Trump thanks Putin for expelling American diplomats as apocalypse looms: Today in Tweets

@epronovost
The right feels a lot of ownership over patriotic symbols, plus all the political battles right now over women’s rights probably make them think a woman next to the Statue of Liberty is a statement supporting women’s freedom of bodily autonomy.

MAGA = Make America Great Again. It was Trump’s campaign slogan.

This is slightly off topic (but maybe not too much, given that Trump’s a big part of the reason) but I just got a survey in the mail from the ACLU and it has an open ended question asking if there are any observations or concerns that you would like to add about how are freedoms are at risk, either nationwide or in your community or state. Of course, this follows a very good list of their current concerns and what they’re actively working on, so I’m not sure what to add but I hate to waste an opportunity.

The other survey questions include this list; (I marked “very concerned” for everything, because I am miserably worried about all of it)

1.) Baseless claims about voter fraud sparking a new wave of voter suppression laws that make it harder for vulnerable voters to participate in the vitally important 2018 elections.

2.) The Trump administration launching a massive deportation force and ordering immigration raids based on racial and ethnic profiling that could target schools, hospitals, and churches and send thousands of immigrants into overcrowded and squalid detention centers.

3.) The anti-choice majority in Congress moving to defund abortion providers across the country, depriving millions of women of essential healthcare services.

4.) Donald Trump abusing power and undermining the rule of law in ways that have a lasting negative impact on our democracy.

5.) Emboldened extremists across the country escalating efforts to turn back the clock on reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights.

6.) Religious discrimination that includes the Muslim ban imposing a religious test on refugees and others seeking to enter our country.

Does anybody have something I can add to that for the seventh question?

(I don’t comment here often because everyone is way better spoken than I am; this community is what I aspire to be. <3 )

Ray has the right of it– I was playing on the creepy possessiveness Trump has for his daughter coupled with what seems to be extraordinary envy of Obama.

@ kupo

It’s a legal document but it’s far from dry.

I love that. The thing is, it’s also a beautifully crafted argument.

I’ve been having a bit of legal fun myself. Much bewildered last week about a mystery building on some ground plans. So we all trooped out to the site. Then we realised it was just the text box with the document reference number.

Today I’ve been on a site sorting out the utility supplies for a new building development. There’s lots of legal issues about digging up roads and crossing boundaries; so it’s important to work out exactly where all the existing utility services run underground. We might have expected to rely on the official plans, but no, the guy from the utility company brought his dowsing rods. Works for me.

Wow. I’ve been scrolling through most of these twitter posts amused and exasperated, even the atomic one didn’t Really do more than make me sigh.

But the poll thing… Postponing the election. Fuck.
I guess I’ve been clinging to the hope that we’ll be rid of him somewhere along the line, that perhaps even the republicans want to have a more competent asshole as president, but. Wow.

They are aware that this sounds quite close to how we over here got saddled with Hitler, yes? How stupid are they?

Valentine:

Would not be Vlad for diminutive, would be volodya/vova/vladya. But i know Vlad is how Americans would make it.

I recall that a few years ago one reporter in Russia addressed Putin as Vova in a press conference, after he’d first addressed her in a condescending diminutive while sidestepping her actual question. So she ended the exchange with a sarcastic “Thanks, Vova.”

(This went viral and was eventually mentioned in a Finnish newspaper.)

The great thing about Putin being called Vova is that Vova is the butt of many Russian jokes. When I was in high school I went on a student exchange to Russia, and I remember my host dad spending every dinner telling silly Vova jokes (my Russian was too basic for more complex dinner topics). Anyway, I bet a power-obsessed egomaniac like Putin must really hate being called Vova.

@Valentine

It’s how we would make it, yes, but also has the nice side effect of evoking that Romanian Vlad from history. And his horror movie counterpart. Vampirism or extreme sanctioning of rivals or critics sounds pretty pertinent to me for some reason.

Then he oversaw a bunch of business failures until finding a job as a game show host.

“But I repeat myself.” I don’t know about the US version of The Apprentice – perhaps it has some halfway-competent contestants on it sometimes – but for the UK version, “overseeing a bunch of business failures” is basically the host’s job description.

Fallout is demonstrably the least of their worries

If it’s a ‘real’ nuclear explosion your body has a way of shutting down and repelling all the Gamma rays.

(Alpha particles can get through to the ladies, but Beta particles are just cucks.)

@Valentine:
We used to have a Russian at my last job, Alexandre, who was usually called ‘Sasha’. And I would later learn that ‘Mikhail’ becomes ‘Misha’.

(And to anybody who can’t figure out how to get ‘Sasha’ from ‘Alexandre’… well, how do English speakers get ‘Dick’ from ‘Richard’ anyway? I suspect a lot of common diminutives date back centuries, with the long and short versions just changing in different directions over time.)

Scottish Alexanders get called Sandy. It’s from the ‘Xander bit; I guess Sasha is also from the ‘Xandre part of the name?

Names do go through some wonderful permutations. Gareth = Gazza and Barry = Bazza, Derek = Del and Terence = Tel … 🙂

Elisabeth has more diminutives than you can shake a stick at.

And I’m still bemused by the fact that Jacob gives both James and Iago.

For those just tuning in, someone responded to anti-immigrant sentiment by quoting Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue. So that makes any photo spread involving the Statue of Liberty an attack on Trump and America in general.