Vox's Dara Lind writes about the very specific, odd reference demagogue racist Donald "Rump" Trump has been making about women being smuggled into the US:
Donald Trump’s rhetoric about the border is built on a lie: the idea that the US-Mexico border is a lawless place where American citizens are constantly in grave danger, and where criminals are able to smuggle drugs and people without any risk of apprehension. That big picture — as Vox and the rest of the media has made clear again and again — bears very little resemblance to the truth.
But the claim about women gagged with tape and packed into vans has attracted particular attention because it’s quickly become a centerpiece of Trump’s rhetoric — according to the Post, as of Friday he’d made 10 references to it in 22 days — without anyone knowing exactly where Trump got it from.
Border experts have told the Post and other reporters that they’ve never heard anything like what Trump’s talking about.The Border Patrol has now been on a mission to find out what Rump is talking about, hustling to find "evidence" to back up the moron's fever dream.
(Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has a plausible explanation as to how this particular bug entered the big brain of the Very Stable Genius: "I wonder if someone at the White House is showing Trump stock footage and insisting to Trump that it's real." Steve provides a clip that could've been used to fool the fool.)
Michael Tomasky writes about the prospect of "Nancy and Chuck" owning Rump for the duration, and looks back briefly on the Rump manhood wall debacle:
It’s worth chortling again for a few paragraphs over how ridiculous and weak they made Trump look. Remember, this is a man who spent years, going way back before he started campaigning in 2015, saying over and over and over how easy being president would be. Bring the Chinese to heel? Very easy. Make Middle East peace? Please. Get Mexico to pay for the wall? Piece of cake. He’s been saying these things in books and television appearances for years.
I can’t imagine who believed him—and if anyone out there was a big enough idiot to do so, that’s their problem. But the point is that he believed it. He actually thought being president would be easy (and the way he does it, watching TV for hours a day and calling Sean Hannity and ignoring 95 percent of what the government under him does, it sort of is, but that’s another matter).
For two years, it was kind of easy. But in January, he met reality.And as we all know, reality bites (if you're Rump).
Steve Benen wonders if Republicans have learned anything about Rump as a result of the Trump shutdown fiasco:
[W]hat’s of interest at this point is what, if anything, Republicans have learned from their recent experience. Both Senate Republicans offered specific and unambiguous predictions based on what they assumed to be true about the president, his plans, and his capacity for following through.
Do they now know better? Shouldn’t they?Benen goes on to list 5 things about Rump that they should realize by now. "Should."
With that in mind, consider some of what Trump’s GOP should understand now, even if they were unclear before the president’s surrender on Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, on the keeping- Putin- happy front:
The U.S. Treasury Department on Sunday officially lifted sanctions on businesses tied to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
The department said in a news release that the Office of Foreign Assets Control lifted sanctions on EN+ Group Plc and EuroSibEnergo JSC, noting that each company has reduced Deripaska's "direct and indirect shareholding stake in these companies and severed his control." [snip]
Democrats in Congress attempted to block the move. But Senate Republicans were able to defeat the measure and prevent it from advancing to a floor vote earlier this month.
The agreement the Treasury Department reached with Deripaska included having him cut his direct and indirect share ownership for each company below 50 percent.
But The New York Times reported last week that Deripaska and his allies are set to retain majority ownership the energy company EN+.There is no way -- none -- that this is not a cave to Putin, fully supported by the rotted out Republican Party.
Finally, please do yourselves a favor and check out Infidel 753's link round- up for much more than we have the energy to dig up here. It's the best round up of "interesting stuff" on the planet.
