John Cook at Gawker, “Bloomberg Deputy Arrested for Beating His Wife Last Month“:
When Stephen Goldsmith, the former Indianapolis mayor and technocratic guru that Michael Bloomberg hired as his deputy last year, resigned suddenly in August, everyone assumed it was because he failed so miserably during last winter’s blizzard…
__
Turns out that four days before his resignation, Goldsmith had been arrested for allegedly beating his wife at their Georgetown home…
Something seemed to be missing here — namely, a prior history of Goldsmith furiously mouthing pieties about family values! ! eleventy-one ! So I decided to check Indiana-based Doghouse Riley and “Ask The Man Who Owned One“:
[Emphasis mine.] So, I guess Goldsmith (to understand Riley’s spelling, click over and read the whole post) switched from the Talibangelical wing of the GOP, to the Glibertarian faction. And the police responding to his wife’s plea for assistance were therefore damaging his civil rights by interfering in a private contract dispute between adults, not trespassing against his religious beliefs concerning proper spousal conduct. Sucks to be Mrs. Goldsmith, either way…… Anyway, after becoming an Eagle Scout, like Dick Lugar, graduating from Michigan Law, like Ann Coulter, and landing a six-year gig with the US Army Reserves at the height of the Vietnam War, like Dan Quayle, Goldsmythe started work for a well-connected Indianapolis law firm, and shortly after went to work on the government’s dime as Corporate Counsel, and later chief trial deputy, for the city. He won a surprise victory for Marion County Prosecutor in 1978, thanks to the popular Nixonian law n’ order blather and some fortuitous financing. Goldsmythe spent the next twelve years as Prosecutor, pissing off Bad Guys and carping about Permanent Indianapolis Mayor the Reverend Bill Hudnut, whose job Goldsmythe wanted…
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Goldsmythe, meanwhile, had become a disciple of Government Privatization, on the grounds that this seemed like a good deal for his backers. His antics, which to this point had been only about 10% more disturbing than the run-of-the-mill politician’s in these parts–he had a particular fixation on “cleaning up” massage parlors and adult bookstores, and no apparent concern with Constitutional rights, nor the cost to taxpayers of losing extended court fights over overarching prosecutions–now became, in a word, insufferable. Indianapolis did not undertake Privatization under Stephen Goldsmythe for the sake of economic efficiencies or improvement of services; Indianapolis undertook Privatization because Stephen Goldsmythe was metaphysically correct in his every assumption, and on his way to important political office.
Gex
Talibangelist/Glibertarian. Either way, a woman is your property to do with as you please, government be damned.
Chet
Yes, but Martin Luther King was an adulterer. So there.
Little Boots
and bloomberg’s barely a republican. they still can’t help themselves.
Little Boots
people should never say “family values.” it always leads to nastiness. it’s something about the phrase. it brings out the worst in people.
The Dangerman
@efgoldman:
No interest here either, so I turned it off at 47-23; came back at 47-39 (checked the score a couple times to be sure). Great game, indeed.
Gonna be a lot of cases of voices lost in some areas of Texas tonight….
Ron
My wife got me this
for a birthday cake tonight.
Thought you’d appreciate it, John
Spaghetti Lee
Reading Riley often makes me glad I live in the state that has Chicago in it. Otherwise, the Goldsmiths and Danielses that lurk in the suburbs would be just as powerful here as they are there.
Little Boots
there’s always this funny lull here. not like eschaton. (that usually gets them out.)
Garbo
Anyone else seeing John’s twitter feed? How shitfaced is he right now? Damn.
rikyrah
love those GOP family values
Ron
@Garbo: I was amused at the random open invitation to the twitterverse to come to his house.
Little Boots
see?
Garbo
@Ron: That’s what tipped me off, too . His sober self would not appreciate the departure from misanthropy.
Anne Laurie
@Little Boots:
I don’t remember hearing it before Anita Bryant’s anti-gay jihad and Reagan’s morning-in-America ugliness. I think that’s when it crawled out of the pellagra-belt bible-thumper underground and became “mainstream”, very much to the detriment of American discourse in general.
Little Boots
@Anne Laurie:
i think you may be right. stupid phrase, but it really works politically.
Wag
How long until someone hijacks this thread to blame this on Obama?
3…2…1…
JGabriel
@Garbo:
It’s not a departure. Cole spends the entire time bitching at his guests to clean up after themselves and makes them vacuum their own damn bedrooms three times a day. And cut limes. Then smiles to himself with relief and sadistic glee when they run screaming from his house before the weekend is over.
And if you decide to take up Cole’s offer and visit him anyway, despite these warnings, remember that even after you escape, running screaming from his house, you will STILL BE STUCK IN WEST VIRGINIA!
Edited to Add: At least, that’s what I’m picking up from Cole’s twitter feed. It’s possible, of course, that Twitter provides a distorted view of John’s home life. But do you really believe that? Are you willing to risk your sanity on it?
.
Anne Laurie
@Ron: Happy birthday!
You have a most understanding wife, but what I’m really curious about is the story behind your(?) dog. As my late dad used to say, there’s an animal whose ancestors had no discrimination whatsoever…
Little Boots
why did Obama let Anita Bryant happen? WHYYYYY!!!!
JGabriel
@Little Boots:
There it is again.
.
Ron
@Anne Laurie: The story behind our dog is that she was found along with her littermates in box and we adopted her from a local shelter. We have no real idea what her background is. Our best guess is that it likely includes beagle, some kind of terrier, and whippet. And that’s just a guess.
Anne Laurie
@Wag: How long before some highly evolved individual shows up desperate to establish their anti-emo-prog-firebagger credentials by agitating against Those People?
Little Boots
@JGabriel:
heh.
Anne Laurie
@Ron: I’m sure she’s a sweetie, as well as a fine example of hybrid vigor :) .
Ron
@Anne Laurie: She’s a sweetie, albeit a tad neurotic. As for vigor, she’s 10 years old and about the only real sign of aging in her is a slightly gray face and maybe sleeping a little more than she did when she was younger. other than that she has about as much spunk as she did when she was 3 or 4.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: I’m praying for that hyper-intellgent shade of blue myself, but I may just have unrealistic aspirations.
Ron
@Yutsano: I want the mice.
Garbo
@JGabriel: Ah, Hotel California in West Virginia.
Little Boots
see, jgabriel. lull. lull, dammit, lull.
Yutsano
@Ron: As long as the Republicans get the B Ark all will be well.
Little Boots
sleepy people. why the hell am I awake? I resent you all.
Little Boots
actually, people used to be awake here, at one point. this used to be the wakey place. but those days are gone. too bad.
sfinny
Well now I have insomnia and everyone has gone away. Blah.
Little Boots
don’t it suck?
sfinny
It does.
Little Boots
so what happened to this place? where is everyone?
sfinny
No idea.
A friend is coming to stay tomorrow and the guest room is almost ready, but you can’t vacuum at two in the morning so I feel frustrated. Tried to get to sleep early so I could get up early and get everything done. But no. No sleep, no cleaning.
Yutsano
@sfinny:
Well you COULD…but you do risk annoying folks.
Steeplejack
@Little Boots:
The night shift has taken a bit of a hit lately, but maybe that’s just late summer doldrums. My schedule has been screwed up for a month because of covering for a boss on vacation. So today (Friday) I worked a (not usual) day shift. Went out to dinner with some ex-coworkers afterwards, got home about 8:00 p.m. and promptly went to sleep. Now I am up and wide awake. But I am going to try to go back to sleep, because I have to get up at 7:00 a.m. and open again. My (already weird) circadian rhythms are really screwed up these days.
sfinny
Well the apartment below me is empty, and my next door neighbors are deaf, but still it just feels wrong. :-)
Little Boots
@Steeplejack:
oh, mine too. oh well. I should try to sleep also. but I”m just so damn awake.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: I keep having to do stuff in the morning. Which requires me getting to sleep earlier. Which I am resenting mightily. And wifey is in a maudlin mood after returning from Canuckistan. So there we are.
Jebediah
Howdy everybody. Anybody in the mood for random nuttiness? Was just cruising through the guitar listings on Craigslist, just gawking at stuff I can’t afford, when I found this listing for a very nifty 1958 Gibson. The seller appears to be seriously anti-Obama deranged. And will accept payment in gold or silver bullion.
Lunatic guitar ad
Yutsano
@Jebediah: A San Diego phone number. Surprised, I am not.
Little Boots
knew this place would come back.
Little Boots
@Jebediah:
bee. zar.
Steeplejack
Still up. Once I get into the night-owl groove it’s hard to get untracked. Maybe one beer and catch up on just a few threads . . .
Jebediah
@Yutsano:
Wonder how he would react to a buyer with bullion in hand and an Obama t-shirt? I will not be the one who finds out, but only because the drive is too far. Other wise I would totally do it…
Jebediah
@Little Boots:
I wonder if this guy lives on a compound with lots of guns. Seems to be plenty paranoid.
Little Boots
@Steeplejack:
sooo true.
Little Boots
@Jebediah:
well, every nut gets a gun, it’s in the second amendment, or something.
Yutsano
@Jebediah: There could be comedy there, but only if someone videotapes the encounter. And brings a bouncer bud. Or three.
Little Boots
ya know, it’s only midnight in california. i think people should be awake. is it just me?
Little Boots
that’s it! I hate the whole balloon juice world. cept asian grrl.
Little Boots
and doug. I sorta like doug.
Steeplejack
@Little Boots:
I think that in general, except for Yutsy, the West Coasters are lightweights when it comes to the late-night thing. East Coast rulez!
Okay, seriously, I have got to get to bed pretty soon or my Saturday morning is not going to be pretty.
Little Boots
and omnes. who’s so damn smart. pisses me off. no, i hate him too, after all.
should I go on?
Little Boots
@Steeplejack:
fine, but you’re going in my angry journal.
Little Boots
so who else? who do I hate? okay, whom? john cole, well that’s a given. but who else? um, jgarfield? is that someone?
you know who I miss? okay, dammit, whom? ABW?
Elizabelle
good evening
Little Boots
good evening.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack:
Yer making me blush. And it’s a quirk of my work schedule. And we may have them backed into undoing the hiring freeze at least in my office. Our vacancy rate is running in the 15% range right now.
Jebediah
@Yutsano:
Agreed – and if anyone who looked at the ad needs a palate cleanser, here (if I did it right) is a picture of the very handsome Otto resting his head on the leg of Keith Knight, Gentleman Cartoonist.
Jebediah
@Steeplejack:
Well, I am a west coaster and I am usually around till 3 or 4 am local time, but I am mostly a lurker so it doesn’t really count.
Yutsano
@Jebediah: PUPPEH!! You should definitely de-lurk more often. :)
Joey Maloney
@Anne Laurie:
I will go back to the Swanee,
Where pellagra makes you scrawny,
And the Honeysuckle clutters up the vine
I really am a-fixin´
To go home & start a-mixin´
Down below that Mason-Dixon line.
Jebediah
@Yutsano:
Thanks! He is a lovely dog, and his personality matches that beautiful face…
RossInDetroit
@sfinny:
Me too, again. 3 days of decent sleep this week at least. I was dead tired when I went to bed but woke up 3 hours later.
I hate this.
RossInDetroit
So a story about a bug. We have a lot of praying mantises this year. I leave them alone because they’re cool bugs. One has colonized a large blooming sedum bush right next to our front door. I think it’s picking off the insects attracted to the flowers. It had been there for about a week, a medium sized nymph. I would check on it a couple times a day and started calling it Buggsy the insect doorman. Well, it was ‘missing’ yesterday and I was concerned it had wandered off. This evening it reappeared. At least I think it’s the same bug. Much larger now, with brown wings. It’s about 4″ long and very cool looking. I took a bunch of pix & put one up on F’book.
Tonight I left the porch light on for it. The light will attract plenty of insects, ensuring a steady supply of chow for Buggsy.
My sister the garden expert tells me it’s a Chinese mantis, an import that’s pushing out the native mantis species. I won’t hold that against Buggsy.
Anne Laurie
@Jebediah: @Jebediah:
Hey, TBogg’s in San Diego, maybe we can ask him!
(You have to admit: the profane hilarity of the probable response would be worth the effort, yes?)
P.S. Otto is adorable, and so is Keith Knight’s cartooning.
RossInDetroit
@Jebediah:
That is an excellent lunatic guitar ad. Guitar guys are right up there with car guys when it comes to hardware madness.
Jebediah
@Anne Laurie:
Yeah, Keith is quite cool. And of course Otto I love more than I love not being punched in the face.
Can we start a collection for the Send TBogg Guitar Shopping fund?
Patrick Phelan
As long as the Republicans get the B Ark all will be well.
Can I take advantage of open thread to bitch about this? I mean, it’s not a Yutsano problem; Yutsano, I am a person who barely turns up and thus we have never talked, but when I see your comments they all seem pretty cool! You seem like a cool person. It’s just…
…whenever I see people saying we should get rid of all the Republicans on the B Ark, it reminds me that without the B Ark ‘useless’ people, everyone died.
I just think it’s an inapt analogy, since I don’t think our species would die off from lack of “compassionate conservatism”. Quite the opposite. And the Captain with his baths and duckie was, if useless, at least genial and friendly and meant well. Unlike, you know, pure evil.
Might I recommend the rocket to the sun from that one episode of The Simpsons? I know it was past their prime, but it’s still definitionally a bunch of useless people who got shot into the sun for thinking they were great heroes the new world would need, and everyone was happier afterwards.
(Endnote: I don’t actually want anyone to die. My dream solution is for the entire modern Right to suddenly rediscover shame and spend the rest of their life on itinerant journeys of repentance. I also want a pony.)
Amir Khalid
Suspicious, maybe thuggish, behavior from Apple, possibly in collusion with the San Francisco Police Department, over an iPhone prototype gone missing.
bk
Is there “College Game Day” tomorrow (like, in a few hours)? I hope so.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@bk: Yes, from Dallas.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Amir Khalid: Here’s a fun take on the caper from Apple Byte.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Jebediah:
If you want a good sampling of musicians, mostly guitarists, and their politics then head to Harmony Central’s The Political Party forum area. Just don’t waste your time and join…lol! There’s some really fucking crazy wingers and the lefties there love to kick them around.
Unfortunately, IMO the wingers outnumber the lefties but the left still beats on them regularly.
OT: I guess the emo progs have scored another point in their war on the politically incorrect usage of a plastic dolphin in a TV show that was chained up Hannibal the Cannibal-style because it was the evil character. I guess it upset activists and Adult Swim apologized in one of it’s between commercial “bumps” tonight.
I’m sure they’ll be breaking out the champagne over this win! What a score!!
What a joke.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Jebediah:
If you want a good sampling of musicians, mostly guitarists, and their politics then head to Harmony Central’s The Political Party forum area. Just don’t waste your time and join…lol! There’s some really fucking crazy wingers and the lefties there love to kick them around.
Unfortunately, IMO the wingers outnumber the lefties but the left still beats on them regularly.
OT: I guess the emo progs have scored another point in their war on the politically incorrect usage of a plastic dolphin in a TV show that was chained up Hannibal the Cannibal-style because it was the evil character. I guess it upset activists and Adult Swim apologized in one of it’s between commercial “bumps” tonight.
I’m sure they’ll be breaking out the champagne over this win! What a score!!
What a joke.
I would put the URL for Harmony Central’s political mosh pit but WP deletes the message as spam…lol
FYWP!
harlana
Ok, I’m hearing a LOT about the 0% job growth this past month but nobody seems to mention that private sector gain was cancelled out by public sector layoffs, and it’s pissing me off. This is an important message about how we move forward, and republican governors laying off government workers is not going to help unemployment and Dems need to be on the offensive about this. I know that is an INSANE idea, I mean it really takes a lot to get yer brain around that, right, that cutting spending results in adding to unemployment rolls?
I’m really pissed this important fact is being ignored.
scav
@Amir Khalid: But Amir, this is visionary, cutting edge and sleek thuggism, plug and play protection of absolute control, magically immune to viruses! It is rather getting to be a tradition, the losing prototypes and trashing places with or without the documented presence of shiny badges.
Southern Beale
Good morning, everyone! I’m so shocked to learn that no jobs were created in August. I mean, I thought we gave the job creators their magical tax cuts 9 months ago! And slashed state and local spending which means laying off government workers. Republicans told us this would fix everything! What happened?
And in an even more shocking development, the media has discovered that the Republicans do not agree with the Obama administration on how to solve the problem! Amazing! The opposition party is opposed to the president! This is a shocking development!
/sarcasm
Southern Beale
@harlana:
See my link above.
I am pissed off too. And NO ONE is mentioning the tax cuts and budget slashing we’ve undertaken at GOP insistence.
Our media sucks. Right now it’s all, “Ooooh what does Boehner think? How will this affect the election in 14 months?”
I’m turning off all TV news for the sole reason that they are incompetent and stupid.
harlana
@Southern Beale: Wait, let me get myself up off the floor here . . . no one could have predicted . . .
harlana
@Southern Beale: Good post! You should see my 6:00 am unemployment rants on previous thread which were completely OT! – oh well, changing my meds, look out for irrelevant screeds, BJ’rs! =)
Hillary Rettig
Has anyone actually created a table of Republican vs. Democratic malfeasance? A simple table on a Webpage that people could direct their conservative friends and relatives to? It could list the name, the offense, whether they were arrested or indicted, and an option relevant note (e.g., “ran on ‘pro-family” platform” or “ran on anti-corruption platform”)
On the Dem side, we’ve got the Louisiana guy who kept the cash in his freezer, and the rep here in Boston who was filmed sticking bribes in her bra. Probably a few others, depending on how far back you want to go.
But the Repubs…jebus it would go on and on, and it would look so vile.
Wouldn’t that be a great project for the BJ community? I could build the table if people mailed data to me and someone else HTML’d and posted it.
harlana
Southern Beale, your trip pics are lovely! Welcome back to these dysfunctional united states of amurka, missed it din’t ya?
Dennis SGMM
@Southern Beale:
I went cold turkey on TV news, and almost everything else that was on, during the ’08 elections. It took remarkably little time for me to not miss it. It seemed to me that the election coverage became less relevant and way less informed with every go-round.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dennis SGMM: The health care debate did it for me.
WereBear
I just googled:
list of republican arrests
You’re welcome. Go to town.
General Stuck
Top of the morn, Balloon Juicers. Bright sunshine here, and considerably cooler than it’s been. The dog is fed, and the chickens have all been counted. Have a nice Labor Day weekend. And don’t take no wooden nickels. Especially from trolls. :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck:
Trolls are paid in wooden nickels? That would explain a lot.
YellowJournalism
I just want to request that John do a post on why being drunk led to him tweeting about drinking whole milk late last night. Drunk tweets are fun.
grandpajohn
@Southern Beale:
Yeah indeed, I figured this out in 2000 and everything since then has only served to justify my opinion.
edit; Well actually I began to become highly suspicious in 1992 and events during the Clinton years only served to solidify my opinion, 2000 clinched the deal
RossInDetroit
@Southern Beale:
I’m going to quote myself from a previous thread stating my reasons why TV political coverage is worse than useless.
“The way I look at political reporting is that there’s actually very little of it going on. Most of the media coverage of politics is just entertainment. It’s intended to hold eyeballs until the next ad. If you cherrypick out the 5% of the political coverage that’s actually reporting relevant events and providing analysis you can get a good idea of what’s going on. But in the mass media the signal is drowned out by noise.
Hillary Rettig
@WereBear – thanks! None of these is quite what I’m after, though:
http://www.republicanoffenders.com/
comes closest. but what I want is a simple, dispassionate list that reeks of credibility, and where the crime and status (arrest, conviction, indictment) are immediately visible without clickthrough. in other words, as much a visual statement *designed to influence swing voters* as a set of data. The “omg pedo!” stuff fails on that level, I think.
also, it would really help if some big site (hint, hint) could host and promote it. It needs to be really seen, esp. during election year. post coffee, I might have thought to do some googling myself, but why make people hunt for info that’s easily available and that could go a long way toward swaying the electorate.
It comes back to that messaging thing we’re always talking about here. If the national and state Dem’s have 100, why not create a page that demonstrates that at a glance?
Mark S.
I don’t like Roger Clemens, but this is bullshit. The prosecutors tried to pull a fast one in the first trial and now they get to go after him again. This is not an important case; it’s not like Clemens raped or murdered someone or embezzled a million dollars. There’s little justification in trying him again.
Hillary Rettig
gigantic FUBAR in my message above. should read:
It comes back to that messaging thing we’re always talking about here. If the national and state Dem’s have 100, why not create a page that demonstrates that at a glance?
Dennis SGMM
@Mark S.:
Agreed. I’m not a fan of Clemens either. Organized baseball winked at steroid use for some time because ‘roid enhanced players made for more records and more fans in the stands. Clemens is being scapegoated for something that the sport could have stopped when it began.
catclub
@Southern Beale: “I’m turning off all TV news for the sole reason that they are incompetent and stupid.”
Technically, that is two reasons, but they seem to go together like chocolate and peanut butter.
Bruce S
“Anyone else seeing John’s twitter feed?”
I have so much self-loathing for reading as many blog threads as I do – and adding comments – that it totally fucking amazes me that there are even more damaged, desperate souls out there that follow anyone’s bird-droppings on Twitter. Maybe this pathetic culture deserves the shit it’s in…
Ruckus
Saw the best bumper sticker this morning.
“Don’t believe everything you think”
Tehanu
@Dennis SGMM:
Me too. Have never liked Clemens, especially after the bat-tossing-at-Piazza incident, but this is just wasting public money to get publicity. Besides, lots of players juiced, but only a few juicers actually improved their numbers and set records; most of them continued to have the same mediocre careers they’d always had. So although I think MLB should have gotten off its lazy duff and cracked down on steroids a lot sooner, there’s a lot of “I’m shocked — shocked! — to find [juicing] going on here!” about all this.