Bloomberg published a piece this morning about the strained relationship between Trump and PM Theresa May, which appears to be strained almost entirely because Trump is an arrogant, blustering, boorish asshole.
I don’t follow UK politics closely at all, but from what I’ve gathered, May is no day at the beach either and has run an administration that almost rivals Trump’s in its level of chaos and dysfunction.
Still, I felt for May when I read this:
Over a meal of blue cheese salad and beef ribs in the White House banqueting room, Trump held forth on a wide range of topics. “The president had strong views on all of them,” recalls Chris Wilkins, then May’s strategy director, who was among the aides around the table. “He said Brexit’s going to be the making of us. It’s going to be a brilliant thing.”
Trump turned to May and told her he believed there were parts of London that were effectively “no-go areas” due to the number of Islamic extremists. May chose to speak up to “correct him,” Wilkins said.
Trump also discussed his British golf courses and his hopes that the relationship with May would be stronger than the Thatcher-Reagan alliance. “It was an hour of the president holding court and the PM being very diplomatic and not many other people saying anything,” Wilkins said.
Yeah, I imagine that experience is familiar to pretty much anyone who dines with Trump. And it sounds like their phone calls go about as well as the dinner:
During formal phone calls between the two leaders, May finds it almost impossible to make headway and get her points across, one person familiar with the matter said. Trump totally dominates the discussion, leaving the prime minister with five or ten seconds to speak before he interrupts and launches into another monologue.
In one phone conversation during 2017, Trump complained to May over the criticism he’d been getting in British newspapers. Amid warnings that Trump would face protests in the streets when he arrived, he told the prime minister he would not be coming to the U.K. until she could promise him a warm welcome.
May responded to say such treatment was simply the way the British press operate, and there wasn’t much she could do. In the secure bunker underneath the prime minister’s office, her advisers listened in to the call in astonishment at Trump’s demand.
It’s no surprise Trump doesn’t understand how a free press and citizen dissent work in the UK since he’s famously clueless about the constitution at home that he so preposterously swore to protect and defend.
With any luck, the British people will be spared a state visit by Trump, simply because he’s a chickenshit. No such luck for May, though — she’s scheduled to meet with the fool at Davos tomorrow.
Oh well. At least she won’t have to prepare lengthy remarks.
Butch
Can someone please tell me why on earth Trump has been invited to present the closing remarks at Davos? Comedy relief?
kindness
Well….while I wouldn’t pray for AF1 to crash I probably wouldn’t shed too many tears if it did.
Immanentize
Trump, like many men I have worked for/with (and one notable woman) believes that talking over people means they agree with you.
FlipYrWhig
In the words of the quintessential New Yorker cartoon caption:
Christ, what an asshole.
Chyron HR
No, no, fake news. He has a brilliant brain. He’s a gene genius who loves his Big Macs (apologies to David Bowie).
Immanentize
@Butch: Like every conference I ever attended, everyone who is anyone flies out the day before…
Major Major Major Major
I’m surprised he let a mere woman have that many seconds.
dmsilev
@Butch: Nobody minds if the entire audience drinks heavily at the close of a conference; it’s a bit déclassé to do that at the opening.
The Moar You Know
I went to London right after the election. They hear the accent and they all ask. All I could say is “I didn’t vote for the fucker.” It was humiliating.
On another topic, anyone wanna tell me why Senate Democrats voted for this nice little provision as part of the budget deal? Not helpful. Especially not with the current lunatic in charge.
Immanentize
@Chyron HR: You owe a BIG apology to poor dead Bowie for that one…. You must wear the Bibberty Bopperty Hat!
jl
Micky D cheeseburgers, fish fillets and chocolate malts not on the menu? Trump insulting her by giving her a slop third rate meal? May should be pissed.
FlipYrWhig
I just can’t get over how he has NOT ONE redeeming value as a human being. He’s horrible on every level. He’s rude, he’s selfish, he’s dumb, he’s corrupt, he’s a dick to everyone and especially people who fall into disfavored social and economic categories, he doesn’t learn, he doesn’t think, he looks ridiculous, he sounds ridiculous. Those are troublesome attributes in a person who does _anything_, and we get to witness them in a PRESIDENT. What the fuck-loving FUCK.
MJS
I wonder why she takes it? If she’s being talked over constantly, she should just say, “I’ll call back when you learn how to listen”, and hang up. If he can breach protocol by suggesting she get the British press in line before he visits, then she can do the same by hanging up.
Major Major Major Major
@The Moar You Know:
Gosh, maybe because it was in the only bill on offer?
ETA also if you read the article they say “Burr and Warner vowed to fix the provision by the time the next funding bill needs to pass.
“It will only last three weeks,” Burr said.”
dmsilev
@Chyron HR: Remember John “Powerline” Hinderaker’s immortal prose about GW Bush:
History repeats itself, but as tragic farce both times.
scav
@Butch: Earplugs are cheap, they’ll all be basically off-duty and hammered by then and it’s the communal effort at his face projected on a wall obsequious cheap laser-pointer-distraction buy-off that’s proven to work with him?
jl
@FlipYrWhig: Good news is that Trump is not fooling most of the people most of the time. Nice to see in this here blog earlier today that 78 percent of population think Trump should testify if Mueller asks, and Trump is underwater in Texas.
286 days, or 40 weeks, or 9 months to midterms. Need to bury GOP and Trumpsters electorally.
I need to check on campaign contribution limits later today to plan my annual giving. I’m just an individual person, not a billionaire or corporation who can pour as much as they want into PACs and superPAcs, and I probably have to obey the law, being a ‘lesser person’.
bystander
Speaking of twitler, can someone explain why you would encourage your children to become coprophiliacs?
I had to rewatch this about 8 times to come to grips with it.
Roger Moore
@Butch:
The organizers believe they’ll get something of value by sucking up to him. The same reason anyone else does something Trump wants.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Every once in awhile I see somebody described as a “friend” or even “close friend” or “ long-time friend”.
I can’t imagine what “friend” means when it concerns him. I’m not sure he even grasps the concept of other human beings with thoughts and an existence separate from him.
schrodingers_cat
Other countries are going to sideline the United States as far as they possibly can as long as T is in charge. No human being or country is inevitable. Even after T’s departure they will approach us warily. T’s ascendancy shows that W was not an accident.
jl
@dmsilev: When will that guy jump on the new bandwagon that it was a sinister FBI secret society/Deep State plot that fooled the pedestrian and non-too-bright GW into the disastrous Iraq invasion?
Ridnik Chrome
Prats and gits sounds like something you would order in a diner in Alabama. With plenty of hot sauce on the side.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
I must go to a different kind of conference. The conference I go to most frequently has a mixer immediately after the opening plenary. Of course they also have free beer and wine at the business meeting.
Another Scott
@Immanentize: rofl.
“It’s funny ’cause it’s true!” /Homer.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: Also, too, probably unconstitutional. Additionally, it is a rule regarding appropriations passed by Congress about limiting Congress which probably be broken just by Congress doing the opposite in a funding bill. A president would have to veto it. (Or issue a signing statement which is a meaningless act)
Mart
Taking the tube to visit a daughter’s friend not too far from the Gherkin whilst in London, I got us off at the wrong stop. I proceeded to stumble us around a “no-go area” for about 45 minutes; before listening to my wife and asking a kind young man for directions. He booted up google maps and got us on a London “straight” line to our destination. We are still shaken by the experience.
jl
@Roger Moore: Trump needs to start worrying about outdoing Oprah for next campaign in 2020. “YOU get a favor… YOU get a favor… EVERY billionaire here gets a favor!”
zhena gogolia
@FlipYrWhig:
Isn’t that from Annie Hall?
Immanentize
@Another Scott: left you a reply on now dead morning thread. I was insufficiently clear about my point there….
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: Yeah, I marvel at that all too often as well. He’s just an awful human being in every possible way — even in ways that don’t really matter (fashion sense, personal grooming habits, etc.).
I remember thinking during that campaign how remarkable it was that they couldn’t get anyone but Trump’s immediate family to serve as “character witnesses.” There were people willing to lie about his business prowess, etc. But I can’t recall hearing a single anecdote that illustrated human qualities like compassion or kindness. Not one.
zhena gogolia
@bystander:
WTF is that?
scav
And in rhyming news, the UK President’s Club um, charitable gala “whoops” has certainly unravelled quickly.
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize:
My thought as well, and yeah, Congress can’t bind Congress’s hands.
Another Scott
@Immanentize: Saw it, and replied. It’s still on life-support. :-)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
NorthLeft12
I hope Deadbeat Donald does not expect a warm welcome in Canada. I’ll speak for the rest of the Commonwealth and say that he would not be welcome to any of those countries.
As others have said before, Trump epitomizes every negative trait of the “ugly American”. But lets face it, that is exactly what his worshipful base wants.
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia: yes, Joey Nickles.
JPL
@kindness: Not me. We’d have days of mourning and Mike Pence as president. The Mueller investigation would be shut down.
Boatboy_srq
@Butch: Any other spot would have induced sufficient indigestion and/or nausea among the other attendees as to make the entire event non-productive. At least leaving him to close, the others can duck out early, and all the rich food will have settled before Lord Dampnut’s self-serving word salad barf-fest.
schrodingers_cat
@NorthLeft12: Ignorant and proud of it.
Immanentize
@Another Scott: but alive!
ETA. I agree with everything you added in the reply.
Ruckus
This is actually informative.
May’s policies and abilities aren’t really a lot better than drumpf but she is a lot more civil. That hides a lot. How much worse was shrub, really? But he was at least close to civil. And that hid a lot.
Mandalay
White racist fired from his job plays the victim card….
And of course there is the obligatory begging on GoFundMe in the name of “Free Speech”.
zhena gogolia
@FlipYrWhig:
Wow, all this time I thought it was from Annie Hall, but I see that the word “Christ” is not included in AH.
jl
@NorthLeft12: As a US citizen and taxpayer, it’s fine with me if you boo as loud as you can, and I hope for a creative sign to wave for the cameras. But don’t throw any shoes at the fat jerk.
Major Major Major Major
@Mandalay:
‘Kawczynski’? That’s not how Americans spell things. Deport his ass!
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
It means they’re big enough suckers they think he won’t turn on them the moment it’s advantageous.
zhena gogolia
@Immanentize:
But the kid doesn’t say “Christ.”
laura
Jeeezus, what a greasy, gaping, bottomless suck hole of need.
Yarrow
I don’t understand this at all. How could anyone be astonished by Trump demanding the head of government in another country control their press? Of course it’s what he would do. Those advisers weren’t doing their job if they hadn’t anticipated he’d do something along those lines.
Bobby Thomson
I have no sympathy for anyone who acts like a supplicant around Trump.
bemused
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Asskisser.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Can’t blame them. My trust in my own country has been shaken to its foundations by Trump’s election, even with the electoral college nonsense and Putin’s thumb on the scale.
Nicole
Since it’s an open thread, MPR released a bit more about the Garrison Keillor firing:
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/23/16925478/garrison-keillor-minnesota-public-radio-fired-sexual-misconduct
Shocker, shocker, it wasn’t about accidentally slipping a hand up an open-back shirt.
Seriously, the amount of pearl-clutching over that one (people really thought a powerful media figure would be fired over a single incident?) was amazing. And from guys I know who consider themselves feminists.
Ruckus
@FlipYrWhig:
He is the quintessential Ugly American.
We just don’t normally elect them to high office.
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia: why would he? He’s Jewish!
Major Major Major Major
@Bobby Thomson: Even if they have, I don’t know, a nation, with interests, to protect from, I don’t know, capricious unilateral trade policies?
@Immanentize: So was Christ!
JR
@zhena gogolia: it’s an old internet meme from yea… about 15 years ago or so. A clever guy figured out that every New Yorker cartoon could be captioned “Christ, what an asshole”.
Not only does it work, it often does so better than the original captions.
Cacti
@Major Major Major Major:
Irony is truly dead in a world where people with surnames like Kelly and Kawczynski oppose immigration to the United States.
BellyCat
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Frenemy
Major Major Major Major
@JR: The new universal caption is “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: So true, but did Christ ever say, “Christ?” I think not….
Aleta
-BBC
(175 years)
Boatboy_srq
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:[consults English/MAGAt dictionary] Friend: n. Someone who continually invests in tRump business ventures without being repaid. See also: Dupe; rube.
trollhattan
@Yarrow:
Yeah, after his first demented call to the Aussie PM (another staunch conservative to boot) every leader the world over knew exactly who and what they could look forward to dealing with. Remember this classic? If anybody’s fussier about protocol than the Brits, it’s the Japanese. And they both have to be nice to us, no matter what.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
Yes, we do. George W. Bush was an ugly American, nearly as close to the quintessential Ugly American as Trump is. Reagan was pretty awful, too. And that’s leaving out all the Senators and Representatives who are just as ugly as Trump is.
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize:
ETA
Boatboy_srq
@Immanentize: tRump merely agrees with what he heard you say, which may have nothing to do with what you actually said, or with what he remembers of what you said.
Sloane Ranger
May gambled and lost during last year’s snap election, turning a small overall majority into needing the votes of the unpleasant (British understatement) DUP to guarantee the passage of legislation. This has weakened her to the extent that Ministers know they can say what they like without fear of being sacked. Just yesterday BoJo leaked that he was asking for a massive cash infusion into the NHS. This would normally lead to him being out but he just got a telling off. She can’t risk him sitting on the backbenches pissing into the tent.
What is saving her job at the moment is two things, the TINA principle, all the other obvious leadership contenders are actively disliked/distrusted by even larger numbers of Party members and whatever Brexit deal she makes will be hated by about half of the electorate and others, who might be considering a leadership bid, would rather she take the blame allowing them to present themselves as a new broom.
I don’t agree with much May does but what I grudgingly admire is her ability to take the blows from her, so called colleagues, pick herself up and keep staggering forward.
I assume she absorbs Trump’s actions and behaviour in much the same way.
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: Mr. Smarty pants. I really did not know that passage….
Brachiator
I wonder whether Trump is more dismissive when speaking with women leaders than he is when speaking with male leaders.
ETA: I look forward to Fox News telling us the special relationship between the two countries is still solid.
Butch
I don’t know how to do multiple responses, so to all the folks who responded to my first comment – I appreciate what you said. In another life I used to staff conferences for a government agency and I should have realized that no one is there for the closing speech, unless they’re already too drunk to move.
Just One More Canuck
@MJS: she was probably playing Candy Crush while he was talking
Just One More Canuck
@Immanentize: he would have said, “Me, what an asshole”
trollhattan
@Aleta:
I knew as soon as I read her first statements of support to the sentencing hearing witnesses that she’d nail his ass to the wall, and I’m glad. Read today she did a twenty-year stint with the National Guard and is a crime novelist. I like this judge! Maybe she could join Sotomayor at some point to form Team Wise Latina.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Of course he is. I am sure he is more dismissive of non-English speaking and non-white heads of state/government too.
Immanentize
@Just One More Canuck: That is one fine comment.
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize: I may have downloaded a text file of all the words of Christ and run a search.
bemused
A white male winger in his 70’s owns a tiny weekly paper in my area. He wasn’t all that keen on Trump when he started running but as I expected, he started warming up to Trump right after he got the R nomination. The old coot writes an editorial every week which is what you’d expect from a Trump supporter. He believes all the wingnut bs. Last week he went on and on about the debt, stock market, Trump being respected by the rest of the world and we will prosper! He ended with saying he’d probably be getting a lot of negative letters about his editorial but “check what the writers do for a living and don’t be surprised if most are on the government dole.”
Chris
@jl:
Note that if this hypothetical ever becomes real, I fully expect that number to drop by fifteen percentage points or so.
There was no shortage of conservatives prattling on about how they’d be keeping an eye on Trump and would come down hard on him if he put one toe out of line, back after the election. All of them have since hopped on the bandwagon of “Trump is just misunderstood, Hillary is the real danger we should all be worried about, and the FBI is a liberal conspiracy.”
Litlebritdifrnt
A) What everyone else said about controlling the press and the general populous, not going to happen. B) Trump will never get a friendly reception in the UK. Every single person I have spoken to since I have been home thinks that Trump is just a huge fucking joke and not one of them can believe that the American people voted him to be dog catcher in chief let alone commander in chief. C) The posh folks (the ones that matter to Trump the most) think he is “all fur coat and no knickers.” He is their nightmare of a dinner guest, brash, boastful and a total slob. I should imagine that given the opportunity the Queen would suddenly be hospitalized with a mystery illness rather than host a state visit, I suspect that she has already told May that and May is just placating the great orange shitgibbon to fend off having to deal with it.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, Reagan was a sewer rat in Hollywood cowboy costume and Nixon was openly a rat. The whole “lawn dorder” schtick gets vile people out voting in droves.
Chris
@Mandalay:
You’re two hundred years and change too late for that, shit-for-brains.
trollhattan
@bemused:
Sounds like he’s auditioning for a job at Sinclair doing canned op-eds. Supah, gramps.
Chris
@Cacti:
I thought they jumped the shark with Michelle Malkin the anchor baby crusading against anchor babies.
schrodingers_cat
@Mandalay: I guess Europeans did not receive the white culture memo that’s why they fought all those wars for centuries against each other.
rikyrah
Rick Gates is not only an ally of Manafort, he was also the Deputy Campaign Manager for @realDonaldTrump. If Gates flipped, that is more bad news for Manafort and @POTUS. https://t.co/r6VlOJOynM
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 24, 2018
Because attorneys for Flynn ended cooperation with the White House last Nov, attorneys for @realDonaldTrump & Trump himself will not know what Flynn said to Mueller’s team. Nor will Trump know what Yates & other witnesses said. If @POTUS lies during interview, Mueller will know. https://t.co/S9p5ZuJDhr
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 24, 2018
MomSense
@laura:
He’s a human black hole.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I constantly find it amazing that almost every baseless accusation they threw at Obama is actually true of Trump. I don’t think Trump is secretly a Muslim or that he was born outside the USA, but I’m hard pressed to find another lie they told about Obama that isn’t true of Trump.
Yarrow
@Litlebritdifrnt: The Queen has already indicated there will be no state visit with Trump.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat:
And the Republicans as long as they are in power will continue to bluster and demand the whole world bend to their every whim. It’s truly demented. US conservatives are the most megalomanical people on the planet.
different-church-lady
In the secure bunker of their own minds, a whole bunch of libertarian dudebros are up in arms about the idea that a government is listening in on diplomatic phonecalls, without any idea that’s the kind of crap that gives us Trumps.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat:
What other choice do they have? Hell, major parts of our own government are quietly using the same survival technique.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
It’s all about pulling up the ladder now they’ve gotten to the top.
different-church-lady
@Yarrow: Don’t we all become British citizens anyway when Harry marries Meghan?
laura
@MomSense: not enough adverbs… :)
bemused
@trollhattan:
He’s a super dim bulb but thinks he’s smarter and better informed than most people and all liberals. He’s impressed with Trump because he’s a fantastic business guy. There’s nothing wrong with meeting with Russians. All presidents meet a lot of leaders, etc from other countries. The typical clueless old white male who only consumes wingnut “news”
Brachiator
@Mandalay:
This guy needs a GoFvckYourself page.
randy khan
@Mart:
While in London last week, my wife and I walked around Whitechapel for basically the entire afternoon with a friend, who brought us there to see the street art. It’s basically all Muslim South Asians right now, so I suppose that was a no-go zone, too. The most disturbing thing that happened to us was that doormen at several restaurants urged us to come in to eat.
One of the funny things was a building from the 18th century that was built as a Huguenot church, then converted into a synagogue, then converted into a Mosque as the population changed.
BTW, the street art is great, and includes some commentary on Trump.
FlipYrWhig
@MomSense: “Christ, what a blackhole.”
Aleta
@trollhattan: Interesting!
Spanky
@different-church-lady:
Oh, heck no! We already became British citizens when Wallis married Eddie!
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Roger Moore: Neither 2000 nor 2016 really qualifies as “elected”, per se. 2000 was an appointment by the Supreme Court, in direct contravention of actual Florida law, with assistance from illegal purges of registered voters here. (I am, as many people here are no doubt tired of hearing, a Florida resident). 2016 was a result of 2000 purge tactics on steroids, with assists from the FBI, the media, foreign adversaries, and possibly widespread absentee ballot fraud and/or hacks of electronic voting machines (I’m an IT major and it’s difficult to imagine how their security could be any worse. I have suspicions about 2004, and at one point I could have told you a lot more about why, but memories degrade with time if one doesn’t have one’s recollections in written form, and I’m not willing to trust my memories.
And of course there’s the matter that Bush and Trump both lost the popular vote. (2004 excepted, but I still suspect shenanigans in that outcome.) Most definitions of “election” literally include the phrase “popular vote”.
None of this eliminates the fact that we’re still horrendously unreliable as any sort of ally, though. But it’s not wholly the part of our populace – well, not the whole populace. It’s just the fault of the assholes that vote for Republicans.
WestTexan
No sympathy for May. In their own way, she and her party are as bad as the orange one.
Kay
In a way we’re lucky. Trump is an asshole. A mean-spirited, vain and shallow bore who only talks about himself.
Imagine if the racist far Right had a more charismatic leader, one people actually liked. Chilling, right?
Even the people that go into this wanting to like him and agreeing with him on a lot end up disliking him, because he is horrible.
PaulWartenberg
@Butch:
It’s one of the few places left on the planet where mass rioting won’t break out if he steps off Air Force One within city limits.
jl
@Chris: Maybe so. But that would still be 63%. If people vote on that sentiment, still has the makings of an electoral landslide. A majority of the US public is saying ‘no thanks’ to Trumpist tin pot banana republic fascism.
PaulWartenberg
@randy khan:
OMFG DID THEY OFFER APPETIZERS?!
PaulWartenberg
@kindness:
I would feel great pity for the onboard crew, the Secret Service agents assigned to their duty, and maybe the poor fishing boat it’d crash onto in the middle of the Atlantic. I wouldn’t wish a thing on that poor fishing boat crew, so let’s not go there.
different-church-lady
@Spanky:
I thought they made Eddie become American.
Matt McIrvin
@PaulWartenberg: I’ve seen alt-right bigots using “kebab” as an ethnic slur. It’s really not a way to make me hate and fear somebody.
randy khan
@PaulWartenberg:
Sadly, no.
Matt McIrvin
@(((CassandraLeo))): The biggest problems in 2004 had to do with rampant vote suppression in Ohio. But my impression was that even if they swung Ohio, they were not sufficient that you could say Kerry really won the popular vote, so Bush probably could still have claimed that moral victory.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Don’t our new overlords, the Russians, love kebab and shashlik? How is that a slur?
Brachiator
@Litlebritdifrnt:
To Foreign Minister Boris Johnson and a number of other important and influential Brits, Trump is their kind of guy, in every way possible.
Frank McCormick
And Betty wins the day!
Calouste
@scav: Note that that was brought to light by an under cover reporter from that well known commie rag the Financial Times.
schrodingers_cat
BTW I have driven through Jackman, ME several times, it is on Rt 9 on the way to Canada. It was 99 % white. WTF is the dude complaining about?
Gravenstone
@Immanentize: I’m sure the fact that PM May is a woman doesn’t factor into his hyper-aggressive phone behavior one single bit …
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Like many people these days, he hates the 1%.
Immanentize
@PaulWartenberg: as a huge fan and consumer of speculative fiction, I actually worry about the. Opposite — that Trump travelling with his closest allies actually presages a huge disaster in the US (a la Handmaid’s Tale).
Brachiator
@scav:
@Calouste:
I noted this scandal in another thread here.
I guess the FT usually has a pay wall, but they seem to be letting everyone read this story. Very sad stuff. A link here.
A few heads seem to be rolling.
The Lodger
@schrodingers_cat: Jackman, ME is right down the road from a border crossing. Without that, it’s hard to believe the town would even exist.
Raoul
Among many incompetencies, May’s gov’t is in hot water in N. Ireland for writing a slapdash four page brief for the ITC, who will be deciding a blockbuster import duty case tomorrow. (292% is Wilbur Ross’s proposed deal-destroyer for Delta Airlines and Bombardier). Attractive Canadian and competent PM Trudeau’s gov’t managed to not use a ton of flimsy dog-ate-homework excuses to file a robust brief.
This matters as Bombardier uses a Belfast plant to manufacture the new, highly advanced wing for their CS100/300.
If the CS100 ends up as an also-ran in global aircraft sales, the Northern Irish jobs are very much at risk.
As an AvGeek, I’ve been sorely disappointed at how little this US-Canadian (plus allies like UK) dispute has been covered. Ross’s eye watering punitive tariff caught industry watchers by surprise. But now we see the stupid solar panel tariff, and you can expect washing machine duties soon, and the contours of an idiotic, anti-consumer #MAGA developing. (Hint: The US will not become a preeminent maker of solar panels, or washing machines. And propping up an Airbus-Boeing duopoly only forestalls the day when COMAC, the Chinese airframer, takes over the huge and rapidly growing asian plane market).
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: It has a population of <1000. Dude must have gotten a cold shoulder from the locals, I am pretty sure the town is more 90% Mainers, Yankees take time to warm up to outsiders, as in people outside their state/county. Mr K is a recent transplant from Arizona. So he takes it out on others. Sad.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Matt McIrvin: He would’ve lost the EC, though. I’ve long held that the only reliable way to get rid of it is for a Republican to win the popular vote but lose the EC. The moment that happens, it’ll be on the chopping block.
And of course, if you add Florida and Ohio (we didn’t get as much media attention for whatever reason but our government was up to its usual tricks), that may have put Kerry over the top.
But yeah, that tracks with my recollections also. (I obviously don’t remember the Ohio fuckery as vividly due to not having lived there.)
schrodingers_cat
@The Lodger: That’s precisely the reason I was there.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Well, jumping a shark is one way to get to the top.
David Evans
@WestTexan: She is not proposing to dismantle the National Health Service, or destroy North Korea, or deport large numbers of immigrants, or take us out of the Paris Accords, or…
Apart from that, I suppose they are quite similar
(((CassandraLeo)))
@PaulWartenberg: @Immanentize: A crash of a fishing boat would make me think of Good Omens. (I may not be able to stomach The Handmaid’s Tale until it’s removed from the current events section. I’ve had the same problem with season two of TMitHC.)
bemused
@Brachiator:
This charity event, men only, has been going on for 33 years and people are saying they are shocked, shocked, had no idea this kind of behavior was going on. Yeah, right.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@bemused: Your winnings, sir.
ruemara
She’s an idiot but he is a grade A moron. And as both are tasked with dismantling things for Putin et al, I have minimal sympathy for her being lectured like she’s his secretary. You cosign white male supremacy, and you’re not one, don’t be fucking surprised at being placed in a lower position. Idiot woman.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
So, basically, they were too cheap to hire actual sex workers and expected the waitresses to do double duty. Assholes.
Calouste
@bemused: Nah, the Financial Times send an under cover reporter purely by accident.
Ridnik Chrome
Holy smokes, Mark E. Smith of the Fall died today.
zhena gogolia
@Immanentize:
Yes, lol.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Ridnik Chrome: Fuck. 2018 isn’t going to be any kinder to cult artistic figures than 2016 or 2017 were, is it?
I must confess to being mostly familiar with him by reputation, largely because of The Fall’s absolutely colossal discography (see TV Tropes’ “Archive Panic” for an explanation), but he was a major influence on several bands I’ve loved over the years (e.g., Pavement). After 50,000 Fall Fans…, where should a newcomer turn next?
rikyrah
@Kay:
We are, especially since we know, beyond a doubt, that one political party has absolutely no problem with TREASON.
Vhh
@Cacti: True American names are more like Tatháŋka Íyotake = Sitting Bull
Sloane Ranger
@Brachiator:Old Etonian Johnson looks down on Trump. He probably thinks of him as a jumped up shop assistant but he is arrogant enough to think he can use him. That is a trait he shares with Trump. Johnson, however, is socially liberal. For instance he is on record as supporting same sex marriage.
The new UKIP leader is closer to Trump. He is even using the same rhetoric.
Ruckus
@David Evans:
At lot of British people may not love the NHS but try to take it away and see what happens.
Chris
@Ruckus:
That’s the welfare state for you. Everybody hates it until they suddenly might not have it anymore.
J R in WV
@dmsilev:
So funny that GWBush has taken up painting since Hinderaker said that, and is worse at it than he was terrible at being President… sad too!
(((CassandraLeo)))
@J R in WV: His paintings aren’t exactly great works of art, but I mean, did they destabilise the entire Middle East when I wasn’t looking? Maybe they opened a portal to another dimension full of eldritch horrors that resulted in Trump becoming president. Actually, that would explain a lot. Never mind. You’re probably right after all.
David Evans
@Ruckus: Indeed. I think May has more common sense than Trump.
Robert Sneddon
@Ruckus: I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t love the NHS. No-one wants to see it go away.
The level of funding, staffing and investment in hospitals etc. is a perennial interest of the chattering classes, it sells papers (NHS IN CRISIS!) and makes and breaks the careers of politicians. The NHS could absorb as much funding as anyone would wish to give it and still not provide perfect cover for sixty-million plus people.
The Conservatives try and run it like a business, cutting out waste and overstaffing and are surprised when peak periods like winter crash the system because of lack of resources. The papers here have been full of A&E (ObUS: emergency rooms) problem stories, overworked and overloaded with ambulances queuing up outside the doors which isn’t surprising since the New Year is a period where too many people get blind falling-down drunk and end up there compounded with the usual increase in respiratory illnesses, old folks taking bad falls on ice, road accidents etc. Scaling up the provision of A&E facilities to cover this period would result in lots of unused space, staffing, equipment etc. the rest of the year which is “waste”.
Give me a politician that will say “there is no such thing as waste in the NHS, there will never be an efficiency drive under my watch, funding will not be cut, there will be too many nurses and too many hospital beds at all times while I’m in charge and hang the expense” and she will have my vote until they plant me six feet under.
schrodingers_cat
@David Evans: I don’t think any woman anywhere in the world could survive until 70 being as entitled and as clueless as the current occupant of the WH.
Origuy
@Matt McIrvin: Kebab shops on every corner and taco trucks on every street! The horror!
Brachiator
@Sloane Ranger:
Social liberal? Not sure about that. Definitely a racist. It was Johnson who mused whether Obama’s hatred of Britain was “ancestral.”
And there is this old insult aimed at Hillary Clinton:
In 2007, Johnson lashed out at Clinton, saying she represented everything he entered politics to fight against.
Johnson clearly loves to sneer at people, look down upon them.
Trump loves Farage. I agree with you that Trump and the new UKIP leader would be a love match.
Sloane Ranger
This thread is probably dead but just in case…
I don’t see this as racist. All he seems to be saying is that Obama Senior, as a citizen of a former British Colony, might not be too fond of the former Colonial power and might have influenced his son’s attitude towards the UK. I know that if someone conquered Britain and exploited and patronised US I wouldn’t be too fond of them!
Yes. This is indefensible. Like a lot of men on both the left and right, Boris has a problem with strong, powerful women.