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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / You are a magnet

You are a magnet

by DougJ|  April 12, 20186:20 pm| 85 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M.

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Not surprised:

Trump did not stay quiet for long. Comey describes Trump as having been obsessed with the prostitutes portion of the infamous dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, raising it at least four times with the FBI head.

I know that True Progressives don’t care about the pee tape, but here’s the thing….you’d have to be an idiot not to want to strum it loud to rattle his cage. A lot of politics is fucking with your opponent and it was obvious early on that fucked with Trump. Probably because it’s true and he thought it would make Melania flip.

No one knows where all this crazy shit is headed, and no one knows who the next GOP Congressman to retire will be. So let’s give to the Balloon Juice fund that is split equally among Democratic nominees in all districts currently held by Republicans. Once this hits 50K, I’ll do some other stuff.

Goal Thermometer

Here’s Bennie going nuts on the vibes:

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Reader Interactions

85Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    April 12, 2018 at 6:22 pm

    Why would Melania mind? She likely knew most of them professionally.

    What? As a fellow “model”, of course. Sometimes people have more than one job.

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    April 12, 2018 at 6:27 pm

    Meanwhile over at the Post, Alyssa Rosenberg (?) is trying to make the case that we don’t really need to look all that deeply into this new report of Trumpov fathering a child with a housekeeper at Trump Tower … you know, since we already know so much about his unsavory behavior, do we really need to dig into this, etc etc

    Fucking bull. shit. we don’t. If it was a Democratic assistant deputy sorta mayor of a small town in bumfuck Iowa we would be hearing about it. Let’s have at it, media jackals!

  3. 3.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    April 12, 2018 at 6:27 pm

    President Art Hockstader: Now, I am here to tell you this, that power is not a toy that we give to good children. It’s a weapon, and the strong man takes it and he uses it. And if you don’t go down there and beat Joe Cantwell to the floor with this very dirty stick, then you’ve got no business in this big league. Because if you don’t fight, this job is not for you. And it never will be.

  4. 4.

    zhena gogolia

    April 12, 2018 at 6:30 pm

    @Jeffro:

    She’s one of the people who were telling Hillary to shut up. Didn’t she used to write movie reviews for Entertainment Weekly?

  5. 5.

    ? Martin

    April 12, 2018 at 6:33 pm

    The race was close and Johnson was getting worried. Finally he told his campaign manager to start a massive rumor campaign about his opponent’s life-long habit of enjoying carnal knowledge of his own barnyard sows.

    “Christ, we can’t get a way calling him a pig-fucker,” the campaign manager protested. “Nobody’s going to believe a thing like that.”

    “I know,” Johnson replied. “But let’s make the sonofabitch deny it.”

  6. 6.

    debbie

    April 12, 2018 at 6:36 pm

    Bennie’s growing so fast!

  7. 7.

    rikyrah

    April 12, 2018 at 6:36 pm

    I care about the pee pee tape.
    Despite all that has been validated in the Steele Dossier, those defending Dolt45 bring up the pee pee tape as a way to disqualify the dossier. I want it, because I want to see them try and explain it away.
    I believe it exists, and I want it revealed like YESTERDAY.

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    April 12, 2018 at 6:37 pm

    I’m sure Trump’s paranoia about the pee tape is because he’s worried about being framed for something that never happened. It couldn’t possibly be because he knows it happened exactly that way and he wants to keep it from coming out.

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    April 12, 2018 at 6:37 pm

    Bennie is so cute ??

  10. 10.

    Yutsano

    April 12, 2018 at 6:37 pm

    @rikyrah:
    Adam says there is no pee tape.
    Adam says there is something far worse.
    And that actually scares me.
    But I still want to see it.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    April 12, 2018 at 6:39 pm

    @rikyrah:

    I don’t get that the tape would invalidate the dossier. What am I missing?

  12. 12.

    Teddys Person

    April 12, 2018 at 6:40 pm

    He’s not worried Melania would flip. He doesn’t give a flying-fuck about other people’s feelings. He’s worried cause it probably violates a prenup.

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    April 12, 2018 at 6:41 pm

    Baby Ben playing music! <3 for me. He's your kid, all right. Largish unplanned contribution from me.

  14. 14.

    Immanentize

    April 12, 2018 at 6:42 pm

    Does sweet bang on the drum all day Bennie look just a little bit like Cole? I like kids having a good time.

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    April 12, 2018 at 6:42 pm

    The kid’s a cutie!

  16. 16.

    ? Martin

    April 12, 2018 at 6:42 pm

    @Teddys Person:

    He’s worried cause it probably violates a prenup.

    Probably? I think it’s pretty clear that marriage is about 92% prenup.

  17. 17.

    Teddys Person

    April 12, 2018 at 6:44 pm

    @? Martin: I hate to ask, what’s the other 8%?

  18. 18.

    Millard Filmore

    April 12, 2018 at 6:44 pm

    @debbie:

    I don’t get that the tape would invalidate the dossier. What am I missing?

    The logic:

    The dossier says there is a pee pee tape.
    The pee pee tape has not been produced.
    Therefore, the entire dossier is wrong.

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    April 12, 2018 at 6:45 pm

    @Yutsano:
    I do not want to see it.
    I do not want to see it in a box
    I do not want to see it served with lox

    I do, however, want to see a reaction video of Pat Robertson watching it. It would be something akin to the reaction videos of folks seeing the Red Wedding. And then on Pat’s next show he’ll spend his time telling viewers to hate the sin, not the sinner and that Trump is a “good man.”

    Yes, that’s what I’d like.

  20. 20.

    debbie

    April 12, 2018 at 6:46 pm

    @Millard Filmore:

    Thanks. I really misread that!

  21. 21.

    DougJ

    April 12, 2018 at 6:47 pm

    @Mary G:

    Thank you

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    April 12, 2018 at 6:47 pm

    @debbie:

    I don’t get that the tape would invalidate the dossier. What am I missing?

    The point is not that the tape would invalidate the dossier. The point is that people who want to ignore the dossier look at the pee tape claim and think it’s so outrageous it calls the whole thing into question. Having the tape- one of the most lurid and unbelievable parts of the dossier- show up would validate the whole thing and shut up the people who want to question it.

  23. 23.

    ? Martin

    April 12, 2018 at 6:48 pm

    Apropos of the ‘go for the jugular’ theme here, I’m wondering how things may change with this big influx of new candidates on the Democratic side. The top two dems in my house race are coworkers in the same department and running for office for the first time. They’re friends and they have a job to go back to if they lose. They aren’t going to burn that relationship to win the primary. But the situation will (likely) be different in the general (jungle primary here, but there’s no way two dems go through) and I wonder if they’ll be prepared for that or if they’ll change their approach.

  24. 24.

    ? Martin

    April 12, 2018 at 6:48 pm

    @Teddys Person: Barron.

  25. 25.

    Brachiator

    April 12, 2018 at 6:50 pm

    @Jeffro:

    Meanwhile over at the Post, Alyssa Rosenberg (?) is trying to make the case that we don’t really need to look all that deeply into this new report of Trumpov fathering a child with a housekeeper at Trump Tower … you know, since we already know so much about his unsavory behavior, do we really need to dig into this, etc etc

    I don’t care about shit like this. I don’t care how often he cheats on his wife, or with whom. But if reporters want to dig into this stuff and it upsets Trump, that’s OK with me, if only because he would relish unleashing this kind of shit on anyone he wanted to hurt.

    I don’t give a crap about ordinary vice. Illegal payments or hurting or abusing people, that’s a whole ‘nother thing.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    April 12, 2018 at 6:55 pm

    I don’t really care about the pee tape, but I do care about all the financial shenanigans and corruption. Have no doubt Team Mueller is hard at work building that case.

    So far, Trump’s base, particularly evangelicals (!), is shrinking, but still staying with him. Who wants a six-month furor over how the pee tape was faked, and thus you cannot believe anything you see with your eyes or hear with your ears. Fake news! We’re already being warned how easy it is to fake videotape, etc. They’ll just seize on that.

    I hope Christopher Steele and those close to him are well protected, and that he lives to a ripe old age, to enjoy knowing he helped bring down Donald Trump and who knows who else will fall?

  27. 27.

    ? Martin

    April 12, 2018 at 6:55 pm

    @Roger Moore: Right. It’s a key component of the scientific method. Sagan phrased it as “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. In science if the extraordinary evidence arrives, is serves as very strong indication the claim is correct. Einstein predicted in general relativity that light would bend in the presence of gravity, which was a pretty fucking out there claim. It took years to prove, using a total solar eclipse to measure the offset of starlight passing close to the sun and comparing that to Einsteins prediction (which was dead-on).

    The pee tape is the most extraordinary claim in the dossier, not just due to its salaciousness but also the difficulty in acquiring it. If it were to arrive, every less extraordinary claim would be assumed to be correct.

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    April 12, 2018 at 6:57 pm

    Awww, sweet baby! I miss those little xylophones.

  29. 29.

    Elizabelle

    April 12, 2018 at 6:57 pm

    @Brachiator: Yeah. It’s the nondisclosure agreements, the buying silence, especially from more vulnerable parties. Although neither Stormy, Karen nor the doorman sound that “vulnerable.” I am thinking here of Harvey Weinstein’s victims, and Steve Wynn’s, and everyone at the mercy of a wealthy predator who needs their silence.

  30. 30.

    Wag

    April 12, 2018 at 6:57 pm

    You are a magnet

    Doug, you are often brilliant with your music references, but this one in particular is EPIC.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    April 12, 2018 at 6:58 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t give a crap about ordinary vice. Illegal payments or hurting or abusing people, that’s a whole ‘nother thing.

    I care quite a bit if POTUS has provided blackmail material to a hostile foreign government.

  32. 32.

    Just one more canuck

    April 12, 2018 at 7:00 pm

    @Wag: yeah, epic in a DAMN YOU TO HELL kind of way

  33. 33.

    SFAW

    April 12, 2018 at 7:00 pm

    @trollhattan:

    And then on Pat’s next show he’ll spend his time telling viewers to hate the sin, not the sinner and that Trump is a “good man.”

    Yes, that’s what I’d like.

    OK, as long as that’s followed by either (A) Robertson’s head a-sploding (figuratively? Not sure) or (B) God’s thumb squashing him, shortly after He thunders “You gotta lotta damn nerve telling people you’re a ‘man of God,’ motherfucker.”

    Considering I’m a devout atheist, I might have to reconsider my non-religiosity, were (B) to happen.

  34. 34.

    DougJ

    April 12, 2018 at 7:03 pm

    @Wag:

    Thank you

  35. 35.

    eemom

    April 12, 2018 at 7:03 pm

    @Wag:

    Oooooooooo

  36. 36.

    Elizabelle

    April 12, 2018 at 7:06 pm

    @Wag: Yeah. It took me a moment to catch it, and then I laughed. Well done, Doug J.

    And Benjamin is darling.

  37. 37.

    Mary G

    April 12, 2018 at 7:06 pm

    Comey will try to peddle his story in an upcoming book tour, but he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility. https://t.co/wEhMR8ShKc— GOP (@GOP) April 12, 2018

    Sad! I think Comey is a pompous, self-important fraud myself, but you know the MSM is going to go bananas over his book, and this is the best the GOP can do? There aren’t even any misplaced quotation marks or capitalizations to be had.

  38. 38.

    MomSense

    April 12, 2018 at 7:08 pm

    Bbbbennie and the jets. Such a cutie pie.

  39. 39.

    Brachiator

    April 12, 2018 at 7:09 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I don’t give a crap about ordinary vice. Illegal payments or hurting or abusing people, that’s a whole ‘nother thing.

    I care quite a bit if POTUS has provided blackmail material to a hostile foreign government.

    The blackmail fear is hugely overrated. Politicians, including presidents, have been practicing ordinary vice for eons. Life goes on. Bill Clinton had mistresses. Eisenhower had mistresses. JFK had mistresses. LBJ had mistresses.

    Nixon might have been a better president if he had a mistress.

    The illegitimate child stuff can be particularly vile. And it is often tells you more about the person slinging the bullshit. Political ass wipes tried to hurt Bill Clinton and John McCain with the accusation that they had black illegitimate children. BTW, I always thought less of McCain because it was his own party that tried to spread this filth, and yet he stuck with these assholes.

    Digging for ordinary vice might be vaguely interesting, but I would prefer that real journalists dig for stuff that is more important to the nation, like Trump’s mob connections, foreign and domestic.

  40. 40.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 12, 2018 at 7:10 pm

    @Yutsano:

    Adam says there is something far worse.

    Underage prostitutes. 13-15 years old. His history suggests it strongly. That or sex with Ivanka when she was that age. I’m assuming one tape, so not both.

    @Teddys Person:

    He’s worried cause it probably violates a prenup.

    I would be astonished if any kind of marital infidelity on his part invalidates the pre-nup.

  41. 41.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    April 12, 2018 at 7:13 pm

    @Brachiator: You might not care, but it’s pretty clear that Spanky does. And Adam suggests that there’s much worse blackmail material than a pee pee tape out there. I suspect it involves underage hookers and/or assault of some sort, but I have no official confirmation of this. If they have convincing evidence of a crime and are using it to blackmail him, though, that’s a major national security issue.

  42. 42.

    Hungry Joe

    April 12, 2018 at 7:18 pm

    Perfect Tom Waits reference! Here’s more of same:

    Whoa, I strum it loud to rattle his cage / Strum it loud just to rattle his cage / Strum it loud just to rattle his cage / Strum it loud just to rattle his cage / I’m gonna whittle you into kindlin’ / Black crow, sixteen shells from a thirty-ought six / Whittle you into kindlin’

  43. 43.

    Ajabu

    April 12, 2018 at 7:19 pm

    @Betty Cracker:
    I sometimes wish I had missed them. I’ve spent the last 50 years playing the much larger versions of the damn things for a living. I just hope Doug isn’t destroying this poor innocent child’s future by encouraging him to be a professional musician.

  44. 44.

    JPL

    April 12, 2018 at 7:20 pm

    From the Washington Post

    The day before, as Clapper and Comey briefed Obama about Russian interference, the president asked who planned to tell Trump about the Moscow prostitute allegations. Clapper replied that Comey would.
    Obama “turned his head to his left and looked directly at me,” Comey recalls. “He raised and lowered both of his eyebrows with emphasis, and then looked away . . . To my mind his Groucho Marx eyebrow raise was both subtle humor and an expression of concern. It was almost as if he were saying, ‘Good luck with that.’”

    I want Obama back.
    Most of the dossier was about money laundering, and expanding his so called empire, but Trump seemed unconcerned about that. hmmm

  45. 45.

    hueyplong

    April 12, 2018 at 7:20 pm

    Like the thread, which prompts some reactions

    1. There is something Schadenfreudelicious about loyal career GOP hack Comey getting the shiv from the GOP in support of a fecal pile of narcissism. Nice object lesson for the rest of the crew.

    2. I don’t want to see the tape but I want the rest of America to see it and I want it to be really, really bad, like nausea bad.

    3. I want every evangelist fraud to support Trump after it comes out, testing the faith of their flock as it’s never been tested before.

  46. 46.

    debbie

    April 12, 2018 at 7:20 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    So far, Trump’s base, particularly evangelicals (!), is shrinking, but still staying with him.

    If their allegiance to Trump doesn’t destroy the Evangelicals, there is no justice in this world. They have become Pharisees.

  47. 47.

    geg6

    April 12, 2018 at 7:21 pm

    Bennie! Such a doll!

    I just can’t take a minute of Dolt 45 and his disgusting behavior tonight. I feel completely drained by the onslaught of shit and feel like I’m drowning in all the disgusting sewer sludge. Gonna eat dinner, drink a little wine, think about last night’s hockey game and try to forget we have a vile shitstain occupying our White House. No disrespect to shitstains intended.

  48. 48.

    Jay S

    April 12, 2018 at 7:22 pm

    @Elizabelle: And here I thought Christopher Steele had a stainless reputation.

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    April 12, 2018 at 7:25 pm

    @debbie: Pharisees is precisely the word. And they have been that for many cycles now. It’s just undisputable by now.

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    April 12, 2018 at 7:27 pm

    @JPL:
    Another excerpt has his appraising Trump’s hand as “smaller than mine” (to be fair probably 90% of human hands are) and that Trump tried to do the pull-in-bearhug thing but was “too weak” to do it.

    Heh.

  51. 51.

    Yutsano

    April 12, 2018 at 7:27 pm

    @(((CassandraLeo))): The thing that gets me about it is it would only be a problem for Dolt45 if it showed him being weak. I wonder if he has erectile dysfunction and it kicked in with the underage girls. THAT would get under his skin if something like that came out.

  52. 52.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 12, 2018 at 7:29 pm

    @JPL:

    Trump seemed unconcerned about that.

    Hard to predict what any individual person finds humiliating and sensitive. Trump seems to freak out if his sexual proclivities are threatened to be exposed (and not by himself). Best guess, he has a small penis and is tortured with insecurity about it. He doesn’t mind if HE’S the one telling stories of his sex life. Money he obviously doesn’t want uncovered in a legal proceeding sense, but equally obviously he thinks no one will ever catch him at it, and has to be slapped really hard in a ‘prosecutors are looking at this right now’ way to grasp he’s in danger.

    @debbie:

    They have become Pharisees.

    They always were. They didn’t excuse Moore, rather they didn’t see he did anything wrong and resented that they must be publicly shamed about sexually abusing children. Their only problem with Trump is that he gets publicly shamed. His actual personality and behavior they adore, including all the crudity and stupidity and sexual infidelity. Maybe a few more non-evangelicals will wake up and stop respecting them, and a few more of their kids will run away, but supporting Trump doesn’t change anything inside their movement.

  53. 53.

    Brachiator

    April 12, 2018 at 7:31 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    So far, Trump’s base, particularly evangelicals (!), is shrinking, but still staying with him.

    Strangely enough, I think this bullshit story about some nut predicting the coming of the Rapture on April 23 is an attempt to throw some meat to the evangelicals. The story has been getting play on Fox News and elsewhere.

    Fox News: Either Planet X Will Kill Us All on April 23rd or the Rapture Can Happen Any Time, Take Your Pick

    Weird attempt at distraction.

  54. 54.

    hueyplong

    April 12, 2018 at 7:31 pm

    @Yutsano: Once it came out that Trump is all about scoops of ice cream, we had our proof that his days of causing trouble with his member are over. The time frame in between full function and Two Scoops Donnie is the time when some bad shit probably went down, and Putin’s minions were probably on hand to memorialize it.

  55. 55.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    April 12, 2018 at 7:32 pm

    @Yutsano: It’d be a legal problem for him either way, and he might still have enough of his wits left to realise that. You may still be correct about the ED, though.

  56. 56.

    Citizen Alan

    April 12, 2018 at 7:34 pm

    @trollhattan:

    I suspect it would turn him on.

  57. 57.

    JPL

    April 12, 2018 at 7:34 pm

    @trollhattan: The ABC article mentions Comey’s children saying he was Seacresting during the Clinton announcement, and they were not happy. He didn’t vote, but his wife and daughters voted for Clinton.

  58. 58.

    efgoldman

    April 12, 2018 at 7:35 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    Didn’t she used to write movie reviews for Entertainment Weekly?

    WaPo hired her from either Think Progress or American Prospect (I forget which). She and my daughter are good friends.

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    April 12, 2018 at 7:36 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Bill Clinton had mistresses. Eisenhower had mistresses. JFK had mistresses. LBJ had mistresses.

    And J. Edgar Hoover was able to blackmail several presidents about their sexual peccadilloes and ensure the FBI had far too much domestic political power by doing so. Putting a foreign government in that position would be far worse.

  60. 60.

    zhena gogolia

    April 12, 2018 at 7:37 pm

    OT, but Robert Montgomery is scaring the bejeezus out of me in this flick.

  61. 61.

    joel hanes

    April 12, 2018 at 7:39 pm

    @Wag:

    Yah.

    But jeez: he shows us a picture of Benny, and the kid’s not even wearing
    electric boots, nor a
    mohair suit

  62. 62.

    JPL

    April 12, 2018 at 7:42 pm

    @Brachiator: You forgot about Papa Bush.

  63. 63.

    ruemara

    April 12, 2018 at 7:42 pm

    @Yutsano: I’m fairly sure what his fetishes are and I don’t want to see it, but I want everyone to see it. And know who they supported.

    I get the folks who think that Drumpf’s peccadilloes are nothing important. It’s just that you’re wrong. This is hardball. This is warfare. You throw everything you can, if you can, at your enemy. Anything that makes them expend their energy, you make them spend it. If it costs you less and them more, you do it. You wear them out by a thousand cuts & you prepare a very long sharp knife. Never let them rest, never let them regroup. The more tired they are, the more mistakes they make. And if you make them spend their money & time to the point that in 2018, the GOP & the RNC & all their money men are drained, dispirited & tired – perfect. The reason why the GOP made so many local gains was, they had no real attention paid to local races. Money came in for small positions that had never had that kind of money aimed at it. Our eyes were on big races. We were running against tons of misinfo & propaganda. We’ve been fighting a thousand arrows of crap flying at us. It’s time to do it to them. Beyond time. I want them destroyed to the point that the minute a GOP member raises his or her head for national office, they can be ground into dirt and shoveled on a waste heap.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    April 12, 2018 at 7:42 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Bill Clinton had mistresses. Eisenhower had mistresses. JFK had mistresses. LBJ had mistresses.

    And J. Edgar Hoover was able to blackmail several presidents about their sexual peccadilloes and ensure the FBI had far too much domestic political power by doing so. Putting a foreign government in that position would be far worse.

    I’m sure that foreign governments knew about many of these presidential mistresses. And we knew about the mistresses of foreign heads of state. And somehow, the world still got on.

    Of course, it was too bad that more people didn’t know that Hoover probably had a male lover and also liked frilly dresses.

  65. 65.

    joel hanes

    April 12, 2018 at 7:43 pm

    @Ajabu:

    I’ve spent the last 50 years playing

    mallets.
    Damn, that’s hip (even though it doesn’t often pay).

    I bow in your general direction. I will never bee that cool.

  66. 66.

    Kathleen

    April 12, 2018 at 7:45 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Are you watching Night Must Fall on TCM?

  67. 67.

    zhena gogolia

    April 12, 2018 at 7:46 pm

    @Kathleen:

    Yeah. Somehow I’ve never seen it. I just turned it on a few minutes ago and it is terrifying.

  68. 68.

    mozzerb

    April 12, 2018 at 7:58 pm

    @Roger Moore: Actually, that’s a good reason to suppose there is no pee-pee tape. Like the way the career criminal is far more indignant about being accused of the one job they never did than they ever would be about their actual crimes.

  69. 69.

    GregB

    April 12, 2018 at 8:12 pm

    I think one point needs to be repeated over and over and over.

    Trump is an illegitimate president.

  70. 70.

    Jay

    April 12, 2018 at 8:12 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Well, it won’t actually shut them up,

    But you can fill their inbox, Facebook and twitter with it.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 12, 2018 at 8:25 pm

    @debbie: @Elizabelle: @Frankensteinbeck: Actually they’ve become Saducees. The Pharisees were the early rabbis. They were leading the transition of Judaism from being a religion based on animal and vegetable sacrifice centered around the temple and the priesthood (the Saducees) to a religion of prayer. While some, like Shamai were less flexible in their interpretations of the Law (Torah), others like Hillel were much more flexible.

    The confusion on this was purposefully done by the early church. In the earliest synoptic gospel, Mark, Jesus is asked by a Pharisee what is the Law (Torah). Jesus replies with: “You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And what is hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor.” When Jesus completes his answer, the Pharisee says: “good answer brother”. This indicates that what Jesus was teaching was in line with the developing rabbinic (Pharisaic) tradition and is taken as an indicator that Jesus was a Pharisee. Which he was. Jesus’ answer is a direct quotation from Rabbi Hillel who, when confronted with the unnamed convert* who asked this same question and demanded an answer while he was standing on one foot (don’t ask…), told him to stand on one foot. Hillel then stated: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!”

    Unfortunately for both early Jewish-Christian relations, the developing institutional Church needed to distinguish itself from Judaism, just as it needed to distance itself from Mithraism (an offshoot of Zoroastrianism) and several other mystery religions. In the case of Judaism, which by the time that the institutional Church was developing, was now Pharisaic – a religion of law, prayer, and observance – you couldn’t have the rabbis, who are referred to in the gospels as Pharisees be the good guys. So the rigid, inflexible, power hoarding Saducees had their worst qualities transferred to the Pharisees (rabbis) in the later synoptic gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and early Christian teaching and tradition. This was one of the dynamics that set Judaism and Christianity into an adversarial relationship, which was often deadly for Jews, for almost 2,000 years.

    It is important to remember that James the brother of Jesus, to whom the Epistle of James is credited, was a Pharisee and he and his followers maintained their observance of Pharisaic/rabbinical Judaism. They were called the Ebionites – (Hebrew: Ebionim) the Poor Men, because of their acts of charity giving all they had to those less fortunate. The Ebionites survived, practicing Judaism as they understood it at the time, and awaiting the return of their king until 134 BCE. At that point Rabbi Akiva declared Bar Kochba the messiah – the anointed king – and the two led the Jews in revolt against the Romans. The leader of the Ebionites went to Akiva and insisted that Jesus was the messiah. At which point Akiva basically told them that he either needed to show up or they were starting the revolution without him under Bar Kochba. At that point the Ebionites fled to Pella, which is now in Syria where they lasted until the early institutional Church tracked them down and put them to the sword. The Ebionites left behind their own gospel, the Gospel According to the Hebrews:
    http://www.jacksonsnyder.com/yah/manuscript-library/Gospel-of-the-Hebrews.pdf

    * The story of the unnamed convert is found in the Talmud. Specifically in the book Shabbat chapter 31. The unnamed convert first went to Shamai and made his challenge to be taught the Law while standing on one foot. Rabbi Shamai, described as an impatient and often cross man, had him beaten up and thrown out of his school. The unnamed convert then picks himself up, dusts himself off, and walks to the school of Hillel. There he makes the same demand of Hillel leading to Hillel’s famed statement of what the Law is. Later teachings indicate that the unnamed convert went on to become a rabbi himself known as Rabbi ben Bag Bag or just Bag Bag.

  72. 72.

    JPL

    April 12, 2018 at 8:37 pm

    @Jeffro: If the story is true, wouldn’t that kid be an adult by now? I thought the affair occurred in the nineties.

  73. 73.

    JPL

    April 12, 2018 at 8:42 pm

    If Trump had an affair with the help, do we know whether or not the help was legal? hmmm

  74. 74.

    different-church-lady

    April 12, 2018 at 9:08 pm

    @joshchafetz
    1h1 hour ago

    Guys, c’mon. It’s not gonna be *exactly* like Waterg–

    I’ll be damned.

  75. 75.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    April 12, 2018 at 9:14 pm

    @ruemara: Amen! You are so on point with this:

    I get the folks who think that Drumpf’s peccadilloes are nothing important. It’s just that you’re wrong. This is hardball. This is warfare. You throw everything you can, if you can, at your enemy. Anything that makes them expend their energy, you make them spend it. If it costs you less and them more, you do it. You wear them out by a thousand cuts & you prepare a very long sharp knife. Never let them rest, never let them regroup. The more tired they are, the more mistakes they make. And if you make them spend their money & time to the point that in 2018, the GOP & the RNC & all their money men are drained, dispirited & tired – perfect

    This is war. If it hurts the enemy or demoralizes their supporters, do it. Lots of liberals make a big deal of being open minded about sexual behavior, especially among consenting adults, and seem to feel that such conduct is out of bounds for making political hay. Horsefeathers! It matters not if you or I or most Democratic voters are unswayed by the presence of a Trump love child or 3, or a handful of abortions procured for his mistresses. The point is that Trump supporters do care about those things. They will be embarrassed every time these things are brought up. And demoralized. Which is a win for our side.

    We know empirically that reason does not win political arguments with these people. You have to hit them in the gut. The sex stuff does that for some segment of Trumpistas.

  76. 76.

    DissidentFish

    April 12, 2018 at 9:15 pm

    Re: the pee tape. I hope its not true because if it is, then what of the women in the tape? The media may talk of “prostitutes” but they were living women — consensual sex workers, semi-enslaved women, or somewhere in between — and it is to no one with power’s advantage that they would be around to tell the tale.

    They’re dead. It’s literally making me cry right now.

    Geez I can’t believe what’s happened to this country.

  77. 77.

    Jeffro

    April 12, 2018 at 9:18 pm

    @JPL: they may mean “child of” in the sense of “offspring of” Trumpov, not necessarily that the person in question is currently a minor

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 12, 2018 at 9:20 pm

    @joel hanes: You read that in a magazine.

  79. 79.

    Another Scott

    April 12, 2018 at 9:37 pm

    @Roger Moore: George Washington had a few ideas about the importance of decorum when serving as a representative of the people of the United States:

    Washington’s arrival in Philadelphia [for the Constitutional Convention in 1787] prompted a civic celebration the likes of which had not been seen since the end of the war. A cadre of his old officers rode out to greet him… Church bells pealed as the hero passed; the leading citizens vied for his favor…

    On this festive note the convention commenced its sober business. Only two men were even contemplated for president of the convention: Franklin and Washington. Franklin deferred to Washington, perhaps partly from concern that his health would not stand the wear of daily sessions, but at least equally from knowledge that the project would have the greatest chance of success under the aegis of the eminent general. (Washington’s distance above mere mortals was already legendary. Several delegates were discussing this phenomenon when Franklin’s Pennsylvania colleague, Gouverneur Morris, a hearty good fellow, suggested it was all in their minds. Alexander Hamilton challenged Morris: ‘If you will, at the next reception evenings, gently slap him on the shoulder and say, “My dear General, how happy I am to see you look so well!” a supper and wine shall be provided for you and a dozen of your friends.’ Morris accepted the challenge and did what Hamilton demanded. Washington immediately removed Morris’s hand from his shoulder, stepped away, and fixed Morris with an angry frown until the trespasser retreated in confusion. Hamilton paid up, yet at the dinner Morris declared, ‘I have won the bet, but paid dearly for it, and nothing could induce me to repeat it.’)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  80. 80.

    Another Scott

    April 12, 2018 at 9:42 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Interesting. Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  81. 81.

    Wag

    April 12, 2018 at 9:48 pm

    @ruemara:

    This. No fucking mercy.

  82. 82.

    StringOnAStick

    April 12, 2018 at 9:51 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Wow Adam, you are a man of much knowledge! I suspect you’ve forgotten more than I’ll ever know.

  83. 83.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    April 12, 2018 at 9:54 pm

    @ruemara: Precisely. Attack, attack, attack! Make ’em defend every single thing.

    As Doug also said once, “Crush your enemies, see them driven before you…”

    There is something to be learned from DJT here. Note that Ms. Clinton couldn’t get her message into the mainstream conversation, even though her policies were obviously enormously better. There are many reasons for this (most prominently, CDS), but Trump constantly saying stupid shit and flinging poo had something to do with it. Let’s return the favor.

  84. 84.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 12, 2018 at 10:05 pm

    @EveryDayIHaveTheBlues: How does “constantly saying stupid shit and flinging poo” benefit us?

  85. 85.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    April 12, 2018 at 10:56 pm

    Sorry, I should rephrase. We should not say stupid shit that is false, or, obviously, stupid. But keep making him defend himself against attacks that, whIle not calling him a pervert who enjoys the grunting of his pigs in carnal ecstacy, certainly points out the fact that the national security apparatus of the USA finds these allegations of dalliances with Russian prostitutes credible.

    My point is that if he is explaining himself, he is obviously losing. I apologize, the earlier comment was not clear and conveyed the impression that we behave in exactly the same way that he did/does. Not quite what was meant.

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