It Must Be In the Genes

Apparently, when you put one narcissist in office, you get a bunch of little narcissists to round out the set. Just one example:

.@IvankaTrump after @DebRobertsABC asks what missteps she would say she has made: "I actually have experienced on a personal level this tremendous growth in my own sense of self, in seeing more brightly my own compass and signal..."

— Alex Mallin (@alex_mallin) November 28, 2018

WTF? She's just as coherent as her father, too.

Via Digby, who points out that this is equivalent to Trump being thankful for himself on Thanksgiving.

Today in Disgusting People: A Master of His Craft

His craft, of course, is lying with a straight face while turning reality on its head. I refer to none other than Tony Perkins. This story really needs to be read in its entirety to get the full impact of the man's fundamental mendacity, but this line actually made me laugh:

Evangelical Christians “were tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists,” Perkins said, “and I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.”

This is probably an accurate reflection of the attitude of the evangelical base: not giving them special status and an exemption from the social contract is pushing them around.

And anyone who can call Barack Obama a "bully" while defending the atrocity that's squatting in the White House (when he's not off playing golf) is really reaching for the stars.

Needless to say, he gets the Tony Perkins Award.

Read the whole thing. It's really one long WTF? moment.

Today in WTF?

Oh, I guess that's all OK, then:

Hans Fiene, a Lutheran pastor who is also a regular contributor to the right-wing website The Federalist, has written a new column in which he explains that allowing 26 people to die at the hands of a crazed gunman at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, this weekend was actually God’s way of answering their prayers. . . .

“So when a madman with a rifle sought to persecute the faithful at First Baptist Church on Sunday morning, he failed,” Fiene says. “Just like those who put Christ to death, and just like those who have brought violence to believers in every generation, this man only succeeded in being the means through which God delivered his children from this evil world into an eternity of righteousness and peace.”

I wonder how much the NRA paid him for this.

By the way, we're pretty sure this loon was not looking to persecute Christians -- he could do that by ordering a cake for a same-sex wedding. Word is that he was in a "situation" with his mother-in-law, who attended that church.

Fox News is already on board:

Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt asserted on Monday that the dozens of people killed at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas had gone to the right place to be shot because they were close to Jesus at the time of their death.

So, if you're looking for a good place to be gunned down, by all means avoid 7-Eleven.

Wait 'til the Twit-in-Chief sees this.

Antidote: A WTF? Moment

I really have nothing to say about this:

Ugly bunny fracas is swiftly broken up by the chicken police. pic.twitter.com/kTxMODYsGa

— Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) July 10, 2017

Trumponomics at Work

Great way to create jobs:

In the coming days, the Trump administration will take steps to delay and ultimately rescind an Obama administration rule allowing foreign entrepreneurs to come to the U.S. to start companies, sources familiar with the situation tell Axios.

In real terms, this doesn't make any difference in anyone's present visa status -- the rule hasn't taken effect yet.

But what it says about Trump is -- well, it would be troubling if there weren't so many other negatives clustered around the man. OK, so he hates foreigners. We knew that. He doesn't consider consequences -- we knew that, too. He has no common sense -- yeah, that, too. And he has no clue about how things work.

Via Mock Paper Scissors, which offers this insight:

Entrepreneurs are going to start their businesses somewhere. What if the next Facebook-level success is Russian instead of American? Or what if Elon Musk had gone to the UK instead of here?

But he's going to bring back those coal jobs, for sure.

Tone Deaf

I'm picking this up from yesterday, which was really too busy and too chaotic to worry about Ivanka Trump, but for the love of all that's holy, what the hell was she thinking?

Make champagne popsicles this #MemorialDay: https://t.co/1m6ceESqnS

— Ivanka Trump HQ (@IvankaTrumpHQ) May 28, 2017

On Memorial Day? WTF?

Another Must-Read: Trumponomics

Via Digby, this article from PRI on an interview by reporters from the The Economist with our "president." The telling point:

The Economist’s own analysis was even more scalding than the snarky tweets. The magazine declared: "The impulsiveness and shallowness of America's president threaten the economy as well as the rule of law." The article goes on to compare Trump to a modern-day Henry VIII, which is never a good thing: "Donald Trump rules over Washington as if he were a king and the White House his court. His displays of dominance, his need to be the centre of attention and his impetuousness have a whiff of Henry VIII about them. Fortified by his belief that his extraordinary route to power is proof of the collective mediocrity of Congress, the bureaucracy and the media, he attacks any person and any idea standing in his way."

As PRI comments, "Ouch."

What struck me is the complete lack of any integrity -- let's not even bring up principles -- displayed by Trump's advisors and cabinet. I had thought that the primary qualification for being appointed to high-level positions in the Trump regime was opposition to the purpose of the department one was chosen to head. Apparently, abject servility is really the primary consideration.

TW: So this interview was in the Oval Office. What did the atmosphere there feel like?

DR: It's kind of like being in a royal palace several hundred years ago, with people coming in and out, trying to catch the ear of the king. That's the feel at the Trump Oval Office. He likes to be surrounded by his courtiers.
TW: Your magazine described it as being a little bit like Henry VIII.

DR: There is a "Tudor court" side to it. And the role of some pretty senior figures, including cabinet secretaries, was to chime in and agree with whatever the president had just said, rather than offering candid advice.

There was a moment with Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary.

We were talking [to Trump] about China and currency manipulation. On the campaign trail, Trump was very ferocious about [calling China a currency manipulator.] [In our interview], he said, “As soon as I started talking about China being a currency manipulator, they cut it out.” Actually that’s not true. China [stopped manipulating the currency] two or three years ago.

What was striking was, when he made that point, Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, chimed in and said, “Oh yeah. The day he became president, they changed their behavior!” And factually, that’s just not right. It's quite striking to see a cabinet secretary making that point in that way.

Can you say "Yes-man"? I wonder if Mnuchin took a loyalty oath.

Of course, given what Trump is, why am I surprised?

He Hires Good People, the Very Best People. . . .

This is even better than the doctor who wrote a letter saying all his results were positive:

Trump hired the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius to send a letter to Lindsey Graham about his finances which stated that that "Trump's last 10 years of tax returns do not reveal "any income of any type from Russian sources" with some exceptions.

The phrase "some exceptions" has caused quite a stir. The lawyers have offered no documents, including Trump's tax returns as proof of their findings.

Experts on white-collar financial crime like Jack Blum, have already said, "There’s no substance to it. The letter is just another puff of smoke. It has no meaning at all. It’s just another way to not answer the question."

But there's another part to this equation that is just as troubling. As the Washington Post reports, "Her law firm was honored by Chambers & Partners’ 2016 Chambers Europe guide as Russia Law Firm of the Year.

Trump seems to have this touching confidence in the import of a certified letter, as opposed to regular first class. The only difference is that you can track certified mail, an you can get a receipt confirming delivery.

Of course, the "some exceptions" exception is a hoot and has gotten quite a reaction on Twitter. The most pointed, I think, comes from Igor Volsky in a sort of double whammy:

Trump won the popular vote, #withfewexceptions

— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) May 12, 2017

And hiring a law firm that won an award from Russia when the subject of the inquiry is Trump's Russian connections? Does anyone in this regime do anything but react?

Another WTF? Moment

Words fail me:

A three-month old baby was summoned to the US embassy in London for an interview after his grandfather mistakenly identified him as a terrorist.

Harvey Kenyon-Cairns had been due to fly to Orlando in Florida for his first overseas holiday, until his grandfather Paul Kenyon made the error on a visa waiver form.

On the part of the Esta form which reads “Do you seek to engage in or have you ever engaged in terrorist activities, espionage, sabotage, or genocide?” Kenyon ticked yes instead of no.

He only learned of his error when his grandson’s travel was refused. “I couldn’t believe that they couldn’t see it was a genuine mistake and that a three-month-old baby would be no harm to anyone,” said the 62-year-old.

I can't help but wonder what genius thought of putting that question on the form to begin with. Do you suppose they thought an actual terrorist is going to check "yes"?

Words Fail Me

You really can't make this stuff up:

A 17-year-old is the target of legal attention by President Donald Trump’s general counsel over a site where kitten paws bat around images of President Trump’s face, according to a report from the New York Observer.

As the Observer reports, the site’s creator, named only as Lucy, initially made the site as a way to practice her coding skills. But after a few weeks, the site received a cease and desist letter from President Trump’s general counsel in New York. The cease and desist letter, which the Observer confirmed, mentions that “as I’m sure you’re aware, the Trump name is internationally known and famous.”

Seriously?

The site is KittenFeed.com. Give her a couple of hits.

Quote du Jour: You Can't Make This Stuff Up

From the Republicans' Policy Genius and all-around knight in shining armor, as relayed by Charles Pierce:

Paul Ryan said that insurance cannot work if healthy people have to pay more to subsidize the sick.

(Emphasis in original.)

And of course, that is how insurance works. That is how it's designed to work. That's the whole theory behind insurance.

Yeah, I believe he said that. Remember, this is the man who drew up a federal budget in which the numbers didn't add up. Amd now you know why the Republican "replacement" for the ACA is such a pile of doodoo. (I mean, aside from the fact that the Party of the Rich and Greedy drafted it.)

Via Digby.

For a fairly succinct summary of the mess, see this post at Mahablog.

The "News Conference": A Summary

Credit:  Clay Jones

Via Crooks and Liars. More cartoons at the link.

Signs of the Times

White Castle is taking reservations for Valentine's Day.

 

And Domino's Pizza now has a wedding registry.

Seriously.

Quote du Jour (Update)

From White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, defending this:

Also among the protesters was Shohreh Rahnama, of Bethesda, Md., whose 5-year-old son was detained for several hours at Dulles Airport after a flight from Istanbul on Saturday night.

Artiman Jalali was born in the United States and has dual citizenship with Iran. He was traveling back from visiting relatives with his cousin, 25-year-old Aida Mohammadi, a University of Maryland student and a green-card holder.

Rahnama said she waited for hours at the airport with friends and family and a growing crowd of strangers who came to support them and others whose loved ones were detained. Artiman and Mohammadi were finally released around midnight. “He was hungry and he was thirsty, and I could not see him,” she said.

“How can a 5-year-old be banned? Just because his parents are Iranian? We are American, too,” she said. “I almost died in that airport. I can say it was the worst day of my life.”

Spicer's reaction?

Asked on Monday whether Trump’s order — which critics have called a “Muslim ban” — should apply to 5-year-old children, White House press secretary Sean Spicer gave a clear answer: yes.

“That’s why we slow [the process] down a little,” Spicer said at the daily press briefing. “To make sure that if they are a 5-year-old, that maybe they’re with their parents and they don’t pose a threat. But to assume that just because of someone’s age or gender or whatever that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong.”

WTF? Five-year-old terrorists?

I'm reminded of a story from several years ago, an incident that happened at O'Hare: a disabled boy on crutches was forced to crawl through the security check point by the TSA agent -- no crutches, and his mother was not allowed to help him.

This is what happens when small people get their hands on some power.

Via the New Civil Rights Movement, which makes a point for those who think this is all about making Americans safe:

And remember, Jalali is a U.S. citizen. Apparently his citizenship does not protect him in the eyes of the Trump administration.

Wonderful. The White House is now stocked with bigots. Can we hear again about "the party of Lincoln"?

Update: I guess that applies to little old ladies in wheelchairs, too. Can't be too careful.

It seems that Trump is determined to remake this country in his own image: whiny cowards.

Coming Attractions

Another reason to be wary of hate speech laws:

A man in Kazakhstan has been sentenced to three years in prison for insulting Vladimir Putin, reports suggest.

Sanat Dosov, a businessman and activist, was found guilty of breaching a Kazahk law that bans the incitement of “national hatred” and will now have to serve his sentence in a penal colony.

Dosov is alleged to have posted negative comments about Mr Putin on social media, including one in which he shared an image showing the face of the Russian president alongside those of former communist leaders Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin. He also called Mr Putin a “fascist” and “terrorist” and said he was “ruining” Russia.

Under Kazakh law, it is illegal to incite “social, national, generic, racial, class, or religious hatred” or insult “the national honour and dignity of religious feelings of citizens”. The law – Article 174 – has been criticised for being dangerously vague and in recent months has been used by state officials to imprison critics.

Considering the thin-skinned would-be dictator who's about to become president of the US, we can be glad the whole "hate speech" thing never really caught on here.

Via Joe.My.God.

PC Amok

I'm old enough to remember when "politically correct" actually meant something, as used by the New Left in the 1970s and '80s, and it wasn't necessarily positive: I'm not real enthusiastic about ideological purity. Now that the right has bastardized the term so that it has no meaning any more: the right uses it to mean social norms that it doesn't agree with, which is most of them. There is an element of the far left that uses political correctness as a cue for outrage -- you know, those people who make a profession of being offended. This, though, has really got me scratching my head:

In a segment focused on the words of white supremacist leader Richard Spencer late Monday afternoon, CNN's chyron read: "ALT-RIGHT FOUNDER QUESTIONS IF JEWS ARE PEOPLE." 

It was a stunning summary of Spencer's comments, which CNN posted as reading:

"One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem," which The New York Times quoted today, noting that "golem" refers "to a Jewish fable about the golem, a clay giant that a rabbi brings to life to protect the Jews."

The CNN host called Spencer's words, "hate-filled garbage."

OK, this is fairly straightforward, but it's the chyron that generated the outrage.

People, including Jake Tapper -- it was on his show, although he was away at the time -- are up in arms. You can read some of the tweets at the link above, and then there's this post from Crooks and Liars, which has hardly any substance at all. There are more tweets, but if you check out the comments, what's missing is one very basic point: The chyron is quoting a white supremacist/Nazi leader whose words are, very rightly, condemned in the discussion. The quote is attributed. Seems perfectly within the standards of normalcy to me -- not the content, but the treatment, I should say.

So, I'm sitting here asking myself, why are so many people -- including the show's host -- outraged? I mean, not only the tweets but the comments from the C&L post -- not to mention the C&L headline, which reads "Jake Tapper Annoyed His Show Ran A Chyron Questioning If Jews Were People" -- make it sound as though CNN were endorsing this garbage when, in fact, the panel did just the opposite.

That, to me, is PC run amok.

If Wishes Were Nickels

From The Guardian:

President Barack Obama has warned Donald Trump he won’t be able to pursue many of his more controversial policies once he is in office.

In his final international speech before he leaves the White House in January, Obama said he could not guarantee Trump would not try to implement controversial positions he took during campaign but he could guarantee “reality will force him to adjust” how he approaches the issues.

Uh, Mr. President? You seem to assume that Trump has some contact with reality.

Today in WTF?

New Zealand starts to sound very good, and it's not just Trump:

Restaurants with the rather generic name “Lucky Teriyaki” in Washington are bearing the brunt online after a misunderstanding caused by a language barrier prompted the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office to post on their official Facebook page that the one in Sedro-Woolley wasn’t welcoming police officers to eat there.

On Thursday, four Skagit County deputies stopped at the Sedro-Woolley restaurant to eat. When they were paying their bill, they say the owner told them they were no longer welcome there because they upset other customers. But after Skagit County Sheriff Will Reichardt called for a boycott of the business, a local television station, KIRO-TV, sent a reporter to the restaurant with a Mandarin interpreter to ask them about the incident.

It turned out the restaurant owner and his son had not understood what was being said to them and didn’t intend to tell the officers that police weren’t welcome there.

OK, a misunderstanding because of a language barrier. So what the hell is the sheriff doing calling for a boycott? Get that? The sheriff, in his capacity as a government official, called for a boycott of a private business.

The did publish a follow-up which, frankly, is rather lame:

This morning I met with the owner of Lucky Teriyaki and his son. They apologized for the incident that made news yesterday, and expressed their desire to accept everyone to their business, including law enforcement officers associated with all offices and departments. I told both father and son that I was appreciative and grateful for their willingness to once again welcome everyone to visit their restaurant. And that it was my hope that this matter can quickly be put behind us all.

Thank you to all of the citizens who expressed support for law enforcement in Skagit County. Please accept that this matter has been resolved to our satisfaction, and we encourage everyone to patronize Lucky Teriyaki.

(Emphasis added.)

They never were unwilling to welcome everyone. They misunderstood your cops, your cops misunderstood them, and you shot from the hip. So who are you, John Wayne?

And, just to prove the level of intelligence in "real 'Muricans," get this:

“I couldn’t believe what your doing, if people don’t like the police, then the people in your dump are the same kind of people who ought to find some other country to live in,” wrote Ray Ginting on the review page for a Lucky Teriyaki restaurant in Everett, which is almost an hour away from Sedro-Woolley. “Who you gonna call if you get robbed ? Enough said – and i live 1,700 miles away. I think its time for some inspections, don’t you.”

Another man echoed the boycott call.

“Avoid this place at all cost,” Ross Zanzucchi wrote. “The fact that you won’t serve police officers is a total disgrace. Boycott this place and shut it down!”

Some tried to point out, to no avail, that it was the wrong business.

“You’ve got the wrong restaurant, Einstein,” one man wrote.

The Lucky Teriyaki in Tacoma, which is 100 miles away from Sedro-Woolley, is also facing a backlash.

“Is there a way too give negative stars,” wrote Paul C. on Yelp. “If I ever go back thru Tacoma, I will never give them my business. I hope that they are robbed and feel that need to call the police. ..hmm if I were part of the law enforcement in the Tacoma area of just tell them, well not not much we can do.”

It's instructive that these yahoos are immune to being corrected -- it's the mindset fostered by the more -- how shall I put it -- "conservative" elements in our country: What they "know" to be true is true, and that's that. Facts, as we learned from the Hobby Lobby* decision, take second place to belief.

* One of the key parts of that decision, authored by Justice Alito:

The owners of the businesses have religious objections to abortion, and according to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients. If the owners comply with the HHS mandate, they believe they will be facilitating abortions. . . .

One thing that is not mentioned in the opinion is the scientific consensus on the particular contraceptives:

 In an editorial, the New England Journal of Medicine called the decision "a setback for both the ACA's foundational goal of access to universal health care and for women's health care specifically", voicing concern that "in assessing the competing claims about abortion and birth control, the Court's majority focused on the religious claims of the corporations without discussing scientific or medical opinions."^[65] In JAMA Internal Medicine, Alta Charo wrote that "consistent with a disturbing trend among courts and legislatures to misstate or misuse scientific information in the context of women's reproductive rights and health, the Supreme Court's decision ignored the well-accepted distinction between contraception and abortion."^[66] The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, representing 90% of U.S. board-certified gynecologists, supported a bill to overturn the Hobby Lobby ruling.^[67]

Alito makes the point, amply supported by precedent, that the Court should not be adjudicating what constitutes a valid religious belief (although it has done so in the past). However, what this leaves us with is a ruling by the Supreme Court that says, in essence, belief trumps fact.

Idiot du Jour: Another WTF? Moment

I realize that Texas is not all sagebrush and teabaggers, but you have to hand it to them: they've elected one of the wingnuttiest state governments in the country (and when you consider the competition, that's saying something).

And now, in the wake of the Dallas attack, Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick:

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called protesters who ran away from the hail of bullets that rained down on Downtown Dallas on Thursday night "hypocrites" during an interview Friday on Fox News.

"All those protesters last night, they turned around and ran the other way expecting the men and women in blue to protect them. What hypocrites!" an audibly emotional Patrick said.

Somehow, I doubt that the thought uppermost in the protesters' minds was "The police will protect me." I'm sure it was more on the order of "Get me outta here!"

As Gov. Greg Abbott issued on open letter calling on Texans to calmly unite and come together, Patrick took a more combative tone. He blamed Black Lives Matter protesters for the violence against police and said people "with big mouths are creating situations like we saw last night."

Sorry -- I should have warned you to turn your irony meter off. And it is, of course, BLM's fault, because reasons. Or something.

If you want a take on just how unhinged Dan Patrick is, there's this little tidbit:

AUSTIN – Today, as acting governor, I am directing that the Texas flag be immediately lowered to half-staff in honor of the lives and public service of our slain officers and victims of yesterday’s tragic and senseless event.

I ask that you keep the brave men and women in law enforcement in your thoughts and prayers.

Apparently, no one told Gov. Greg Abbott that he'd been replaced.

I think Dan Patrick deserves a Through the Looking Glass Award.

Via Crooks and Liars.

Today in WTF?

OK, now I've heard it all: the latest wingnut theory is that the Statue of Liberty was modeled after a man:

According to an upcoming Discovery Family channel program, French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi may have used his brother as a model for the Statue of Liberty instead of his mother as most historians believe.

“Going through photos he had in his files of his brother, I started to look at the face more carefully, and it really did look to be like Liberty," author Elizabeth Mitchell told the New York Post.

As a point of reference:

The face is so stylized that it could be anyone -- quite deliberately so, I'm sure.

And now that I think about it, why am I wasting space on this? I mean, who cares who the model was?