Stormy Weather...

[Schewe]

Time did an interesting thing...they had an artist do an updated illustration from last year's Feb 27th cover for the April 23 cover...ouch!

The Story Behind TIME's 'Stormy' Donald Trump Cover


Nothing to See Here, Feb. 27, 2017 Stormy, April, 23, 2018 Illustrations by Tim O'Brien for TIME

The April 23 TIME cover, depicting the growing chaos within the Trump White House, may look familiar to some readers: We asked longtime TIME collaborator Tim O’Brien to reimagine a cover he did for us just over a year ago.
 With his inventive style and fine hairline brush, Tim’s updated piece shows the rising water from the storms swirling inside the Oval Office.

“When I painted the ‘Nothing to See Here’ cover art, like many, I assumed the level of chaos could not last, that patriots on both sides of the aisle would step forward to control much of what transpired in the past year,” says O’Brien, a Brooklyn-based artist whose work has appeared on over two dozen TIME covers since 1989, covering subjects ranging from the Catholic church to Osama Bin Laden.

“As the never-ending flood of breaking news washed over the White House, and the firings, the scandals and the general mayhem filled each news cycle, I felt the storm metaphor was as relevant as ever,” says O’Brien, who used air brush, pencil, gouache and oil paint to create the piece.” “I mostly thought about how water would fill the space, how it would be transparent in some areas and reflective in others.”

The cover article is pretty scathing as well...

Donald Trump Relied on Michael Cohen to Weather the Storm. Now The President Is On His Own

But hey, this is old news...now we have Jim Comey's new book A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.

I predict that the Trumpeter is gonna be hitting the ol' Twitter pretty hard between no and when it ship next Trues (course, it's already been leaked and much comment from tonite's cable shows.

Never a dull moment at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave the all-American TV Reality Show starring Donnie Trump as the capo otherwise known as The Don.

Actually reminds me of our own little mob we started a few years ago: http://pixelmafia.org

                         T h e    R u l e s    o f    O m e r t á    A p p l y.

[LesPalenik]

Actually, there is even less to see in the second picture, but those big waves could turn out disastrous.

[Rob C]

Thanks for the pixelmafia link; explains a lot about this particular family...

Rob

[LesPalenik]

While on the stormy situation, last night there was a very interesting and illuminating talkshow by Maybritt Illner from Germany (english subtitles available through the youtube Setting and Autotranslate options). Civilized and balanced discussion by knowledgeable participants primarily on Syria and Skripals. Well worth watching it for one hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty2CAnIS1fY

[EDIT]
I watched part of the talkshow a second time, this time looking at the english subtitles, and have to say that the translation was lousy. Automatic, by sound, very mechanical (focusing on the individual words, not on the phrases or meaning), and often incomplete and worse yet, even misleading. Especially the names seem to be a challenge for the Google's AI, i.e. the name Skripal was translated as Skriba, script all, Clipper, and possibly other forms.  In another instance, "sanctions against oligarchs" was translated as "he laughs rain Russian". Very interesting in German, but abominable in the English translation.

So if this leads to a WWIII, blame Google and not Putin.
I wouldn't want to sit in a Google autonomous car whose camera reads and translates the road signs. Or tries to interpret the signage on an incoming missile.

[Robert Roaldi]

The subject line reminded me of a cartoon I saw 2-3 weeks ago. The Pres and VP were standing at a window looking out at a looming windswept image of the porn actress by that name.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...

[RSL]

These are the same guys who never said a thing about John Kennedy (also known as Mattress Jack), who'd jump anything that walked by. Nor did they ever bring up FDR's affairs. Nor did they ever jump on Chappaquiddick, where Teddy abandoned a girl to drown and slinked away. And of course we'll never hear about the details of the Bill Clinton extramarital sexual activities from this outfit, even though he was actually doing the stuff as President of the U.S., rather than ten or twelve years earlier.

But, of course, that's unbiased news according to the left.

[Two23]

These are the same guys who never said a thing about John Kennedy (also known as Mattress Jack), who'd jump anything that walked by. Nor did they ever bring up FDR's affairs. Nor did they ever jump on Chappaquiddick, where Teddy abandoned a girl to drown and slinked away. And of course we'll never hear about the details of the Bill Clinton extramarital sexual activities from this outfit, even though he was actually doing the stuff as President of the U.S., rather than ten or twelve years earlier.

But, of course, that's unbiased news according to the left.

You left out Clinton's rape of Juanita Broderick, when he was attorney general of Arkansas.


Kent in SD

[Robert Roaldi]

I find this obsession over sexual escapades a little nuts, funny cartoons aside. When that singer exposed her nipple a few years ago, it seemed like the entire country lost its mind for a week. Reactions to school and concert shootings are almost subdued by comparison. Given the amount of sin whose origins are American, porn and porn sites, Las Vegas, huge market for illegal drugs, worrying about how who the Pres had sex with seems beside the point to me. Why does anyone care? Actually, that's one of the things that confuses me about the so-called "right", how they claim to stand for individualism then freak over who the neighbours have sex with. I guess individualism is ok so long as it conforms.

The pay-offs and later cover-ups in these situations look bad, they always do, and I don't understand why politicians get caught up in them. It's high arrogance to believe that the info won't get out. I think the Pres played this all wrong. He should have come out swinging. In much the same way that he bragged about not paying taxes, he should have just sent out a few tweets bragging about the episode, and not paid out the hush money. It would have more honest, and I bet lots of people would have had a good laugh and thought to themselves, "Way to go!" I don't even think that his religious right support would have suffered much. If they've stuck with him this far, how moralistic can they really be?

[RSL]

You left out Clinton's rape of Juanita Broderick, when he was attorney general of Arkansas.


Kent in SD

Right, Kent. But I could go on and on. I also left out Gary Hart who was caught in flagrante delicto on the Monkey Business. When it comes to sexual misbehavior Democrats leave Republicans far behind in the dust.

[Robert Roaldi]

These are the same guys who never said a thing about John Kennedy (also known as Mattress Jack), who'd jump anything that walked by. Nor did they ever bring up FDR's affairs. Nor did they ever jump on Chappaquiddick, where Teddy abandoned a girl to drown and slinked away. And of course we'll never hear about the details of the Bill Clinton extramarital sexual activities from this outfit, even though he was actually doing the stuff as President of the U.S., rather than ten or twelve years earlier.

But, of course, that's unbiased news according to the left.

To be fair, although you're correct about JFK and FDR, I don't think you could say that Clinton's affair was exactly kept secret.

(And as an aside, are you suggesting that only Democrats have sex flings?)

But this just points out the pointlessness of worrying about this stuff. We don't know anything about the personal lives of these people, and I don't want to. It's none of my business.

[Robert Roaldi]

Right, Kent. But I could go on and on. I also left out Gary Hart who was caught in flagrante delicto on the Monkey Business. When it comes to sexual misbehavior Democrats leave Republicans far behind in the dust.

I sincerely doubt that.

[RSL]

Okay, Robert. Go ahead and document your reasons for doubt. But I warn you, I've only scraped the surface. And yeah, everybody knew about Clinton's sexual fiascoes because they were too far over the edge to hide, though Hillary tried her best. But Time magazine minimized the whole thing.

I've never stopped laughing about the Gary Hart thing. It belonged in a comic book.

[Robert Roaldi]

I was going to let this go because I am actually not interested in the subject, but since you insisted, a simple google search brought this up: https://www.ranker.com/list/republican-sex-scandals/web-infoguy.

And because it seems to be necessary to say so, I am not implying that I think that Repubs are any worse than Dems, more that I am trying to say that this little tangent is nonsense.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... But this just points out the pointlessness of worrying about this stuff. We don't know anything about the personal lives of these people, and I don't want to. It's none of my business.

I finally found something to agree with Robert As I said above, who cares?

[RSL]

I was going to let this go because I am actually not interested in the subject, but since you insisted, a simple google search brought this up: https://www.ranker.com/list/republican-sex-scandals/web-infoguy.

And because it seems to be necessary to say so, I am not implying that I think that Repubs are any worse than Dems, more that I am trying to say that this little tangent is nonsense.

Oooohhh! George H.W. Bush "was accused of touching. . . during a promotion event. . ." Great guns! That's really raunchy, especially compared with letting a girl drown in a submerged car.

And then there's Roy Moore. Nine women accused him of "sexual misconduct." That's a bad one, especially when compared with what Clinton did to Juanita Broderick and others.

And there's Jeff Hoover in Kentucky, with "multiple sexual harassment allegations." Oh my. And when we go on we find allegations about Jeff Kruse, an Oregon state senator.

I could run on down through the list, but I don't see a single one that comes close to a Jack Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, or Gary Hart, all of whom were caught with their red (blue?) hands in the cookie jar (so to speak.) Do you really want me to go on? I just checked out Democrat sexual scandals available on the web. I could post those, but I'll avoid doing it unless you insist.

But I agree with you 100 percent about "the pointlessness of worrying about this stuff." Somebody needs to explain that to Jeff.

[LesPalenik]

"I THINK I can see the whole destiny of America contained in the first Puritan who landed on those shores", the French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville wrote after visiting the United States in the 1830s.
Were Tocqueville to land on our shores today, with a bit of squinting he would probably see some of the same evidence of our Puritan destiny as he did nearly two centuries ago.

Speaking about shores, I think it has also something to do with those ridiculously long men's swimming trunks.

If presidents stand as symbols of their nations, it is useful to contrast the portrait of former French President François Mitterand’s family life with that of United States President Bill Clinton. Before Mitterand died in January 1996, he made meticulous plans for his death and funeral. Upon his wishes, his “two families” were present: his legal wife Danielle Mitterand with their two sons, and his mistress Anne Pingeot with their twenty-one year-old daughter. While some may have disapproved of the gesture, the French press reported the event either neutrally or approvingly. Danielle Mitterand defended her husband’s liaison. In an interview with L'Express magazine (quoted in The Fresno Bee, March 1), she said simply: “So yes, I was married to a seducer. I had to make do. That's part of life. What woman can say, ‘I’ve never been cheated on,’ or that she never cheated in her own love life?” In contrast, when American President Bill Clinton was accused of having a mistress – Gennifer Flowers, Bill and Hillary Clinton tried to pre-empt campaign controversy in a television interview where they presented themselves as an empathetic couple working together on their problems. This strategy consisted of seeking pardon and forgiveness for behavior that is widely condemned.

[Jeremy Roussak]

I find this obsession over sexual escapades a little nuts, funny cartoons aside. When that singer exposed her nipple a few years ago, it seemed like the entire country lost its mind for a week.

The Onion had, as so often, an amusing article on that.

Jeremy

[Chairman Bill]

... news according to the left.

Can I just point out that you don't really have a 'left' in the US, just a less extreme form of a 'right' in politics?

[RSL]

It'd be interesting to see you document that one, Bill.