“Irish PM Enda Kenny took Emperor Baby Fists to task, well done” links

Ireland’s Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, slammed Donald Trump to his face. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, peeps! [Pajiba]
Slo-mo of that Amtrak train hitting a foot of snow. [Dlisted]
CA Chief Justice makes a request of ICE agents. [Jezebel]
Us Weekly is being sold, will probably never be the same. [LaineyGossip]
Here’s Us Weekly’s former editor Janice Min talking about how the weekly was better than Rolling Stone. [Buzzfeed]
I actually really like Julianne Moore’s look here. [Go Fug Yourself]
Tinsley Mortimer is on a Real Housewife show? [Reality Tea]
Karolina Kurkova looks totally ‘90s. [Moe Jackson]
Lena Dunham lost weight but still can’t dress. [Wonderwall]
Meek Mill’s probably going back to jail. [Starcasm]

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68 Responses to ““Irish PM Enda Kenny took Emperor Baby Fists to task, well done” links”

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  1. Hazel says:

    Nicely done, Mr. Kenny.

    • Lahdidahbaby says:

      Yes, nicely done! And a Happy St. Paddy’s to all! My wonderful Gran came over from County Cork, a published poet in Ireland but a servant here. All my life until she died, she was my best friend and greatest influence. And she gave me poetry.

  2. SusanneToo says:

    Happy St. Pat’s Day, PM Kenny. Well done! Double Irish on my father’s side.

  3. antipodean says:

    It’s a pity they didn’t show the Buffoon in Chief’s face while this gentleman was delivering his heartfelt and righteous speech. Unfortunately it was probably just his usual, clueless, entitled sneer, that we have become so used to over the last eighteen months. Having said that I can’t bear to look at the smug one’s ugly face, and have to divert my eyes. Only me?
    My ancestors were immigrants of the 1845 potato famine, and helped build my beloved country on their blood, sweat, and tears. They inherited nothing but the fruits of their own hard working labours, as those since then have too. Happy St Patrick’s to all. A proud Irish descendant.

    • Christin says:

      I watched three or four minutes of his rally the other night and had to switch channels. It reminded me of an over the top wrestling performance (crazy talk and dramatic pacing once the audience was stirred).

      May all the Irish have a nice holiday. I have at least one direct Irish descendant, who left in the 1700s (and met her husband on the ship to the US). I would love to visit what appears to be a beautiful place.

    • vauvert says:

      Canadian of Irish descent MP just gave speech in Canada. Brought me to tears. Same hateful rhetoric about the Irish then, about the danger they posed, about their “Catholic” ways… luckily Canada rose above it. Toronto had a population of 20,000 in those days and yet in one year 34,000 Irish came through. That’s the country I want. Yet today even here there are folks whining about the 25,000 Syrians we brought in and how they’ll impose Sharia law on us. On 30M people. Stupidity and hatred are truly endless… #resistance

  4. Nev says:

    WORD.

  5. Kezia says:

    Not to be a negative nelly but as an Irish person living in Ireland, he is such a Weasel-y snake (mixed methaphor?). He is such a conservative creep he would get along VERY well with Drumpf.

    He and his party refuses to call a referendum to repeal the 8th amendment (the complete and utter block on abortion or information about abortion, leaving 100,000’s of us to travel to England for abortions). He only got behind the marriage referendum a few years ago because he saw that the way the tide was turning in favour of gay marriage (he is extremely religious). Typical two faced politician.

    The idea that we could ever have an organisation like planned parenthood here is laughable. Drumpf might defund it but Kenny or the majority of the government wouldn’t allow it.
    We are having scandal after scandal at the moment about the mother and baby homes where “fallen” unmarried women were sent to give birth away from their family, who also colluded in this crap, under the nuns and priests and then SOLD them to wealthy American couples under the women’s noses. The women had to work in laundries then with the church keeping the profit of course. A massive unmarked grave in a SEPTIC TANK has discovered hundreds of babies remains last week at one of these mother and baby homes/magdalene laundries (the current scandal).

    And on the above speech you can be sure he is only referring about securing undocumented Irish citizenship in America, he doesn’t give a sh*t about any other undocumented people in America. He certainly doesn’t care about poor Irish people living in Ireland, in an extremely fiscally Conservative party.

    Cannot stand him. Rant over! Happy st Patrick’s day y’all 🇮🇪🇮🇪 Not feeling much to be proud to be Irish about here!😂

    • Angel says:

      Thank you for the context:)

    • Zapp Brannigan says:

      +1 to everything you said Kezia.

      Re: the mother and baby homes the government will do nothing about any of that, since 1997 they have being promising Irish adoptees that adoption records would be open so they could trace birth families and medical information, they have not yet done this and they will never will do it as so many adoptions in Ireland were illegal all under the influence of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. There are countless stories of unmarried women in Ireland being told that a baby did not survive child birth, to forget about it and move on only for that child to trace the birth mother decades later. Countless stories of American families adopting an Irish baby and having a member of the Catholic church in the US follow their every movement, reminding them to be good catholics, attend mass, donate money to the church or the baby removed from their care, the Irish government knew this and turned a blind eye to the actions of the church every time. Not feeling too proud to be Irish today either.

    • Shutterbug99 says:

      Well said, Kezia. As an Irish person, it feels really strange to see Enda Kenny lauded for anything. As you said, he’s a weasel and a snake and I also cannot stand him!

      • jwoolman says:

        Well, even a snake can school another snake about some things. I’m sure that our snake-in-chief did not appreciate the reminder of contributions made by immigrants who were refugees from bad situations.

    • Stacy Dresden says:

      Thank you for speaking out. Women’s and children’s lives are at stake.

      • Bex says:

        Thanks for this Kezia. I have a lot of Irish family and can’t stand this man being lauded for anything. He’s a hypocrite of the highest order and there are thousands of Irish people in danger as a direct result of his awful policies.

    • Neelyo says:

      Thanks for the information.

    • What Was That? says:

      Not wishing to overlook all the terrible issues of pregnancy..can I lightened your mood with the fact that you’re still in the EU..is that any good for you??
      I understand lots of Brit’s trying for Irish Passports..I am looking for a handsome Irish man if you know any!!!!

      • Miffy says:

        Pfft. As an Irish citizen re: Handsome man… get in line, sistah. We’re in short supply. We export the good looking ones that don’t still live with their mothers to make us look better.

    • NatalieS says:

      Yes, thank you! There are millions of undocumented immigrants in the US. There is clearly one specific group that has been targeted in Trump’s immigration policies and it isn’t the Irish. To make no mention of what has been happening while asking for an exception for a group that hasn’t even been targeted is deplorable.

      • jwoolman says:

        Don’t know the current figures, but back during the Reagan Administration the number of undocumented Irish in the US rivaled the number of undocumented from Central America. For some peculiar reason, people like Trump never seem worried about that.

    • Londerland says:

      Glad you posted this, Kezia. Seeing Kenny being praised all over the net today as if he’s some sort of enlightened progressive has been completely surreal.

    • Deedee says:

      You’re right. He is an ass. And he got along with 45 just swell. 2 peas in a pod. Trump was A-okay with undocumented Irish staying here (I don’t have a problem with that), but get rid of the Mexicans and muslims. They both are slime molds.

    • jwoolman says:

      You have to convince regular people before you can expect legislators to follow. I know it’s tempting to think legislation will fix everything (the top down approach). But look at us here in the USA – it’s a continuing struggle to keep abortion legal because a certain segment is against it entirely and won’t accept the idea that women have to have the final say in the matter of their own bodies. And that’s even with a large number of people who do believe it has to be legal even if they personally feel it’s wrong.

      The Catholic Church is a bigger factor in Ireland than here in the US, but keep pushing on the idea that what is immoral does not have to be illegal and that it will be a moot point anyway with modern medical technology. If God didn’t want women to make the decision, he would have designed things differently… Plus of course most conceptions never make it to birth naturally, making God rather a busy abortionist. If people want to reduce abortions, much better to keep it legal so it can be discussed freely.

      This obsession with abortion is actually relatively new in Catholic history, considering the length of that history. Medical manuals had suggestions for herbs to induce miscarriage, so it’s not as though people weren’t doing it (or more gruesomely, killing the child at birth). You don’t have to convince them that abortion is moral, though, just that the decision has to remain with the woman because it’s her body that is occupied. That’s simple biology. The morality of it is between her and her God and the rest of us can’t judge. We can’t morally force a woman to give birth against her will.

      And above all – actually ask women why they abort and find ways to make it more likely that they will choose to try to give birth. One US Catholic bishop did that decades ago and came away from the session with a new appreciation of the complexity of the issue. Most of the time here, it’s economic pressures and the lack of community support after birth – especially if things go very wrong and the child needs a lot of medical assistance and extra care. And of course methods for reliable contraception are crucial, since you are never going to convince many people to stop having sex to avoid pregnancy. Contraceptive methods today can also fail – a friend and his wife aborted because using three separate methods simultaneously failed and since he was still in school, they couldn’t even afford the extra insurance, much less expenses to actually raise a child at that point. It wasn’t a happy decision but they felt backed into a corner.

    • jwoolman says:

      We had “homes for unwed mothers” here in the US also that took the babies for adoption right away so the mothers wouldn’t bond after birth. When my aunt was a young nurse back in the 1940s, she worked in a Catholic one for a while. She remembered holding two babies at a time for baptism. At that time, there was pretty much zero support for single mothers and so if they didn’t seek an abortion (illegal and not too safe at the time), they would go somewhere away from home for the pregnancy and birth and then go back home without the baby, never revealing what had happened.

      Adoptions were also often kept secret as well, and many adoptees were shocked to discover they were adopted later. In the late 1950s, that happened to one of my friends. We were around ten at the time. She and her younger brother had been adopted as a kind of “deal” with God if her older sister survived polio (which my friend also had: her brother had a chronic but treatable disease). She was so shaken by the accidental revelation (some relative talked…) that she actually was talking about suicide for a while. The fact that her parents were heading toward divorce wasn’t helping. I tried to be supportive but couldn’t help wishing that I had found out I wasn’t genetically related to my family…. I would have been so happy!

      • Miffy says:

        That’s actually a horrific comment. Is that a joke? Maybe your homes were more humane than what Ireland experienced but wishing you were part of that system… it’s a bit sick. Google Irish news articles on what those children and mothers went through, are still going through, how their lives were ruined, the stigma, the horror of begging daily to see your child for years only to be told one day ‘they’re gone’ and not being entitled to know whether that meant were they relocated to another home, adopted out without your consent or dead and ask yourself if it still would have made you happy.

    • Miffy says:

      Yes. Fucking yes.
      Points I’d like to add: The mother and baby homes were in operation til the late 80’s.
      The homeless crisis.
      Austerity measures where the Irish population have been crippled to cover the banks’ arses following the humiliating bailout (not an independent country for a hundred years and they ran us into the ground through corruption).

      But good man, Enda, hop on the band wagon and DO THE OBVIOUS in disagreeing with Trump. Give the man a Nobel Peace Prize. You’ve left our country strangled with debts you got us into, but good boy saying one or two sensible things on your free holiday.

    • Vox says:

      Thanks for saying that. It was a pretty speech but knowing what’s behind the man made it hard to swallow.

  6. whatever says:

    Good for the Irish PM that needed to be said. But there is something about St Patrick’s Day that I don’t understand. St Patrick was born in Britain before he was taken to Ireland and held captive for years. Because he was British born why is his he identified as the just the ‘Saint of Ireland’? Shouldn’t St Patrick’s Day be celebrated as a joint British-Irish celebration?

    • gobo says:

      He’s the Patron Saint of Ireland. He brought Christianity to the country (and chased out the snakes), whereas he is of no particular import to Britain. And they have their own Patron saint. It’s not about where he is from, it’s about what importance he has to the nation. It’s a religious holiday rather than a nationalistic one, although it has morphed into a nationalistic celebration.

    • Caitriona says:

      He was taken to Ireland from Wales as a slave and later escaped and returned to Wales. Then he had a vision telling him that God wanted him to bring Christianity to Ireland so he returned to start spreading the word and is credited as being the first person to bring Christianity to Ireland. Hence Irish patron saint and not really a big deal on the UK.

      • What Was That? says:

        Each of the nations have their own saint..St George for England..David for Wales and Andrew for Scotland..I think none are really major celebrations as 100’s of years ago under the Reformation people were banned from worshipping Saints ,Models of Mary etc so despite being recognised each year ..it is not a big deal..Infact now I think everyone just looks forward to public holidays as a day off from work..though Christmas is popular as a get together whatever religion you are..many of my colleagues are South Asian..Hindu Moslem Sikh and all have trees ..lights…presents and family meals..which as it’s a pagan midwinter festival anyway means anyone can join in!..

      • dodgy says:

        Neither St George, St David nor St Andrew days are bank (public) holidays. We don’t celebrate St Patrick’s day in Britain as a bank holiday either.

      • What Was That? says:

        Yes I am aware of that Thankyou ..my point was that people are just more interested in days off to relieve themselves of the daily slog and that St Patrick is just like any other saint day which due to the Protestant religion means none are particularly celebrated..they are all just noted and the difference is having a brew for St Patrick especially if it falls on a weekend!

    • Londerland says:

      Saints don’t have to have been born in the country they are associated with. St George was supposedly from (what is now) Turkey. *shrug*

    • whatever says:

      Thanks for the clarification guys

  7. gobo says:

    I would never have guessed that Enda had it in him. I’m impressed.

  8. original kay says:

    Just reading trump refused to shake Angela Merkel’s hand in the WH. He did when she arrived, but not during that side by side chair thing. She also asked him a question, and he ignored her completely.

    • Lady D says:

      Maybe he couldn’t control the jerk and pull any longer so he abstained from shaking.

    • Elisa the I. says:

      Yep, that’s the real story here. As far as I understood, she told him quietly to shake hands and he ignored her. Also, the US is blocking G20 trade negotiations in Germany. Most of German exports go to to the US (around 9%, 120 billion USD). Some might call that leverage….. interesting times!

  9. me says:

    Trump only has issue with brown/black immigrants. You think he has any problem with White Irish immigrants? Please.

    • What Was That? says:

      I was thinking that as I believe his mother is a Scot..
      He probably did not even listen and switched off ..in his own world of how presidential he looks etc..I do not believe he cares or really listens to any of his visitors..

    • Yup, Me says:

      I was thinking the exact same thing.

  10. INeedANap says:

    I wish Lena Dunham would just admit that she felt pressure to conform to standard ideals of beauty and lost the weight for that, rather than couching it in excuses. It’s OK girl. You’re entitled to change your look and we don’t live in a vacuum.

  11. Lady D says:

    This is OT, but I really hope the American women’s hockey team gets their contract. They are among the best players on the ice, and it wouldn’t be a competition without them. They are asking for a pittance, $1000 a month or skates and gear, practices, coaches and training for the 4 years of Olympics training. Men’s hockey receives 3.5 mill per season from the US Hockey org., and the women receive nothing. I’m hoping other women’s hockey teams can help.

    • me says:

      What needs to happen is they need the support of the men’s hockey teams. But I guess why would the men care about unequal treatment of women?

  12. bleu_moon says:

    This administration is less professional than the average high school newspaper. Adding a link about Trump’s “Irish proverb.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/17/trumps-irish-proverb-causes-derision-on-the-web

    • Kiki says:

      If Donald Trump really thinks that “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” is an “Irish Proverb” by an Irish-American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, by all means Emperor Baby Fists is really DUMB.

      I know the words, and I am not an American

    • bleu_moon says:

      He quoted “Always remember to forget the friends that proved untrue, but never forget to remember those that have stuck by you” and claimed it was an Irish Proverb. Apparently one most Irish people didn’t recognize. It may be by a Nigerian poet, I don’t think they’ve definitively tracked down the author- but not Irish. According to the article I linked it does appears as an Irish quote on Pinterest. 🙂

      • jwoolman says:

        The guy who actually wrote it recognized it – he wrote it while still in college and posted it then, I think. Apparently he submitted it to a poetry something or other in 2013 also but really hasn’t been writing poetry since then. He’s a banker. He is indeed Nigerian and even more delightfully – he’s Muslim.

        So Trump just claimed as his favorite proverb something that was written by a Muslim black guy….

        Even more oddly, the poem says to forget about friends who haven’t been true, while we all know Trump keeps grudges for decades if he gets even a whiff of criticism from anybody.

  13. minx says:

    I was always proud of President Obama on the world stage.
    This guy–I’m mortified to be an American.

    • bleu_moon says:

      Go watch the video of Merkel and Trump in the Oval Office today. He looks like a petulant child and appears to refuse to shake her hand. He is a national embarrassment.

      • minx says:

        Saw it. Unbelievable.

      • What Was That? says:

        I did not know he did that….unbelievable!..
        Although I am a Brit and it is inevitable we are leaving the EU..Germany is an amazingly powerful financial influence in Europe and to be so discourteous will not go unrewarded later..
        But of course the people who will pay for Trumps errors will be the poor etc…

      • TheOtherOne says:

        He was so intimated by her. It was obvious and pathetic at the same time. All bark no bite. He is such an asshole.

  14. Angela82 says:

    Slightly OT, but as a HHS employee I finally feel validated in my concerns over Price’s ethics (or lack thereof) and his deranged weekly emails:

    http://theslot.jezebel.com/employees-say-hhs-head-tom-price-sends-staff-propaganda-1793350822

  15. Original T.C. says:

    100% Black both sides but I
    #standwiththeIrish

    Happy St. Patrick’s day to my Irish 🍀 Sisters in the resistance:)

  16. greenmonster says:

    I just saw a video of Trump and Chancellor Merkel. He was refusing to shake her hand or even acknowling her sitting next to him. I looked it up on youtube and the comment section underneath is as disgusting as it gets. Mostly men are calling her a slut or a whore. They also kept calling refugees all kind of names. I just can’t. I cried. The level of racism and misogyny is disheartening.

    • robyn says:

      I wonder if the most provocative statements are staged to disrupt normal discourse by people and/or countries with hidden agendas, Russia being the biggest troll of all. It’s hard to believe people are as rude and crude in this day and age as they appear to be.

      I saw Trump ignoring Merkel as if he were deaf. He is rude but perhaps he is also hard of hearing. Nothing wrong with being deaf but being deaf AND dumb is quite a combination if true. Apparently, older adults with hearing loss are more likely to develop dementia. I sometimes wonder if Trump is in early stages of Alzheimer’s. I guess I’m still trying to rationalize how a person with such unacceptable behaviors made it into the WH.

      • bleu_moon says:

        @Robyn- I think he’s always been a narcissist, but is now in the initial stages of early onset dementia. I confess I’m not a doctor and have no medical experience to back that up, but I had a relative with it. A lot of what Trump does reminds me of her in the early stages. I wonder if that’s why he never released his medical records.

      • jwoolman says:

        Someone on another forum said his bad ear was turned to her and that he’s deaf in that ear. But I never heard that ever before, so I don’t know if it’s correct. If it is true, why wouldn’t he deal with it at least by seating her on the other side? And he can afford the technology to work around the problem. Maybe his microwave can help out.

        Now we’ll have to be matching up his ignoring people with what ear is turned to them, in order to prove or disprove the hypothesis….

  17. Mia LeTendre says:

    Of course Lena had to mention her UTI when talking about working out….

  18. Meow says:

    Dunham counts as slim now?

    I’m a model then…

  19. Eric says:

    To all non-Americans:

    I’m sorry to you on behalf of the “so-called” prez Emperor Zero.

    I’m deeply ashamed to be a citizen of the US.

  20. Hannah says:

    Irish here, just to say a few words about our Taoiseach Enda Kenny before you rally around him too much. Disclaimer: not defending or respecting the horrible disgusting man that is Trump. Just important to me that Kenny doesn’t get too many brownie points.

    In terms of racist language, Kenny has been far more explicit than Trump ever has using the n-word on multiple occasions – on one occasion in front of many Irish journalists who buried it. A Guardian journalist wrote about it.

    He has done nothing to change direct provision, instead supporting to keep human beings who arrive to Ireland seeking asylum in camps for up to TEN YEARS with an allowance of €20 a week.

    He is very like Trump, in my opinion, make no mistake.