You can keep your hat on

Jeez Louise—further to my post yesterday, you may recall this tweet:

Well, it turns out that the Kleptocrat repurposed the text for a post on Instagram, showing him looking intently through the brim of his $40 hat at a meteorological screen, probably in Austin.

No doubt it’s his idea of what being presidential looks like, which would be why he appended the tweet text and tossed it out to the Web.

Only—Jeez Louise. Here are some gems from but a single thread on Twitter, starting here:

And then it just flowed. Several around the hat:

A few positing what Li’l Donnie Two-Scoops might be saying or doing whilst looking presidential:

One or two surprised that the Kleptocrat is on Instagram:

And a few rejigging the screen:

Surprised there aren’t more of this genre, tbh—seems like low-hanging fruit.

And I’ll leave you with this little earworm:

You’re welcome.

The horror and the devastation

A few images from the Kleptocrat’s response to the devastation in south Texas this week. I don’t think I need to add much commentary—the pictures, as they say, talk plenty.

Primarily, this visual conversation is around whether or not Li’l Donnie Two-Scoops responded appropriately as a president. Or even as a human being.

Spoiler: No on both counts.

What is bizarre—but, sadly, no longer surprising—is how Klepto-supporters chose to defend his behavior. Not one, but many. Viz.:

Now, their umbrage is somewhat vitiated by the fact that their Great Satan was not, in fact, president in 2005. (I have not, so far, seen any of them retort some kind of time-stretching rebuttal to those who’ve pointed this out. But it’s early innings yet.)

Here’s another one, directed at the Knuckle-Dragging Set’s second-greatest target:

The fact that—again—the Obamas were not in the White House in 2005 is again a trifling consideration. Evidently so is the fact that the photo is of Condi Rice, and not Michelle Obama. I suppose one strong, articulate, educated black woman looks like all strong, articulate, educated black women?

Now, here’s some reality—which, of course, shall never penetrate the protective shield of ignorance and animus that surrounds the KDS:

And the actual president, post-Katrina:

And President Obama after Superstorm Sandy:

Juxtaposed against the Kleptocrat in his visit to Corpus Christi:

And, speaking of Li’l Donnie Two-Scoops’ post-Harvey Texas photo ops (modeling his merch), here’s where he touched down: Corpus Christi and Austin. Not only is neither of these places Houston, where the hurricane hit, they are hundreds of miles away from the scene of the catastrophe. (Houston to Corpus Christi: ~200 miles; Houston to Austin: ~170 miles.) He flew to Corpus Christi, and then 200 miles from Corpus to Austin, just to avoid having to look at the actual devastation.

This did not, of course, deter him from announcing that he'd seen up close the "horror and devastation" of Harvey.

Oh, well—this itinerary did spare Melania the risk of getting those white sneakers muddy. So, there’s that.

Okay, but it wouldn’t be a Kleptocrat moment without Twitter snark. So here you go:

And, finally, when he arrived in Austin, here’s what awaited him:

Disaster relief--not

You will be aware that the Kleptocrat traveled to south Texas yesterday, primarily because he couldn’t stand a natural disaster detracting from headlines he holds to be rightly his. And because he could, he took his current trophy wife with him—possibly to show those famously vapid Texas trophy wives that they got nothin’ on him.

I happened to catch a couple of photos of the Klepto-couple as they were leaving the White House. Two things struck me: Melania was heading off to a flood disaster in cigarette slacks and stilettos, and Li’l Donnie Two-Scoops was clutching his latest butt-ugly $40 crap cap in a death grip.

Well, as you might expect, SoMe went ballistic about Melania’s footwear. I reckoned somewhat mildly that she might take advantage of the flight on Air Force One to maybe change her shoes, and indeed she did: she emerged wearing sneakers, which were a definite improvement over the stilettos. Although they were white, so possibly not the best choice for an area that might be expected to be muddy. But still an improvement.

(She has to wear a cap that says FLOTUS? Seriously?)

Her husband was still a douchebag, however.

Anyhow, I’m not going to go into the low-rent performance the Kleptocrat put on in Corpus Christi—other than to say of course he made it all about him. He always does.

However, a couple of memes emerged from this little junket, so Imma just gonna leave these with you.

Last of the summer whine

I popped by Trader Joe’s yesterday afternoon to pick up some milk, and I was kind of nonplussed to find the parking lot as full as on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I mean, it’s not that jumping on Saturday mornings; I barely got a place to park.

(And, seems like all attempts to park between the parallel demarcations were lost somewhere. Honestly—people just splayed their Range Rovers and Kias any which way and abandoned them to go in the store.)

When I got to the checkout, I asked Linda, the cashier, and she said that yesterday was first day of school, so every mom in Reston was apparently taking the chance to shop sans spawn for the first time in three months. I asked if wine sales spiked, and we had a few giggles about Mom opening a second bottle when the little ones came home screeching about all the amazing things that happened at school.

I bring this up, because the BBC published this list of what a certain Kleptocrat might have shared to the class about what he did on his summer vacation. (Of course this twit is on vacation all year round, but we’ll limit it to the last three months for the sake of the construct.)

You have to imagine him standing at the front of the class, hogging the entire show-and-tell time and pouting when the other kids would rather check Instagram than listen to him.

Also—this list doesn’t mention all his golf trips, or bankrupting the Secret Service on account of all the golf trips. Nor does it mention him suiting up for photo ops of him in a completely empty conference room “leading a call” on Hurricane Harvey (totally a product placement for his latest run of butt-ugly trucker hats) while contributing nothing to the mobilization of relief agencies to the scene. 

His vast expanse of pristine table was at Camp David, and it was his first visit to the presidential retreat. My take is that John Kelly, his career USMC chief of staff, frogmarched him there for the weekend to avoid the optics of his fat arse waddling around a golf course while South Texas went under for the third time. He did tweet several times; bizarre non-sequiturs that were focused on what an amazing storm Harvey was (will we at some future time be treated to assurances that he has the best hurricanes, the biggest storms in history?) and yet another reference to how big his 2016 election win was.

He threatened to fly out there today for more photo ops, probably in hopes that he’ll head fake Robert Mueller and his team of investigators who every day are turning up more slime from the Kleptocrat and his minions. As if the people of Texas have not already suffered enough.

Man—I should have bought a half-gallon of wine instead of milk.

Gratitude Monday: the dog days

You know—we are well and truly in the dog days of summer, and yet for almost a week we here in the District They Call Columbia have had the most beautiful weather. Instead of temperatures and humidity adding up to a triple-digit heat index, it’s been more like high 70s-low 80s and practically no humidity at all.

I worked from home Wednesday through Friday, waiting for Comcast (don’t even ask) and a flock of electricians to come give estimates on various fixes needed about the place. And—mirabile dictu—I had the patio door and upstairs windows open all day, every day; no air conditioning needed.

It was wonderful listening to the birds out by the feeders during the day, and to whatever it is that makes night noises. (Even though at times I had to increase the volume on my TV to drown out the critters.) If you have not experienced a summer along the Mason-Dixon Line, you don’t know what a blessing this is.

So that’s my gratitude for today. Even though I’m still waiting for three of the five quotes to come in, I’ve had nearly a week of perfect summer weather.