Magnetic Personalities, How Do They Fuckin’ Work?

Hope Hicks, left center, attends a White House press briefing in January. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post).

A statement by Hope Hicks on Monday truly highlights the absurdity of the Tiny Tyrant and the Wannabe Regime. It not only reads like a parody, it reads like a bad comic book parody, being chock full of magnetism.

President Trump has a magnetic personality and exudes positive energy, which is infectious to those around him. He has an unparalleled ability to communicate with people, whether he is speaking to a room of three or an arena of 30,000. He has built great relationships throughout his life and treats everyone with respect. He is brilliant with a great sense of humor … and an amazing ability to make people feel special and aspire to be more than even they thought possible.

Um, that’s so over the top, you kind of need to keep staring at it, in the hope the ol’ brain will comprehend it one day soon. It’s so full of “oh, no, no, nope, so fucking wrong” it has the ability to reduce people to sputtering wrecks, morphing into balls of tearful laughter somewhere on the floor. If Trump loaded himself down with magnets, he wouldn’t have a magnetic personality of any kind. He may be considered charismatic to some, although I’m hard pressed to think of any. Even his diehard fans don’t consider him charismatic, they liked him because he 1) wasn’t a politician and 2) was  a hateful, asshole bigot who promised them white vengeance. No charisma in sight.

Brilliant? Right. We are talking about the Fucking Idiot who said: “You know, I’m, like, a smart person.” A sense of humour? Where? Because I’m pretty sure if there ever was one residing in Trump, it jumped ship ages ago. Making people feel special? Huh. Like refusing to shake hands with Angela Merkel? Or the thousands of tweets denigrating just about everyone on the planet? Or all the Trump Tantrums™ and insults he lets fly all over the white house? Jesus, I haven’t even warmed up on this one yet, the list could go on forever here.

Hicks composed the statement in response to a Washington Post report on Trump’s habit of cutting down staffers with insults. The most jarring thing about her characterization of the president is not the inaccuracy; it’s the sudden rejection of Trump’s entire political brand.

To say that Trump “exudes positive energy” is to ignore the whole premise of his campaign. He would not need to “Make America Great Again” if America were currently great — and Trump made very clear that he believes it is not.

Not only that, but the Tiny Tyrant ran on a platform of bigotry and hate. All of it was “those people are criminals! rapists! awful! evil! stealing your jobses, precious!” and so on. FFS, not only does this represent a brand new low in fucking idiocy, this blatant attempt at pandering to, um, whoever, will not work. Most people know it’s absolute bullshit, and his diehard followers don’t want a magnetized Trump, they want the stupid, evil asshole they voted for, so the point of all this? No idea.

The Washington Post has the full story.

The Tiny Tyrant’s Intelligence.

Trump. AP News.

It seems the Tiny Tyrant shares Bush Jr.’s love of comic style intelligence. Oh, yay. Not only a fucking idiot, but proud of it.

President Trump consumes classified intelligence like he does most everything else in life: ravenously and impatiently, eager to ingest glinting nuggets but often indifferent to subtleties.

Most mornings, often at 10:30, sometimes earlier, Trump sits behind the historic Resolute desk and, with a fresh Diet Coke fizzing and papers piled high, receives top-secret updates on the world’s hot spots. The president interrupts his briefers with questions but also with random asides. He asks that the top brass of the intelligence community be present, and he demands brevity.

As they huddle around the desk, Trump likes to pore over visuals — maps, charts, pictures and videos, as well as “killer graphics,” as CIA Director Mike Pompeo phrased it.

“That’s our task, right? To deliver the material in a way that he can best understand the information we’re trying to communicate,” said Pompeo, adding that he, too, prefers to “get to the core of the issue quickly.”

The fawning ass kissing of Pompeo and Coats is sickening, to say the least.

Yet there are signs that the president may not be retaining all the intelligence he is presented, fully absorbing its nuance, or respecting the sensitivities of the information and how it was gathered.

Goodness. Perhaps I’ll find time to be shocked after I make every effort to recover from this near-fatal eyeroll.

Intelligence officials were prepared to deliver daily briefings to Trump throughout the transition period, but the president-elect often turned them away, usually agreeing to sit for briefings only once or twice per week.

“You know, I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years,” Trump told Fox News last December.

If you need to, like, tell people you’re smart, like, all the time, you’re a fucking idiot.

Trump prefers free-flowing conversations over listening to his briefers teach lessons. “It’s a very oral, interactive discussion, as opposed to sitting there and reading from a text or a script,” Pompeo said.

I’ll refrain from the easy joke here. I. Will. Refrain. I. Will…

When he took office, Trump signaled to his national security team that he favors concise points boiled down to a single page.

“I like bullets or I like as little as possible,” he said in a pre-inaugural interview with Axios. “I don’t need, you know, 200-page reports on something that can be handled on a page.”

Trump also has encouraged his briefers to include as many visual elements as possible. This is a reflection, aides said, of Trump’s career as a real estate developer who evaluated blueprints and renderings to visualize what a property eventually would look like.

Oh yes, being a sleazy, mobbed up real estate con, why that’s just like presidenting! Golly, there must be an easy peasy blueprint for everything!

The Washington Post has the full story.

Oh lord, that face.

U.S. President Donald Trump, right, speaks to British Prime Minister Theresa May during in a working dinner meeting at the NATO headquarters during a NATO summit of heads of state and government in Brussels on Thursday, May 25, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Matt Dunham, Pool.

Oh, PM May’s face. Definitely in the a picture is worth a thousand words camp. Meanwhile, the Tiny Tyrant looks blissfully oblivious, he must be talking about himself. He certainly seems to be unable to process other people’s expressions, or he simply may not register them because they are, to him, unimportant. According to a report in the Belgian daily Le Soir, what the Tiny Tyrant discussed was … golf courses. Yep. His golf courses, natch, and how awful Ireland and Scotland were, not letting him do whatever the fuck he wanted. Quelle horreur!

Donald Trump is, above all, a businessman, Belgian daily Le Soir concluded after his visit to Brussels, a city Trump derided during the campaign as a “hellhole.”

He talked about governing with the language of business and was receptive only to concrete talking points, getting lost in theoretical discussions, the paper reported based on interviews with Belgian officials and sources involved in the meeting. He seemed to have “no idea” about economic issues facing Belgium and knew “even less” about the importance of Belgian trade to the United States.

And, when he did have an idea about issues facing the European Union — of which Brussels is the de facto capital — those ideas seemed formed entirely on his experience building golf courses, the paper said.

“He made many references to his personal business. He explained, for example, the function of Europe based on his difficulties doing business in Ireland,” the paper reported.

“Every time we talk about a country, he remembered the things he had done. Scotland? He said he had opened a club. Ireland? He said it took him two and a half years to get a license and that did not give him a very good image of the European Union.,” another source added. “One feels that he wants a system where everything can be realized very quickly and without formalities.”

Think Progress has the full story of yet more reports of just how unimpressive and disastrous the Tour of Trump™ happened to be, leaving many a priceless photo in its wake.

From Integrity to Trumpery.

The crest, right, that President Trump displays at his American properties is a coat of arms, left, that British authorities granted to another family. Click for full size.

LONDON — At the Trump National Golf Club outside Washington, which hosted the Senior P.G.A. Championship this weekend, the president’s coat of arms is everywhere — the sign out front, the pro shop, even the exercise room.

The regal emblem, used at President Trump’s golf courses across the United States, sports three lions and two chevrons on a shield, below a gloved hand gripping an arrow.

A different coat of arms flies over Mr. Trump’s two golf resorts in Scotland. The lions on the shield have been replaced by a two-headed eagle, an image the company has said represents the “dual nature and nationality” of Mr. Trump’s Scottish and German roots.

But this emblem was not just about honoring his heritage.

The British are known to take matters of heraldry seriously, and Mr. Trump’s American coat of arms belongs to another family. It was granted by British authorities in 1939 to Joseph Edward Davies, the third husband of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the socialite who built the Mar-a-Lago resort that is now Mr. Trump’s cherished getaway.

[…]

In the United States, the Trump Organization took Mr. Davies’s coat of arms for its own, making one small adjustment — replacing the word “Integritas,” Latin for integrity, with “Trump.”

Joseph D. Tydings, a Democrat and former United States senator from Maryland who is the grandson of Mr. Davies, learned that Mr. Trump was using the emblem, at least at Mar-a-Lago, when he visited the property. Mr. Trump had never asked permission.

“There are members of the family who wanted to sue him,” said Mr. Tydings, a lawyer who wears his family’s coat of arms on a ring. “This is the first I’ve ever heard about it being used anywhere else.”

[…]

The College of Arms, which oversees coats of arms in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, provided more detail. The emblem originally submitted in 2007 by Mr. Trump to Britain’s trademark office matched one that had been granted to Mr. Davies, an American of Welsh descent who once served as ambassador to the Soviet Union.

“It couldn’t be a clearer-cut case, actually,” said Clive Cheesman, one of the college’s heralds, who oversee coats of arms, their design and their use.

“A coat of arms that was originally granted to Joseph Edward Davies in 1939 by the English heraldic authority ended up being used 10 or 15 years ago by the Trump Organization as part of its branding for its golf clubs,” said Mr. Cheesman, a lawyer by training. “This got them into difficulty.”

The White House referred questions to the Trump Organization, which did not respond to requests for comment.

The organization has trademarked the Davies coat of arms in the United States, which has far less attachment to such symbols. It is used on the company’s website and is a prominent branding detail of Mr. Trump’s many American golf courses and resorts — emblazoned on golf balls, shirts and bottles of body lotion.

When the Trump Organization created a Civil War memorial at the golf course near Washington commemorating a battle and a “river of blood” that never occurred, a plaque marking the fictitious event was embossed with the coat of arms.

The NYT has the full, sordid story. There is not one thing which is genuine when it comes to Trump, he’s a cheap plastic shell surrounding a vacuum of screaming ego. #Trake – If It’s Trump, It’s Fake. You can see some of the choice tweets over this matter here. My favourite:

Mr. Tweet Returns.

After the Unpresident’s disastrous ‘tour’, it didn’t take long before Mr. Tweet once again made an appearance, having another multi-tweet meltdown, scattering his delusions like dandelion achenes in the wind. It also didn’t take long for the Twitterati to respond to the latest salver of idiotbites laid before them.

Mr. Tweet: “I suggest that we add more dollars to Healthcare and make it the best anywhere. ObamaCare is dead – the Republicans will do much better!”

As one astute person observed in response, we had healthcare with more dollars in, it was called the ACA, aka ObamaCare.

Mr. Tweet: “The massive TAX CUTS/REFORM that I have submitted is moving along in the process very well, actually ahead of schedule. Big benefits to all!”

Oh yes, let’s see, you promised this mess within 100 days. It’s over that now. Benefits to all? I do believe he thinks only filthy rich people actually exist. Oh, and maybe the servant class. Outside of that, I think we all disappear.

Mr. Tweet: “The Fake News Media works hard at disparaging & demeaning my use of social media because they don’t want America to hear the real story!”

This piece of America is intelligent enough to read actual news, not shitshows like Fox, is capable of doing basic fact checking, is not afraid of words or the reading of them, and can judge shite filled tweets when seen.

It’s amazing, really, just how easy it is to get Donny unglued. I hope people all over take a clue from the scathing Twitterati, and show up in masses at his planned ‘campaign rallies’, and let fly with the questions and mockery. That might result in getting his ass out of office, something the democrats won’t even try to do until fucking 2019. What the hell is the point? He needs out now. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of mockery!

You can see some of the choice responses at Raw Story.

Climate Accord: Trump To Pull Out.

“Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic, center right, after appearing to be pushed by Donald Trump, center.” CREDIT for caption/photo: AP/Matt Dunham.

There’s been a great deal of anxiety laden speculation over the Paris Climate Accord, as that represents our last, best hope. It seems it’s a last, best hope that the Tiny Tyrant wants no part of, and plans to withdraw from.  This is not yet formal, and the Tiny Tyrant is subject to doing rapid turnabouts on a whim, but he’s never been secretive about his scorn for the climate accord, or his desire to pull out. The damage he has already done here in uStates is tremendous, it won’t be long before we’re back to 1970s levels of pollution, with smog alerts and steeping in trash and toxicity once again. Naturally, this will lead to a much sicker populace, one which will not be able to take care of themselves, thanks to the Fuck You Care Plan. There’s one other country which is also adamantly against the climate accord. Bet you don’t need three guesses, either. It’s Russia.

President Donald Trump has privately told “confidants” he intends to leave the Paris accord on climate change, “according to three sources with direct knowledge,” Axios reported Saturday.

After persuading voters that America isn’t great anymore, Trump apparently intends to make sure of it — by having this country lead the effort to kill humanity’s last, best hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

Quitting a unanimous agreement by 190+ nations after a two-decade negotiating process would make us a rogue nation, a global pariah, like Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And, it could make Putin happy, as we’ll see.

While Trump tweeted out Saturday from Italy that “I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after the G7 meeting, “The whole discussion about climate has been difficult, or rather very unsatisfactory.” She added, “Here we have the situation that six members, or even seven if you want to add the EU, stand against one.”

Axios notes that “Although Trump made it clear during the campaign and in multiple conversations before his overseas trip that he favored withdrawal, he has been known to abruptly change his mind.” They add, however, top political appointees at EPA “were relieved” when Trump refused to join a consensus G7 statement reaffirming “their strong commitment” to the Paris accord.

While the White House’s attack on domestic climate action already undermines the global effort to avert climate catastrophe, we shouldn’t discount the importance of a U.S. withdrawal from Paris — especially if Trump teams with Russian President Vladimir Putin to undermine the whole global negotiating process.

Think Progress has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm.

ccckenya.com

Wayne Allyn Root is at it again, metaphorical saliva foaming over. Oh, those awful fellow conservatives, they are lazy, cheap, wussie country clubbers! They aren’t properly motivated programmed, so it’s time to call in the pros, those who will attack , and have experience in killing people. That will fix everything right up, because otherwise, he seems to think his life, and that of other batshit conservative christians, will be erased. I think Mr. Root has been watching bad movies.

Outraged that WorldNetDaily had its Twitter account temporarily suspended for its incessant promotion of the debunked Seth Rich conspiracy theory, Root fumed that conservatives “are all wussies and they don’t understand that we have to fight back so viciously and we have to boycott every liberal company in this country.”

Any company that advertises on MSNBC or CNN or in the New York Times, Washington Post or on any liberal website must be universally boycotted by every Trump voter in America, Root said, “before we are taken off the airwaves and our lives are erased.”

I can’t imagine anyone having the time, resources, and energy to “erase” lives such as yours, Mr. Root. Reality is not a bad movie. As for the rest of your plan, while there are too many Trumpholes, as in one is too many, they are actually a very small percentage of the population, and don’t have the power to make a boycott effective.

Reading from a letter he received from a friend, Root claimed that progressive organizations like Right Wing Watch, Media Matters, and the Center for American Progress have massive offices all over the country filled with staff who do nothing but send emails, letters and make phone calls “to sponsors and newspapers and cable and TV networks all over this country and all over this world to try to destroy the right.” Conservatives don’t have a similar operation, Root fumed, because they are “lazy, cheap, wussy, country club, RINO a-holes.”

Oooh, a letter from a friend. What an authoritative source. Nothing like advertising your gullibility. I imagine if these massive offices existed, there would be quite the buzz, because jobs. It’s true that lefties tend to pay attention, and get involved in a lot of grassroots action, sign petitions and all that, but that’s a far cry from this odd conspiracy you have cooked up. Most of us have to get on with the daily business of living, working every day, taking care of families, all that. Not much time leftover to be a paper assassin.

“We need to hire an attack dog,” Root declared. “We need to hire former CIA or NSA or FBI or Navy Seals that have been involved in counter-insurgency operations all over the world, that have killed people, that understand how to fight; that don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, that bring a gun to a gunfight, preferably a shoulder-fired missile to a gunfight, preferably a nuclear weapon to a gunfight!”

We? Who the hell is We? A slight hint here, Mr. Root – people such as you’re describing might not appreciate being called an attack dog. A nuclear weapon to a gunfight. Yeah, there’s that good ol’ christian conservative spirit: obliterate the fuckers, all of them! I can’t say I’d mind if you dropped dead, Mr. Root, because you’re a dangerous zealot, who thinks unleashing nuclear weapons would be a good idea. It would probably be a good thing if you figured out that if nukes fly, you’re dead, too. Jesus Fuck, what is wrong with you people?

“It is time to go after the left as viciously as they go after us,” Root proclaimed. “These people are mentally insane … and I will tell you right now, they would burn books if they could.”

“They would love to burn the Bible, because we all know they hate God,” he added. “And you know they hate the country.”

Let’s take a look. According to you, the left are viciously engaged in letter writing and phone calling. So, you think killers, guns, and nuclear weapons are an appropriate response. And that’s supposed to be mentally sane? Now, as for this: “they would burn books if they could”, um, what is it that you think is preventing people from burning books, if that’s what they want to do? I haven’t burned a bible, but I’ve shredded a couple. *shrug* Nothing happened, no one cares.

I don’t hate “god” because gods don’t exist. I don’t hate the country, either, but I certainly don’t like many of its inhabitants.

Via RWW.

Oh Good, A War Room. That’s Sure To Help.

Trump speaks to U.S. troops at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy, on May 27. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters).

A war room. Why? All the scandals engulfing the Tiny Tyrant, of course. The mere fact that the Tiny Tyrant feels this is a situation of war lends credence to the malignant reality reaching out with a stranglehold on us all. This is a siege mentality overlaid on an already highly unstable and paranoid mindset.

President Trump and his advisers, seeking to contain the escalating Russia crisis that threatens to consume his presidency, are considering a retooling of his senior staff and the creation of a “war room” within the White House, according to several aides and outside Trump allies.

Following Trump’s return to Washington on Saturday night from a nine-day foreign trip that provided a bit of a respite from the controversy back home, the White House plans to far more aggressively combat the cascading revelations about contacts between Trump associates, including Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and Russia.

White House officials are also trying to find ways to revive Trump’s stalled policy agenda in Congress and to more broadly overhaul the way the White House communicates with the public.

That includes proposals for more travel and campaign-style rallies throughout the country so that Trump can speak directly to his supporters, as well as changes in the pace and nature of press briefings, likely including a diminished role for embattled White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

Oh right, a “return” to campaigning. A good portion of Trumpholes have now figured out that supporting him is akin to having your hands filled with a steaming pile of shit, so I don’t imagine the campaign rally trail will be quite so happy this time around. This also means that Trump will once again be preaching and hollering hate everywhere, in an attempt to provide a salve for bruised egos everywhere, a place for people to lay blame. Like last time, I also expect there will be another spike in hate fueled violence, on top of the one which is still ongoing.

It would be truly great if every person in uStates could figure out that campaigning is not the same as presidenting, and it has been made more than obvious which one Trump can manage, and which one he clearly cannot manage.

While much remained fluid Saturday, the beefed-up operation could include the return of some of Trump’s more combative campaign aides, including former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who was fired nearly a year ago, and former deputy campaign manager David N. Bossie, who made his name in politics by investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton for two decades. Both of them have already been part of ongoing discussions about how to build a “war room,” which have been led in part by chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon.

[…]

“Go to the mattresses,” a line from “The Godfather” film about turning to tough mercenaries during troubled times, has circulated among Trump’s friends, according to two people close to the “war room” discussions.

Well, how … apt.

Meanwhile, White House counsel Donald McGahn is mulling expanding his office, and an outside legal team led by Marc E. Kasowitz is readying to meet with Trump and guide him, including on whether he should continue to comment on the Russia probes on Twitter.

Kushner has played an active role in the effort to rethink and rearrange the communications team, improve the White House’s surrogate operation, and develop an internal group to combat the influx of negative stories and revelations over the FBI’s Russia probe, said someone with knowledge of the coming changes.

“The bottom line is they need fresh legs; they need more legs,” said Barry Bennett, who served as a political adviser to Trump during the general election. “They’re in full-scale war, and they’re thinly staffed.”

[…]

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, is being considered as a replacement behind the lectern and is likely to appear on camera more often in coming weeks. White House aides have also talked about having a rotating cast of staff brief the media, a group that could include officials such as national security adviser H.R. McMaster. Having several aides share the briefing responsibilities could help prevent Trump — who has a notoriously short attention span — from growing bored or angry with any one staffer.

Shuffle, move, scoot, change, whatever the fuck. The key words in the above would be: 1) Trump 2) short attention span 3) bored 4) angry. The problem? Trump. The solution? Get rid of Trump.

Aides and allies of Trump say they have come to the realization that unflattering stories about Russia will be part of the daily conversation for the foreseeable future and acknowledge that the White House has been ill-equipped to handle them.

Christopher Ruddy, a longtime Trump friend, said the White House has been caught flat-footed on many of the Russia stories.

“Because they did not believe there’s anything to it, they’re playing catch-up to get their side of the story out,” Ruddy said.

Oh, fucking bullshit! Bullshit. This didn’t take anyone by surprise, they just assumed he’d get away with it, like he has before.

Being outside of Washington among his supporters, particularly in a state he won last year, energizes Trump and provides a way for him to communicate without the filter of the media, his advisers say.

“The conventional ways of communicating are not working for them,” one adviser said, adding that Trump should consider Facebook Live sessions and get out on the road “as frequently as possible.”

“They have to get the campaign brand back,” the adviser said.

Oh yes, the brand. All you need is hate and the brand. Intelligence, compassion, competency? Nah, who the hell needs those things?

“I hope he’ll travel more and do these rallies once a week,” Bennett said. “You get to say whatever you want to say, and you don’t have to take questions.”

You know what would be great? If lots and lots and lots of people showed up at said rallies, and refused to stay quiet and listen, and yelled out all their questions about just how he’s fucking everyone and everything over, and why does he hate America so damn much.

There’s much, much more at The Washington Post.

A More Violent Christianity.

Jean Colombe, Detail of a medieval miniature of the Siege of Antioch from Sébastien Mamerot’s Les Passages d’Outremer.

Coach Dave (Daubenmire) is on a tear again, this time over the woeful lack of aggressive violence in today’s Christianity. More violence! More aggression! More manly men being assholes! Yeah, that’s the ticket! I will say that Coach Dave gets a point for honesty.

“The only thing that is going to save Western civilization is a more aggressive, a more violent Christianity,” he said.

A good part of the planet is still soaking in the blood spilt by Christians throughout the ages, who could never seem to get enough war, torture, and various kinds of killing. Given a warped enough view, one could see that as ‘saving’, I suppose.

Playing a clip of Trump shoving aside the prime minister of Montenegro at a recent NATO summit so that he could stand in front of the group of assembled leaders, Daubenmire heaped praise on Trump for showing that “he is large and in charge.”

“Look at him,” Daubenmire screamed gleefully while watching the clip. “They’re all little puppies, ain’t nobody barking at him … He’s walking in authority. He walked to the front and center and they all know it, too, man. He just spanked them all.”

Trump’s behavior is an example for the church, Daubenmire said. “The Lord is showing us a picture of the authority we should be walking in.”

Oh. So that’s what Coach Dave means, that men should wallow in being toxic assholes. I’m rather amazed he hasn’t noticed just how many men already do that sort of thing. It’s a problem. Basically, this just sounds like the posturing plaint of “hey, you aren’t pussy-whipped, are you?” A moronic, faux-macho stance of fucking idiots everywhere. Allow me to translate Coach Dave: “See that? Trump isn’t pussy-whipped, he’s a pussy grabber!” Yeah, grate™.

Daubenmire then cited Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte’s assault on a reporter the day before he won a special election in Montana as another example for the church.

“People are sick and tired of it,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘Yes, a fighter! Go, dude, go!’ … Who won? The dude that took the other dude to the ground.”

Well, no, dude, that’s not what happened. Most of the votes were already in when Gianforte assaulted the reporter, a crime he was charged with, by the way, because he was guilty. That’s not something to celebrate, and you certainly should not twist facts to make it seem like voters approved of his crime. I’m sure some of them did, but I’d be willing to bet most did not. No one wants to stand in front of someone who has so little self control. This person is sick and tired of all the toxic assholes running around, using dude dude dude in a sentence because their minds and vocabularies are so damn impoverished.

“That should be the heart cry of Christian men,” Daubenmire said. “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of God has suffered violence and violent men take it by force.”

At least he got something right. Yes, Christianity has always been a horrible snarl of blood-soaked violence, brimming over with violent men who believe in taking everything and everyone by force. Seems to me it’s past time for that sort of shit to be over.

Via RWW.

Breitbart: 281st Place.

The substantive impact of Steve Bannon’s exit from the NSC on foreign policy remains to be seen. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters.

Seems that Breitbart has lost its way, no longer able to whip hateful, conservative bigots into a convenient froth anymore. They now find themselves playing defense, and it is not working out for them. I, I … just can’t seem to conjure up a tear.

This year was supposed to be a time of triumph for the “alt-right” website Breitbart.com and its readers. The website’s CEO Steve Bannon became one of the most powerful men in the country, a senior White House adviser with a reputation for ruthlessness in the name of forwarding his white nationalist ideology.

However, according to Vanity Fair‘s Tina Nguyen, Breitbart.com has been racked by internal struggles in recent months and is seeing its once-plentiful traffic numbers take a steep dive.

[…]

“Just a few months later, the numbers have a different story to tell,” said Nguyen. “As of May 26, 2017, according to Alexa.com—the same web-ranking analytics company that Breitbart drew its numbers from in January—Fox News is the 64th most-trafficked site in the country. Huffington Post is at 60. Buzzfeed is at 50. The Washington Post, on the strength of a series of eye-popping scoops, is at 41.”

“Breitbart,” she said, “is in 281st place.”

Web analytics can be a woolly discipline, Nguyen noted, but across the board, Breitbart’s numbers are suffering. “ComScore estimated that Breitbart had nearly 23 million unique visitors during the month of November 2016, but only drew 10.7 million in April 2017, a 53 percent drop. Last month, the site had fewer visitors than it did in April 2016, when 12.3 million people visited the site.”

[…]

Breitbart.com has walked the line of the acceptable, spewing out thinly-veiled hate pieces about feminists, people of color and anyone deemed to be “politically correct.” But now, with its enemies purportedly routed and their nominee in power, Breitbart doesn’t know what to do with the inchoate rage that it has inculcated among its users.

Full story here.

None So Blind As The Faithful.

Screen Grab. Playable video at link.

The willful blindness of some people never ceases to baffle me. I’m not much a one for taking things on faith, and I never take any politician on faith of any kind. Politics being what they are, an arena for game playing, with rewards for lying and other duplicitous behaviour, it strikes me as pure folly to rely on faith in the words of any politician, and in particular when it comes to someone like Trump. I’m not overly inclined to being sympathetic to Trumpholes, but it’s difficult to not have compassion for those who feel betrayed as result of their blind faith in a person who did not deserve it in any way. The best they can do now is to get damn active in The Resistance, and try to atone for boosting the Tiny Tyrant into place.

An upstate New York man who sold many of his possessions last year to fund a months-long tour playing music at Trump rallies now regrets his vote for the Republican candidate.

“I had everything riding on the fact that he was going to make things better,” Kraig Moss told the Associated Press. “He lied to me.”

Then-candidate Donald Trump looked Moss in the eye at one rally in Iowa and told the grieving father he would help end the drug epidemic that had claimed his 24-year-old son, whose ashes accompanied the truck driver to 45 rallies.

“He promised me, in honor of my son, that he was going to combat the ongoing heroin epidemic,” Moss said. “He got me hook, line and sinker.”

Post-election analyses found that Trump over-performed in Rust Belt counties ravaged by public health crises — such as drug and alcohol addiction and suicide — but the president’s budget released this week slashes funding for addiction treatment, research and prevention.

Medicaid funding would shrivel under Trump’s 10-year plan, which could devastate coverage to an estimated three in 10 adults addicted to opioids.

[…]

Trump promised during the campaign and after his election to help families suffering from the opioid epidemic — but his voters feel betrayed by the president’s focus on tax cuts, military spending and border security.

“I didn’t see this coming,” said Paul Kusiak, of Massachusetts, who told Trump the candidate about his sons’ successful battles with addiction. “I’m trying desperately to have hope and take the president at his word.”

[…]

“Inside I’m screaming,” said Sandra Chavez, of Sacramento, whose son died from an infection related to drug use. “We’re going backward with Donald Trump’s plan.”

Trump has proposed cutting funds for addiction research, prevention programs, drug courts and prescription drug monitoring, as well as eliminating support for training of addiction professional.

Justin Butler, a 36-year-old Trump voter from Cleveland, fears he will be back on the streets, using drugs and selling them, if Medicaid stops paying for addiction treatment.

“He’s turning his back on people,” Butler said. “He’s a liar.”

It’s one hell of a harsh lesson, and none of these people, in spite of voting for Trump, deserves to be tossed aside like so much trash. None of us deserve that. That said, as noted earlier, being sorry isn’t enough. Regretful Trump voters need to channel that disappointment and betrayal into working for The Resistance, and to now work to get the Tiny Tyrant unseated.

Via Raw Story. There’s a similar story, about a Trump voter who is completely dependent on SSI, finding out she most likely will not have that anymore under the Tiny Tyrant.

“The Germans Are Bad, Very Bad.”

U.S. President Donald Trump looks up during a meeting about healthcare at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.

Oh, the Tiny Tyrant, Fucking Idiot in Chief, is busy spewing stupid all over Europe, and making enemies out of everyone. In this particular instance, the focus is on how absolutely evil Germans are, because cars. Yep.  Oh my, someone else is better than Grate Amerikkka™ at something, they must be squashed!

Donald Trump is ready to fight Germany in an auto battle according to Germany’s Der Spiegel.

Trump got a chilly reception at the NATO summit in Belgium after attacking fellow members. But he was caught pledging a battle with German automakers as part of his anger with “back dues” he feels the country owes to NATO. As CNN’s Jake Tapper noted Thursday, “Trump seems to think it’s like a country club.”

In a discussion about the country’s trade surplus, Trump said. “The Germans are evil, very evil.”

“Look at the millions of cars they sell in the US, and we’ll stop that,” sources told Der Spiegel.

According to the report, EU Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker took up for Germany explaining that “free trade is good for all.”

According to a report from the “Süddeutsche Zeitung,” the EU allies were horrified by the willingness of the Americans to view global trade with such a lack of awareness. Trump’s economic consultant Gary Cohn was said to have chided German auto trade during a discussion between the US and Germany and the USA and Belgium. Trump had previously attacked them during another conversation.

Via Raw Story.

Speaking of the Trudget: Poverty Is A State of Mind.

Ben Carson. Getty Images.

I just got a post up about The Trudget and Rethuglican “compassion”, and then I see this little gem from Ben Carson, who seems to think that poverty is a state of mind, rather than a very concrete situation of having no money and no resources. When it comes to Carson, Fucking Idiot is not enough of a descriptor.

During an interview with Sirius XM radio on Tuesday, Mr Carson suggested people are poor because they learned the “wrong mindset” from their parents.

The retired neurosurgeon oversees a department that manages housing for the country’s low-income population.

His comments quickly drew sharp criticism on social media.

“I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind,” he said in an interview that aired on Wednesday.

“You take somebody that has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there.

“And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom.”

Has someone been giving poverty-ridden peoples ‘everything in the world’? I haven’t heard anything to that effect. Most people who find themselves in poverty simply want the basics, along with opportunities to get out of perpetual poverty. Unfortunately, Amerikkka is set up to keep poor people poor, and keep the filthy rich sucking the marrow out of everyone else’s bones.

Ben Carson, there simply is not enough Fuck in the universe for you.

BBC News has the full story, along with some choice responses which were tweeted.