Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

The revolution will be supervised.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Bark louder, little dog.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The words do not have to be perfect.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Late Night WTF Open Thread: The GOP’s Goombah Problem

Late Night WTF Open Thread: The GOP’s Goombah Problem

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The GOP and their Media Village idiots keep telling us we don’t know enough about Hillary Clinton — although they’ve been sifting through every facet of her life & career for the past quarter-century. And then something like this pops up from the Trump campaign:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is seeking $10 million in damages from a former senior campaign consultant, Sam Nunberg, alleging that Nunberg leaked confidential information to reporters in violation of a nondisclosure agreement.

In a court filing obtained by The Associated Press, Nunberg accused Trump of trying to silence him “in a misguided attempt to cover up media coverage of an apparent affair” between two senior campaign staffers.

The highly unusual legal dispute reflects Trump’s efforts to aggressively protect the secrecy of his campaign’s inner workings.

The AP reported last month that Trump requires nearly everyone in his campaign and businesses to sign legally binding nondisclosure agreements prohibiting them from releasing any confidential or disparaging information about the real estate mogul, his family or his companies. Trump has also said he would consider requiring such agreements in the White House.

In the court filings, Nunberg denied disparaging Trump and accused the presumptive GOP nominee of attempting to “bully” him into silence after Nunberg decided to publicly support Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential bid…

In particular, Nunberg said Trump filed a $10 million arbitration claim against him and falsely accused him of being a source of a New York Post story from mid-May that recounted a public quarrel between former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks. Lewandowski was fired from the campaign in June after months of tension with other senior Trump advisers.

Nunberg denied being the source of the article, but in court papers referred to the quarrel as being part of an “apparent affair.”…

CNN adds helpful annotation:

… Nunberg, through his association with longtime Trump political adviser Roger Stone, advised Trump amid his flirtation with a presidential run in 2012. And when Trump began preparing his 2016 bid, Nunberg was again at his side, making early preparations for a potential campaign.

But late last summer, racially charged posts that Nunberg posted on Facebook surfaced and the campaign fired him.

Since then, Nunberg has been fiercely critical of Trump and his campaign staff, particularly Lewandowski, who is now a CNN contributor…

(A CNN contributor still being paid by the Trump campaign, if you believe MMfA.)

So, if I parse this correctly, we have Donald Trump (presumptive presidential nominee of one of the only two national political parties we’ve got) aggressively defending the honor of Corey Lewandowski (while perhaps soiling that of the highest-ranking non-family female staffer on the Trump campaign) against former employee Nunberg, mini-me of Roger Stone, aka “Trump’s Gepetto“, once Richard Nixon’s original ratfvcker. Over a mooted “affair” that nobody outside the families involved would ever have heard about, if it weren’t for Donald Trump’s mania for secrecy…

Just in time for the RNC convention to kick off in Cleveland.

I wish Mario Puzo were still around, to explain this stuff for the rest of us, because as a purely political narrative it’s not making much sense.

Reader Interactions

35Comments

  1. 1.

    seaboogie

    IOW, welcome to TrumpWorld. It’s an extreme version of a personality disorder run amok, aided and abetted by family members whose only job are thanks to him, and a small coterie of epic grifters without a single moral to share amongst them. And this entire spectacle is crowd-surfing on the shoulders of white-hot rage and and hate – the embers of which have been stoked and fanned by the Republican party for decades – in service to their corporate masters.

    My only regret is that Hillary will not have the satisfaction of facing an at least nominally credible opponent in November. Will be kind of a hollow victory for her, and we will have staved off complete anarchy for a few years.

  3. 3.

    Ian

    At least our fallen media gods haves stopped crowing for austerity. The (once liberal) BBC is mourning the demise of VSP Osborne

    Here is the juice

    .George Osborne inherited an economy that had suffered its worst recession in decades and a massive level of government borrowing. His response was to try to slash government spending and raise taxes to bring the deficit down
    Even now, some economists think this was the wrong policy and prolonged the downturn, or at least slowed the recovery.

    But the chancellor stuck to his guns and his greatest triumph was that he won that argument, and was able to steer a new course for the British economy as a result.

    BULLSHIT. This = British taxdollars funding fox news,

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Oh, and Roger Stone is an avatar of Satan, or the Dread Dormammu, or Darth Sideous, or Lord Voldemort. Take you pop-culture pick.

    He’s utterly evil. There is no light there.

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    Classic misdirection, again, to divert a wide swath of the press away from digging into Trump and possibly throwing a very wet and extremely stinky blanket onto the convention, slavering over surrogates instead..

  10. 10.

    seaboogie

    @Villago Delenda Est: I agree…to a degree. I have a young acquaintance who is a member of the White House Press Corps, and who gives me some interesting insight into the nature of the biz – so I am keeping that one – very smart and excellent perspective on how the machine works.

  11. 11.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @seaboogie: The culture of the DC press corpse was hopelessly corrupted in the 80’s. Our entire media paradigm is badly flawed. Truth is a distant third or fourth to profit, careerism, and courtierism.

  12. 12.

    Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill

    Trump’s mistake this time is in actually litigating on the NDA. He’s going to reveal that the thing isn’t as bulletproof as his hyperaggressive lawyers have stated.

    It was much better as a vague threat without judicial laughter.

  13. 13.

    seaboogie

    @Villago Delenda Est: Agree on your points, and yet – you are not privy to our conversations, and I do get to learn a lot when I venture the occasional query. Am not throwing out the baby with the bath water with this one.

    Also, I have met Luke Russert’s mother on several occasions, and am not defending that legacy hire. As I write this I realize that sometimes my apparently small life amazes even me, just a little bit.

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    Question : can people getting public sector jobs be required to sign NDA? Has that ever happened before?
    That is what a job in Ferret Head’s White House would be -a public sector job.

  16. 16.

    GregB

    Again, imagine if Hillary Clinton had been involved in 3,200 lawsuits?

    Heaven forfend.

  18. 18.

    MattF

    This is typical cult behavior. People sometimes think that cults are simply ruled by the Voice Of Thunder from above, but it’s normally much more complicated. The ‘ruling’ levels are usually constantly changing, rife with manuvering, and sudden changes of personnel.

    And yeah, Roger Stone is a grade-A psychopath.

  19. 19.

    amk

    These morons willingly and knowingly volunteered to work for him and his shite of a hatefest campaign. Who gives a shite what happens to them?

  20. 20.

    Gvg

    @rikyrah: yes it’s called disclosing classified information. Can you imagine what trump would classify and declassify? It won’t make any sense to anyone else.

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @rikyrah:
    Well they have to sign one on confidential information but a one on personal crap would certainly be an interesting test. One thing is for sure, it would stop the “unofficial WH source” bs that the press loves so much. Drumpf couldn’t pretend to not approve the leaks if he was running down useless gossip like this.

  23. 23.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Gvg:
    And I see you got to the classified part already. It would be interesting in some ways. Every President in my lifetime has classified some information based on convenience to his administration not on security. Some (Nixon & Boy Blunder) were worse than others but none have clean hands. I’m sure Drumpf would reach a new low with his weekly appointments to the vet to get his hair cleaned and fed becoming a Top Secret, eyes only, compartmentalized state secret.

  24. 24.

    Cat48

    The GOP is pathetic. The first Convention night is all about Benghazi, just in case you haven’t heard about it. Evidently, it’s all they’ve got. Pathetic

  26. 26.

    NorthLeft12

    I have had conversations with more than a few people [some of them Americans] who continually harp on the latest Hillary Clinton “scandal” and tell me about all the grimy details, with the ominous end note that “the worst is yet to come”.

    I have got to the point that I try to explain that they [Hillary haters] have blown it because their credibility among the public at large is virtually zero by touting so many ridiculous “crimes” that if they ever uncovered any evidence of a real crime that they would not be believed.
    Who am I kidding? This is the US media and public I am talking about, and the Hillary haters know that anything they throw out there will get a hearing.

  27. 27.

    Xantar

    Has anybody considered calling a plumber to deal with the problem? By jumping on the goombah’s head, that is.

  28. 28.

    Keith P.

    @Cat48: well, to be fair, last go around, the entire first night was speeches that were rebuttals to Obama saying “You didn’t build it” (IIRC the night was entitled “You Built It”

  29. 29.

    Ruckus

    I am reminded a lot of Nixon. Dumpf is Nixon, without the actual ability to accomplish any thing positive, not that Nixon had a huge ability in that regard. But he had some, even if he refused to use it, dumpf not in any way.

  30. 30.

    Shell

    protect the secrecy of his campaign’s inner workings. protect the secrecy of his campaign’s inner workings.

    Im just shocked that the campaign is supposed to have “inner workings”

  31. 31.

    Chris

    @Aqualad08:

    It’s just like The Godfather, only every character is Fredo…

    Sad to say, but movie villains are pretty much contractually required to be a lot more interesting (and, oftentimes, smart and good at what they do) than their real life counterparts. After all, they have an audience to satisfy. I suspect there are probably more Fredos and Sonnys in the real life Mafia than there are Vitos and Michaels, and the same seems to be true in the GOP.

  32. 32.

    Ruckus

    @Shell:
    If you found out what those “inner workings” actually are you might hurt yourself laughing that hard. Or you might just hurt yourself. Drumpf is doing you a favor, not letting those “workings” see the light of day.

  33. 33.

    Feebog

    This ain’t going to court. From the article:

    In particular, Nunberg said Trump filed a $10 million arbitration claim against him and falsely accused him of being a source of a New York Post story from mid-May that recounted a public quarrel between former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks.

    Full disclosure, I’m a labor and commercial arbitrator. I don’t know how the arbitrator will be selected (American Arbitration Assn.?) but it normally takes months to schedule a case. The election will be over before this ever comes to a hearing. Another nothingburger from the Trump campaign.

  34. 34.

    coloradoblue

    I wish Mario Puzo were still around, to explain this stuff for the rest of us, because as a purely political narrative it’s not making much sense.

    And I wish Hunter Thompson or his ghost were still around to explain this upcoming shit storm. Although I’m not sure there are enough drugs in the world to allow him to cover this.

  35. 35.

    J R in WV

    @shomi:

    I don’t agree with you very often, but this question needs to be part of every interview, every press conference, every time he walks in front of a rope line with reporters in the crowd.

    Until he gets well and truly sick of the question.

    Where are your tax records?

    When will you release your tax records?

    Why should anyone vote for the only candidate in N years NOT to release your tax records?

    Why won’t you release your tax records, is it because it would show your lack of available cash?

    Would they show your use of tax credits only available to people with income below $500,000?

    Would they show your business relationships with business partners unacceptable to the American people?

    When will you show the voters your tax records in order to prove you aren’t a crook?

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