One might be forgiven if one predicted the *resident will soon start beat-boxing the Mad Scene from Lucia, after his perfect shitstorm of bizarro tweets this week.
David Graham, in The Atlantic, sums up the case for a choice: do Americans demand that Commissioners in Lunacy step in via the 25th Amendment, or do his defenders have to finally admit they elected- and have made themselves out whores for- a bigot of the most venal and enthusiastic sort?:
Over the past 24 hours, President Trump has delivered a concentrated dose of misinformation, self-sabotage, hypocrisy, and bigotry that stands out even by the standards of his short and eventful political career.
The president blew up negotiations to fund the government with a tweet attacking Democratic congressional leaders. He retweeted inflammatory and misleading anti-Islam videos from a bigoted far-right British politician. He joked about presenting a “Fake News Trophy” to media networks. He called attention to Matt Lauer, the NBC host fired on Wednesday for sexual misconduct, despite Trump’s own past admissions of sexual assault. He baselessly implied that NBC host Joe Scarborough, a onetime informal adviser, might have been involved in the death of an intern years ago in Florida. And several outlets reported that the president privately continues to claim preposterous things, including that it wasn’t him on the Access Hollywood tape and that Barack Obama really wasn’t born in the United States.
It’s unclear what precipitated the meltdown. Trump was having a decent stretch in office, including relatively smooth progress for the GOP tax bill. Taken individually, none of these examples is all that unusual for Trump. His bigotry toward Muslims has been on display for years. He has blown up budget negotiations before. He frequently passes along unverified and false information. His hypocrisy about sexual-harassment allegations is not new. He has a weakness for conspiracy theories.
Taken together, however, they offer yet another display of poor judgment and divisive leadership from the putative leader of the free world, and they again cast doubt on his fitness for his office. They are also further evidence that Trump’s hypocrisy, bigotry, and dishonesty are not an act. He means it all.
The president blew up negotiations to fund the government with a tweet attacking Democratic congressional leaders. He retweeted inflammatory and misleading anti-Islam videos from a bigoted far-right British politician. He joked about presenting a “Fake News Trophy” to media networks. He called attention to Matt Lauer, the NBC host fired on Wednesday for sexual misconduct, despite Trump’s own past admissions of sexual assault. He baselessly implied that NBC host Joe Scarborough, a onetime informal adviser, might have been involved in the death of an intern years ago in Florida. And several outlets reported that the president privately continues to claim preposterous things, including that it wasn’t him on the Access Hollywood tape and that Barack Obama really wasn’t born in the United States.
It’s unclear what precipitated the meltdown. Trump was having a decent stretch in office, including relatively smooth progress for the GOP tax bill. Taken individually, none of these examples is all that unusual for Trump. His bigotry toward Muslims has been on display for years. He has blown up budget negotiations before. He frequently passes along unverified and false information. His hypocrisy about sexual-harassment allegations is not new. He has a weakness for conspiracy theories.
Taken together, however, they offer yet another display of poor judgment and divisive leadership from the putative leader of the free world, and they again cast doubt on his fitness for his office. They are also further evidence that Trump’s hypocrisy, bigotry, and dishonesty are not an act. He means it all.
This morning, he retweeted three videos from a British hate group. We know its that because the woman who heads it is awaiting trial for harassment of Muslim women in the Ph.D. program of Spite and Hatefulness that is Northern Ireland:
[Jayda] Fransen, 31, is deputy leader of Britain First, a minor anti-Islam party with an estimated 1,000 followers that has had no electoral success. Fransen lost her deposit when she stood for parliament in a 2014 byelection, receiving just 56 votes.
She has been charged with using threatening or abusive language following an appearance at a far-right rally in Belfast this summer. She is due to appear at a Belfast court next month.
She has been charged with using threatening or abusive language following an appearance at a far-right rally in Belfast this summer. She is due to appear at a Belfast court next month.
His press secretary, whose every day’s work reveals an ethical and moral void odd in such an ostentatious Christianist (Ouachita Baptist University, ‘04), defended the posts:
White House press secretary says it doesn’t matter if racist videos Trump tweeted are real or fake
"Whether it's a real video, the threat is real."
The longer she flacks for MOTUS, the more her explanations come to sound like MOTUS’ own word salads, garnished by thoughts run across a cheese grater.
As Craig Chandler writes in Public Books, the people in charge just don’t give a fuck what they say or whether it makes any sense:
Trump is resolutely against knowledge. It’s not just that he doesn’t have much, or that too much of what he thinks is true is really false. The very idea of knowledge seems to make him uncomfortable. He takes the notion that he can’t make up whatever truth he wants as a personal affront, a limit to his autonomy, and an insult to his narcissistic ego. He believes in being smart—and brags frequently about his IQ. I’m sure he believes in information, preferably insider information about stock trades, real estate opportunities, or what his enemies are up to. He just doesn’t believe in knowledge.
Correct information is a first step in knowledge. But whether it is embodied in theories or practical reason, knowledge is more than just discrete and isolated facts. It is the ability to judge alleged statements of fact, the ability to put these together in meaningful ways—to “connect the dots,” and to understand the implications.
We know Trump is at ease with lying. He lies habitually; lies to himself; and believes his lies. His claim that more people attended his inauguration than Obama’s could be checked and proven false by photos, videos, and Park Service reports—but that didn’t seem to bother him (though contradiction on that basis did). He lied to get elected. He lied about his failure to marshal assistance for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. He lies about economic policy and about the risks of nuclear war. He lies about health care and the environment. He lies about whether Mexico is really going to pay for a wall on our mutual border. He lies about his own behavior. This is pervasive and extraordinarily damaging. But lying is not the whole issue.
Trump mocks experts and panders to poorly supported opinions. He favors ad hoc policy-making over careful analysis and preparation. If Donald Trump baked, he would yell at cakes to rise instead of looking at a recipe.
Trump’s contempt for knowledge shapes his approach to appointing government officials, the gathering of official data, funding education and science, and relating to the news media. It extends to contempt for citizens’ right to know what their government is doing and for the government’s need for knowledge to do its work. This amounts to an attack that threatens to undermine both good governance and one of the foundations of democracy.
Not, of course, that it will sway his braying base. One of the better-connected of them, with friends in The Federalist Society (now busily packing the federal courts with zanies and mountebanks whose crochets and whimsies will spew for decades to come), explains how Jesus has, through decades of recasting as the triune of the American Church of God the Republican, come to find value added in the Temple moneychangers’ presence (a public-private partnership between theocracy and commerce, dontcha know), explains,
Just go back to the Old Testament and see how he used secular leaders. God employed foreign kings to bring about his purposes of rebuilding the holy site of Jerusalem. For example, King Cyrus of Persia helped the Jews with royal decrees and financing to construct the temple, and later foreign armies defended them.
The stories of Esther, Daniel, and Joseph are all full of God’s power being exercised through political leaders, revealing the difference between the secular and the sacred. Esther even allowed a man who was falsely accused of rape to meet his death because that was best for the Jewish people. The man had never touched her, but she allowed him to be falsely accused of sexual abuse because it was politically expedient—and it saved her people from death.
The Scriptures reveal how God used all sorts of things to fulfill his plans, including directing a dumb “ass” to rebuke his servant Balaam to open his eyes to God’s truth. God forbade his people from forming unholy alliances and intermarrying with foreigners, because this was true spiritual corruption, but he used pagan authorities, armies, and even religious people from foreign lands to execute his will. In Joshua, God’s people worked with a prostitute, and lies were even justified.
Today, God uses the “ungodly” as doctors, lawyers, teachers, and politicians. To vote for, associate with, or even advocate for a person working in the secular arena who will bring about the “greater good” despite being personally immoral, pagan, or the member of some “unapproved” Christian sect (as the Catholics once were in America) is justified. To refuse to do so out of fear of God’s judgment on our nation is fusing the city of man and the city of God in a way that God didn’t even do.
It also ignores that God’s purposes are manifest through fallen men, whether they’re in the church or in the world. Think of all the secular leaders we’ve had in America and consider their fallenness. Read the histrionics of Christians in the days of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson over the “evil” men who were infecting our “holy nation.” Have we declined because of these fallen, deeply flawed leaders? Did we suffer as a nation for putting a Catholic in the presidency with John F. Kennedy? Some purist Christians would say “Yes!” Are they right? Did we suffer as a nation because, theologically (and morally) speaking, JFK was “unfit” for the presidency? I’d say no.
The stories of Esther, Daniel, and Joseph are all full of God’s power being exercised through political leaders, revealing the difference between the secular and the sacred. Esther even allowed a man who was falsely accused of rape to meet his death because that was best for the Jewish people. The man had never touched her, but she allowed him to be falsely accused of sexual abuse because it was politically expedient—and it saved her people from death.
The Scriptures reveal how God used all sorts of things to fulfill his plans, including directing a dumb “ass” to rebuke his servant Balaam to open his eyes to God’s truth. God forbade his people from forming unholy alliances and intermarrying with foreigners, because this was true spiritual corruption, but he used pagan authorities, armies, and even religious people from foreign lands to execute his will. In Joshua, God’s people worked with a prostitute, and lies were even justified.
Today, God uses the “ungodly” as doctors, lawyers, teachers, and politicians. To vote for, associate with, or even advocate for a person working in the secular arena who will bring about the “greater good” despite being personally immoral, pagan, or the member of some “unapproved” Christian sect (as the Catholics once were in America) is justified. To refuse to do so out of fear of God’s judgment on our nation is fusing the city of man and the city of God in a way that God didn’t even do.
It also ignores that God’s purposes are manifest through fallen men, whether they’re in the church or in the world. Think of all the secular leaders we’ve had in America and consider their fallenness. Read the histrionics of Christians in the days of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson over the “evil” men who were infecting our “holy nation.” Have we declined because of these fallen, deeply flawed leaders? Did we suffer as a nation for putting a Catholic in the presidency with John F. Kennedy? Some purist Christians would say “Yes!” Are they right? Did we suffer as a nation because, theologically (and morally) speaking, JFK was “unfit” for the presidency? I’d say no.
Back in Britain, growing less Great by the day, Prime Minister Theresa May got out her cheeseparer:
Theresa May’s spokesman said on Wednesday: “Britain First seeks to divide communities by their use of hateful narratives that peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people. British people overwhelmingly reject the prejudiced rhetoric of the far right which is the antithesis of the values this country represents, decency, tolerance and respect.”
But despite criticising Trump, No 10 rejected calls from Labour MPs, including David Lammy and Chuka Umunna, to revoke the US president’s invitation to pay a state visit to Britain. May’s spokesman said: “The invitation for a state visit has been extended and accepted. Further details will be announced in due course.”
Tillerson’s Moron, whose lust for a gilt-and-garters court presentation worthy of Downton Abbey is perhaps exceeded only by that he feels for Ivanka, responded by mooning May:
Of course, when you preside over a monkey kingdom worthy of King Louis in The Jungle Book, no one can be smarter than The Chief Baboon. As he did with his thoughtless “thoughts and prayers” tweet to the wrong shot-up evangelical church week before last, the *resident’s Deputy Assistant for Twitter sent his multi-hued, ass-baring reply to the wrong fucking person:
.@Theresa_May, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2017
However, the “@theresamay” that Trump targeted does not belong to Theresa May, the British prime minister, but a woman called Theresa Scrivener. Minutes later Trump deleted and reposted the tweet, this time with the correct handle: @Theresa_May.
Not even Sarah Huckabee Sanders was ready to waddle out and defend this:
But the White House defended the retweets. The principal deputy press secretary, Raj Shah, told reporters on Air Force One: “We think that it’s never the wrong time to talk about security and public safety for the American people. Those are the issues he was raising with the tweets this morning.”
Asked if Trump was aware of the source of the tweets, Shah replied: “I haven’t spoken to him about that.”
Asked if Trump was aware of the source of the tweets, Shah replied: “I haven’t spoken to him about that.”
*****
Jonathan Chait notices a companion trend in the Administration’s policies, also mirroring the Boss’ psychic eruptions:
In a timely example reported by Ars Technica, the chairman of the Federal Communications is busily trying to change the subject from the millions of bot-messages he uses to justify a class-based Internet by blaming opposition to his sensible, Edmund-Burke-with-a-smartphone reliance on the prejudices and inchoate experiences of The People policies on those sex fiends in Hollywood:
Internet users have made it clear to US telecom regulator Ajit Pai that his proposal to scrap net neutrality rules is unpopular with the masses. But with two weeks left before the Federal Communications Commission votes to eliminate net neutrality rules, Pai today blamed actress/singer Cher and other celebrities for boosting opposition to his plan.
In a speech hosted by conservative group R Street and the Lincoln Network, Pai also addressed criticism from MCU actor Mark Ruffalo, actress Alyssa Milano, former Star Trek actor George Takei, and Silicon Valley actor Kumail Nanjiani. Pai also claimed that Twitter and other Web companies pose a greater threat to Internet freedom than Internet service providers like Comcast.
In a speech hosted by conservative group R Street and the Lincoln Network, Pai also addressed criticism from MCU actor Mark Ruffalo, actress Alyssa Milano, former Star Trek actor George Takei, and Silicon Valley actor Kumail Nanjiani. Pai also claimed that Twitter and other Web companies pose a greater threat to Internet freedom than Internet service providers like Comcast.
Net neutrality rules unnecessary because ISPs will do the right thing, Pai says. The case of Comcast throttling BitTorrent proves his point: they haven’t done it since! The pressure and disapprobation of the people will keep them in line lest they forget their edenic urges always to do right.
Just like the pressure to get better service, lower rates, and unbundling has worked.
And once Pai passes his next rule- the one invalidating all state regulations of the bound-and-gagged internet companies, we will all enjoy the blessings of the Garden:
*If you read P.G. Wodehouse, you wouldn't have to ask.
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