter’s life to my great-uncle. Lived right next door. He found out my uncle was buying “illegal” meat to feed my dying great-grandmother and threatened to inform on him unless we gave him part of our yard. My uncle did rather than start a party fight that would harm our prospects of being allowed to leave.
They lose all common sense, all decency, all morality.
pseudonymous in nc
@Joel:
The sons even have that look, with their fiveheads and stretched faces: equal parts late-generation Habsburg and Joss Whedon vampire.
NorthLeft12
5908462″>CONGRATULATIONS!: I have had a similar conversation with a number of Canadians. Every last one of them, and yes you too Mr. Kasich, were promoting policies worse than Trump. Kasich was not as obnoxious as the rest but he is cut from the same cloth IMO.
Kay
Frankly, it’s disgusting that these people live so lavishly yet regularly stiff creditors and the people who work for them.
Pay your bills, you deadbeats. The painting contractor and his crew shouldn’t be paying your private school tuition. Gross. Sell those ridiculous clothes at consignment and get cracking on paying back all the services you robbed.
It’s one thing to discharge debt in bankruptcy and then live within your means. It’s another to skip out on paying anyone and then traipse around like these people do. Christ. Is there no shame?
Aleta
I’m gonna posit that below surface in the duck pond, their tiny webbed sibling feet are paddling in fierce competition, orchestrated by Trump for his sole benefit.
ETA or should I say egged on by
hovercraft
@MomSense:
Donald and everything about him are tacky, he is the epitome of nouveaux riche, even though he came from money. I guess his tackiness is what caused him to be shunned by the real money people in NYC, and gave him the chip on his shoulder that he’s still trying to get rid of.
NorthLeft12
@cmorenc: I would not say that people are responding with hate towards the Trumpets and associated republicans, but I am seeing a deep resolve to ensure that the Right’s odious candidates and ideas/ignorance are not going unchallenged. You can call it hate, I see it as a strong determination to defeat Trump et al and to promote tolerance, peace, and charity.
Yeah, I’m an optimist.
trollhattan
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
They’re the Sopranos. I expect Melania to at some point show off her Lladro collection.
Kay
Imagine for a moment that the Obama family had regularly stiffed the people who worked for them, and then appeared with all this lavish material excess, like the Trumps.
Christ almighty, I could hear the pundits screeching from my desk. It would be godammned disqualifying. With the hair salon costs alone on that stage the Trumps could pay back all the small business people they screwed.
Must be nice. Steal services and then live like royalty. Crow about how you “earned it”. Trump’s lawyers certainly earned it, working the system so the grift could continue to the next generation. That part is true. They have to be hard-working. I hope they got paid up front, is all I can say.
Miss Bianca
@MomSense:@Iowa Old Lady: It was such a relief to discover, when I got together with my sister this weekend – who is a self-described “freak” from the 60s days – that she was not, as I had feared, a hard-core Bernie or Buster – quite the contrary, in fact. I had hesitated to even find out, the politics of this election season have been so fraught. The men in my family are all such hard-core Republicans, and so steeped in white privilege and misogyny, that’ I’ve given up talking politics with them at all, except to push back when they actually post the c-word in relation to Sec. Clinton.
We have some hard work ahead of us – breasting the rivers of bullshit that have been propagated by the right-wing and the media. At this point, I have come to the conclusion that the media on both the supposed “left”, as well as the right and so-called “center” – are actively propagating lies and slander about both HRC and President Obama. It makes me sick.
KS in MA
There are actually a couple of faucets peeking out from behind that flag in the photo with Josh Barro’s tweet in the Late Night Open Thread.
Brachiator
Trumplings. Heh!
Old Broad In California
The Trump boys exemplify the saying “he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple”.
TriassicSands
@JPL:
Yes, life is short, which creates the dilemma — Do you want to avoid seeing Trump and spare yourself from the nauseating spectacle of the most unqualified presidential nominee ever? Or do you owe it to yourself and those who come after to tune in and see the horror of the six-headed, brainless, fascist zombie torturing the English language and promising to fix the universe and kill or deport half the world’s population? He may even promise to build a wall around the Earth and have the aliens pay for it.
It’s a tough call. Fortunately, we’ll be able to avoid the live action and watch the freak show later with appropriate medicines and other support at hand. Plus, since we’re going to be subjected to the MSM’s breathless praise of the creature’s rant anyway, maybe just getting it over with is the better choice.
Barb2
@Humdog:
Kent State – during that era there was so much hate directed at college students. Bumper stickers in the SF Bay Area, California had hate slogans on a large percentage of the middle class factory etc workers cars. “America, Love it or Leave it”. And most were far worse.
The reason why there were so many students walking on campus at Kent State was because they were moving from one class to the next. The National Guard was shooting fish in barrel. Middle class whites largely supported “The Troops”. Kill, kill more.
Nixon was really good at turning Americans against each other. Just like draft dodging Trump. The mob is easy to rile.
Kent State is one of those moments – to this day I know exactly where I was when I heard the news. I was in shock and the rigid right Nixon supporters were very pleased. Nice housewives.
Trump does seem to be using a script to whip up hatred – it does seem so Nixon.
ruckus
Was rushed with time when I left my comment about hate. Anger can turn into hate, that’s what I meant when I said it depends on what you do with it, constructive or destructive.
Mr. Mack
Open thread, amirite? Have a number of acquaintances who are all planning to vote for Gary Johnson. One of the reasons I keep getting is the Fair Tax…which I find regressive as hell, but am looking for good arguments against, and, good arguments for why Gary Johnson would be a bad choice for those who lean left. Personally, I think he’s an opportunist and a Republican in sheeps clothing, if you will.
Nicole
@Mr. Mack: The Fair Tax is very much misnamed, as it ends up being an enormous tax relief for the wealthy, while increasing the poor and middle class’s taxes enormously. Forbes did a pretty good piece on it:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2015/05/27/the-trouble-with-the-fairtax/#1eb5461259b8
TLDR: Poor and middle class spend almost everything they earn (because life is expensive), while the rich don’t. If you replace our progressive income tax system with a consumption tax, the poor and middle class get taxed on EVERYTHING they earn, while the wealthy end up only paying taxes on about 50 percent of what they earn. It’s a huge, huge giveaway to the rich.
Gelfling 545
@Kathleen: Probably needs more fiber.
Patricia Kayden
That’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.
mr_gravity
@schrodinger’s cat: He’s channeling Richard Nixon.
bobbo
Beware of quoting Alice Roosevelt Longworth. She spent a good part of her adult life attacking FDR and the New Deal and in 1940 she said she was voting for Hitler.
Emma
@bobbo: So? She was right about her father.
mr_gravity
O. M. G. I’ve been thinking all along that Trump was using his offspring because he knew he could count on their loyalty to him.
Now I realize he doesn’t care about their loyalty. They’re valuable because they contain Trump DNA.
Master race!
Bill Arnold
@cmorenc:
Trump’s candidacy (and the GOP primary in general) has for me been a continuous exercise in maintaining the self-discipline to control such feelings. I.e. disallowing angry visceral loathing of personalities, while allowing some broader but focused mirthful hostility towards the movements involved.
Who all here will be getting directly involved in the elections? (I will, first time ever.) The stakes are much higher than usual this time.
glory b
@Mr. Mack: How about the “health care for none” approach?
Mr. Mack
@Nicole: Thanks. I pretty much was already there, but the link helps!
@Glory b, does Gary Johnson oppose the ACA?
PurpleGirl
@jonas: The interior design community has their own name for it — Bronx Renaissance. It features lots of gold accents, red walls, and red upholestry.
dww44
@Emma: One of the most measured examinations of both Teddy and his daughter is in Ken Burns’ PBS series on The Roosevelts from a couple of years ago.. Worth viewing if you’ve not done so.
PurpleGirl
@Nicole: The poor and middle class would end up paying more because it’s not the percentage that matters but the proportion because the proportion would be far, far larger. May be the same percentage but the PROPORTION of the total income is larger.