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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Venality / Chicago Tribune: “GOP operative who sought Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers, committed suicide, records show”

Chicago Tribune: “GOP operative who sought Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers, committed suicide, records show”

by Anne Laurie|  July 13, 20178:53 pm| 114 Comments

This post is in: Republican Venality, Russiagate

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I fully buy Smith committed suicide because of ailing health…but it definitely makes his WSJ interview seem more like a confession.

— On Trial for ??? (@ZeddRebel) July 13, 2017

Cheryl posted some days ago about the sudden death of Peter W. Smith, GOP political operative. There’s been an update:

… In a room at a Rochester hotel used almost exclusively by Mayo Clinic patients and relatives, Peter W. Smith, 81, left a carefully prepared file of documents, which includes a statement police called a suicide note in which he said he was in ill health and a life insurance policy was expiring.

Days earlier, the financier from suburban Lake Forest gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal about his quest, and it published stories about his efforts beginning in late June. The Journal also reported it had seen emails written by Smith showing his team considered retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then a top adviser to Republican Donald Trump’s campaign, as an ally. Flynn briefly was President Trump’s national security adviser and resigned after it was determined he had failed to disclose contacts with Russia.

However, the Chicago Tribune obtained a Minnesota state death record filed in Olmsted County that says Smith committed suicide in a hotel near the Mayo Clinic at 1:17 p.m. on Sunday, May 14. He was found with a bag over his head with a source of helium attached. A medical examiner’s report gives the same account, without specifying the time, and a report from Rochester police further details his suicide.

In the note recovered by police, Smith apologized to authorities and said that “NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER” was involved in his death. He wrote that he was taking his own life because of a “RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017” and timing related “TO LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING.”…

Smith’s death occurred at the Aspen Suites in Rochester, records show. They list the cause of death as “asphyxiation due to displacement of oxygen in confined space with helium.”

Rochester Police Chief Roger Peterson on Wednesday called his manner of death “unusual,” but a funeral home worker said he’d seen it before…

Peter Smith wrote two blog posts dated the day before he was found dead. One challenged U.S. intelligence agency findings that Russia interfered with the 2016 election. Another post predicted: “As attention turns to international affairs, as it will shortly, the Russian interference story will die of its own weight.”

Breathing helium inside a plastic bag is the method recommended by the Final Exit Network. There are some things even the richest 81-year-old can’t buy, and time is among the foremost.

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Next Post: Recapping the revised Senate bill »

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  1. 1.

    Montysano

    July 13, 2017 at 9:00 pm

    Very Putin-esque, nyet?

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    July 13, 2017 at 9:02 pm

    @Montysano:

    I am totally writing this Balloon Juice, how you say, comment, of own free volition and will.

  3. 3.

    ET

    July 13, 2017 at 9:03 pm

    I hesitate to post this so early in a thread about a suicide even if the person is not necessarily someone I mourn (mostly cause I don’t know him) but there are some people OT there doing some really good trolling.

    http://www.impeachthemotherfuckeralready.com

    I would love to see a Member of Congress wearing some of this merchandise.

  4. 4.

    pamelabrown53

    July 13, 2017 at 9:05 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    LOL. Creepy story. I thought that Life Insurance payment was denied in the case of suicide?

  5. 5.

    efgoldman

    July 13, 2017 at 9:06 pm

    @Montysano:

    Very Putin-esque, nyet?

    I’d like to think that even mobbed-up Uncle Vladi wouldn’t violate the 50+ year convention of not going after each others’ leaders on their own soil. Like all the other kinds of mutually assured destruction, even the old Soviet leaders and the Dulles- era CIA wouldn’t go quite that far, outside of bad spy novels.

  6. 6.

    But her emails!!!

    July 13, 2017 at 9:08 pm

    @pamelabrown53:

    No. In general, there’s just period of time where it isn’t covered. After that point, many policies pay out on suicide.

  7. 7.

    efgoldman

    July 13, 2017 at 9:08 pm

    @pamelabrown53:

    I thought that Life Insurance payment was denied in the case of suicide?

    Usually for a fixed period of years after the policy is written.

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    July 13, 2017 at 9:09 pm

    uh huh
    UH HUH

    LIPS PURSED

  9. 9.

    Major Major Major Major

    July 13, 2017 at 9:10 pm

    This is all a distraction from arguing about whether Nancy Pelosi would be a better president than Hillary Clinton.

    @SiubhanDuinne: is as American as pie from apples!

  10. 10.

    Gvg

    July 13, 2017 at 9:10 pm

    I don’t get the life insurance expiring thing. I too thought it didn’t pay for suicide. File this under waiting for more info, don’t get it.

  11. 11.

    pamelabrown53

    July 13, 2017 at 9:12 pm

    @But her emails!!!: @efgoldman:
    Thanks. Learned something new tonight. Still a creepy story.

  12. 12.

    Honus

    July 13, 2017 at 9:13 pm

    There’s a suicide exclusion in most life insurance policies. Typically, it expires two years after the policy is issued. So suicide is not excluded after that time.

  13. 13.

    sigaba

    July 13, 2017 at 9:13 pm

    @Montysano: When Putin has someone killed he generally does it in a way that’s formally deniable but sends a clear message. This don’t seem like it.

    Maybe it’s how Jared kills people?

  14. 14.

    replicnt6

    July 13, 2017 at 9:13 pm

    @Gvg:

    I don’t get the life insurance expiring thing. I too thought it didn’t pay for suicide. File this under waiting for more info, don’t get it.

    I think the idea is to prevent you from buying a life insurance policy and immediately committing suicide. If you commit suicide many years later, that wasn’t your purpose in buying the insurance.

  15. 15.

    Ian G.

    July 13, 2017 at 9:15 pm

    I’m wondering when Kushner or Uday “commits suicide” by “shooting themselves” from 50 feet away with a ricin-tipped dart. Or with polonium in their coffee.

  16. 16.

    efgoldman

    July 13, 2017 at 9:15 pm

    @Gvg:

    I don’t get the life insurance expiring thing.

    “Term life” is just what it says: You pay for a fixed term; some go a year at a time, some can go a decade or more.
    The suicide exclusion is per policy-specific. My first whole life policy, in my early 20s, had a two-year exclusion. It’s to prevent someone with a terminal disease, for instance, from killing her/himself off for an instant payout to the family.
    It’s always all about the Benjamins.
    The insurance company’s Benjamins, not yours.

  17. 17.

    TenguPhule

    July 13, 2017 at 9:16 pm

    @efgoldman:

    I’d like to think that even mobbed-up Uncle Vladi wouldn’t violate the 50+ year convention of not going after each others’ leaders on their own soil.

    He’s already done it in the UK. And there are troubling suspicions he’s already doing it here.

    And isn’t it interesting this guy’s health declined after 1/2017?

    Wonder what they find at the autopsy?

    Slow poison or radiation?

  18. 18.

    Ian G.

    July 13, 2017 at 9:17 pm

    @ET:

    Certainly a nice response to MAGA.

  19. 19.

    jl

    July 13, 2017 at 9:17 pm

    Better get those Russian spy compounds open asap, so we can get to the bottom of it.

  20. 20.

    efgoldman

    July 13, 2017 at 9:17 pm

    @Ian G.:

    I’m wondering when Kushner or Uday “commits suicide” by “shooting themselves” from 50 feet away…

    …in the back.

  21. 21.

    Hal

    July 13, 2017 at 9:17 pm

    https://twitter.com/AdavNoti/status/885178296685744129

    The foreign solicitation ban sure is having its 15 minutes! It’s being made to sound a lot more complicated than

    (a) It’s illegal to ask a foreigner for a contribution. 52 USC 30121(a)(2). 2/

    (b) Giving *anything* of value — incl. intangible goods/services — to a campaign below value is a contribution. 11 CFR 100.52(d)(1). 3/

    (c) So asking a foreigner to give intangible goods or services to a campaign below value is illegal. 52 USC 30121; 11 CFR 100.52(d)(1). 4/

    And that’s it. Not complicated. But since egalitarian twitter is oddly concerned with creds, I’ll add that I argued Bluman v. FEC. 5/5

  22. 22.

    TenguPhule

    July 13, 2017 at 9:18 pm

    They list the cause of death as “asphyxiation due to displacement of oxygen in confined space with helium.”
    Rochester Police Chief Roger Peterson on Wednesday called his manner of death “unusual,” but a funeral home worker said he’d seen it before…

    So he died screaming like a little girl. Literally.

  23. 23.

    mai naem mobile

    July 13, 2017 at 9:18 pm

    I just saw this on the Twitter machine. If roles were reversed Fox would be running 24/7 with how Hilz ordered Al Franken to take care of the killing of an old GOP gentleman in Minnesota. This story sounds a little too clean for me but whatevs.

  24. 24.

    TenguPhule

    July 13, 2017 at 9:19 pm

    @efgoldman: Multiple times.

  25. 25.

    efgoldman

    July 13, 2017 at 9:21 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    And isn’t it interesting this guy’s health declined after 1/2017?

    The guy was 81, for christ’s sake.
    People can get old really quickly, as I’ve been finding out, and I’m still in my early 70s.
    There are enough real bullshit conspiracies happening without going to look for stuff, even for a ghoul like you.

  26. 26.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 13, 2017 at 9:21 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    He’s already done it in the UK. And there are troubling suspicions he’s already doing it here.

    Link to names of supposed victims, SVP.

  27. 27.

    rikyrah

    July 13, 2017 at 9:23 pm

    Tired of Maddow being concerned about the quality of Dolt45’s lawyers. I don’t give a shyt about the quality of his lawyers.

  28. 28.

    Ian G.

    July 13, 2017 at 9:24 pm

    @mai naem mobile:

    I’m trying to imagine the FOX News response to Chelsea Clinton meeting with representatives of Iran who promised her dirt on Trump. I’m guessing they’d be demanding summary executions of every Democrat holding elected office, and concentration camps for all registered Dems.

  29. 29.

    TenguPhule

    July 13, 2017 at 9:24 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, Federal Prosecutor Beranton J. Whisenant Jr.

    Died in America, but Russian: Vitaly Churkin. Sergei Krivov

    UK victims are pretty infamous at this point, just google.

  30. 30.

    Miss Bianca

    July 13, 2017 at 9:25 pm

    We’re living in an Ian Fleming knock-off kind of reality 24/7/365 now, tovarischii? Ho-kay…

    Suddenly, spending a *lot* more time playing the fiddle makes sense. While Rome Washington burns…

  31. 31.

    But her emails!!!

    July 13, 2017 at 9:26 pm

    @Gvg:

    As noted above, most policies have a fixed term over which they won’t pay out on suicide. After that point, they do. The Insurers are mainly interested in preventing people from purchasing policies with the intent commit suicide. After that point, the base risk of suicide is just a factor in the price of the policy.

    As for the insurance expiring. He probably has term life insurance. With term life insurance you and the insurer set on a fixed payment for a fixed number of years. If you die during that period, the insurance pays out. If you don’t, you get nothing. There’s often a clause for extending the policy beyond the agreed upon term, but usually at massively higher rates. The advantage to this type of policy over whole life insurance is that that payments are less.

  32. 32.

    Major Major Major Major

    July 13, 2017 at 9:26 pm

    @efgoldman: he also might have been, you know, a touch mentally ill. Depression isn’t exactly rare in the elderly.

  33. 33.

    kindness

    July 13, 2017 at 9:26 pm

    Funny but you know what happens when you cross the mob, right?

  34. 34.

    Hal

    July 13, 2017 at 9:27 pm

    http://www.pajiba.com/politics/trumps-adult-children-ranked-from-least-to-most-awful.php

    She is a woman who simpers in TV interviews about how mean politics is while propping up the man who perpetrates that poison; She is the clueless narcissist who watches the world burns and posts Instagram photos of her kids at the zoo, thus allowing her own father a new human shield; she is the product of nepotism who has effectively become Trump’s second-in-command, attending summits with world leaders like the most insidious Take Your Child to Work Day imaginable while still claiming she has no involvement with politics; She explicitly endorses her abusive father in the name of women, then leaks sources to try and paint herself and her Jonah-from-Veep husband as the progressive voices in the room.
    What makes her most dangerous, on top of all the above, is that the press let’s her get away with it. They still rush to her defence while she benefits from the crumbling of democracy, and they have become the driving forces in helping Ivanka to perpetuate her soft, harmless image of docile submissiveness. Men like Chris Cillizza will go out of their way to defend her, determined to reassert the falsehood that she’s a lovely little girl who wouldn’t harm a fly.
    Out of all of Trump’s adult children, Ivanka seems to be the only one he shows true love towards (and possibly lust). She is the true heir and the one who poses the biggest threat. If/when the impeachment happens, watch out for Ivanka’s sad face on an Us Weekly cover exclusive, selling her latest image as a new woman.

  35. 35.

    Keith P.

    July 13, 2017 at 9:27 pm

    Someone needs to shoot a watermelon to make sure this guy really killed himself.

  36. 36.

    TenguPhule

    July 13, 2017 at 9:28 pm

    @efgoldman: The best murders look like natural causes of death. That’s where we are now, because of who he was and what he did in can’t be ruled out without an autopsy.

  37. 37.

    sm*t cl*de

    July 13, 2017 at 9:31 pm

    but a funeral home worker said he’d seen it before…

    And you can record a final message in an increasingly squeaky high-pitched voice

    ETA TenguPhule got there first.

  38. 38.

    Major Major Major Major

    July 13, 2017 at 9:31 pm

    @TenguPhule: you’re practically salivating for this to be an assassination by a foreign power, it’s gross.

  39. 39.

    MomSense

    July 13, 2017 at 9:34 pm

    @Miss Bianca:
    I’ve been calling it LeCarre on Meth.

  40. 40.

    frosty

    July 13, 2017 at 9:34 pm

    So when I read “Life insurance of $5 million expiring” it looks to me like he had a policy, it was going to expire before he died of natural causes, so he had nothing to lose by hurrying his fate along. If it paid out for suicide, as some have mentioned, so much the better.
    ETA: But her emails!! explained it better upthread.

  41. 41.

    TenguPhule

    July 13, 2017 at 9:34 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m sure this was meant to reassure us.

    An autopsy was conducted, according to the death record. The Southern Minnesota Regional Medical Examiner’s Office declined a Tribune request for the autopsy report and released limited information about Smith’s death.

    Police also noted that the two helium tanks in the room were draped with vinyl-covered exercise ankle or wrist weights. The report did not offer an explanation for the weights. Police said that because they did not suspect foul play, they had not viewed any security video from the Walmart store to confirm that Smith had bought the tanks himself.

    Smith’s remains were cremated in Minnesota, the records said.

    Nothing to see here, absolutely nothing, no sir.

  42. 42.

    jl

    July 13, 2017 at 9:35 pm

    It’s bad either way. Looks like other commenters are more than happy to cover the foul play angle.

    If i was suicide, think about what that might mean. The devil-may-care attitude of the guy may have been a sad front.
    He knew he was in very very deep legal shit, and couldn’t face it, whether he was sick or not.
    Or he was in the middle of huge mess and expected thugs in very deep legal shit to lean on him.
    And if his story were really all there was to it, why would that be?
    Didn’t he claim to have come up empty? Was that true? We only have his word for it, don’t we?
    How much of his story was true? How much was he spinning tales of futility in some attempt stay our of the storm?
    Maybe I am not up to date on all the ins and outs of the sorry mess, but that is my take from what I know.

    Edit: I think at least one person in UK was driven to suicide in the dirty dealings that lead up to Tony Blair taking his country on a crooked war.

  43. 43.

    Gravenstone

    July 13, 2017 at 9:35 pm

    How many insurers pay out on a verified suicide? I can buy being despondent about a health setback, but the insurance should never have been a rational excuse.

  44. 44.

    TenguPhule

    July 13, 2017 at 9:36 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: The article didn’t raise a single eyebrow of something odd going on with you? Really?

  45. 45.

    Baud

    July 13, 2017 at 9:36 pm

    The guy probably felt guilty for running a child trafficking ring out of a pizza parlor. #ConspiracyWheel

  46. 46.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    July 13, 2017 at 9:36 pm

    Peter Smith wrote two blog posts dated the day before he was found dead. One challenged U.S. intelligence agency findings that Russia interfered with the 2016 election. Another post predicted: “As attention turns to international affairs, as it will shortly, the Russian interference story will die of its own weight.”

    Well, Pete, it appears you were wrong on that

  47. 47.

    Shana

    July 13, 2017 at 9:38 pm

    @rikyrah: I think her point that he needs competent representation, for the good of the country, is a valid one.

  48. 48.

    jl

    July 13, 2017 at 9:39 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Was he try to whistle past some graveyard?

  49. 49.

    JMG

    July 13, 2017 at 9:39 pm

    Writing a suicide note saying No Foul Play is both the sort of thing that arouses suspicion and the sort of thing a man who’d been working in the paranoid fringes of politics for decades might write because he never believed anything at face value in his adult life. My guess is the latter.

  50. 50.

    mai naem mobile

    July 13, 2017 at 9:39 pm

    @Ian G.: there’s probably a thousand crazy instances of how Fox would have reacted if a Hilz administration had done x that the Dolt45 administration has done. This stuff would have been a Las Vegas style Buffet for Fox and that isn’t even considering that they would have had a reporter only following Bill to see if he was doing any skirt chasing.

  51. 51.

    Major Major Major Major

    July 13, 2017 at 9:39 pm

    @TenguPhule: whether it did or not, it’s pretty obvious that you would be personally happiest if this were an assassination.

  52. 52.

    raven

    July 13, 2017 at 9:40 pm

    My Right to Die
    Assisted suicide, my family, and me.

    KEVIN DRUM

    There were also several pages with instructions on how to take your life using an “inert gas hood kit.” This is a fairly simple and painless way to die, since your body reflexively wants to breathe, but doesn’t really care what it breathes. If you breathe pure helium, or any other inert gas, you won’t feel any sensation of suffocation at all. You simply fall unconscious after a minute or so, and within a few more minutes, you die.

  53. 53.

    Gravenstone

    July 13, 2017 at 9:41 pm

    @TenguPhule: Doubtful. Asphyxia by simple oxygen displacement rarely causes the sense of choking that would cause the victim to panic and fight.

  54. 54.

    TenguPhule

    July 13, 2017 at 9:43 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: You’re imputting motives to me that are only inside your head again. I’m not going to shed any tears for the SOB, but Russian Assassins on American soil is one of those, WTF moments, not a celebratory one.

  55. 55.

    Major Major Major Major

    July 13, 2017 at 9:44 pm

    @raven: I hadn’t seen that article, thanks, I bookmarked it. This is an important issue to me.

  56. 56.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    July 13, 2017 at 9:44 pm

    @jl: He probably really believed it would just go away. It’s still early, but I doubt this is just going to fizzle any time soon. Assuming Trump doesn’t start WW3

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 13, 2017 at 9:44 pm

    @mai naem mobile: Hannity isn’t on till 10 PM EDT. Give it fifteen minutes or so…

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    July 13, 2017 at 9:45 pm

    Oh good, here come another ten thousand conspiracy theories…

  59. 59.

    Major Major Major Major

    July 13, 2017 at 9:46 pm

    @TenguPhule: it’s just that people who would be unhappy about things tend to talk about them differently than you talk about this stuff.

  60. 60.

    Montysano

    July 13, 2017 at 9:47 pm

    In post-Soviet Russia, suicide note writes you?

  61. 61.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 13, 2017 at 9:47 pm

    @Keith P.: I’ll see if I can get to Publix before it closes at 10. I’m not going to the 24/7 Walmart grocery though if I don’t make it.

  62. 62.

    Keith P.

    July 13, 2017 at 9:48 pm

    @Gravenstone: Several insurance policies will pay out on a suicide if the deceased has had the policy for X years.

  63. 63.

    Gravenstone

    July 13, 2017 at 9:50 pm

    @Keith P.: Yeah, noted by multiples upthread. I posted that before reading the comments and ended with no edit window.

  64. 64.

    Archon

    July 13, 2017 at 9:50 pm

    Say what you want about Ancient Rome or Fuedal Japan but discredited people in their societies committed suicide. In America, they get book deals or get elected President

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 13, 2017 at 9:51 pm

    OT, sort of: I just saw a trailer for Atomic Blonde. Does it make me a terribly shallow person that I am now looking forward to seeing it without knowing anything else about it?

  66. 66.

    raven

    July 13, 2017 at 9:51 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: After what my family went through with my brother-in-law recently it’s become more important to me as well.

  67. 67.

    But her emails!!!

    July 13, 2017 at 9:51 pm

    @Gravenstone:

    My policy is fairly standard term life insurance. It pays out on suicide now that I’ve passed exclusion period. Total risk of death even including suicide is pretty low in younger cohorts where it ranks more highly as a cause of death. In older cohorts, the number of suicides increases, but it’s rank as a cause of death decreases. There’s not a strong reason to remove it from policies, insurers just have to avoid adverse selection which they do by using an exclusion period. Most people aren’t planning a suicide out 2 years in advance and if they’re already ill, the policy would be nearly unaffordable.

  68. 68.

    Miss Bianca

    July 13, 2017 at 9:52 pm

    I have to admit I did snortle at the image of the squeaky-voiced suicide note. Yes, I already know I am a Bad Person.

  69. 69.

    Montysano

    July 13, 2017 at 9:52 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Does it make me a terribly shallow person

    I’d listen to Lara Logan read the phone book, so….

  70. 70.

    Miss Bianca

    July 13, 2017 at 9:54 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Does it make me a terribly shallow person that I am now looking forward to seeing it without knowing anything else about it?

    Depends. How blonde was the Atomic Blonde?

  71. 71.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 13, 2017 at 9:54 pm

    @Montysano: That isn’t really an answer.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 13, 2017 at 9:54 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Charlize Theron beating the crap out of people for two hours. What more do you need to know?

  73. 73.

    Aleta

    July 13, 2017 at 9:55 pm

    OT

    The family of six say they were stopped at the Canadian border on their way back home to Minnesota. They handed over their U.S. passports and the children’s birth certificates to a border patrol officer and waited in the car. Moments later, they say three border officials emerged from their office, guns drawn and pointed at the family. The children started screaming.
    Thus begins Abdisalam Wilwal and Sagal Abdigani’s account of their nearly 11-hour detention at the hands of Department of Homeland Security officials, according a lawsuit filed Thursday on their behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a private law firm, Robins Kaplan.
    …
    The ACLU contends that the ordeal occurred because Wilwal had been placed — unbeknownst to him, and for no apparent reason — on the secretive watch list, a database that includes records on approximately one million people.
    …
    The FBI, which maintains the watch list known formally as the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), said it does not publicly confirm or deny whether a person is on the list, because it “would significantly impair the government’s ability to investigate and counteract terrorism, and protect transportation security,” said Matthew Bertron, an FBI spokesman.
    …
    Officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection … (and) from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), kept Wilwal handcuffed and secluded for more than 10 hours, even after he fainted and required medical attention, the family says. The officials accused Wilwal of being a terrorist, asked him whether he was Muslim, and denied him access to food. They also denied the family access to a phone and a lawyer, told the couple’s 14-year-old son to undress for a strip search and searched the contents of his phone.

    from WaPo
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/07/13/u-s-family-suing-federal-government-after-11-hour-detention-on-canadian-border/?utm_term=.d7683357b9bb

    (They had gone to Canada visit Mr. Wilwal’s sister for a couple of days. They’ve been living in the US 17 years, after coming as refugees from Somalia.)

  74. 74.

    Jeffro

    July 13, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    What happens if you encase a watermelon in a helium-filled bag? Did anyone even THINK of that, hmm?

  75. 75.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 13, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    @Miss Bianca: In some of the scenes, she was a brunette. In others, she was platinum.

  76. 76.

    Montysano

    July 13, 2017 at 9:57 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That isn’t really an answer.

    Sorry. Totally not shallow, at least in the way I approach the world.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 13, 2017 at 9:59 pm

    @Miss Bianca:
    Trailer 1 (redband/NSFW):

    Trailer 2 (not redband, but plenty violent):

    Trailer 3 (also not redband, but still plenty violent):

  78. 78.

    hueyplong

    July 13, 2017 at 9:59 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: On this particular point, you’re going to have to work to be more shallow than me.

  79. 79.

    pamelabrown53

    July 13, 2017 at 10:01 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I saw the trailer for “Atomic Blonde” when I went to “Wonder Woman”. I thought it had a perverse appeal.

  80. 80.

    Miss Bianca

    July 13, 2017 at 10:06 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: OK, when you put it like that…yeah, no. Don’t even need to watch the trailers to say ‘no fucking way’ for this mouse.

  81. 81.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    July 13, 2017 at 10:10 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Please tell me how you embed YouTube videos

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 13, 2017 at 10:11 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Trailer 2 is the one that was on the TeeVee machine. Sounds like a decent soundtrack too.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 13, 2017 at 10:15 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: First you must sit at the foot of the wall on the summit of Si Lum for 8 years listening to the ants scream. Then…

    Go to youtube. Below the video there will be an arrow pointing up to the right next to “share”. Click on it. The first field that comes up gives you the link. But if you click embed it gives you an embed code. Copy it, paste it into your comment, and hit return. Then hit post comment.

    One caveat – it may only work for front pagers. And notMax complains it slows the page loading down, so I try not to overdue it.

  84. 84.

    Anne Laurie

    July 13, 2017 at 10:23 pm

    @jl:

    If i was suicide, think about what that might mean. The devil-may-care attitude of the guy may have been a sad front.
    He knew he was in very very deep legal shit, and couldn’t face it, whether he was sick or not.
    Or he was in the middle of huge mess and expected thugs in very deep legal shit to lean on him.
    And if his story were really all there was to it, why would that be?

    Occam’s razor: He was 81 years old and (if you read the linked article) his health had been failing recently.

    Many of us over the age of, say, 50 can attest that there’s lots of chronic problems where you start a countdown clock in your head, waiting to see how much the technology will improve before you absolutely must replace that joint / get those cataracts removed / go on the expensive drugs / etc. Chronic heart patients frequently suffer from depression, as do older people in general.

    I’m 61, and I haven’t done anything (that I know of) for which I might be called upon to expand vast resources of energy to stay out of jail. But I can totally understand an 81-year-old whose doctors have just told him that he’s not gonna live long enough to buy a new heart deciding that, fvck it, he’ll go on his own terms and save himself & his family the agony of a long-drawn-out ICU-chained decline.

    Could it have been murder? Anything’s possible. But it’s a lot more plausible as suicide than the usual KGB-assisted ‘fell out of sixth-story window under interrogation’ or ‘accidentally drank polonium while in exile’.

  85. 85.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    July 13, 2017 at 10:23 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: That first part may be a little hard considering there is no such place =>

    I thank you kind sir

  86. 86.

    frosty

    July 13, 2017 at 10:25 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Reminds me a bit of The Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis, at least after her memory comes back. She kicked some butt in that one.

  87. 87.

    Miss Bianca

    July 13, 2017 at 10:26 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I try not to overdue it.

    Never, ever, overdue it. Particularly not library books.

    (ducking, running, hiding behind the couch)

  88. 88.

    dm

    July 13, 2017 at 10:26 pm

    Sorry if this is a repeat, but: Donald Trump is wrong. When Democrats were offered secret help by the Soviets, they refused.

    In 1968, Moscow feared that the staunchly anti-communist Richard M. Nixon would be elected. To forestall that, the Kremlin decided to reach out to Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Hubert H. Humphrey. As Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan, revealed in his memoir, “In Confidence,” two decades ago: “The top Soviet leaders took an extraordinary step, unprecedented in the history of Soviet-American relations, by secretly offering Humphrey any conceivable help in his election campaign — including financial aid.” Dobrynin explained:

    [quote]I received a top-secret instruction to that effect from [Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei] Gromyko personally and did my utmost to dissuade him from embarking on such a dangerous venture, which if discovered certainly would have backfired and ensured Humphrey’s defeat, to say nothing of the real trouble it would have caused for Soviet-American relations. Gromyko answered laconically, “There is a decision, you carry it out.”[/quote]

    The opportunity soon arose for the well-connected ambassador at a breakfast at Humphrey’s home. Dobrynin subtly raised the issue of Humphrey’s campaign finances during a discussion of the election, but the vice president deflected the issue. “Humphrey, I must say,” Dobrynin wrote, “was not only a very intelligent but also a very clever man. He knew at once what was going on.” Humphrey told Dobrynin that “it was more than enough for him to have Moscow’s good wishes which he highly appreciated.” Dobrynin felt relieved that he had followed his orders and Humphrey had avoided the potentially explosive issue.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 13, 2017 at 10:29 pm

    @Miss Bianca: You didn’t really just do that, did you?

  90. 90.

    Gravenstone

    July 13, 2017 at 10:30 pm

    Just got back from the Youtube to see the very trailer. Interesting, maybe a rental. Had a nice detour to Blonde – Atomic, then Tina Guo – Wonder Woman as well as her work with Joe Bonamassa. Not a bad way to wind down the evening.

  91. 91.

    Study pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn

    July 13, 2017 at 10:33 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    This is all a distraction from arguing about whether Nancy Pelosi would be a better president than Hillary Clinton.

    I love it.

  92. 92.

    Anne Laurie

    July 13, 2017 at 10:37 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I’d watch it just for John Goodman (not that I don’t thoroughly enjoy Charlize Theron). But not with the Spousal Unit, he’s got a much lower threshold for movie violence than I do — not that he’s completely averse, but he’d have to know going in that, at the very least, the bad guys got what they deserved & that the narrative wasn’t just gore-porn.

  93. 93.

    Anne Laurie

    July 13, 2017 at 10:39 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    Please tell me how you embed YouTube videos

    Only front-pagers have that privilege, for reasons.

    Think about it: Would you want to give the trolls free rein to dump Infowars porn or worse on every thread?

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 13, 2017 at 10:42 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Does E.D. Kain still have keys?

  95. 95.

    marv

    July 13, 2017 at 10:42 pm

    I have friends, and I am not uncomfortable calling them friends – it’s where I live and they are my neighbors – who believe the Rapture is imminent and Hillary killed Vince Foster, maybe. They know my views. It would almost be disrespectful the next time I see them not to raise an eyebrow about this suicide.

  96. 96.

    SiubhanDuinne

    July 13, 2017 at 10:46 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Does E.D. Kain still have keys?

    No longer listed in the “Contact a Front-Pager” thingie. I’m not sure what, if anything, that says about keys allocation.

  97. 97.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 13, 2017 at 10:55 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Shaolin. Si Lum is a bad, direct transliteration of what we normally refer to as Shaolin. I just gave you the Bodhidharma’s spiritual biography.

  98. 98.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 13, 2017 at 10:56 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Many of us over the age of, say, 50 can attest that there’s lots of chronic problems where you start a countdown clock in your head, waiting to see how much the technology will improve before you absolutely must replace that joint / get those cataracts removed / go on the expensive drugs / etc.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 13, 2017 at 10:57 pm

    @Miss Bianca: You want to wake up to another email like this morning’s?

  100. 100.

    sm*t cl*de

    July 13, 2017 at 11:00 pm

    If you breathe pure helium, or any other inert gas, you won’t feel any sensation of suffocation at all. You simply fall unconscious after a minute or so

    Nitrogen works just fine (or so I hear from a friend). Using helium is just showing off and using up a limited strategic resource.

  101. 101.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 13, 2017 at 11:06 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I just gave you the Bodhidharma’s spiritual biography.

    And it ends up like a Dave Matthews Band song.

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 13, 2017 at 11:06 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Art imitates life.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    July 13, 2017 at 11:07 pm

    “As attention turns to international affairs, as it will shortly,

    WTF does that mean? I have questions on why he’s so confident something will happen re: “international affairs” that will bury the Russia-owns-Trump story.

    These people. Everything they say sounds hinky and vaguely threatening.

  104. 104.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 13, 2017 at 11:17 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: And vice versa.

  105. 105.

    Brendancalling

    July 13, 2017 at 11:17 pm

    No idea what the circumstances are behind the dude’s abrupt expiration, but a LOT of people connected to this Trump/Russia shit seem to have a habit of dying.

    At this point, I’d believe anything. I’m waiting for Julian Assange to reveal himself as some kind of tucking cyborg.

  106. 106.

    Anne Laurie

    July 13, 2017 at 11:24 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Does E.D. Kain still have keys?

    Do us all a favor — do *NOT* contact him to find out, okay?

  107. 107.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 13, 2017 at 11:28 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Cool.

  108. 108.

    Anne Laurie

    July 13, 2017 at 11:31 pm

    @Brendancalling:

    I’m waiting for Julian Assange to reveal himself as some kind of tucking cyborg mysteriously fall out an embassy window.

    He’s been very useful to Putin, for the last couple years.

    What with all the news breaks, IMO his utility is just about at an end. Comrade Putin’s not big on leaving loose ends, da?

    (Way I see it, Edward Snowden’s continued existence is clear evidence that he was an unwitting dupe, not a knowing collaborator. A cunning spymaster can always find another use for a high-profile dupe… )

  109. 109.

    ruemara

    July 14, 2017 at 12:10 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I am thrilled to see it. So it puts you in excellent company.

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 14, 2017 at 12:17 am

    @ruemara: Cool.

  111. 111.

    sunny raines

    July 14, 2017 at 12:21 am

    the Russian interference story will die of its own weight.

    what a moron. scandals don’t “die of their own weight”. Increasing weightiness is exactly what keeps them going. Its lack of new “weighty” stuff, aka boredom that kills scandals.

    Today’s republicans are the stupidest people on earth. its like some worm gets in their brains and eats the whole damn thing.

  112. 112.

    ruemara

    July 14, 2017 at 12:23 am

    @frosty: That movie kicked ass and deserved a trilogy. And Salt. I wanted a sequel so bad.

  113. 113.

    TenguPhule

    July 14, 2017 at 5:53 am

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m not really sure what it is, other then some odd circumstances which raise my eyebrows. So other then the relief that there is one less breathing Republican, not really feeling anything here.

    Written medium doesn’t really convey emotions well unless I spend some effort on it.

  114. 114.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    July 14, 2017 at 6:35 am

    2

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