MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 2026
Ossoff gets it right: Has anyone ever explained the tolling of the bell which seemed to occur when President Trump snuck off one plane out of Turkey, finding his way to another?
Was actual danger involved? If not, why did the president subject himself to potential ridicule by sneaking away on a catering truck?
If so, what the bell explains the trio of apparently minor aides who accompanied him on his flight, with Rubio, Bessent and Miller all left on the doomed jetliner. along with much of the press?
Speaking of the press, has anyone ever tried to explain the call of the roll on those flights? Hegseth yes, Rubio no? What was up with that?
At any rate, executive assistant Natalie Harp was one of the intended survivors. According to the Wall Street Journal, Harp "plays an integral role in Trump’s Truth Social activity." She frequently "logs onto the president’s account—at times outside of normal work hours—and posts batches of Trump-approved messages," the Journal reported in May.
Yesterday, Jon Ossoff—Fox has him up by 13 in Georgia—electrified Blue America with an angry insinuation about the president and Harp.
For an initial report by Mediaite, you can just click here. We'll suggest that you look at the videotape of Ossoff's remarks. As shown, his angry presentation starts like this:
OSSOFF (8/16/26): There's something uniquely despicable about lying a nation into war. Treating citizens as fools, and those who serve as pawns.
Aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, they've now been at sea for 240-plus days without a port call. It's a Navy record. And still—and still—
And still, they serve with excellence.
And still, they serve with excellence! God bless the sailors, Marines, aviators and all aboard the United States Ship Abraham Lincoln.
AUDIENCE: Cheers
His insinuation came after that. We're not saying it was wrong.
But first, he remembered to praise the men and women who serve. He had us as a very major force right there, when he (very convincingly) did that.
A favorite quote: A favorite quote from My Antonia:
"Ain't it wonderful, Jim, how much people can mean to each other?"
“electrified Blue America with an angry insinuation about the president and Harp. ”
ReplyDeleteHe seems to have electrified snowflake Red America, not blue America.
Also, he really didn’t insinuate anything, just made a factual statement. Also, Ossoff seems to be in control of himself, and not angry.
But Somerby’s job seems to be to give credence to right wing outrage.
Somerby, thumb, scale.
DeleteRinse and repeat.
For quite some time I viewed the criticisms of Somerby for what were called right wing adjacent comments as a bit histrionic, but with posts like this one, I’ve come around. The detractors were always right.
DeleteSpeaking about angry and insinuation:
ReplyDeleteYou smug, performative liberals just love the self righteous anger of people like sayed and Ossoff when they get down in the gutter with Trump. You disgust me.
Now don’t call me names.
You’re all that matters to me.
Delete"But Somerby’s job seems to be to give credence to right wing outrage."
ReplyDeleteThere isn't a single sentence in todays post that gives credence to right wing outrage.
He accused Ossoff of making an “angry insinuation”. He made no insinuation and he wasn’t angry. It’s the right wing who are up in arms about it. They’re the angry ones, but Somerby says Ossoff is the angry one. Hence he places the source of the anger on Ossoff, and not on the right wing and their reaction to it. And that’s how you give credence to the right wing’s reaction to Ossoff’s statement.
DeleteI see a pattern. El-Sayed is prickly, Ossof is angry.
DeleteThere are quite a few descriptions of Trump's rage fits on the internet. They sound out of control. This seems like right wing projection again.
Somerby's buyer's remorse over Trump is delightful.
ReplyDeleteTypical Republican empty bromide that Somerby dutifully repeats: support the troops!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, it’s the right wing’s inference that Ossoff made an angry insinuation, and not any angry insinuation by Ossoff that should be discussed.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans represent the wealthiest among us, yet they are so angry.
DeleteThus the irony: millionaire and angry about it.
This is what Ossoff said:
ReplyDelete“ Trump doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar,”
That must’ve gotten under Trump and the right wing’s skin, because they immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was insinuating that Trump and Natalie were sleeping together.
The rumors that I have heard are that she changes his diaper. I guess that makes magats uncomfortable, so they jumped to the conclusion that he’s referring to some sort of sexual relationship between the two of them. Shows you where their minds are.
Agree.
DeleteAnd let's get real, Trump hasn't seen his penis for years and neither has anyone else.
Stormy Daniels was probably the last person to actually see Trump's penis. She said it looked like a tiny mushroom.
Maybe it was Trump's repetitive rambling about beautiful girls that put this thought into MAGA minds. Or the fact that Natalie is there in Trump's "bedroom" in the middle of the night, working those Truth Social posts. Why would Natalie travel with Trump in such close proximity if she were not providing some sort of personal service important to him?
DeleteThis is a hugely inappropriate role for anyone not related to Trump (such as Melanie) or a nurse. In the absence of explanations, people are going to speculate, but it is MAGA's own fault that they don't explain her presence so that people are left wondering.
I do not believe Trump has a sex life any more. He is too old and in too poor health. I believe he does have fantasies about women, but that is all they are, even with Natalie Harp. It is pathetic that he cannot control his leering at nearby women, who must endure his disrespect for them (and all women). Trump is an embarrassment to himself and our nation.
Ossof is saying what is obvious. He is also defending the women around Trump by pointing out how inappropriate his behavior is. He is a truth teller and we need some of those on Trump's staff, not just in the opposition party.
So, the one time Somerby mentions Ossoff, who is all over the airwaves. is to mention his “angry insinuation” which was neither angry nor an insinuation.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans want to nip the Ossoff threat in the bud, he is a viable contender for 2028.
DeleteHe's a dreamy Jewy Jew Jew unlike that dork Kushner.
DeleteIn context, Antonia makes a non-commital reply that respects Jim's feelings without reciprocating them. It is the way an indulgent older female speaks to someone who has a crush on her, gently and with compassion. It is not saying anything about how people in general care about each other, because that is not even close to what Jim was talking about.
ReplyDeleteSomerby misrepresents this when he rips this quote out of the book's context and applies it with his own meaning to an entirely different situation, one that Willa Cather, the author, could never have imagined writing over 100 years earlier.
Antonia never cares about the much younger Jim in the way he idolizes her. She goes on and lives her life on the prairie while Jim leaves, goes to college and has a career in publishing, and a life without Antonia, thinking of her only nostalgically, if at all. The book is not a love story, except for someone like Epstein, who might underline the passages where Cather describes the healthy glow of those sweaty farmgirls going about their chores.
Somerby gives me the creeps.
DeleteFrom Evan Hurst on Wonkette:
ReplyDelete"An attack on Natalie Harp — the MAGA blonde who prints out fawning tweets and articles for Trump; the one Maggie Haberman calls his “binkie”; who writes him letters about how he is the sun and moon in her sky, fuckin’ over here writin’ Footprints posters about President Shartbucket; the one who goes everyyyyyyywhere with him, to the point that there are lots of rumors and questions about what exactly is happening (we still refuse to sign on to any conspiracy that requires us to believe Trump’s penis is still in fighting shape) — is an attack on “working people serving their country.”
That’s quite a spin.
Sane people might think that, for instance, DOGE firing millions of public servants for refusing to suck the MAGA dick was an attack on public servants. All the scientific researchers eliminated, all the election workers threatened, people like that. But no.
Because in the diseased MAGA cranium, Trump is “America,” and Natalie is “public servants,” and an attack on Trump is an attack on America and an attack on Natalie is an attack on all who have ever wondered why there was only one set of footprints in the sand, only to find out it was because they got to ride in the beverage cart with Trump while he ran away from the latest fake assassination attempt, and the footprints belonged to Dan Scavino, who was breathing really heavy while he pushed the cart across the tarmac to the getaway plane.
Trump himself responded by trying to act confused about who Jon Ossoff is. “You mean Pee Wee Herman? Pee Wee Herman lookalike!” Again, world’s most physically repulsive, least sexually attractive man trying to go after Ossoff on looks? Don’t think that’s going to land, bud. At least he got the insult right this time and didn’t say “Pinky Herman.”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/an-attack-on-natalie-is-an-attack
Somerby says about Ossof: "But first, he remembered to praise the men and women who serve."
ReplyDeleteI doubt Ossof needed to remember those serving, because I doubt he ever forgot them. It is Trump and Hegseth who send troops to sea and then forget to resupply them.
...what the bell explains the trio of apparently minor aides who accompanied him on his flight, with Rubio, Bessent and Miller all left on the doomed jetliner. along with much of the press?
ReplyDeleteEasy question. The President gets a higher level of security than the others. Secret Service people protect the President while leaving Rubio, Bessent and the press unprotected. That's normal.
So, getting a Diet Coke and posting to Truth Social are more important to Trump than discussing policy or current events (i.e. doing the job of president). He could have taken anyone with him, but didn’t.
DeleteLeavitt quit after being abandoned in that sitting duck plane. Coincidence?
DeleteUm, is it normal to expose the Secretary of State to an apparent serious threat, leaving him there to possibly die?
DeleteEasy answer. Has there ever been a bigger fuck-up than Trump? From Wonkette: "You know what we haven’t thought about very much since Donald Trump returned to the White House? North Korea. The corner of our beautiful brain taken up by foreign policy has been busy with his fucking up the Middle East, his fucking up Ukraine, his fucking up our relationship with some of our oldest and closest allies, his drone murders of fishermen in the Caribbean, his destroying NATO, his invasion of Venezuela, his saber-rattling at Cuba, his Greenland fetish, and probably eight million other humiliations that we have missed or not retained because we only have so much space for horror." He's a world c!ass fuck-up.
DeleteTotally normal:
Delete“ Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea
These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,”
Also totally normal:
Delete“I [Trey Yingst] just got off the phone with President Trump ... the president told Fox News that Iran should raise the white flag of surrender ... the president said that if Oman gets in the way, 'we'll bomb the s**t out of them""
DeleteJeez, you are truly an idiot. By the administration's account (and no one is required to believe it) Trump escaped what was considered a viable threat to the plane, and the people in it, that he allowed to fly without him. That is not a matter of Secret Service priorities. The safety of all traveling on that day could and should have been primary. This is not some bizarre zero sum game where the safety of one group took precedence over another due to limited resources. The entire charade may have had a different rationale than the one offered up by the Trump bullshit machine, such as that his medical care was better served in the plane he was shunted to. If that were the case, humiliating the staff left on the plane he fled, by in essence suggesting that they were expendable, was unnecessary: they could have claimed it was grounded due to technical problem. Imagine being Rubio and being told publicly that Trump thought your plane might be targeted by Iran but did nothing about it.
Here is some actual media analysis:
ReplyDeletehttps://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2026/08/centrist-democrats-still-hate.html?m=1
And more from Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice, "Ossoff’s comments will enrage the pig while also drawing attention to the gilded bribe plane and Trump’s unbelievably tone-deaf demand to lavish himself with a 24-caret gold ballroom. Win-win-win."
DeleteSee how easy it is?
Maggie Haberman said this about Natalie Harp:
ReplyDelete“We got these letters that she [Harp] had been leaving in his private spaces. They were very raw. They were very emotional. In one, she said, 'You are all that matters to me.'"
44 year age difference. Sounds about right.
DeleteTrump net approval amongst Hispanic men 2024: +10 points. 2026: -41 points
ReplyDeleteUm, DG, or really anyone, in the event you can possibly explain who is supposed to be offended by the term Latinx, (is it Latinos?), one wonders if, I don’t know, Trump and Miller’s immigration policy is sort of maybe a little bit more concerning to them than some obscure liberal using the term Latinx in some academic paper somewhere in the bowels of the internet.