ME, ME, ME!

Screengrab.

The Washington Post got ahold of some transcripts, and what screams out is the Tiny Tyrant’s focus on himself, and little else. Even in the midst of this whinging over his ego and appearance, it’s stunningly superficial. Given the seriousness of the various subjects, it’s a head-shaking reminder of black hole of idiocy supposedly in charge of a fucking country. It would seem that the latest move in taking charge is a 17 day golf vacation. FFS.

Just bits here and there:

I did not want to have a meeting. I did not want to meet with anybody.

We cannot say that anymore because if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that.

But you cannot say that to the press. The press is going to go with that and I cannot live with that.

And I am saying, boy that will make us look awfully bad. Here I am calling for a ban where I am not letting anybody in and we take 2,000 people. Really it looks like 2,000 people that Australia does not want and I do not blame you by the way, but the United States has become like a dumping ground.

This is going to kill me. I am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country.

I hate taking these people. I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.

This is a stupid deal. This deal will make me look terrible.

Okay, this shows me to be a dope. I am not like this but, if I have to do it, I will do it but I do not like this at all.

I look so foolish doing this.

They were from wherever they were.

It is important to you and it is embarrassing to me. It is an embarrassment to me.

You can read the whole mess at The Washington Post.

Flowers For The Tiny Tyrant.

From Lizania Cruz’s series Flowers for Immigration.

From Lizania Cruz’s series Flowers for Immigration.

From Lizania Cruz’s series Flowers for Immigration.

A stunning project, so eloquent and poignant.

“Say it with flowers,” the expression goes. So, to communicate the thoughts that immigrants harbor about President Trump, artist Lizania Cruz decided to invite some of them to create bouquets for him. Her ongoing photo series Flowers for Immigration documents the resulting arrangements — quiet, beautiful manifestations of opinions that are often unspoken or silenced.

All are the creations of undocumented immigrant bodega workers who spend their days helping New Yorkers express themselves through flowers. Cruz, wanting to see the florists do the same for their own feelings, launched the project last November. Since then, she’s recruited 11 flower sellers to participate in the project. Not everyone she approached took her up on the offer, with some disagreeing with her objective and others refusing out of concern for their status. But providing a platform for those whose lives are at the center of current debates over immigration is precisely the goal of Cruz, who herself came to the city after being born and raised in the Dominican Republic.

“I hope viewers will be able to connect with the beauty and humanity of these undocumented workers and that their voices are amplified,” she told Hyperallergic. “Undocumented workers can’t go out and protest because of fear of facing legal actions. So I hope this project allowed them to have an opinion.” The participants, whom she paid for their involvement, are identified only by first names.

You can read much more about this project, and see much more at Hyperallergic, or visit Flowers for Immigration.

The Worm Turns.

Sean Spicer.

It seems that yet one more thing the Tiny Tyrant has never learned is that when you shove people about, run them down, then kick them out the door, they don’t have much motivation when it comes to staying quiet. A new lawsuit is tarnishing the Tiny Tyrant, and Sean Spicer has spilled the truth all over NPR, in spite of earlier denials, when he was still employed by the regime.

A defamation lawsuit filed by longtime Fox News contributor Rod Wheeler against the network alleges that President Trump was directly involved in concocting a fake story intended to undercut the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian hackers waged cyberattacks against Democratic targets to help him get elected.

[…]

The lawsuit claims that Butowsky and Zimmerman hoped the story “would debunk reports the Russian were responsible for the DNC hacks” and “undermine reports of collusion between Russia and the Trump Administration.” It claims that in the weeks ahead of the article’s publication, Butowsky was in touch with then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer, White House strategist Steve Bannon, and Department of Justice spokesperson Sarah Flores “regarding his efforts related to Seth Rich.” Wheeler says he and Butowsky met with Spicer “and provided him with a copy of [Wheeler’s] investigative notes.”

But the day the story was published, Spicer denied having foreknowledge of the Fox News report, saying during the White House press briefing that “I’m not aware of that… it would be highly inappropriate to do that.”

Spicer has now changed his story. He confirmed to NPR that he met with Butowsky after all.

Tsk. How you treat people matters, and there are always consequences to how you treat them. Yet another basic life lesson unlearned by the yawning void of ego sitting in the white house.

Think Progress has the full story.

Real Men With Testosterone!

Wayne Allyn Root is thrilled, right down to his little…toes. He’s swimming in a sea of testosterone, and loving it. There’s an abundance of eyeroll coming up, guard yourself.

Root, who just last month repeatedly voiced his disgust that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand had cursed during a speech, couldn’t stop praising Scaramucci’s vulgarity or his amazing manliness.

“It looks like we’re getting the trannies out of the military and we’re getting the real men in the White House,” Root crowed as he bragged that he, like Scaramucci, grew up in New York and therefore knows how to fight and has no problem knocking people’s teeth out.

Root is always talking about fighting, about being able to beat anyone up. In my experience, people who talk constantly about their ability to fight aren’t any good at it. Also, in my experience, reasonable people don’t take glee in the idea of physically fighting. No, transgender people in the military aren’t going anywhere. Just because Donny tweets something, doesn’t make it the TwitterLaw™ of the Land.

“Real men with testosterone, that’s what needs to run America,” he said. “He’s my kind of guy, he’s a real man with testosterone … We finally got people in office with personality instead of a bunch of country club losers and the whole world is freaking out that Trump is going to block transgenders from being in the military and that you’ve got guys like Trump and Scaramucci with our locker room conversation. You know what? This is the real world! Wake up. This is how you become successful. I’ve made millions of dollars in the business world and everyone I’ve dealt with talks like this.”

A vulgar asshole who is incapable of keeping his own counsel. Yeah, that’s what needs to run America. Oh, people with personality, that’s what all this is! Yes, I think we’re all aware that government in this lost country is now an incredible cringefest of a reality show. Far be it from me to decry your personal taste in entertainment, Mr. Root, but this pile of shit does not belong in government, on any level. Just how do you think the Tiny Tyrant is going to block transgender people from the military? He doesn’t have the power to wrinkle his nose and twitch it so.

You know what? That’s not the real world, you dipshit. That’s your fantasy land. The fantasy land of incompetent sociopaths. So, every single person you have ever dealt with talks like that. I guess you would deal mostly with organized crime a great deal then. Good to know.

“In private, this is how guys talk,” Root continued, “and unfortunately, we have a society that doesn’t want men to be men anymore. You want men to be women! I’m sorry, men aren’t supposed to be women, men aren’t supposed to be gay, men aren’t supposed to be transgender, men are men! And you gotta let us be. We like football, we like wrestling, we like MMA, we like boxing, we like beautiful women in bikinis and we say it out loud and if you don’t like it, we don’t really give a damn. That’s what guys are like and Anthony Scaramucci and Donald Trump and Wayne Root are men and you know what? Tough.”

Sigh. Yes, cupcake, we all know what regressive assholes are like, everyone gets to deal with them. That does not mean people approve, or like you. Most of us just don’t want to be trapped in the same room with any of you, and wish to the universe you would learn to shut the fuck up. Men do not have to be neutered willow wands to enjoy homosociality, and there’s nothing wrong with men being able to be free and open about the things they like and dislike. Like sportsball? Great. Don’t like sportsball? Great. You’re one of the worst things to happen to the concept of masculinity, Mr. Root, and thankfully, most men are well aware of that. All you do is follow an outdated concept of masculinity which traps you in a tiny bubble of thought and action, forcing you to live next to no actual life, because you have to constantly feed this notion of what a manly man you are. It’s a fake masculinity, one which demands of men that they never be who they actually are, and that is  terribly pathetic.

Via Right Wing Watch.

Sunday Facepalm.

Magnum Chaos represented by Lorenzo Lotto, at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo.

Rick Joyner is exulting in the chaos of the white house. Personally, I don’t think such dysfunction is anything to celebrate, but Joyner seems to be under the impression that this is exactly how Jesus operated, so it’s okay.

“I’m expecting some chaos in the White House team for the duration of Trump’s administration,” Joyner said, “and I am saying this is because he is such an extraordinary leader. It’s not a lack of leadership; it’s a different kind of leadership.”

“Jesus is the best leader there will ever be,” Joyner said, but even his “cabinet” of apostles was rife with infighting. “Why were they fighting? Because they are stallions! These are serious leaders. They’re the real thing and they’re going to jostle and they’re going to fight, they’re going to position themselves. Trump has chosen those type of people for this cabinet.”

Y’know, I’ve read the bible, more than once. I’d dearly like to know if Mr. Joyner has, and what the fuck he was smoking when he did. Muscular Christianity isn’t new, but it isn’t apostolic in nature. Even the kindest of descriptors couldn’t work what’s going on in the white house as any type of muscular christianity, either. A surplus of strong leaders is not our problem. We don’t have any leaders at all. Those things are a bit different.

Via RWW.

Sam Fulwood III has a much more accurate assessment of what’s going on right now, at Think Progress. We’re dealing with the fallout of a toxic tide of white privilege. Oh, don’t be rolling your eyes. Given the current circumstances, it really can’t be denied. There was a never-ending barrage of bullshit thrown at the Obama administration, for eight bloody years. Every single move was questioned, in spite of the fact that it was one of the calmest, most scandal-free administrations ever. Look at what’s going on now, and imagine if this was happening with Pres. Obama in office instead of the Tiny Tyrant. Do you suppose people would just be shrugging? No.

[…] But the worst part of the racist vitriol directed at Obama and his family was the impact it had on everyday black Americans, who saw putative political attacks on the president and his polices as proxies for how many white Americans view African Americans.

By contrast, no such stigma of bad-boy behavior from the White House is deemed representative of white men or their kinfolk. For anyone who doubts its existence, the stench emanating from the Trump administration is a textbook definition of white privilege. Despite displaying a level of incompetence and moral deviance that is uncommon in rational democracies, the phalanx of white men surrounding the Oval Office bear no burden or shame as white Americans; their despicable behavior rests solely with them as individuals, not representatives of a race.

Click on over and have read, recommended.

It’s All About The Pizza, Ayyyy!

Palermo’s Pizza.

“What part of Donald Trump is not elite? The business side, the politics side, the inheritance side?” BBC reporter Emily Maitlis asked.

“Oh my god, there’s so many things about the president. How about the cheeseburgers, how about the pizzas that we eat?” Scaramucci replied.

“Everyone eats cheeseburgers, pizzas, what are you talking about?” the reporter fired back.

I’m with the reporter. A love of certain foods does not make an everyman.

Scaramucci then accused Maitlis of “coming across a little elitist” and said he grew up in a middle-class family with a “tight budget” and “little to no money.”

He said Trump understands the “common struggle” even better than he does.

“He knows how to operate in the elitist world and has unbelievable empathy for the common struggle that’s going on with the middle-class people and the lower middle-class people,” he said.

Oh sure, he understands the “common people”. Having daddy hand you a million bucks in seed money, that’s a very typical thing, happens to most commoners, right? Oh, and the language! “Common struggle”, pretty sure that’s shortspeak for commoners, because Tiny Tyrant fancies himself royalty. As for empathy? Oh, please. Pull the other one, it has bells on. It is totally unbelievable that Trump has any empathy at all. I would love to see someone point Trump at a typical lower middle class house, and tell him he had to take all his vacations in it, rather than his mansion in Florida, for a month. He wouldn’t be able to do it. Although you probably could park him in a Pizza Hut for a day, if the pizza was free.

Via The Hill. (Video at the link.)

The Most Precedential Presidential Of All!

Toddler Trump, by Sham.

In one of his “FEED MY EGO” rallies, the Tiny Tyrant waxed idiotic about being presidential:

At a campaign-style rally in Ohio, President Donald Trump claimed he could act more “presidential” than any previous White House occupant, with the exception of President Abraham Lincoln.

“And I say – great schools, smart guy – it’s so easy to act presidential,” Trump claimed. “But that’s not going to get it done.”

“With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” Trump claimed.

“It’s real easy,” Trump added.

I agree, it’s easy enough to act presidential. That’s not the same as being presidential. And I wouldn’t be so fast to rate your acting abilities, Donny, they are abysmal. You haven’t been able to get one fucking thing done, unless you count regressively banning transgender people from the military. That’s hardly some great feat, you incompetent fuckwit. The only reason that was done was to give the Religious Reich another gift from their Theocalypse wishlist.

Have you informed the ghost of Andrew Jackson that he’s been supplanted by Lincoln?

You can see some of the replies to this latest declaration at Raw Story.

Donald J. Queeg.

I was reading about the latest feverish paranoia spilling from the Tiny Tyrant, over the horrible lack of loyalty on the part of Sessions, why that evil man, not protecting his tyrant! Trump now wants Sessions gone, and wants him replaced with someone who will fire Mueller, then go crazy prosecuting the Clintons and anyone else Queeg Trump doesn’t like.

While I was reading, this particular scene from the Caine Mutiny kept playing in my head. This is very much how I see the Tiny Tyrant these days.

Trump publicly humiliates Jeff Sessions, demands arbitrary prosecution of political opponents.

Speaking of Neo-Nazi Assholes…

Tucker Viemeister.

In the previous post, Richard Spencer’s sugar daddy was revealed. Now, Spencer and his nazi buddies are busy talking themselves up again, and just loving the current regime in all its chaos and idiocy.

As Salon reports, Michael Peinovich, the creator of alt-right podcast network The Right Stuff, spoke with leader Richard Spencer and an anonymous former GOP staffer ‘Jazzhands McFeels’ on Sunday about the administration’s lack funding for domestic terrorist groups.

“He’s going to give us space to operate, and frankly, it is space to destroy,” Peinovich said of Trump.

“Now is the time that we have to make hay while the sun shines,” ‘Jazzhands McFeels’ argued, insisting the alt-right should take advantage “while these investigations of ‘domestic terrorist groups’ are not being funded by the government, they’re not being pushed by the Department of Homeland Security.”

Contrasting Trump’s administration with a hypothetical Hillary Clinton presidency, Peiovich added the alt-right would “probably be facing f*cking [racketeering] charges or some shit like that,” adding the movement has “to use these four years to grow into something that can’t be defeated by that kind of thing.”

[…]

“I hope the way that [Trump] is looked back on in history is that he was the vehicle that moved the alt-right movement, the white identity movement in the United States, back into the forefront of the political scene,” Peinovich said.

And that alone should be reason enough for impeachment. Via Raw Story.

“The velvet tyranny of political correctness.”

Richard Spencer and William H. Regnery II.

Lance Williams at Reveal has an absorbing article up about the person and money behind neo-nazi Richard Spencer. For many years, Regnery’s notions about race got him kicked out of one organization or another, but the rise of the Tiny Tyrant has made many of  his dreams come true.

Long before Donald Trump’s election ushered in an era of resurgent white nationalism, a disaffected Republican named William H. Regnery II was brooding about the demographic plight of white people and plotting their rescue.

Like Trump more than 20 years later, Regnery, the wealthy scion of a famous GOP family, had an increasingly dark view of a changing America: As he wrote, the U.S. had become a crime-ridden society with bad schools, high taxes, an intrusive government and a penchant for political correctness that was “morphing into an intellectual tyranny.”

Worse, “a flood of immigrants were changing the look of America from a palette of prime colors to a third-world monochrome,” he wrote in a rant that would be at home on the bookshelf of Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon. “Instead of a lingua franca, the country clanged with many foreign tongues.”

By 1999, he had come to believe that the only future for white people in North America was a reconfigured continent with a white-only homeland carved out of the former United States.

[…]

Through his family’s famed conservative publishing house, Regnery had been on a first-name basis with the cream of the Republican establishment. But by 2006, his public views on race left him ostracized from the GOP.   

Now, he’s back. Working behind the scenes, the retired Chicago business executive has played an important role in making his ultra-right views a part of America’s political conversation in the era of Trump.

In what he has described as his crowning political achievement, Regnery discovered Richard Spencer, the mediagenic agitator who invented the term “alt-right.” In 2011, Regnery made him the frontman for his white nationalist think tank, the National Policy Institute, providing Spencer the platform to launch the alt-right movement.

The full article is here, recommended.

Scaramanga Scaramouche Scaramucci: Two-Faced Turnabout.

Anthony Scaramucci CREDIT: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster.

Oh what a different song he sings! Scaramucci was no fan of the Tiny Tyrant, but of course, he’s contorted himself into a complete 380. While he has been busy scrubbing his past tweets, he can’t control all the times he ranted about what a rotten egg Trump is, and how he should stick with real estate. Whatever Scaramucci’s talents might be, he’s not so great at the spokesperson business, having attempted a tight mouth denial about Russia, citing an anonymous source, only to spill that his source was Trump in the overwhelming heat of a second question.

This is Scaramucci, ranting about Trump in 2015:

In 2015, Scaramucci appeared on the Fox Business Network to talk about politics. They played a clip of Donald Trump attacking “hedge fund guys.”

Scaramucci responded with an extended rant against Trump, calling his new boss “another hack politician” and “anti-American.” He said Trump’s rhetoric is “very, very divisive.”

He wasn’t done.

“It’s very very divisive. I’ll tell you who he’s going to be president of,” he said, looking into the camera, “you can tell Donald I said this, the Queens County Bullies Association. You gotta cut it out now and stop all this crazy rhetoric spinning everybody’s heads around.”

Another host interjected that it was rich that Scaramucci finally drew the line with Trump’s rhetoric on “hedge fund guys,” after everything Trump had said about women.

Scaramucci agreed with her.

“I don’t like the way he talks about women, I don’t like the way he talks about our friend Megyn Kelly, and you know what, the politicians don’t want to go at Trump because he’s got a big mouth and because [they’re] afraid he’s going to light them up on Fox News and all these other places,” he said. “But I’m not a politician. Bring it. You’re an inherited money dude from Queens County. Bring it, Donald.”

Think Progress has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm: The Destruction of All Media.

At yesterday’s Phyllis Schlafly Collegians D.C. Summit, an event for college students hosted by the late Schlafly’s group Eagle Forum, Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matt Boyle boasted that his publication’s goal is to completely destroy and eliminate the “mainstream media,” leaving Brietbart and other fringe organizations as the only available media outlets.

“The goal eventually is the full destruction and elimination of the entire mainstream media,” Boyle said. “We envision a day where CNN is no longer in business; we envision a day where The New York Times closes its doors. I think that day is possible, I think that we can get there.”

No subtlety there. Unfortunately, I think that day is all too possible too. Perhaps not probable, but still, I think we are far more weighted towards the fascism side these days. Certainly the Tiny Tyrant and the rethuglicans wouldn’t have much of a problem with this scenario.

“But when that happens,” he added, “the public still needs an information stream. And again, as much as we love Trump’s Twitter account, as much as we love the White House press releases and briefings and all that, there needs to be an independent and strong media in the United States, and that’s where we come in.”

Independent. Is that what toadying and the fostering of hate is called now? I think we can stick with propaganda, as that one is accurate.

Via Right Wing Watch.

Hex, Vex, Spell, Jynx, Satanic Curse, Blood Curse and Demons!

Execration Figurines.

Lance Wallnau is still at it, declaring a veritable storm of witchcraft is swirling about his darling, Trump. He seems to think that all those faithful chanting their incantations, er, prayers are missing the mark though – they forgot about Trump’s family! Oops.

“People are praying for the president, but they’re not necessarily praying for his family,” Wallnau said. “So right now, all those witchcraft curses that did not land on Donald Trump are trying to take out his kids, trying to take out his offspring, trying to attack anything near him.”

Wouldn’t kids and offspring be the same thing?

As evidence of this theory, Wallnau cited an incident in which a friend was once “casting a demon out of somebody” and the demon transferred itself into the family dog, which then jumped out of the car while it was driving down the highway and was killed.

You really need to think your little anecdotes through, Lance. Was this exorcism taking place while people were driving somewhere? Don’t do that shit, it’s endangering others. Let’s pretend your friend got busy with an exorcism, at which he also had his dog with him. The demon gets driven out of whoever, then decides to dive into the dog. Why? Why in the fuckety fuck would a demon bloody bother with that, then wait until they were in a car, so it could commit dogicide? Seems to me this is a bunch of bullshit cooked up to explain to the family why their irresponsibility got their dog killed. Tsk. It’s not nice to lie, Lance.

As such, Wallnau declared that “we take authority over every hex, vex, spell, jinx, satanic curse, blood curse, every demon assigned to destroy the health of the president, to destroy the health of his family, to harass him, to vex him, to cause him to lose sleep.”

“In Jesus name, we veto every curse that has been brought against Donald Trump and his family and his administration,” Wallnau proclaimed, as he repeatedly spoke in tongues.

Oooh, Voces mysticae! I wonder if you know the roots of that, Lance. I think you’re talking to demons, dude.

Wallnau later declared that the prayer that Rodney Howard-Browne led over Trump when several Religious Right pastors visited the White House recently was designed to prevent Trump from having a stroke.

“The devil is trying to get him and his family,” he said. “And I heard Rodney Howard-Browne say when he laid hands on the president, he was worried there was a stroke coming; well, we veto that stroke in Jesus’ name! That is nothing but stress and we’re breaking it off of him right now.”

Um, what if a stroke is Jehovah’s will, Lance? Isn’t there some kind of non-interference with “god’s will” rule?

Via Right Wing Watch.