Such an embarrassment

Gigantic flip flop

Trump 1.0 set a deadline for extricating the US from Afghanistan.  Biden pulled it off badly when the time came, and Trump (and everybody else) complained that Trump would have done it better.

Apparently, he has given up on winning the Peace Prize.

"We're trying to get it back, by the way," Trump said of Bagram on the final day of a trip to England. "We're trying to get it back, because they need things from us. We want that base back. But one of the reasons we want the base, is, as you know, it's an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons."

  USA Today

I didn't realize the Hamburglar went.

Kudos to someone in London

 

UPDATE 09/17/2025:

The images on the castle, where King Charles is scheduled to host Trump during his state visit to the UK, were labelled a “public stunt” by police. The projection was reportedly done by campaign group Led by Donkeys.

Arrests were made on suspicions of malicious communications following the “unauthorised projection”. Images of Prince Andrew , who has also been linked to Epstein, were displayed too.

[...]

Trump’s UK visit has already been met with a range of protests across the country.

  The National

President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, were greeted by the British royal family on Wednesday at Windsor Castle outside London, beginning a two-day state visit swaddled in the kind of pomp and grandeur that so thrills this president.

The state visit is part of an effort by the British government to engage with a president who has returned to office less interested than ever in maintaining the post-World War II order, and possibly divert him on key issues affecting the two nations. The fact that Mr. Trump has been invited to Britain for a second state visit — after his first in 2019 — is itself a rare diplomatic gesture that no other American president has enjoyed.

[...]

The Trumps traveled by helicopter from London to Windsor, where they were received by King Charles III. Mr. Trump and the King rode in a horse-drawn carriage through the Windsor estate as Queen Camilla and Mrs. Trump followed in a separate carriage. The state dinner at the 900-year-old castle will take place on Wednesday night. A number of Trump officials, friends and allies have traveled to England to attend.

  NYT

To be fair, the first time Trump was invited was under Queen Elizabeth, but shame on King Charles. I understand playing to Trump's vanity to get what you want out of him, but a royal visit is too much. Besides, he only acts according to petty grievances and whoever talked to him last. Somebody will come in behind you, so the thing to do is phone him on a regular basis.

“My relationship is very good with the U.K., and Charles, as you know, who’s now king, is my friend,” Mr. Trump said from the south lawn of the White House on Tuesday morning before departing for Britain. “And it’s the first time this has ever happened where somebody was honored twice, so it’s a great honor.”

[...]

“They say Windsor Castle is the ultimate, right?” he asked. (Buckingham Palace, where his first state visit took place, is undergoing renovations.)

[...]

After the royal extravaganza on Wednesday, the president is scheduled to travel to Chequers, the prime minister’s country estate, on Thursday to meet with Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The two leaders are expected to sign a handful of deals, and to hold a joint news conference.

[...]

Last week, Mr. Starmer fired his ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, over his ties to Mr. Epstein. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Starmer were expected to face questions about the ongoing Epstein saga.

Typical Trump with his nose in the air. The picture makes it look like Camilla has only one leg.

Hopefully, some British reporters will not be afraid to take on the Orange Ass.

Reportedly, the deal the Brits are most interested in making is help building nuclear plants.

UPDATE 09/18/2025:

Even though ABC bends the knee.  When will they learn?

Asshole in Chief

 

He's saying this standing with the EU President and the UK Prime Minister.  Such a dick.  Both Trump and Starmer, actually.  

You're going to have to imagine it.  It's not going to happen

Trump and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the deal for a 15% tariff on U.S. imports of EU goods at the U.S. leader's golf course in Scotland on Sunday.

But more important than the 15% tariff rate was the apparent commitment by the EU to massively ramp up energy imports from the United States.

The agreement calls for EU imports of U.S. energy, which currently are mainly crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG), of $250 billion a year for three years.

This is a delusional level of imports that the EU has virtually no chance of meeting, and one that U.S. producers would also struggle to supply.

Even if the EU did manage somehow to boost its energy imports from the United States to the $250 billion a year mark, it would also prove massively disruptive for energy flows around the rest of the world.

  Reuters

Continue reading for the analysis.

They don't particularly like him in Scotland

 

Liar in Saudi

 

He's lying about how popular he is and talking about "tariffing" other countries (isn't Saudi Arabia under tariffs, too?), but you'll notice he doesn't say anything about how rich we're getting because other countries pay the tariffs.  Makes me think he actually does know how tariffs work. 

MAHA

 

The likes of which "nobody has ever seen."

He may be talking about the cost of healthcare, but that's not what he said.  And, anyway, why is he telling this to the Saudis?

UPDATE 05/14/2025:

Wait. He told us that was us.

Trump visits DC

Donald Trump has insisted that an unannounced visit to Washington DC is a “working trip” amid a mountain of online speculation about the reason for his visit to the US capital.

  Yahoo

"Working" on weaseling out of a criminal indictment.

In an apparent bid to stamp out speculation about his activities, he said: “Working today at Trump Washington DC on the Potomac River. What an incredible place!

Speculation surrounding the former president began on Sunday when a video shared to social media by @PenguinSix, a freelance journalist based in DC, showed Mr Trump disembarking the Cessna Citation X jet he has used for air transport since leaving office before getting into a black Sport Utility Vehicle.

[...]

Citizens for Ethics, a Washington DC-based non-profit and government watchdog, meanwhile tweeted: “Look, it’s kind of weird that Trump flew to DC tonight and no one seems to know why. There’s a lot of speculation, so let’s just wait until we know more before jumping to conclusions. But it is weird.”

Jumping to conclusions is our best sport.

Walter Reed Hospital in D.C. has said it cannot confirm or deny reports that Donald Trump visited the facility on Sunday amid speculation surrounding the former president.

  Newsweek

If you won't tell us, I guess we'll just have to speculate.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Well, that's a possibility, but they GOP has to flip the House before that can be done.

Belleau Wood

This is the story of the battle that resulted in the American WWI cemetery in France that Trump refused to visit, opting instead to sit in his hotel room and watch TV while General Kelly went in his place.

The cemetery there was the expected site of a Trump visit on Nov. 10, 2018, to mark the 100th anniversary of the armistice to end World War I, which also coincided with the 243rd birthday of the Marine Corps.

Inclement weather grounded Trump’s helicopter, the White House said, preempting his visit. Other U.S. officials did attend.

A century and a few months before then, Belleau Wood was a living nightmare of muddy and rocky terrain, bristling with lurking enemies.U.S. Marines under [1st Sgt. Daniel] Daly were pinned down under fire and running short on ammunition. German soldiers in June 1918 had seized the initiative in a summer blitz toward Paris, and in the ledger of what can be counted, the enemy had it in spades: the guns and the numbers.

Daly, already a two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor in other wars, ground his boot heels into the French-countryside mud and ordered his men to attack.

“Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?” he walloped, instantly inscribing the words into Marine Corps legend.

[...]

U.S. commanders moved up two Army divisions to counterattack, including the 2nd Division — which had an unusual element of an attached brigade of U.S. Marines.

The soldiers and Marines settled along the wood and braced for the onslaught of several German divisions heading straight toward their line. Friendly troops evacuated, confusing the Marines, who were told by a French commander that they should retreat.

“Retreat, hell! We just got here!” said Capt. Lloyd W. Williams, according to some accounts, also becoming lore among Marines.

The battle began June 6, and a swirling mass of rifle butts, bayonets and artillery rounds churned through the wood for weeks as the Americans repulsed waves of German soldiers clawing for any foothold.

Part of the strategy, Lt. Clifton B. Cates, 24, would later write his mother, was to dislodge U.S. positions with chemical weapons.

“We were shelled all night with shrapnel and gas shells,” wrote Cates, a future Marine Corps commandant. “It was mustard gas and a lot of the men were burned.”

[...]

One Marine, Gunnery Sgt. Fred W. Stockham, was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for giving his gas mask to a wounded comrade whose mask had been shot off. Stockham died of gas poisoning.

[The battle began June 6.] All Germans had been driven from Belleau Wood by June 26. Four days later, the 6th French Army issued an order renaming Belleau Wood “Bois de la Brigade de Marine.”

  WaPo

Meaning Marine Brigade Woods, of course.

The U.S. forces and Germans both had about 10,000 casualties, mostly wounded, but including 1,811 American dead. And it transformed the Marine Corps into a force that stepped into grander battles after fighting smaller skirmishes for years.

[...]

The force “must be considered a very good one and may even be reckoned as storm troops,” one German commander said.

[...]

[US Marine] units that trace their lineage back to the fight still wear a fourragère, a braided green cord on their dress uniform that was originally bestowed by the French military.

Ouch

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Your tax dollars at work

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

How generous of him

"I’m going to Walter Reed to see some of our great soldiers who have been injured. Badly injured. And also see some of our COVID workers, people who have done such a great job," Trump said. "And I expect to be wearing a mask when I go into Walter Reed. You’re in a hospital so I think it’s a very appropriate thing."

  The Hill

All hail Caesar.

Scrambling ahead of November 3.  He must be really scared.

JFC

President Donald Trump traveled to Maine Friday to tour a facility that makes medical swabs used for coronavirus testing, but the swabs manufactured in the background during his visit will ultimately be thrown in the trash, the company said.

Puritan Medical Products said it will have to discard the swabs, a company spokeswoman told USA TODAY in response to questions about the visit.

It is not clear why the swabs will be scrapped, or how many.

[...]

Workers in white lab coats, hair nets and plastic booties worked at machines making swabs while the president walked through the room. Trump, who did not wear a mask for the visit, stopped at one point to talk with some of the workers.

[...]

"The running of the factory machines is very limited today and will only occur when the president is touring the facility floor," Virginia Templet, the company's marketing manager told USA TODAY in response to questions about the event. "Swabs produced during that time will be discarded."

  USA Today

Greata reporting, USA Today.  Maybe you could have asked specifically why they were tossing today's production.  (I shouldn't single out USA Today.  Every outlet says the same thing: unclear why.  And it looks like they just took USA's report rather than check it out for themselves.  Reporting isn't what it used to be.)

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Oh, FFS

The images emerged after a state attorney general called Trump a “petulant child” because he allegedly refused to wear the covering during a tour of a plant belonging to the Ford car company.

[...]

Trump toured a plant belonging to Ford in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which has been recast to produce ventilators and personal protective equipment to use in the coronavirus crisis.

When asked whether Trump was told it was acceptable not to wear a mask in the plant, the Ford executive chairman, Bill Ford, said: “It’s up to him.” The company had indicated prior to the visit that the president should wear a mask at the factory.

The Michigan state attorney general, Dana Nessel, had written to the White House saying it was the law in Michigan that everyone should wear a mask in such a setting – an indoor venue with many people in attendance.

“The president is like a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules. This is not a joke,” she told CNN, adding that Trump’s behaviour was “extremely disappointing” and that thousands of people in Michigan had died from coronavirus.

  Guardian

"It looked very nice.  I think I looked better with a mask."

We all think that.

They had to make him a special one with the presidential seal.  FFS.

Can you say "tinpot dictator"?

And...the photographer chose not to be named?  Fear of retaliation?  Definitely tinpot dictator.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Of COURSE he retaliated against Nessel.

Bet: He won't go

And he'll nasty-tweet Ford Motor Company.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.