Porn star Stormy Daniels is suing President Trump for defamation for something he said in a tweet. When they heard this, Muslims, African-Americans, gays, and Hillary Clinton said, “You can do that?” –Conan O’Brien
Trump skipped the correspondent’s dinner on Saturday night, and instead hosted a rally in Michigan. Trump said he’d rather be around people who loved him, so he went to Michigan and left behind the White House press corps and Melania. –James Corden
This morning, President Trump made a special phone call to his favorite television program, “Fox & Friends.” Trump and the hosts talked about lots of things, and at one point, he was asked to grade his presidency. Take a look at what he said. [Trump clip] “I would give myself an A-plus.” An A-plus! From where — Trump University? –James Corden
Daniel Larison responded to attacks on the Iran deal at The American Conservative, Here is a portion:
Ending the deal now because of Iran’s brief flirtation with nuclear weapons research that ended a decade and a half ago makes no sense. Iran is doing everything that it is required to do now to limit its nuclear program, and that is what should matter most for those genuinely concerned to keep Iran’s nuclear program peaceful. Only someone looking for the slightest excuse to blow up the deal regardless of the consequences would want to scrap an agreement that is working because of “revelations” that revealed nothing new.
Stephens gives the game away at the end of his column when he is talking about threatening to start a war:
“Punitive sanctions combined with a credible threat of military force should follow.”
If punitive sanctions and threats of military action follow, we should expect Iran to resume some or all of the activities that it stopped as part of the agreement. There is a remote but real possibility that Iran could leave the NPT all together in a major setback for the cause of nonproliferation. Now that we are faced with a nuclear-armed North Korea, opponents of the nuclear deal would like to repeat the Bush administration’s North Korea mistakes with Iran.
Punitive sanctions would have little effect without international support, and reneging on an agreement endorsed by the U.N. Security Council and supported by all of the other P5+1 governments will guarantee that no international support for a new sanctions regime will be forthcoming. Military action would be worse than useless, since it would drive Iran to build the very weapons that it is supposed to discourage them from building. Reneging on the deal because of old and irrelevant information would be an exceptionally stupid thing to do, and it would put the U.S. and Iran back on the collision course we were on a decade ago. That is exactly why Iran hawks want to wreck the deal, and they all but admit it in their own arguments.
Posting will be down the next few days while I am out of town (more on Saturday), but I do have some brief items which will be posted. This includes SciFi Weekend. An abbreviated post will probably be done on Monday.
Donald Trump has a long history of insulting anyone who displeases him, including the handicapped, immigrants, Muslims, and gold star families. He has quite frequently attacked the appearance of women. However, Trump cannot take it when he is the target of mere jokes. For the second straight year he was unwilling to attend the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Conservatives who have often defended Trump’s attacks on others, responded by attacking Michelle Wolf. Frequently the attacks were not for her actual jokes but were based upon distorting what she actually said.
A satiric roast at a dinner such as this would be expected to be far harder on its targets than would be expected in normal political discourse. Comedians are expected to push the boundaries, cross lines, and make people feel uncomfortable. Jokes about Trump are naturally going to include lines about prostitutes and grabby pussy, because this is what Donald Trump, not Michele Wolf, brought to Washington.
Wolf’s actual jokes were far less offensive than many of the things we hear from Trump and his allies. As Wolf’s actual act was tamer than they are, the right attacked by distorting what she actually said. It was reminiscent of past attacks from the right on others such as David Letterman.
The main line of the attacks was to falsely claim that Wolf attacked Sarah Sanders’ looks. This falsehood was often spread by taking a line out of context, making it appear she was joking about Sanders’ eye as opposed to joking about her lying. Her full joke regarding this was, “I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. She burns facts, and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.” Even quoted out of context, “smoky eye” is hardly a terrible attack.
Wolf did briefly mention Mitch McConnell’s neck and Christ Christie’s weight, but I haven’t seen complaints about these, and these are common laugh lines for the late night comics. The only woman whose looks were mocked by Wolf were her own, when she referred to her own frizzy hair and small tits.
Wolf was interviewed by NPR and defended what she said:
I think people have a lot of preconceived notions about Sarah’s looks and I think a lot of what’s happening is they’re projecting onto this joke. … I think it’s clear that the joke wasn’t about Sarah’s looks, but I don’t think — to me it’s so obvious that I don’t even really need to defend it. I think if you listen to the joke you’ll understand that it’s about the fact that she lies and if it’s taken another way I think you should go back and listen to it again. …
If there [are] two people that I actually made fun of their looks on Saturday it was Mitch McConnell and Chris Christie and no one is jumping to their defense. I made fun of Mitch McConnell’s neck and I did a small jab at Chris Christie’s weight and no one is jumping to their defense.
Late night comedians did come to her defense, including Stephen Colbert reliving his old conservative character:
“She is filthy and she is mean — which is what we love about her. Because those are wonderful qualities for comedians, and terrible qualities for free-world leaders.” — SETH MEYERS, comparing Michelle Wolf with President Trump
“Michelle should have had the decency not to comment on women’s appearances in any way, shape or form. She’s a comedian, for God’s sake, not the president.” — TREVOR NOAH
“This is the correspondents’ dinner, celebrating the freedom of speech; you can’t just say whatever you want!” — STEPHEN COLBERT
“I am so proud, right down to the breastbone, that the press is defending her despite the fact that her boss joked about throwing reporters in jail. That’s the kind of comedy the press likes!” — STEPHEN COLBERT, on Sarah Huckabee Sanders
The best defense of much of the criticism I’ve heard about the speech is to hear what she actually said. The video is above, and full transcript follows: