Am I the only one who finds it kind of amusing (in a sick way) that while Trump goosestepped across the podium while giving shout outs to Stormfront and basically going full Fuhrer in front of the entire country, VP Pence is here:
US vice-president Mike Pence arrived in Buenos Aires last night before a busy day deepening the bilateral relationship between Argentina and the United States. His visit is just one stop in Pence’s tour of Latin America; on Sunday in Colombia, he promised to secure American borders and assured the region that the US would seek a peaceful resolution to the Venezuelan crisis rather than a military intervention.
Prolly looking at real estate as we speak. As a side note, I love all the reports like this:
White House official: Once in front of press, president "went rogue;" team members stunned by the president's actions.
— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) August 15, 2017
When President Obama went rogue, it meant he sneaked a cigarette or had two pieces of nicorette at once. Or, horror of horrors, wore a tan suit.
Baud
The last Republican to visit Argentina hiked the Appalachian Trail.
Mary G
He’ll be right at home with all the Nazis who moved there.
suilebhan
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the entire damned Trump Administration “escaped” to Argentina? And, please, take Paul Ryan and Mitch, as well.
Roger Moore
Russia seems a far more likely place, though.
JPL
@Roger Moore: Russia has mountains, so they could hike.
MisterForkbeard
“The White House did not expect Trump to actually tell anyone what his real opinions were that he’d made clear during private conversations. We’re floored that we’re now publicly attached to a fascist, racist, pro-nazi Alzheimer’s patient. As opposed to privately.”
zhena gogolia
@MisterForkbeard:
Too true.
Mnemosyne
As Kay keeps saying, he is a garbage person, and he raised a garbage family.
And millions of my fellow Americans voted for him. Christ.
https://giphy.com/gifs/disney-the-little-mermaid-ariel-qHY6ij6LYizle
Archon
Any lefty still arguing that Pence as President would be worse then this is out of their goddamn mind.
MisterForkbeard
@zhena gogolia: I don’t know how else to interpret that statement from the White House, I really don’t.
It’s not like we haven’t had numerous leaks about Trump saying incredibly objectionable shit. He just said it out loud this time, on TV. There’s no way his staff and allies don’t know what he is, they’re just trying to acknowledge it in the public space.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Sometimes it still just hits me out of the blue, Donald fucking tap dancing Trump is the president of the United States. This is happening, for realz, no take-backsies. What are people going to say, looking back on all this in 2083? This shit really happened.
different-church-lady
@Archon: He wouldn’t be “worse” himself — it’s that he might be more effective at getting conservative initiatives passed, and the end result would be worse.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@MisterForkbeard: Did that come out of the White House? I mean, it seems too over the top even for this shit show fail parade, but there’s just no way to tell any longer. This isn’t a presidential administration; it’s some kind of fucked up performance art.
Major Major Major Major
On the radio just now they played a clip of trump going on about how he didn’t have a full statement right away because you gotta make sure you have all the facts first. After the clip the reporter noted how trump has been known to not have all the facts when speaking.
It was very Arrested Development.
MisterForkbeard
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): From “White House Officials”. So no, it’s not an official statement from the White House. Just people in it anonymously talking to the press about how they’re horrified.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@MisterForkbeard: They really said that, though, about him being like an Alzheimer’s patient? Really? Because I can believe that, while somehow at the same time I can’t believe it, if that makes any sense at all.
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): be nice, Mr. F. You made that up.
Mr Stagger Lee
That sound in Texas you hear,is George W Bush praising Jesus for Donald Trump’s. I guess somewhere in the afterlife, James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Millard Filmore is singing hosannas for Trump Don IL has crashed the floor as the Worstests(sic) of the Worst.
MisterForkbeard
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): No. It’s what they said in the tweets John posted, in the vein of “Trump was supposed to just introduce an infrastructure thing and get out. He wasn’t supposed to take questions at all, and now’re we all kind of stunned.”
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, to be clear – this is my interpretation of the anonymous White House official who says they’re stunned after Trump’s press conference. They did not literally say he was racist or an Alzheimer’s patient.
But I’m not sure what else they’d be stunned by. Trump does stuff like that all the time – it’s just that this time, the subject matter was even worse than he usually publicly expectorates.
Gian
How far our politics have fallen. the late Senator Inouye did the world a favor, and showed extraordinary valor in battle killing Nazis, losing an arm in the process.
president Donald dodged the draft to fight the STD battle of New York, and endorses Nazis.
boatboy_srq
Hmmm. Handaid’s Tale meets Boys From Brazil with a dash of Idiocracy for good measure.
If in 2008 someone had pitched this to Hollywood s/he would have been laughed out of town for presenting such an unrealistic plot.
Major Major Major Major
@boatboy_srq: I still think it’s too unrealistic.
Jay C
@Mr Stagger Lee:
I’m guessing “Old Buck”, Franklin P., Andy Johnson and Warren Harding are all lifting their glasses in that Big White House In The Sky happy as all heck that they’ve FINALLY been bumped up from “The Bottom” – and that The Donald is going have several millennia (at least) to (eventually) deal with the decor….
TenguPhule
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
This is why I’m arguing we take a mulligan as a nation and disappear Trump from history. Make him and his spouse and kids unpersons. They never existed. An attempted coup by Republicans where all the treasonous parties were summarily tried and executed and don’t ever dignify them by name.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Your problem is that you think reality has to make sense.
TenguPhule
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
What do you mean Donald Trump wasn’t made on Drugs?
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: I most certainly do not. Fiction has to make sense, that’s what I meant.
prob50
@Roger Moore: They could stop by Sara Palin’s place on the way. Maybe get some history/geography/diplomacy tips from her before hand.
WaterGirl
Cole, that might just be the best thread title ever.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
So, these goofballs would prefer an incompetent racist.
Seems self-defeating.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I don’t think Mother allows hiking.
NotMax
@Gian Might want to pick someone other than Inouye, who has bragged multiple times (I am a witness to two occasions) about mutilating the body of a dead French civilian woman in order to steal a piece of jewelry.
mainmata
@Mr Stagger Lee: James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Millard Filmore were merely incompetent; Pierce and Filmore when it didn’t matter much. Buchanan was incompetent and deliberately neglectful of the secessionist danger (odd since he was from PA). Anyway, those three don’t compare to real criminals such as Harding, Nixon, Reagan and W and the worst of them, of course, Trump.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: Damned either way.
There’s one important advantage in Pence’s favor: at least he probably understands why we can’t use nukes.
NotMax
Veep visits to South America have a, um, checkered record.
Nixon in 1958, particularly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t think trump had much to do with the failure of trump care (Ryancare), and if Pence isn’t already picking judges, someone who thinks a lot like him is.
mai naem mobile
Can you imagine the shit that’s going to come out about Dolt45 in 20-30 years once stuff starts becoming unclassified and available . I am sure some people will talk once he’s dead but there’s got to be so many crazy unbelievable bits of info that will come out. I wonder if his brain will be examined at some point after his death.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
@different-church-lady:
I was very much around in 1974. Was glad to see Nixon go. Was not thrilled that Ford replaced him, but was okay with him, relatively speaking. That said, was proud to vote for Carter in 1976 and very pleased that he won.
I can easily envision a similar scenario relative to Pence. He would be be awful in any number of ways, but compared to Trump, at this this point he would be sweet relief and I think I’d take him in a heartbeat. And would/will also work very hard against him, and vote for his opponent, in 2020. No-brainer.
Shalimar
@different-church-lady: Better a world with more conservative damage to undo than a world where the posturing tough guy has nuked multiple countries.
Shalimar
Also, too, Pence is not going to be the nominee in 2020. He was on his way out in Indiana and didn’t even run for president in 2016. I know a lot of the base plus the Kochs like him, but he’s an inept politician. Pence in 2020 is going to fare as well in the primaries as Santorum did last year.
SiubhanDuinne
@mai naem mobile:
Serious question here, because I honestly don’t know the legalities: We hear all the time that anyone who marries or goes to work for Trump (which may be the same thing, come to think of it) has to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Just how binding are these NDAs? What are the penalties for breaking the agreement? Would they hold up on appeal? Or are they just a scary thing that Trump can wave at them to keep them from spilling secrets?
different-church-lady
@mai naem mobile:
Assumes matter not in evidence.
TenguPhule
@SiubhanDuinne:
A lifetime of fighting Trump’s Scum-sucking lawyers* in court.
*Yes, lawyers have to eat and defend their clients to the best of their ability. Using courts as blunt instruments for a legal abuse of the law is not the same.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I read Jack Germond’s memoir years ago, maybe 20 (!), and was quite surprised when he said that in early ’70s, Ford was considered a right-winger. But I guess those were days when Javits and Fenwick and Rockefeller and others represented a substantial number of Republicans.
Lurking Canadian
@SiubhanDuinne: The only thing preventing me from wholeheartedly endorsing Pence at this point is that he’d give the NYT and CNN cover to whitewash the GOP. Trump is theirs. Those Nazi fuckers are their base. I don’t want them to have a chance to come back from this. The longer Trump lasts, the more tightly he can be lashed to the Reublican party with a rope made of braided Confederate flags before the voters toss them both over the side.
Wapiti
@SiubhanDuinne: IANAL, I’ve read commenters here that say NDAs have no weight in a court of law (eta: a criminal court), anyone who is under oath cannot plead the NDA and cannot be sued later by Trump for something they say in court under oath.
Jay Noble
I wonder if/hope part of what Mueller is doing is 1 – taking out everyone in whatever they were involved in and 2 – making sure he doesn’t leave a vacuum that what’s left of the GOP gets to fill.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It does worry me, how trump will follow the Iraq War down the memory hole, an unfortunate thing that happened but no one remembers why and we mustn’t point the partisan finger of blame
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Bloody Overton Window!
Ohio Mom
Of course we don’t relish the idea of President Pence. But as I’ve said before, his daughters will be in school (or wherever it is they spend their days), not stuffing their pockets in front of the whole world.
That is my shorthand for, “We will once again have a president who observes the rules, both written and unwritten.”
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
As was John Paul Stevens when nominated as Supreme Court justice. Much ink spilled at the time about how he was too far to the right to have been considered. By the time he retired, he was always included among lists of liberal justices.
TenguPhule
@Jay Noble:
Anything less then a clean sweep will let the GOP Blob regenerate.
They all have to go.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: that, i did not know. Very interesting
TenguPhule
@Ohio Mom:
No evidence that this is true.
Every single Republican in the line of succession has to be considered a Russian Traitor until proven otherwise.
Ella in New Mexico
Rachel Maddow just made the entirely plausible conjecture that the White House Staffers “on background” were lying. That they knew exactly what Trump’s intentions were today, but they’re trying to give themselves cover for not stopping it.
Ohio Mom
@Ohio Mom: Is this the equivalent of white-washing? Maybe. I don’t know.
I just want them out before that family breaks any more norms.
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
It was part and parcel of Ford being deemed as well over into the right, as Ford nominated Stevens.
Davebo
@suilebhan: They could move to Brazil and Greenwald could help them settle in.
different-church-lady
That look when you realize, “Yes, I actually am working for a Nazi sympathizer….”
Ksmiami
@TenguPhule: czar and czarina style? Yes that could work…and before anyone overreacts- we need to shut down these motherfuc.. Nazis and their enablers like yesterday
Matt McIrvin
At this point I think Congress or the Cabinet needs to install Pence just because, with him in office, the streets of the US are much less likely to be filled with Nazi mobs beating and killing people. His policy preferences are terrible, but with Trump you’d effectively get them anyway.
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin:
Have you seen who’s in the cabinet? They’re probably just fine with the Nazi mobs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: Yeah, I suspect Mattis would love to dump trump, Mnuchin (sp?) would do if it meant he could keep his job. Maybe Sessions would go in that last category. Ben Carson? Betsy DeVos? I doubt it. Though you could convince me that both could be persuaded that they were voting on an Official Cabinet Declaration That Kitties Are Nice.
SFAW
@different-church-lady:
Even the guy with the football.
Which makes me wonder: what if, during the middle of the whatever-it-was-that-Shitgibbon-was-doing, he turned to the guy with the football, and said “You know what? Fuck it. I’m tired of being shit on by the Fake News Media and that bastard Kim Whatsisname. Give me that thing, I’m in a launching mood. Fuck Kim and North Korea, and fuck those ragheads in Iran, too. I’m going to wipe all those fuckers out.”
Given Lying Littledick’s inability to exhibit the tiniest amount of self-control, I find that scenario far less implausible than I did before 2017.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Archon:
Yes, at lest Pence isn’t anarchy on the streets.
prostratedragon
Reception music in B.A.?
“Milonga Picaresque”
sm*t cl*de
@TenguPhule:
That would make jury duty far more entertaining.
hilts
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
What are people going to say, looking back on all this in 2083?
They’ll say that millions of Americans simply lost their goddamn fucking minds.
Jay C
@TenguPhule:
Is this a comma fail along the lines of the noted magazine cover:
“Rachael Ray loves cooking her family and her dog” ?
sm*t cl*de
@Lurking Canadian:
“Let us rejoice that adults are in charge again — disciplined, manly, authoritarian, proper Republicans.
Republicans do not support Trump. Republicans never supported Trump, who was anarchic and undisciplined and really a Democrat in all but name. We will never speak of the Unfortunate Interregnum again.”
randy khan
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The Pence/Trump choice is a lot like the Cruz/Trump choice – Pence, like Cruz, would be predictably and reliably awful, but the chance for a total disaster (nuclear war, complete financial meltdown) is a lot lower than with Trump. Trump may not get quite as much terrible stuff done, but the risk of a disaster is much higher. It’s hard to choose, given how bad both choices are.
J R in WV
But…
I dunno, I thot President Obama looked good in that tan suit…
Maybe I’m not a fashion guru?
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV: He did. He also looks good in most clothes. Tall, muscular, and thin is an uncommon mixture. But it is what male models have to do. It also describes Obama.
Lyrebird
Excellent twitter thread: Imagine if these people had to face actual oppression (not exact quote)…
MCA1
@Ohio Mom: Oh, shit! There are still more norms to be broken?
The most amazing thing about this person is his endless ability to surprise me. Every time I think I can’t possibly lower my expectations any more, he goes lower. It is truly mind boggling.
mai naem mobile
@SiubhanDuinne: I would think it goes away once he’s dead. Also if he gets in as much trouble as we think heay have more important things to deal with than NDAs. Also, I don’t think they apply once they go to the WH and become fed employees.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
It’s not that anyone prefers either one. It’s just that the one we have now is so fucking low on any scale that defines a human being that it has to be possible that the asshole that Indifuckingana didn’t want is better than the shitstain that is in office now.
Ruckus
@Lurking Canadian:
Wholeheartedly agree. I want every one of these scum sucking assholes to pay for this. I want whatever passes for reasonable republicans (an oxymoron if there ever was one) to have to drive the stake in the heart of their party, to burn it to the ground, salt the earth so it can never come back and then stand up and apologize for what they’ve done. Lotta work for 2 people.