Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

this movie features basques crossing the wild west towards california, defending themselves via the means of pelota

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/Thunder_in_the_Sun_FilmPoster.jpeg

"The film is infamous among Basques for its misunderstandings of Basque customs"

Meantime, whomp whomp

"Bannon used to go around bragging that he ran Drudge" https://t.co/DVm7nDba5B cc: @DRUDGE

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) May 26, 2017

Biggest Basque community in the US is in Boise, with a mayor of Basque descent who speaks Basque fluently, too (no small feat)

Jeff Chandler kinda freaks me out.

I've got several good friends of Basque ancestry. The Catalans are more mysterious, man.

he was versatile though...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3mjqpUrBFGQ/VXOX0L0KVbI/AAAAAAAAcSw/NV1siVRqkr4/s1600/Flecha-rota%2B%25289%2529.jpg

http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Chandler,%20Jeff/Chandler,%20Jeff%20(Two%20Flags%20West)_01.jpg

their food is also delicious. I do not apologize for this thread derail btw.

i keep feeling like there should be another huge D.C. protest. keep the pressure on. maybe Dump's head will pop off.

big signs that say WE REFUSE TO SPEAK RUSSIAN! COMRADE TRUMP MUST STEP DOWN! TRAITORS OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE!

stuff like that.

I do not apologize for this thread derail btw.

OTM, I ate at a Basque restaurant in Winnemuca and it was delicious

I'm enjoying imagining the three of them trying to deal with a (self-inflicted) crisis mode.

Trump, with Bannon and Kushner, to set up 'war room' crisis management unit to address Russia probe - officials https://t.co/SKbs3MCwPe

— Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) May 26, 2017

^ Good. This will consume nearly all their energy for a while to come.

Here, we see the three of them in one of their spirited 'war room' daily meetings. (Spicer, having wandered into the room, is on the floor contemplating his life choices.)

https://thecinefilewrites.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/reservoir-dogs-03.jpg

Boehner pops up for a Tiger Beat on the Potomac appearance

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/26/john-boehner-trump-disaster-238862

lol Ned

OTM, I ate at a Basque restaurant in Winnemuca and it was delicious

― HONOR THE FYRE (sleeve), Friday, May 26, 2017 2:58 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i really want to go to san sebastian and just eat and drink my face off

i took today off, what's happened?

Trump removed his mask and he is actually Hillary

Boehner praised the president for his handling of international affairs and foreign policy, especially his aggressive stance toward the Islamic State.

What? I fail to see any concrete actions that indicate a change in policy toward ISIS. He went ahead and backed the Kurds for the Raqqa, even though it pisses off Turkey, but Obama was already preparing to do the same thing.

in other news

"Some of the drop in approval comes from Republicans," noted Fox News in its write-up of the survey. In their poll, Trump's support among GOP voters had hovered between 84 percent and 87 percent during his tenure in the White House, but in the new survey that fell to 81 percent. Fifty-three percent of white voters without a college degree approved of the job Trump has done, a decrease of 9 percentage points in just one month.

Spent several days in San Sebastian several years ago. Beautiful. The trash cans were all tagged with ETA graffiti that said "vote aqui."

I fail to see any concrete actions that indicate a change in policy toward ISIS

Boehner didn't say there was a change in policy.

perhaps I haven't come across one as such, but I have not read a reckoning re: how very very peculiar it is that the conservative movement/ latest iteration of the republican party are now going through all sorts of contortions on behalf of Russia. Rather like a lot of shit that's gone down in the past 2 years, this turn of events would have been utterly inconceivable from 1946 to the Reagan era. Is it simply that Putin's Kremlin is shorn of any intimation of socialism and makes no pretense towards any value other than the demonstration of sheer power, and so its okay to risk entanglements that would have resulted in shrieks of treason from the GOP during the 20th century?

right-wing plutocrats stick together

Boehner was just grasping for something good to say. Trump's foreign policy has been an incoherent and ineffective mess so far, except where it is a straightforward continuation of Obama's policies.

OTM, I ate at a Basque restaurant in Winnemuca and it was delicious

― HONOR THE FYRE (sleeve), Friday, May 26, 2017 2:58 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i really want to go to san sebastian and just eat and drink my face off

― jason waterfalls (gbx), Friday, May 26, 2017 8:20 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There right now ;)

my dad's been baffled by the Russia thing too. My explanation of the GOP's magical waving away of cognitive dissonance is that for their largely ignorant voting base, Russia stopped being evil when they surrendered to Reagan, and any larger context/details are just noise that they don't care about (who among them can point to Ukraine on a map etc.)

xp

Doesn't seem so complicated, conservatives admire Putin/Russia for the same reason they admired Francoist Spain or Pinochet's Chile. Russia is a plutocratic and intolerant kleptocracy, in many ways a model of ideal conservative governance.

yeppers

"look at this guy, he wrestles bears and tickles children, he must be alright!"

Putin is such a lovable fellow, there's plenty on the (far) left who like him too.

[citation needed]

In Europe, definitely.

is that some "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" shit? cuz I don't see what leftist principles Putin embodies.

(also ftr I don't consider Zizek a leftist)

(xp) That's it, except it's always, "The enemy of the USA is my friend".

I am a Basque dude btw, have hung with sheepherders in the Boise area

OT: Euler! I am here for two months! (see Spain travel advice thread)

i thought everyone except for trump hated/was mad at russia. it really is the only country he doesn't say bad stuff about.

he just really likes russia apparently. he should move there.

Putin's regime p ruthless when it comes to gays and straight up lethal when it comes to certain journalists. I imagine that's pretty seductive for the GOP base in 2017.

hey there's a Basque Country in my new county too! still haven't been down there. have been to Spanish side though

i don't think i've heard a single republican say anything about how trump says nice things about dictators. so scary. thankfully trump has been a pretty inept dictator so far.

Russia love prob feels transgressive for righties who grew up on Red Dawn etc, it's a rush

maybe trump and putin are planning to take over the world together. and build casinos everywhere.

^that's probably very true xpost to Euler

i don't think the love affair really took off until Trump oh so gracefully telegraphed his predilection during the campaign? and hey, it's becoming more apparent for these garbage people that's what's really important here.

enormo- deep dive new yorker article by Remnick and others from a while back posits that Putin experienced the decline of Soviet power as a KGB dude and saw the post '91 Yeltsin era as a deep humiliation: much of what he and his plutocrat peers does is motivated by a desire to regain its clout on the world stage without the pesky lip service towards socialism…

oddly, I remember a few anti-Obama dudes of my acquaintance decrying his alleged socialism roundabout 09, and I thought "why are these guys talking about socialism?" that must have been a widely circulated Rush L. talking point, but it seemed anachronistic to me to bemoan that shit…

it will be really interesting how all this will be viewed 10-20 years from now. too bad the american right no longer has capacity for shame.

Obliged to point out for the hundredth time that Trump doesn't seem to have enacted any particularly pro-Russian policy, has appointed the feverishly anti-Putin Nikki Haley to the UN, set out pro-Ukrainian and pro-Georgian agendas after meeting with Ukrainian and Georgian leaders, etc. He has no underlying consistency in any of his foreign policy dealings other than apparently agreeing with the last person he happened to speak to.

Separately, remember when?

Bono is at the Crawford Ranch pic.twitter.com/yd43vTaBby

— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) May 26, 2017