Trump, August 2017: A great day at the White House!

mostly notable because Strongly Disapprove is at 50%

reading that signing statement on the sanctions bill, did Trump previously issue an executive order banning apostrophes?

full statement clearly not written by him

🐦[Signing statement accompanying the new sanctions bill pic.twitter.com/iygyaEZYgE🕸
— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) August 2, 2017🕸]🐦

fuckin' apostrophes, how do they work

stay sexy russkie rexy : )

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/02/tillerson-isis-russia-propaganda-241218

USS Rexxon, I presume?

You guys could maybe just, y'know, try to look like you're not in Russia's pocket. Just engage in a little meaningless kabuki to deflect the accusations that your every action seems to confirm. Or not. Just a suggestion.

Out of interest, given that most of the recent attempts to "counter Russian propaganda", like the PropOrNot fiasco, seem to have targeted American journalists with no affiliation to Russia, and the US already spends millions on things like VoA and Radio Free Liberty, how would you like the Trump administration to be spending that cash?

i've been sort of amazed at how brazen they are with the russia stuff in the face of all the accusations. it does seem to get their base hot & bothered, but it's just so goddam weird.

xpost It's the Purloined Letter strategy: they're being so blatant and brazen that no one will believe what's going on is what it appears to be. And by "no one" I mean "most reasonable people," because these would-be bandits are idiots.

I'm not sure what the US should be doing different with Russia, re: spending or counter propaganda and whatnot, but they should most certainly not be making Russia's life easier.

BREAKING: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced the Department of Justice is investigating why black people can say it but white peop

— Lana Del Raytheon (@LanaDelRaytheon) August 2, 2017

Soon to be followed by an intensive study on exactly whose lives matter.

Sanctions are not making Russia's life easier. Promising that Georgia will get made a member of NATO is not making Russia's life easier. Making the Chairman of the Atlantic Council ambassador is not making Russia's life easier. All of which happened this week.

If people are arguing that the Trump administration should be using $60m to go after media narratives seen as 'pro-Russia' it makes sense to at least think through what that might look like.

Rasmussen has mailboxhead at -24% today

― Neanderthal, Wednesday, August 2, 2017 9:08 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gallup's at 36/60 too

Sanctions are not making Russia's life easier. Promising that Georgia will get made a member of NATO is not making Russia's life easier. Making the Chairman of the Atlantic Council ambassador is not making Russia's life easier. All of which happened this week.

Exactly, but all of these things are happening despite Trump, not because of him.

xxpost It's more that their willingness to just leave that money on the table rather than engaging in a little anti-Russian theater and blowing it all on 70" flatscreens in every State Dept. office or whatever is one of those things that make you go 'hmmm'.

it's the RAISE Act, aka SPEAK ENGLISH

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/trump_announces_support_for_republicans_bill_limiting_immigration_to_people_who_speak_english

what about people who speak ruble?

Cool, so I guess Trump has to leave the country now?

In all seriousness, though: fuck you Trump, and may the reaper greet you ASAP.

that bill is going to die in the Senate, thankfully

what about people who speak ruble?

two-scoops is just trying to swing an understanding between uncle sam and mr. putin, that's all. no big deal. why won't stupid jealous elitist sore loser liberals just chill?

what about people who speak ruble?

"Hey, leave me out of this!"

http://uploads.neatorama.com/images/posts/287/65/65287/1379479080-0.jpg

33% approval rating on Quinnipac: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/AUG_2_US_PRES+BP.pdf

starting to get tired of all the winning

*sigh*

http://www.thedailybeast.com/boy-scouts-execs-deny-calling-trump-to-praise-national-speech

White men are divided 47 – 48 percent

fucking white men

^^

As noted above, my daily supply of outrage dwindles sometimes, but that whole Boy Scouts thing is so infuriating. Make a ridiculously inappropriate speech, get chastised for it, then come back and claim the Boy Scouts called it the best speech ever. (Of course it was.) It's just so stupid, and so easily disproven, but he can't stop Trumpeting his own greatness.

nice to see it get rebuked so quickly. he rattles off quotes like this in every interview..."so and so called me to tell me how great of a job I did", when it's like...nobody who doesn't work for him ever talks about him like that in public, it's clear that these conversations are all Art of the Deal bullshit that obviously never happened, but (until now) he hasn't really gotten called out on it.

The trend in the answers to "do you think Donald Trump is intelligent" is most interesting thing in the Q poll. pic.twitter.com/8sZXvhJZnV

— Joel Wertheimer (@Wertwhile) August 2, 2017

Look at this week's "strongly approve" number https://t.co/2g9Un0bz6L pic.twitter.com/oha00tenKM

— Ariel Edwards-Levy (@aedwardslevy) August 2, 2017

xp what I'm sure many think is more interesting is that 74% of people thought he was intelligent in the first place. "YUHH FIYAD!" That's what the majority of Americans have known him for.

WTF @ he fact that the number of people saying 'yes, Donald Trump is intelligent' hasn't fallen below 50%!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fuckit, I'm gonna get in on that gas huffing thing I'd been dissuaded from trying. Ho one will know the difference, apparently.

Misspellings would suggest I have begun my huffing in earnest.

the absolute numbers there are sad, but "rich = intelligent, got elected president = intelligent" is a pretty easy mistake to make if you're not paying attention

well, being rich is merit-based (SMAHT) in many ppl's deranged minds xp

where is the "do you think voting for Trump reflects well on your intelligence" Q/A

100% yes on that one, I would imagine.

I feel like, of all the positive personal qualities in that poll, "intelligent" is the one I'd be MOST likely to ascribe to Trump. Cunning is a kind of intelligence. The ability to ad lib in front of a crowd is a kind of intelligence. Look at Huckabee's humiliatingly awful attempts to produce Trumpesque tweets and you can see that what he's doing requires a certain cognitive skill.

Trump is deeply and aggressively ignorant but I think that's different from being unintelligent. I think he just hates knowing things and hates people who know things and has kept himself ignorant on purpose.

I was all set to pooh-pooh any news about changes in Turmpian polling, because (a) most polls said he'd lose and (b) his floor has seemed pretty stable since May. Think of all that's happened, and look at the stability of this graph:

http://i.imgur.com/RScNlIi.jpg

That said, there does seem to be some change this week. So maybe it's sinking in. More dramatic in caek's post than here, because caek is posting separate tracks for strongly.

well, repeal/replace failure happened

just read that Heller's challenger next year put out a "Repeal & Replace Heller" ad lol

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/344903-dem-ad-repeal-and-replace-dean-heller-over-healthcare-vote

I feel like, of all the positive personal qualities in that poll, "intelligent" is the one I'd be MOST likely to ascribe to Trump. Cunning is a kind of intelligence. The ability to ad lib in front of a crowd is a kind of intelligence. Look at Huckabee's humiliatingly awful attempts to produce Trumpesque tweets and you can see that what he's doing requires a certain cognitive skill.

We're talking about a country where most people's primary educations are from McDonalds ads.

The ability to ad lib in front of a crowd is a kind of intelligence.

But he can't do this at all; he simply repeats the same phrases with different subjects and direct objects over and over. I'd bet that if you did a frequency analysis of his speeches, he doesn't have a working vocabulary of more than 500-600 words.

Blasting through every single establishment safeguard to be elected president is a pretty significant achievement. He was insightful enough to match his (mostly vile) message to the concerns of the moment, so much so that he was able to win despite a series of profoundly reckless mistakes during the campaign. I'd say this means he is "smart," sure.

He's a weird guy, extremely ignorant, and at this point seemingly mentally ill in some way, but he isn't devoid of ability.

he's not intelligent

he's dumber than Dubya