The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making

[CalMeacham]

@Johnny_L.A

It doesn’t matter whether they believe facts. If their beliefs are counter to facts, then their beliefs are wrong. Believing that the Earth is flat doesn’t negate that fact that Earth is a spheroid. Either the belief is wrong, or the facts are wrong. Since the facts are not wrong, the belief is wrong. They can argue until they’re blue in the face, and their belief is still wrong.

Sir Thomas More: There are some men who believe the world is round. There are others who think it flat. It is a matter capable of question. But if the world is flat, will the King’s command make it round, or if round, flatten it?

–A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt

You can believe whatever you want, but, in the end, there is brute Reality that can potentially smack you down, regardless of what you’d prefer to be the case. Although people can still refuse to believe it.

[Johnny_L.A]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Great. Let me know how your conversation with one of them goes.

E pur si muove.

[Greathouse]

@Ukulele_Ike

Oh, you can do that with anyone’s disjointed ramblings. Just cut it into lines and stanzas and publish it as “free verse.”

I have a copy somewhere of the “Poetry of Phil Rizzuto,” where someone took his bizarre, non-sequitur-filled baseball commentary and did the same thing. It was faintly amusing, whereas I don’t think the Trump book would be.

I love how they pasted his head onto Dylan Thomas’s body for the cover photo, though.

Did anyone notice just how small they made is hands on that cover photo?

[dasmoocher]

@aurora_maire

What he said was: “I was down there also — but I’m not considering myself a first responder. But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you,” he said.

As usual, he has to make whatever is going on about him. What a lying piece of sociopathic shit he is.

You’re not the only one to notice this:

Trump commemorates 9/11 first responders by making it all about him
It was incredibly gauche. It was classic Trump

On the campaign trail in 2016, he went even further than he did on Monday and said during a rally that he “helped a little bit” with efforts to clear the rubble. But not only is there no evidence that Trump participated in recovery efforts, there’s also no evidence he spent time near ground zero in the week following the attack.

I can’t possibly imagine any situation where Trump would get his hands dirty with physical labor. “Hands are dirty” with Russian money laundering, sure, but clearing debris?"

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Johnny_L.A

E pur si muove.

Still talking to me and not a flat farther, I see. I’m not the one you need to convince of anything; I’m already on your side. Let us know how your conversation with a flat farther goes.

[Boycott]

His son Don Jr is really detestable.

[Johnny_L.A]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Still talking to me and not a flat farther, I see. I’m not the one you need to convince of anything; I’m already on your side. Let us know how your conversation with a flat farther goes.

Maybe were speaking at cross purposes. I’m just saying that ‘beliefs’ can be ‘wrong’. It doesn’t matter what a True Believer believes, nor how adamantly he defends his beliefs. Using Flat Earthers as an example, I am only showing that what they believe, and thus their ‘belief’ is wrong. No need to argue with them because they are True Believers. Their belief is wrong, whether they believe it or not.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Johnny_L.A

Maybe were speaking at cross purposes. I’m just saying that ‘beliefs’ can be ‘wrong’. It doesn’t matter what a True Believer believes, nor how adamantly he defends his beliefs. Using Flat Earthers as an example, I am only showing that what they believe, and thus their ‘belief’ is wrong. No need to argue with them because they are True Believers. Their belief is wrong, whether they believe it or not.

What insight does that give you into the people who oppose you? :dubious:

Now try looking at it the way I laid it out and decide on a course of action.

[Johnny_L.A]

@Snowboarder_Bo

What insight does that give you into the people who oppose you? :dubious:

Now try looking at it the way I laid it out and decide on a course of action.

It says that True Believers will not abandon their beliefs. The only course of action is to try to reach people who are merely ignorant (people who thought Trump would be a good president) instead of True Believers (people who believe Trump is a good president). Ignorance can be fought. Wilful ignorance can’t.

[bobot]

@Boycott

His son Don Jr is really detestable.

Yeah.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Johnny_L.A

It says that True Believers will not abandon their beliefs. The only course of action is to try to reach people who are merely ignorant (people who thought Trump would be a good president) instead of True Believers (people who believe Trump is a good president). Ignorance can be fought. Wilful ignorance can’t.

The red sentence is not accurate, IMO, because you said “the only course of action”; I think there are other courses of action available.

The green sentence, when filled out to “willful ignorance can’t be fought” is similarly mistaken, IMO. Willful ignorance can be fought, and sometimes must be. It’s just that that fighting won’t involve many words.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

Senator Ron Wyden:

“Ratcliffe is the most partisan & least qualified individual ever nominated to serve as DNI. The sum total of his qualifications appears to be his record of promoting Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories … and calling for prosecution of Trump’s political enemies.”

[Snowboarder_Bo]

What more could Trump ask for in a cabinet member?

[running_coach]

@Snowboarder_Bo

What more could Trump ask for in a cabinet member?

Cash?

[asahi]

@Walken_After_Midnight

Senator Ron Wyden: “…and calling for prosecution of Trump’s political enemies”

Well of course. Why else do we think he’s pushing Dan Coats out and this guy in? To collaborate with Barr to put Democrats in jail.

I mean, this is grade A+ level Recep Erdogan shit we’re talking about here, but this country is just asleep at the wheel.

[JohnT]

… sez the person with his foot constantly on the brakes…

(Sorry, but if you’re gonna lead with your chin like that… )

[Guest-starring_Id]

@not_what_you_d_expect

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Seriously, this is just so bizarre.

https://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Poetry-Donald-Trump-Canons/dp/1786892278/ref=asc_df_1786892278/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312089030079&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7730650852219818016&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9032475&hvtargid=pla-415511088626&psc=1

It’s a book about the beautiful poetry of Donald Trump.

I’m not reading it.

Not quite as pukey:

Came across this New Yorker piece about dissent through doilies.
Probably paywalled, so…

[Macy] Weymar, who is petite and scholarly, with blond hair and large brown eyes, founded the Tiny Pricks Project last year. Her first piece was a floral seat cushion from her grandmother’s house, onto which she stitched “i am a very stable genius” in yellow thread. Since then, she’s stitched four hundred and fifty Trump quotations onto different pieces of fabric. After she opened the project to the public, she began receiving stacks of embroidered Trump quotations by mail, on handkerchiefs (“oh my god. this is terrible. this is the end of my presidency. i’m fucked.”) and doilies (“total disaster”) and Mickey Mouse paraphernalia (“freaking idiots”). She has them pressed and photographed, and then posts them to Instagram, where she has thirteen thousand followers. Weymar stitches a Trump quotation nearly every day—in meetings, on airplanes, while watching movies with her children (she wears a headlamp). “I basically feel like I’m wasting time if I’m not stitching,” she said. “The goal is to have two thousand and twenty by 2020.”

[asahi]

@JohnT

… sez the person with his foot constantly on the brakes…

(Sorry, but if you’re gonna lead with your chin like that… )

I chuckled.

[Railer13]

@Guest-starring_Id

Not quite as pukey:

Came across this New Yorker piece about dissent through doilies.
Probably paywalled, so…

It is paywalled, but here’s a link to another article about this:

https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/tiny-pricks-project-lingua-franca-1572865

[eschereal]

@not_what_you_d_expect

I just couldn’t get past the title! I like poetry, damn it!

There is a handy trick for dealing with things of that sort. You just reframe it. For instance, in this case, the subject becomes domestic feathered livestock. A book of the ShitGibbon’s Fowl Poultry.