The medieval expertise may be on-point. https://t.co/4azgsnPzRA
— David Simon (@AoDespair) March 28, 2018
From the original Reuters report:
A little-known former prosecutor with a doctorate in medieval history will play a central role on U.S. President Donald Trump’s legal team, as many top-tier lawyers shy away from representing him in a probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
Andrew Ekonomou, 69, is one of a handful of lawyers assisting Jay Sekulow, the main attorney representing Trump in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Sekulow told Reuters on Tuesday that after the departure of Washington attorney John Dowd from Trump’s personal legal team last week, Ekonomou will assume a more prominent role…
The elevation comes at a crucial time in the Mueller probe, as Trump’s team is negotiating the terms under which the president himself may be interviewed. Sekulow is now the last man standing of a trio of personal lawyers hired last spring to assist Trump on the probe. Combative New York lawyer Marc Kasowitz exited the team last summer…
Trump has tried to tap top-tier lawyers to represent him but been repeatedly rebuffed, according to people familiar with the matter. For example, on Monday, Dan Webb, a former U.S. attorney in Illinois, said Trump had reached out to him and a Washington colleague, but business conflicts prevented them from representing the president.
Savannah Law School professor Andrew Wright, former associate counsel in the Obama White House, said it is unusual for a president to turn to lawyers like Ekonomou who are untested on the national scene and not part of the elite white-collar bar…
Following what he called a “mid-life crisis,” Ekonomou said he went back to school and got his doctorate in medieval history at Emory University in 2000. Ekonomou said he is the author of a book on Byzantine Rome and the Greek popes.
Drew Ashby, a trial lawyer who worked for Ekonomou between 2007 and 2010, said Ekonomou has a commanding presence that would likely serve him well when dealing with Trump.
“He is a force of nature,” Ashby said. “Andy has the kind of presence and the kind of mind that I would think would make Donald Trump listen.”
So, he looks like the guy you’d find to play a top-dollar lawyer on a tv show. Aka, The Trump Special Hire!
In case this isn’t already clear, yes, it is pretty unusual for a sitting “President” and avowed billionaire to have so much trouble finding legal representation…
NEW: Two more lawyers just turned down a request to be on Trump's legal team https://t.co/PfOhCA1AOl
— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) March 26, 2018
It used to be the case that representing POTUS would make your legal career. https://t.co/f3bIxRefua
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) March 26, 2018
It's gonna be funny if Jay Sekulow, who took this job pro-bono for the publicity, gets stuck having to actually conduct the president's legal defense.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) March 25, 2018
Can't be stressed enough – he's a sitting president with personal wealth and few if any white shoe firms want to work for him. https://t.co/90mgtMTqfL
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 25, 2018
It’s not just that he is a lousy client because he doesn’t listen. Big law firms compete for the best young talent. I am sure any law firm that took him on as a client would face serious defections and recruiting problems. In contrast, my firm repped both Obama/HRC & saw a boom. https://t.co/5fNgM4RsvO
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) March 25, 2018
Man, Trump is getting rejected more than a stolen Discover card. https://t.co/HFhUC5E6EG
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 26, 2018
This is a nice way of saying that Dowd left because his client plans to perjure himself. https://t.co/Ja1gXi2FbV pic.twitter.com/4ro09WlMQH
— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) March 26, 2018
Are lawyer refusing to represent Trump because they want to hold on to their law licenses and/or stay out of jail? https://t.co/t86p3fPoZV
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 27, 2018
As they say in Breaking Bad, sometimes you need a criminal lawyer & sometimes you need a CRIMINAL lawyer. https://t.co/AjBvQK6XZM
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) March 27, 2018
What’s being reported re Trump has 2 elements. 1. Clients are telling firms — if you represent Trump, I’ll take my biz elsewhere. He’s so toxic, so outside the bounds of even the worst white collar crim defense client that corporate America doesn’t want any part of it. 4/
— Wendy Thurm (@wendythurm) March 27, 2018
Lawyers make representations to the government & to courts based on info provided by client. If a lawyer doesn’t know when a client is telling the truth or even what truth is, puts lawyer in very bad situation. 8/
— Wendy Thurm (@wendythurm) March 27, 2018
Trump’s situation is, in theory, a crim defense lawyers’ dream — smart, tough prosecutors; novel legal theories. And yet lawyers are running fast & far the other way. Remarkable & damning. Fin/
— Wendy Thurm (@wendythurm) March 27, 2018
I once got a cold call from a guy who wanted to sue his last lawyer for malpractice. He had hired the last lawyer to sue the lawyer before that for malpractice, who had been suing the lawyer before that for malpractice.
It would be smarter to take on that guy than to take Trump.— CeaseAndDesistHat (@Popehat) March 27, 2018
Mary G
The fact that some of the lawyers he’s retained to represent him for not paying bills have not been paid and sued him themselves probably doesn’t help.
Major Major Major Major
It’s not even fun-bad. Wow.
Duane
With all of Trump’s legal troubles, he can’t hire enough lawyers. I’m cheered by that thought.
zhena gogolia
Open thread — I just enjoyed the Andrew Lloyd Webber special. Too bad I actually celebrate Easter so will have to miss the live JCS.
coin operated
I think this is on-topic. Anyone see the massive own-goal Cohen’s lawyer just dropped
ETA…my link-fu sucks
Amir Khalid
One awaits with malicious glee the use in trial reporting of a phrase never anticipated before the rise of the Shitgibbon: “… the President’s court-appointed defence attorney …”
Feebog
Sekulow is a d lister in terms of lawyering skills. The new guy may be a step up. That said, his resume is not particularly impressive.
Calouste
BTW, same recruiting problem as mentioned in one of the tweets now probably also applies to Facebook. There are people that would not want to work for a company with the issues they currently have, and for the people with less qualms, the stocks part of the compensation looks suddenly a lot less attractive.
Steeplejack
Heh, Jeet Heer above cites my all-time favorite Breaking Bad line: “You want a criminal lawyer.”
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid: Nah, he’ll represent himself. What could possibly go wrong?
Adam L Silverman
@coin operated: Yep, we were discussing it in the previous post. Here you go:
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: I’m sure you can find an Orthodox Church and celebrate Easter next week.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: One has to prove indigence to qualify for a PD. FTR, PDs don’t represent people no one else wants to represent. They represent people who cannot under any circumstance including remortgaging the family home come up with any money to pay for a lawyer. People like LAO are fucking heroes.*
*I am in a minority here.
russell
fame and fortune!!
jl
@coin operated: Don’t have a link, but heard a radio news spot. Apparently Cohen’s lawyer said Trump had no clue Cohen did the deal, or paid the money, was OK because Cohen had power of attorney, and Cohen and special LLC he set up for the agreement was enough. Lawyer on news interview said that there was a big problem: apparently an actual person, not Cohen and not an LLC, but apparently Trump Hisself, is described as being party to agreement, and has rights and obligations described in the agreement. So… lawyer in interview said it makes no sense, doubted the contract was valid, wondered if it was represented to Daniels that Trump would actually sign it (so, fraud?).
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
Sean Penn was on NPR’s “Here and Now” either yesterday or today, and pretty much he just babbled incoherently for ten interminable minutes. The interviewer tried hard to administer a friendly tonguebath, but ended up just sounding perplexed. I came away in the sure knowledge I won’t be reading that book, but regretting the loss of brain cells (mine) from hearing that interview.
EDIT: Should make clear, interview was to flog the book.
Central Planning
The Rochester Meet-Up was great. I got there a little late because apparently I read 5:30 as 6:30.
There were about 11 of us. Both mistermix and DougJ were there, as well as a couple other nyms I remembered. A good time was had by all. Interesting discussion was all around the table.
We have no proof of life in pictures, but we will all submit our receipts. Will that count? What’s John’s mailing address?
jonas
@Major Major Major Major: Did he like self-publish it on Amazon or something? WTF was he thinking?
lgerard
This is what I’ve been thinking all along, Sekulow is just the TV lawyer.
The only advice he could give trump is to pray more.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: This lawyer speculates that trump (through Cohen) threatened to get Daniels prosecuted on revenge porn charges, that’s how/why she ‘feared for her safety’ and accepted a lowball offer. IANAL but it seems like it would be an effective bluff from a politically-connected lawyer.
SiubhanDuinne
@Central Planning:
Fucking Daylight Saving Time, how does it work?
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: @jonas: My supervisor told me about it today during our carpool to the train, and I just had to come here and share the agony.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
If Trump finally comes clean about his finances, who knows, he might just be able to manage that.
Central Planning
@SiubhanDuinne: Isn’t that the truth?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: he was on Marc Maron’s show this week and Maron hinted in his intro that it was a difficult conversation, and Penn only wanted to talk about writing. It was a pretty easy decision to skip it, and that’s before I even knew it was a novel. I thought he had published some memoir or manifesto.
Another Scott
@Central Planning: Glad to hear it. Thanks for the report!
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
Nothing will ever make Trump listen. No.thing.
justawriter
Sample quote, “Sure I represented Idi Amin, but all that dude did was eat people. Trump is really f***ed up!”
lgerard
A little more investigation into Stormy’s original lawyer is certainly in order, he seems to have a habit of selling his clients out
laura
@Central Planning: did Dougj bring Doug’s new wee-babby along to the meet up?
And how in the Land of Kodak did a pic not get snapped?
scav
For a detour, it certainly seems Arizona’s governor Ducey was all kissy-face with Uber.
Exclusive: Arizona governor and Uber kept self-driving program secret, emails reveal
Aleta
Sekulow is working pro bono, and his team of six are also working out of the offices of the ACLJ, so T isn’t paying for counsel or even overhead. I’ll take a guess that he’s happy with that. Believes he’s smart enough to do OK without paying for an overpriced DC lawyer’s instructions that he doesn’t want to follow. Why should he pay for lawyers when he’s the president?
Headed by Sekulow and Pat Robertson I think.
Taking advantage of free, self-interested Christian charity is just so up his alley.
I only pray this will bring down ruin and locusts upon the heads of Seku. and P. Rob and burn up years’ worth of operating budget.
Central Planning
@laura: There was no baby present. I think it should be in the by-laws that anyone with a baby has to bring the baby.
And how did a pic not happen? People started leaving and then it didn’t seem right to take a picture without the whole group that was really there.
ETA – off to bed. Hopefully some of the others will chime in for updates.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, Shitgibbon might need to release his tax returns to prove he qualifies.
ETA: And of course, Amir beat me to it. I’m kind of annoyed that his comment came in before mine, especially since his comment had to travel something like 10,000 more miles than mine did.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Definitely.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Her overall assessment is in line with my comments the other night about the Daniels’ first attorney, who was also MacDougal’s, actually working for and with Cohen on behalf of Trump. I think it is also likely that Cohen may have told her: I’ve got Harder on speed dial, I can have him do to you what he did to Nick Denton at Gawker. And lo and behold, Harder is now working on this.
lgerard
@Aleta:
This tells you all you need to know about Jay
jl
@scav: I’d bet something fishy with AZ gub Ducey and Uber self-driving auto program. But I don’t see how it was a secret. When Uber’s permit to test drive on public roads in CA was yanked due to slop and sloth on Uber’s part, Uber very publicly threatened to test drive in AZ. And CA would be very sorry, CA would be left in the dust, Uber said their persecution under the iron fist of CA would drive out all self-driving programs. CA was so unreasonable, it was just impossible to do any research there, said Uber.
A couple of months later, over a dozen self-driving programs were running under permit in CA, and Uber was trying to get theirs back.
I heard a news report that said CA had the strictest reporting requirements for documenting performance and keeping permit, AZ had one of the weakest.
Edit: I think Uber did get their CA permit back, but think i heard it was yanked again after the fatal AZ accident, but not sure. Also publicly reported that Uber had a permit in AZ.
Roger Moore
The thing that really has to scare Trump is the possibility that Daniels winning will convince other people to start trying to fight their NDAs with him. If he’s having a hard time finding lawyers now, imagine the fix he’d be in adding a few dozen NDA lawsuits on top of everything else.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Central Planning: This is Balloon Juice, pics or didn’t happen.
lgerard
@Adam L Silverman:
One of the most minor aspects of this just fascinates me.
The notarization of the original contract.
How does a notary sign of on a contract that has a blank space where one of the supposed parties has not signed?
it defeats the point of notarization and just points out the incompetent representation of both sides.
Aleta
@lgerard: He’s got the vision thing doesn’t he.
Roger Moore
@lgerard:
I can think of two possibilities:
1) The notary is employed by one of the people signing, and is afraid for their job if they don’t comply.
2) The notary receives an extra special payment to ignore normal procedures.
It would be interesting to see what the appropriate regulatory body has to say about their work.
Mike in NC
Trump should hire Basil Fawlty as his defense lawyer, because nobody can ever beat Basil.
Aleta
@Major Major Major Major: I read a few lines of his metoo poem, and pow.
Another Scott
Reuters: China is attacking the world this weekend:
( Insert snarky comment here. )
Cheers,
Scott.
Steve in the ATL
@lgerard: I’ve subpoenaed notaries and made them testify as to whether they were present when the document was signed and whether they confirmed the ID of the signer.
There are some former notaries out there who don’t like me.
NotMax
@Igerard
Look carefully, as different regulations might apply. In this case it may have been a notary pubic.
;)
Rand Careaga
About forty-five years ago at this time, I was absolutely persuaded that I would make my way in the world as an academic (tweed jacket, pipe, free access to the downy loins of generations of undergraduate cuties) with a speciality in mediaeval history. It didn’t happen, which is probably all for the best, since that “business model” is not compatible with XXI century sensibilities.
I wound up in the event spending approximately one quarter of my professional life hip-deep in the steel industry and the remainder as a sort of art director. But, thank Bog, I never worked for Trump.
scav
@jl: The secrecy phrasing is the Guard’s. But there certainly seems to be an effort to go as under the radar as possible with informing the public they were going even less driverless on the open roads and looking for someone discreet in the police to notify, etc. All the other smooching and smoozing is nevertheless illuminating.
rikyrah
1. Dolt45 doesn’t pay.
2. Dolt45 doesn’t listen.
3. Dolt45 lies.
4. A combo of 2&3 will wind up getting a lawyer disbarred and/or in jail.
See Cohen for example.
You don’t think all those top shelf lawyers don’t see where Cohen will wind up and said to themselves-“phuck that shyt”?
lgerard
This guy doesn’t think much of the notary
I just wonder why they went through this charade
Amir Khalid
@Major Major Major Major:
The utter wretchedness of Penn’s prose is surprising. He is capable of far better: he wrote (and directed) The Indian Runner, which expanded the story in a Springsteen song into a well-regarded movie.
I suspect Penn was treated by Simon & Schuster as too big to edit. No one dared tell him how bad his writing was, it seems. That’s always bad for any writer. As it is, I would have considered his work unfixable.
WereBear
Stunt casting can turn on you. If I had a dime for every “he’s a successful businessman just like we said was needed” editorial…
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Calouste:
I met a woman at a party on Monday who said she had just been contacted by a recruiter for Facebork. I filled her in about the Cambridge Anal situation – and she said immediately, “well, that’s one call I won’t have to return!” I hope they achieve Uber levels of recruiting toxicity.
lgerard
@Steve in the ATL:
A friend of mine had her stamp used by someone without her knowledge who scammed his family out of a few bank accounts.
She not only had to sit through an unfriendly deposition and testify in court, she had to hire a handwriting expert to attest that the signature wasn’t hers to keep from being prosecuted
jl
@lgerard: I guess this kind of stunt was effective ‘shut-up juice’ for the lesser people Trump wanted to defraud and intimidate in the past.
Sure would be sad if there were dozens of these fraudulent agreements lying around, and people who had been fleeced happen upon them and have learned enough from the Stormy saga to ask a real lawyer some interesting questions. That would be very very sad.
Major Major Major Major
@Aleta: Straight to the moon?
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
And a combination of 1,2&3 will wind up with a lawyer broke and disbarred and/or in jail. They might be willing to risk it if the payoff were handsome enough, but when they know they’re likely to be stiffed it just won’t work.
Aleta
@Major Major Major Major: Alice.
Mnemosyne
@lgerard:
They went through the charade to make it look more “official.” The lawyers who have been looking at the agreement both here and other places online seem to be saying they can find a dozen things that a halfway decent defense attorney could use to invalidate the whole thing.
We watched the whole report on “60 Minutes” and her new lawyer seems pissed. Like he thinks the whole thing was a charade to intimidate and coerce her from start to finish.
Procopius
I tend to be too fond of contrarianism, but this new lawyer, Ekonomou, might turn out to be his best pick. Not known on the national stage might mean he follows his own interests rather than just the big bucks. He seems to have made enough as a prosecutor in Georgia to be satisfied, which makes me sympathetic to him right away, while the fact that he was a prosecutor in Georgia is a huge disqualifier. It used to be that you had to be really smart to graduate from law school, but that seems not to have been the case for two or three decades now as they were lowering standards to suck up more tuition money. The fact that this guy took time to get a PhD in medieval history when he was in his fifties also endears him to me, AND demonstrates he’s got real smarts. So I’m looking forward to seeing how he gets along with Trump. Since he seems to be competent it appears to be Sekulow’s decision to hire him, not Trump’s.
Aleta
How much can a poor nation stand?
Roger Moore
@lgerard:
I assume the primary goal of Trump’s NDAs is to intimidate the person signing them into silence. If they succeed in shutting the other person up, it doesn’t matter if they won’t stand up in court because they’ll never have to. This is why a successful challenge is such a nightmare to Trump. If the only value of his NDAs is intimidation, a successful challenge is going to bring more challengers out of the woodwork.
Mnemosyne
@Procopius:
Zdravstvuyte, comrade! You seem to be getting an early start this morning — it’s barely 7:30 in Moscow.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: fucking try-hards, amirite?
lgerard
@Roger Moore:
i think it is a race as to which legal concept is the most overused and the most specious…NDA vs LLC
efgoldman
@Major Major Major Major:
Where’s Alice when we need her?
lgerard
@Procopius:
I think he has worked with Sekulow before
Ruckus
@lgerard:
Because they figured she’d never be in a position to do anything about it and wouldn’t know the dif. Same thing with all the robo signing banks were doing back 10-15 yrs ago. They didn’t think they’d be caught. Also think of it this way, who in their right minds would ever have figured that drumpf would become president? Who ever thought he didn’t have the 10 bil he said he did, until he ran for pres? Very few because no one cared. And he’s such a skevy asshole that most people just wanted to be as far away from him as possible. Now Forbes says he’s worth 3+ billion. They don’t say how much of that is under liability or how much he’s in hock to the Russians. I’d bet his liquid assets are way less than one billion. Way, way less. He’s a lying sack of shit who has done the exact wrong thing if he didn’t want everyone to know, he’s put himself on one of the world’s best lit pedestals. And done it in such a drumpf way that everyone can’t help but take notice. He’s getting exactly what he wanted, a 24 hr a day audience. Which is also the worst thing a person with his “skills and professionalism” could do.
Procopius
@lgerard: Generally, most notaries are pretty scrupulous. I worked once for a company that had a factoring agreement with their bank. The notary who stamped the invoices was an employee of the company, but was scrupulous about making sure the goods had actually shipped before affixing her seal. If Cohen’s notary was a paralegal in his office and subject to daily abuse from him (I gather he’s a thoroughly rotten excuse for a human being) she might just follow his order, “Stamp this now, sweetheart, I’ll get Donald’s signature on it when I see him tonight,” rather than be fired.
Aleta
I can’t keep up with what’s been going on.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Upstairs with Trixie, sharing a laugh over the bus company medical report that says Ralph weighs 239 pounds.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
He’s probably trying to get promoted to a top 5,000 blog and leave us in the dust.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: What a jerk!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: Ha!
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
We get a troll trained just the way we like him, and next thing you know, he abandons us for greener pastures and we have to go through all of the trouble of breaking in a new one. It’s an endless cycle, I tells ya.
No Drought No More
Trump likely has the same dream every night, or a slight variation of it.. He’s alone and chatting again with a happy and healthy Roy Cohn, and filled with an obnoxious good cheer he hasn’t felt since Mueller Inc. began dogging his trail. Finally, Trump’s mentor and first fixer begins to tell an anxious Trump precisely how to save his guilty ass from Mueller’s clutches…. At which point in the dream Cohn’s face always burst into squirting, stinking pustules of goo, sliming a horrified Trump head-to-toe, and he wakes up screaming for Cohn to come back and “save me, Roy, save me..”.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
In writing news, I explained the backstory of the central mystery of my novel to an enthralled group of two, and it seemed to hold up fairly logically. Now I have to figure out how to structure the actual mystery part of the plot while keeping the relationship as the A story. ?
Roger Moore
@Aleta:
Every time I hear about this complaint, I’m reminded of watching one of Kurosawa’s lesser-known movies, Scandal. It was set in contemporary (to the time of filming) Japan. The plot centers around an artist, played by Toshiro Mifune, suing a tabloid that wrongly suggests he’s having an affair with a popular singer. At one point, his lawyer, played by Takashi Shimura, complains that the real problem is Japan just doesn’t have enough lawyers, and that this kind of thing would never happen in a country like America because the tabloid would be too afraid of being sued.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: nice!
My actual plot takes place very far in the background. The main characters are swept up in it, and have full arcs, but it’s within the context of actions undertaken by somebody else. Probably similar!
I feel like I explain it haphazardly—it’s just as the characters encounter it, plus a handful of chapters from the main driver’s perspective. But I think it works.
Ninedragonspot
Found an abstract for Ekonomou’s dissertation. I imagine an abstract like this was written in haste, as an afterthought- but golly, some of these sentences:
“While conceding that over the course of the seventh century Rome indeed experienced the impact of an important Greek element, some scholars of the period have insisted that the degree to which Rome and the Papacy were \\\”orientalized\\\” has been exaggerated, while others argue that the extent of their \\\”byzantinization\\\” has not been fully appreciated. The question has also been raised whether Rome\\\’s oriental popes were responsible for sowing the seeds of separatism from Byzantium and laying the foundations for a future papal state, or whether they were loyal imperial subjects ever steadfast politically, although not always so in matters of the faith, to the reigning sovereign in Constantinople. ”
Calouste
@Another Scott: Uhm, London is the 51st parallel. 43rd is Monaco. Quite a difference in Europe.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Mnemosyne:
I really enjoyed the literary mystery/romance Possession by A.S. Byatt. The relationship between the young academics was fun to watch unfold.
I found that book in a Mystic, CT bookstore coming up on 30 years ago…
Tenar Arha
@rikyrah: @Roger Moore: I forget where I saw it but one of the previous reports about how bad a client he has always been, also noted that any firm that dealt with him always had to send at least two associates to meet with him because he would lie so often about what they’d told him about his case(s). I just can’t wrap my brain around him lying reflexively to the people who were trying to defend him, actually costing himself more. And yet right there: he was a deadbeat so it didn’t matter to him. ?♂️?♀️?♀️?♂️
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah, it’s basically a dead-man switch in action — the hero’s parents went on the run to avoid a villain, but both they and the villain are dead long before the story begins and the hero has to figure out what happened 30 years ago that people are still willing to kill him to prevent him from finding out. The heroine thinks she knows what happened, but realizes halfway through that the hero is actually a walking, talking red herring and the solution is not what she thought it was.
NotMax
@Ninedragonspot
One would think a dissertation on medieval times would not pass muster unless it was nasty, brutish and short.
:)
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
And the quality of our trolls just can’t keep up. Where are the classics of yesteryear like Brick Oven Bill and matoko_chan?
Mnemosyne
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
I may need to take a look at that just to see how it’s structured. I don’t think I’m going to have any actual flashback scenes, which may make it tougher.
A recent historical romance/mystery that I recently read on someone’s recommendation was Daughter of the God-King. It got too involved with the mystery elements for my taste, but it was a very twisty mystery that had a shocking revelation for the heroine.
Roger Moore
@Tenar Arha:
That’s because you keep assuming he lies out of strategy or some other fundamentally rational reason. His lying is a reflex; it’s something he does because that’s the way he interacts with the world. He literally couldn’t stop lying if he tried.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Brick Oven Bill was before my time, but I remember M C.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I wasn’t here in B.O.B.’s heyday, but I was here for the brief revival. The critics all agreed that, like the revival of “Roseanne,” it was a character that had passed its sell-by date.
frosty
Is it odd that we’re tracking our history on BJ by the trolls we had to endure? Who was the one who had a thing for Omens? littleboots?
mainmata
@Mary G: Unless Trump agrees to a lien on his propoerty, e.g. Trump Tower or the estimated fee deposited in an escrow account, no lawyer should agree to being hired because Trump will stiff them one way or another.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I guess I just preferred the old-fashioned, one-of-a-kind, artisanal trolls to today’s kind that comes mass produced from some low-rent foreign troll factory. Some of them, like m_c, you could even argue whether they were properly trolls or just cranks.
mainmata
@Amir Khalid: Hahaha and then it will end up being Michael Cohen. Ohhhhnoooooos
Ninedragonspot
@NotMax: Extended excerpts of the book version are accessible via Google. I skimmed a chapter-and-a-half. The prose is mostly unlovely, but seldom unclear. Workmanlike with ample footnotes. I don’t get the impression that he was advancing the field with this publication – the parts I read seemed more like an act of historical collation.
Another Scott
@Calouste: Good catch.
Reuters apparently garbled the ESA FAQ – http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2018/03/26/tiangong-1-frequently-asked-questions-2/
42deg59min north is London, Ontario, Canada. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
mainmata
@Feebog: Not sure how great a medieval historian he is if he thinks that Rome was ever under the rule of Byzantium. And if he is referring to the seat of the eastern Roman Empire, it was called Byzantium and later Constantinople.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I think he just pulls shit out of his irrational ass and has gotten away with it for decades. Well, gotten away with it may be a bit much, let’s say he managed not to get punished much for it. I think saying he lies implies that he knows the truth and choses to lie and I really don’t think he knows one way or the other. His entire life has consisted of bullshitting everyone about everything.
He’s the ultimate snake oil salesman, and the snake oil is himself.
Manxome Bromide
@frosty: One of the things that kept me around in the Days of Yore was that the commentariat graded its trolls.
I’ve been lurking for long enough to remember the name “BIRDZILLA” but nothing about its identity. Was it one of DougJ’s cutouts?
Jay
@Roger Moore:
Nice use of artisanal.
Who says we don’t learn things.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
B.O.B. had passed his sell by date way before he showed back up.
piratedan
so for the legally inclined among us…
does this mean?
a) there is no NDA in effect with DJT’s signature, so Ms. Daniels is allowed to speak freely?
b) that Cohen or whoever authorized the payout is in deep ethical lawyery shit?
c) that Ms. Daniels has now trail-blazed a path for others (see McDougal, et al) to follow to seek legal redress for their grievances?
d) she can sell her story to whomever she wishes?
e) that there is still someone her lawyer can sue the ever-lovin’ shit out of?
f) still a way for the TFNYT to spin this as Hillary Clinton’s fault?
thank you for the potential enlightenment…
Fair Economist
@mainmata: Rome was ruled by the Byzantine Empire from 537 to 752.
Jay
f) still a way for the TFNYT to spin this as Hillary Clinton’s fault!
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
Bing-fuckig-O.
SWMBO
@Omnes Omnibus: More good news about Lil Snotty Walker. I saw this and told my husband that I could visualize you doing a happy dance.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/28/senate-republicans-hold-hearing-race-block-court-order-special-elections-wisconsin/465333002/
Ruckus
@mainmata:
The only safe way for any lawyer is to be paid up front, and not utter a word or listen to one before they have every dime. Of course even if he was willing that might severely limit his legal representation possibilities, seeing as how he seems unable/unwilling to properly pay the help……..
Another Scott
@piratedan: I don’t think we really know. Lawyers can and do argue about anything. Until a judge rules, we can’t know if it’s binding on him or her or not.
But it sure seems to be a less-than-ironclad document.
I assume if the heat gets too hot then either Donnie will settle, again, or his lawyers will do everything in their power to keep a judge from giving an adverse ruling (delays, discovery, etc., etc.). Until then, they’ll keep battling it out in the press to try to keep the other people with potential claims from filing suit.
IANAL, just my speculation.
Cheers,
Scott.
jl
Mr. Josh Marshall has a post up on Ekonomou’s legal career.
….sending nastygrams to rural Christians who got bent out of shape over Sekulow’s hyper-aggressive fundraising pitches.
…making a killing working as contract prosecutors initiating forfeiture proceedings against Georgia convenience stores accused of illegal gambling on video poker machines.Ekonomou and Lambros ended up making so much money that press scrutiny revealed that a number of Middle and South Georgia DA’s office had hired the duo on a contingency basis, incentivizing them to claim as many assets as possible since Ekonomou and Lambros got a percentage cut of the take.
The Georgia legislature had to pass a new law in 2012 that contract prosecutors like Ekonomou could only be paid on an hourly basis, not in bounties.
and lately: ‘ contract murder prosecutions.’
Contingency Lawyer/Medieval Historian is Trump’s New Lead Counsel
By Josh Marshall TPM March 29, 2018
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/contingency-lawyer-medieval-historian-is-trumps-new-lead-counsel
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
I’m a believer in a reckless indifference to the truth standard of lying. If you just make shit up without bothering to check if it’s true or not, you’re still lying.
mainmata
@Another Scott: Portsmouth NH is also 43 degrees N. Latitude. They didn’t say anything about longitude AFAIK.
Roger Moore
@jl:
Just to be clear, that’s contract prosecutions of murderers, not prosecutions of contract murderers.
Another Scott
@mainmata: Yup.
It looks like the Reuters reporter just looked at Wikipedia for a list of cities at 43 degrees north, saw “London” and didn’t read the country and just assumed it was the one in the UK. The fact-checkers there should have caught that.
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
@frosty:
Yes, Little Boots. Also known as Caligula, his nym in Latin.
Fair Economist
@mainmata: They didn’t say anything about longitude because its orbit goes over all longitudes so it could come down on any longitude.
Ninedragonspot
@jl: I love how the namecard in that photograph misspells Ekonomou.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
In any semi normal human I’d agree. This one doesn’t make that cut. He’s been basically just opening his mouth and not even listening to what comes out. I truly don’t think he has much connection to what he says and whatever passes for cognitive thinking under that fugly rug. He may have had some semblance at one time but no longer. Look, he seems willing to testify under oath without listening to any lawyerly advice, because he thinks everything that he says is the truth. First, we know it isn’t. Second, how many lawyers have run away after talking to him about the mess he’s in? Every one who has any experience at a high level. How many won’t even take his call? They know he’s delusional, we shouldn’t think otherwise.
jl
@Roger Moore: Yes. Marshall describes the gig in more detail at the top of the post. Anyway, how many contract murders could there be in one county in Georgia? Hard to scratch out a living off of that after you got rich off of contingency fee civil forfeiture cases.
jl
@Ruckus: Larry Wilmore put it this way: ‘Trump thinks something is true because he just heard himself say it.”
mainmata
@Fair Economist: Ah fair enough, though that being the Dark Ages, I imagine what Byzantium was ruling over was a heap of mostly vandalized ruins.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: oh poo.
seaboogie
I really want to call Laura Ingrahm a *c-nut* on Twitter for being a hugely gratuitous mean girl for calling out one of the prominent MSD kids who didn’t get into his preferred college with a 4.1 gpa. Is it okay to use that word? I am female and really want to go there.
Mnemosyne
@seaboogie:
She’s not a c-word. She’s a terrible mother whose kids are going to stop speaking to her as soon as they’re out from under her thumb.
Saying something like that will sting her far more than the c-word.
Ruckus
@jl:
I think it’s worse than that. It doesn’t have to be logical, factual or in any way reasonable, he’s such a flaming narcissist that any thing he says or does is true, proper and great and if you don’t believe it just ask him. As I said above he’s a snake oil salesman and the snake oil he’s selling is him.
Jay S
@debbie:
Apparently smacking him on the butt with a magazine works.
Roger Moore
@seaboogie:
I would avoid using that term when there are so many other nasty words you could use to describe her that aren’t about her gender.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Plus there are so many other things to say that are far crueler and might actually get under her skin. Let’s face it, she probably gets called the c-word 5 times a day, so she’s not even going to notice.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
Nothing you’re saying affects whether he’s a liar or not. He may not be consciously concocting falsehoods, but that just makes him a pathological liar rather than a calculating liar.
seaboogie
@Mnemosyne: @Roger Moore: points taken. I am going to call her a garbage human being.
Jacel
@mainmata: Did the transition from Byzantium to Constantinople ever inspire a song or at least a chant?
Jacel
@frosty: Members of the ancient newsgroup alt.fan.letterman (now relocated to a Facebook group) sort of keeps track of its chronology by the trolls current at that time.
Jacel
I’m concerned about Trump hiring a lawyer who has spent a lot of time studying eras where the divine right of kings was a concept.
sukabi
@lgerard: there was an article a couple of weeks ago that their was a problem with the notary’s recording (notarized in Texas) of the document and it was being investigated.
Link above to more recent stories…drumpf’s lawyer is sketchy as hell…how many states is he suing / filing paperwork in against Daniels…so far it’s California and Texas…
Frankensteinbeck
@No Drought No More:
Trump dreams every night about being humiliated in his debates by Hillary. You’ll notice in his tweets that to this day he cannot let go. Hillary gave him the worst moment of his life, and winning the election didn’t help.
@Ruckus:
An attitude shared by abusers and alcoholics. Along with ‘I’m hurting you to help you’, they share this attitude with Republicans.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Jacel:
I believe this counts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcI5rNR5TGM
JR
@Calouste: Oculus has an office not far from where I work, has had postings for job openings up for almost two years now. The former head of that office was picked up in a child prostitution sting in Seattle some time back.
Jack the Second
Question from a non-lawyer. During our last house acquisition, the lawyer went through the contract and summarized each section; I seem to recall a section in the contract boilerplate which explicitly said it was only valid if both parties signed.
Am I remembering something real?
JR
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Objectative Scrutator was a DougJ classic.
rikyrah
@lgerard:
Been wondering that myself
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Which is exactly the point.
I will agree that he is lying, that being defined as not telling the truth. But you implied that it’s conscious lying, that he knows what he is doing, that it is calculated. It isn’t, it’s just his being and the more he’s cornered on something he just gets angry that whatever it was that he said was not accepted as absolute. He got himself elected to a place that he thinks makes him untouchable, that nothing he says is wrong. The black guy was able to do that, and of course in his mind he’s a billion times better than that. He’s delusional, he’s demented, he’s an asshole and he lies about everything and anything because he doesn’t know any better. What makes him a horrible human being is all of that and the cherry on top is that he’s a massively narcissistic asshole to boot. It’s a perfect combination of all of humanities worst traits, rolled into one fat, orange blob of shit.
Miss Bianca
@West of the Rockies (been a while): i adored that book too, but a friend who went higher up the academic food chain than i did said she was so incensed by the hero’s theft (or “borrowing”, if you will) of the ur-document in the beginning that she couldn’t read further, as she considered it such a breach of scholarly ethics. I’m afraid i haven’t had the heart to read it since.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
Good times. They don’t build classic trolls like that these days.
Nancy Irving
@Steeplejack:. What Trump needs is a Mob lawyer. Would be bad from a PR angle, but those guys are probably highly skilled at their jobs–much moreso than the kind of legit lawyer Trump would be able to attract.