My kiddo likes to give me inexpensive children’s toys on present-giving occasions such as Mother’s Day because 1) they’re inexpensive, and 2) I enjoy them. Here’s a portrait of Kim Jong-un I made with a Hairy Harry metal shavings and magnet toy I received Sunday:
A passable likeness. The Twitler Clown Show is wrecking my productivity, but I’ll admit I’m enjoying watching the minions spin and flail. The headlines are all very Watergate: “Turn over the tapes!” “White House under siege!”
What will happen during the overseas trip, do you think? Will Trump piss on the Western Wall? Demand a BLT from the Saudis? Grab the Queen by the…corgi? Proclaim that Anne Frank is doing an amazing job and being recognized more and more?
I am rooting so damn hard for Trump’s utter failure and disgrace at this point. It’s the patriotic thing to do, IMO. I want to see the whole rotten bunch driven from the White House, their “brand” in tatters and their ill-gotten gains confiscated for damages.
I want the big game hunter sons reduced to auctioning off their guns, and when that money runs out, contracting to some disreputable canned hunting outfit in Texas that caters to rich douchebags, with Uday and Qusay beating the bushes to flush out game and getting gored in the balls by Axis deer.
I want to see Javanka hawking knock-off bags at Walmart Supercenter grand opening events after daddy is resettled in the shittiest dacha in the worst suburb of St Petersburg. The Russia one.
You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.
Anyhoo, open thread!
Leto
Did anyone read about Iran’s plan to build a road to the Mediterranian Sea straight through Iraq? 140 mile land corridor. I mean, John’s post below is har har funny but the continuing clusterfuck the W administration left is the gift that keeps on giving.
Iran changes course of road to Mediterranean coast to avoid US forces
New land corridor to move 140 miles south to avoid buildup of US forces assembled in north-east Syria to fight Isis
ArchTeryx
Sometimes it’s whatever warms the cockles of our heart that gets us through times like this.
My latest bit is that the Senate is (of course) looking to cut Medicaid when McConnell brings his own O-care repeal bill to the floor. Because of course they are. They’re just not looking to do it as drastically as the House, and they’re looking to do it in a sneaky way where the state governments get all the torches and pitchforks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/medicaid-senate-compromise.html?_r=1
My one hope is that that’s sure to make the R senators of Medicaid Expansion states queasy, because the cost is shifted almost entirely to their states, and guess who is going to get the torches and pitchforks once those states drastically slash the Medicaid rolls? They can’t gerrymander their way out of that one.
If only those of us on Medicaid (besides myself) actually showed up to the polls.
zhena gogolia
Okay, I see why you wanted to use St. Petersburg, but I’m thinking they’re going to a high-rise on the outskirts of Moscow, where it’s dark from 3:00 PM to 10:00 AM all winter long and the smog makes your sinuses clog up and oh, I could go on forever.
JPL
Trump’s trip should be interesting.
Someone in Iran is laughing their ass off.
TaMara (HFG)
I won’t be happy until Pence, McConnell and Ryan are run out with pitchforks and flaming (tiki) torches with the rest of the crooks and traitors.
ingressus sum
Oh Ms Cracker. You practically had me peeing in my own Wheaties, which is odd because I’m having Oatmeal.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@JPL: It’s like the circus, but with liquored-up clowns trying to kill us all.
On a lighter note, I’m off to talk to the department head — my Algebra final has been moved and now it conflicts with the Hamilton performance I have tickets for. Given that I had confirmed the date of the final with my instructor before registering for the class specifically to prevent this conflict, I’m hoping they’ll take pity on me. Won’t be surprised if they don’t, though. Worth a shot.
(Hey, I can’t have the full 21st century college experience without exhibiting entitlement issues and pissing off a member of the faculty, right?)
LAO
@JPL: It’s going to be very interesting, seeing how this plays out.
JPL
@LAO: Interesting for whom? I just hope that we all live long enough to see him taken away.
Corner Stone
@ingressus sum:
I have a few logistical questions…
brendancalling
I was listening to NPR earlier today. Their reporters are obviously gritting their teeth as they try to put the latest outrages into neutral terms. I think the best was when one of them referred to the “latest debacle” and you could tell using string language was physically painful.
Like the rest of you, I want Orange Foolius and his spawn out of the Oval Office yesterday, preferably publicly executed and displayed. But life in prison would be OK. Or permanent exile to Russia.
And since this is an open thread, some shameless self-promotion: if any of y’all are in or near Nashville tonight, I’ll be playing the Acme Feed & Seed on lower Broadway, 7-10, with Shuggie B. Goode (that’s my handsome self on the bass).
donnah
Betty, I like your thinkin’.
It’s like watching a circus act alright, with administration members trying to keep the plates spinning, spinning, spinning. I want all of them to crash to the ground.
p.a.
reposting from a dead thread:
(h/t Lorne Michaels): I will pay $3,000 for any close ally’s security apparatus psych profile of Donald Trump. Israel’s also (technically I believe not a treaty ally.)
Westyny
You are a gifted caricaturist, Betty. If you’ve never seen them I think you would enjoy Philip Guston’s Nixon drawings. You’re style is more a deadpan, “I’m really a a bad artist” comedy. But you hit an essentialist mark every time. Git ‘er done!
germy
different-church-lady
The work is just beginning: convincing 63 million people that they are dumber than rocks and they need to sit down and shut up forever is gonna take a LOT of time.
john (not mccain)
Trump pissed off the Israelis? I hope he meets an extremely prejudicial Mossad agent.
mai naem mobile
Were there 4 Americans in the room total and has anybody said who it was? I am figuring Tillerson, McMaster,Dolt and a #4 ???
hovercraft
I don’t know, after all Floriduh has given this nation, JEB!, Kathrine Harris, W., and the tipping point that told us 11/8 was going to be a very bad day in the annals of history. perhaps it’s time America gave something back to you. Of coarse we’ll have to build a wall, so that Twitler and his clan can watch as they are overtaken by brown people. I suggest making Mar a Lago a tourist attraction and requiring the Twittler klan to work as tour guides, people can pay extra to sleep in the rooms where the most notorious thieves in American history slept. The place has servants quarters right? If not we can build them a couple of shacks to live in.
LAO
@JPL: By interesting, I meant sicking and nauseating. But in my cold dead heart, I believe that this may give pause to some of the Republican Trump enablers — who knows, we may get a strongly worded speech, instead of a strongly worded statement.
Sandia Blanca
I have another idea for Uday and Qusay–feed them to the killer deer* of Texas
*not really killers, just gross scavengers
mai naem mobile
I was talking to my non political junkie sister and BIL last night about Dolt. The discussion was not about impeachment. We all agreed that was going to happen. The question is how do you safely get Dolt out of the WH safely and what do you do with his cult members? We didn’t have any easy answers to that.
hovercraft
@mai naem mobile:
It may have been someone in the IC according to those in the know, looking at you Adam. Apparently after he blurted this out, the WH contacted the NSA and the CIA to tell them what had happened, and the transcript of the conversation had to be redacted to try to limit the number of people who saw the sensitive information. So it was probably one of those people.
Iowa Old Lady
We got home this morning and I feel like I’ve arrived in Crazy Town. I couldn’t keep up from Europe, and it’s possible I couldn’t have done it from here.
So is any of it going to make any difference? I’m not absolutely sure.
p.a.
Aristophanes would have been hooted out of the theater if he wrote the Trump admin play: “even satire must be based on believable characterizations!”
hovercraft
@mai naem mobile:
FEMA camps, short of that I still say give them Idaho, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and I’ll even throw in Utah and Texas, so they can have access to a major body of water. The only reason I;m not throwing in the Dakotas is so that we maintain a contiguous nation, sorry AK and HI. The South is going to take care of it’s self, we’re about a decade from it flipping back towards us, the Mid-West I hope will have learned their lesson, if not those who want to will have to re-locate, their new homeland has plenty of open lands, most of it owned by the Federal Government so that won’t be a problem.
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
Welcome home.
geg6
@Iowa Old Lady:
Welcome to the Fun House!
We are in uncharted territory. All I know is that we can’t count on anyone who is Republican and in the current congress, in either house, to end this. We have to find a way to make them. And barring that, try to hang on until 2018.
Yarrow
Possibly resignation. Defect to Russia, perhaps?
sukabi
@zhena gogolia: no, it’s Chernobyl all the way baby. Let him finish out his life in the type of hellscape his policies would create.
Yarrow
@ArchTeryx:
The majority of people on Medicaid are old people, many of whom are in nursing homes. When mom or grandma loses their funding for their nursing home they’ll have to come home to live with the kids and grandkids. Those people DO go to the polls.
Dumbass white people don’t realize that Medicaid benefits them even if they personally aren’t on it for their health insurance. They will if these cuts go through.
MJS
Give it about 2 years, and Uday and Qusay will be showing up on celebrity boxing shows.
Corner Stone
@mai naem mobile: Dina Powell, Deputy NSA.
low-tech cyclist
Nuts to either St. Pete, both the Florida and the Russia ones. I’ve been to the Florida one a few times, and a good friend at work is from the Russia one; she says it’s quite nice.
Nah, I’m thinking Siberia.
Put Uday, Qusay, and Jared to work in the salt mines. Ivanka and The Donald get to goof off and enjoy the climate.
Melania gets to stay in the U.S. to raise Barron. After all, the kid hasn’t done anything to anyone.
Citizen_X
@different-church-lady: For starters, we could just convince them to let us goddam vote, and not let the (Republican) politicians draw their own congressional districts.
chopper
@JPL:
laughing up their sleeves, if you will?
raven
@brendancalling: @brendancalling: So you’s Julian? Whack that bottom!
Kay
I don’t think we have time for conservatives to ponder the relationship between “can” and “should”
Why do they spend so much time and energy SLOWLY working thru things everyone else figured out in 3rd grade? Jesus. Get up to speed. Try harder.
chopper
@germy:
oh fuck me. COME THE FUCK ON
Citizen_X
@brendancalling: Nic song, nice job filling the dance floor!
You ought to appreciate this: last time I was in Nashville, I got myself a Nashville Calling t-shirt at Grimey’s.
raven
@brendancalling: Oh no Brendan! “Flat Possum Boys”!!!
low-tech cyclist
@Yarrow:
My wife’s grandmother is 93 years old and suffers from severe dementia. And is in a nursing home, for obvious reasons.
My wife’s parents are in poor shape physically, and can’t care for her. We’re 800 miles away, but if Medicaid went away, we’d have to take her in and care for her as long as she lives. Her mind’s gone, but her body’s tough; that could be several more years. So if Medicaid went away, our lives (including that of our 9 year old son) would be totally upended. A scary thought. And yeah, I vote. And call my Congresscritters.
Peale
@Yarrow: Yes. But they’d rather worry that children of poor people and pregnant women are screwing them over. As long as the bill can be sold as screwing over sick Mexican children, they won’t make the connection. Besides, they think they’ll be free from the Spend Down Clawback the medicaid requires. And they will be. The Nursing home will just take the assets directly.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@low-tech cyclist: Same here. Father-in-law with dementia, in a nursing home. My mild-mannered husband finally told all of his Trump voting friends and family to fuck off — he had no use for their concern and sympathy after they voted to make his family’s life harder.
hovercraft
Mnemosyne
@low-tech cyclist:
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
And, of course, the Trump voters in your lives are going to refuse to take any responsibility for the fix you find yourselves in. Sigh.
artem1s
send the whole klan to Pripyat. Tell them it’s prime real estate ready for development. Give them the whole mess for free. Let them build a grifting nirvana and theme park. Let them sell time shares to their insane supporters. The only caveat is they have to take Assange off the Bulgarian’s hands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pripyat
Betty Cracker
So Erick Son of Erick claims he knows one of the leakers and that what the shitgibbon did was actually much worse than reported. He claims the leaker is forced to create press firestorms to try to brush the shitgibbon back from much worse actions because he (Trump) won’t listen to anyone and takes direction, no matter how mildly phrased, as an attack.
I don’t trust Erickson at all. But that tale sure does sound plausible.
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
I can’t read Russian, but this was posted downstairs.
But as bad as we think it will be with Twittler it’s always worse.
Cheryl Rofer
@hovercraft: I can’t read Russian either, but also seeing that the Tass article is just a rehash of the Post article. Waiting for my more reliable Russian readers to chime in.
Ohio Mom
Something that warms my heart: Fifty disability rights advocates in wheelchairs were just arrested for protesting in front of the White House.
I’m not entirely clear yet on what specifically they were protesting — there’s more than one thing this administration is involved in at the moment that will hurt people with disabilities — but whatever it is, I’m with them!
It’s a nice change from the studied denial the Cincinnati disability leadership is currently displaying.
Aleta
This bluster about finding the leakers has started to seem like his campaign rhetoric about fixing elections, fake news and other obsessions.
Maybe Trump came out with this leak so easily to the Russian press because he’s been leaking a lot more than we already suspected to the US press.
He loves to do that, even for control over his own people to keep them off balance. Thinks talking off record to the press is a good technique for keeping the upper hand, since he’s not smart enough to outwit people directly. Also how he lights up his name in the headlines every single day.
He has that ingrained impulse to jab at an opponent in a deal, this time the meeting with Israel, through the press before a meeting. To him, like boxing, but does it anonymously. Maybe thought the details and country would stay obscure to the public and only stir Israel a little.
Shana
@MJS: What? And risk damage to those pretty faces? I think not.
gkoutnik
@Ohio Mom: 42% of Medicaid dollars spent on people with disabilities. They’ve got a case. Someone go bail them out so they can go back daily.
Origuy
@Cheryl Rofer: Here’s the link to the TASS article in English. As you say, it’s nothing new: Trump defends right to share facts about war on terror with Russia