Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

Can we have "It sounded bad to me. Digital." as the name of the next thread.

...this tweet is apparently not a joke?

Instead of a special prosecutor, @realDonaldTrump should nominate Merrick Garland to replace James Comey.

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) May 11, 2017

Spox for Sen Lee says this is not a joke: https://t.co/DSdg3DJ1Or

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) May 11, 2017

Optics optics optics. And more!

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/10/james-comey-firing-trump-lavrov-putin-215124

The chummy White House visit—photos of the president yukking it up with Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak were released by the Russian Foreign Ministry since no U.S. press was allowed to cover the visit—had been one of Putin’s asks in his recent phone call with Trump, and indeed the White House acknowledged this to me later Wednesday. “He chose to receive him because Putin asked him to,” a White House spokesman said of Trump’s Lavrov meeting. “Putin did specifically ask on the call when they last talked.”

The meeting was Lavrov’s first in the White House since 2013—and came after several years of the Obama administration’s flat-out refusal to grant him an Oval Office audience, two former senior White House officials told me. “The Russians were begging us for years to do that,” one of the former officials said. “They were constantly pushing for it and we were constantly saying no.”

The images of Trump putting his arm genially on Lavrov’s back—and a later White House official readout of the meeting that said Trump “emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia”—couldn’t have come at a more fraught political moment for Trump, amid a barrage of bipartisan criticism of his firing of FBI Director James Comey. On Wednesday morning before meeting with Trump, Lavrov even cracked a joke about his hosts’ political predicament, laughingly claiming not to have heard of the Comey firing while standing alongside Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.

In other words, Lavrov was right where he has always wanted to be Wednesday: mocking the United States while being welcomed in the Oval Office by the president himself.

"Hee hee hee. That'll show those Democrats!"

"It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out.

has trump been watching pacific rim or something?

this is like the military equivalent of being a vinyl purist - 'the torpedoes have so much more depth and warmth when they're analogue'

Elsewhere

.@ChuckGrassley writes to DHS asking for a crackdown on EB-5, specifically calling out the Kushners. pic.twitter.com/ZHLCy0pt1B

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 11, 2017

He doesn't have Mike Flynn to ring at 3am anymore (j/k he totally still does that)

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, May 11, 2017 9:26 AM (twenty minutes ago yep

Report: White House Lawyers Have Had To Repeatedly Tell Trump Not To Contact Michael Flynn

http://uproxx.com/news/trump-talk-michael-flynn-white-house-no/

oh fuck trump is a steampunk

oh my god

re: the steam thing

just fuckin

god

So I mean, I have, it has, I haven’t been given massive credit for it yet,

In terms of the West Wing, lessons of this week: Kushner is mostly running things, Pence was a key player and McGahn has been 1/

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 11, 2017

2/ POTUS's Dr. Yes. Priebus in the room later, and Bannon not very involved https://t.co/zTG6XGWVWW

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 11, 2017

i guess trump is in favour of dismantling the world's most technically advanced military and... outfitting troops with handheld rubber catapults to lob nukes at the enemy?

You can't hack a catapult.

fuck catapults, trebuchets for life

A point that I don't see being made nearly enough: beyond all questions of whether it's advisable or potentially beneficial to foster good relations with them, the fact remains that Trump is clearly more concerned with being tight and friction-free bros with Russia than he is with soothing discord within the country over which he presides. It's like going to great pains to befriend your neighbor lady while you neglect and insult your own wife. You might be forgiven for believing he favors one over the other.

Republicans have been against 'gotcha' questions since the country elected _and re-elected_ GWB.

i was watching that bizarre tv interview with putin dressed in full hockey gear ahead of taking to the ice to let some world-class athletes give him an easy ride and i was thinking 'man i bet trump wishes he could do that'

fuck catapults, trebuchets for life

otm, trebuchets are metal as fuck imo

how you gonna trebuchet a airplane without digital tho

We have to humiliate the enemy. And if we don’t humiliate them, we’re going to have our kids continuing to go and fight for ISIS. We have kids leaving this country because they’re so damned good at the internet, ISIS, they’re better at the internet than Google. You know it’s a smart enemy. Believe it or not.

uh

ISIS, they’re better at the internet than Google

is hyperbolically praising isis to the media part of his plan to defeat them in 30 days?

I hope he mentioned his ideas about catapults to the generals he convened to come up with the Plan to Defeat ISIS, one of his most brilliant campaign ideas

ISIS is so punk rock now

Spotted: A map to be hung somewhere in the West Wing pic.twitter.com/TpPPDyNFtE

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) May 11, 2017

we have to make ISIS less like Google, more like Bing

oh neat a population density map

The red areas are good for fracking

"We have to humiliate the enemy."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/oval-office-photos-donald-trump-russians/index.html

"They tricked us," an angry White House official said.

"That's the problem with the Russians -- they lie," the official added.

oh neat a population density map

― jason waterfalls (gbx), Thursday, May 11, 2017 10:16 AM (four minutes ago)

dude this motherfucking president dense one

senate intel hearing on now. should be interesting

I'm just sitting here waiting for the Kraken to be released

Every other word in my thoughts today is FUCKING FUCK

(this is greater than the usual frequency)

Trump had “essentially declared war on a lot of people at the FBI,” one official said. “I think there will be a concerted effort to respond over time in kind.”

@tinyrevolution
Uh maybe we also don't want a country that works like this

yeah maybe we don't want a country that elects people like donald trump either but you play with the cards u were dealt

i don't think any leftists should lose any sleep that an organization infamous for abusing power, that was a solid pro-Trump voting block, have had a falling out w/ their fuhrer and now want to undermine him.

the problem with the whole "if trump is impeached the republicans will be able to easily dissociate themselves from them" narrative is that it assumes a state of affairs where denying trump will be necessary or desirable, the emergence of a "smoking gun" tape that fundamentally changes the narrative. does trump look like Fat Elvis? and what will make america, as a country, turn against Fat Elvis? the people who are on his side now, _nothing_ will change that.

the republicans are the party of trump now and that is not going to change.

cool, let's just have groups of elitist bullies fight for power til we all bake/drown

ok u go stop them and let me know how it goes

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-fbi-was-never-going-to-save-the-republic-you-dolt-1795093830

(via kingfish)

The reason a lot of people will remain on his side is that they don't want to admit they were snookered (or have admitted to themselves but have concluded they can't fight it). Meantime, as noted, the president himself is whiny, impulsive, erratic.

Per Tombot's wise points all throughout the year, if/when people die because of this dynamic is the real fear. But I have no pity for anyone still vocally saying they're on his side, and will enjoy watching them twist in the wind because they're defending the void.

Did they ever release the numbers for the Fat Elvis vs. Thin Elvis stamps? How much did Fat Elvis lose by, and who certified those results? This is important! Tampering with novelty stamp votes is a federal offense!

the fact remains that Trump is clearly more concerned with being tight and friction-free bros with Russia than he is with soothing discord within the country over which he presides.

fwiw, it does seem that straightforward at all. The administration is pressing forward with intensifying the Magnitsky Act:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikehayes/the-trump-administration-is-moving-forward-with-an-obama?utm_term=.hlYranqwQ3#.sn75aOZDLj

and has just put through a bill designed to target Russia's position in Abkhazia meaning that any country that recognises it as part of Russia, rather than part of Georgia, is automatically barred from receiving foreign aid. This is beyond the Obama position and would normally be seen as a pretty hostile move.

https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-kvirikashvili-trump-abkhazia-south-ossetia/28475046.html

As a whole, i wouldn't say Trump's position on Russia is any more coherent than his position on anything else but it doesn't seem designed to foster good relations at all costs.

The myth of white supremacy is a sick and incoherent ideology which exists in utter contradiction to logic, justice, and even, ultimately, self-interest. Trump is the purest distillation yet of this myth made manifest and so, to the extent that the GOP is fueled by this ideology (which would be, like, to the full extent), they're absolutely the party of Trump.

cool, let's just have groups of elitist bullies fight for power til we all bake/drown

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 11 May 2017 14:34 (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

welcome to human history, make yourself comfortable

this is the board where i get accused of "toxic cynicism," right?

*checks board*

yes