Other Nations at U.N. Openly Laughed at Trump

Having traveled in France and the United Kingdom earlier in the month, I can honestly say that having Donald Trump as the occupant of the White House proved to be an embarrassment.  Trump is literally loathed in both nations (a feeling I can fully appreciate).  Now, that loathing came home to roost as Trump engaged in a narcissistic spew of batshitery at the United Nations.  His reality free speech literally triggered laughter from diplomats from around the world and not because Trump was telling jokes.  Rather Trump himself was the joke as is America the joke given that it has such a buffoon in the White House who could not even win the popular vote.   Trump and his evil minion, Mike Pence are quickly isolating America from the rest of the world which, if past allies, China and developing countries come together with new trade and climate treaties could damage America greatly.  Only Trump and his knuckle dragging base don't seem to realize that significant long term damage is being done.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Trump's - and by extension, America's - plummeting stature on the world stage.  Here are excerpts:

President Trump has long argued that the United States has been taken advantage of by other nations — a “laughing stock to the entire World,” he said on Twitter in 2014 — and his political rise was based on the premise that he had the strength and resolve to change that.

But at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump got a comeuppance on the world’s biggest stage. Delivering a speech that aimed to establish U.S. “sovereignty” over the whims and needs of other nations, the president’s triumphant moment was marred in the first minute when he was met by laughter — at his expense.

The embarrassing exchange came when Trump boasted that his administration had accomplished more over two years than “almost any administration” in American history, eliciting audible guffaws in the cavernous chamber hall.

“He has always been obsessed that people are laughing at the president. From the mid-’80s, he’s said: ‘The world is laughing at us. They think we’re fools,’ ” said Thomas Wright, a Europe analyst at the Brookings Institution. “It’s never been true, but he’s said it about every president. It’s the first time I’m aware of that people actually laughed at a president. I think it is going to drive him absolutely crazy. It will play to every insecurity he has.”

For Trump, the moment wasn’t just embarrassing. It also punctured one of the core fabulist assertions of a president who has, according to Washington Post fact-checkers, made more than 5,000 false or misleading statements since taking office.

As the midterm elections approach, Trump has begun boasting of a long list of accomplishments for his administration, at one point reciting them at a recent campaign rally from two pieces of paper that he pulled from his suit jacket.

In doing so, the president typically has claimed sweeping success and placed himself favorably in historical comparison to the nation’s greatest leaders. At a rally in Springfield, Mo., last week, Trump was wrapping up an hour-long address to supporters with some flowery teleprompter prose about the courage of America’s founders when he strayed from the script to assert that his election in 2016 was “the greatest movement in the history of our country.”

At the United Nations, Trump’s claim to have done more in less than two years than most of the 44 previous administrations defied any bounds of reality — or hubris. The difference was that he was not talking to a room full of excited, red-hat-wearing “MAGA” supporters who cheer him on. [Y]ou kind of feel good that Trump was finally escaping the bubble of political rallies that continually gives him the impression that everyone agrees with the false claims he is making,” said Smith, who watched Trump’s speech from Berlin, where she is spending a year as a fellow at the Bosch Academy. “There was a moment I thought to myself, ‘This is good that the president is being exposed to how the rest of the world sees him.’ ”

On social media, Trump’s critics quickly mocked him on Tuesday.  “American Presidents used to set the global agenda at the UNGA. Now Trump gets laughed at,” tweeted Ben Rhodes, who as a top national security aide to President Barack Obama helped craft U.N. speeches.

“The world just laughed @realDonaldTrump,” comedian Wanda Sykes tweeted. Referring to the famed theater in Harlem in which the audience boos and heckles bad performers offstage, she added, “Stay tuned, they might go full ‘Showtime at the Apollo’ on him.”

By the afternoon, Trump was projecting an air of nonchalance, telling reporters that his boast in the speech “was meant to get some laughter.” But most observers weren’t buying it from a president who seldom laughs at himself and whose default expression is an unsparing glare.

“It’s got to hurt,” said Wright, the Brookings Institution analyst. “It was on camera and it was spontaneous. It was on one of the biggest stages in the world.”

Anyone who truly cares about America, including its standing in the world, should want Trump - and his ass kissing, yes am VP, Mike Pence - removed from office as soon as possible.  It will tajke years to undo the damage being done to the long term prospects of the nation. 

Virginia Police/Prosecutor Back Off Request for Nude Photos of Teen Boy

Try as Virginia might to project an image of a modern, at least slightly enlightened and progressive state, some Virginians are working in overdrive to make the state a laughing stock in the national and international media.  The latest example comes from the Manassas City police department which had been seeking to serve a search warrant on a 17-year-old boy charged with “sexting” an explicit video to his 15-year-old girlfriend.  The plan was to medically induce an erection and photograph it apparently to prove the 17 year old was the individual in the texted material.  Now, having made Virginia look utterly stupid and backward, the cretins in Manassas are backing down on their lurid demands.  Obviously, some folks need to be promptly fired and the Commonwealth Attorney needs to resign immediately.  It is perhaps telling that Manassas is in Prince William County, home of Del. Bob Marshall who seeks to police the sex lives of all Virginians.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post on the Manassas batshitery:

Manassas City police said Thursday they would not serve a search warrant seeking to take photos of a 17-year-old boy charged with “sexting” an explicit video to his 15-year-old girlfriend earlier this year.

The teen is facing felony counts of manufacturing and distributing child pornography. As the case was headed to trial last week, Manassas City police and Prince William County prosecutors said in juvenile court that they had obtained a warrant to photograph the teen’s erect penis, in order to compare with the video he allegedly sent in January, according to the teen’s lawyers. When defense lawyer Jessica Harbeson Foster asked how they would obtain a photo of her client while aroused, she said police told her they would take him to a hospital and inject him with a drug to force an erection.

On Thursday, Prince William authorities decided to drop that plan. Lt. Brian Larkin of the Manassas City police said, “We are not going to pursue it.” He said the police planned to allow the search warrant, obtained last week, to expire. He would not say why the decision had been made to abandon the warrant or discuss the reasons for the search.

Larkin referred further questions to Prince William Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert. Ebert did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Carlos Flores Laboy, appointed the teen’s guardian ad litem in the case, said he thought it was just as illegal for the Manassas City police to create their own child pornography as to investigate the teen for it.

“They’re using a statute that was designed to protect children from being exploited in a sexual manner to take a picture of this young man in a sexually explicit manner,” Flores Laboy said. “The irony is incredible.”

All I can say is "Only in Virginia" - especially conservative areas of Virginia.  I hope  Prince William Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert is happy that he's made the entire state look ridiculous and backward.