Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

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

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

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

Bark louder, little dog.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

It’s a doggy dog world.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Little Pocket Man

Little Pocket Man

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Is anyone even surprised?

If The Intercept’s reporting is accurate — and it sure seems to fit the Kushner-Trump propensity for blabbing intel and trying to curry favor with deep-pocketed authoritarians — we have just got to hose these odious grift-mavens out of the goddamned West Wing with all possible speed.

Reader Interactions

97Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    Not at all surprised, and since the repubs will do nothing let me just say we are so f..ked.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    Your daily reminder that Republican lawmakers are A-OK with treason as long as it means their party stays in power.

  4. 4.

    Tom Levenson

    Anyone who touches the Trumps turn to shit. I bet a lot of people who’ve had anything to do w. JarJar are wondering just how that’s going to bite them in the unmentionables.

  6. 6.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Betty, this is a great thread title, but I really wanted to congratulate you on the earlier “Soo-weeeeee Generous.” Took me a while to fully get it, but it’s brilliant wordplay!

  9. 9.

    Kelly

    Since this is an open thread, I did my taxes this afternoon with the IRS Free Fillable forms. I have simple taxes the kind where I could just sign a return the IRS has already filled out if Turbotax had not lobbied to prevent it. I’ve used Turbotax many times but this year I just can’t stand them. The process was easy enough but I date back to the days when paper forms were all there was.

  10. 10.

    CaseyL

    Wait, did I read that correctly?

    On top of everything else, Jared played informer for this jamoke, telling him who wasn’t sufficiently loyal???

    Holy fucking shit.

  11. 11.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Okay, this one actually caught me by surprise. Not that I ever thought he wouldn’t, but it didn’t occur to me that Kushner could sell intelligence secrets. I had only thought about more obvious favors, like political stances. Now that the possibility has been pointed out, I must assume America’s intel is currently available to the highest bidder via the whole Trump family, and the IC community has to be even more pissed than I knew. Also, other countries must already be shutting us out for that reason. It will be interesting to see how Kushner gets his intelligence access back. This is profiting Trump, so it will certainly continue.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Little Pocket Man
    by Betty Cracker

    I hope somebody on Moaning Joseph or CNN steals this from you, Betty, cause I want trump to hear it.

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    @Kelly: I used Turbotax starting sometime in the 90s and loved it. Now it is completely ruined and overpriced. The first time I used it the price was $10 with a $10 rebate, so I’m spoiled, but still, Intuit has lost their way. This year I used H&R Block software, which was kind of crummy, but cost a third of Turbotax. I didn’t even know the IRS had Free Fillable forms; I’ll check it out next year.

  14. 14.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    it didn’t occur to me that Kushner could sell intelligence secrets

    Holeeeeee shit. You’re right, that’s what he’s done. IANAL – there must be charges that can be brought, so what would they be?

  16. 16.

    CaseyL

    Depending on how complicated your taxes are, you might try FreeTaxUSA – they have all the forms you need, which can be filled out on-line, and they show you a draft of the entire return before you hit the submit button.

    I’ve used them for the last 4 or 5 years, to file my 1040 with Schedules.

  17. 17.

    Barbara

    @Kelly: I used to use TurboTax until certain things happened that made my tax situation too complicated. This year, I have to file my mother’s taxes for 2017, because she passed away earlier this year, and she had always used H&R Block so I just decided to let them do it again this year. While discussing things with the preparer, I heard a woman trying to help a gentleman figure out what sounded like a really complicated situation involving the valuation of his deceased wife’s prior investments. The lady spent a lot of time talking to the investment house and trying to get permission on his behalf to have a discussion with them, so that the issue could be definitively resolved. She was more like a social worker than a tax preparer.

  18. 18.

    Chyron HR

    Yes, but what if the state department hypothetically hadn’t refused every single request for favors from people who donated to the Clinton Foundation? It really activates your almonds, doesn’t it?

  19. 19.

    Barbara

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: It might not have occurred to you but it probably occurred to the FBI and the clearance professionals, especially after intelligence gatherers intercepted discussions among UAE and Israeli and other diplomats about how to use his financial situation to their own benefit. I assume that played a large role in holding up his permanent clearance.

  21. 21.

    Corner Stone

    Wait a second…Jar Jar traded some of all the classified intelligence he has been hoovering up for insider preference with a rich dictator?
    Where did I leave it…oh, here it is. This is my shocked face.

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    @Tom Levenson:

    Anyone who touches the Trumps turn to shit.

    I think Josh Marshall is correct about this. People don’t turn to shit because they touch Trump, but Trump does convince people who have been hiding how shitty they are to give up the pretense.

  24. 24.

    piratedan

    I’m getting to the point where I think we should just deposit the entire lot of these assholes on an uninhabited island somewhere, hook up a security camera without any power and just leave them there. Tell them that they’re being watched and then forget about them.

  25. 25.

    JPL

    And yet Jared still walks around free as a bird, all the while collecting money to hold up his empire made of match sticks.

  28. 28.

    Mike in NC

    Kushner is a deplorable shit-weasel, but last night I came across a photo of Trump’s three eldest rotten spawn staring at the camera with their dead eyes. Someone captioned it “Children of the Con”. Lock them up.

  29. 29.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    So the safety of the free world depends in large part on an incompetent 35-year-old man child’s understanding of diplomacy and politics and culture?

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    @JPL:
    Can New York City nail his rear for the rent control fraud that came to light yesterday? Among the feds, the State of New York and the City, ONE of them surely must be able to get him. And yes, I’ll call him Shirley.

  31. 31.

    Kelly

    @Barbara: My taxes a very simple this year. I’ve use professional preparers several times but now we’re a standard deduction family.

  32. 32.

    hellslittlestangel

    @Mary G: Credit Karma. Exactly the same process as Turbo Tax, but it’s free, including state tax filing. I’m very happy with them, although I suppose it’s just a matter of time before I find out they sold all my personal info to North Korea or ICE or some other nogoodniks.

  34. 34.

    Kelly

    @CaseyL: IRS Free Fillable forms are just that. Online forms that do the math. Since I did paper forms back in the day I found I liked just filling out the forms instead of being interviewed by a program.

  35. 35.

    Thoughtful David

    Besides this, there’s the news yesterday about Jar-Jar filing false papers about the tenants in hims buildings in NY. Jar-Jar is having a bad year:
    1. He needs boatloads of money, and needs it now.
    2. He doesn’t have a high-level security clearance he can sell anymore.*
    3. Those buildings he filed the false papers on just suddenly become a lot less valuable. If he was trying to use them as collateral for the boatloads of cash he needs, that just suddenly got problematic.
    4. Even if he wasn’t trying to use those as collateral, his personal wealth just took a big hit because of them. And because of the fact that he’s going to be spending a lot of his remaining cash on lawyers and fines. That makes him look like a lot less attractive risk for the boatloads of cash he needs.
    5. And all of these are a lot harder to accomplish from inside the slammer, and Baldy Littledick McDollhands can’t pardon him out of NY charges.

    2018 isn’t shaping up too good for Jar-Jar.

    * Yes, I know he can still get intel from Baldy Littledick McDollhands directly, but without his security clearance and with Kelly watching him like a hawk**, the quantity and quality of the intel he has to sell will be a lot less valuable.

    ** Not because Kelly is a patriot or anything, just because Kelly hates Jar-Jar.

  36. 36.

    hellslittlestangel

    @Corner Stone:

    Where did I leave it…oh, here it is. This is my shocked face.

    I just leave mine on all the time. It’s convenient, and everyone thinks I’m always up on the latest developments.

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):

    So the safety of the free world depends in large part on an incompetent 35-year-old man child’s understanding of diplomacy and politics and culture?

    No, the safety of the free world depends on that incompetent 35 year old finally acquiring enough money to keep him from going bankrupt. No telling what he will sell next if he can’t get a building loan.

  39. 39.

    eemom

    I did legal work for H&R Block once, long long ago in a galaxy where there was no TurboTax. I even met the old patriarch Henry who used to do those “17 reasons” commercials where he took his glasses off, in his corner office in Kansas City.

    Anybody else old enough to know what I’m talking about gets a cyber ?

  41. 41.

    cmorenc

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):

    So the safety of the free world depends in large part on an incompetent 35-year-old man child’s understanding of diplomacy and politics and culture?

    Even worse, said 35-year old is supposed to be a key savvy, moderating influence on his man-child father in law’s shallow, impulsive thinking about the world. Even worse still, Trump is seriously contemplating bringing a dangerous raving idiot asshole (John Bolton) on-board as Tillerson’s replacement at Secretary of State. That’s just what the fire department needs – a resident pyromaniac on staff.

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @Mary G:
    Intuit in general has been “problematic” for a while now. One thing that frosts me (and not in the Adam sense) in Quicken is that downloading files from your bank is stopped when the version you have hits its third birthday.

    I once called Quicken about that, asking why that was done, and the officially-approved response was something on the order of “Well, we’re always improving our software, and so after three years something something something.” In other words, a bullshit answer, designed to lie to the consumer without actually telling a bald-faced lie. It took a lot of willpower not to say “Save that shit for some other moron, I’m not so fucking stupid that I believe that idiotic response.”

    And TurboTax loves them some annual price increase, combined with migrating functionality upward — a/k/a stripping it out of the lower-priced version — so that they can stealth-charge more for the same thing.

    When I’m God-Emperor of this place, after fixing the political situation, I’m going after Intuit, those greedy, anti-consumer motherfuckers.

  43. 43.

    Elizabelle

    I am Kushnered and Ivanka’d out. Just not interested in them. Have way overstayed their 15 minutes.

  44. 44.

    Calouste

    @trollhattan: The House of Saud has a lot of princes, who all have a lot of money. One or more of them might get worried that it is going to be their neck, or Jared’s.

  45. 45.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Thoughtful David:

    3. Those buildings he filed the false papers on just suddenly become a lot less valuable. If he was trying to use them as collateral for the boatloads of cash he needs, that just suddenly got problematic.

    Pretty sure Kushner Co has already sold those properties. That’s part of the scandal – they banked a huge profit on it by lying to the state/city government.

  46. 46.

    Corner Stone

    @Elizabelle:

    I am Kushnered and Ivanka’d out. Just not interested in them.

    I am just the opposite. It’s not that I am interested in them, exactly. It’s that I crave with a burning STD of desire for the day they mother fucking get theirs.

  47. 47.

    Brachiator

    The Saudi crown prince has bragged that Jared Kushner is “in his pocket,” and told close confidants that during a trip to Riyadh last year, Kushner shared the names of specific Saudi royals disloyal to him

    Wait a minute. Is this the same Jared Kushner that doesn’t have his security clearance in order?

    It’s crystal clear why some foreign leaders love Trump and his brood. Trump thinks he’s a Master of the Universe when he is really just an easy mark.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    The reality is, there’s no way of knowing who is telling the truth in this den of liars.

  51. 51.

    Karen Potter

    @Mary G: I did my taxes, early Feb and turbotax had a free software and filing for those of us who file the 1040EZ; I used turbotax from when it first came out since while still married had to use long form and lots of work sheets.

  52. 52.

    Patricia Kayden

    Kushner shared the names of specific Saudi royals disloyal to him

    And we all know how warmly Saudi royals treat those with whom they have disagreements, right?

  56. 56.

    SFAW

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Intuit spun off Quicken last year, and Quicken has gotten much worse.

    Hadn’t heard about the spin-off. In what way(s) has Quicken gotten much worse? How much could they fuck up a 30-year-old product that used to work reasonably well? [I mean, I know they think that they need to keep tweaking it, in order to justify obsoleting the older versions, but it’s not as if the world switched from Windows to BSD, and they have to rewrite a bunch of code.]

  57. 57.

    gene108

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    it didn’t occur to me that Kushner could sell intelligence secrets.

    When I read about Kushner losing Top Secret clearance, there were reports he voraciously consumed PDB’s, his father-in-law refused to read, and other Top Secret information, so I figured selling state secrets to get out of his financial mess is a possibility.

    I hope the Saudi royal family paid him well for giving out our intelligence info on them, otherwise I would be disappointed. I mean, we are not only being run be criminals, who use their office for profit, but stupid criminals, who get bullied by crooks world leaders.

  58. 58.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @SFAW: Their bill planner got totally borked, it seemed to decide to skip a month of payments(I sent one out before I saw what it was doing).

    ETA: I tried resetting it to correct the schedule but it won’t reset, I guess I could completely delete the bill payment reminder and start over…

  62. 62.

    lamh36

    I wont be watching, but will any of you?

    @yashar
    5m5 minutes ago
    More
    It’s official, Stormy Daniels’ interview with Anderson Cooper is going to air this Sunday on 60 Minutes. They just released this 10 second preview.
    https://twitter.com/yashar/status/976595343302328322

    BTW, the 10 sec clip is mostly her walking in the room, then Anderson asking her why she is doing this and ….that’s it

  63. 63.

    Mary G

    @SFAW: Intuit has been a bad actor in so many ways. Once I wasn’t really paying attention and bought the updated software at the end of three years from them, paying $109, then realized I could have got it and downloaded it from Amazon for less that half that. I contacted them and they were like “sucks to be you.” Thankfully I am no longer the treasurer of the thrift shop and it’s somebody else’s problem now.

  66. 66.

    zhena gogolia

    @lamh36:

    I watched a 15-minute Ari Melber segment with her lawyer today, and I think I’ve had enough.

    The whole Trump administration just makes me feel sick, ashamed, and covered with slime to be an American.

  67. 67.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Amir Khalid: It’s hard to say how things would become worse if Bolton became Secretary of State. I’m just hoping that Bolton isn’t confirmed but am not sure what difference his confirmation would make. The entire Trump cabal is awful. Plus, Bolton is probably giving Trump advice right now (such as call Putin and congratulate him on “winning” and don’t mention anything about the poisoning of Russians in the UK.

  70. 70.

    Roger Moore

    @gene108:

    I hope the Saudi royal family paid him well for giving out our intelligence info on them, otherwise I would be disappointed.

    Prepare to be disappointed.

  74. 74.

    Brachiator

    @Patricia Kayden:

    It’s hard to say how things would become worse if Bolton became Secretary of State.

    Wait. I thought that Bolton was rumored to be Trump’s choice for National Security Advisor, not Secretary of State. Have I missed something?

    Bolton in any position would be a disaster because he is as ignorant as Trump, a neocon blowhard and would play to Trump’s worst instincts.

  77. 77.

    TenguPhule

    @piratedan:

    I’m getting to the point where I think we should just deposit the entire lot of these assholes on an uninhabited island somewhere, hook up a security camera without any power and just leave them there. Tell them that they’re being watched and then forget about them.

    And one rusty spork among them. Let the Hunger Games begin.

  78. 78.

    TenguPhule

    @moops:

    Didn’t the crown prince just go through a loyalty purge in the House of Saud and shakedown many of the princes?

    The purge is still ongoing.

  79. 79.

    Jager

    Saudi Prince #1 “Cousin, you know Kushner is a Jew?

    Saudi Price#2 “Of course, but he’s my Jew.”

    Saudi Prince#1 “Until he isn’t cousin, he’s was talking to my father’s cousin’s third son yesterday about New York real estate”

    Saudi Prince#2 “How do you know that?”

    Saudi Price#1 “My new friend at the Russian Embassy, who is Kushner’s good friend, told me.”

  81. 81.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    The reality is, there’s no way of knowing who is telling the truth in this den of liars.

    When we eliminate all the lies, the truth will be left, naked and ashamed in the light of day.

  83. 83.

    moops

    I would doubt Bolton would be so dumb as to give away that kind of intel in this fashion. He is an evil warmongering jerk, but still a paranoid lawyer by training.

  84. 84.

    moops

    well, dumb being a relative measure. Bolton is dumb. JarJar is just so incredibly dumberer.

  85. 85.

    frosty

    @SFAW: @Gin & Tonic: I’m still using Quicken 2004 which you can download for free,and which I’ve been using for (counts fingers and toes) 14 or so years. Does everything I want, loads the QIF files from the bank easy peasy. I bought the latest version for my son and after calling the bank we figured out we couldn’t do the download without paying Intuit $9.99 a month for something or other because the new version wouldn’t import the QIF files THAT THEY DESIGNED!!!

    So I’m good until I need a new computer, at which point I’m screwed because Q2004 won’t run on Windows10.

  87. 87.

    Another Scott

    @frosty: If/when you get Win10, try VirtualBox or similar PCWindows emulator. It’s free (but you need a copy of Winders to load on it.) I used VirtualBox to get Quicken for Windows running on my step-mom’s iMac when she was doing her church’s books. It worked fine.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  90. 90.

    The Simp in the Suit

    @Frankensteinbeck: Duh. I feel slow and thick. I heard about Jared’s tattling earlier today, but it just didn’t dawn on me WHERE and HOW he got the identities of those who are (were?) insufficiently loyal.

    God damn these people to hell forever.

  91. 91.

    moops

    I’m guessing Trump will be letting Kelly push JarJar out of the WH pretty soon. Kushner likely still needs to trade secrets to secure funding for his doomed Manhattan building so this is moving slowly.

    …wait, that would imply way too much cunning to JarJar and DJT.

  92. 92.

    Shalimar

    @cmorenc: I don’t know. Considering Trump pretty much does the opposite of whatever he is told, having a hyper-aggressive asshole like Bolton as Secretary of State could actually be a moderating influence for this administration.

  93. 93.

    mike in dc

    @Shalimar: “This will make you look strong and tough” will be the only words Bolton needs to do some truly heinous shit.

  96. 96.

    Corner Stone

    @lumpkin:

    Kushner is really shaping up to be the biggest grifter in the entire operation.

    Trump is Desperate #1 and Kushner is Desperate #1a.

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