As Notre Dame cathedral burned yesterday in Paris, leaders around the world spoke from the heart about the tragedy.  Here are a few:

“Notre Dame is one of the world’s great treasures, and we’re thinking of the people of France in your time of grief. It’s in our nature to mourn when we see history lost – but it’s also in our nature to rebuild for tomorrow, as strong as we can.” – Barack Obama

“Notre Dame of Paris in flames. Emotion for a whole nation. Thoughts for all Catholics and for all French. Like all our countrymen, I’m sad tonight to see this part of us burn.” – French President Emmanuel Macron

“The burning of the Notre Dame cathedral has again made us aware that we are bound by something more important and more profound than treaties. Today, we understand better the essence of that, which is common, we know how much we can lose. And that we want to defend it – together.” – EU President Donald Tusk

“To the people of France, I would like to say that Notre Dame Cathedral was like a gift to the human race. We share in the pain but we also thank you for this gift to civilization.” – Mayor of South Bend Indiana Pete Buttigieg (spoken in French)

And then, there was this:

“It is one of the great treasures of the world. The greatest artists in the world. Probably, if you think about it, I would say it might be greater than almost any museum in the world and it’s burning very badly. Looks like it’s burning to the ground.  That is beyond countries, that is beyond anything. That is a part of our growing up. It’s a part of our culture. It’s a part of our lives. That’s a truly great cathedral. I have been there, I have seen it. It’s a terrible scene.  They think it was caused by, at this moment they don’t know, but they think it was caused by renovation. I hope that’s the reason. Renovation, what’s that all about? It’s a terrible sight to behold.” – Donald Trump, Babbler in Chief

To make matters worse, Trump had earlier Tweeted his advice for fighting the fire:

“So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!” – Twitterfingers

This advice was so stupid that the Civil Defense Agency of France actually responded:

“The drop of water by air on this type of building could result in the collapse of the entire structure along with the firefighters who are currently doing their best to save Notre Dame.” – Sécurité Civile France

Trump simply cannot stand any event occurring anywhere in the world that might divert attention from himself even if that attention shows him for the idiot that he is.

You’ve all read it – Trump calls himself  “a very stable genius” on the Twitter. Setting aside the stupidity of that and other idiotic tweets yesterday, the entertainment value of responses was very high.  The Hill summarized some of those responses, and here’s my favorite:

Yup.

Donald Trump just blocked Vote Vets on Twitter.

Several years ago, I got an email from General Wesley Clark asking me to donate to Vote Vets.  I give a small donation each month.  I have never been sorry because they do good stuff.

Can you even imagine if President Barack Obama had done that?  Can Ivanka Trump even imagine?

If Trump’s Tweets are indeed official policy, then maybe this blocking crap needs to stop.  Right, Supremes?

Vote Vets.  He blocked Vote Vets.

Thanks to Deb for the heads up.

Newt is back again, y’all.  He’s doing the Twitter thing, too.

May 17, 2017

26 days later on June 12, 2017

Rethinking Made Easy: people only have integrity and honesty if they side with Dear Leader Trump and his groveling toady Newt.

Thanks to Bryan for the heads up.

Noah Feldman, Bloomberg columnist and constitutional law professor at Harvard, published an op-ed yesterday that raised an issue that I hadn’t considered since SCROTUS’s latest Tweet storm; falsely accusing a former president of an impeachable offense is…wait for it…an impeachable offense.  CJ accused President Obama of ordering the FBI to wiretap the campaign offices at Cheeto Tower which is clearly against a whole host of state and federal laws; if true, those crimes would result in criminal prosecution and impeachment.  It’s not true, of course, and Feldman’s argument is that this accusation is not protected under the First Amendment since defamation is not protected.  Additionally, unless evidence is produced supporting this accusation, the consequences cannot by asymmetrical; that is, a false accusation of an impeachable offense is in itself cause for impeachment of the accuser.

Now, I’m not stupid enough to believe that Congress, dominated by drooling Neanderthals and idiots, will do anything approaching an impeachment proceeding, but it’s just one more thing to add to the list of offenses that grows daily.

As anyone with common sense would know, incoming, uh…urp, president Cheeto Jesus is going to suck (sorry momma) at governing.  To reward his benefactor, Vladimir Putin, CJ has picked his first major twitter battle with the intelligence community, refusing to believe the mountain of evidence that the Russians did indeed hack into DNC and other computers in an effort to sway our national elections. Now that the CIA and other agencies have refused to change their assessment, CJ is now threatening to undo the Director of National Security that was put in place after 9/11 to coordinate the nation’s multiple intelligence agencies.

Apparently CJ has confused his role as Chief Tyrant at Celebrity Apprentice with his role as incoming, uh…urp, president.