Now, thankfully, the residents of Texas know where they can get a $40 "USA" hat if they need one.

[Miles Archer]

I am sure that most of you woke up this morning as I did, feeling a mixture of deep sorrow over the loss of life and suffering in Texas, as well as a grinding, empty feeling of rage over the tragedy being used as a "rally" to sell Trump merchandise.

I have nothing new or profound to share about who Trump is and what Trump is in this thread, because there is nothing new.

"Same as it ever was."

And there is a strong wafting of David Byrne in the air on this August 30th morning:

And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?

And you may tell yourself...This is not my beautiful country!

I saw the stories yesterday about Best Buy gouging customers over $40 packs of Dasani Water. They were excoriated on the Internet, their stock plummeted, and what did they do?

They issued a statement of apology, vowing "THIS IS NOT WHO WE ARE."

Well, of course that's who they are. Even if the employee was in error when he / she marked the large and visible floor display of water at $40, every employee, assistant manager and manager in that store saw the display, and none of them saw fit to do anything about it.

Karma was swift and brutal, and they paid a price.

Trump, on the other hand, sells $40 hats and it's met with cheers from his "base."

The media ripped him a new one over this, but only after much speculation regarding how the Texas visit was going to be another "pivot," how it would re-define and reshape his "crumbling Presidency." I didn't see that happen. I saw him dig deeper into the hole with his complete lack of humanity, with a total disregard for anything other than his continued self-promotion.

Will anyone care a week from now? Will the size of his rallies continue to shrink? Will Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell grow spines? Or will Trump continue to slither through the cracks, looking for every last sucker on the planet with money in their pockets ready for the taking?

If you are in the middle of one of the worst natural disasters on record and Donald Trump comes to your town, he's going to sell you hats. He'll bring his wife, and she'll be wearing a hat too. He'll surround himself with trucks to prevent any personal contact, he'll grab a bullhorn, he'll brag about crowd size. He'll sit in a briefing room, staring off into space, wishing that he could be comfortably relieving himself on his golden commode. He'll return to the resolute desk and press the red button for a fresh Diet Coke, and then ponder the impossible Presidential decision he must make over lunch: McDonald's, KFC, or...???

He'll enjoy his lunch and return to his living quarters, where he will watch Fox News in impatient anticipation as he sees and hears the stories of what is going on in Texas, waiting for that one moment that makes life worth living...the moment when he appears on screen, resplendent in his $40 "USA" hat, dreaming of the day when his face is added to Mt. Rushmore as one of the greatest Presidents in U.S. history.

Part of me wants to tell you "This is STILL America, don't be pissed off, don't let this get to you."

Then I realize I'd be doing you a disservice if I wrote that. Rather,

This is STILL America, be pissed off, let this get to you, and do everything you can to help shift the balance of power in 2018.

[CentralMass]

1. I have to wonder and ask, were the hats even made in the USA ?

[Miles Archer]

3. "Are Trumps Made in USA hats really made in USA?" (PBS)

Are Trump’s ‘Made in USA’ hats really made in USA?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/are-trumps-made-in-usa-hats-really-made-in-usa/

The baseball-style “Make America Great Again” hats are indeed stitched together at a small factory in the Los Angeles area. But in a small sample tested by The Associated Press and an outside expert, at least one did not contain the specific type of U.S.-made fabric the manufacturer insists is always used for the hats.
The true origin of the fabric in that hat remains a mystery — whether U.S. or foreign made. It shows how difficult and murky it can be to verify something is actually “Made in USA.”

Informed of AP’s findings, Trump said any misrepresentation would be unacceptable. He said: “I pay a good price for that hat. If it’s not made in the USA, we’ll bring a lawsuit.”

The AP review included a microscopic analysis of five hats bought from Trump’s campaign website. The analysis showed the fabric in one was of a different type than that made by the supplier the manufacturer told the AP provides all his hat fabric.

In addition to the fabric analysis, two of the manufacturer’s employees, including a top sales agent, said the hats’ fabric, bills and stiffeners were imported.

And from The LA Times:

Inside the Southern California factory that makes the Donald Trump hats

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-trump-hats-cali-fame-carson-20151124-story.html

Donald Trump’s hats have quickly become a signature totem of the 2016 campaign, a kitsch magnet that serves ironic hipsters and sincere supporters alike. The red-and-white caps are emblazoned with the real estate mogul's oft-repeated slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

But look around the factory floor where these hats are being made by the thousands, and you’ll find faces that don’t seem to fit into Trump’s America.

Yolanda Melendrez is one of them. Melendrez, an immigrant from Mexico who was brought to the United States by her parents when she was a baby, has worked at the Carson-based Cali-Fame headwear company since 1991.

“When we first got the order [for the Trump hats], I said to myself, ‘Just wait until he sees who’s making his hats. We’re Latinos, we’re Mexicans, Salvadoreños.’”

[CentralMass]

5. Thank you for thst very informative article.

[dalton99a]

8. +1

[mnhtnbb]

2. I have yet to hear a pundit or reporter ask what did Trump BRING on AF 1 to help?

Diapers? Baby supplies? Medicines? Dog or Cat food or crates or beds? Dry clothing? Canned goods?

Anything?

Not one pundit has asked. Probably because they know the answer, which is, they brought nothing.

[Miles Archer]

4. He brought Melania

That was it.

I assumed she kept the hurricane CyberBullting at a minimum.

[mnhtnbb]

6. Yes. The style guru for what to wear to a flood.

[catbyte]

7. AMEN

I knew he was a vile, soul-sucking monster when he first floated that horrific birther lie all those years ago. I'm no political genius. I'm no clairvoyant. I'm no mind reader. But I knew that he was a sleazy con man and a bigot who cared about nothing but himself, money, power & "ratings." The question is, what's wrong with everybody who didn't see what I and 63,000,000 other American patriots saw?

I wake up every day and mourn what could have been, if this election hadn't been close enough to flip. I'll never believe that HRC lost this election fair-and-square.

So here we are, stuck with a Nazi apologist, a sleazy, corrupt "businessman"; a Russian asset who hates the Constitution, can't understand why what he orders won't immediately be followed by Congress, an utterly incompetent Mini-Me Mussolini with access to the nuclear codes. We have a complicit Republican party, so desperate to cling to the power they know is evaporating as demographics move against them that they're willingly letting him destroy their party right along with America.

And folks wonder why I look worried all the time.

[crazycatlady]

9. a $25 hat is better

And it's handmade

Pink (or other colors) with cat ears.

[NastyRiffraff]

11. I bought a ball of pink yarn for about $4.00

And knitted at least 4 pussyhats from it. Maybe 5; I can't remember exactly. I wore one and gave the rest away at the Women's March. They were MUCH nicer than Dump's hats--the MAGA red ones and the white campaign ones.

[crazycatlady]

12. I sell them at marches

I've bought at least two dozen skeins of pink yarn since Trumpty Dumpty. I've also done other colors for other causes (rainbow--LGBT pride, green/blue-- environmental).

I also have an Etsy store that I have a few of them on.

I'm awaiting the next (cool weather) NYC march so I can sell more.

[BSdetect]

10. And no donations from the master grifter.