Tag: Trump

  • Immortality

    Today in disgusting:

    President Donald Trump appears to have autographed photos of deceased young people that were featured at a White House event Friday highlighting victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.

    There were 11 photos total being held up by family members who had lost loved ones, and all of the photos bore Trump’s unmistakably scrawled signature in large-tipped black pen.

    Autographing the photos was an unusual decision, in that it appeared to combine the celebrity element of an autograph with the solemn image of a dead loved one.

    Typical of Trump though. Classic Trump. Trump all over.

  • Blood libels

    Ugh, god, this is so stupid and so vicious.

    President Donald Trump on Friday put a spotlight on families who lost loved ones killed by undocumented immigrants — calling them victims of “permanent separation” — as he sought to shift the attention away from his administration’s recently halted policy of separating migrant families at the border.

    Some undocumented immigrants turn out to be criminals…because some percentage of any large population will turn out to be criminals. Immigrants are in fact less likely to be criminals than non-immigrants.

    “You know, you hear the other side. You never hear this side. You don’t know what’s going on. These are the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones. The word permanently being the word that you have to think about,” the president said Friday afternoon.

    “They’re not separated for a day or two days. These were permanently separated because they were killed by illegal aliens. These are the families the media ignores. They don’t talk about them. Very unfair.”

    NPR offers some facts:

    While any death is tragic, a February 2018 study by the Cato Institute using 2015 crime statistics from Texas found immigrants in the country illegally were 25 percent less likely to be convicted of homicide than native-born Americans. (Legal immigrants were 87 percent less likely.)

    According to the study, immigrants in the country illegally were also 11.5 percent less likely than native-born Americans to be convicted of sexual assault and 79 percent less likely to be convicted of larceny.

    Take notes, Donald.

    A separate March 2018 study in the journal Criminology looked at whether violent crime increases as the number of immigrants living illegally in a community goes up. Researchers found it does not. If anything, the opposite is true: Violent crime appears to fall when more immigrants are living in a community illegally.

    Trump disputed those findings during his White House event Friday but he did not offer evidence to the contrary.

    In the past, the president has exaggerated threats facing the U.S. to justify his travel ban, tough-on-crime measures and a now-folded commission on voter fraud.

    In other words he has lied about such things, over and over, including after people have told him he’s talking shite.

  • Their phony stories of sadness and grief

    This guy.

  • Scowl in place

    Trump still being a shit one day after brief attempt to look less like a shit; world unsurprised.

    A day after a rare retreat on the issue of separating immigrant children from their parents, President Trump lashed out angrily on Thursday at what he called “extremist, open-border Democrats” and again falsely blamed them for the political crisis that continues to roil his administration.

    Mr. Trump, choosing hard-edged remarks at a cabinet meeting hours before the House was scheduled to vote on overhauling immigration laws, begged for Democratic support on the legislation even as he said Democratic lawmakers were causing “tremendous damage and destruction and lives.” And he repeated his false claim that Democrats forced family separations.

    “They don’t care about the children. They don’t care about the injury. They don’t care about the problems,” Mr. Trump said, a scowl on his face and his arms crossed. “They don’t care about anything.”

    The president’s stream-of-consciousness commentary also included an attack on Mexico for what he claimed was a failure to help stop illegal immigration into the United States. He said the trek through Mexico from Central America was like a walk through Central Park in New York City.

    Yes, certainly, like a walk through Central Park, which is half a mile wide.

    Meanwhile he sent the little woman off to Texas to pretend to care.

    Melania Trump, the first lady, traveled on Thursday to a facility in McAllen, Tex., that is holding 55 children who have been separated from their parents. Mrs. Trump took a tour of the facility, called New Hope Children’s Shelter, and met with some of the children being held there.

    In one classroom, she met with a group of children, some of whom spoke to her in English and others in Spanish, which was translated by their teacher.

    Into Slovenian?

    Officials at the facility say that the children held there are allowed to communicate with their families by phone twice a week.

    Oh, my, how generous and kind.

  • The elleeet

    Trump wonders why “they” are called the elite when he is so much better in every single way. “I have a much better apartment than they do,” he said, smirking heavily.

    His:

    Image result for trump apartment

    Not his:

    Image result for room with books

    His is more expensive, for sure, but better?

  • Live that down, Donald

    Brilliant.

  • He said with derision

    Yesterday Peter Baker and Katie Rogers at the Times wrote about Trump’s filthy dehumanizing language.

    President Trump has railed against undocumented immigrants in recent days, branding many of them “murderers and thieves” who want to “infest our country.” Not long ago, he referred to them as “animals,” although he insisted he meant only those who join a violent gang.

    The president’s unpresidential language has become the standard for some on his team. This week his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, made a mocking noise, “womp womp,” when a liberal strategist raised the case of a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome separated from her parents at the border.

    …

    Mr. Trump’s descriptions of those trying to enter the country illegally have been so sharp that critics say they dehumanize people and lump together millions of migrants with the small minority that are violent. This approach traces back to the day Mr. Trump first announced his campaign for president in 2015, when he labeled many Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” a portrayal that drew furious protests.

    Mr. Trump recalled that controversy just this week and doubled down on it. “Remember I made that speech and I was badly criticized? ‘Oh, it’s so terrible, what he said,’ ” he said with derision during a speech to the National Federation of Independent Business on Tuesday. “Turned out I was 100 percent right. That’s why I got elected.”

    And here we are, trapped in this hell.

    He has made insults the core of his presidential messaging. He has called Canada’s prime minister “weak & dishonest.” He has called journalists, lawmakers and political opponents “wacky,” “crazy,” “goofy,” “mentally deranged,” “psycho,” “sleazy” and “corrupt.” He has called some of his own appointees and Republican allies “very bad,” “VERY weak,” “failed” and “lightweight.”

    Because that’s who he is – abusive. He’s an abusive sadistic bully, who enjoys being an abusive sadistic bully, and is simply loving being it on the world stage.

    “Only Trump can get away with being Trump,” said Jennifer Mercieca, an associate professor at Texas A&M University who has studied his language closely over the last three years.

    “Any time that other people have tried to use ad hominem attacks or swear or whatever, it rings false,” she said. “And other politicians tend to have more shame, so when they’re criticized they fold. And as you know, Trump doesn’t do that. And so because he refuses to be shamed, he can get away with sort of saying anything.”

    In other words only Trump has no conscience and no empathy – only Trump is a psychopath.

  • “We’re sending them the hell back”

    The evil demon held another fascist rally last night, this time in Duluth, Minnesota. He was more monstrous than ever.

    The president was here in part to support Pete Stauber, a Republican candidate for a House seat. But, as he usually does on the campaign trail, Mr. Trump focused more on his agenda — and his enemies, at one point declaring that he had “a much better apartment” than his critics.

    Turning to immigration, Mr. Trump castigated the Democrats.

    “The Democrats want open borders: ‘Let everybody pour in, we don’t care,’” he said, as the crowd erupted into a chant of “Build the Wall,” and mocked a handful of people who tried to protest his policy. (“Go home to your mom,” the president told at least one demonstrator.)

    I tell you what: there are two people we made a big mistake letting “pour in”: Trump’s father’s father and Trump’s mother. If they’d been turned away there would be no Donald Trump, and the world would be a significantly less awful place.

    He said of other countries: “They’re not sending their finest. We’re sending them the hell back. That’s what we’re doing.”

    He wouldn’t recognize “the finest” if it sat down in his lap and offered him a Big Mac. His criteria for what’s fine are entirely warped.

    https://twitter.com/katierogers/status/1009593424301961218

  • Trump thinks “Angela” is German for “bitch”

    There’s always worse to learn. Cast your mind back to the G7 and Trump sitting at the table scowling like a constipated goat at the adults trying to talk sense into him.

    “It was at this point, towards the end of the summit, that Chancellor Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada got together with some of the allies and really wanted to press Trump directly to sign the communiqué, that talked about the commitment to a rules-based international order. Trump was sitting there with his arms crossed, clearly not liking the fact that they were ganging up on him. He eventually agreed and said OK he’ll sign it. And at that point, he stood up, put his hand in his pocket, his suit jacket pocket, and he took two Starburst candies out, threw them on the table and said to Merkel, ‘Here, Angela. Don’t say I never give you anything,’” Bremmer described to CBS.

     

    I long for him to drop dead.

  • He’ll be doing something

    Trump now says, no doubt sullenly, that he’ll sign “something” to end family separations at the border.

    He’ll do the least he can get away with, and meanwhile we’ll be accepting all the lesser evils because he made this one concession. If he does in fact make it.

    Trump, whose administration weeks ago began separating hundreds of children from their parents at the border, did not describe the specifics of the order.

    “I’ll be doing something that’s somewhat pre-emptive but ultimately will be matched by legislation I’m sure,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

    And the ogre strolled away, picking bits of human flesh out of his teeth.

  • Closer

    Trump crosses another line.

    News outlets say that’s a lie; crime in Germany is down, not up.

    There it is – “infest.” That’s the Nazi talk. That’s the rats, cockroaches, vermin talk.

  • Moths to the flame

    Trump’s lies get crazier by the day.

    President Trump remained resistant on Monday in the face of growing public outcry over his administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border, repeating the false assertion that Democrats were the ones to blame for it, and suggesting that criminals — not parents — were toting juveniles to the United States.

    “They could be murderers and thieves and so much else,” Mr. Trump said of the people crossing the border, as he delivered somewhat incongruous remarks during a meeting of the National Space Council on Monday. “We want a safe country, and it starts with the borders, and that’s the way it is.”

    “Somewhat incongruous”…aka batshit insane arbitrary off the wall off topic.

    Not to mention the irony of a snakepit of crime like Trump pretending to think immigrants are mostly murderers. We do want a safe country: a country safe from the venom and hatred fomented by this pestilent angry baby.

    In a series of tweets and speeches on Monday, Mr. Trump instead relied on fear to curry support for a “zero tolerance” policy that refers for criminal prosecution all immigrants apprehended crossing the border without authorization. The president used the threat of gang violence and other crime, and a change in the fabric of American culture as a means to stoke support among supporters and push Congress into figuring out a way to drum up funding for his long-promised border wall.

    “Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country,” he wrote. “Has anyone been looking at the Crime taking place south of the border. It is historic, with some countries the most dangerous places in the world. Not going to happen in the U.S.”

    Not joined-up thinking but just a series of furious barks. Crimnalz! CCCrime! South! Most dangerous!

    Across the country, senior administration members echoed his message, equating a rise in border crossings with a rise in crime and suggesting that the people who were separated at the border were not families at all.

    In a speech at a law enforcement conference in New Orleans on Monday, Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, piggybacked on the president’s claim, and said that between October and February, there was a 315 percent increase in the number of undocumented immigrants “fraudulently” using “unaccompanied alien children” to pose as a family unit in order to enter the United States.

    They always say something like that. That’s the prelude to “ethnic cleansing” and genocide. There are always accusations and generalizations of that kind. It’s an excuse for herding, selecting, segregating, isolating, detaining, interning, and if nothing interrupts, killing. That’s the ticking bomb Kirstjen Nielsen is batting around.

    The large percentage that Ms. Nielsen cited refers to a sliver of overall data: During that time frame, there were 191 cases of fraudulent family claims reported, up from 46 cases for all of 2017, when more than 303,000 crossing attempts were recorded. Still, Ms. Nielsen, who on Sunday said that the administration did not actually have a policy of separating families, held firm.

    “We do not have the luxury of pretending that all individuals coming to this country as a family unit are in fact a family,” Ms. Nielsen said. “This administration has a simple message: If you cross the border illegally, we will prosecute you.”

    It’s not a “luxury.”

    We’re well on the way to becoming an outlaw pariah state like South Africa at this rate. It’s taken him only a year and a half to get this far.

    In another tweet, Mr. Trump looked to Germany, one of America’s closest allies, to warn the public about what might happen if the policy [were] relaxed. The president falsely claimed that crime in Germany is on the rise, and railed against immigration policies in Europe

    “The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”

    …

    While Mr. Trump’s assessment of Germany’s crime problems is not accurate — crime in the country is the lowest since 1992, according to the most recent German data available — the brutal murder of a 14-year-old German girl has fueled Ms. Merkel’s opponents who are against the country’s migration policies that provide entry to some 10,000 asylum seekers each month.

    Over the weekend, Mr. Trump spoke with Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister who is known for his anti-immigration rhetoric. Both men agreed that strong borders are needed, according to the White House.

    It’s our heritage.

    Image result for xenophobia

  • A view from abroad

    Roland Nelles at Spiegel Online is not a huge fan of Furious Don.

    The debacle at the G-7 clearly shows that the real problem with Donald Trump’s policies is Donald Trump himself. There is no rhyme or reason to his actions aside from the desire — the need — to be the best, the most important, the biggest. The collapse of the West and the destruction of alliances that have held up for decades are merely the side effects of this unprecedented ego trip.

    At the G-7 summit, Trump treated America’s oldest friends as though they were enemies. At the same time, he fawns over Russian President Vladimir Putin and calls dictators such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un “very honorable.” He sees the reflection of himself in such men. He does what he wants. Agreements with partners, the rules of the international order: None of that holds water with Trump.

    Trump wants complete control and can’t stand being contradicted. He always has to have the first word and the last. Indeed, it was far from surprising that he sought to impose his own agenda (the trade conflict and Russia) on the summit. The tweet he sent from his plane out of Canada, in which he revoked his support for the summit statement, was merely a logical result of his egomania. It’s always just me, me, me.

    He’s like an enormous enraged baby.

  • He neglected to await repeal

    Oopsie.

     

    Most ominous for Trump is the attorney general’s conclusion that “Mr. Trump’s wrongful use of the Foundation to benefit his Campaign was willful and knowing.” It is ironic, and highly damaging to Trump, that he made an issue in his campaign about the federal prohibition on tax-exempt involvement in campaigns. He committed that he would act, if elected, to repeal it. It appears that he and his campaign neglected to await repeal and simply declined to comply with it. In any event, his stated awareness of the law, together with his repeated execution of tax forms for the Foundation “in which he attested that the Foundation … did not carry out political activity,” puts him at severe risk of “willful and knowing” liability. As “foundation managers” under the law, Trump and his children are exposed to personal liability if they gave knowing and willful consent to the charity’s illegal expenditures. They could face similar consequences—that is, personal liability—in the event, however unlikely, that the FEC takes meaningful enforcement action.

    He conspicuously announced his dislike of the law he was breaking and planning to continue to break. Sloppy.

    What emerges from the New York complaint’s account is something that has become increasingly familiar. Trump does what he wishes, acting all too often on impulse and without regard to rules or norms, and those around him are expected to do as he says. The result in this instance was, from a legal perspective, disastrous. And that is putting the matter charitably.

    Maybe, eventually, that will catch up with him and this nightmare will end.

    Or maybe not.

  • You don’t understand sarcasm

    Philip Rucker at the Post on Trump’s galloping case of dictator envy:

    President Trump’s praise Friday for Kim Jong Un’s authoritarian rule in North Korea — and his apparent envy that people there “sit up at attention” when the 35-year-old dictator speaks — marked an escalation of the American president’s open embrace of totalitarian leaders around the world.

    Reflecting on his impressions of Kim following their Singapore summit, Trump told Fox News: “He’s the head of a country, and I mean he’s the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

    It was unclear whether Trump was referring to Americans generally or only to his staff. His interview took place along the West Wing driveway, and as the president talked about “my people,” he gestured toward the White House.

    Later, when pressed by a CNN reporter about the comment, Trump claimed it had been a joke. “I’m kidding,” he said. “You don’t understand sarcasm.”

    He probably was sort of “kidding” but that doesn’t mean he didn’t also mean it. It’s entirely possible to say things in a “kidding” way while also entirely meaning them. Trump does that all the time. It makes his endless barrage of insults and taunts sort of kind of deniable, but not really. His “base” will always claim they are “jokes” and the rest of us will know that kind of joke is not really a joke – if a joke is taken to be something we don’t really mean. Jokes can be both accurate and intended to draw a laugh, after all. Jokes about ugly people, foreigners, women, servants, Jews – they’re not less destructive or sadistic or hatred-inciting simply because they’re “jokes.”

    During his visit to Singapore, Trump showered praise on Kim, calling him a “very talented man,” a “smart guy” and a “very good negotiator.” He also complimented Kim’s “great personality.”

    Trump was more muted when it came to Kim’s record of human rights atrocities. The North Korean leader starves many of his citizens, sentences opponents to labor camps and executes people he perceives as threats to his power, including assassinating family members.

    Asked at a news conference in Singapore how he could be comfortable calling a dictator with a murderous record “very talented,” Trump replied, “Well, he is very talented. Anybody that takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it and run it tough — I don’t say it was nice, or I don’t say anything about it. He ran it. Very few people at that age, you can take 1 out of 10,000, probably couldn’t do it.”

    Trump’s posture is inconsistent with Republican orthodoxy. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted that while Trump was “trying to butter him up to get a good deal,” Kim “is NOT a talented guy. He inherited the family business from his dad & grandfather. He is a total weirdo who would not be elected assistant dogcatcher in any democracy.”

    Oops. Awkward. Trump also inherited the family business from his father and grandfather.

    Trump kept up his praise of Kim in an interview Friday with “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy. He noted that he gave Kim “a very direct number” and instructed him to “call me if he has any difficulties.”

    “We have a really great relationship for the first time ever,” Trump said. “No president’s ever had this. So I get hit by these fakes back here” — he pointed dismissively to a group of journalists who were gathered behind him at the White House on the North Lawn driveway — “not all of them, some are phenomenal, but I get hit because I went there, I gave him credibility. I think it’s great to give him credibility.”

    Yes, that’s our point. You think it’s great to give him credibility and we think it’s really really not.

    Trump’s critics pointed to his salute of one of Kim’s generals — footage of which was released Thursday by North Korean state media in a documentary film about the summit — as evidence of the national security risks in his behavior.

    The video captured a brief interaction that was not seen by U.S. journalists. A North Korean general saluted Trump, and the president saluted him in return. It is highly unusual for a U.S. president to return the salute of a foreign military officer. Some analysts said Kim’s government was likely to use the image in its propaganda campaigns as a victory for Pyongyang because it suggests the American commander in chief defers to the North Korean military.

    Trump defended his salute in his Friday interview with Fox.

    “I met a general,” he said. “He saluted me, and I saluted him back. I guess they’re using that as another sound bite. You know, I think I’m being respectful to the general.”

    He thinks that because he knows nothing about it. He knows nothing about it because he didn’t trouble himself to learn anything about it. He refused to do any homework. He told us he didn’t need to, that preparing is a mistake; he told us he’d been preparing his whole life. I wish I were joking.

  • But everyone tried to be rational and calm

    Further reporting on how vulgar, racist, crude, disgusting, and obnoxious Trump was at the G7 last week.

    Trump told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe he’d be “out of office” if he had to deal with “25 million Mexicans,” and told French President Emmanuel Macron that “all the terrorists are in Paris,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

    Claiming that migration is a huge issue in Europe, he reportedly told Abe: “Shinzo, you don’t have this problem, but I can send you 25 million Mexicans and you’ll be out of office very soon,” a senior European Union official in the meeting in Quebec, told the Journal.

    But Trump, who has followed up on his campaign promise to restrict immigration into the U.S., didn’t stop there.

    During talks about terrorism and Iran, the U.S. president told Macron: “You must know about this, Emmanuel, because all the terrorists are in Paris,” the EU official said.

    Irritation with Trump was in the air, “but everyone tried to be rational and calm,” added the official.

    It sounds like everybody’s worst nightmare Christmas family get-together dinner when drunken mean angry racist shithead Uncle Don throws down half a bottle of gin and starts picking a fight with everyone at the table.

    Trump seemed wary of coming off as isolated, people in the room told the newspaper, and apparently said, “Oh, well, then it’s five versus two,” when Abe expressed opposition in wording for a joint statement on addressing plastic waste.

    Aw, diddums, did diddums feel left out? Well then maybe diddums shouldn’t be such a foul hate-filled belligerent fascist pig. Just a thought.

  • The tyrant addresses his people

    The Times reports Trump is drunk on his North Korea ??success?? and lashing out at everyone in sight.

    President Trump went on offense on Friday with a withering series of attacks on the F.B.I., congressional Democrats, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Canada’s prime minister, football players, the media, the special counsel and other favorite targets even as he hailed his relations with the leaders of North Korea, China and Russia.

    Let’s not forget the children of immigrants when we compile our list of people to attack. He must have gotten out of breath.

    In his first extended comments on his meeting with Mr. Kim since returning to the United States, Mr. Trump hailed their agreement, enshrined in a vague 391-word statement that committed North Korea to “complete denuclearization.”

    “I signed an agreement where we get everything, everything,” he said.

    Although there is no concrete arrangement for how that would happen, when it would happen or who would verify that it happen, Mr. Trump dismissed such questions as details that will be worked out.

    “I have solved that problem,” he told reporters. “Now, we’re getting it memorialized and all. But that problem is largely solved.”

    That’s all it takes. You meet Kim, you unleash the power of the Miraculous Charisma, you exchange a few words, and that’s all there is to it. Magic! Problem solved.

    He praised Mr. Kim, brushing aside questions about the repressive regime and gulags in North Korea. “Hey, he is the head of a country, and I mean he is the strong head,” Mr. Trump said. “Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

    His people sit up at attention because of the gulags and the poison in airports and all that there. Trump wishes he could do the same.

    Mr. Trump confirmed that he wants to meet President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia this summer. Asked about Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which has been condemned by the rest of the world as an illegal aggression, Mr. Trump blamed not Mr. Putin for ordering it but Mr. Obama for letting it happen.

    “President Obama lost Crimea,” Mr. Trump said. “Because Putin didn’t respect President Obama. President Obama lost Crimea because President Putin didn’t respect President Obama. Didn’t respect our country and didn’t respect Ukraine. President Obama, not Trump — when it’s my fault, I’ll tell you.”

    Oh yes? The other day in Singapore he admitted if it turns out he’s wrong he’ll make an excuse.

    Likewise, he faulted Democrats in Congress for the federal authorities’ separating children from parents trying to cross the border from Mexico.

    “I hate the children being taken away,” he said. “The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law.”

    Both houses of Congress are run by Republicans, who control whether legislation comes to the floor, but Mr. Trump said they could not act because it would require at least nine Democratic votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. There seems no reason to assume, however, that Democrats would filibuster a bill barring the separation of families at the border, since they have already introduced such legislation with more than 30 Democratic co-sponsors.

    Indeed, Mr. Trump made clear later in the day with a Twitter message that he would not support legislation on family separation unless it includes provisions that Democrats oppose, including full financing for his proposed border wall and a complete overhaul of the system of legal immigration to end policies allowing immigrants to sponsor relatives to come into the country.

    Well right, so that proves Democrats are the problem. Heads he wins tails everyone else loses.

    Over the course of the Fox interview and the subsequent conversation with White House reporters, Mr. Trump also returned to other frequent topics. He mocked National Football League players for protesting racism whey they are “making $15 million a year.”

    He again assailed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada for rejecting new American tariffs after a summit meeting. “We’re all happy, and then he got up and started saying that he doesn’t want to be pushed around by the United States,” Mr. Trump said.

    And he dismissed the importance of a misleading statement he dictated last year about a Trump Tower meeting with Russians during the 2016 campaign, a statement that his lawyer and spokeswoman at first denied he had dictated even though his legal team later admitted that he had. “It’s irrelevant,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s not a statement to a high tribunal of judges. That’s a statement to the phony New York Times.”

    Yeah. This isn’t an incipient dictatorship, it’s just a dictatorship.

  • Hey

    The clip where he says it.

  • What even are human rights?

    God damn. The big news of the moment is that Manafort is off to the slammer, but there’s another breaking item that’s horrifying: the US is going to quit the UN Human Rights Council.

    Talks with the United States over how to reform the main U.N. rights body have failed to meet Washington’s demands, activists and diplomats say, suggesting that the Trump administration will quit the Geneva forum whose session opens on Monday.

    A U.S. source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the withdrawal appeared to be “imminent” but had no details.

    Diplomatic sources said it was not a question of if but of when the United States retreats from the Human Rights Council, which is holding a three-week session through July 6.

    Why? Putative “anti-Israel bias.”

    The forum, set up in 2006, has a permanent standing agenda item on suspected violations committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, which Washington wants removed.

    Washington says the Council is stacked with opponents of Israel and boycotted it for three years under President George W. Bush before rejoining under Barack Obama in 2009.

    The 47-member forum last month voted to set up a probe into killings in Gaza and accused Israel of excessive use of force. The United States and Australia cast the only “no” votes. Israel’s ambassador in Geneva, Aviva Raz Shechter, castigated the Council for “spreading lies against Israel”.

    Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un is a smart talented guy who makes his people sit right up when he talks.

  • He speaks and his people sit up at attention

    Trump wishes we would act more like the people of North Korea.

    President Donald Trump on Friday defended his warm praise of Kim Jong Un, saying his newfound affinity for the North Korean dictator was making Americans safer.

    At the same time, Trump expressed esteem for the forced deference North Koreans show for their leader and joked he wished “my people” would do the same.

    Well you can say he “joked” but we all know he means it. He wants universal groveling adoration, and nothing less will satisfy.

    Asked why he’s warmed to Kim, Trump insisted he was defusing a nuclear standoff.

    “I don’t want to see a nuclear weapon destroy you and your family,” he told reporters during an impromptu question-and-answer session at the White House.

    “I want to have a good relationship with North Korea. I want to have a good relationship with many other countries,” Trump said. “We had great chemistry. He gave us a lot.”

    Wait. If the explanation is “cozy up to them so that they won’t throw nukes at us” then why did he pull the US out of the Iran deal?

    The remarks, which came three days after Trump met Kim in Singapore for an unprecedented and friendly summit, are likely to do little to allay concerns that Trump has shown too much regard for a brutal despot, one responsible for the death of at least one American and of countless North Koreans.

    Pressed on that record, Trump demurred.

    “I can’t speak to that,” he said. “I can only speak to the fact that we signed an incredible agreement.”

    He can’t speak to that??? Why the fuck not? He feels no inhibitions about speaking to anything he feels like speaking to, so why can’t he speak to the realities of Kim’s despotism?

    Since returning from his summit with Kim, Trump has referred to Kim as “funny,” “smart,” “very talented,” and someone who “loves his people.”

    He’s also spoken with barely contained awe about the displays of reverence North Koreans are obligated to show toward their supreme leader.

    “He’s the head of the country,” Trump said of Kim Friday during a live interview on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.” “And I mean he’s the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different.”

    “He speaks and his people sit up at attention,” the President added. “I want my people to do the same.”

    Ah, well maybe that’s why – he can’t speak to it (i.e. acknowledge and condemn it) because he thinks it’s a good thing. He can’t speak to it because he’s too busy envying it.

    Kim has had 340 people executed in his first five years. (Counting his brother poisoned in the airport? Not clear.)

    In June 2016, a top education official was executed by firing squad after he exercised a “bad attitude” at the country’s Supreme People’s Assembly. Kim’s defense minister was executed in May 2015 with an anti-aircraft gun at a Pyongyang military school, before an audience.

    Trump would love to be able to do things like that.

    (And I’m not joking or deliberately exaggerating. It doesn’t take much for people to love doing that. A situation in which it’s possible coupled with enough self-regard and brutality: done.)

    His flippant talk on the subject is yet another disgrace we’ll never live down.