Friday, January 19, 2018

GOP Liars Tom Cotton, David Perdue And Kirstjen Nielsen (Re Trump Racist Shithole Vulgarity)

Sir, they're not shithole countries. For one, Donald Trump is not their president ~ Stephen Colbert during the The Late Show monologue, 1/11/2017.

Apparently referring to Haiti, El Salvador and African Nations (all of them?) as "shitholes" was a strategy. Trump stooge Thomas Lifson, writing for the American Thinker, sez "Trump has his enemies dancing to his tune with shithole Countries". The "strategy"? To make "everyone whom he outraged... repeat the words he wants to sink in with the public" [1].

Sure. Conservative blogger Erick Erickson tweeted that "he spoke to one of the president's friends who said Trump called him up to brag about the remarks because he felt it would play well with his base".

That's it. He said it, he was proud he said it. Or maybe it was "shithouse". Even though that's a distinction without a difference. As per Vox, "publicly, they deny Trump said shithole. Privately, they claim he said shithouse. It's bizarre".

The shit-whatever racist insult was another nod to the racist base. People like Freethinke and Thersites. What Trump was saying to these very fine people was "I hate black people from shithole countries and don't want them here, same as you".

But the twice named Erick is not a fan of Donald Trump, so he probably lied. Like Senator Dick Durbin, who first reported that Trump used the vulgarity, and that he used it multiple times. Senators Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, who were at the meeting, said they had not heard the predisent use the insulting vultarity.

At first. Later they changed their story. The new narrative (coming after the predisent tweeted that he had used "tough language" but NOT that specific vulgar term) was that Dick Durbin "has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings" (Cotton's words on Face The Nation, 11/14/2018) [2].

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen repeated the same "tough language" bullshit in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on 1/16/2018. Her dissembling so transparent as to be laughable. If you find perjury laughable. She was asked if Lindsey Graham repeated Trump's "tough language". Nielsen said he did, but "couldn't remember" the exact words. What a load of bullplop.

(Video: DHS Secretary Nielsen lies under oath. 2:46).


When asked by Senator Patrick Leahy, "Did president Trump use that word, or a substantially similar word, to describe certain countries", Kirstjen Nielsen lied. "I did not hear that word used, no sir". When pressed she answered "I don't dispute that the president was using tough language. Others in the room were also using tough language".

How can you confirm "tough language" if you don't know what the "tough language" was? She refused to say the word (words?) because it was "shithole". Or a substantially similar word. So what if she perjured herself, I guess. Trumpers don't care, of course. If Trump didn't call these countries "shitholes" then he SHOULD have. We'd prefer White people from Norway (for example) to emigrate to the United States.

Although Nielsen isn't sure if Norway is a majority White nation. As if Norwegians are lined up waiting to enter the United States. Norway being a high income country with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. They also rank first on the World Happiness Report and other such indexes.

Maybe Trump was referring to Normay, which might be a country with a majority Black population? Although all the Normayian Blacks are high skilled, high earners who yearn to leave Normay in order to start new lives in the United States.

There is no such country as "Normay", however (or Binomo or Nambia). Trump cited lily White Norway (which is 86.2% Ethnic Norwegian) because he just met with Norway's prime minister, Erna Solberg.

In a press conference following the meeting Trump mentioned Norway's order of (nonexistent) F-52 fighter jets, went on at length about how the Democrats colluded with Russia to lose the election, then slammed green energy (when "Norway is arguably the leader in the global pursuit for sustainable energy)).

Predisent Trump is right, the world is laughing at us. Although the laughing isn't because we're investigating Trump's collusion with Russia. It's due to the fact that we "elected" an incompetent reality teevee star buffoon and racist misogynist bigot as our president.

(Video: Rocky Mountain Mike's "A Little Shithole". 1:41).


Footnotes
[1] Thomas Lifson, a Berkeley CA sociologist and business adviser, in addition to being a Trump stooge, is the Editor-in-Chief of the American Thinker, as well as one of it's founders (founded in 2003 along with 2 other people).
[2] The Washington Times says Cotton "was referring to the Obama administration contradicting Mr. Durbin's account of a 2013 meeting in which he claimed then-House Republican leader Eric Cantor told President Obama, I cannot even stand to look at you. At the time, White House press secretary Jay Carney said it didn't happen". Neither Durbin nor Carney were present at the meeting in question, however. According to Carney "I looked into this and spoke with somebody who was in that meeting, and it did not happen". Regarding the quote, John Boehner said Durbin "invented [it] out of thin air". The White House later issued a statement that read "While the quote attributed to a Republican lawmaker in the House GOP meeting with the President is not accurate, there was a miscommunication when the White House read out that meeting to Senate Democrats, and we regret the misunderstanding".

SWTD #401

Monday, January 08, 2018

On The Inevitability Of A Trump Presidency (Fire & Fury Excerpts #1)

Everyone it seems is talking about the new Trump book by Michael Wolff: Fire and Fury. On the blogs and on MSNBC. It's entirely a work of fiction according to the subject of the book. Although they (the Trump administration) did give Mr. Wolff unfettered access to the White House. Thinking he'd write something flattering, apparently. Even though a previous tome on Rupert Murdoch was not.

Anyway, I recently acquired a digital copy and started reading yesterday (1/7/2017). What follows are some excerpts in which Wolff confirms that Trump never actually wanted to be elected president. I've heard a number of people suggest this previously. Notably Liberal Talk Radio show personality Thom Hartmann. Trump (as well as a number of the other Republican candidates for president) didn't want to be (or think they had a chance of being elected) president. They did it to raise the value of their brand.

Now, as opposed to being speculation, Wolff has confirmed that, yes, Trump's campaign was phony. In that he never wanted or expected to win the election.

Trump's longtime friend Roger Ailes like to say that if you wanted a career in television, first run for president. Now Trump, encouraged by Ailes, was floating rumors about a Trump network. It was a great future.

He would come out of the campaign, Trump assured Ailes, with a far more powerful brand and untold opportunities. "This is bigger than I ever dreamed of", he told Ailes in a conversation a week before the election. "I don't think about losing because it isn't losing. We've totally won". What's more, he was already laying down his public response to losing the election: it was stolen!

Donald Trump and his tiny band of campaign warriors were ready to lose with fire and fury. They were not ready to win.

In politics somebody has to lose, but invariably everybody thinks they can win. And you probably can't win unless you believe that you will win - except in the Trump campaign.

The leitmotif for Trump about his own campaign was how crappy it was and how everybody involved in it was a loser. He was equally convinced that the Clinton people were brilliant winners - "They've got the best and we've got the worst", he frequently said. ... "This thing", he told the Mercers, "is so fucked up". ... by every meaningful indicator, something greater than a sense of doom shadowed what Steve Bannon called "the broke-dick campaign".

...the prospect of her husband's actually becoming president was, for Melania, a horrifying one. He offered his wife a solenm guarantee: there was simply no way he would win.

The Trump campaign had, perhaps less than inadvertently, replicated the scheme from Mel Brook's The Producers. (Source: Chapter 2, Trump Tower).

The chapter goes on with more about how Trump didn't want to be president and that it was all a scam. He wanted to start a TV network. Roger Ailes, interested in a comeback, had decided that he needed a Billion dollars. After the election, however, the narrative in the delusional Trump's addled brain changed. Instead of his election being something that had no chance at all of happening, now it was inevitable. A view his cult members have adopted. The people rejected "crooked Hillary".

This they believe even though, out of all the eligible voters, only around 58% bothered to vote (around half usually being the percentage). And I don't think you can say that, by not voting, these people were actually voicing their support for Trump (an argument I've heard). Given the fact that Hillary Clinton was expected to win, I'd say that of the non voters, many of them thought Hillary would be the winner (and might have voted for her if they had bothered to cast a ballot).

Trump, on the other hand, was expected to lose. People wanting Trump as president Trump had to get out and vote. Or accept the inevitability of a Hillary Clinton presidency. Indeed, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million votes.

However, as far as vote totals go, I don't put much stock in them as all. How many votes were thrown out by Trump ally Kris Kobach via his Interstate Crosscheck election fraud scheme? Enough to throw the electoral college "win" to Trump according to investigative journalist Greg Palast (AZ, MI and NC electoral votes would have gone to HRC if not for the huge number of voters purged from the rolls in those states due to Interstate Crosscheck/Republican voter disenfranchisement).

My point is that, while Trump may have intended to lose, he had people working on his behalf to steal the election from the rightful victor, Hillary Clinton (Vladimir Putin, James Comey and the aforementioned Kris Kobach).

Images: (L) Virtual placard found at the top of the Right-wing blog Who's Your Daddy declaring the trumper delusion of the liar-in-chief's inevitability/destiny to be potus. (R) Pushback in line with blotus lie that Wolff's book is a "work of fiction".

Note: Link to HuffPo article about the Mercers (Father Robert and Daughter Rebecka) in Fire and Fury excerpt inserted by me.

Update 1/14/2018: On the other hand, Bill Clinton did predict the presidency of a DJT-type candidate back in 1991. A candidate that presented himself as a champion of the working man via an opposition to job killing free trade deals. Deals like NAFTA (signed by Clinton) and the TPP (championed by Obama).

In that respect, Trump did "win" because the time and place was right. The "time" being after the endorsement of job killing free trade deals by two successive Democratic presidents. The place being the Rust Belt of the United States (where former Democratic voters went for Trump).

Steve Bannon, btw, was convinced that Trump would win (even if Trump was not). Because Trump had the support of the racist Whites (the base of the Republican Party) PLUS the White working class negatively affected by bad trade deals signed or championed by Democratic presidents (people who traditionally voted Democratic). See: SWTD #390.

SWTD #400