Watergate is the story our country tells itself in order to live. Iran-Contra is the story that, staring us in the face, we refuse to tell.
— Zach Dorfman (@zachsdorfman) April 1, 2019
If you weren’t paying attention during Reagan’s second term, take my word: The old man was visibly falling to pieces, week by week. But unlike the current Oval Office Occupant, Ronnie at least had a wife who cared enough to fight for him, and a moderately competent bunch of advisors alert to the possibility that they themselves might be held accountable some day.
Today’s Repubs haven’t got even that rudimentary sense of self preservation — they’re just grabbing everything they can steal before the whole rotten Potemkin village falls apart.
"Someone's going to leak this whole damn speech to the media," Trump tells NRCC in a speech that is being broadcast live by C-SPAN.
— John Fritze (@jfritze) April 3, 2019
Trump says he called Chinese President Xi Jinping "king." Xi responded that he's president, not king, per Trump. "I say, 'No, you're president for life, so therefore, you're king.'" He says Xi eventually said that he liked that.
— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez) April 2, 2019
At same NRCC dinner, Trump says of wind farms: “They say the noise causes cancer.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 3, 2019
It’s just totally weird that the president casually suggest that the noise from wind farms could cause cancer and NO ONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THIS IN 24 HOURS!
— Sam Stein (@samstein) April 3, 2019
We joke about Trump's cognitive state the way a smoker jokes about cancer.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) April 3, 2019
Wow — Trump repeatedly mangles the word "origins," on three separate occasions saying "oranges" instead. ? pic.twitter.com/EZggYhIAO7
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 2, 2019
I finally watched this – that is not a joke is it – I mean, that very literally looks like he's having a stroke.
— Jonathan Tisdall (@mandoran) April 2, 2019
.@BarackObama you seein' this shit https://t.co/kveZ03qDsl
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) April 2, 2019
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
John Revolta
*cough*25th Amendment*coughcough*
NotMax
Dolt 45: Worst edition of Mad Libs ever.
Mary G
I think Pence would do a lot of damage, and I wonder if they aren’t hoping to hustle Twitler off stage right – he’s too tired to do more than one rally a day. You know the media would fluff Pence to the max because he speaks in complete sentences and would throw Javanka out on their pampered asses.
prufrock
My wife and I are rewatching The Sopranos. I heard that in Livia’s voice.
Judy Little
Daniel Dale said that this is the third time trump said his father was born in Germany. Maybe now that his base loves hitler types, trump thinks it’s cool.
JPL
Trump’s aides will preach to him the importance of using the teleprompter from now on.
Spanky
@JPL: Yeah, with about the same effect as me preaching to my cats the importance of not playing in the toilet.
Shrillhouse
The Mueller report doesn’t address the bananas of investigation. I mean, what about the bananas of it? Seriously, I think if you would have looked at the bananas…
montanareddog
I think we need to see the long-form birth certificate
montanareddog
Is this even a thing? I mean, like a meme from 2 Boobs and a Blonde, or Worldnut Daily? I have not heard it before. Is he inventing his own shit now instead of retweeting other morans’ nonsense?
Jay
ReThugs are all in,
Oranges won’t matter,
Anymore than 3 new Mexico’s hurts Faux NotNews,
Jay
@montanareddog:
It’s Windfarm CT
A Ghost To Most
Decompensation is a word that will get increasing usage. He’s come undone.
Jay
@montanareddog:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome
JPL
@montanareddog: Daniel Dale has a copy of the birth certificate. He also said this is the third time he claimed that.
Another Scott
‘morning everyone.
He’s come undun, but it’s nothing new. He’s been on this road for a long time.
Cheers,
Scott.
plato
How casually the scummy pos thug lies, jeez.
The wind farm butthurt comes from the Scots saying FU to his
golfmoney laundering course there.Immanentize
@Another Scott: I was hoping someone would link to that song….
Jeffro
hey Exonerated Man…where’s that report of your innocence?
OzarkHillbilly
Commander in cheat? Donald Trump’s 18 golf tournament wins examined -an excerpt from a book by Rick Reilly
I might actually by this book.
PaulWartenberg
@John Revolta:
They can’t. 25th is only a temporary salve: trump gets like 21 days to prove to doctors/examiners that he’s fit to serve the office. Half the Cabinet members are grifters like him who know any disruption – even flipping to Pence as Acting President for the 21 day period that trump would be contained – could expose them… and that he’s a vindictive prick who’ll get his Chief of Staff to fire them the moment he gets back into the Oval Office. The only solution right now is impeachment, and there are not enough Republican Senators willing to risk their own skin against their rabid voting base and wingnut media who will clearly side with a dementia-addled trump in spite of all the evidence.
For the love of God: EVERYBODY has to show up to vote trump out in 2020. I am not joking.
Lapassionara
And then there’s the woman arrested at Mar-a-lago, with a thumbdrive containing malware, among other things, and the Secret Service are all “what, me worry,” about it.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: I might too, and I don’t like golf. But a good book length extended golf metaphor? Now you’re talking!
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: And it’s Rick Reilly.
Immanentize
Wisconsin Supreme Court election too close to call. 5000 votes out of 1.2 million cast. Still a bunch of votes to count.
ETA Very evil Republican is ahead of the Democrat
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Reilly is a type of sportswriter (did he retire?) like Charles Pierce. Lots of good zingers.
OzarkHillbilly
English judge says man having sex with wife is ‘fundamental human right’
I need say no more.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
I don’t know. I have read a lot of his stuff over the years but I haven’t tracked his career. He is always entertaining. If I am going to read about the malware known as trump I need to be able to laugh twice as often as I cry and Reilly just might pull off that feat.
pat
It’s his grandfather who was born in Germany, came to the states, moved to Seattle and became a citizen, then moved back to Germany. . Aaron Blake has an article in the wapo, and I can’t find it now but I just read somewhere else that his grandfather, after returning to Germany, was deported in 1905 because he had illegally dodged the draft in the 1880s before he came to the US.
His grandmother was pregnant with his father when they arrived in the states after being deported.
He has repeatedly claimed that his father was born in Germany. Confused, much?
OzarkHillbilly
Pope Francis on Lionel Messi: ‘He’s great, but he is not God’ – video
God on Pope Francis- “He’s great but he’s no Messi.”
debbie
Horrifying.
OzarkHillbilly
@pat: I’ve read that too.
It’s a family tradition.
Skepticat
Darn, had his father actually been born in Germany, then _____ wouldn’t eligible to be pResident, right?
SFAW
Hitlary would be worse.
Amir Khalid
Does Trump lie, or is he detached from the concept of truth? The latter, I think, and in Professor Frankfurt’s book that makes him something worse: a bullshitter. In fact, I figure he’s a combination of bullshitter and early-stage dementia sufferer.
Amir Khalid
@pat:
When you’re thrown out of your own country, isn’t that called exile?
Cheryl Rofer
@Amir Khalid: I agree, and for that reason it’s impossible to know if what we see is dementia or just the way he is. The mangling of words can just be an ignorant person tripping over his tongue. Don’t forget the ignorance as a part of it.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
It seems that it’s the judge who is out of order here. To my knowledge, English law says forced sex within a marriage is still rape.
Vor
@Skepticat: yes, he would still be eligible to be President even if his father had been born in Germany. If you are born on US soil and are not the child of a foreign diplomat, then you are a US citizen. Your parents do not need to even be US citizens.
Off the top of my head, a couple famous people who hold US citizenship this way: actress Saoirsche Ronan and UK politician Boris Johnson.
Two recent examples which were never tested but assumed to be okay: John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone to US parents. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona Territory before it became a state. Then there is Rafael “Ted” Cruz, born in Canada.
Jojo
@Immanentize: very evil Republican won.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think it’s kinda sick that any man — let alone a judge — would treat his wife that way. Or maybe he just wants to watch? What a sicko/cuck.
A Ghost To Most
@Another Scott: The difference is, his one trick, lying, isn’t working anymore. He’s lying 4x as often now with less effect. His ego must be gangled.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Por que no los dos?
or as they say in The Malay:
Warum denn nicht die beide?
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
“Gangled”?
I used Teh Google, and I still don’t follow its meaning/usage in this context.
Bostonian
@pat: So Trumpski’s dad was an anchor baby?
Balconesfault
As someone who has worked on windfarms … Yes, there was a NIMBY movement out of upstate NY which asserted (with some extremely flawed data analysis) that low frequency vibrations from wind turbines cause cancer.
AWEA had to fund a major study about a decade ago to debunk it.
Remember that Trump hates wind farms because of his Scottish Golf Course.
Ella in New Mexico
@pat:
Guys….guys…what was it that Trump kept saying? That Obama’s Mom SAID he was born in Hawaii, but that she really was in Kenya and slipped him in after he was born and managed to manipulate the birth registration process in order to make it LOOK like he was born in the US?
You all know that 99% of the time, Trump’s lies about others turn out to be projections of his own crimes, right?
How many times have we asked ourselves “where the hell did he come up with that crazy accusation” only to find out later it’s what he himself has done? I hope to GOD someone does a little heavy foot work and starts digging into just how solid his father’s US birth certificate is…
After watching the video of yesterday and how much he struggled cognitively I have to say he acted like someone who was experiencing some kind of neuro event. Whether it was a TIA or some kind of exacerbation of early dementia from all the stress lately or something else is hard to tell.
One thing is for sure, all people with neuro disorders decompensate under extreme stress. He’s clearly been melting down over the past week or so, because he now knows for sure the Mueller report DOES NOT exonerate him. He’s also had a lot of public activity and travel lately requiring changes in his normally pathetically weak daily schedule, likely also impacting his sleep. Does he take medication to get him through these days and nights? Lots of stress combined with medication side effects would lower his ability to think clearly and expose all his underlying emotional and cognitive weakness. Is that what all the crazy “I’ll close the fucking borders!!” rants are all about?
Apparently it lasted the entire day, as later that night he told the RNCC windmill noise causes cancer, among other gaffes. On top of the mangling of the word “origins” in that press conference and his mixing up his father’s birth origins, he really could have lost his ability to remember to lie about stuff he’s always lied about.
And all the people around him stand to benefit so they’ll do absolutely nothing but prop him up. Jesus we are so fucked.
Amir Khalid
@Vor:
If Barry Goldwater was born in a US Territory that surely makes him Born In The U.S.A. for citizenship purposes, same as for Puerto Ricans. And if memory serves, Ted’s mother is/was American, and one American parent suffices for claiming US citizenship.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The irony is in the world of ignorance that is what the Conservative Movement has become it’s almost impossibly to tell dementia from just plan stupid.
SFAW
@Ella in New Mexico:
Not that anyone in the Lame Scream Media has the cojones to ask the question, but I think it would be interesting for one of them to ask Traitor Turtle “If your president* murdered his mistress on camera, would that cause you to stop supporting him? How about if he announced he was turning over complete control to Putin? What about if he had Speaker Pelosi arrested — with no evidence — for treason? What about if he did the same to Lindsey Graham? John Cornyn? In short, is there ANYTHIING he could do — other than issuing an order for YOU to be assassinated — that would cause you do anything other than completely support him, all because of your own lust for power?”
Of course, Traitor Turtle would merely claim that the Dems are worse, and go blithely on his way.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Oh, so now you’re trying to claim that they’re US citizens? Next you’ll be trying to claim that Guamanians are, too.
FlipYrWhig
@Balconesfault: IMHO Trump thinks wind power is effeminate / emasculating.
CliosFanBoy
@Amir Khalid: except that Puerto Rico was an “insular” territory, a different category. According to the SCOTUS, that makes them US subjects for whom the Constitution does not apply. Puerto Ricans became citizens because Congress in 1917 said so. Theoretically, a nasty repub Congress could strip their automatic citizenship away. Another reason to make PR a state.
Don K
@pat:
I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the draft-dodging German great grandfather in my lineage. The difference is great Grandad had enough brains not to try to back to Germany.
Don K
@FlipYrWhig:
Goddamn right! Now coal-fired plants make some really butch power!
Amir Khalid
@Don K:
Actuslly, Friedrich the Draft Dodger appealed to the Prince to spare him from banishment, and failed.
sdhays
@PaulWartenberg: Just to add to what you’re saying here, the 25th Amendment is predicated on the idea that Cabinet secretaries are patriotic Americans who take their Constitutional duties seriously without regard to the person who appointed them. That assumption does not hold in the Trump Cabinet. Not one of them gives a shit about this country. They are there to accomplish their missions, be it to burn down and loot their Department or to stomp on the “right” people. They are not there to protect the country, so the thought of shutting the ASSet down, even if he pulls down his pants and starts flinging poo at reporters on national television in the White House Press Room, is not something they would even think about.
It’s not so much that they’re worried about exposure; it’s that they just don’t care.
jimmiraybob
@Bostonian:
While I don’t like trump’s “anchor baby” term, that’s what I get out of the timing.
jimmiraybob
@pat: here’s something from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/trump-grandfather-friedrich-banished-germany-historian-royal-decree?fbclid=IwAR1x_nh1db_PC3GMEQv1kS4ACYguyX-3u-LOghb-dQq8767bUw8Msq41sOg
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
My money’s still on adult ADHD + toxic narcissism + early stages of Alzheimer’s.
Narcissists lie all the time as a power move, but the Alzheimer’s will make it increasingly difficult to make the lies plausible.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@sdhays: Why would they worry? A chunk of the public only watches/listens to right-wing media and will never hear about it anyway.
J R in WV
One of my best friends was born in Philly, where his dad ran a tiny sundries shop / candy store / book shop. They lived in the burbs, had two cars, etc. After I visited and saw the tiny shop, I wondered about the profit margin. Years later I realized his dad was a bookie, and all the other stuff was the cover.
To get back on topic, his grandfather, a Russian Jew, fled the Tsar’s draft just prior to the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, in which machines guns were used for the first time. Two empires fighting over who was going to steal which other countries. Evidently Z’s grandfather got out just in time. Tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. His grandparents mostly spoke Russian and Yiddish their whole lives in the Jewish community of Philly… Fine people!!!
Brachiator
Coming late to this thread.
I used to say that Trump was as dumb as his supporters. He is much, much, dumber.
JGabriel
John Revolta:
I’m not sure why people keep bringing up the 25th Amendment* as a solution to our problems. Removing a President via the 25th Amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, as well as action initiated by the VP and a majority of the Cabinet.
Impeachment is much easier, as it only requires a bare majority in the House, two-thirds in the Senate, and no action from the cabinet.
*I don’t intend to single out John Revolta here, plenty of other people have suggested the same thing – John’s comment was just the most convenient peg to hang this post from.
John Revolta
@PaulWartenberg: @JGabriel: Yeah, I know all the obstacles and the unlikelyhood of the whole thing. I was just indulging in a little late-nite fantasizing that the whole goddamn Government would get off their sclerotic asses and do what was right for the country. Frankly I also think we’d actually be worse off with Pence 8^/
Ruckus
@A Ghost To Most:
He’s not coming undone. We are just getting a focused picture of what he really is. A fucking moron with dementia.
Jay Noble
Uh. What happened to Trump’s Grandpa ran a Brothel in Canada before coming to the US???
moops
@Ella in New Mexico:
I think we are starting to get closer to Trump going full blown curse words on camera. All the Dems have to do is nominate a woman candidate and it is almost certain Trump drops the C-word on camera. If Obama helps with the campaign he will likely also drop the N-bomb.
Some of our new female pols could probably get him to drop one, or a dogged reporters, or Ann Coulter.