I suppose you have heard of D. Trump’s astounding victory in the electoral college. He even mentioned it during his press conference with his latest best friend Benji or is it Bibi. He again mentioned it yesterday. He said something to the effect that it was the most electoral college votes since Reagan. Of course that was another lie. Bush and Obama and who knows who else had higher vote counts than he. When confronted with his lie, or as some suggest mistatement, he mumbled that he was saying it “because that was what he was told.”
“Aha!” I said. “So that’s what Kellyanne Wrongway meant when she talked about alternative facts.” There’s the truth and there is what you have been told. The latter remains the truth until someone tells you something different. That explains much of what D. Trump has been telling us. It also helps us understand his statement yesterday that the reports on the leaks are true but are still fake news.
Pity poor “Outlike Flynn.” A wonderful man who was undermined by fake news which apparently D. Trump believed. He was fired because he dissembled to the vice president even though it was the fake news that undermined him
You see how all this works now. D. Trump believes what he is told. So we are supposed to believe whatever he tells us. In this case Outlike was fired because of fake news which was true but was not fired because of that but for something to do with the VP.
Fortunately we were told that D. Trump had another waiting in the wings to take his place. He had actually found a well-qualified person who was universally praised. Sadly, that person after seeing the way the alternative presidency operates wanted to be involved in no part of betraying his principles or country in joining this Russian lovefest. What’s to become of a nation when it’s best refuse to serve?
The strange thing is that he was a close buddy of Mad Hog. You have to believe the Mad One warned him away. And I know you heard how the Mad One spoke at NATO saying if the nations in that group did not pay their fair share we may reduce our commitment. I’m not sure how that will work. If Russia attacks the Baltic nations we will only defend Lithuania, half of Latvia, and not Estonia.
I never heard how having committed to defend other nations you could then suggest you might not do it fully. You are either in or out. Pregnant or not. You can’t be 80℅ pregnant. Maybe the Mad One had to spout the D. Trump talking points and he too is starting to feel a little uneasy in his position.
And what about Homeland Security Kelly. How good can he feel rounding up all these mothers and children and implementing the upcoming exclusion orders based on imaginary fears. You did hear of the six ICE cops arresting a woman, yes there were six needed for the operation, who showed up in court to get a domestic violence restraint order.
As D. Trump said he’s got a fine running machine. I do however see some dire problems in the offing. I wonder how Abe feels having been replaced in this position of being D. Trump’s best ever friend after only a couple of weeks by Bibi. Canada’s Trudeau who came to town between them never was accorded that special treatment. I’ve been told D.Trump was put off when Trudeau spoke, as D. Trump called it “Creole” off and on during the press conference. I’d suggest Prime Minister Netanyahu not get too comfortable being Trump’s best ever friend since Vlady is still lurking out there.
You have got to admit each day you wake up now, you think as Ed Sullivan would say, “we’re going to have a great show today.” The D. Trump act came to town at the same time as the Barnum and Bailey Ringling Brothers circus left. It is good to know the three ring circus is not going away.
wa-llahi! Nobody watching Iraq? DAESH have turned the Mosul airport into a death-trap. 450 US operators are putting back-bone into CT’s frontal attack across the open runways right into the teeth of opposition defenses. Are US “advisers” spread throughout the attacking Iraqi units, or, are the operators acting as an elite infantry battalion? That’s the question. If it’s the latter, US troops are at the spear-point of the Coalition offensive. Elements of of 101 and 82 are standing by to offer support, either, way. The next 72 hrs. are going to be hairy.
A SF guy was KIA a couple days ago. His death was reported as the result of a military traffic accident in Mali. Watch for training and traffic fatalities involving special operators.
* Acknowledging the enemies tactic …
PARODY :
President Obama gave the order for American troop support in the Iraqi special army elements push into Western Mosul to rout an embedded ISIS. Acknowledging that the enemies tactic of insinuating themselves in the civilian population and holding them and the ” Forces Of Freedom ” hostage in the conflict, President Obama declared ” I got Osama Bin Laden and ISIL is going to be destroyed by me as well.” Today’s action against what President Obama previously characterized as ” The JV Team ” in the terrorist panoply is recognized as a practical and necessary evolution in his mindset. Despite criticism that he has delayed too long in authorizing the offensive, the President said ” Having now decided to shit instead of getting off the pot I fully expect that my turds shall be closely nosed by my ardent supporters and will to universal acclamation vie in fragrance with the spring blooms in the Rose Garden.” 🙂
The attack on west Mosul has begun. How many US troops are directly participating? Glorious Leader needs to pull his head out of his ass. Big decisions are coming. If the offensive is repulsed, only a major commitment of US ground forces can save the situation. Elements of 101st and 82nd are poised to support the Iraqi effort. The next 48hrs. will be crucial. Looks like a major bloodbath in the offing. How many lives is Trump going to spend?
There are no fools so troublesome as those who have wit !
“More fools know Jack Fool than Jack Fool knows.”
A fool thinks himself to be wise , but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
AS YOU LIKE IT … W.S.
Shakespeare gave fools all the best lines.
That’s the benefit of hindsight . You amoose me Khalid . I think I’ll keep you around yet as Court Jester. All Kings need the Wise Fool . 🙂
Charging Cheyenne contraries rode backwards on their ponies.
Earth to Khalid. Earth to Khalid. Come in Khalid … It is time for Meds … Happy Time 🙂
wa-llahi! Trump’s popularity this morning is at 38%, and, falling. The dictator is sinking fast, hamdullilahi! God is great. Trump is nothing. This rally in Florida will be interesting. Perhaps, anti-Glorious Leader forces can surround the entire venue. Let there be music from Jibril’s horn. Make the walls shake, and, Trump quake!
Qul hua Allahu ahad, allahu samad, lam yulid, wa, lam yulud, kufuwan ahad.
Glorious Leader es un pinche we hoto cagon, abajo con el.
Hi Matt:
I see Trump believes he was talking directly to the American people, after spending .a lot of his time complaining to — and about — the news organizations assembled in front of him. There were many strange moments, including his needless put down of a Jewish reporter who asked him a perfectly straightforward question about anti-Semitism. Didn’t look to me like he was talking to the American people. So sad.
The president has a desperate need to act presidential, but that just is’t happening. We need a commander- in -chief, but what we’re getting is Mr. Mar-a-Lago. Dare I say we’re getting the real Trump?
It seemed to me that the most notable thing about Trump’s electoral college flub was not the error, but how he explained it: “I was given that information, I don’t know,” Trump said. This is a man who seems utterly incapable of accepting personal responsibility for any flaw, failure or setback.
Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read “The Buck Stops Here.” The sign on Donald Trump’s desk should read “Not My Fault!”
Matt
sorry can’t linger.
snowblower has been going 24/7 here on Eaton mountain in Vienna Maine.
I will make it short.
ugh!
in other news
This Country Has The Most Humane Prison System
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_B0Bt16BflY
Latest Job Approval Polls for Trump:
Rasmussen: Approve 55, Disapprove 45 Approve +10
FOX News:Approve 48, Disapprove 47 Approve +1
Pew Research: Approve 42, Disapprove 54 Disapprove +12
Gallup: Approve 40, Disapprove 54 Disapprove +14
Reuters/Ipsos: Approve 46, Disapprove 50 Disapprove +4
So, the average is about 46.2% approve and 50% disapprove.
P.S. Rasmussen most closely predicted the election!
The other polls were way off before the election and on exit polls.
P.P.S. Some of these polls over-sample Democrats, it’s been reported.
Quixotic? or Idiotic ? Quixote was an idiot in the true meaning of the word as one who is …idios … set apart from the rest. Not a very practical guy. Trump is a very practical guy. He sees the World as it is, and not through the coke bottle lenses of ideology. At some point you just have to say to his critics … My God, but you are a silly wanker? 🙂
Don’t compare Trump with Cervantes’ character. Don Quixote was noble. Trump is not. Quixote was always misguided by the best of intentions. Trump is not. Don Quixote had enough sanity to, occasionally, hear Sancho Panza over the cacophony of his own thoughts. Trump can only listen to himself.
You seem to be more of an authority on Don Quixote than on Trump. We have Cervantes to thank for that . You know nothing of Trump’s nobility of character, nor can you divine the integrity of his intentions . Using Quixote as a foil is fine. But ir is meaningless . Quixote was a Holy Fool! Not all ” idiots ” are without their merits.
If the info in the leaks is true, how can the news they generate be false?
Only the brown-shirts, and, bone-heads are laughing. The rest of the country is very worried. As Glorious Leader sinks in the polls, he’ll become more desperate (Hegel’s master/slave relation). Trump’s popularity is down in the thirties % today. In a week, or, two, he’ll be in the twenties %. That’s when he’ll try to put the screws on. Like the old banana republic dictators, he needs only twenty% of the population to stay in power, as long as that 20% includes the police, the army, and, a coterie of sycophantic technocrats to run the machinery of state and the economy.
The Trump-sovki are getting shrill. They can feel the heat. Desperation leads to rash acts like starting wars, repressing dissent, and, instituting chistkas. Look for Glorious Leader to do something really nuts in the next thirty days.
It’s interesting how Matt spins things:
(1) Trump’s 304 (final electoral votes) is the largest Republican number since 1988; so he’s off one election. If he’d said the largest since GHW Bush (over Dukakis), he’d have been correct. I’d call this a Minor Mistake!
(2) Vice Admiral Harwood is the first to decline a role in the Administration: Here’s how Matt interprets that: Harwood wouldn’t “betray his principles” and “the best” are “refusing to serve.” Now remember, this is One Person, and Matt extrapolates from one to all of “the best.”
Are Pence, Tillerson, Mattis, Kelly, Pompeo, etc among the best?
Why did Harwood decline the offer? The Press reports: “Harward cited family and financial reasons for opting not to take the job. Harward is a senior executive at Lockheed Martin. Two sources familiar with the decision said Harward turned down the job in part because he wanted to bring in his own team.”
Matt once again wildly speculates, and proclaims the sky is falling: “What’s to become of (our) nation when the best refuse to serve?”
(3) Trump and Mattis say NATO members must pay their fair share. All agree. Matt asks, what if Russia invades Estonia? Estonia still has to pay its fair share. What if Estonia refuses to chip in? We’ll see! What if Estonia invades Russia? We’ll see! How many more remote contingencies can we imagine?
(4) Trump condemns “fake news”; Part of the “fake news” was that Flynn violated the Logan Act; Trump said he read the Transcript and found nothing wrong in Flynn’s conversation with the Russian Ambassador Kislyak.
The Press reports:
“The president also made clear why he asked Flynn to resign, saying it was because the retired lieutenant general had not been completely truthful with Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak.”
Other “fake news” was that Trump and his people conspired with Russia before and after the election.
(5) ICE and Deportations. Obama deported 2.5 million people; in 2015, @85% were criminals or “threats to the border”; Bush deported over 2 million. Trump’s first publicized ICE deportation raids involved @650 people, 75% convicted criminals; others had re-entered illegally, as I understand it. Matt focuses on one isolated case.
Bill:
It is interesting how you change the words to try to make D.Trump seem normal. 1. “President Trump went off script during his announcement of his new Labor secretary nominee, Alexander Acosta, Thursday, admonishing the media and at one point incorrectly claiming to have won the biggest electoral victory since Ronald Reagan. It was not about Republicans but all including Democrats. Only when he was called on it did he say he meant to say Republicans and even that was wrong as you noted. D.Trump and team are very willing to let false statements stand and then when called start to add modifiers. 2. One person refusing to serve in the chaotic D.Trump administration is a clear signal that something is wrong there. Expect ot see other resignations soon. 3. Russia invading Estonia is a fear among the Estonians. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-eastern-europe-lithuania-vladimir-putin-estonia-latvia-a7449961.html Stop being silly and suggesting that Estonia would invade Russia. Estonians only want to live in freedom and peace and look to the West to help them. Trump has conditioned that help upon payment of funds putting a price on freedom. 4. We again see Trump lying about firing Flynn. He did not do it until the news broke in the public. He was very happy to keep Flynn with all his lies to Pence as long as the public did not know about it. 5. The immigration deportations are just starting up. The cost of 15,000 more agents, the private prisons, and the extensive round-ups proposed by Trump/Kelly will far exceed anything seen in the past. Maybe you should read Kelly’s new orders.
The six ICE cops showed up to arrest a transsexual ” mother ” who when a man had several restraining orders enforced against him for serious domestic violence against his female partners. ” Mom ” had also been previously deported six times. But hey, why let facts get in the way of a good story or a nicely dressed propaganda piece? ” There were six needed for the ” operation ” indeed.
Petty, to censure Trump for a harmless mis-statement over an electoral margin. It is inconsequential. There is no investment in ” lying. ” But, mayhaps it warrants a ” Votegate ” investigation. Kellyanne Conway is perhaps too articulate and outspoken a woman for the closet chauvinists, but it is only the same old quibbling among the frustrated Dems about her remarks. There is no substance to their ….here the Dems would say ” whining “, because that is the humiliation game they always play linguistically; infantilizing the opponent just one more clown tumbling out of their clown car … objections!
Lot of pissed off clowns today. His Presser was an old fashioned ass stomping. The Press is exposed for the partisan Pravda trolls they largely are. America is laughing at them. It is always fun when the circus comes to town.:-)
Just when I was beginning to think that the Electoral College Dust Bunny would not hop, Matt, you bit. The matter is trivial. Trump threw it out as a way to get the media off and running after nothing. When Trump said it I laughed aloud. Five of the seven elections since Reagan were won with totals greater than 306 votes. Trump knows that. He is having a joke at the media’s expense. He gave them some fluff to chew on.
In a way it is bad news for Trump. But it is good news for the country as it seems that most of the celebrity reporters let the matter rest. They got it. They did not bite. Maybe, just maybe, some of them will take up journalism as a profession. Trump made it clear that he hopes for that.
Another interesting thing was when he challenged a Black female reporter to set up a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. This is an end run around the keepers of the Donkey Plantation, overseers Schumer and Pelosi, who have blocked access to their slave quarters. Divide et Impera.