Velveeta Voldemort’s AP interview from last Friday is getting a lot of social media attention. (Transcript here via TPM.) I’m not sure why people find it noteworthy.
It’s a random, incoherent stew of hyper-aggressive posturing, bald-faced lies, butthurt braggadocio and demented ravings. In other words, it’s a typical Trump interview.
Folks have seized on the numerous passages marked “unintelligible,” and indeed it is strange that a grown-ass man who successfully masqueraded as an executive for several decades and managed to accrue tens of millions of votes is so profoundly inarticulate. But while remarkable in a historical sense, that’s hardly news now.
The thing I found most interesting (as a real-time psychological decompensation artifact) was the way Trump ended the interview, by lying about a new trick he claims to have learned over the past year:
TRUMP: OK. The one thing I’ve learned to do that I never thought I had the ability to do. I don’t watch CNN anymore.
AP: You just said you did.
TRUMP: No. No, I, if I’m passing it, what did I just say (inaudible)?
AP: You just said —
TRUMP: Where? Where?
AP: Two minutes ago.
TRUMP: No, they treat me so badly. No, I just said that. No, I, what’d I say, I stopped watching them. But I don’t watch CNN anymore. I don’t watch MSNBC. I don’t watch it. Now I heard yesterday that MSNBC, you know, they tell me what’s going on.
AP: Right.
TRUMP: In fact, they also did. I never thought I had the ability to not watch. Like, people think I watch (MSNBC’s) “Morning Joe.” I don’t watch “Morning Joe.” I never thought I had the ability to, and who used to treat me great by the way, when I played the game. I never thought I had the ability to not watch what is unpleasant, if it’s about me. Or pleasant. But when I see it’s such false reporting and such bad reporting and false reporting that I’ve developed an ability that I never thought I had. I don’t watch things that are unpleasant. I just don’t watch them.
AP: And do you feel like that’s, that’s because of the office that you now occupy —
TRUMP: No.
AP: That you’ve made that change?
TRUMP: I don’t know why it is, but I’ve developed that ability, and it’s happened over the last, over the last year.
AP: That’s interesting.
TRUMP: And I don’t watch things that I know are going to be unpleasant. CNN has covered me unfairly and incorrectly and I don’t watch them anymore. A lot of people don’t watch them anymore, they’re now in third place. But I’ve created something where people are watching … but I don’t watch CNN anymore. I don’t watch MSNBC anymore. I don’t watch things, and I never thought I had that ability. I always thought I’d watch.
AP: Sure.
TRUMP: I just don’t. And that’s taken place over the last year. And you know what that is, that’s a great, it’s a great thing because you leave, you leave for work in the morning you know, you’re, you don’t watch this total negativity. I never thought I’d be able to do that and for me, it’s so easy to do now. Just don’t watch.
AP: That’s interesting.
TRUMP: Maybe it’s because I’m here. I don’t know.
So that’s how the awesome responsibilities of the office have changed Trump, by his own reckoning: He has developed the ability to refrain from watching media coverage about himself.
We know he’s lying — the AP reporter busted him in real time, and Trump famously live-tweets the shows he claims he doesn’t watch. But I think it’s fascinating that Trump felt this was important enough to put on the record when asked about how his decisions are affected by the 24/7 news cycle. If you wave away the squid-cloud of butthurt and hack through the tangle of self-congratulations, the bottom line is he’s retreated fully into the Fox bubble.
Bear in mind that as a candidate, Trump said he gets his information from “the shows,” and that doesn’t seem to have changed much now that he has access to perhaps the most sophisticated intelligence-gathering apparatuses in human history. Odd pronouncements that seem to be nods to Fox News hysteria-objects continue to appear in official policy documents emanating from the White House, such as the weird Trumpcare fixation on lottery winners on Medicaid.
“The shows” also seemed to have set off the accusations about President Obama “wiretapping” Trump Tower and the subsequent flurry of possibly illegal and certainly unethical actions on the part of Rep. Nunes and White House staff in an attempt to provide cover for Trump’s paranoid Twitter ravings.
So, the key takeaway from this interview (for me, at least) is that, yep, your Fox-addled grandpa is in charge of the nuclear codes. Terrifying? Yes. But there’s nothing new to see here, folks.
Villago Delenda Est
The man is utterly unfit for any public office, to include dog catcher, in these United States.
Lock him up in a padded cell.
schrodingers_cat
Remember that millions voted for this person. Also, the party of Lincoln, which has now become the party of rich people who want to eat their seed corn, installed him as their head.
rikyrah
John Oliver on Ivanka and hubby
https://youtu.be/wD8AwgO0AQI
rikyrah
Le Pen’s party has received a hefty loan from a Russian bank
Macron’s organization has suffered from more than 4000 hacking attacks
Hmmm
— Pussy Riot (@pussyrrriot) April 23, 2017
Jeffro
It’s good to see the old dog learn (well, pretend to learn) a new trick. Learning to not watch inane infotainment about oneself – especially when, given his druthers, that’s probably how he would spend HIS ENTIRE DAY – that’s progress!
That transcript is horrifying…if only we could get Trumpov to try some of W’s favorite pretzels, or to at least go for a walk on Harry Reid’s old treadmill.
rikyrah
Remarkable result in France: the Obama-supported pro-West candidate beat the Trump-Bannonite, the gov’t-slasher, the Putinite & the Chavista
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) April 23, 2017
Goku
Poor snowflake
The Moar You Know
There’s some distinction here I just don’t get. I cannot tell the difference between CNN and Fox until they run a station ID. Really can’t. Looks the same, sounds the same, disseminates the same bullshit.
OzarkHillbilly
Hmph. I’ve always had the ability to not watch things that piss me off. I had no idea that made me special. The things I learn here.
Jeffro
Meanwhile, Jennifer Rubin continues to impress…and then drops this bit on us:
Why, they would still have those things called “principles”, J-Rubs! Now stop making me sad.
The Moar You Know
@rikyrah: Her third. She’s in hock to them to the tune of 14 million Euros.
I wouldn’t leave the house if I owed the Russians a tenth of that. Likely to be killed by a bathtub on the way to work.
schrodingers_cat
Meanwhile, St Sanders of Vt continues attacking Democrats, are we sure he is not being funded by Putin,after all we never did see his tax returns.
dr. bloor
Trump is already looking like late-second term Reagan. Even if the R’s keep him on his feet and don’t impeach him, he’s going to be “unavailable for interviews” by midterms.
Thoroughly Pizzled
What will they call this chapter in the history books?
“The Decline and Fall of the United States”
“The Trump Regime: Democracy’s Nadir”
“The Day the World Died”
Anything else?
Mnemosyne
I think AP is confusing “unintelligible” and “incoherent.” Unintelligible means that his voice was difficult to understand because of mumbling or something similar. Incoherent means that his words were intelligible but made no sense.
schrodingers_cat
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Death by distraction and stupidity: How reality TV killed democracy.
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know: There are minor differences, IMO, since Fox has morphed into a full-blown Trump propaganda network and CNN wanly reflects that mission with a sprinkling of opposition views as an objectivity fig leaf. But the key takeaway (for me) is that “the shows” continue to drive policy and that Trump considers it impressive to lie about encasing himself in a bubble of sycophants.
Mike in NC
The Mango Maggot gets all of the news he needs from “Fox &
FriendsFiends”rikyrah
The Budapest Bridge: Hungary’s Role in the Collusion Between the Trump Campaign and the Russian Secret Service https://t.co/HxDvQYEoFz
— Laura (@SheWhoVotes) April 24, 2017
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: T did not come out of nowhere, this is the party of Bachmann and Steve King and Ben Carson.
rikyrah
PHUCK OUTTA HERE
Sessions: “Can’t imagine” Democrats would shut down the government over objection to “a downpayment on a wall that can end the lawlessness.” pic.twitter.com/gFzicbEVGh
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 23, 2017
rikyrah
These robotics students were told ‘to go back to Mexico’. The taunt only fueled their success.https://t.co/adtB5z0nig
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 24, 2017
Just a few months ago, not many knew about these five fourth-graders from a low-income community in Indianapolis.
But now, the Panther Bots, a thriving robotics team at Pleasant Run Elementary School, have become the face of a success story about a group of kids who were taunted with racial slurs but were too determined to let that affect their confidence. Earlier this month, they found themselves being honored on the Senate floor of the Indiana Statehouse. The group travels to Louisville on Sunday to compete in a worldwide robotics contest.
In early February, after the students won a local robotics challenge — a steppingstone to qualify for a state robotics championship — a couple of competitors from other schools were heard screaming, “You need to go back to Mexico!”
After news of the racial slur incident came out last month, scores of strangers have shown their support for the Panther Bots. More than 200 people raised about $12,000 to help send the team to the world competition. The teammates have received notes, cards, buttons and CDs from artists from around the country. They also received a banner wishing all the teams headed to the world championships good luck. On it was a special message to the kids: “We support Panther Bots.”
The Moar You Know
@Jeffro: They did. They got buried by the religious nuts, racists, gun-humpers and psychopaths that they’ve been relying on for decades to win elections. Their “traditional conservatives” were never a majority or even a substantive minority in the GOP, they just had the money, drove the bus and threw just enough red meat to their undead army of howler monkeys to keep the screaming down to a dull roar. Those of us outside the bubble always saw it for what it was. Rubin couldn’t, sounds like she still can’t. The howler monkeys decided they didn’t like how their elite were driving and have now taken over the bus, and you can either get on board or get run over.
Rubin’s golden age of conservative principles was done by 1960. Conservative thought was finished by 1980. Their elites have just been running on momentum since then, and they finally ran out in 2008.
rikyrah
Trump’s Attorney General Says DREAMers Can Be Deportedhttps://t.co/sAheNzGA4z pic.twitter.com/HET3oS15Ke
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) April 24, 2017
rikyrah
In moderation, please help
Rathskeller
But when will CNN and MSNBC start to use this to explicitly manipulate the Man-child?
If I were a producer, I’d have a hot blonde regularly say things that are explicitly helpful for the republic: “ACA-provided health care protects millions of people, including large-breasted women like myself. We should protect and even expand this important law!”
It’s like the opposite of subliminal messaging.
SiubhanDuinne
Trump is going to place a congratulatory call to the space station this morning (or it might have already happened). According to the NPR reporter I heard earlier, Ivanka is going to join him on the call.
What was odd was that the reporter referred to them as “The Trumps.” I guess technically that’s correct, but I found it creepy and icky.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: He is probably going to congratulate them for not crashing it.
D58826
take the
part out and the interview transcript would fit on a 3×5 card
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: I think more than any other individual, Newt Gingrich is the godfather of the modern Republican Party, the nastiness, the race-baiting, the constant appeals to the lowest common denominator
PaulWartenberg
You know the scary part?
There’s still 62 million Americans (minus the two percent now showing regret) who will willingly vote for this bankrupt lying fraud again.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I would give Nixon and Reagan some credit as well.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Don’t see anything in moderation or trash folders. Is the comment still missing?
rikyrah
The select few who have Donald Trump’s ear
04/24/17 09:30 AM
By Steve Benen
Politico reported over the weekend that Donald Trump likes to leave large blocks of “private time” on his presidential schedule, which are regularly devoted to “spontaneous meetings and phone chats with ex-aides, friends, media figures, lawmakers and members of his Cabinet.” For most modern presidencies, this isn’t exactly a normal practice, but it’s the way Trump has operated for years.
Whether or not this is a good thing appears to be a matter of perspective, and Politico spoke to members of Team Trump who were “split on whether the freewheeling set-up, which can allow friends and unofficial advisers to whisper in the president’s ear on policy issues, is productive.”
It matters quite a bit who, exactly, is doing the whispering. With this in mind, the New York Times had an interesting piece over the weekend.
Taylor
@SiubhanDuinne: Was Ivanka present during the AP interview? They certainly seem worried about leaving him unattended with a microphone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
here’s something we can do about it
Swing Left @ swingleft 27m27 minutes ago
We intend to elect Democrats in 53 swing districts in 2018. So we researched all 53 and published 53 primers.
rikyrah
DHS’s Kelly takes an evolving line on Trump’s border wall
04/24/17 10:30 AM—UPDATED 04/24/17 10:42 AM
By Steve Benen
Few officials in Donald Trump’s administration have been as candid in downplaying talk of a border wall as Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. Soon after taking over the cabinet agency, for example, Kelly acknowledged that an actual wall won’t be built.
During his confirmation hearings a few weeks earlier, Kelly, a retired Marine general, sounded a skeptical note about the entire concept, testifying that “a physical barrier in and of itself will not do the job.” Despite his boss’ promises, Kelly also told Congress earlier this month that the idea of a full border wall, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, is “unlikely” to ever be built.
Donald Trump, of course, strenuously disagrees with this – a point Kelly has apparently been reminded of. Consider this exchange on CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday between host John Dickerson and Secretary Kelly.
bemused
I’m a bit puzzled that some media act as Trump sounded more unhinged in AP interview than he is and has been forever. How could we tell if he was super dooper cracking up vs super cracked up?
Any suggestions for t-shirt site that has quality t-shirts. I like softer material like tri-blends. I love the science march sign, There is No Planet B.
PaulWartenberg
Off-topic, but to all of those in West Virginia, if you can get to Sheperdstown on May 6th for Free Comic Book Day, artist Danielle Corsetto (“Girls With Slingshots”) will be at the Beyond Comics store for autographs and stuff!
MattF
I expect that the various international politicians that Trump has all these ‘great relationships’ with have figured out that he’s telling them what he thinks they want to hear. And… I betcha they’ve all figured out what he wants to hear also. And in reality…? What’s that…? Is anyone hanging around for an answer?
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
YEAH!!!!
PHUCK YEAH!!!
That’s what I’m talking about!!!
Hobbes83
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This. Most of the anti-government rhetoric and polarization in Congress can be tracked back to Gingrich and his rise to the Speakership that started back in the late 70s/early 80s.
cmorenc
@The Moar You Know:
Disagree – there actually is a huge difference between CNN and Fox – the real problem is analogous to the distant galaxies, where the entire wavelength spectrum of wavelengths get red-shifted by the increasing velocity as empty space expands. Fox is of course, far more distant and redshifted than CNN, but the reddening is nevertheless easily detectable at CNN as it recedes away from normality. The intermittent presence of Jeffrey Lord on CNN does, however accelerate this trend.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve seen around the twitters that not a single MoC whose district is on the border is pro-wall, and most locals are against it for very practical reasons, cross-border business, private land ownership, small matters like geography
ArchTeryx
Whiteness and tribalism are both hella drugs. Put them together, and you have the modern Republican party.
burnspbesq
@schrodingers_cat:
Some reporter somewhere needs to ask Perez what the Democrats are doing to field the strongest possible candidate in the 2018 Vermont Senate race, to take that seat away from hostile forces.
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, his GOPAC “Wules for Wingnuts” thing, where he instructed the Contract On America psychos to refer to their Dem opponents as “sick,” “unpatriotic,” “evil,” and “child molester” took things to the next level.
But just remember: MoveOn once ran an ad comparing Bush to Hitler. Or didn’t, but would have if Hitlary’s e-mail server in Benghaziiii!!!! hadn’t been hacked by George Soros. Or something. But BOTH SIDES!!!!
Roger Moore
@PaulWartenberg:
I agree with whoever said it yesterday: that 2% number is extremely unreliable because it counts on people admitting they voted for trump. The people who are really having regrets are more likely to pretend they never voted for him than admit it and their regrets.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
That was a great show last night.
Don’t miss the Bill O’Reilly “tribute” montage at the end!
stinger
So he’s developed the ability to not turn on the TV. And it took him a year. Yeah, that’s something to brag about.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I’ve always thought the confidence in folks like Kelly and Mattis was misplaced. I don’t trust anyone who accepts a gig with the shitgibbon.
Iowa Old Lady
I’ve transcribed interview tapes and it’s sometimes hard to make out a word or phrase, but I’ve never done an interview with that amount of unintelligible discourse.
Steeplejack
@The Moar You Know:
Fox has hotter newsbots. (That may change now without Ailes and O’Reilly there to cull the herd.)
amk
@Thoroughly Pizzled: The beginning of freedumb world.
rikyrah
moderation again :(
Spanky
Had no problem with video of the Syrian gas attack.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Kelly sat up there and tried to justify separating parents from children.
and, then, got an attitude when groups meeting with him DARED to ask him serious questions..threatening to leave….
The Moar You Know
Well, good on your guys who can tell the difference between CNN and Fox without the station ID. I sure can’t. Probably has to do with me refusing to be in a room with that shit playing for over two minutes. Have no tolerance for any news broadcasts anymore, no matter who is shitting out their paid-for versions of today’s lies.
amk
Guess this is the twitler’s rebuttal to all those science rallies. Scummy dumbass.
randy khan
@Goku:
That jumped out at me, too.
It’s hard for me to be *more* troubled by this Administration than I already am, but it’s hard not to get a sense that he’s not interested in reality, just in things that make him feel good, and that’s pretty bad.
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky: It smelled like napalm in the morning.
rikyrah
Oh yeah, in reference to the morning thread…
Cornel West pipes up JUST AS 44 IS ABOUT TO MAKE HIS SPEECH.
Coincidence?
I think not.
randy khan
@The Moar You Know:
She’s fine as long as she does what they want.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Kelly has been all round horrible.
Montanareddog
@The Moar You Know:
Mnemosyne
INDIANA PEEPS!
I just got an action alert from Jason Kander about a House member from IN who’s introducing a national voter ID law:
stinger
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks for this link.
Mnemosyne
Argh. I’m in moderation with a really important action alert about a bill to introduce a national voter ID law. Little help, please?
sherparick
@The Moar You Know: And all the elite, the .01%, the 10,000 “families” or individuals who fund the Republican Party, want is lower taxes and blowing up the welfare state. If means putting an idiot in charge of the United States, a racist in charge of the Department of Justice, and doing a deal with a Russian dictator, well, it is all in service of turning the U.S. into a combination of “Galt’s Gulch” and the Republic of Gilead.
p.a.
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Kakistocracy does it, but it’s not a well known word. To rip off John Kennedy Toole: Democracy* of Dunces
*still is, in form at least
SFAW
@rikyrah:
What the fuck is his problem, anyway? Jealousy? Dickishness? Overestimating his own intellectual prowess? Or all three (Katie)?
Montanareddog
@The Moar You Know:
More likely the debt will be quietly written off once the world’s eyes are elsewhere
JPL
To atone for his sins, Comey should have to read the AP interview out loud, on stage at Kennedy Center.
President Obama is going to be streamed live on cbs.com, as well as this feed http://abc7chicago.com/news/obama-speech-at-university-of-chicago-to-be-streamed-live-online/1904982/
trollhattan
@amk:
“I only drink the fanciest, artisan recycled pee-pee, right, Ivanka?”
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker: Great post. But it is very dispiriting.
Excellent insight that Trump is not acutely aware of the 24 hour news cycle. But some things never change and are uniquely Trumpian.
Again, the totally infantile obsession with how he is treated by the media and by his “enemies.” Only now he glories in his power to rally the masses of his supporters to punish an offending network by pushing them down in the ratings, while Trump stands as the Eternal Number One.
And such a total immersion in the trivial and unimportant. To think that we have a president who doesn’t talk about the quality of his advisors, and who is, as you say, as dumb as “your Fox-addled grandpa.”
Once you get past the bluster, it is clear that Trump is not quite as bright as Sarah Palin, and she is as dumb as a rock.
slag
@rikyrah: Thank you, John Oliver! It’s shocking how insane we’ve let this place become. Good to see someone on the teevee actually pointing that out for a change.
bystander
I notice the hideous Kate O’Beirne is dead, but only because beltway hack EJ Dionne has to tell us on Facebook what a swell gal she was. I. So sick of this crap. How tough is it to get that the rest of us don’t care how great Kate’s brownies were at the Georgetown HS bake sale?
I’ve expressed my hope that she’s sharing some sisterly time burning in Hell with Phyllis Schlafly.
Steeplejack
@Iowa Old Lady:
I am not defending Trump, but some of that has to be the fault of the interviewer and/or transcriptionist. As a former shoe-leather reporter of antiquity, I know that people do not speak in complete sentences and that in the flow of conversation there are words or phrases that you just miss. But the incidence seems really high here, even given that it’s Trump speaking.
My guess is that the interviewer turned over the tape to a transcriptionist who was not present at the interview, and that person, knowing the critical importance of not misquoting the POTUS, erred hugely on the side of “[unintelligible]” vs. “I’m pretty sure this is what he said.” The transcription should have been overseen or edited by the interviewer, who would have had her memory of the conversation and the context to fill in at least some of the gaps. Also, perhaps crappy recording quality?
I just looked at the full transcript, and the header notes: “Where the audio recording of the interview is unclear, ellipses or a notation that the recording was unintelligible are used.” So it seems the transcript is based solely on the audio recording. Which is fine.
Again, I’m not defending Trump, who is an inarticulate blowhard, but I don’t think all the unintelligibles are strictly his fault.
JPL
Please release me from mod hell. I’ll behave.
chris
@rikyrah: I read both parts of that last week. It’s an eye-opener to say the least. If he hasn’t “disappeared” Dr. Gorka need to ride in the first tumbrel when it rolls.
SatanicPanic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We also tend to notice that there’s already a wall on the border and has been for decades.
rikyrah
As his 100th day nears, Trump grades himself on a generous curve
04/24/17 10:02 AM—UPDATED 04/24/17 10:12 AM
By Steve Benen
Last weekend, Donald Trump, annoyed by national protests about his secret tax returns, declared, “The election is over!” A day later, Kellyanne Conway argued that Democrats should move forward “instead of still talking about the election.”
You probably know what’s coming next. In a pair of tweets, there was the president yesterday, responding to the latest national polling by pretending they offer flattering news.
Hmm. I’m not at all sure what Trump means by “still” in his claim about the popular vote. My fear is the president continues to work from the assumption that he actually received more votes than Hillary Clinton, which is obviously demonstrably wrong.
I can appreciate why Trump feels insecure about the legitimacy of his presidency: not only did more Americans choose his rival, but he was elevated to the office thanks to the help of a foreign adversary’s illegal espionage operation. (I’ve been told that an increasing number of D.C. Democrats often joke among themselves, “Twinkle, twinkle little czar; Putin put you where you are.”) But ridiculous claims about the popular vote aren’t going to help matters.
Goku
@rikyrah:
Except for the people who are going to lose their land from eminent domain or end up on the Mexican side of the “wall”.
But hey, those people don’t really matter, right?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@bystander: meh, I don’t care what he does with his Facebook, it’s not like Chuck Todd bringing MSNBC to a halt to simperingly assure everyone that KellyAnne Conway is a “good person”
Gelfling 545
@Villago Delenda Est: If he hadn’t been elected his kids would now be taking steps to have him declared incompetent. Oh, well, they’ll have an easy time of it after his reign ends. Plenty of evidence.
Kristine
“Velveeta Voldemort”
Betty, you win the internets most every day.
Kay
I’m upset that Congress is failing in investigating this. We have a horrible attorney general and the director of the FBI has a huge ego and thinks his job is to protect the FBI, and thus his own reputation.
We’re never going to find out what happened. Never.
Can’t they subpeona, or somehow mandate Trumpsters turn over something? Just treat them like any other citizen- order them. I never get “requests” from government entities. Do you? I get letters demanding X, Y or Z.
marv
I was pretty sure you would know the correct plural form for apparatus, Betty, but I had to check, not because I wanted to correct you (you are like a goddess to me, almost), but because apparati is so much fun to say. Do you want a Coke or anything?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
What I find most disturbing is the POTUS sees not watching cable news as something that’s taken Herculean effort…Like it’s some kind of major accomplishment. I mean, if you’re President and that’s the only thing you can point to you’re failing, bigly.
Steeplejack
@chris:
We need a bigger first tumbrel. It’s getting really crowded.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Ahh. Cornel West thinks that anyone cares what he thinks. Bless his heart.
Another sign that Trump is just a tired old fart who can’t adapt to new circumstances. He is totally a creature of habit.
prob50
@OzarkHillbilly:
If only yu’d nown, Yu coulda bin a contendah.
How would we address you? Would “President Hillbilly”, or should it be “President OzarkHillbilly”. We need to know because it’s one thing to f*ck around with somebody’s name here in the Balloonierian Juicycana hinterlands,but quite another when addressing someone facing the task of trying to salvage at least some useful remnants of the democracy and Rule of Law principles that Trump & Company now piss upon on a daily basis.
Know that you’ll have the thanks of somewhere around 50-55% of the nation if you should succeed.
Goku
@Kay: Oh for fucks sake, the Senate investigation is fucked now too? These people (Burr) need to be afraid to go outside. This is bullshit
SatanicPanic
@Kay: We’ll investigate when we take back the House in 2018.
JPL
This is from the Toronto Star
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Villago Delenda Est:
I actually cross trained in animal control years ago when I was a non-sworn employee in law control. Trump could not come anywhere close to handling the duties of the job.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
They are right on schedule. Obama is being introduced NOW.
Thanks for the link. Can’t wait to see/hear him speak again.
Any chance for a new dedicated thread so we can comment in real time?
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@OzarkHillbilly:
You have impulse control, something most of us acquire by our early to mid 20s.
SiubhanDuinne
Obama has said more of substance in < 5 minutes, and said it more intelligently and grammatically, than Trump has said in 100 days.
Amir Khalid
Holy cow, did you guys see this story? Where was this guy when the memo went around to say you don’t want to try this shit in front of 200 people with video cameras?
mr_gravity
@Goku: Same reason I skipped the inauguration.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: It’s time to take a short sword to a Keebler elf.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
This is a guy who kept trying to say “big league” and everyone heard it as “bigly.” So he’s not a very articulate speaker, to put it mildly.
Mnemosyne
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Unless you have adult ADHD, but I think my internet diagnosis of Trump on that score is pretty clear.
germy
LAO
O/T : For those who may be interested, the jury has reached a verdict in the first “Bundy” Las Vegas trial. Linky. It’s expected to be read in Court at 10:00 am PST. (All three Bundy’ still await trial).
The Thin Black Duke
@germy: This is the same clown who said “there wasn’t a dime’s difference between Bush and Gore”, right?
MCA1
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I guess we’ll see about that. The only real hope I have is that 4 years of incompetence will subconsciously reach through to enough of the uninformed or actively misinformed people who generally never vote, to send them back to their couches on Election Day 2020 and give up again. And get uninspired and/or lazy and/or complacent and/or purity pony Democratic voters to get off their rears.
We all counted on people who are inclined to vote R being embarrassed enough by Drumpf to at worst suck it up and circle “D” on their ballot just the one time last fall, and at best to admit that something was rotten and question their loyalty. It turned out the partisan gravitational pull and the unrelenting urge to Cleek liberals was so strong, though, that those seemingly modest expectations were unrealistically rosy (ridiculously so as to the latter of them).
In short, I truly don’t know what it would take to get Republican types to actually go and vote for a Democrat at any time. What set of circumstances could break them from their reflexive tribalism, if not the emergence of a manifestly unfit bullying manchild charlatan who obviously loathes all of the people he supposedly champions and boastfully displays a complete ignorance of anything outside of his own narcissism? He was obviously, screamingly obviously, the worst possible candidate for the job, and they gave it to him anyway.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Thin Black Duke: Well, him and that asstard Nader. Both should be relegated to the land of wind and ghosts.
germy
@The Thin Black Duke: Adjusted for inflation? I heard the same argument about HRC vs. trumpf. And they told me the supreme court wasn’t important.
They’ll be here for the next election, telling everybody Kirsten Gillibrand is in the pocket of Wall Street.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: M^2 can go fuck himself.
Carol
Hats off to AP for not breaking down in fits of laughter.
germy
@schrodingers_cat: He really is trolling us at this point.
Punishing us for nominating that shrill neoliberal.
MCA1
@randy khan: All projection, all the time for Republicans. They troll liberal sites whining about snowflakes and trigger controls and overly sensitive bleeding hearts, and then rally around a narcissist with the most fragile ego in the history of mankind who hasn’t appeared in public since his crappy, poorly attended inauguration because he doesn’t want to see how much people hate him. Sad.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jeffro:
All the traditional conservatives have been pruged by the hard right in US politics over the last twenty years.
artem1s
yea, nope. I’m not buying this cartload of projection. He’s getting his viewing filtered by different people now that PresidentBannon is out of the loop, that’s all. Someone has changed the V-chip settings and told him the old TV went to live on a nice farm somewhere. He is congratulating himself on his new found self-control because he’s been seeing twitter threads about his inability to focus on anything except himself. This is an addicted narcissist’s response to criticism about his self-absorption. Brag about all the 12 steps he’s been thru without actually going thru the process.
Also, staff and probably the GOP leadership is keeping the RussiaTrump reports away from him so he doesn’t perjure them all via twit. He’s already done enough damage because of the claims Obama spied on him. It was an admission that the FISA warrant picked up something the GOP is very worried about. And his latest take on the collusion seems to be that it doesn’t matter that the Russians stole the election for him, he would have totally won anyway without their help because he would have just changed his strategy if they hadn’t hacked it for him. He is truly too stupid to know when he is incriminating himself. He truly believes the whole conversation about collusion is about winning and losing. not treason, or criminal behavior. Kind of a political ‘Deflate Gate’ where everyone gets a slap on the wrist and still gets to take home the trophy.
Bess
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t understand this. I don’t have a TV so hardly ever see TV news but this winter I was in Bangkok for several weeks and CNN was the only US news feed on TV.
The CNN version I saw ripped and tore Trump on a constant basis. Many of the programs were brutal (and highly enjoyable). Does CNN play a different version for the US? Is it because I went to sleep about the time Wolfie came on?
D58826
Interesting piece on WAPO
Steven Pearlstein
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/21/what-happens-if-the-president-doesnt-matter/?utm_term=.796ba74d8297&wpisrc=nl_wonk&wpmm=1
MCA1
@Mnemosyne: I would like to see Democrats address this in a different way, to lay bare what Republicans really are attempting to do with this. Just pretend to go along with the premise. We’ll vote for it provided you back up how important you say it is with the federal purse. National voting cards for everyone over 18 who doesn’t currently have an active state drivers license or state photo ID – FEC can put together a list of every eligible voter in America, and then the states can produce their list of who’s already got an ID good enough to vote. Once those are cross-checked, Democrats will be happy to help fund a task force to go visit every single person on the remaining list, in their home, with the necessary machinery to issue an ID card on the spot. Any additional effort required on the part of voting eligible citizens is characterized by Democrats as a poll tax.
It is not that hard, nor would it really be that expensive, to outfit a couple dozen people in every state to go visit nursing homes and secluded hollers, and carry a couple hundred bucks worth of laminated card maker machinery in the back of their car. The lost productivity from making people travel to some Sec’y of State office that’s open from 10:00 – 4:00 Monday through Friday only, and wasting three hours to get a voter ID card once there, should be quantified and compared to the cost of going to the people who’d need such a card.
Bess
@Mnemosyne:
I suspect the AP editor said “We can’t print that bizarro word salad Trump tossed out. Let’s try to stay out of trouble with the White House, not print it, and say it was unintelligible”. “Just print the semi-rational stuff.”
Goku
@MCA1:
That’s part of the plan
D58826
Could not edit the earlier comment about the WAPO article. As we sit and laugh at what a fool Der Fuhrer is read the article and see how his cabinet picks, and soon judicial picks, are succeeding in rolling back the 21st/20th and a good bit of the 19th centuries. The right-wing agenda is succeeding across the board. Trump might not get all of the cuts in the budget that he wants but he will get a big chunk of them and will sign the resulting legislation.
In the meantime from huffington
But not to worry the EPA administrator doesn’t care. I suspect he would find it something to brag about if the CO2 load doubled on his watch.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Are you referring to his “Face the Nation” appearance or some other political mishap? I am probably more tolerant of Sanders than others here, but damn he is a tiresome old fart, who keeps babbling out the worst parts of his campaign stump speeches as he tries to “lecture” Democrats on what is wrong with their party.
MCA1
@Goku: I know, that’s what I’m saying. Democrats should go along with the b.s. premise of “having voter ID’s is incredibly important,” but go along with it only on the condition that the gov’t go door to door giving them out, knowing full well that Republicans will refuse to pony up federal funds for it or do anything other than make it impossible for primarily Democratic voting constituencies to go get such an ID. Present Republicans with a choice of putting their money where their mouth is, or owning the fact that their only intent is to disenfranchise Democrats, and frame it that way, explicitly.
FlipYrWhig
@JPL:
Now I can only picture Dr. Evil talking over Scott. “Zip it.”
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Yep the CBS fiasco and the daily utterances of the wild haired one.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Sanders is the David Broder of politics. “Both sides,” always and forever, amen. Just like Broder, sometimes he’s spot-on in his criticism of both Republicans and Democrats. But what makes the body of work as a whole so maddening is the false equivalence — and the suspicion that he knows better but is willing to preen about how awful “both sides” are anyway, no matter how much damage he does in the process.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
No we won’t. It’ll be “look forward not back”/”the country can’t afford another scandal” yet again.
zzyzx
CNN is bad in a completely different way than Fox. It’s more “Let’s find a topic that 18 people can argue about for 2 hours even if it’s unimportant,” and, “Political ramifications are more important than what the policy would do,” but it’s not complete propaganda like Fox is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: his rhetoric— “the Democratic Party must open its doors to young people and workers…” How exactly are those doors closed? “we must reform the Democratic Party” why, exactly? “The Democratic Party must make decisions from the ground up, not from the top down”, which decisions, exactly?– is all vague and gauzy cover for “I wuz robbed!”
Steve in the ATL
@zzyzx:
So CNN is copying the format of sports talk TV and radio? Ted Turner needs to die so he can turn over in his grave.
ruemara
@Betty Cracker: He criticises Republicans? That’s largely a sometimes event. Democrats are under a 24/7 barrage of critique from he who hath not accomplished much.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s what we did in 2016, and you’ve been butthurt about it ever since.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We’ve got Sandersites in my local Democratic Party organization who parrot those same talking points, and I think the chair handled it pretty well after the election by asking: “Who’s stopping you?” She challenged them to find candidates who reflect their values, persuade others to get on board and use the tools the party provides to everyone to make their case. Sounds about right to me. You want to change the Democratic Party? Join it and do the work. Win elections.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
What’d they say to that?
Brachiator
@D58826:
Yep. Deserves a read and commentary.
Captain C
@amk: To which someone replied sotto voce off camera: “Not according to the vids I’ve seen.”
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Is that what they’re calling goofing off these days?
Captain C
@SFAW: I’m going to go with “yes.”
different-church-lady
No, what terrifying is that there are tens of millions of Americans who stiil think he ought to be in charge of the nuclear codes.
TenguPhule
@p.a.: When Liberty Tree was cut down and burned.
TenguPhule
@Steeplejack: Firing squads are better suited to handle job lots.
Just saying.
/Set your snarkmeter to orange
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic: You assume we’ll have free and fair elections in 2018 and beyond.
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est: Ever heard of the Iron Maiden?
/Snarkmeter set to stunning
Betty Cracker
@Chris: They picked up the gauntlet, to their credit, IMO. Too early to tell if it bears fruit, and there’s still some low-level infighting, but calling their bluff did seem to defang the worst of the sniping.
Now, granted, the folks I’m talking about (on both sides of the divide) are Democrats who show up to meetings, so I’m not suggesting Perez could quell the unrest in the national party that simply. In my experience, the worst of the Bernie cult has always resided outside the party, even if they’re registered as Democrats.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
@Betty Cracker:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sanders imagines himself to be a “movement” politician, and he has some fuzzy idea of the Democratic Party as magically structure-less, with no leadership (aside from Bernie himself), just “the people” at the grassroots level deciding things. How this would then translate into members of Congress, who knows. Certainly not Bernie.
He also has this bug up his ass about no donations coming from anyone but the little people.
It’s not just that he wuz robbed. He thinks he still sees a chance at future success, with Trump and French presidential candidate as examples. Trump hijacked the GOP; Macron is running as an independent, and if he wins it is unclear how he will be able to govern without a formal party behind him. But this kind of thing excites little Bernie and gives him hope for a 2020 presidential bid. And who knows. Right now he is perhaps the most popular active politician in the United States. And there are and have always been a core of genuine lefties who have been unhappy with some of the policies and practices of the party.
Betty Cracker’s challenge to people supposedly prevented from joining the Democratic Party is spot on. There are no real barriers to entry. This is why Sanders keeps harping on the nonsense that the Democrats and Republicans are both corrupt. He’s saying, “The Democratic Party has cooties. You don’t want to join them, you want to have a revolution and overthrow them.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Holy crap, I tried reading that interview and WTF, was Trump drunk at the time? That wasn’t even old man yells at cloud crazy.
D58826
@Brachiator:
two points
1. in 2020 Bernie will be 78. are we really going to elect someone that old?
2. of course he is popular or more accurately he has high name recognition. No one ( Hillary, GOP, Putin, etc), have done any serious negative advertising against him. Just imagine what the GOP could do with his 1979 support for the kidnappers of the diplomats in Iran or his friendship with Castro.
FlipYrWhig
@D58826: You underestimate the raw sexy power of repeating “something something Wawl Shtreet.” Do that enough times and the effect is somewhere between saying “Beetlejuice” and opening the Ark of the Covenant, and it makes, like a golem, and Mitch McConnell melts. BUT NEOLIBERAL DEMS WONT EVEN TRY
NorthLeft12
My interesting takeaway is that I too have modified my TeeVee viewing habits to first, avoid any program which will likely subject me to exposure to Deadbeat Donald or any of his sleazy sidekicks, and second, to immediately change channels/turn off any program where those same deplorable douchenozzles should turn up when I did not expect them.
SFAW
@NorthLeft12:
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
But the Evil Troll Attorney General will fix that. Gilead, here we come! Yee-haw!!!
Millard Filmore
@Goku: About all that time taken to get an ID card …
Its also part of the plan to encourage hard working citizens with a boss who says “Hey, you don’t show up for work, you’re fired.” And when you are fired with no job lined up to step into, no savings, no way to pay the rent … well those people are encouraged to not get a voter ID card.
I am sure no billionaire is willing to give up everything they possess, put their kids in foster homes, and go live in a cardboard box in exchange for the right to vote.
Brachiator
@D58826:
Good points. Obviously, Sanders is a cockeyed optimist.
One thing, though. If Sanders is a lovable old coot to some people now, imagine how much more cuddly he will be in 2020.
D58826
@Brachiator:
a less lovable much older coot per chance?