A round up of Trumpian events 🖕🍊🤡

Trump’s staff reportedly believed him to be semi-literate

Pitching policy ideas to Trump was “deeply complicated,” Wolff writes in his book, citing the belief among some close to the president that he “was no more than semi-literate.”

Trump “didn’t read” or “didn’t really even skim,” Wolff writes, creating issues when aides attempted to pitch policy to him.

Former Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh reportedly said working with Trump in those instances was “like trying to figure out what a child wants.”

Trump said on the campaign trail he hadn’t read biographies of previous presidents, saying “I’m always busy doing a lot.”

Trump told The Washington Post in July 2016 that he doesn’t read much, but instead comes to the right decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I had.”

More recently, a White House official spokesman told CNN he couldn’t say whether Trump had read all of a 55-page national security document.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/367348-5-surprising-allegations-from-the-new-book-about-trumps-presidency

Okay, so why is that a surprise? I mean Pete Davidson from Saturday Night Live said this in 2015…

…then former SNL cast member Taran Killam talked about his reading issues back in the spring…

…and then there was this video that speculated about how well he can read.

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This will go over well.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-04/ap-newsbreak-us-to-end-policy-that-let-legal-pot-flourish

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Steve Harvey: According to historians & sociologists, what is one of the most common methods that an authoritarian does to keep damaging personal information from being released?

Contestant: Try to ban books?

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I think we have to recognize a continuum of literacy. I bet there are probably examples where Trump clearly demonstrated an ability to read. Like there was a time when he was practicing a speech in a car and some reporter got him on camera.

But different people need to expend different amounts of effort to read. They may be able to comprehend what they are reading to different degrees.

I think when someone is as clearly disordered/disregulated as Trump, you have to think that at any given moment they may be unable to do anything if they find it boring or upsetting. So maybe he just doesn’t like to read and is virtually incapable of doing things he doesn’t like to do, even if there is a reward for doing so or it’s important to him to achieve some outcome.

I remember reading that they put his name in his briefing notes as often as possible. I don’t think he’s illiterate. If you give him something to read and say the country’s welfare depends on him knowing it, he won’t read it. If you give him something to read, put him in front of a camera, and say, “People have been saying you are illiterate, we’re going to make a video of you reading this complex document to show them how smart you are!” I bet he’d be able to read just fine (though possibly without absorbing the content at all).

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I think the correct term is functional illiterate.

I suspect that most of the people who supported him in his day to day running of his businesses failed to get security clearance and we know Trump is too arrogant to push on it.

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Anyone remember Spycatcher?

Wright wrote Spycatcher in Tasmania, after his retirement from MI5. He first attempted publication in 1985. The British government immediately acted to ban Spycatcher in the UK. Since the ruling was obtained in an English court, however, the book continued to be available legally in Scotland, as well as other jurisdictions.

Now imagine what that would have been like if social media existed 30 years ago.

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I’m beginning to think that the asshat’s insanity has become a (worst kept) state secret.

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I remember reading spycatcher and realising I already knew all that from reading John le Carre, only le Carre was better written.

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well, fsck.

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There was more: Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes he’d repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories — now it was within 10 minutes. Indeed, many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions — he just couldn’t stop saying something.

…

As telling, with his daughter and son-in-law sidelined by their legal problems, Hope Hicks, Trump’s 29-year-old personal aide and confidant, became, practically speaking, his most powerful White House advisor. (With Melania a nonpresence, the staff referred to Ivanka as the “real wife” and Hicks as the “real daughter.”) Hicks’ primary function was to tend to the Trump ego, to reassure him, to protect him, to buffer him, to soothe him. It was Hicks who, attentive to his lapses and repetitions, urged him to forgo an interview that was set to open the 60 Minutes fall season. Instead, the interview went to Fox News’ Sean Hannity who, White House insiders happily explained, was willing to supply the questions beforehand. Indeed, the plan was to have all interviewers going forward provide the questions.

Soooo… in reality, does this mean that Hicks is our first millennial president in a sense?

And yes. I realize the irony of the situation about someone from my generation’s main job being soothing the snowflake-in-chief :rofl:

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Millennials are killing democracy now? :grin: Such a long list…

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Finally they’re going to take Trump’s phone away?

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https://nocara.blackblogs.org/2017/11/28/berkeley-college-republicans-and-the-fascist-creep-at-uc-berkeley/

Old or not, here’s a good article on totally reasonable, just the other side, Trump is an aberration, republican party kids out in California.

FUCK

oiled-pelican

Evil sons of bitches.

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Man, Wolff is making things pretty easy for late night comedians lately

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I’ll just leave this here:

You go girl!

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https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/948881692265209856

https://www.axios.com/how-michael-wolff-did-it-2522360813.html

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He should release choice snippets on YouTube, daily. For one thing, sales of his book would escalate even faster.

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