The sewer gets deeper again.
Look especially at that Jezebel-y image – the man is sitting there like your basic G-man, foursquare, suit and tie, all business, got work to do, while the woman is a squirming crouching Sex Snare in sex clothes seducing him away from his work that he has to do. They’re not colleagues, they’re professional guy and slut whore.
Some unfortunate on the staff had to transcribe Trump’s words-vomit yesterday so that we could see the full horror without having to watch and listen to the sniffing gasping sneering poltroon.
Let’s have a sample or two.
And we did win. It was one of the greatest wins of all time. And they said, “Okay, he won.” And, you know, I wrote this down because that was where a thing called the “insurance policy” — to me, when I saw the insurance policy — and that was done long before the election. That was done when they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win.
And, by the way, Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for millions — millions of dollars — the fake dossier. And now Christopher Steele admits that it’s a fake because he got sued by rich people. I should have sued him too. But when you’re President, people don’t like suing.
That’s some joined-up thinking right there.
Fortunately, for all of us here today and for our country, we had transcripts. We had transcribers — professional transcribers. Then they said, “Oh, well, maybe the transcription is not correct.” But Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and his twin brother — right? — we had some people that — really amazing.
But we did everything. We said, “What’s wrong with it?” “Well, they didn’t add this word or that one.” It didn’t matter. I said, “Add it. They’re probably wrong, but add it.”
O…kay?
But in normal times — decades, you would call it; that was a little unusual time; it was for a very short period — the Republicans [sic] Party — Party’s poll numbers and Donald Trump’s poll numbers are the highest I’ve ever had them. So maybe they were. It’s no way to get your poll numbers up. It’s not worth it — because from my family’s standpoint, it’s been very unfair for my family. It’s been very unfair to the country.
Translated from the Venusian?
We get a shout-out to Lincoln.
And a lot of — actually, a lot of my guys went there. They went to Iowa. And a lot of friends went there, and we had tremendous — they say the spirit — the spirit for the Republican Party right now is stronger, I think, than it’s ever been in the history of our country. I think it’s stronger than it’s ever been. (Applause.)
And that includes Honest Abe Lincoln. You know, a lot of people forget Abe Lincoln. I wish he were here. I’d give him one hell of an introduction. Right? (Laughter.) But he was — he was a Republican. Abe Lincoln. Honest Abe.
Applause applause applause.
The BBC reports a startling new development:
Jameela Jamil has announced she is “queer” after receiving criticism for being cast in a new LGBT-interest show.
US broadcaster HBO announced on Tuesday that the actress and model would be a judge on its new unscripted voguing contest Legendary.
The news prompted an online backlash from people who said The Good Place star was not representative of the black LGBT community.
That prompted her to issue a statement addressing her sexuality.
But this identity “queer” is not at all a label of convenience for when people think you’re just another boring cis straight woman who as a cis straight woman is obviously not marginalized or oppressed in any way.
Opening with “Twitter is brutal”, she explained that she identified “as queer” and had previously struggled to discuss the topic because “it’s not easy within the south Asian community to be accepted”.
She mentioned that nobody in her family was “openly out” and that “it’s also scary as an actor to openly admit your sexuality, especially when you’re already a brown female in your thirties”.
I’m not getting the “in your thirties” part. Why does that make it especially scary?
But more to the point, what is “queer” even supposed to mean? What does she mean by it? What does she expect the world to understand her to mean by it? Just…special? Hip? Woke? Honorary lesbian? A trans man?
The term queer is both embraced and frowned upon. Having been seen as derogatory, it is being reclaimed by some non-heterosexual people who say they don’t identify with more traditional categories of gender identity and sexual orientation.
But what does that mean? Here’s a news flash: those horrible feminist women that everyone hates also don’t “identify with” more traditional categories of gender identity, which is what “feminist” means. Is Jamil just saying she’s a feminist? Probably not, since she isn’t.
With Jamil trending on Twitter, reactions to her statement appeared to be more negative than positive, with many criticising her for coming out as queer while being in a relationship with musician James Blake.
But “queer” doesn’t mean “not in a relationship with James Blake,” it means…special, interesting, sparkly.
This is bad. This is very bad.
Barr is Barr. Barr is a wholly owned enforcer for Donald Trump. Donald Trump is now free to steal the next election eleven ways from Sunday and no one will be able to stop him.
Remember this guy?
This “hi would you unfollow this person?” guy? I decided to take a look at his tweets to see if he says that kind of thing a lot.
That kind of thing, maybe not, but that thing itself, yes. Downright weirdly a lot.
C’mon folks yourself, dude.
I’ve almost finished with the Trump-excoriation for now, but not quite.
Later Thursday, at a victory lap celebrating his impeachment acquittal, Trump said: “I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away, and I’m saying things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said. But I meant everything. I meant every word of it.”
Beware of people who brag about saying things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said. Beware beware beware. Doing that is a sure sign of someone who is both an egomaniac and a rude bully. Turn around and walk swiftly away.
“I don’t need any lessons from anybody, especially the president of the United States, about dignity,” Pelosi said Thursday, adding she feels “liberated” now. “I feel that I’ve extended every possible courtesy, I’ve shown every level of respect.”
…And Pelosi said she and other Democrats thought that when Trump’s State of the Union speech veered into talking about a “special” and “beloved” man battling cancer that he was going to honor Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights icon who is battling advanced pancreatic cancer.
Instead, Trump meant Rush Limbaugh, a conservative radio host who has been accused of making racist, sexist and anti-LGBTQ remarks on his show. Trump awarded Limbaugh, who has advanced lung cancer, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor — in the middle of his annual address.
Ouch. I didn’t know that part.
“Do it in your own office. We don’t come in your office and do congressional business. Why are you doing that here?” Pelosi said. “That was not a State of the Union, that was his state of mind.”
To rub our noses in it, probably.
This
is
BONKERS
It’s stark raving bonkers.
Meanwhile, in the entirely unimportant world of foreign policy…
Lana Marks is a successful fashion designer and member of U.S. President Donald Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Though she has no prior diplomatic experience, Marks is also Trump’s ambassador to South Africa, and last month she forced out her second in command, the veteran career foreign service officer David Young. According to multiple current and former officials familiar with the matter, the issue arose following Marks’s attempts to elevate her son to a senior role in the embassy, an apparent violation of State Department rules.
That’s great, isn’t it? Wholly unqualified rando kicks out experienced foreign service officer apparently because he didn’t applaud her corrupt effort to give her own kid a top job in the embassy.
To be fair the part about appointing random friends or donors to be ambassadors is not original to Trump. But does he do more of it? Of course.
The incident illustrated a growing trend in the Trump administration. Already, several of Trump’s political allies-turned-ambassadors—he has appointed a higher percentage than most previous presidents—have sacked their deputies amid a culture of mistrust between politically appointed and career State Department officials.
Marks has also faced other criticism within the State Department over how she manages the embassy in Pretoria. Apart from her attempts to give her son a job with elevated responsibilities at the embassy, other embassy staff have been pushed out, including officials who worked on foreign aid and health programs in a country that is a major recipient of U.S. funds to tackle HIV and AIDS, according to several State Department officials familiar with the matter.
Let me guess. Trump would prefer more people to die of AIDS? He doesn’t see why we should help other people’s health programs?
[Trump’s] politically appointed ambassadors are sacking their deputy chiefs of mission—an embassy’s second-in-command post held by foreign service officers—in unusually high numbers, officials say.
Along with South Africa, Trump’s envoys in Canada, France, Iceland, Romania, and the United Kingdom have all removed their deputy chiefs of mission, some ambassadors doing so just shortly before or after arriving at their new posts.
I wonder if that’s out of an explicit, conscious intention to get rid of people who have expertise in foreign policy and replace them with ignorant hacks who are in it for the money.
“We are deeply concerned by the number of removals of deputy chiefs of mission overseas, which are happening at way above the normal pace,” said Eric Rubin, a senior foreign service officer currently serving as president of the American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents U.S. diplomats. “It’s generally very rare for a DCM to be removed by the ambassador. It does happen. Sometimes it happens for a good cause. But it’s rare. And it is now becoming an epidemic.”
Which is not surprising in a Trump regime, in a way, because he is so grossly and obviously unqualified for the job he’s doing that he has to try to undermine the whole idea that qualification is necessary.
He must live in a world where nothing relates to anything. Stuff just happens. If you don’t need to know anything to do any job, then there must not be anything to know, and we’re all lost in a cartoon that has no end.
Both Democratic and Republican administrations have carried out the practice of tapping campaign donors for ambassador posts, which has sometimes—though not always—sowed mismanagement and morale issues at U.S. embassies abroad. (Indeed, several Obama administration donors-turned-ambassadors were quietly sacked over allegations of mismanagement.) The United States is one of the only countries in the world with a practice of giving ambassador posts to high-end political donors.
Not a distinction to be proud of.
For a time my Twitter feed was full of journalists, lawyers, ethics boffins, and former federal employees all exclaiming at how unhinged and incoherent Trump’s endless “speech” was turning out to be.
President Donald Trump emerged vindictive and angry at a rambling noontime event on Thursday meant to mark his impeachment acquittal.
“We’ve been going through this now for over three years. It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops, it was leakers and liars. And this should never, ever happen to another president, ever,” Trump told an East Room packed with conservative lawmakers, media pundits, and a number of Cabinet officials, who cheered as Trump meandered through a list of grievances and musings after the Senate declared him not guilty.
He called Comey “a dirty cop,” he called the Mueller investigation “bullshit.”
It was a stream-of-consciousness victory lap that even Trump acknowledged had no real format.
“It’s not a news conference, it’s not a speech, it’s not anything,” he said of the event, which stretched more than an hour.
It’s just boring rich right-wing guy who thinks he’s fascinating, going on and on and on and on, but doing it on national tv.
Trump has shown signs he feels emboldened by the acquittal. After the vote, he tweeted a video meme suggesting he could remain in office for decades to come, a joking affront to his rivals.
But not really joking. He hides behind that when he thinks he needs to, but he’s not really joking. There’s nothing he would stop at, nothing he would refuse to do because too wrong.
Last June…
Not a real cover of TIME and not a real cover story in TIME. As TIME pointed out.
He pretends these things are “jokes,” can’t you pussies take a joke, yadda yadda, but they’re not really. If he could steal the whole thing and keep it for all eternity he would. He’s both a megalomaniac and a childish clumsy fool, and the fool part isn’t making him one bit less dangerous.
Trump is giving a “speech” (a series of blurts and ramblings) to celebrate his successful coup.
I suppose he means there were people who thought he was a bad man before he started running for president. Well no kidding. Birtherism? The Central Park 5? Yes we thought he was a bad man; of course we did. He stands around preening and smirking about how bad he is and also whines about people who think he’s bad. He’s not very alert to cause and effect, it seems.
Trump calling other people “mean and vicious.”
Meanwhile Evil Junior is contributing his mite.
Donald Trump Jr. posted a picture on Instagram calling Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) a “pussy” after the former GOP presidential candidate announced that he would be voting to convict President Trump on one of two impeachment charges. The picture featured Romney wearing high-waisted jeans, and was captioned: “Mom Jeans, Because you’re a pussy.”
And what could be more disgusting and contemptible than to be a woman?
It’s always useful to know what they think of us. Depressing, but useful.
President Donald Trump made a striking claim Monday, insisting it was he who ensured that people with preexisting medical problems will always be covered by health insurance.
He wasn’t.
Duh. That’s the whole point of the ACA – spreading the risk.
He also complained anew that Democrats didn’t allow him to send lawyers to the impeachment inquiry. The opposite is true: Democrats invited him to send lawyers to the inquiry and he said no.
He should have been impeached on day one for being such a relentless shameless liar.
Trump’s administration has been pressing in court for full repeal of the Obama-era law, including provisions that protect people with preexisting conditions from health insurance discrimination.
With “Obamacare” [the ACA] still in place, preexisting conditions continue to be covered by regular individual health insurance plans.
Insurers must take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and charge the same standard premiums to healthy people and those who are in poor health, or have a history of medical problems.
Which is the whole point. Without that, people quickly get priced out of being able to get health insurance – because they need it most – and that’s the problem the ACA is meant to solve. It would be better to socialize the whole system, but short of that, the ACA is what there is.
He won’t stop lying until he stops breathing.
Editing to add: see Skeletor’s comment. Some of these are unsourced. I have to run so can’t Google them right now.
Editing to add 2, next morning. Skeletor is right. A passage from John K. Wilson’s book on Limbaugh has details – someone going by the name “Cobra” put the James Earl Ray one on Wikiquotes and it spread via Rachel Maddow and others. And now by me.
The Surly Southern Liberal has a collection of some of Limbaugh’s more poisonous assertions.
Top 10 Racist Rush Limbaugh Quotes
1. “I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”
[Edit: it’s in dispute whether he said that or not.]
2. “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.”
Ok we’re only two in and already I’m reeling back in disbelief. Women lose jobs for saying men are not women, and this guy keeps his for saying we miss the guy who murdered Martin Luther King.
3. “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”
[I’m skipping 4. because I don’t understand what he was getting at.]
5. “Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
6. “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”
7. “They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?”
8. “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back (to an African American female caller).”
9. “I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve.”
And Melania “Be Best” Trump handed him that medal.
Next day update: Snopes confirms some and not others.
What’s true
Some of the statements included in the list are correctly attributed to Limbaug
What’s false
Some of the statements included in the list lack sufficient supporting evidence to confirm whether or not Limbaugh said them.
There’s also the revolting cynicism of David Brooks’s saying hey why didn’t “Trump opponents” – i.e. Representatives who think he should not be committing crimes – just concentrate on fixing the potholes instead of doing their constitutional duty to prevent the president from abusing his power to extort political favors from vulnerable allies. Gee, I don’t know, maybe it’s because they really do actually think that a president should not be abusing his power to extort political favors from vulnerable allies. I kind of hope they do, if you want to know the truth.
I kind of think Brooks ought to.
Why did the Times hire him, again? I never can remember.
David Brooks. Again. He tries my patience.
Suppose Mitch McConnell hadn’t blocked every single bill the Democratic House sent to the Senate?
Plus…
He tries my patience.
This is how one inspires women in leadership?? Really?
It says “the LGBT community” but the ugly cluttered poster is all about the T. And what does inspiring women in leadership have to do with gender unicorns and being told to “embrace discomfort”? Like, what, women don’t get enough opportunities to embrace discomfort just in trying to navigate the world, now they have to put up with people ostensibly concerned with women ordering them to embrace discomfort and get all worked up about pronouns?
Piss off, is all I feel like saying to that poster.
Here’s a bigger version for easier reading:
Yes I too understand why people ask this: it’s because they’re intrusive controlling impertinent creeps.
Boom, 20+ years of friendship thrown overboard.
Also notice the unctuous gluey nonsense about how it would mean a lot to a lot of people if person A stopped following person B on Twitter. If Steve is right about that then people need to get a fucking life.
What’s Ronson known for? Well…
We live in stupid times.
Originally a comment by Artymorty on Needs.
Here’s a personal anecdote about an encounter I had with Canadian pro-sex-work feminists:
A couple years ago when I ran an event venue I booked a women’s storytelling group and the theme of this particular gathering was something like “What makes you happy?” It was billed as an evening for amateur women speakers to share stories of finding empowerment in doing things for themselves — doing what makes them happy instead of doing things for the sake of others’ feelings. Quickly sold out; 200+ capacity; about a half a dozen speakers. Sounds great! I happened to be filling in as a bartender in the Hall that night so I was able to watch the whole thing.
Turns out not one, not two, but THREE of the speakers were former sex workers — two prostitutes and a phone sex operator. (And by all appearances they all seemed quite middle-class.) Two of them gave talks that were entirely about their sex work and how “empowering” it was. It was so bizarre. I mean, an event that’s supposed to be about women doing stuff for themselves instead of for others, and it was completely overrun by women talking about men paying to use women’s bodies for the sake of men’s pleasure. (ALL of the speakers preambled some blather about it being a safe space and pledged that they were opposed to “TERFS AND SWERFS” — ugh, “TERFSANDSWERFS TERFS’N’SWERFS TERFSSSWERFS” they kept saying it, and they slurred the words together as if the phrase was so familiar by now it just melded into one word and there was no need to bother enunciating each individual syllable anymore.)
As I recall it, the two sex worker talks had the same themes: they both kept repeating that their sex work was empowering and I did it because I wanted to, not because I was forced to. But they both endured horrible childhood sexual abuse from older relatives; both were suicidal as teens as a result of the sexual abuse; both were explicit that they turned to sex work in a kind of self-harming way, as an attempt to process debilitating mental health issues around their sexual abuse — self-hatred; body hatred; psychological issues to do with father figures; sexual trauma; etc. Doesn’t that sound like the opposite of empowerment to you? Sure as hell does to me. They sounded like victims. What it sounded like to me was that these women were seeking to destigmatize their trauma; they wanted us to understand why they dropped out of university and fell into prostitution for a while, and their doth-protest-too-much assertions that it was all so “empowering” were, like, a way to try to claim some control of their life’s narrative and frame it around courage and dignity, or something. It’s one thing to want people to understand that prostitutes are human beings deserving of compassion and dignity but that’s not the same thing as endorsing prostitution and even going so far as to celebrate it as female empowerment. (Of course, it’s exactly because prostitutes are human beings deserving of compassion and dignity that rational people want to end prostitution.) I think that distinction was entirely lost on every one of those speakers. Like with the trans debate, this is a men’s rights movement masquerading as a women’s rights one, and it’s turning everything upside down. I still can’t believe 200 women paid to see a group of women talk about self-empowerment and self-enjoyment and got an infomercial for prostitution instead, and the current social climate is so toxic and intimidating that I didn’t see a single one of them withhold her applause.
Mike Burns at Media Matters on Limbaugh being loathsome way back in 2011:
Rush Limbaugh has a long and ugly history of race baiting. Yesterday was no exception. Limbaugh said that First Lady Michelle Obama was booed at a NASCAR event because she has exhibited “uppity-ism.” Today, however, Limbaugh acted as if nothing controversial had happened.
Mm, yeah, what could possibly be controversial about that.
What Limbaugh said:
NASCAR people, as are most people in this country, are mature, tolerant people who fully understand when they’re being insulted and condescended to. And they remember being called bitter clingers. They know that in their hearts the Obamas don’t like them. We’ve taken notice of this as has, by the way, Chris Matthews and a lot of congressional Democrats are also fully aware that the Obamas just don’t like a lot of people and they don’t like hanging around a lot of people.
What utter bullshit. He should read Becoming to underline what bullshit it is. How much time has Limbaugh spent with school kids gardening? How many public schools has he given encouraging speeches in?
I’ll tell you something else: We don’t like paying millions of dollars for Mrs. Obama’s vacations. The NASCAR crowd doesn’t quite understand why when the husband and the wife are going to the same place the first lady has to take her own Boeing 757 with family and kids and hangers on four hours earlier than her husband, who will be on his 747.
I’m sure he’s been very hard on Trump’s travel habits. Right? Hasn’t he?
NASCAR people understand that’s a little bit of a waste. They understand it’s a little bit of uppity-ism. First ladies have not been known to hop their own 757s four hours ahead of their husband when they’re both going to the same place.
That is absolutely a racist dogwhistle. He knows it, Michelle Obama knows it, he knows Michelle Obama knows it. The man is a turd.
Limbaugh’s comments were highlighted by ABC News, The New York Times, The Daily Caller, the Huffington Post, and Mediaite, which described them as “obvious race-baiting.” ABC’s Jake Tapper noted that “uppity” means “presumptuous but is loaded with racist connotations” and is “[o]ften used to describe African-Americans who don’t know their place, in the view of white society.”
Tapper also pointed out that when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas denounced the investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee into allegations that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill he called it “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks.”
…
Today Limbaugh again discussed Michelle Obama’s appearance at the NASCAR race, referred to her as Mooch-elle (as is his custom), and called the booing “totally understandable.” But he didn’t even bother to discuss the controversy, much less apologize for his racially charged remark.
Give that man a medal.
