Following on this
WASHINGTON — President Trump declared on Monday that he had led a “record-setting” pace of activity and been one of the most productive presidents in American history. …“I will say that never has there been a president, with few exceptions — in the case of F.D.R. he had a major Depression to handle — who’s passed more legislation, who’s done more things than what we’ve done,” Mr. Trump told a cabinet meeting as reporters looked on. “We’ve been about as active as you can possibly be and at a just about record-setting pace.”
Donald Trump – putting the Notably Rare in the State of Exception since January 2017. God help us all.
{ 47 comments }
Bill Benzon 06.13.17 at 12:02 am
How long before 45 has them kneeling a kissing his ring?
Schumer responds:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/12/politics/chuck-schumer-parody-video-trump-cabinet/index.html
Keith 06.13.17 at 12:28 am
What a fantasy,
The GOP are just so unpatriotic. They could get rid of this semi senile corrupt bigot. Instead they invent excuses for him, so they can have huge tax cuts for the Wealthy. In the same way all the media and lots of the Parliamentary Labour Party have been cutting the back out of Corbyn as they are shit scared of any leader who might redistribute income and wealth to help the poor or question military adventurism abroad. Reality must take a back seat for class advantage.
alfredlordbleep 06.13.17 at 12:38 am
Time to ignore Trump B. S.
Senate Republicans may have something all too momentous for his signature before the 4th. They are hell-bent.
Belle Waring 06.13.17 at 12:52 am
Yea he’s trolling. It’s like a reddit red pill board is president.
Sandwichman 06.13.17 at 1:18 am
Trump, ABT: Always Be Trolling
Glen Tomkins 06.13.17 at 1:29 am
No, Trump is not trolling you. Trump has dementia.
Alan White 06.13.17 at 1:40 am
Then he had each Cabinet member talk about how awesome he is–just like The Apprentice. Everyone in that room should be ashamed–but they aren’t capable of that as some mammals are, having surrendered their vertebrae to become squirming worms some time ago.
bartkid 06.13.17 at 2:19 am
“It’s only a fraction.
“[Whispers:] Nine-tenths is a fraction, right?
“[Yelling:] It’s only a fraction!”
Pavel A 06.13.17 at 2:36 am
Is this late-stage Capitalism?
J-D 06.13.17 at 3:33 am
Trump is just trolling you, with a few exceptions.
nastywoman 06.13.17 at 4:40 am
”Even kindergarteners recognize just how revolutionary “Wonder Woman†is.
On Sunday, “Wonder Woman†director Patty Jenkins tweeted a screenshot of a list of “cute Wonder Woman related things†that happened in one kindergarten classroom after the superhero film hit theaters. According to Jenkins’ tweet, her producer received the bulleted list from someone who works in a kindergarten class.
“I work at a kindergarten and this is a collection of cute Wonder Woman related things that happened within a week of the movie being released,†the top of the list reads.
“Cute†doesn’t even begin to describe the list ― insanely, aw-inducing adorable is more like it.
The list includes 11 bullet points, all describing different interactions between kindergarteners about Wonder Woman and her awesome Amazonian powers.
“There is one girl that refuses to listen to you unless you address her as Wonder Woman,†one of the points reads. Another (truly amazing) interaction included in the list reads: “A boy threw his candy wrapping in the floor and a 5-year-old girl screamed ‘DON’T POLLUTE YOU IDIOT, THAT IS WHY THERE ARE NO MEN IN TEMYSCIRA [sic].’â€
derrida derider 06.13.17 at 5:26 am
Whaddya mean trolling? What a thing to say of someone who has managed to build the Mexican wall, extended free health insurance at no cost to everyone, built beautiful new steel mills and car factories all over the rustbelt, settled the middle east forever, created harmony between Europe and Russia, and sent all the Chinese back to their rice paddies, all in the past 100 days? Of course it is going to take anything up to another 100 days to implement the yuuge tax cuts and yuuge infrastructure projects and beautiful big army that combined will ensure the budget is balanced and the debt paid off.
The pony for everyone may have to wait till his second term.
Bruce B. 06.13.17 at 5:28 am
I go back and forth on how much he believes some of this stuff and how much is bullshit in the On Bullshit sense. When it comes to claiming achievements, I’m sort of leaning in the direction of belief these days, as part of his dementia.
MFB 06.13.17 at 7:00 am
I’m starting to feel that late capitalism and late-stage dementia are pretty much the same disease.
RichardM 06.13.17 at 7:43 am
Or early-stage feudalism?
bad Jim 06.13.17 at 7:50 am
Trump, notably, takes exception to rare steaks, preferring them done to a crisp and covered in catsup.
SusanC 06.13.17 at 8:17 am
Of course he’s trolling, that’s the platform he was elected on.
Over in the UK, we had a guy with a bucket on his head standing in the general election against the prime minister. It’s a fine British tradition. To get into the house of commons, you have at the very least to be more popular than the guy with a bucket on his head.
reason 06.13.17 at 9:00 am
Pave A @8
No I think it is the end of the US democracy. The system is completely broken (it has been in need of fixing for quite a while).
bos 06.13.17 at 10:48 am
Does this mark a change from an era of American Exceptionalism to an era of American Few-exceptions-alism?
rea 06.13.17 at 11:11 am
Is this late-stage Capitalism?
No, it’s late-stage dementia.
nastywoman 06.13.17 at 12:42 pm
Ups – I think my last comment was a mix-up I actually wanted to comment our ‘Dear Leader’ as I deeply regret that I every – EVER said something bad about the ‘F…face’.
He is too cute to be believed – and Wonder Woman is nothing – ‘NUTHING!!’ compare to our ‘WonderHUNK’!
Stephen Calhoun 06.13.17 at 2:52 pm
#8 post late-stage Capitalism?
If the plutos make their dreams come true, then do we have a Constitutional Convention to look forward to? This would be for the purpose of locking in the gerrymander and the tyranny of the deplorable minority via reverting to state legislatures election of Senators.
If not some such insanity, how do the plutos plan on defending their advantage? Maybe, hide the pendulum?
William Timberman 06.13.17 at 2:52 pm
He’s not trolling you, he’s mooning you. The Moon King, him, and incidentally, let us all take note of how blessed are the members of his gabinetto now forced to reveal just how venal all their pretensions always were. A spectacle for the skeptical of all ages.
bob mcmanus 06.13.17 at 3:42 pm
Is this late-stage Capitalism?
Umm, “stage” is kinda a trigger word for contemporary Marxians, flashing back endless brutal arguments, possibly including the hatchet in Trotsky’s head. The expression is “Late Capitalism”
LFC 06.13.17 at 3:46 pm
Actually, Trump has been quite “active” substantively via executive orders. Unfortunately, with notably rare exceptions, that activity has been bad.
LFC 06.13.17 at 4:04 pm
Glen Tomkins @6
No, Trump is not trolling you. Trump has dementia.
This is tiresome and it contributes nothing to these discussions except to inform people that you think Trump has dementia. Since you’ve said it before, anyone scanning these threads is already probably aware of your opinion on the matter. (Istm your possession of a medical degree does not turn your opinion that Trump has dementia into an incontestable fact.)
nastywoman 06.13.17 at 4:10 pm
– or how did Reine Priebus -(another hero of mine) ‘express’ it: I hardly can thank the US President for the opportunity and the blessing to serve his agenda’…
(impetus mine) – in firstly seriously saving Europe from ‘His Kind’ – and I’m pretty sure – he also – sooner or later will save our homeland – forever – from himself – too!
And I really can’t stress that important point – enough…
politicalfootball 06.13.17 at 4:25 pm
I go back and forth on how much he believes some of this stuff and how much is bullshit in the On Bullshit sense.
I have come to believe that bullshit, as you use the term here, is a form of epistemology for many people. Trump, in his own mind doesn’t discern the truth, but rather creates it.
You believe something and therefore say it. For Trump, the process is reversed.
Suzanne 06.13.17 at 4:26 pm
@6 & 18: You are too charitable. Trump’s conduct looks to me like the behavior of a guy who has the majority party by the short hairs and knows it. He may well be a little out of it, but he’s not that out of it, and he’s quite capable of getting lawyerly when it’s called for.
Keith 06.13.17 at 6:17 pm
Bill Benzon.
He is less Julius Caesar and more Caligula. The former had actual policies to help the masses, while the latter was merely possessed of venal insanity. No doubt they are kissing his ring already. His bum must be swollen.
A manly Republic is declining into an effete plutocracy. Soon it will be Persian court ritual and proskynesis. At least some of Alexander’s generals tried to assassinate him when he went that far.
Ogden Wernstrom 06.13.17 at 6:33 pm
Pavel A:
I think so.
A couple of years ago, Chris Hedges was already making a good case.
reason:
It could be both. “US democracy” does seem quite likely to go the way of Capitalism. I liked something Vonnegut said (in reaction to President Dubya’s claim that we were spreading “American-Style Democracy” in Iraq):
Dr. Hilarius 06.13.17 at 6:43 pm
I don’t know if Trump is suffering from dementia, his actions are just as consistent with a lifetime as a bullshit artist surrounded by lackeys who never contradict him.
alfredlordbleep 06.13.17 at 11:35 pm
And after the whooping and photo ops on the occasion of House passage of Trumpccare. Just imagine.
Trump B. S. here is well-aligned with Party agitprop, present and future, eh?
Yankee 06.14.17 at 12:58 am
It’s empirical confirmation of the Arrow Theorem. Ergo, democracy is not an adequate solution to politics for humans.
MattF 06.14.17 at 3:56 am
One recalls the line about Kurt Waldheim: ‘Spineless, but he has an exoskeleton’.
Pavel A 06.14.17 at 4:53 am
@18
Neither I nor a large majority of the electorate can tell the difference between the two.
Bruce B. 06.14.17 at 12:16 pm
politicalfootball: You believe something and therefore say it. For Trump, the process is reversed. Something like that, yeah. Though in cases I’ve been able to observe close up over time, it’s more like…for them there’s no gap between “what I want” and “what is”. They don’t have the concept that for the Right People, there can be things they’d really like but can’t work because of realities beyond their control. That kind of clash between desire and reality only happens to the Wrong People, and they deserve it because they’re the Wrong People.
anon1 06.14.17 at 8:03 pm
And yet he is POTUS and none of us commenting here have any national power what so ever. Sure sucks to be us, don’t it?
Glen Tomkins 06.15.17 at 12:37 am
LFC,
I’m sure glad I’m not in charge of keeping you excited, when you find it merely tiresome to contemplate the finger on the nuclear button being controlled by a demented mind.
The fact that Trump’s deteriorated mental function is important to understanding everything Trump says and does, does not make that deterioration less worthy of mention whenever his word and deed comes under discussion. Maybe you think astronomers who write about the orbital dynamics of the solar system should quit all that tiresome talk about gravity. Come up with something new to talk about already, astronomers!
faustusnotes 06.15.17 at 2:16 am
Bob McManus, dropping “stage” from “late stage capitalism” and calling it “late capitalism” doesn’t magically disappear the fact that you’re talking about a stage of capitalism. Is this really how marxists get around how crappy their theory is?
Pavel A 06.15.17 at 3:51 am
@32
I think Chris Hedges can just keep reposting that article over and over again, and it would just become more prescient with every passing day.
Errata:
I meant @20, not @18. >_<
RD 06.15.17 at 4:03 am
LFC:
We mention DT’s dementia so that when it flowers,we will not be surprised.
He will turn a corner, evident to all.
He will lose control in public.
His stalking of HRC at the debate came close.
This Cabinet sycophancy thing is this-
“Yes Uncle Don. Everything is OK! It’s OK. Really.”
nastywoman 06.15.17 at 4:25 am
@38
‘Sure sucks to be us, don’t it?’
No – it’s ‘great’ not to be Trump and absolutely beautiful not to be ‘POTUS’!
Suzanne 06.15.17 at 4:41 pm
@43: “We mention DT’s dementia so that when it flowers, we will not be surprised.”
You may well be correct, of course, but surely there is not much point in repeating the observation, once or thrice made, and I have a feeling that that if anyone here forgets at the time of blossoming that you, Glen Tomkins, and others were quick off the mark with the diagnosis, you will not be shy about reminding us.
J-D 06.16.17 at 12:30 am
Ogden Wernstrom
Chris Hedges wrote:
Well, der. Nothing is eternally sustainable. Everything comes to an end. My life will come to an end, and so will yours. Capitalism will come to an end; the human species will come to an end; the planet Earth will come to an end. Also, the Presidency of Donald Trump will come to an end, and the United States of America will come to an end.
It is reasonable to use the expression ‘late in life’ to refer to people who are over ninety years of age, because we have a lot of evidence bearing on the question of how long people live. We don’t have a similar body of evidence bearing on the question of how long capitalism lasts or will last.
Called? Called?
Is it not also written? —
nastywoman 06.16.17 at 5:14 am
‘I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah; and even though he may tarry, nonetheless, I wait every day for his coming.’
and I believe he is already here – and living and working on a Swiss Alp – and about ‘capitalism’ – he has it all under control – as he makes the perfect cheese and people come from far and wide -(even from the US and Australia) to study his system of ‘cheese capitalism’.
(and please don’t ask – where and who he is – as he really doesn’t want to have more ‘busyness’)
reason 06.16.17 at 7:44 am
I find it interesting that Trump started musing about firing special council Mueller and then a couple of days later Mueller announces that Trump is being investigated. Co-incidence? I think rather not. Then Trump went and really putting his head in the noose by tweeting that he didn’t obstruct justice (meaning he just tried to obstruct justice perhaps), which means that he would be making a liar of himself if he then sacked Mueller. I know Trump has no sense of truth at all, has he also no sense of strategy or even of legality?
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