AT&T paid Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen for "insights into understanding the new administration" — while seeking government approval for its acquisition of Time Warner. Here's our full story on @CNNMoney https://t.co/pGepOFn7Fe
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 8, 2018
It starts with a little old-school, home-grown ‘request for attention’ stipend…
AT&T confirms it paid Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for 'insights' on administration. Likely a matter of time before @Novartis confirms paying Cohen, too. https://t.co/Tecx52zPfW
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) May 8, 2018
Trump/Cohen AT&T situation sounds a LOT like ITT situation w/Nixon White House in 1971-2 https://t.co/BQc2Y7ffji https://t.co/XSPDxvDY9y
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) May 8, 2018
… next thing ya know, there’s talk about Russian oligarchs funneling money…
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators have questioned a Russian oligarch about hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments his company’s US affiliate made to President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, after the election, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Viktor Vekselberg, chairman of asset manager Renova Group, is an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, and last month the Trump administration placed him on a list of sanctioned Russians for activities including election interference. The purpose of the payments, which predate the sanctions, and the nature of the business relationship between Vekselberg and Cohen is unclear.
The questions asked of Vekselberg suggest that Mueller investigators have been examining some of Cohen’s business relationships as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Vekselberg is one of two Russian oligarchs the FBI stopped earlier this year after their private jets landed in New York-area airports as part of Mueller’s investigation…
FBI agents asked Vekselberg about payments his company’s American affiliate, Columbus Nova, made to Cohen, according to one source. The Russian was questioned as well about $300,000 in political donations by Andrew Intrater, Vekselberg’s American cousin who is the head of Columbus Nova, sources said…
From 2007 until March 2012, Vekselberg was a shareholder and chairman of the board of Rusal, the aluminum company controlled by Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska has business ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has been indicted on fraud and tax related charges as part of Mueller’s investigation. Manafort has pleaded not guilty. Deripaska, who also was added to the US sanctions list last month, has sued Manafort over a soured investment deal.
Lamesa Investments Ltd, an affiliate of Renova, acquired a large stake in the Bank of Cyprus at the same time Wilbur Ross, then a private equity investor, made a capital infusion into the then-struggling bank. Lamesa now holds a 9.2% stake in the Bank of Cyprus. Ross resigned from his position as vice chairman of the bank after he was confirmed as Trump’s commerce secretary.
Vekselberg also attended the December 2015 dinner in Moscow for RT, the state-controlled television channel, where Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, sat beside Putin, according to NBC News. Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying about a call he had with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition and is cooperating with the Mueller investigation…
Say this for the Trump Occupation, they’re not shy about advertising what you can get for your money:
Reminder: Intrater and Vekselberg also gave hundreds of thousands to Trump’s inauguration fund: https://t.co/eopTJiVgVk
— Billy Elder (@BillyVonElds) May 8, 2018
Baud
Tick Tock Motherfucker should be a tag.
Corner Stone
Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of dealing with AT&T’s Business Level Customer Support already wants to frog march their whole dept to the gallows. This probably won’t even rise to a bump in the hatred level people have for AT&T.
Baud
BTW, y’all have my permission to charge companies who want to get to know me better.
I only ask for a 10% cut.
Corner Stone
Novartis? Were they in the middle of a merger? They had to know the Trump admin was going to pay for play for any drug pricing reg rollbacks that existed. Why were they wasting the cash? Just in case Trump took a meeting with a competitor and then tweeted about how bad Novartis was, and shaved $6B off their market cap in an afternoon? Oh…
rikyrah
Yes..this is how you handle Dolt45
https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/994016743252267014?s=20
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just screams: “My client did nothing wrong and I have a lot of confidence moving forward”
rikyrah
Broken down like a fraction
https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/993989186930794497?s=20
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Why stop there? Half of AT&T seems to only have one job, piss off everyone who has to deal with them in any capacity whatsoever.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Editor of Daily Beast says they’ve known for while that Cohen was receiving money from Russia. Only decided to publish after Avenatti published bombshell.
Chris Hayes failed to ask why they didn’t publish and sat on story.
ps: can you imagine any organization sitting on bombshell if it was a Dem.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
I’m tired of ticks, ready for tocks.
Motherfuckers, of course, is evergreen.
Villago Delenda Est
Fuck this prison shit. AT&T executives should be decapitated for this crap. Along with Cohen and the rest of the MAGAt traitors.
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh ??
https://twitter.com/Hadas_Gold/status/994000601242619905?s=20
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
If it were a Dem, they’d make up a story and correct it later. Maybe.
Villago Delenda Est
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Every last one of these motherfuckers should hang from the same gallows as Donald, Dense, Cohen, and the rest of the traitors.
rikyrah
More from Senate Intelligence committee
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/994019390210310145?s=20
gene108
@Baud:
I respect your integrity. A 10% cut is a respectable bribe.
What offends me is paying Cohen a few hundred thousand dollars, when AT&T and Time-Warner are getting ready to fling tens of billions of dollars at each other.
If our politicians are going to be bought, they should command a higher price. It is embarrassing our politicians give away so much for so little in return. They should have some self respect.
WaterGirl
It’s a good thing we have good news about Lily and Cordray and all this stuff dug up by Avenatti, because it’s so worrisome that Trump actually pulled out of the deal with Iran. There is no one keeping Trump in check at this point. So scary.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: you’d think Drumpf’s henchmen would be nicer to Natasha considering she has a russian name.
WaterGirl
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: In response to your paragraphs #1 and #2, I say WTF?
In response to #3, I am siding with Baud. Not only would they report it, they might just make up the story out of whole cloth.
WaterGirl
Gotta love the headlines at LGM:
OHIO DEMOCRATS REJECT CRACKPOT CONSPIRACY THEORIST FAVORED BY IDIOTS AND/OR REPUBLICAN STOOGES
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: Just wetting his beak.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: that’s probably why they take her initial calls
Adam L Silverman
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Was this Noah Schactman?
randy khan
It’s a measure of the effectiveness of Cohen’s intervention that AT&T just finished the trial in the government’s antitrust case against its proposed TW merger.
Feebog
What we don’t know about what Mueller knows is simply astounding.
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: The issue is going to be if Kucinich decides to run as an Independent to spoil the election and make it impossible for Cordray to win. Given who pays Kucinich, this possibility should not be discounted.
Major Major Major Major
Jesus Christ these fuckers. Whatever. Some day they will be gone and I will not.
We made planters today for mandatory teambuilding week (springtime edition).
jl
@Baud:
” BTW, y’all have my permission to charge companies who want to get to know me better.
I only ask for a 10% cut. ”
But, Baud 2020! needs plausible deniability, so, it can wait.
Edit: Is Baud 2020! looking for a spokesperson more crazed and unbelievable than Giuliani? Tumpsters set a low bar that is hard to beat. I hope you are working on to keep up the Baud cred.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: The DOJ’s attempt, on behalf of the President, to force the sale of CNN and/or DirectTV for this to go through just got blown right up. The judge in this case is going to be pissed.
rikyrah
See, I bet this bigot won’t do this shyt anymore.
Sometimes, you just got to get your azz beat
https://twitter.com/wsbtv/status/993957713250893824?s=20
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
I wish that Muthaphucka ?would??
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Do we know of anyone who wrote about this being a likely possibility at some blog that rhymes with Maroon Zeus way back in 2016? Yes, yes we do!
Planetpundit
@gene108: I’m with you 100%; an honest politician stays bought. A smart politicians sells out for a hefty premium.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rick Wilson was saying last night on twitter that someone who doesn’t usually leak to him leaked to him that trump is very worried about Cohen. He hasn’t said, that I’ve seen, that this is what was leaked to him.
From last night
I didn’t get, and still don’t, how he’s reducing trump or Cohen money stories to “the one”, but it’s twitter, always a rough draft
jl
Avenatti said on CNN that people are contacting him with good leads, evidence and tips on miscellaneous matters, directly and indirectly, of interest to the Stormy case. He said “people want to help”. And promised more bombshells.
So, yikes. Maybe a few people who talked to Mueller and are getting impatient are sending him stuff.
frosty
@Villago Delenda Est: I get weary of you bloodthirsty commenters. Read about the Japanese field marshal here, and what they were up to 75 years ago.
I personally severed more than forty heads
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I would totally read Maroon Zeus.
rikyrah
It’s over FOUR MILLION funneled to the Cohen LLC
Avenatti is on LarryO right now
jl
Avenatti’s full interview with Anderson Cooper on the money revelations today.
MICHAEL AVENATTI FULL INTERVIEW WITH ANDERSON COOPER (5/8/2018)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38qntQ0NJQ0
Jeffro
Excuse me…what was this about draining. the. swamp, again?
LOLOLOL
Hey white nationalist party, come ON, some portion of y’all have to realize you got taken here. Your boy was taking money from a hostile foreign power and using it to pay off porn stars he screws, so that he could go on to give his *real* billionaire friends massive tax cuts while your kids go without health insurance.
Ah never mind, that’s too long to fit on a bumper sticker…or in a GOP voter’s mind…
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: No, you really don’t. Unless you want Mike DeWine to be the next Republican governor of Ohio.
SFAW
But her goddam E-MAILZ!!!!.
But Hitlary is the warmonger!!!But the Clinton Foundation is CORRUPT!!!!
Suck it, Libtards
[The preceding Public Disservice Announcement was provided by all of the RWNJs. Every fucking moronic, traitorous one of them. And “Doctor” Jill Iosifovna Stein.]
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Corner Stone: The Death Star.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
Of course, I don’t. But, I have no more patience with these muthaphuckas???
jl
@SFAW: Baud 2020! is going to have to ramp it up a notch from old coffee cans and socks full of quarters, is all I gotta say. Baud may have underestimated the scale with which Trump does his side gigs.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Are you volunteering?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Speaking of whom, she moves in interesting circles
Mnemosyne
Since this is an open thread, in about 90 minutes I go get a CT scan that will determine whether I need to get 1 knee surgery or 2. Please send happy thoughts that I’ll only need 1.
(It has something to do with the tunnels my previous orthopedist made for my first ACL replacement. If the CT scan shows that they’re too wide, I have to get a surgical bone graft first then a second surgery six months later for the actual ACL repair. ?)
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Here we go:
https://balloon-juice.com/2016/07/26/we-are-at-cyber-war-so-what-exactly-do-we-do-about-it/
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Maybe. But I’m sure not going head to head with you for the job. You’d be perfect fit. I admit it.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Jeffro:
A lot of them don’t care. “Russia is our friend!”, remember?
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What he means, but it got garbled given that it’s twitter, is the President is concerned about the Southern District of New York investigation into Cohen and his business dealings (Cohen’s money) and the financial component to the Special Counsel’s investigation into the President’s business dealings (the President’s money).
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: happy thoughts: sent!
Adam L Silverman
@jl: From Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/is-this-how-avenatti-found-out
lgerard
Maybe Britt Hume can come out of storage and relive his youth by getting to the bottom of this
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
Perhaps we should have analogue backups?
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
Good luck. Hoping for the best outcome possible.
Brickley Paiste
And Avenatti, blessings and peace be upon him, descended from the mountain and walked among the children he had saved, bathing each of them with the pure, radiant light that radiated from his heart ….
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Did you go to the hospital of a university with a very good D-I football program for your first ACL repair? Always do that. The guy who did mine was the OSU sideline ortho. They get the best in the world.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: Looks like Ohio has a Sore Loser law in effect. So that would hose Kookcinich going independent.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: And that’s just one of Cohen’s shell companies.
B.B.A.
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: The wingnut argument is “Obama mocked Romney for suggesting Russia was our enemy in 2012. CHECKMATE, LIBTARDS”
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: That part I can understand.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Adam L Silverman: either way I’m completely over Wilson’s vague hype cycles.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Ruh roh! We’ll keep good thoughts.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Tick to the fucking tock, motherfuckers
Corner Stone
@?BillinGlendaleCA: There is no human death involved but I can beat that story. More than once. And while it wasn’t an “Exxon” level business, I was still representing a company with a global presence with a significant billing amount and a “dedicated” service team.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Everything should be air gapped, so there is a secure backup that is not accessible via unsecured/unclassified Internet. Moreover, all voting should be done on paper ballots. With pens.
Brickley Paiste
@Adam L Silverman:
All of the information I have seen abut this indicates that Avenatti got information only from one bank. (There were multiple external sources that funneled money, but it all went to one place.)
Isn’t it possible that Avenatti has subpoenaed and received records from that bank as part of his civil suit? The suit has been pending long enough for him to go through the normal channels – without even having to file papers to shorten time and so forth.
BruceFromOhio
@Corner Stone: And the fuckers had the audacity to raise my internet charge by $5 this past month. Sure, its a pittance, but uh guys, your service is the same as it was yesterday.
As to the post, “You get a good chunk of it, and it takes the risk.” should also be a rotating tag.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
Sending you positive thoughts??
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: Me also. It doesn’t take a leaker to convince me Trump World is scared to death about Cohen, money, Russians and SDNY.
Yarrow
@SiubhanDuinne: The tocks are happening. We can’t see everything going on behind the scenes, but they’re happening. The leaks are also telling us the investigation is getting really close to Trump. It’s going to get worse, so buckle up.
@Mnemosyne:
Sending good thoughts for a positive outcome.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: Excellent.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: That may be, I was just trying to interpret for clarification.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
In my county, we use paper ballots that have to be filled in with a pen. They are then put through a scanner to be tabulated. We’re good there.
Wouldn’t analogue backups be cheaper to maintain though?
Corner Stone
I think Avenatti looks like he wants a little something something to go on with Mimi Rocha. That dude is a terminal flirt.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
I’m hoping for good news!
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I know you hate the mandatory teambuilding, but that planter is kind of awesome. ?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@B.B.A.:
And my response is times change. Romney was right about that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I have only worked in this area in WI, but no voting machines are connected to the internet in any way. Also, whatever machines are used, a paper trail is required. And an audit of the machines is required post election. I am confident that the fuckery here (and there was some) was voter suppression not messing with machines. I’ve beaten that drum since November of 2016.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
Happy thoughts your way! Hope you only need one.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: They don’t call him Aven-hottie for nothing.
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
What do you mean?
frosty
@Adam L Silverman:
Tell that to the poll worker in my Pennsyltucky county who said he loved the electronic no-paper trail voting machines. I was too gobsmacked to ask him why.
Corner Stone
Avenatti just all but confirmed his leaked info came from SARs.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
Keep non-digital, physical tallies for election results so that they aren’t susceptible to hacking. Same with voter registration.
Mnemosyne
@Brickley Paiste:
Avenatti seems genuinely pissed that Cohen has been getting away with penny-ante manipulations of the law for years and is itching to take the guy down. Nobody hates a bad lawyer more than an ethical lawyer does.
frosty
@Mnemosyne: Good luck on your knees. After a certain number of years if it ain’t one thing it’s another. Best wishes that it’s simple.
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: What do you think the paper ballots that you put into the machine are? They don’t just shred them.
ETA: There are also tallies that are put on paper at each level of the aggregating process. It is genuinely hard to fuck with votes already cast. That is why the GOP is trying to suppress voters.
Mnemosyne
Thanks, all, for the positive thoughts. I think I may treat myself to an Ice Blended on my way to the scan since there’s a Coffee Bean one block down from the imaging center. ?
tobie
@Mnemosyne: Sending you all good wishes, Mnem. Fingers crossed the doc recommends the least invasive option.
Kraux Pas
@frosty:
I’m guessing the tabulation process is easier.
Brickley Paiste
@Corner Stone: Well, okay, allow me to shut my stupid mouth.
@Mnemosyne:
IKR? And you have to love the fact that he decided to drop this stuff today to step all over Trump being all decisive and presidential by making sounds with his mouth about Iran.
Delicious.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
My first surgery was done by a workers comp surgeon, and he did a great job. I trust an orthopedic surgeon with lots of skiing magazines in his waiting room.
I’m kind of stuck with the new guy because of insurance, but he seems to know what he’s talking about. If he does say 2 surgeries, I may see if I can get a second opinion and maybe see someone at UCLA.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
Does voter registration have physical copies as well?
MobiusKlein
@jl: On the ‘People want to help” side, did Eric Schniderman have a Deadman switch to release info if he was removed from the case?
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: surely this is something we can just throw blockchains at.
ETA I was being sarcastic but that’s actually a good idea for voting machine receipts
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Skiing mags are another good sign.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Apparently library and IS folks are trying to figure out if they need to use blockchain for anything they do, I guess because it’s there.
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: My professional experience with this is in WI which has same day registration.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: heh thanks! I am pleased with the result. I made sure to pick non poisonous ones too so Samwise is safe in case he gets into it.
jl
@MobiusKlein: I think that would be just more fun. Avenatti said on one of the interview that his office combs through the material and vets it before he says or releases anything. My guess is he’s had this material for a while.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@frosty:
Were they an octogenarian? I have the same first and last name as well as my father. I anticipated being mixed up so I used my full name when I registered. Didn’t matter as some old poll worker tried to say I already voted when I hadn’t. I set him straight. I don’t like dealing with the lines so I always vote absentee.
Adam L Silverman
@Brickley Paiste: I have no idea. Just putting out what seemed to be a reasonable explanation.
B.B.A.
A note, since people were wondering: NY has two primaries, for inexplicable reasons. The filing deadline for the Congressional primary (in June) has passed; filing hasn’t even started for the state/local primary (in September) so there will be no issue with the recently vacated state office.
Omnes Omnibus
@MobiusKlein: The AG’s office is what matters as the back up. The person isn’t really that important.
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: Sending positive thoughts and spring energy.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I have no idea.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
Joseph Stalin ?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Tracking.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: it’s good for keeping an uneditable list of things that happened in sequence. Especially where the people doing the things have no (game-theoretical) reason to trust each other.
That’s it really, the rest is commentary. I’m not surprised the LIS peeps are interested, it’s a natural fit for some applications in the field, especially in distributed archives (ETA I am out of touch with that end of the field). But you’re not gonna be paying late fees in dogecoin any time soon!
ETA yes I know I just posted a blockchain comment nobody asked for and mentioned game theory
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: Easier for him. Less for him to do.
Brendan in NC
@Adam L Silverman: See sane Maine residents wrt the “human bowling jacket” ( h/t Charles Pierce) they had for 2 terms as Governor…
Corner Stone
@MobiusKlein:
I think it’s called an entire AG office.
Brickley Paiste
ichael Avenatti
Oh. My. God.
It’s happening.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: You’re the tech guy, not me. I understand what needs to be secured. I understand what the policy and the overall strategy/strategies should be. Specific ways and means are largely beyond my expertise.
Adam L Silverman
@Brendan in NC: Yep.
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I worked with and was one of the people who counted votes in WI. I’ll let the insult to a bunch of very professional but underpaid people go by. In WI, the votes are counted at multiple levels so discrepancies would be noted. Any problems in WI were related to who was allowed to vote.
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
Best wishes on the results, may everything be short, simple, and relatively painless.
Yarrow
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed. The votes themselves were counted accurately. Who was allowed to vote is where the influence was.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yarrow: Yes, I did kind of live here as it happened.
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
Best of luck with the CT scan, hope you need the minimum amount of work to get back on both feet! Sorry it isn’t working out as you hoped!! At least a CT scan is easy to recover from…
efgoldman
@Brendan in NC:
Mucilage won pluralities against a split (Dem and Vanity) non-RWNJ field.
Cheryl Rofer
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
To be fair, I kind of asked for it. G brought it up the other night and I was fairly clueless.
He’s up for a potential contract position as a metadata librarian at the Giant Evil, so that’s another thing to keep fingers crossed for. If he hates it, he only has to stick it out for a year, and then he can do something else. In the meantime, he would get full benefits and be paid almost as much as he was to manage 7 people at the Bad Place.
Kraux Pas
@efgoldman:
Didn’t the so-called “vanity” candidate win more votes than the Dem in one of the two elections he ran in? Would that make the Dem the vanity candidate/spoiler?
SFAW
@Kraux Pas:
Elliot Cutler (“vanity” candidate) got more votes than *mumble* the first time around. I believe when LePage was re-elected, Mike Michaud (Dem] was far ahead of Cutler.
SFAW
@Yarrow:
Ari Berman did some good work exposing the WI voter suppression. However, he apparently wrote it all in Aramaic, because the MSM seems not to have noticed what was going on.
Of course, I’m sure the suppression in WI was just a one-time, anomalous occurrence, that could NEVER happen anyplace else, such as MI or PA or NC or TX or AL or IA or IN or ….
Kraux Pas
@SFAW: He got nearly twice the votes the Democrat did in 2010. True, the vote cut even more starkly against Cutler in 2014, he only got a fifth what the Democrat did. However, his performance in the first election could reasonably lead him to conclude he was a viable candidate.
Sorry, I’m just not a big fan of the notion that Democrats are entitled to be the only opposition to the Republicans.
Doug R
@Adam L Silverman: No need for the Bears to get too Fancy.
Just change enough details on a few thousand registrations so it clashes with Crosscheck in about 4 states-say Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Floriduh and there you go.
SFAW
@Kraux Pas:
Calm down. Yes, it was clear he was significantly more viable in 2010 than Libby Mitchell. It was also clear that he was a spoiler in 2014. It’s distressing that neither Cutler nor Mitchell had the guts/class to withdraw. It’s also distressing that Cutler was still full of himself in 2014. Would his voters have split 3-1 for Michaud? I don’t know, but it’s not unreasonable to think so.
Re: Dem “entitlement”: like it or not, this is not a parliamentary system. The state of the electoral union is such — for the last who-knows-how-many years — that a third party almost always acts as a spoiler to some extent. (Although, despite the claims of RWNJ morons, that was not true for Ross Perot in 1992.) For example, a third-party Pres candidate has not earned an electoral vote in 50 years. Two years ago, the DNC was worried that, if they didn’t let Saint Bernie run in the Dem primary, he’d launch a third-party bid. Not an unreasonable conclusion, and he probably would have gotten more votes than “Doctor” Jill Iosifovna Stein got. Anyway: although I don’t particularly view Cutler as a spoiler in 2010, I don’t get all bent about the Dem candidate not dropping out.
Kraux Pas
@SFAW: Am I not calm?
SFAW
I mistook your “entitlement” comment for a whine/rant. Apologies for doing so. I’ve just seen that “argument” (so to speak) used far too often from BernOrBust-ers.
Planetpundit
@Adam L Silverman: How Minnesota does it
Vhh
@Kraux Pas: Esp. for a redneck who failed 6th grade math.