Transcripts reveal that during his first phone call to the Mexican President Donald Trump begged him to stop saying that Mexico would not pay for his wall.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

President Trump made building a wall along the southern U.S. border and forcing Mexico to pay for it core pledges of his campaign. 

But in his first White House call with Mexico’s president, Trump described his vow to charge Mexico as a growing political problem, pressuring the Mexican leader to stop saying publicly that his government would never pay. 

“You cannot say that to the press,” Trump said repeatedly, according to a transcript of the Jan. 27 call obtained by The Washington Post. Trump made clear that he realized the funding would have to come from other sources but threatened to cut off contact if Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto continued to make defiant statements. 

The funding “will work out in the formula somehow,” Trump said, adding later that “it will come out in the wash, and that is okay.” But “if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that.”

(Of course ultimately Trump had to live with that because the wall is now supposedly being paid for by the American taxpayers.)

In the actual transcripts President Nieto made a rather salient point that Trump seems to have glossed over:  

And let me tell you that a lot of what is happening in terms of traffickers in Mexico is being largely supported by the illegal amounts of money and weapons coming from the United States.

What seems to be lost in Trump's rhetoric is that the border crossings go both ways, and that the money and illegal guns being smuggled into Mexico are at least as big a problem for them, and Mexican drugs are for us.

Trump also made this admission:

Believe it or not, this is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important talk about. 

In other words Trump had painted himself into a corner with his braggadocio and he was begging President Nieto to help him save face.

However believe it or not this was not the most difficult call that Trump would make to a foreign leader: 

The Jan. 28 call with Turnbull became particularly acrimonious. “I have had it,” Trump erupted after the two argued about an agreement on refugees. “I have been making these calls all day, and this is the most unpleasant call all day.” 

Apparently Trump got his shorts in bunch over the idea of accepting refugees into the country:

“This is going to kill me,” he said to Turnbull. “I am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to take 2,000 people.” 

(Actually the number was 1,250 that President Obama had agreed to take to help alleviate the suffering of his fellow human beings who had been displaced by war and persecution.)

“I hate taking these people,” Trump said. “I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people” 

Turnbull tried to salvage the deal, noting that the detainees were economic refugees who had not been accused of crimes. He explained that they were being denied entry into Australia because of a policy aimed at discouraging human smuggling. 

“There is nothing more important in business or politics than a deal is a deal,” Turnbull said. “You can certainly say that it was not a deal that you would have done, but you are going to stick with it.” 

Trump only became angrier, saying the refugees could “become the Boston bomber in five years.” 

“I think it is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal that I would have never made,” Trump said. “As far as I am concerned, that is enough, Malcolm. I have had it.” 

With that Trump abruptly ended the call. But not before telling the Australian Prime Minister who he DID enjoy talking with.

Before ending the call, Trump noted that at least one of his conversations that day had gone far more smoothly. “Putin was a pleasant call,” Trump said, referring to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. “This is ridiculous.”

Keep in mind, before anybody calls this fake news, that this is from the White House's own transcripts which were leaked to the Post.

So yes America, THAT is the guy who is now leading this country.

So yesterday Donald Trump hung up on the Australian prime minister and threatened to invade Mexico. How was your Wednesday? Update!

First this from CNN: 

During the US President's call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Saturday, Trump objected to an agreement over the US receiving refugees, sources told CNN. All this a day after a call with Mexico's President, where a transcript showed Trump complaining about Mexico's "handling" of "tough hombres." 

Australia is an ally of the United States, with the two countries joining three other English-speaking countries in an intelligence sharing arrangement known as the "Five Eyes."

The disagreement came as the two leaders discussed an agreement, reached under the Obama administration, for the US to accept refugees from Australia who are living on islands in detention centers off the mainland due to strict government policies.

Sources say Trump insisted it was a very bad deal for the US to take 2,000 refugees and that one of them was going to be the next Boston bomber. 

Turnbull told Trump several times the agreement was for 1,250 refugees, not 2,000. He also said Australia was asking to submit them to the US for refugee screening, and if the refugees did not pass the US screening process, they would not come.

Ultimately Trump ended the call in frustration, and then later tweeted this out:

Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017

Once again, it is not "thousands" but rather 1,250.

But get this, that was not even the worst of Trump's phone calls with our allies.

Courtesy of the AP:  

President Donald Trump threatened in a phone call with his Mexican counterpart to send U.S. troops to stop "bad hombres down there" unless the Mexican military does more to control them itself, according to an excerpt of a transcript of the conversation obtained by The Associated Press. 

"You have a bunch of bad hombres down there," Trump told Pena Nieto, according to the excerpt given to AP. "You aren't doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn't, so I just might send them down to take care of it." 

A person with access to the official transcript of the phone call provided only that portion of the conversation to The Associated Press. The person gave it on condition of anonymity because the administration did not make the details of the call public.

Both the Mexican government and the Trump administration tried to do a little  damage control, however this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast Trump made these remarks: 

"The world is in trouble, but we're going to straighten it out, OK? That's what I do - I fix things," Trump said after saying that freedom of religion was threatened. 

"Believe me, when you hear about the tough phone calls I'm having - don't worry about it. Just don't worry about it," he said.

"We're taken advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. It's not going to happen anymore," he said.

Actually I think I WILL worry about it. Quite a lot actually.

Remember these are FRIENDLY nations, just try to imagine how Trump is talking to countries that we don't consider allies.

Update: If you are looking for a leak concerning Trump's conversation with Putin, well you are unlikely to ever see that.

.@ilanberman: "there was no readout of the Trump-Putin call bc WH turned off recording" - Kremlin readout is very positive @BPC_Bipartisan pic.twitter.com/oi4v1R5dN0

— ilhan tanir (@WashingtonPoint) February 1, 2017

Oops!

Six year old boy writes to President Obama to ask if his family can adopt the Syrian boy from a photo that went viral.

Courtesy of TPM:

A 6-year-old boy from New York is inspiring a lot happy tears this week after he wrote a heartwarming letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to bring a Syrian boy to his house so that boy could become a part of his family. 

The letter writer, Alex, was referring specifically about Omran Daqneesh, the Syrian boy whose image went viral last month after he was pulled out from rubble in the city of Aleppo following an air strike.

Here is the boy's letter:

Dear President Obama, 

Remember the boy who was picked up by the ambulance in Syria? Can you please go get him and bring him to [my home]? Park in the driveway or on the street and we will be waiting for you guys with flags, flowers, and balloons. We will give him a family and he will be our brother. Catherine, my little sister, will be collecting butterflies and fireflies for him. In my school, I have a friend from Syria, Omar, and I will introduce him to Omar. We can all play together. We can invite him to birthday parties and he will teach us another language. We can teach him English too, just like my friend Aoto from Japan. 

Please tell him that his brother will be Alex who is a very kind boy, just like him. Since he won't bring toys and doesn't have toys Catherine will share her big blue stripy white bunny. And I will share my bike and I will teach him how to ride it. I will teach him additions and subtractions in math. And he [can] smell Catherine's lip gloss penguin which is green. She doesn't let anyone touch it. 

Thank you very much! I can't wait for you to come! Alex 6 years old

Yeah I am going to have to go remove something from my eye. Damn thing won't stop watering.

Donald Trump's son tweets image comparing refugees to poisoned candy.

This image says it all. Let's end the politically correct agenda that doesn't put America first. #trump2016 pic.twitter.com/9fHwog7ssN

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 19, 2016

Courtesy of NPR:  

The post by the Republican presidential candidate's son immediately went viral. It earned the support and praise of many Trump supporters, who worry that an influx of refugees poises an existential security threat. It also drew condemnation from many who viewed the tweet as a flip, dehumanizing way to address a humanitarian catastrophe affecting more than 13 million people. 

The makers of Skittles were quick to join the second camp. "Skittles are candy. Refugees are people," a spokeswoman for the candy's parent company, Wrigley, said in a widely distributed statement. "We don't feel it's an appropriate analogy. We will respectfully refrain from further commentary as anything we say could be misinterpreted as marketing."

Damn! Nothing says elitist POS quite like comparing people to food.

And we wonder how the terrorists are able to convince folks living in this country, who are being treated as if they are less than human, to go on killing sprees.

The question to be asked is why are there not more of them?

Update: As it turns out the guy who took the Skittles picture is an ex-refugee.

Because you know irony is literally saturating this election cycle.

Just your daily reminder that Donald Trump is truly a horrible human being.

"@DiCristo13: @realDonaldTrump let's have the policy speeches on immigration, economy, foreign policy, and NATO! pic.twitter.com/Uuit2hWmhW"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2016

Such a humanitarian, don't you think?

Believe it or not it appears that Sarah Palin believes that SHE schooled Seth Meyers on the Syrian refugee situation rather than the other way around.

Courtesy of Cognitive Dissonance's most famous example's Facebook page:  

We desperately need a Commander-in-Chief for such a time as this, not a divisive "Community Organizer" with a blowhorn, stirring domestic aggravation (Seriously how can a man wrapping up his seventh year in the White House be dismissed as simply a "community organizer?" Even by somebody as chronically ignorant as Sarah Palin?). Americans should be able to live with no fear of any outmanned, outsmarted, outgunned punkass-evil, misogynist, homophobic, intolerant death cult trying to infiltrate innocent populations. ("Punkass?")

We the People know our United States military could utterly and forever destroy ISIS - all it takes is the political will from on high with the command to "fire!" Alas, no matter the writing on the wall, our President will never trust the world's mightiest army to defeat the enemy - an enemy he refuses to wholly identify. (And THAT kind of thinking is exactly why you and your grandfather did not win the election in 2008.)

Muslim extremists crave an oncoming clash of civilizations. (As do Fundamentalist Christians.) Nefarious characters hellbent on killing those who refuse to succumb to their warped ideology (we are the "infidels") WILL come on over, under current conditions, and ultimately supporters of Obama's weakened security agenda are liable when terrorists see open doors to bring the seat of their violence here. This is not illogical. (You know just because you say something is not illogical.....)

Well-meaning influencers of culture like Seth Meyers (bless his heart... I really like the guy!) need a great awakening to recover from their gullibility, as does anyone believing the Feds have an 18-24 month bureaucratic vetting process that successfully filters out the bad guys. "Question Authority" on this, Seth. And please peruse the attached op-ed to understand a differing point of view regarding unnecessary dangers we face with leaders' heads in the sand, refusing to consider this IS a clash of civilizations. (The oped goes to Breitbart, so we KNOW what that is worth.)

Wait, does Palin actually think that SHE was the one with facts on her side during their "debate" with Meyers? Because that is certainly not how most people saw it.

Here take a look for yourself.

Yeah it would take buckets of conservative koolaid before you could convince yourself that Palin got the best of that exchange.

By the way it also looks like people are getting a little testy about Palin's non-stop self promotion:  

Edward Wysocki Stop promoting your book on Facebook......10 times is okay but this is getting ridiculous.....not what FB is for.

Hey, if your book tour crashes and burns what choice do you have left besides pimping it on Facebook?

Sarah Palin on Seth Meyer last night.

In the first part Palin talks about receiving an apology from Louis CK concerning his drunken tweets about her.

There are some websites claiming this did not happen, but according to the comedian it did: 

“I’ve never in a million years apologized for anything I’ve said,” C.K. told Howard Stern in a recent interview. But this time, he said, “Something came over me emotionally.” Palin was the one who approached C.K. to tell him she thought he was funny — and that’s when he decided to say sorry for the Twitter rant.

Speaking of apologizing, when will Palin apologize for this?

YOUR BRAIN ON COLLEGE: WUSSIFIED WHINERS PROVE WHAT A WASTE IT'S BECOMINGThanks to a Minnesota friend who forwarded...
Posted by Sarah Palin on Monday, November 23, 2015

Yeah nothing racist about that.

Now in the second part of this video Meyers asks her about Donald Trump. 

Here was her response courtesy of Salon: 

Meyers asked why Palin thought Trump has taken off in the last six months since Palin made a joke about how much Lorne Michaels would pay her to run for president again, particularly if Trump was her VP nom. 

Her answer: “Because he’s not a politician, thank the Lord.” 

Meyers was quick to remind Palin “you were a politician … not only were you mayor, you were governor. Yet, you don’t think experience is important?”

Yeah, you know Palin seems to have a little cognitive dissonance around the fact that not only was she a politician, she also worked with Democrats in Alaska, and ran for VP on the Republican ticket, before she decided that Washington sucked, Democrats are the devil, and everybody holding office is corrupt.

In this next clip Palin, a former governor, makes ignorant statements about the Syrian refugees that Seth Meyers, a comedian, has to correct.


This courtesy of Raw Story: 

The former half-term governor of Alaska and failed vice presidential candidate defended U.S. governors who have said they would refuse to accept any immigrants fleeing Syria’s brutal civil war after Islamic State militants killed 129 people in Paris. 

“Their message is not, we don’t want Syrian refugees,” Palin said. “Their message is, what is the vetting process? How do we know that these are the innocents who are coming over and actually needing aid, and they’re not the bad guys infiltrating under the guise of refugee? And they want a vetting process, because we don’t have that from the top, we don’t have that at the federal level.” 

Meyers, the host of NBC’s “Late Night,” told Palin there was a vetting process — and he quickly sketched out how it works. 

“In order for any refugees to come in, it is, like, an 18- to 24-month process for them to get through,” Meyer said. “It starts at the UN, and then it comes through multiple government agencies here in the states. Is it maybe just that, at the core, I think there’s just a lack of trust across the board of the federal government? Do you think that’s what these governors are really saying, that ultimately anything the federal government tells them, they don’t trust?”

Palin of course quickly states that she does NOT trust the federal government and suggests that neither should Seth.

Which then led Seth to suggest that what the Republicans were doing was fear mongering, and to point out that the majority of the people trying to come to this country are doing it so that they can enjoy the same freedoms that he and Sarah Palin enjoy.

Palin actually had to agree that he was probably right about that.

I know a lot of people were disappointed that Seth Meyers had Palin on the show, but I thought he did a pretty good job, and as usual she looked like an enormous idiot.

Oh, and there was apparently NO talk about her book. So all Palin had to sell last night was stupidity.

As usual.

Dropping a little truth this Saturday morning.

Donald Trump's call for a database to track Muslims takes him to a place where even Ted Cruz dares not tread.

Courtesy of NBC News: 

Donald Trump "would certainly implement" a database system tracking Muslims in the United States, the Republican front-runner told NBC News on Thursday night. 

"I would certainly implement that. Absolutely," Trump said in Newton, Iowa, in between campaign town halls. 

"There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases," he added. "We should have a lot of systems." 

When asked whether Muslims would be legally obligated to sign into the database, Trump responded, "They have to be — they have to be."

As one might imagine Jeb Bush also immediately called Trump out for his remarks: 

"You talk about internment, you talk about closing mosques, you talk about registering people. That's just wrong. I don't care about campaigns," he said on CNBC. "It's not a question of toughness. It's to manipulate people's angst and their fears. That's not strength, that's weakness."

Less predictably fellow candidate, and Trump sycophant, Ted Cruz slammed his foot on the brakes: 

"I'm a big fan of Donald Trump's but I'm not a fan of government registries of American citizens," he told reporters of a plan Trump said he backed a day earlier. "The First Amendment protects religious liberty, I've spent the past several decades defending religious liberty." 

Wow, losing Ted Cruz. That's big!

I have this image of Cruz following Trump around like a puppy, desperate to snatch up any crumbs of support that might fall off his master's table. Those crumbs are the foundation of Cruz's plan to win the nomination, so you know he is not walking away from that on impulse.

So now the question is, will THIS hurt Trump's poll ratings, or is he really just tapping into the darkness at the soul of the Republican base?

And remember a Rhode Island state senator has already resurrected the specter of internment camps, so there is already evidence that Trump's statements will not be seen as problematic to those who see a terrorist behind every bush and believe that white Christians are losing their hold on the reigns of power in America.

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Just so long as they're not Syrian.

Caught between Iraq and a hard place it would seem.

Is this really who we are?

In perhaps the least surprising news of the day Bobby Jindal drops out of 2016 presidential race.

Bobby Jindal displaying one of the word's creepiest smiles.

Courtesy of TPM: 

Republican presidential candidate and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal suspended his bid for the presidency Tuesday night. 

"It's been a great honor for me to run for President of the United States. To put it in perspective, my parents came to this country 45 years ago. They came here for freedom and opportunity," Jindal said on Fox News. "I don't think in a million years they would have ever imagined that I would be governor or one day I would be running for President of the United States. The reality is, though, they told me as a young child, Americans can do anything. I believed them then, I believe them now. This is not my time." 

"I've come to the realization this is not my time," Jindal continued. "So I've come here to announce that I'm suspending my campaign for President of the United States."

I have news for Piyush Jindal. It will NEVER be your time.

I have always found Jindal to be an especially creepy and smarmy political, in a party chock full of creepy and smarmy politicians.

Currently the very brown Governor Jindal is focused on denying the very brown Syrian refugees  from coming to his state,  demonstrating very clearly that racism is more than just skin deep.

So of course the next question is, with Jindal out who is next?

Rupert Murdoch: Only "proven Christian" refugees should be allowed into America.

Source

So how does one decide who is a "proven Christian?"

Do you tear up a Koran in front of the refugees and the ones that don't cringe are allowed to come into the country?

Or perhaps it's like testing witches where you throw them into the water weighted down with rocks, and the ones that float we know are Muslims, and the others....well they're just dead.

Of course where Fox News goes, the Republicans are sure to follow. Which is partially why we are now seeing over two dozen Republican governors (And one Democratic one.) saying that they will refuse to accept any refugees from Syria.

Though I am sure that they, much like Murdoch, would immediately change their minds just so long as they could PROVE they were good little Christian refugees.

Somebody might need to remind Murdoch, and the Republicans, that in America the vast number of terrorist attacks are NOT attributed to Muslims, but rather to those who would most likely self identify as Christians.