I spent all day trying to get to the bottom of Fox News' story on Seth Rich — here's what I found https://t.co/AOGgo0tH9k
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) May 17, 2017
FOX News ginns up conspiracy fantasy, demands answers about said conspiracy from nonplussed bystanders, proclaims their baffled silence further proof of THE CONSPIRACY!!! The giant dungworm swallows its own tail, announces that it is delicious!…
Fresh reporting from NBC's Pete Williams: Seth Rich's laptop did not have emails to WikiLeaks. And FBI never had it. https://t.co/QIM3D0SEDr pic.twitter.com/ywDPpq47F9
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) May 16, 2017
I want to point out that the 'PI' examining Seth Rich murder was fired by DC police dept two decades ago and is a food-safety consultant.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) May 17, 2017
At least when the whole flimsy construction falls to pieces, George Will’s ideological bastard son has all that freshly-stirred manure, ripe for his sweaty flinging…
Tucker Carlson screaming about Penn Station bathrooms to avoid talking about Trump's Russia ties. I know this sounds fake. It's not. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/Nlj1SPHen7
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) May 17, 2017
Penn Station is run by Amtrak in partnership with New York and New Jersey state agencies. Everyone's job BUT the city council. https://t.co/GGgCbB5650
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) May 17, 2017
amk
NotMax
Squirrel!
opiejeanne
@NotMax: Two of those little bastards were cussing us out this afternoon from the line of trees between our garden and the street. Yesterday they were fighting with each other, or maybe that’s courting behavior with squirrels.
Raoul
John Podhoretz can fuck himself.
piratedan
well, I hope that the Rich family decides to obtain legal consel so they can end up owning a piece of Faux News and Mr. Hannity’s salary and retirement for libelling and slandering their son.
divF
Hello night owls! I am on the night shift myself, packing for a trip to Saudi Arabia – a cab will pick me up to go to the airport in 3+ hours. Then it is SFO-ORD, ORD-FRA, FRA-JED (Jeddah). 25+ hours, followed by ground transportation to the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
This is a 10-day excursion to give a talk at a conference. The rest of the time I will be able to confer, converse, and otherwise hobnob with my fellow wizards.
??? Martin
@divF: 25 hours? Geez, you’ll be 4 scandals behind by the time you land.
Keith P.
I took a sleeping pill to help get to sleep at a decent hour. Well, a blood pressure pill that puts me to sleep, but it’s all the same. I’m looking forward to waking up to the morning’s latest @realdonaldtrump tweet. If there is no tweet, legal council has him on lockdown and they’ve gotten the fear of dog into Trump. But I so badly want a tweet.
It hasn’t come up much, but almost every week has ended with some headline of “Trump Administration’s Worst Week Yet.” And it’s not an exaggeration. Each week (with very few exceptions) is worse than the one before, and they’re running out of room to get worse. I’m just wondering what gives first. Does staff quit en masse? Mass firing? Does Trump just suddenly quit? Does he jump out a window ala Tommen Baratheon? Does he have a stroke and just drop?
burnspbesq
@divF:
That’s a long-ass trip. Do you have an external battery to charge your devices, or are you relying on seat power?
Steeplejack (phone)
I had a 3,000-word think piece, but I’ll skip to the nut graph: Fox News is the sous-vide version of Radio Rwanda*.
* Technically, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines.
burnspbesq
For a truly long-ass trip, try LAX to Bangalore.
brendancalling
I bumped into Tucker Carlson on a tram at (I think) the Atlanta Airport late last year. He’s a big guy. He could have beaten me up when I made a point of telling him he was a fucking asshole and that I hoped his show got canceled as I got off at my terminal. But he didn’t. Probably because the doors shut before he could respond.
Next time I’m gonna spit in his face.
burnspbesq
@Keith P.:
As long as he doesn’t go out like President Clark, we’ll probably survive it.
Steeplejack (phone)
@divF:
Give Rincewind a kick in the seat of the pants. But watch out for his luggage!
Viva BrisVegas
@piratedan:
Unfortunately precedent says that the dead cannot be defamed.
Mai.naem.mobile
I was listening to RW radio this afternoon(for a few mins.) They brought up Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Granted they were talking about the legalistics,not just a straight out ” Bill Clinton was bad too.” but can they at least stop comparing treason to lying about screwing around with an intern.
amk
@Mai.naem.mobile: Even accepting their bs argument, if Clinton came close to impeachment, why not the traitor twitler then?
Frankensteinbeck
@amk:
True, but always remember FOX is as much symptom as disease. Conservatives demand to be lied to. They throw screaming fits if they’re told the truth, and this has taken deeper and crazier hold as the facts increasingly say white, straight men who say Jesus are not the supreme life form. The lies they demand pull in the vulnerable, who get hooked, and… it’s an ugly, vicious cycle.
divF
@burnspbesq:
It appears that I have in-seat power the whole way. More of a worry is that the USG may forbid laptops in carry-on for the return trip.
divF
@??? Martin: I will have internet access on the first leg, so I will be up to date on the scandals at least until my mid-afternoon departure from O’Hare.
I’ll be keeping my dial set to Balloon Juice for as long as I can, possibly leaving a liveblog or two to document the trip.
divF
@burnspbesq:
No thank you. I have a friend from college in the semiconductor design business. He had a project that made him do Denver to Bangalore once very 3-4 weeks. Shortly after that gig ended, he gave it all up to become a full-time househusband.
hellslittlestangel
Poor Tucker Carlson can’t find a clean men’s room to look for gay men to beat up.
divF
@Steeplejack (phone): I’m flying United / Lufthansa. I am envious of Rincewind – I’ll bet his luggage never got lost or mishandled.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@amk: Bill Clinton didn’t come close to impeachment, he was impeached; however he was not convicted and removed from office by the Senate. House impeaches, Senate tries the case.
M. Bouffant
Ideological bastard son: Good one. Deliberate?
Keith P.
@burnspbesq: Actually, I hope Trump goes out like Elvis.
dogwood
No press briefing tomorrow. And I hope the next big story drops just as AF1 lands on it’s first leg of the miserable foreign jaunt. The foreign press can be tough. And it would be nice to have a couple of days off.
dogwood
@Keith P.:
The Mamma Cass exit would be fine with me. Though I haven’t heard that ham sandwiches are part of his dietary regime. But he could choke on KFC or a slab of chocolate cake.
Bess
@hellslittlestangel:
Think he might get off on the make up sex?
opiejeanne
@burnspbesq: I’m trying to figure out how to get to Entebbe, Uganda from Seattle without spending 32 hours on a plane. My niece lives there, works for the UN, and she’s dying for family to visit. I think a series of hops, Seattle to London/Amsterdam/Paris on Iceland Air; a few days spent there before taking Ryan Air to Brindisi, Italy or Athens and a few days spent there, then another hop somewhere on the African continent before heading to Entebbe. Maybe Saudi Arabia? I tried figuring it out heading west instead and it just doesn’t work well that direction. Uganda is just a long way from anywhere.
We’re a bit older now so the long flights are really hard on us.
zach
@dogwood:
Yes. It’s customary for both sides to take questions from reporters from both countries’ press after bilateral meetings, and foreign press aren’t constrained by need to retain access. But probably Israeli press will ask about I/P issues and not the spy stuff in one or two questions allotted… which Trump will still find a way to screw up.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@opiejeanne:
I’m getting ready to spend the longest couple of days in my life – SDF to PHL to LAX to SYD.
Going to leave my laptop home, I think.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@divF:
Slacker. I already packed for my zillion hours to Sydney later this morning.
opiejeanne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: How many hours?
The hideously long flights are part of the reason we haven’t been to Asia even though we’d love to go.
divF
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I take my time packing, since I have to stay up all night to start the process of getting me on AST (PDT + 10). In between time I surf the web, drink tea, and (at least tonight) gloat over the cascade of Trumpian antics.
Madame divF just informed me that she has September 19 of this year in a local pool of Trump’s last day in office. Apparently, all the earlier dates were taken.
ETA: I’ve only done SFO-SYD once. It was a nonstop, back in the days when you only could watch movies on a shared screen, and they had only boarded one movie. I’ve forgotten exactly how many times I saw Beetlejuice that trip (and it kept getting funnier every time). Also, SFO-SYD is about 15 hours.
EBT
My muse won’t stop singing to me, and it is fantastic. I keep taking risks with the drawings and they come out better for it. I keep figuring out bugs that have been leaving me stymied and implementing features I have been dragging my ass on. Gonna have one hell of a down stroke when this mania passes.
??? Martin
@divF: I’m still hoping we can put it off until Jan 2019, win the House, impeach both Pence and Trump and get Nancy Smash as president.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo fka Edmund Dantes
@opiejeanne:
I hate to count. I leave a little before 11 for Philadelphia, have about three hours before a LONG assed flight to LAX, where I’ll sit from 6 pm local till 11 pm tonight. I arrive in Sydney Friday morning (local time). I’m thinking that works out to something akin to 18 hours or something – you have to add the day for crossing the date line and work some differential.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@opiejeanne:
I hate to count. I leave a little before 11 for Philadelphia, have about three hours before a LONG assed flight to LAX, where I’ll sit from 6 pm local till 11 pm tonight. I arrive in Sydney Friday morning (local time). I’m thinking that works out to something akin to 18 hours or something on LAX to SYD– you have to add the day for crossing the date line and work some differential.
On Asia, that really isn’t too bad – 14 hrs from ORD.
amk
@divF:
Hilarious.
amk
paging cole.
Keith P.
@dogwood: It’s settled then. I will sacrifice a fat lamb in the hopes that Donald Trump will choke on a KFC Double-Down while suffering from a crap-induced heart attack. Why would Donald Trump eat a KFC Double Down while taking a shit, you may ask. The guy puts ketchup on steaks. Of *course* he eats while taking a shit.
EBT
@Keith P.: I am a pretty disgusting slob and I have never been so high or drunk or depressed that I have eaten while shitting.
divF
@EBT: OTOH, I had a roommate in college who would listen to music on headphones and smoke dope while he was shitting. The headphones were on a cord that stretched across the hall, so it was always pretty obvious when he was doing that.
JWR
@Bess:
Heh heh. (Bless you, Bess.)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Keith P.:
I laughed so hard I woke up the dog.
Joyce H
@divF:
Oh, please say you’re not going to be in Saudi Arabia while Trump is there! You know, don’t you, that he’s planning to give a speech about Islam while he’s there? It’s just not a good time to be an American in a Muslim country.
David ?I hope U can let this go? Koch
M. Bouffant
@divF: 19 September’s my birthday; that would be the best present ever!
divF
@Joyce H: This trip was planned months ago, so I can’t really bail. The place I’m going is a closed, relatively westernized campus with excellent security, as well as being sponsored by the King. It is also on the other side of the country from where Trump is visiting. All that said, though, I admit to being a little bit nervous.
TS
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
My most favorite city in the world – I hope you enjoy it as much as I have and do – whenever I get the chance to be there.
Kansi
Distract, distract, distract.
TriassicSands
@Keith P.:
Just as the universe can go on expanding forever (or not), so too can Trump continue to have one scandal after another top the last. Which will give first? I’d almost bet on the universe giving out first. The only thing standing between Trump and an infinite number of ever worse scandals is his own mortality. But somehow I think the family is well-equipped to carry on daddy’s tradition. The two older sons have shown a real aptitude for tone-deafness that rivals that of their demented father.
Amir Khalid
@opiejeanne:
I feel your pain. Hideously long flights to Europe/USA were a part of my job as a tech journo that I don’t miss at all.
EBT
@divF: Haha hope he wasn’t passing the piece back and forth.
Mary
@divF: I thought The Luggage belonged to Twoflower. And it got lost a lot – just always managed to find its way back eventually.
Chyron HR
@David ?I hope U can let this go? Koch:
Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening.
satby
@opiejeanne: Take a foreign airline (like JAL) because it’s a bit more pleasant than a domestic carrier. And I would break that trip up too, Iceland air lets you do a couple days stopovers in Iceland for no extra cost which breaks up a long trip to Europe.
Applejinx
@Mary: Twoflower gave it to Rincewind. Neither Rincewind nor the Luggage were particularly happy about this :)
debbie
@David ?I hope U can let this go? Koch:
Was anyone able to find out what that screaming at each other behind closed doors was all about? Did anyone come out of there and answer any questions?
debbie
@Mai.naem.mobile:
Ironic that for all their condemnation of Clinton’s parsing, they’re now doing the very same thing.
lurker dean
@divF: I can’t recall, there may be a ban on laptops on flights from certain countries in the ME? something to check if you plan to bring one..
Lurking Canadian
@David ?I hope U can let this go? Koch: Is it too much to hope that one or more of these staffers had the presence of mind to put their phones on Record while this was going on?
Gin & Tonic
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I did LAX-MEL a few years ago. 15.5 hours in the air.
OldDave
@divF:
“Talk Like A Pirate Day”. If we have to wait that long, then that’s an excellent day for The Orange One to walk the plank.
Woodrowfan
@amk: HE WAS impeached, he was not convicted. (it’s a 2 step process). (sorry, someone else beat me to it)
Another Scott
@divF: Have fun!
While you’re there say “hi” to Donnie, Jared, and Ivanka for us.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Keith P.: When it comes to Donnie, it can always get worse.
And it will get worse before it gets better. :-(
(No Twitter droppings thus far this morning.)
Cheers,
Scott.
nightranger
Can someone explain to me why in the hell this far right manufactured nontroversy was posted here???
I would have never heard of this nonsense if it wasn’t posted here. It’s only helping the far right with this distraction timed to deflect from real controversies. Is the person who posted this so naive as to no realize that?
If I want to read this crap I’ll go to Drudge thank you very much.
Origuy
@opiejeanne: Maybe through Honolulu and Nairobi? I hear that it’s really easy to take that route.
David Spikes
@Gin & Tonic: Rome to SFX occasionally-half way across the US I always seriously consider opening the emergency hatch and jumping out.
Used to love flying-now even cross country is a pain.
David Spikes
@nightranger: Is ignorance really bliss?
No it is not.
nightranger
@David Spikes: So what your saying is that you have no idea that this is what Drudge and the rest of the wingnut echo chamber does? You must be quite blissful.
Bonnie
This used to be a fun blog to read. The writing was good with appropriate snark. Now, it is only a blog that prints other people’s tweets ad nauseum.
No One You Know
@Keith P.: Or Tywin Lannister.