MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2026
...we Blues help MAGA win? Whatever you think of the PM's politics, we admire the cut of her jib.
In what may be his latest attempt at distraction, our sitting president made an odd claim about the Italian PM. Inevitably, his claim sounded condescending, insulting.
Presumably, no one believed his statement was true, but there he went again! As you can see in this news report, Prime Minister Giorgi Meloni shot back hard (in translation):
PRIME MINISTER MELONI (6/CC/26): Certain things deserve an immediate response.
Donald Trump’s statements are completely fabricated / made up. I am frankly stunned / appalled.
I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves this way toward his own allies. It’s not the first time this has happened, after all.
I don’t know why [he[ behaves this way, the Italian prime minister said. With regret, we're prepared to guess that everybody else does!
This latest idiotic feud continues to unfold. It began with a weird remark by Trump—perhaps with his latest attempt to create a distraction from the unpleasant news of the world.
We like the way the PM shot back She even offered this::
There is one thing he must remember: Italy and I do not / never beg.
The PM pushed back hard! Whatever you may think of her politics, we like the cut of her jib!
At any rate, everyone knows why the president behaves the does. In the end, it may track back to cognitive decline—or it may trace back to cognitive decline layered atop decades of untreated medical / mental health disorders.
Presumably, that's why he behaves the way he does. Presumably, that's why he stages his endless, brain cell-destroying claims, including the recent claim that ABC's Jonathan Karl has been involved in attempts to vandalize the Reflecting Pool:
Trump Claims ‘Vandalism’ Caused Reflecting Pool Debacle, Accuses ABC Reporter of Trying To Make It Worse
President Donald Trump is now claiming that the problems with the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool were caused by unidentified vandals.
The president has taken a personal interest in the renovations and frequently raised the topic during press gaggles. Since the job was completed, the pool has been plagued by algae blooms. This week, visitors to the pool began to notice paint peeling away from the bottom. The algae has given the pool a distinct green hue instead of the intended American flag blue. Some tourists have reportedly been ripping off pieces of the paint to take as souvenirs.
Trump addressed the problems on Friday night in a post on Truth Social.
[...]
For good measure, Trump accused ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl of “trying to rip the rubber off of the surface."
Implausible claims about the alleged vandalism have continued through the weekend, complete with at least one actual arrest by the Park Police. The president's implausible claims about Meloni have also continued, with the typical insults thrown in.
(Significant) cognitive decline is always a personal tragedy. So is (serious) mental illness. We assume that everyone knows that some such tragedy is possibly at play here—a tragedy which is also quite dangerous.
With regret, we can't offer any such excuse for the "journalism" we saw performed on Saturday morning's Fox & Friends Weekend, when the program's three co-hosts enjoyed some good solid fun regarding the newly opened Obama Presidential Center.
Full disclosure! Fox & Friends Weekend is an imitation of life. And so, after praising the sitting president's superb aesthetic eye, the friends started in on the Obama building.
The mockery went on and on, with the typical insults thrown in. In their first hour on Saturday morning, the friends praised the new color scheme on the new Air Force 1, then transitioned as shown:
CAMPOS-DUFFY (6/20/26): Well, I think [the new Air Force One] looks good. I still like the baby blue. But you know, this looks beautiful, and the waving flag on the back. It's sharp.
JENKINS: It's sharper than President Obama's Presidential Center, which opened up on the South Side of Chicago—
HURT: [Laughter]
JENKINS: —which has been panned as a bit of an ugly structure.
In fact, the building's external appearance has been panned by many, not all, observers. Though never, perhaps, like this
CAMPOS-DUFFY (continuing directly): It would have been like a death star—
JENKINS: What do you call it?
CAMPOS-DUFFY: I call it the North Korean watchtower. Charlie likes to call it a garbage can.
HURT: It does, because it looks like a public park, and it's in a public park. So it looks like one of those trash cans in a public park. You just walk in and shove your entire, all your McDonald's garbage, like right through the panel and then you just drop it.
The nimrods were off to a very fast "cable news" start.
Of the three, Griff Jenkins knows better. Charlie Hurt? Probably not. And Campos-Duffy loathes Obama. Of that there can be little doubt.
Hurt, of course, was simply fellating President Trump, who had initiated the "garbage can / dumpster" imagery with this earlier thoughtful critique:
Trump Imagines Obama Library Will Be a Giant Dumpster Surrounded By Homeless Tents
President Donald Trump has a depressing vision for what former President Barack Obama’s new presidential library will morph into.
The president posted an AI-generated image of what he believes Obama’s library will look like in 2036—a giant grey dumpster with a big black bag of trash spilling out of it, surrounded by homeless people and tents. Trump’s post showed the homeless milling around the ugly building with a dreary Chicago skyline in the background.
Trump’s Truth Social post was captioned: “The Barack Hussein Obama Library, in 10 years, when fully matured!”
And so on from there. Charlie was simply advancing Preferred Presidential Imagery as he kissed the president's asp.
At any rate, that's the way the trio of journalists started their thoughtful discussion. Their performance went on for roughly four minutes. During that time, as you can see, the trio of friends described the presidential center as:
This really hideous building (RCD)
That disgusting building (RCD)
This monstrosity (RCD)
A giant trash can (Hurt)
Driven along by Campos-Duffy, the architectural critics were IN!
Along the way, Campos-Duffy complained, two separate times, about the fact that someone with such bad aesthetic taste as Obama "had the gall" to have "taken jabs" at the more accomplished President Trump during his speech at the opening of the center.
That said, what jabs had Obama taken at Trump during his 34-minute speech? Eventually, producers played the four alleged jabs you see below. We haven't omitted a word of what Fox viewers were shown:
PRESIDENT OBAMA (6/20/26): ...in the newly independent United States, there will be no kings or lords, no serfs or subjects, but only citizens....
...economic disruptions, mass protests, backlash against mass protests, political conflicts that have shaken the very foundation of our democracy...
The good Reverend was under no illusions about the perils and obstacles facing the abolitionist cause...
...the same spirit that will see America and the world through its present trials.
There you see the shards of speech, yanked completely out of context, which were offered to Red American viewers as Obama's insolent "jabs" at Trump. Those were the most offensive "jabs" producers could cull from the full-length speech.
In that first excerpt, Obama was talking about the goals of the founders in 1776. The second shard—with the phrase "a terrible pandemic" omitted—was yanked from a longer list of challenges the nation has encountered in the decade since he left office, four years of which occurred under President Biden.
The third alleged jab was a reference to the abolitionist views of Reverend Theodore Parker—back in the 1850s! The fourth shard was so totally ripped from any context that it made little sense as a free-standing statement.
Poor Campos-Duffy! She was appalled to think that a man like Obama had taken so many jabs at a brilliant aesthete like President Trump!
Lost to memory on this show—in this imitation of human life—was the sitting president's astonishing Truth Social post in which he himself had compared the Obama Center to a garbage can.
Also forgotten by Campos-Duffy was an earlier jab like this:
Trump Posts Video Depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as Apes
Campos-Duffy is paid large sums to disappear moments like that.
This Fox & Friends Weekend pseudo-discussion rolled on and on, with Hurt supplying the peals of laughter and Campos-Duffy calling the names. This imitation of a news discussion finally came to an end with the sated Campos-Duffy happily saying this:
CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right. Well, that was fun, you guys! It's just not fun for the people of the South Side who have to wake up every morning and see that thing!
Simply put, the lady can't stop. She's amazingly genial among her own, like this with respect to others.
These are the fruits of our nation's so-called "democratization of media." In this case, these are the fruits of demonically partisan "cable news" broadcasts in which every word is designed to please viewers living in one of our tribal Americas.
For the record, the trio of friends didn't mention the insult aimed at Michelle Obama right there on the White House lawn the previous Sunday night.
A UFC fighter, playing the fool, had directed an insulting remark at Mrs. Obama. For the record, versions of that same insult are routinely directed at the former first lady on the Fox News Channel, but no one in Blue America bothers to say a word.
In this case, the insult was unloosed right on the White House lawn. On this one occasion, the overpaid stars of Blue America somehow managed to stir themselves to respond.
Maya Wylie is very sharp. She appeared on Deadline: White House last Tuesday, where she joined Nicolle Wallace is discussing what the UFC fighter had said.
Tomorrow, we're going to show you what Wiley and Wallace said. For today, we've given you a small taste of the evolving world of our failing nation's increasingly clownlike public discourse.
With that in mind, we restate an important question:
We've lost two elections to President Trump. There is absolutely no assurance that we'll regain the House this fall (although it may be that we will).
For reasons we cited last week, electoral politics may get even harder in the years to come.
Tomorrow, we'll look at what Wylie said about the moronic remark the UFC fighter made on the White House lawn. But for today, we'll ask you again:
Is there anything we Blues may be inclined to do which may perhaps be helping to drive this ongoing disaster along?
Tomorrow: What Wiley (and others) said
Nothing has ever been truer than Trump telling Democrats "We couldn't have done it without you."
ReplyDeleteAs many criticisms anyone has of Trump, they're always going to be worse.
This comment illustrates the Republican tendency to blame others for their own mistakes. Look at the way Trump is blaming vandals for his own failure to renovate the reflecting pond properly!
DeleteSomerby routinely advances and promotes right wing talking points here, daily. Today's is the idea that whatever is wrong with Trump and the right, we Democrats are responsible, we made it happen. And look at the cringey little right wing troll echoing Somerby's message.
Earth to Somerby: WE blues didn't vote for Trump. Trump is in office because too many right wing morons voted for him. That is the whole story. The election was as close as it was (historically close) because we Democrats worked so hard to overcome the cheating by the right: (1) hundreds of millions given by Musk to Trump's election PACs, (2) Russia flooding social media with bots that echoed Trump's messaging and encouraged the sick and twisted on the right to get out the vote, (3) lying liars telling their side that Haitians were eating pets and immigrants were voting because Biden had an "open border" (he didn't), (4) voter suppression, especially in areas where lefties vote, (5) sabotage of Harris campaign efforts, such as Rogan denying her an interview, (6) smearing Harris as a "ho" who slept her way to the top in politics, and buying the press with threats and bribes to ensure negative Biden and positive Trump coverage, including NY Times (Biden is too old they said). In a fair election, Harris wins. What could the Democrats have done to prevent Musk from donating so much money to Trump? Been equally corrupt?
Here is what the architects of Obama's Library said about its design:
ReplyDelete"To fans, it’s a beacon, especially when seen at night. To critics, it’s an obelisk, or “Obamalisk.” “We felt the responsibility to make the building feel commensurate with what we believed was the power of his presidency,” says Billie Tsien, a principal of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, designers of the center. “It is obviously a landmark presidency.”
Contemporary architecture isn’t new to presidential libraries—consider the triangular tower of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston by architect I.M. Pei—but it tends to attract criticism for breaking with more subdued styles. The architects of the Obama center explained that its form followed function as they built vertically to minimize its footprint in the park and that museum exhibits don’t need windows.
“We’ve talked about it being a lantern and four hands,” says architect Tod Williams. “It’s all these things, but it’s what happens inside that’s most important.”
Why does Somerby never correct the lies told on the right? He lets them stand and then criticizes we blues for contributing to right wing shameful behavior. Somerby never seems to wonder, much less ask, why so many on the right loathe Obama, despite his calm and appeasing approach to conflict. It is too little and too easy to say that Trump is merely jealous of Obama's successes. Racism is a major driver of the animosity toward Obama. It is why the hate continues long after Obama has left politics. It is why hate is directed toward Michelle, who never did anything to hurt anyone.
Somerby's refusal to acknowledge racial hatred on the right is part of why I do not believe he is any kind of liberal but a shill for the right. This idea that racism is over and there must be legitimate reasons to go after Obama after all these years is a right wing talking point, an example of Somerby advancing right wing memes.
Somerby keeps putting off talking about Wiley. He still has not told us what she said or why he is going to discuss her at all. Criticism of someone's words must start with a quote of what was said, not these daily hints and innuendo about her too angry racial response to the lie that Michelle Obama is a man, widely circulated on the right.
Meanwhile, there is an ongoing vocal criticism of the press for not considering Trump's obvious cognitive decline as the same kind of serious problem as the folks who went after Biden, who was still capable of making sound judgments despite his stumbling gait. Somerby was a main proponent of the "Biden is too old" attacks, from both the right and left. Somerby has never acknowledged that he was wrong and that he put Trump into office by furthering those last minute attacks on Biden's campaign. That is why we are in this mess, and Somerby is as much to blame as anyone else for his mistaken understanding of the difference between normal aging and dementia.
What kind of old fart throws away the White House's sterling silverware (in the trash) when he cannot seerm to get his fast food wrappers and empty potato chip bags into the wastebasket? But Biden was too old! Does Trump merely hate America and want to spit on the People's White House, does he not care how much silver costs the taxpayers? Was he raised in a barn, or is he showing disrespect for his office and our nation? I think all of the above, but being senile, he probably isn't consciously aware of his actions either. And that means he shouldn't be president.
ReplyDeleteWhen will Somerby tell the truth? He is too busy attacking Wiley for being black and feeling the brunt of our nation's racist hate to care what Trump is doing while he slimes Obama's presidential library on social media.
But, it makes some sense that a president who doesn't know what goes in the trash and what doesn't (silverware, classified documents) wouldn't be able to tell the difference between innovative architecture and a very very very big dumpster. This is Trump's problem, not the Obama's.
Has Somerby seen the circle of dead grass that used to be the South lawn after its desecration by that UFC spectacle? The Vandal in Chief did that to the people's property, not Antifa.
"which may perhaps be helping to drive this ongoing disaster along"
ReplyDeleteWhat specific disaster is Somerby referring to? This remark comes after he discusses the press and Wiley. Does Somerby think the press put Trump into office? I might agree with that, but not in the way Somerby means.
We on the left did everything we could to oppose Trump, three times (and before that, when he was attacking Obama and calling for the Central Park 5 to be lynched). You don't oppose racism by stopping anti-racist campaigns. We Blues had successfully reduced racism in our society before Russia recruited Trump and manipulated our electoral system to put him in office. Putin has since whispered in Trump's ear to undo all of the gains and all of the strengths of our nation's democracy and economy, our prosperity. We Blues didn't do any of that. The right, guided by Putin, did that. And no, we are not going to agree with Somerby that WE deserve any blame whatsoever for what Trump has done. Harris would be a much better president, we voted for her, and we are not to blame for what Trump has done.
The press is corrupt. Why doesn't Somerby admit that?
ReplyDelete"Whatever you think of the PM's politics, ...."
ReplyDeleteThey suck!