Author Archives: Jeff Porten

If you carry pepper spray to a protest, you are not a protestor; you are intending to commit violence. Protestors carry only defenses. Joshua Eaton on Twitter

I’m not sure if this is a hack or a parody, but it’s twelve kinds of awesome. Don’t miss the store. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR MIKE PENCE

So considering that one of the top things not being discussed much yet is whether China might get involved with our threats against the DPRK, I spent some time Googling our ambassador there. Shocker 1: we *have* an ambassador there. Shocker 2: he actually seems qualified.

Trump picks Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad — a ‘friend’ of China’s leader — as Beijing ambassador

I find it fascinating that immediately after reading an op-ed about the importance of engaging with conservative values, this headline comes up about how half of all Republicans are fine with dictatorship so long as they’re in charge. Analysis | In a new poll, half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 election if Trump proposed it

Oh, please, spare us the horseshit. Last week you tried to beatify Kelly as a moderating influence who would control Trump. Now it’s one day after we threatened a nuclear attack, and Kelly is a magical apolitical Tinkerbell.

Of course Kelly has politics. He’s willing to work for Trump. He’s spent his life in the military. He is a sentient American adult.

Since January, you’ve been desperate to see a grown-up in the White House to report a new narrative, and just like Trump, you’re clinging to military daddy figures. Stop it. You should know better. Even in North Korea crisis, retired general John Kelly is an apolitical force in a White House divided by ideology

Peter Cohen pointed out to me the terrifying body language here. Arms crossed, tight in. Defensive, self-protected. Watching again on a larger screen: his facial expressions, especially after he finishes talking. I don’t know what they mean, but it reminds me of a kindergarten bully.

North Korea will be met with ‘fire and fury’ if it continues threats, Trump says

Hey, looks like Trump just threatened World War III completely by accident. Did Donald Trump accidentally threaten nuclear war out of a penchant for hyperbole?: Analysis | Toronto Star

If you’ve got friends or family in South Korea, this is a good time to suggest they get the hell out of there. I’m skeptical of the insanely rapid progress reported in DPRK, but I’m *more* concerned about the motives of the people leaking this information.

Trump needs a war. This is the best casus belli he’s going to get. And frankly, he’s likely to start one even if he doesn’t mean to. North Korea now making missile-ready nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say

You can stop the 21st century now, we’ve already made its most important discovery.

“The popsicles—which are now sold in shops in Kanazawa, Tokyo, and Osaka—can reportedly retain a solid shape even when blasted with a hair dryer for five minutes, and will still taste cool to boot.”

Mental Floss on Twitter

It wasn’t the kiss so much, it was the points in the video when you can see Trump moving in twice before he actually kissed her. At first, I didn’t think he was aiming for her cheek. George Takei

At first I was horrified that Trump appears to be receiving National Security for Dummies, but then I remembered that he never showed capacity for retaining any information whatsoever. Exclusive: classified memo tells intelligence analysts to keep Trump’s daily brief short

A few parts of the Trump transcripts I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere, like the bit where we threaten to invade Mexico.

Some mostly unnoticed things in the Trump call transcripts | The Vast Jeff Wing Conspiracy

Some mostly unnoticed things in the Trump call transcripts

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A few things in the unexpurgated transcripts that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere.

1) As noted by the Washington Post, Peña Nieto always calls him Mr. President or… (that other combination of title and last name that I haven’t written or uttered since January, and I’m not going to start now). Trump calls him Enrique, every time.

I could see this as a way of trying to establish bonhomie as a negotiating tactic—but Trump is famously a guy who lets almost no one call him Donald. The “first name basis” thing generally involves reciprocity, at least among us mere mortals. So is this like the W thing where he bestowed nicknames as a dominance show? Or just a dominance show in general (I get to use your first name, but you don’t use mine)? In any case, it’s more than a bit weird with heads of state, and utterly unnecessary.

2) I’m skipping the many examples where Trump appears to be grossly ignorant which I’ve seen reported elsewhere. That still leaves a few.

It’s kind of a big deal if we start abrogating NAFTA and slap a bunch of import taxes on things that are currently duty-free. And here Trump says two things at the same time: on the one hand, he’s “happy” to just go ahead and tax Mexican imports (at least, until the inevitable lawsuit reminds him that NAFTA is a treaty obligation); on the other, he talks about reciprocal taxation if other countries tax us first. That’s… not the same thing at all.

3) Always a good idea to encourage goodwill in other nations by saying their military is more cowardly than ours is, but that’s what Trump does. So—we’ve already got quite a bit of DEA and other law enforcement cooperation going on with Mexico, but that’s not what Trump says. He offers to send in the military. As in, a threatened invasion? An invasion putatively at the invitation of Mexico? I mean, invading Mexico under any circumstances sounds batshit, but when you mention “military” in nearby context with “there are things you must do which you’re not doing,” it’s generally considered a message.

4) I know Trump has a tendency to exaggerate, which is a nice way of saying “lie his ass off.” Still, it’s really bizarre for him to refer to the “billions and billions and billions” that the drug lords are making, and then say, “some people say more.” Really? That would be trillions, seeing as how multiple billions are nicely covered already.

5) Once again, I am utterly boggled by Trump, this time when he says that a trade deal with Mexico will make him “almost” a father of the country. No. For that, you need a time machine.

6) “It is you and I against the world, Enrique, do not forget.” Um… you’re saying this to the guy whose nation you just threatened to slap a 35% tax on. And maybe invade. And why are you against the world, exactly? This is either very scary or very weird.

7) On to Prime Minister Turnbull, or I guess, just Malcolm is fine. I’m sure he doesn’t mind. The odd thing here is that everyone said at the time how this was really vituperative, but this call doesn’t seem much more angry than the conversation with Peña Nieto. One gets the impression that an audio leak would be a lot more damaging than the transcript.

8) Alright, so apparently the sticking point here is that we made an agreement last year to take up to 1,250 refugees that Australia is holding (one might say “concentrating”) on Nauru. Trump keeps saying 2,000, Turnbull keeps saying 1,250; 750 people really makes that much of a difference? But then Trump says he’s heard up to 5,000, presumably from the voices in his head, to the guy who actually negotiated the agreement.

Here’s the bizarre thing: it’s an own goal. Turnbull makes clear: the agreement is for the US to consider allowing the refugees to come, using whatever screening process we wish. If we decide they’re all “bad people,” Turnbull says it’s perfectly fine to turn them all down. Trump seems to think they’re bad people because they’re on Nauru, despite hearing Turnbull say 10 seconds earlier that they’re perfectly fine and just caught up in Australian immigration rules.

It’s like the Paris Agreement; since the entire thing is completely voluntary, Trump could have said, “We’re staying in, but we’re changing what we’re doing.” Sure, anyone who knows a damn thing about it would understand it was just as shredded, but idiots in the media and on Trump’s side would have given him a ton of accolades. He withdrew for no reason. And he started a rift with Australia, for no reason. Again, it’s boggling.

“This is going to kill me,” he said to Turnbull. “I am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to take 2,000 people.” Trump urged Mexican president to end his public defiance on border wall, transcript reveals

“It’s no wonder people worry what would happen were these guys to face a real crisis. But that’s just the problem. The crises are here. And the fact that neither the president nor the American people seem to know it may be the greatest crisis of them all.” How Trump’s White House is making global crises even worse