Man, Stevie Wonder has a better grasp of the optics of all this more than these turkeys.
Pence is doing his level best to tacitly demonstrate distance from the Trumperfuck Amanglation without actually making any open statements against Trump. I don’t like Pence and think that in his own way he might be an even worse chief executive than the short-fingered vulgarian currently occupying the office (figuratively if not literally), but aside from the revelation of using an AOL email account (seriously?) to conduct state business, he really hasn’t had any major missteps or gaffs. And while using a private email account is irregular, he claims to have followed the letter of the law in making all communications using the account available for public record, and so sidestepping the worst part of the Hillarymail blunder by giving both the appearance and reality of being obstructive. I think Pence would be happy to take over, clear house of everybody with the taint of Trump on them, and fill them back up with the ranks of hyperconservative reactionary professional political advisors who are ostensibly qualified and willing to fall fully in line with the neoconservative GOP agenda that is dominating Congress.
Stranger
The list of undocumented aliens who are on Trump’s list of “criminals” released from sanctuary cities includes one released by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s office. The Sacramento County Sheriff is a right wing Republican and a strong Trumpista.
To be fair, were I a responsible Secretary of State, I might very well be scared shitless of Trump meeting the Chinese president all alone while I’m off in Europe. Much as I might like to repair relationships with our allies in NATO, possibly preventing a disastrous trade war (or actual war) with China might take precedence.
Not that I particularly think that’s what Tillerson is doing here, but it’s certainly plausible.
Oh I doubt it. Trump seems to subscribe to the idea of imperial spheres and has no time at all for an expanding liberalism grounded in a framework of laws. The US is the center of the most integrated global society ever and in his view that’s a weakness.
I’d think the other way. I’d want plausible deniability when it comes to light that Trump has made a bunch of deals with China, giving them whatever they want in exchange for more favorable positions for Trump branded crap. I’d want to be able to say “wasn’t at that meeting. See - here’s me, in Brussels with NATO. No idea he was selling off the farm.”
Is it really implausible to think he’s going to Russia to smooth over some troubles with ExxonMobil’s projects there?
Trump sicced his lawyers on a teenage girl whose website had images of kittens scratching a picture of Trump.
Judging from the article the lawsuit is over the unauthorized use of Trump’s name and image. Does that have any possible legal merit? He’s a public figure by any definition.
Is he going to send cease and desist letters to media outlets telling them they can’t use his name or image in news reports he doesn’t like?
Or is this just another example of Trump trying to crush somebody who annoyed him through legal costs even though he doesn’t have a valid case?
This, I think. In any case the Streisand effect from this is going to be yuge. Big league.
I give it a week before there are similar sites all over the web hosted on servers outside of the US.
Not really.
Given the amount of attention paid to every single thing that Trump says and does, i don’t think the Streisand Effect is even relevant to this or any other situation that he’s involved with.
It will cause a lot of people who never would have thought about making a website where you can bat a picture of Trump around with kitten paws to think about doing it now. That is the Streisand effect.
But the principle still doesn’t work in Trump’s case.
The whole Streisand Effect revolves around the idea that an attempt to suppress publicity ends up leading to massively increased publicity. Whether or not more people think about creating stupid little Trump-bashing websites, it is basically impossible for Trump to get any more publicity than he already has. Hence my argument that it makes no sense to talk about a Streisand Effect in this case.
It’s an extension of the term you pedantic twit. It has also come to mean any case where making a fuss about something causes you to get even more of what you’re fussing about.
Yeah, this will lead to heaps more people making fun of Trump, because no-one except this one girl from San Francisco was doing that before!
No it will lead to heaps more people making websites where you can bat his image around with kitten paws.
Well, it is obvious that the kittens were Meowslim terrorists.
Brigitte Gabriel, founder of anti-Muslim organization ACT for America, posted that she was going to be in a White House meeting, and asked her followers for topics she could discuss. When asked about it, the White House (heh, I accidentally typed “Shite”) denied that they had any knowledge of her. Until she posted pictures of herself at the White House. At which point the White House commenting.
I’m beginning to enjoy this presidency now, just because it looks like it won’t last long.
I mean, I know there aren’t many ways for a term to end prematurely, but it’s a shitstorm already with just self-inflicted wounds. What’s going to happen when real events (dear boy) occur?
Hope this doesn’t make me complacent though.
Behold the Streisand effect