Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

This fight is for everything.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The revolution will be supervised.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Everybody saw this coming.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

White supremacy is terrorism.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Saturday Night Fights Open Thread: Is This the End of Little Roger?

Saturday Night Fights Open Thread: Is This the End of Little Roger?

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I’ve been waiting for the downfall of foundational ratfvcker Roger Stone since he was a damp little CREEPster in Tricky Dick’s administration (and I was in high school). Since the Trump puppeteers seem determined to bring back the full panoply of Watergate-era high crimes & misdemeanors (… the second time, as farce) there would be a pleasing symmetry if the expensively-dressed thug with the Nixon back tattoo were to finally fail his escape from the latest GOP heist caper due to an overenthusiastic investment in Lord Smallgloves’ pinchbeck empire…

Roger Stone, President Trump’s longtime confidant and former campaign advisor, has admitted that he was in private communication with one of the Kremlin-connected hacker personas behind the Democratic National Committee email breach last year.

Stone — one of several Trump associates under FBI investigation for potential Russia ties — acknowledged in a lengthy statement Friday evening that he communicated with Guccifer 2.0 in direct Twitter messages last summer.

The statement came in response to a recent Smoking Gun report that suggests Stone might have collaborated with Russian hackers.

U.S. intelligence officials and various cybersecurity firms have concluded that Russian spy agencies created Guccifer 2.0 as an Internet persona for the purpose of helping Trump win the White House…

Last weekend’s uncharacteristically angry (and hastily erased) tweets would certainly seem to indicate that the professional ‘political operative’ may be worried that, for the first time in his inglorious career, some other minion has beaten him to the sole available FBI-inside-informant slot. Some backstory, from Harry Reid’s former campaign manager:


Reader Interactions

145Comments

  1. 1.

    amk

    How many puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly are we supposed to pretend just *look* bad?

    now, if only the voters had heard of the much touted term checks and balances.

  5. 5.

    joel hanes

    That suit

    Old-skool mobster fashion statement.
    Goes well with a limousines with heavily tinted window, and a tommy gun in a violin case.
    Needs a fedora.

  7. 7.

    Mike J

    Watching A Walk in the Sun on TCM. Seen it several times. When I was a kid it never dawned on me that the reason they kept talking about firing “that loving bazooka at that loving tank” was because they couldn’t say fucking and all the GIs who saw it just automatically translated it any way.

  10. 10.

    Feebog

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That suit, dear god.

    Looks like something from the reject bin from a “Godfather” movie. Plus, look closely, obviously wearing a very bad hairpiece.

  11. 11.

    joel hanes

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I have no fashion sense whatsoever. Nor taste. It is known.
    But I do sometimes spot patterns pretty well.

    Whatever. I withdraw in favor of your more-informed opinion.

  16. 16.

    hovercraft

    “How many puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly are we supposed to pretend just *look* bad?”

    All together now: all of them Katie!

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    Given the way Stone has vulgar Twitter outbursts that he later deletes, I assume Stone is an alcoholic like Bannon.

    Funny how someone like Trump, who claims to have nothing but disdain for drunks, keeps surrounding himself with them.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Feebog: This is a guy who has a tattoo of an asshole on his back.

    To clarify, a tattoo of Richard Milhous Nixon. On his back.

  20. 20.

    danielx

    I keep coming back to….what if HRC’s campaign had this many sleazy contacts – no, ten percent as many sleazy contacts – with Russians, or Chinese, or French, or anyone else (formerly) viewed unfavorably in wingnut world?

    Forget impeachment, they’d want to burn her at the stake on the White House lawn.

    Also too, Roger Stone has skated away from every scandal he has ever been involved with – through the fire with clean attire. And if there ever was anyone who fits the description of knowing where the bodies are buried it’s him, which is probably why he imagines he’ll skate away from this too. Pity, I’d like to see how he looks in orange.

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    I’m excited…with weasels like these, who can guess who will be the first to fall? The first to rat each other out? The first to cough up the financial arrangements that paid for all of this to happen?

    Stone, Cohen, Page, Manafort…Trump…Pence…Nunes…Chaffetz…Ryan…McConnell…let’s bring them all down across the next year or two and let that be the lead-in to the 2018 elections. Can’t hardly wait!

  22. 22.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Mnemosyne: @efgoldman:
    We keep saying that “This will bring them down” and it never happens. I too tend to believe that at some point even a Republican Congress will have to take note, like when Vlad sleeps in the Lincoln Bedroom. But Paul Ryan’s performance this week and the opinion polls (“I still like him, even if I will have to sell my house to buy my diabetes medicine.”) are convincing me that we may have eight years, and what we see now is only the beginning.

  23. 23.

    ThresherK

    Okay, the Hollywood pedant in me wants to know if Stone has ever been called Little Roger.

    The post title is from Little Caesar but the quote goes, “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?”

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    @danielx: The short answer is, Hillary would never have made it off of the inauguration stage. Full stop. And that’s just in DC…half the country would have been aflame with burning Chinese flags and random beatings of people who didn’t look 110% “American” (i.e., white)

    That one IC quote from a while back, “…he’s going to die in jail…” – it does cheer me up at night. As do stories about Stone, Manafort, Page, odd Trump Tower – Russian bank servers and connections, Trump firing US attorneys who are after Russian gangsters, and so on.

  25. 25.

    hovercraft

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    Cockroaches, rats, and friends of Tricky Dick are destined to outlast us all. Dick Chaney has had a bad ticker for years and he’s still going strong, nary a one of them in jail or at least ostracized.

  29. 29.

    patrick II

    The good news for Stone at this juncture is that any federal prosecutor that might actually prosecute him has suddenly left the stage.

  30. 30.

    efgoldman

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    We keep saying that “This will bring them down” and it never happens.

    It was over two years from the Watergate break in to Tricksie Dicksie Nixie getting on the helicopter. These klowns aren’t even two months in, and look where we are already, publicly. Four to six cabinet members lied in their confirmation hearings; three (that I remember) had to quit without being confirmed. Passage of the shitty house bill is sketchy at best. NOT TWO MONTHS IN!
    Lots of buyer’s remorse out there. And no matter how much party over country the RWNJs are, when they see their re-elections are in danger, at least some of them will cave. An awful lot of the gerrymandered districts are very close things, and re-election is their prime directive.
    The US is like a supertanker: the delay between thinking of turning it, and actually being able to do so, is slow and ponderous, but once it’s headed in a new direction the momentum keeps it going.

  31. 31.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    It’s quite possible. The bad guys only get their just deserts in the movies, and sometimes not even then. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying to open people’s eyes.

  34. 34.

    efgoldman

    @patrick II:

    any federal prosecutor that might actually prosecute him has suddenly left the stage.

    As somebody pointed out last thread, the actual working prosecutors are still in place. US Attorneys very rarely prosecute cases themselves.
    Also, the senate is about to confirm Rod Rosenstein as Assistant AG. He’s such a straight arrow that Obama kept him on, even though he was a W appointee. With Evil Leprechaun recused, he’ll be in charge of the investigations.

  35. 35.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @efgoldman:
    All good points. I can add that several states are challenging the Muslim Ban, and Virginia (I think) and Texas have been told to un-gerrymander their districts by the courts.

    I’m not sure about the buyer’s remorse. There is a lot I don’t understand about Trump supporters, and it seems like the more I read, the less I understand.

    Also, as someone said upthread, it will be interesting to see who breaks first. Carter Page and J. D. Gordon seem to be holding their hands up high, “Call on ME,” to Congress or whomever. It certainly is a mess.

    On a happier note, I brought two shelter kitties into my household about a month ago, and they are a real delight. They are about two and a half years old, brothers, white with gray (or as the cat fanciers say, blue) spots and masks.

  37. 37.

    danielx

    @Jeffro:

    That quote is comforting, but every time something like this comes along there is invariably a chorus going roughly like this:

    “…but it would be bad/too traumatic/too embarrassing for the country to let dear old Felix completely out of the bag and have the electorate look behind the curtain, so let’s sweep the dogshit under the rug and ignore that embarrassing odor for a couple of decades…”.

    That’s been the pattern from the day Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, and it hasn’t changed yet. Short of video showing Trump sodomizing a sheep or a corpse, I don’t expect it to change.

    ETA: The Nixon tattoo…one can only imagine what kind of seriously twisted fuck would get a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back.

  38. 38.

    efgoldman

    @danielx:

    Short of video showing Trump sodomizing a sheep or a corpse, I don’t expect it to change.

    Remember what the key phrase was in Watergate? Follow the money! That’s what eventually will bring down the grifters. Yes, president Bannonazi and some of the kkkrazy kkkaukus are True Believers, but the rest, including Mango Moneygrubber and his family, are in it strictly for the grift. There are already suits based on the emoluments clause working their way thru the courts. There will be more.

  39. 39.

    Bill Arnold

    Is This the End of Little Roger?

    Pretty sure this will significantly damage his reputation among ratfuckers and perhaps among people who employ them. I mean, it was unforced procedural/operational sloppiness. I hope he’s at least a bit embarrassed.
    Don’t see him eating cat food in a one room apartment any time soon though; his skills are still marketable. Maybe that would change if better players start marketing themselves or the game changes (for worse or for better) enough that his skills no longer work or are desired.
    If anyone orchestrated this somehow(?), hat(s) off to them.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @ThresherK:

    True fact: the writer of the Little Caesar screenplay decided to portray Rico as being gay, and the director and star stuck with that. It’s subtle, because even in the Pre-Code days there were rules against it, but once you know it’s there, it’s blatantly obvious.

  42. 42.

    Jeffro

    @danielx: Ok! But I remain hopeful that the fragile, cobbled-together gang of criminals that is today’s GOP will collapse under the weight of the obvious (to the public): they would sell out their countrymen in a heartbeat in order to provide more tax absolution for the .01 %, even if it means looking the other way when a hostile foreign power corrupts their country’s founding principles.

  43. 43.

    danielx

    @efgoldman:

    True enough. I have lost the “we are doomed” feeling I had through December, although I shudder to think what kind of damage the shortfingers regime will inflict in the short term.

    Long term too, actually – once certain behavioral norms are breached, or precedent has been set….

  45. 45.

    patrick II

    @efgoldman:

    He’s such a straight arrow that Obama kept him on

    Obama kept Comey too.

    And while there are many prosecutors of high integrity left in the various district’s offices who are/will do a good job of any case they are continuing or will be given to prosecute. However, they will not be the ones to decide which new cases are to be prosecuted. Unless there is an ongoing case only public pressure, ignored as long as possible, will spur the Trump administration and their new political appointees to move forward against Stone or any of his compatriots.

  46. 46.

    Jeffro

    @danielx:

    Long term too, actually – once certain behavioral norms are breached, or precedent has been set….

    We need to be prepared to have some sort of “truth & reconciliation committee” once Trumpov & Co are ousted…and push it HARD…get it all out, everything that led to this disaster, from Fox News and right wing media to conservatives’ willingness to embrace Putin to our broken-in-various-ways electoral process.

    Have it all out, agree to a new set of high standards (like all candidates of all parties releasing 10 years’ worth of tax returns), and have both (all?) sides agree to them. Sure, the Dems were already holding to those standards…but it would help to put the Rs on the hook and Green/Libertarian folks as well.

  47. 47.

    hovercraft

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    True, many are dead, but not enough, unfortunately instead of living out their lives in ignominy, way too many of them have crawled out of the woodwork to populate this nest of snakes, and that’s without Chaney and Rummy.
    Darth Vader got a new heart but I’m sure it’s the blood of young innocents procured for him by Lynn and Liz that’s keeping him alive.

  48. 48.

    danielx

    @hovercraft:

    Darth Vader got a new heart but I’m sure it’s the blood of young innocents procured for him by Lynn and Liz that’s keeping him alive.

    That’s a vile rumor. He actually has a lump of plutonium in there, which accounts for his poisonous aura.

  49. 49.

    Feebog

    @Jeffro:

    I’m excited…with weasels like these, who can guess who will be the first to fall? The first to rat each other out? The first to cough up the financial arrangements that paid for all of this to happen

    My money is on Carter Page. The guy should have the word weasel tattooed on his forehead. He is a bit player, but his visit to Russia during the campaign is a key element.

  50. 50.

    ThresherK

    @Mnemosyne: i had no doubt you could fill me in on a tidbit from a pre-code movie. Mentioning one by name is just a way to summon you when you’re not already here.

    That said, all I can add is that there are no Italians cast among the leads, IIRC, in the movie which basically launched the gangster movie.

  51. 51.

    JWR

    @danielx:

    ..I shudder to think what kind of damage the shortfingers regime will inflict in the short term.

    Maybe start, or get more deeply involved in, another war, either in the Middle East or the Korean peninsula? It is to shudder!

  52. 52.

    Bill Arnold

    @patrick II:

    Obama kept Comey too.

    That was a mistake.
    I’m one of those who believes that Comey turned a solid Clinton win into a solid Trump win in the last week+ of the election cycle. That and the Wikileaks Podesta emails which got the R-base fired up even more than they were.
    At best, he was confused and weak, at worst amoral and a party-before-country member of the Republican tribe. (Actually I can imagine worse than that but will refrain.)

  53. 53.

    patrick II

    @Bill Arnold:

    At best, he was confused and weak, at worst amoral and a party-before-country member of the Republican tribe.

    Not mutually exclusive.

  54. 54.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mnemosyne: I’ve read that the 1959 version of Ben Hur was secretly directed by William Wyler and acted by Stephen Boyd to imply that the relationship between Ben Hur and Messala was that of lovers, but they didn’t let Charlton Heston in on it, because Heston would have reacted badly.

  55. 55.

    tobie

    @efgoldman: Thanks for this. It’s hard not to get depressed, and I find myself terrified that Comey will stick the knife in the backs of the Dems when he testifies before Congress on Monday, because that’s what he lives to do. Local activism is what’s keeping me going. I recommend it to anyone feeling exhausted after the Clown-on-the-Potomac’s first 50 days.

  60. 60.

    Yarrow

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Also, as someone said upthread, it will be interesting to see who breaks first. Carter Page and J. D. Gordon seem to be holding their hands up high, “Call on ME,” to Congress or whomever. It certainly is a mess.

    I think it’ll be Page. He looks like he knows he shouldn’t drink tea unless he made it himself.

  61. 61.

    SFAW

    So Stone was trading love letters with Guccifer? Interesting. Doubtless there’s a completely innocent, reasonable explanation. Such as: Stone thought he was talking with a merchant site that sells Gucci loafers. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

    The comment by Jentleson mentioning Nixon and Cohn was also interesting, sort of. I hated Nixon about as much as efg seems to, and Nixon made his bones going after Helen Gahagan as being “pink,” but my sense is that Roy Cohn was significantly more evil than Tricky Dick. (Not that it’s a contest, of course.)

    And, of course, anything that fucks over Roger Stone, that evil motherfucker, is fine by me. Especially if it’s self-inflicted. And try the laudanum, Roger — it helped Dr. James Sheppard, might work for you, too.

  64. 64.

    Mnemosyne

    @ThresherK:

    There were earlier gangster movies, but I’m too lazy to get up and get my Overlook encyclopedia right now. It’s more that there’s a triumvirate of Pre-Code movies that are considered the three that formed the genre: Little Caesar, Scarface, and The Public Enemy.

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The mid to late 1950s is when the Production Code started breaking down and filmmakers were really pushing the boundaries. I’m not at all surprised that they would do that and try to sneak it past the Breen office.

  65. 65.

    Joyce Harmon

    Saw in The Hill that the House Intel Committee is requesting White House report to them on info they have that leads them to believe Trump Tower was bugged. Request report by this Monday, and letter was signed by both Schiff and Nunes! That encourages me – I thought Nunes was sounding like he’d be willing to subpoena down every rabbit hole on Trump’s unsupported sayso.

  66. 66.

    Yarrow

    @trollhattan: Stone was on Bill Maher awhile ago. Last year or the year before, maybe. I remember just staring at whatever he was wearing on his head. His “hair” was so obviously fake and so poorly done it was almost comical. Someone else came into the room while I was watching it and I remember rewinding and making them take a look at it so we could both marvel at how horrific his hairpiece was.

    I have no idea what anyone said on that show because I simply couldn’t stop staring at the animal pelt on Roger Stone’s head.

  67. 67.

    hovercraft

    New fragrance from SNL.
    Ivanka- COMPLICIT
    For the woman who could have stopped it al, but won’t.
    Also available for Jared.

  69. 69.

    efgoldman

    @SFAW:

    my sense is that Roy Cohn was significantly more evil than Tricky Dick.

    Different kind of evil. He didn’t lie about a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam war, to get elected, then get several thousands more American GIs killed.

  70. 70.

    joel hanes

    @hovercraft:

    it’s the blood of young innocents procured for him by Lynn and Liz

    I’m under the impression that Lynn is not, in fact, a demon, unlike her sister Liz.
    Please correct me if I’m wrong about that

  71. 71.

    Keith P.

    I remember reading somewhere that Roger Stone is a swinger (“as in to swing!”). He’s a former body-builder, has the Nixon tattoo on his back (would be cooler if Nixon was giving a thumbs-up saying ‘Yeah, dude, I rock!’), has something like 2000 suits (I do like his fashion sense…compared to Trump, he at least looks like he spends thought and effort on polishing his final appearance), and then he swings. I just have this vision of Stone and his old lady showing up at a swinger party all excited, while the younger millennial swingers roll their eyes and go “Oh, shit, Roger and Maude(?) showed up again. How do they find out about these things?”

  72. 72.

    jl

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    ” There is a lot I don’t understand about Trump supporters, and it seems like the more I read, the less I understand. ”

    There isn’t much you need to understand about the hard core racist and xenophobic Trump supporters. The others are low infor or very misinformed knuckleheads and fools, so not surprising what they say makes no sense. These are the goofballs who wanted big change and didn’t think Trump really meant all the evil stuff that he kept pouring out of his mouth obsessively.

    Trump supporters are in the minority, Even a relatively poor electoral politician like HRC (I am being polite to avoid bad feelings on this blog, I want to say ‘one of the egregiously inept electoral politicians I have ever witnessed’) beat Trump in the popular vote by around 3 million votes. Less than 100 K votes in three rustbelt states put Trump in office.

    We don’t need to worry a lot about The Trump Voter. We need to mobilize the Trump opposition and get them out to vote. And let the Trump voters with enough sense to realize they made a huge mistake come along and we can explain things to them as they become psychologically prepared to listen. The main difficulty will be dealing with voter suppression. But the Trumpsters seem determined to inflict mortal economic and social wounds on their base as much as anyone else, so there is hope enough of them will come around sooner or later.

    Edit: thing to remember about surprisingly resilient Trump support is that the Trumpsters have been too inept to actually do anything yet. A lot of the non-hardcore Trump supporters are none too bright. They aren’t into reading real news and current affairs. They’ll understand something is wrong with their health insurance when the get the cancellation notice and and ask for a couple of thousand more in premiums.

  74. 74.

    efgoldman

    @Keith P.:

    I remember reading somewhere that Roger Stone is a swinger

    He really is the perfect Republiklown ratfucker, then – on top of everything else, flies the hypocrisy flag on a 100 foot pole.

  76. 76.

    efgoldman

    @Davebo:

    That’s a visual I really didn’t need.

    But nobody posted a visual….

    Hey, did I miss a weekend twittlestorm, or have they still hidden his phone?

    ETA: Maybe they locked it, and he doesn’t know how to unlock it.

  77. 77.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @efgoldman: And the godbotherers wrench their necks looking the other way, like they did with Donald himself. You’d think they’d observe him closely for tips on flying the hypocrisy flag.

  78. 78.

    efgoldman

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    the godbotherers wrench their necks looking the other way

    The fact that there have not been ~60mm directed lightning bolts leads to the conclusion that there is no god.

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    Running full tilt toward a foreign relations cliff, right after he accused Angela Merkel’s Germany of Nazi and fascist policy, now this.

    The escalating dispute between NATO allies Turkey and the Netherlands hit a new low Sunday, with a Turkish minister escorted out of the country as persona non grata, less than a day after Turkey’s foreign minister was denied entry, prompting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to call the Dutch “Nazi remnants.” Source

  81. 81.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @NotMax: Vlad is dancing a damn jig right now. His most cherished dream, rancor among the NATO allies, is coming true. And his agent is in the White House.

  83. 83.

    efgoldman

    @Mnemosyne: Not I.
    As we’ve noted before, Nectarine Nausea’s win, by ~80k votes in three counties, required every. single. one. of dozens of things to break just right – like winning the powerball. Any one or two of them break the other way, and HRC is president.

    Meanwhile, shouldn’t you be in bed?

  84. 84.

    mouse tolliver

    Roy Cohn was a friend and mentor of the young Donald Trump.

    And looks whose names shows up in Cohn’s Wikipedia bio in the section that details the crimes that got Roy Cohn disbarred….

    Later career and disbarment

    Cohn aided Roger Stone in Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign in 1979–80. Cohn helped Stone arrange for John B. Anderson to get the nomination of the Liberal Party of New York, a move that would help split the opposition to Reagan in the state. Stone said Cohn gave him a suitcase that Stone avoided opening and, as instructed by Cohn, dropped it off at the office of a lawyer influential in Liberal Party circles. Reagan carried the state with 46 percent of the vote. Speaking after the statute of limitations for bribery had expired, Stone later said, “I paid his law firm. Legal fees. I don’t know what he did for the money, but whatever it was, the Liberal party reached its right conclusion out of a matter of principle.”[26]

    Federal investigations during the 1970s and 1980s charged Cohn three times with professional misconduct, including perjury and witness tampering.[2] He was accused in New York of financial improprieties related to city contracts and private investments. He was acquitted of all charges.[2] In 1986, a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court disbarred Cohn for unethical and unprofessional conduct, including misappropriation of clients’ funds, lying on a bar application, and pressuring a client to amend his will. In this case in 1975, Cohn entered the hospital room of a dying and comatose Lewis Rosenstiel, the multi-millionaire founder of Schenley Industries, forced a pen to his hand and lifted it to the will in an attempt to make himself and Cathy Frank—Rosenstiel’s granddaughter—beneficiaries. The resulting marks were determined in court to be indecipherable and in no way a valid signature.[27]

  85. 85.

    efgoldman

    @mouse tolliver:

    And looks whose names shows up shows up in Cohn’s Wikipedia bio

    And here we thought the five families were the worst crooks in New York!

  86. 86.

    NotMax

    @efgoldmnan

    You’re near to Connecticut. Felt a change in the Force? Mr. Cole hasn’t posted about a hayseed bungle in what, days now?

    :)

  87. 87.

    Tom Q

    I want it in the record that I’ve disliked Roger Stone far longer than the rest of you. I had the un-privilege of spending six weeks alongside him in (of all things) a drama workshop — it was in 1967, the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school.

    And I want it credited that this bunch of 30 or so high school theatre kids saw right through him: everyone thought he was a blowhard/asshole — largely because he wanted to talk about politics ALL THE TIME. (Something the average teen of the era found excruciatingly boring.) This was all before he became a full-time Nixon booster, and the rest that followed. His politics seem to me a case of the personality finding the party that suited him rather than vice versa.

  88. 88.

    efgoldman

    @NotMax:

    Cole hasn’t posted about a hayseed bungle in what, days now?

    Maybe ABC hasn’t bailed him out yet, and the authorities won’t give him his phone back.
    Or he lost another Subie in another field, and is ashamed to admit it.
    Or he got locked out of his hotel room while pantsless.
    Or he bought a whole case of the damned mustard, left it in the car overnight – it’s been fucking-a cold in New England – and it froze and exploded, and she’s making him clean up the interior with his tongue.

    Whatever it is, it’s more fantastic than even I can make up.

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    Technically, I am in bed — I’m icing my knee one last time before I brush my teeth and wash my face. I also need to take some more ibuprofen, because it’s hurting again.

    But I probably won’t sleep tonight away, because my stupid brain won’t shut up about how this trip is going to suck, we’re going to have a horrible time, it was a dumb idea from the start, I was an idiot for tripping and falling this morning and now I’ve ruined everything, etc etc etc. I hate my brain sometimes.

  90. 90.

    efgoldman

    @Tom Q:

    This was all before he became a full-time Nixon booster

    So he was a ratfucker even in high school? And nobody kicked the living shit out of him? You went to a more forgiving high school than most of us did.

  91. 91.

    efgoldman

    @Mnemosyne:

    I hate my brain sometimes.

    Yeah, but it’s the onliest one you got.
    I did both Mouseland and Universal in the early 90s. We got free admission, because all you had to do was send a request on radio or TV station letterhead. And even so, I felt ripped off at Disney. Magic didn’t work for me. Universal was a lot more fun.

  93. 93.

    Captain C

    How many puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly are we supposed to pretend just *look* bad?

    All of them, Katie.

  97. 97.

    danielx

    @Tom Q:

    His politics seem to me a case of the personality finding the party that suited him rather than vice versa.

    There’s a lot of that going around among Republican pols, and has been for some time now.

  98. 98.

    Steeplejack

    God, I think the worst movie ever to appear on TCM just started: Thrashin’ (1986). A (very) young Josh Brolin in a skateboarding epic. “Two skateboarding gangs battle each other for supremacy, and a member of one gang falls in love with the sister of his rival.” Just the soundtrack alone is making my ears bleed five minutes in.

    ETA: The TCM programmers should be ashamed of themselves. This must be the result of blackmail (pictures of Robert Osborne that must not be allowed to come out!) or an obscure in-house bet.

  102. 102.

    Steeplejack

    Did everyone disappear in the Daylight Saving Time maelstrom?

    I have to admit I got a nerdy thrill as I watched my computer, cell phone and cable box all flip over from 1:59 to 3:00 at the same time. I will save the non-thrill of resetting all the other clocks and watches for tomorrow.

  103. 103.

    Steeplejack

    And I am always slightly amazed that the clock on my $25 dorm-room microwave* keeps the best time. I reset it only on time changes and power outages (rare), and it’s usually off by less than 10 seconds. Go figure.

    * Had to go for a small microwave because I have limited counter space in my galley kitchen.

  104. 104.

    Mnemosyne

    @Steeplejack:

    For another half-hour, the East Coast is four hours ahead of me.

    And Suzanne and the other AZ people don’t change at all — AZ doesn’t do DST. Because they really don’t want an extra hour of sunlight there in the summer, thank you.

  106. 106.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    Not everyone likes Disney, strange as that seems to me. My mom doesn’t like it, either. The attempts at being immersive can start to feel oppressive.

    You might despise Disneyland a little less — it’s smaller, and it’s in the middle of a metropolitan area so it’s easier to escape from the all-pervasive Disney theme. Disneyworld can feel either isolated or immersive, depending on your perspective.

  107. 107.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax, @Mike J:

    I can roll with kitsch and obscure cult movies, but this is* just wretched. Particularly poignant was the credit: “And introducing Pamela Gidley,” who subsequently skyrocketed into a D-list TV career highlighted by 17 episodes each on Strange Luck (1995-96) and The Pretender (1997-2000). Last seen in Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014).

    Might hang on for Hard Ticket to Hawaii. “In Molokai, two undercover drug enforcement agents are after a vicious drug kingpin, but on the way they will also have to deal with a contaminated giant python.” That sounds like cinematic gold!

    * Not watching any more. Switched over to Property Brothers to cleanse myself.

  108. 108.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    @Mnemosyne: Speaking of Disney, you may already know this, but one of the bonus features on the Moana Blu Ray is a deleted song introduced by Lin-Manuel Miranda and sung by… wait for it*… Christopher Jackson and Philippa Soo.

    *Couldn’t resist.

  110. 110.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne: Time change doesn’t happen until 2am here, so it’s another 2 hours that they’re 4 hours ahead. Shouldn’t you be in bed? I’ve heard that you have an aeroplane ride tomorrow, though like John McCain and that POW thing you don’t like to talk about it.

  111. 111.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    @Mnemosyne: Why did I not know that? Can’t sleep, so I’m going to watch it again. I’ll listen for him.

    My husband thinks we should name our next pet Heihei. I don’t think I could do that to the poor animal, whatever it might be (even if there was more to Heihei than was immediately apparent).

  112. 112.

    Evap

    Just back from Germany and I can’t sleep in spite of forcing myself to stay awake last night until it was a reasonable bedtime. On the bright side, Netflix has added new episodes of the Great British Baking Show so I can get up and binge watch that.

  113. 113.

    RealityBites

    Old 4wd cargo van still on dst from last spring. Little Honda fit on standard time. That way one vehicle is always right.?

  115. 115.

    J R in WV

    @Jeffro:

    We need to be prepared to have some sort of “truth & reconciliation committee” once Trumpov & Co are ousted…and push it HARD…get it all out, everything that led to this disaster, from Fox News and right wing media to conservatives’ willingness to embrace Putin to our broken-in-various-ways electoral process.

    Couldn’t we have a big thing, instead? What’s the word…..

    I remember, a Grand Jury!! To indict everyone, and make sure that everyone knows what was done, and when, that was illegal, against the interests of the United States, and start up a series of petit jury parties… I guess they call those trials!!! Wouldn’t that be better than a Truth and Reconcliation Committee?

    More… grand!

  116. 116.

    NotMax

    @Mnemosyne

    Navajo reservation lands within AZ do not observe DST (Hopi reservations do).

    State of Hawaii has never observed DST.

    Nevada is awaiting Congressional approval to do away with DST there.

    Indiana used to be the most confusing, as part of the state did and part did not. No longer the case.

    Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa do not observe DST.

  120. 120.

    TriassicSands

    Sorry, but I’ve got to vent — something I’ve never done here (or anywhere else on the Internet before).

    I’m in Swedish Medical Center in Seattle. I came in on Thursday (open-ended stay). I’m a chronic pain patient, which is not why I’m in the hospital, and Swedish insisted on controlling my pain medication. I went along to get along, figuring it wouldn’t be difficult to keep to my medication schedule. And it was fine at first. But then nurses stopped coming at the designated times and the schedule started to slip. Then, for reasons I have not been able to discover, the med order changed and split the two types of meds into separate dosing schedules — not together. That started to make getting my medications on time a problem. Then, tonight, my new nurse announced that one of the meds is now on an as-needed basis, while the other was now on an independent every 6 hours schedule. Tonight, I had to lie in bed in increasing pain (which had be under control since Friday morning) because the nurse decided to bring my one medication when the other was due so they could once again be in sync. But they’ll only be in sync for that one time — the hospital’s schedule will throw them out of sync over the next 3 hours.

    Thursday night was among the worst nights I’ve ever had and the situation was entirely the fault of the hospital and the doctor on call. I tried to get help for six hours and he blew me off the entire time. The situation was too complicated to describe here, but in the morning, when the new doctor came on, I received an injection that almost immediately resolved the problem. However, I had spent 8 hours lying in bed in extreme pain because the night doctor wouldn’t address my problem.

    I will try to never return to Swedish Medical Center. The alternative would be to simply bring my own pain meds, not give them to the hospital, and control my own pain just as I do at home every day of my life.

    End of vent. (That’s probably the most personal information I’ve ever divulged online. We’ll see if it makes me feel better.)

    PS There are a lot of things you don’t want to be but among the least desirable today in the US is to be a chronic pain patient. Some medical professionals are smart, reasonable, and compassionate. Some are just plain assholes.

  121. 121.

    TriassicSands

    @NotMax:

    Navajo does change time with DST, Hopi does not.

    Do you know the reason for the difference? Is it just the two tribes decided they had to be different (or one of them did), or do they have good reasons for the difference. Since AZ doesn’t go on DST, I suppose the Navajo may have decided it made sense to remain in sync with the state. But what’s up with the Hopi then?

    PS Apologies. I just got here and I started reading up rather than down. So, that question may have already been answered. I’ll continue to read.

  122. 122.

    TriassicSands

    Crap. Dealing with health issues I missed the switch to DST. I wonder how that will affect my medication schedule. The analog clock in my room may need to be changed manually (May? Almost certainly.) I’m skeptical that my current nurse will be able to deal with the math.

  123. 123.

    TriassicSands

    @Steeplejack:

    “Two skateboarding gangs battle each other for supremacy, and a member of one gang falls in love with the sister of his rival.”

    Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a more original plot in my life. Pure creative genius.

  124. 124.

    Taylor

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I’ve read that the 1959 version of Ben Hur was secretly directed by William Wyler and acted by Stephen Boyd to imply that the relationship between Ben Hur and Messala was that of lovers, but they didn’t let Charlton Heston in on it, because Heston would have reacted badly.

    It was written that way by Gore Vidal, and Boyd agreed to play it that way. You can see Boyd giving Heston smoldering looks in their early scenes together.

    Martin Landau in North By Northwest decided to play Leonard as gay (There’s that scene where James Mason accuses him of jealousy). Not sure how much input Hitchcock had into it, but Landau says he was warned it could hurt his career.

  125. 125.

    El Caganer

    @Joyce Harmon: I doubt that Trump will even bother to acknowledge the letter, let alone reply to it. What will they do if he blows them off? Magic 8 Ball sez “Nothing.”

  127. 127.

    msdc

    @reality-based (the original, not the troll): The most horrifying thing about that post? The chart shows that after the Access Hollywood tape was released, Clinton’s favorability dropped more than Trump’s.

    Drum is absolutely correct that Comey interfered with the election and put Trump in the White House. But Jesus Christ, this country was is perfectly fucked up on its own without any help from the FBI.

  129. 129.

    germy

    Oscar Wilde — ‘The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.’

  130. 130.

    Anya

    @msdc: It dropped because that’s when the Short Fingered Vulgarian started full on attack. He started talking about Bill Clinton raping women and Hillary covering it up. I think it was a huge mistake for Hillary not to confront this and come out strongly against it in a passionate way. I went to Ohio to canvas and a lot of low information voters were harping on these accusations.

  132. 132.

    TriassicSands

    @debit:

    Thank you, Debit.

    I asked the nurse and she said someone would be around to change the clocks, but you never know. The last nurse to deliver meds was the nurse I had last night — she’s from Nigeria and a wonderful person — funny, smart, and very helpful, in short just the kind of person you want to have care for you in a hospital.

    I just ordered breakfast (it starts at 6:30) and I called at about 6:32. The kitchen was open and working, so they at least have the DST issue in hand.
    I’m on a liquid diet. Not surprisingly, I’m a little hungry.

  133. 133.

    Elmo

    @TriassicSands: Oh, fuck. My wife is also a chronic pain patient, and just had a very similar experience at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. One overnight nurse who couldn’t be bothered, ending up with her release actually being delayed because the resulting pain and spasm locked up her airway.

    I am so, so sorry. I wish we could help.

  134. 134.

    TriassicSands

    @NotMax:

    I hadn’t thought of that, it makes perfect sense — although the right bureaucrat could latch onto that and change to DST in the UT and NM sections and leave the AZ section alone. Maximum chaos! (I guess if Bannon were that bureaucrat he might opt for the dual system.)

  135. 135.

    TriassicSands

    @Elmo:

    Thanks! I’ve told friends and family not to bother calling while I’m in the hospital because it could interrupt things going on here. I asked them to just email. I don’t live in Seattle and getting here from where I live is, in my opinion, too much of a hassle if I’m getting out soon, which I hope will be the case. So, just having people online offer kind words or support helps.

    I’ve decided that if and when I return to a hospital it probably won’t be Swedish. My preference would be UW’s Medical Center. But to avoid this problem I’m just going to bring my own meds and not tell them. I’ve managed my own pain medication for many years now without mishap. I guess you could say “What the hospital doesn’t know can’t hurt them.” But they can hurt me and if I can avoid it, I will from now on.

  136. 136.

    Shalimar

    So Stone has admitted to acts that furthered a conspiracy which included criminal activity. The goal was influencing the election in Trump’s favor. Stone gossiped about the coming leaks in order to get them more publicity and increase the impact they would have on the election. Giuliani did the same thing.

    “I didn’t have anything to do with robbing the bank. I just gave them the plans, told them the guard schedule and took an equal share of the money.”

  138. 138.

    PaulW

    With Sessions purging out Justice Dept. this weekend, I seriously doubt Stone or anybody else associated with trump is gonna lose their cushy place in the dictator’s palace.

  139. 139.

    tobie

    @TriassicSands: Hang in there. This sounds like a terrible ordeal. I hope you get to go home soon. Hospitals are horrible places to be and the only reason you’re there is because you’re feeling absolutely horrible.

  140. 140.

    tobie

    @PaulW: The one glimmer of hope is that in the absence of AGs the staff in each of these offices will just keep on keeping on with whatever their doing. Some investigations may continue under the radar for this reason.

  141. 141.

    TriassicSands

    @tobie:

    Thanks, Tobie. I just read an article on the WaPo website and although it didn’t affect my pain, it did make me sad. It’s about poor people in W. Va. most of whom voted for Trump and now are likely to lose their Medicaid coverage if Chumpcare is enacted. But the real story in the article isn’t poverty (although it’s related for at least some) or health care but about profound, crippling ignorance. Even the ARNP (a very good person) says all she can do is pray. Well, no, that isn’t all you can do. And, sadly, all the prayer in the world is not going to make Trump an honest or compassionate human being and there’s nothing that can be done for Ryan.

    Of course, a number of the patients voted for Trump because he’s going to bring back the coal jobs. One person said that if he gets a job (he’s an out-of-work miner) then the ACA won’t matter because he’ll get insurance through his employer. That might be true…for him. But what about his neighbors who are on Medicaid and won’t end up with a job that provides insurance?

    It’s sad. Just plain sad.

  142. 142.

    Aleta

    @TriassicSands: Very sorry to hear of such pain caused by the hospital. They have really fucked up. But thank you for writing about it. Your story is illuminating; it must be happening to so many others. You don’t even mention the difficulty of interacting with each different nurse and aide over this. Something a bit similar (but nowhere near this scale, and not serious like pain is) drove me absolutely bonkers, and after trying to correct it for two days I almost lost it from the dominating attitude. And that wasn’t even about the new harsh attitude toward pain meds.

    As much as you can, don’t let it set you back. Hope you’re out soon. Best to you.

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