Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

lol

I … have a follow-up question. https://t.co/7TLpG4V0MZ

— Philip Bump (@pbump) May 12, 2017

is dr harold bornstein trump's lawyer as well as his doctor? that's some dr nick-level bad lawyering right there

lmao Trump's trying to get people to shift focus onto the tax returns again

seriously though TRUMPS LAWYER JUST ADMITTED HE'S RECIEVING MONEY FROM RUSSIAN SOURCES this is so nuts right now

Spicer returns! pic.twitter.com/gvNQGOjHsK

— Elana Zak (@elanazak) May 12, 2017

The fuck, Trump is literally threatening Comey now? What constraints is Comey held by now? I assume he is not muted for life, he can answer questions etc. You can't just tell him to zip it, and the threats about a potential tape are so see-through phony. Like, why even threaten it? Just say you have him on tape! But of course, they don't have it on tape, so fuck Trump.

And even if they dio have it on Trump that only fucks Trump even further

I have killed absolutely no one in the past ten years, with few exceptions.

And the threat to cancel press conferences? Sure, who the fuck cares at this point? It'll be all leaks, all the time.

This was a point I hammered home over and over again during the election and totally lost sight of in the despairing moments after he won and the extent to which nothing ever seemed to affect him adversely, but it is perhaps worth reiterating at this moment: Donald Trump's worst enemy, by far, is Donald Trump.

Like, if he does eventually fall, it's going to be because he overtly fucked himself. The Russia investigation will go nowhere but he'll admit to the commission of a crime on camera. Something like that.

the real mindbender is that donald trump is also donald trump's greatest strength

Wonder if that tax returns statement is them trying to get ahead of a leak they fear is inevitable now that they've lost the FBI.

are the 35% still crowing about "boy, he sure is pissing off those liberals"? because, i mean. i'm a pretty irritable guy. pretty much every republican pisses me off at this point - going to all the trouble to repeatedly violate federal law just to piss me off seems sort of like gilding the lily.

xp yeah that's pretty much my impression too. I think the Russia investigation is gonna lead to something, maybe not on Trump himself, but almost certainly on people he's associated himself with. if he gets impeached its gonna be because of dumb shit like this, actively intimidating witnesses or committing blatant obstruction of justice

i was wondering if they've been saving the tax returns to deploy as chaff if trump ever really put his foot in it --- if they're as long/complex as has been implied, it'll take a while to sort through them, trump can magnanimously say that he's finally done what the people want (like firing comey), etc

if they're as long/complex as has been implied, it'll take a while to sort through them

It won't take long at all. Like he's the only rich person with complicated returns in America? I bet your average CPA would be able to scan through them in 30 minutes and find the important stuff.

I mean, how many docs did Snowden leak? 200,000? And that was all sorts of stuff, not just the organized tax returns for one individual.

Here's a thing I've been thinking lately, spurred in part by that tweetstorm about how people are disarmed by Trump because they don't have the cognitive tools for dealing with someone who operates like him: the reason a good conman is successful is that he gains the mark's confidence, he undertakes the con, and he gets the hell outta Dodge. People will only continue to be baffled by his MO for so long because continued exposure to the mechanics of the con only serves to illuminate its status as a con. He has no exit strategy so he has to just keep shucking and jiving and hoping that people don't start to see through the only tool he has in his box. But lots of people are starting to see right the fuck through it. What that will ultimately portend, who knows. If the GOP, in their unceasing support of a president the majority of the country sees as a complete fraud, get absolutely slaughtered in 2018, that might be good enough for me.

if the Trump returns really didn't show anything major, he would've leaked them during the campaign in the final week

how is that not straight-up witness intimidation ffs

Agreed, if Congress was operating on a baseline of integrity it'd be time to fire up the impeachment furnace for this (plus emoluments).

but u know

i think the Fredo running the Corleones analogy is surpassing the Billy Mumy Twilight Zone analogy.

Will Melania bother to visit Trump in prison, Y/N?

I bet your average CPA would be able to scan through them in 30 minutes and find the important stuff

yes as long as he puts "top secret Russian bribes" on the correct line

It is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy EXCEPT THAT IT IS THEIR FUCKING JOB

And stevolende's phrase "curlicues of verbal diarrhea" is going to haunt my dreams

Will Melania bother to visit Trump in prison, Y/N?

i mean she barely bothers to visit him in the white house, so

your average tech worker could figure out the AMT stuff

but loans aren't reported and that's where the interest would be

fair enough!

xp

are the 35% still crowing about "boy, he sure is pissing off those liberals"?

yes, with few exceptions

snl better do a sketch where sarah huckabee comes out to the podium drunk and holding a glass of wine and cigarette. because that's what i keep thinking i'm gonna see in real life.

Here's a thing I've been thinking lately, spurred in part by that tweetstorm about how people are disarmed by Trump because they don't have the cognitive tools for dealing with someone who operates like him: the reason a good conman is successful is that he gains the mark's confidence, he undertakes the con, and he gets the hell outta Dodge. People will only continue to be baffled by his MO for so long because continued exposure to the mechanics of the con only serves to illuminate its status as a con. He has no exit strategy so he has to just keep shucking and jiving and hoping that people don't start to see through the only tool he has in his box. But lots of people are starting to see right the fuck through it. What that will ultimately portend, who knows. If the GOP, in their unceasing support of a president the majority of the country sees as a complete fraud, get absolutely slaughtered in 2018, that might be good enough for me.

i dunno, i think a decent chunk of the electorate are mostly happy to be conned as long as their material circumstances don't change too much and there's a handful of groups to which they can feel superior (political opponents, foreigners, etc)

america's economy can likely coast along for long enough without a competent hand at the tiller that it could be a long, long time before the complacent start to feel like trump has pulled the wool over their eyes

My hatereading of trumpazoid online discourse is still 99.5% "draining the swamp" / "sticking it to the media" / "driving libs crazy," so yeah.

xpost Yes, my de-Trumpgramming supposition extends only to those who aren't among the diehard, dues-paying Cult of Donnie. I'm hoping they'll all bite down on their cyanide capsules at the appointed time like the faithful acolytes they are.

serve them the *best* Kool-Aid

can't be any worse than trump wine

i wd serve the same to Keith Olbermann btw, the looniest of the anti-Yam MSMers (unless L Mensch counts)

boy, i would _hate_ it if they were all to kill themselves. it would make me so angry! (this is not a lie, i'd seriously be super pissed if trump supporters decided to commit mass suicide.)

imagine a world without stephen baldwin, i dare u

fuck joseph goebbels forever

meanwhile, with 'friends' like Dianne...

"If single-payer health care is going to mean complete takeover by the government of all health care,” the California Democrat said, “I am not there.”

A week later, Feinstein was even further from there, benefitting from a fundraising event at the Washington, D.C., office of Avenue Solutions, a lobbying firm that represents major health insurers, pharmaceutical companies and the primary trade association for doctors. The industries have historically opposed efforts to create a universal, government-run health care system -- an idea supported by 58 percent of U.S. adults. Feinstein supporters at the event were expected to kick in $1,000 to $5,000 for her re-election bid.

http://maplight.org/content/dianne-feinstein-raising-money-from-health-care-lobbyists-after-dismissing-single-payer

does feinstein think that if the government took over healthcare she'd be constantly called away from congress to perform heart bypass surgeries or something

From a certain angle, I've viewed the rise of Trumpism as a kind of moral test. Because I've found myself wishing things upon him and his supporters that I've never wished upon other human beings, so I have to question whether that makes me less ethically upstanding than I'd previously thought myself...or whether cheering on the demise of a subset of the species which seems wholly unconcerned about whether any living thing on the planet thrives or survives is maybe a profoundly moral stance. It's a pickle, to be sure.

mmm pickle

this moral pickle seems so long ago

this is as patriotic as I've felt in a long time pic.twitter.com/yiVxd8semM

— dam dan (@prttybadtweeter) January 21, 2017

Might have said this before but dont republicans venerate law enforcement? Shouldnt some trump voters be turned off by his flagrantly disrespectful treatment of comey? Why do they place veneration of trump above their other arbitrary values?

Trump voters think Comey is the only reason Hillary isn't in the electric chair right now

lib tears and racism is everything

A cargo cult is a millenarian movement first described in Melanesia which encompasses a range of practices and occurs in the wake of contact with more technologically advanced societies. The name derives from the belief which began among Melanesians in the late 19th and early 20th century that various ritualistic acts such as the building of an airplane runway will result in the appearance of material wealth, particularly highly desirable Western goods (i.e., "cargo"), via Western airplanes.[1][2]

i don't think there's anything wrong with me feeling anger and hatred towards people who are hurting my loved ones. it's not the most pleasant experience in the world, but if i didn't feel those things, if i was able to forgive those who perpetrate malicious acts with neither regret nor remorse, any "love" i might claim to possess for the victims of these acts would be toothless and without value.

i still tell myself that i am, at any time, willing to forgive, contingent on the supporters admitting they have made a mistake. this seems like a theoretical concern. trump supporters will die, literally, before admitting their mistakes.

xxp and racism, yeah. conservatives venerate law enforcement when they're shooting black men or deporting all those lazy illegals.