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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Mountains of Popcorn (Open Thread)

Mountains of Popcorn (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  July 2, 20189:26 am| 209 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, General Stupidity

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First, Michael Cohen:

Michael Cohen tells me in first in-depth interview since FBI raids on his home and office that family and country, not President Trump, have his 'first loyalty'https://t.co/7r2aM9Tus5 pic.twitter.com/WyZ6IOyGL8

— GeorgeStephanopoulos (@GStephanopoulos) July 2, 2018

Could he be angling for a pardon? I guess. But given all the material seized from his office, one wonders if there isn’t evidence of state crimes available to prosecutors. A presidential pardon wouldn’t help there. Also, there’s bad blood between Cohen and the Trumps. Via NY Mag on June 20:

Mr. Cohen has frequently told associates in recent months he is frustrated that the president hasn’t offered to pay his legal fees, which he has said are “bankrupting” him, according to one of the people. He has said he feels that Mr. Trump owes him after his years of loyalty to the former real-estate developer, whom he served for nearly a decade at the Trump Organization.

The Trump campaign has already spent nearly $230,000 on Cohen’s legal expenses related to the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference. But it has not shelled out for the probe into Cohen’s business dealings — some of which happen to involve both Donald Trump and alleged money-launderers.

According to the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, the Trump family “feels like it’s being shaken down” — while Cohen’s allies say that the “Trump family is being short-sighted.”

The Trumps shooting themselves in the feet because they’re greedy, entitled shit-stains? Sounds plausible!

In other news, via TPM:

Broidy Breaks Off Hush Money Payments, Claims Breach Of Contract

Top Republican donor Elliott Broidy will end hush money payments to his onetime mistress in a situation arranged by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, claiming a breach of the nondisclosure agreement.

According to a Sunday Wall Street Journal report, Broidy agreed last year to pay Playboy model Shera Bechard $1.6 million in installments in exchange for her silence about their alleged affair.

The deal was reached when Keith Davidson, former lawyer for Bechard and Stormy Daniels, called Cohen, having worked with him in the hush money payments for Daniels and another alleged Trump mistress Karen McDougal. Cohen negotiated the repayment plan for Broidy, his old colleague at the Republican National Committee.

Broidy is saying the deal is off because Davidson talked to the Forrest Gump of Trump scandals, attorney Michael Avenatti. Avenatti won’t confirm or deny the report, but he urged Bechard to tell her story.

And what a story she may have to tell: The Broidy payoff strikes many folks as fishy — that’s a shitload of money for a fairly obscure guy to cough up to hide evidence of adultery. Trump only paid Stormy $130K during a presidential election. There’s some speculation that Broidy may be covering for Trump.

If in fact Trump rather than Broidy knocked Bechard up and subsequently paid for her abortion, that could prove awkward as the Trump administration seats an anti-choice judge on the Supreme Court. I mean, there’s no mass of hypocrisy too large for white evangelicals to swallow in ritual idolatry for their absurd and lumpy Orange Calf, but damn.

Anyhoo, Alexa, order ALL the goddamned popcorn!

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209Comments

  1. 1.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 2, 2018 at 9:33 am

    Anyhoo, Alexa, order ALL the goddamned popcorn!

    Guess I should go to Costco then.

  2. 2.

    MattF

    July 2, 2018 at 9:33 am

    The catch is, if you’re a spectator, you have to assume that, like Trump, they’re all lying about everything, all the time. Any claim has to pass the ‘Is this even physically possible? Does it obey causality?’ test.

  3. 3.

    Nicole

    July 2, 2018 at 9:39 am

    This post brightened my morning. Thanks, Betty!

  4. 4.

    geg6

    July 2, 2018 at 9:44 am

    What I’ve read about the Cohen interview brightened my Monday. He apparently threw Dolt 45 under the bus on the idea that Mueller’s investigation is a witch hunt and that Russian meddling in the election is important to investigate. Oh, and that he has dirt to dish on both the Stormy Daniels and Trump Tower meeting fronts.

  5. 5.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    July 2, 2018 at 9:45 am

    Rob Reiner
    ✔
    @robreiner

    Michael Cohen is starting to talk. Donald Trump is starting to shit.
    8:29 AM – Jul 2, 2018

    1,576
    449 people are talking about this

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    July 2, 2018 at 9:48 am

    If in fact Trump rather than Broidy knocked Bechard up and subsequently paid for her abortion, that could prove awkward as the Trump administration seats an anti-choice judge on the Supreme Court.

    It would prove awkward to people who are on the right and care about things like scruples and ethical consistency. The white “evangelical” base that supports Trump is driven not by evangelical Christianity but by spite towards the Other. Trump is undeniably a terrible person, but that’s not what they care about. As long as he endorses their spite and puts it into action, they will not abandon him.

  7. 7.

    westyny

    July 2, 2018 at 9:49 am

    If we survive all this and someone makes a Big Short or All the President’s Men movie about it, I want to see Steve Carell as Michael Cohen. Make it so . . .

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    July 2, 2018 at 9:50 am

    @MattF:

    The catch is, if you’re a spectator, you have to assume that, like Trump, they’re all lying about everything, all the time.

    Not quite. You can’t believe all their protestations, but you can believe their actions. We’ll know Cohen has actually sold Trump out when we hear about him reaching a plea deal.

  9. 9.

    NeenerNeener

    July 2, 2018 at 9:51 am

    You can’t spell evangelical without e v I l and n a g.

  10. 10.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    July 2, 2018 at 9:51 am

    I don’t know. I’m dubious here that he has anything worth much. Mueller and his people already have everything. Everything. What more could he know that they don’t also already know? My guess–and it’s only a guess–is that he’s either hoping for a pardon or for more money to pay his lawyers, and this is his way of drawing Spanky’s attention. It’s true that a pardon wouldn’t help him with any state crimes, but this guy is the dumbest lawyer in America, so what are the odds that he knows that?

  11. 11.

    Roger Moore

    July 2, 2018 at 9:56 am

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Mueller and his people already have everything. Everything. What more could he know that they don’t also already know?

    And important point is the difference between what they know and what they think they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Some of Mueller’s evidence almost certainly comes from intelligence sources he can’t reveal in court or in other ways is either inadmissible or might have a hard time convincing skeptics. Finding a witness who can testify to the stuff will help building a solid legal case.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 2, 2018 at 9:57 am

    @westyny: If we survive all this and someone makes a Big Short or All the President’s Men movie about it

    I think it was Adam Davidson who saying on twitter a couple of weeks ago that we need a Big Short type movie to explain all the trump corruption and what, exactly, money laundering is

  13. 13.

    geg6

    July 2, 2018 at 10:00 am

    @Roger Moore:

    I think it’s coming. The Vanity Fair reporter who has excellent sources in the Cohen camp says his wife is pressuring him hard to dump Trump. I could be wrong but I think this is his first baby step.

  14. 14.

    Joe Falco

    July 2, 2018 at 10:01 am

    @westyny: SNL has proved to me that Ben Stiller as Cohen and Robert de Niro as Mueller would be the best thing ever in such a movie.

  15. 15.

    satby

    July 2, 2018 at 10:02 am

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): @Roger Moore: maybe to celebrate the 4th we’ll get a new round of indictments. That would be worth setting off some fireworks.

    It occurs to me it might have been fireworks that spooked Bubba. They were going off last night. Both my downstairs brats are sharing a blanket on the floor, so we have peace in our time at Casa Cray-cray.

  16. 16.

    MJS

    July 2, 2018 at 10:04 am

    Large quantities of popcorn are a welcome change from last week’s endless buffet of shit.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 2, 2018 at 10:05 am

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Since trump doesn’t use email, I suspect there may be some value in a live witness who will say, “I told him this, he said that”. IANAL and I’m not sure where hearsay (a word I know from television) comes into play, but what if he said, “Slabhead Donnie told me The Beast knew all about it…”, would that carry any legal weight?

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    July 2, 2018 at 10:06 am

    Betty, you should publish that idiotic Mark Kern tweet thread so that we can all pile on…I never saw so many straw men in my whole life. I mean, I could work at the straw man FACTORY and not have seen that many straw men in one place…

  19. 19.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 10:07 am

    Interesting post here from a commenter at LG&M:

    Who is David Dennison?

    YMMV.

    The LG&M post lays out why the story makes no sense:

    Elliott Broidy’s Excellent Adventure

  20. 20.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    July 2, 2018 at 10:08 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    My understanding is that a witness can testify that somebody told him something if the point is that the person said what he said. The witness can’t testify that what the person who told him what he told him is true. Does that make sense?

  21. 21.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    July 2, 2018 at 10:10 am

    That is to say, I could testify, “Donald Trump told me that Putin told him that he has a tape of him,” if what the lawyer asking the questions wants to prove is that Donald Trump said those words, because I’d have been a direct witness to that. The lawyer couldn’t use my testimony to prove that Putin said that to Trump.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 10:13 am

    Exclusive: A leaked Trump bill to blow up the World Trade Organization
    July 1, 2018 at 9:11 pm EDT

    Axios has obtained a leaked draft of a Trump administration bill — ordered by the president himself — that would declare America’s abandonment of fundamental World Trade Organization rules.

    The draft legislation is stunning. The bill essentially provides Trump a license to raise U.S. tariffs at will, without congressional consent and international rules be damned.

    The details: The bill, titled the “United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act,” would give Trump unilateral power to ignore the two most basic principles of the WTO and negotiate one-on-one with any country:

  23. 23.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 10:15 am

    Via Raw Story, this Bradley Moss tweet highlights a point I hadn’t seen:

    No more joint defense agreement with Trump.

    IANAL but I’ve seen the statement “no JDA means cooperating with the prosecutors” in multiple venues at various times.

    It might even be true!

  24. 24.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 10:16 am

    @Dev Null:

    Avenatti said a couple of months ago that Briody was NOT the dude in that case. He all but said that Dolt45 was the one who actually paid for the abortion.

  25. 25.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 10:17 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    think it was Adam Davidson who saying on twitter a couple of weeks ago that we need a Big Short type movie to explain all the trump corruption and what, exactly, money laundering is

    A movie will never do this nonsense justice. We really do need a Netflix limited series event of about 15 episodes.

  26. 26.

    Shell

    July 2, 2018 at 10:20 am

    and country, not President Trump

    That must be a first.

  27. 27.

    Shell

    July 2, 2018 at 10:24 am

    It would prove awkward to people who are on the right and care about things like scruples and ethical consistency.

    I think for many of them, they’ve been doing a “the ends justifies the means,” kind of dance, praying that its not becomming a bargain with the devil.

  28. 28.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 2, 2018 at 10:24 am

    @rikyrah: The FART act.

    Perfect.

  29. 29.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 2, 2018 at 10:25 am

    So our AC took a giant shit Saturday night, which is apparently my fault from
    the moment it happened (overheated menopausal women are super fun to be with when they hate you and can’t sleep). She called their answering service at 4 am, and was promised a call; my further failure to came when I didn’t make a call at 7:00 am when they hadn’t called back. They couldn’t get us on the list yesterday (they were undoubtedly jammed even when she called at 4 am – thermometer was at 100 degrees) and I further failed to berate them adequately at 8 am to get on the list. We opened up the house while keeping a tight watch on cats, turned on every fan, and sweated through the day (ran out of ice, I had to break out ice trays to supplement). Last night, she took infinity minus one cold showers and kept applying icepacks to the groin (was genuinely uncomfortable).

    House was 85 when we woke up. AC guys can’t guarantee what time they’re coming – I can live through it, but don’t want another Day of Rage….

  30. 30.

    rp

    July 2, 2018 at 10:26 am

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): That’s correct. Hearsay is testifying that “Putin told me he has a tape of Trump” if you’re trying to establish that Putin in fact has the tape. The issue is proving “the truth of the matter asserted.” It’s not hearsay to testify that “Putin told me he has a tape of Trump” if you’re trying to prove that Putin said he has a tape of Trump.

  31. 31.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 2, 2018 at 10:26 am

    @Shell: They got Gorsuch, and they are drooling at another hater of the Constitution as written from the Federalist Society on the court.

  32. 32.

    Fester Addams

    July 2, 2018 at 10:27 am

    @rikyrah:

    he details: The bill, titled the “United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act,”

    So, the US-FART Act then?

  33. 33.

    donnah

    July 2, 2018 at 10:28 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    A movie about Trump’s corruption? So, a film in twelve eight-hour segments? Talk about popcorn sales!

  34. 34.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 2, 2018 at 10:28 am

    @rikyrah:

    Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, Susan Collins, Miss Lindsey and Bob Corker will make concerned sounds and serious facial expressions before voting for it.

  35. 35.

    PPCLI

    July 2, 2018 at 10:30 am

    If in fact Trump rather than Broidy knocked Bechard up and subsequently paid for her abortion, that could prove awkward as the Trump administration seats an anti-choice judge on the Supreme Court.

    It will not make one scrap of difference to these cultists.

    Recall Scott DesJarlais, Representative from Tennessee who was a) reprimanded by the Tennessee medical board for having sex with (at least) two different patients and in fact had admitted under oath (during a divorce proceeding) that he had had sex (while married) with not just those two patients but three staff members at the hospital he worked at and a drug company representative. b) admitted under oath that his (soon to be former) wife had had two abortions while they were married c) was captured on a taped phone conversation pressuring his mistress to get an abortion.

    Not only was DesJarlais subsequently overwhelmingly re-elected twice but he also crushed his primary opponents by enormous margins. He remains in the House.

    And that is just some two-bit regional Congressman, not an object of open veneration like Trump is to the Trumpites.

  36. 36.

    Betty Cracker

    July 2, 2018 at 10:31 am

    @rikyrah: As has been pointed out endlessly on Twitter, the “United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act” would be the US FART Act, which is wildly appropriate.

  37. 37.

    danielx

    July 2, 2018 at 10:31 am

    @geg6:

    The amazing thing is that Cohen was evidently under the impression that Trump would feel some sort of loyalty towards him after decades of carrying Trump water and dealing with Trump dirt. One would think a reasonable and reasonably intelligent person would have figured out well before now that Trump is only loyal to himself and to a lesser degree, anyone else named Trump. Everybody else is a tool to be used and discarded when necessity dictates to or whim strikes Lord Shortfingers. If nothing else, he should have drawn a lesson from Trump’s dismissal of Manafort – hey, he was only with us for a few months days! Barely know the guy!

  38. 38.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 2, 2018 at 10:31 am

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Would have been nice to have a great speaker and incisive questioner like Franken in the Senate about now, as opposed to Minnesota’s current junior backbench no-namer.

  39. 39.

    Mai naem mobile

    July 2, 2018 at 10:31 am

    @rikyrah: that’s the US Fart Act. Trumpov is truly an American FART.

  40. 40.

    Shell

    July 2, 2018 at 10:32 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Can you get a small window unit, to hold you over till they can repair it? Youd at least have one room you could retreat to.

  41. 41.

    M4

    July 2, 2018 at 10:36 am

    @rikyrah: no doubt this will be excellent fodder for pieces about how Trump proves that Democrats must be protectionist on trade.

  42. 42.

    RSA

    July 2, 2018 at 10:37 am

    George Stephanopoulos:

    When I asked Cohen directly what he would do if prosecutors forced him to choose between protecting the president and protecting his family, he said his family is “my first priority.”

    This is bullshit framing. Federal prosecutors aren’t bringing Cohen’s family into the picture; they’re not under investigation. Trump is. It’s not an either-or in any reasonable sense.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    July 2, 2018 at 10:38 am

    If in fact Trump rather than Broidy knocked Bechard up and subsequently paid for her abortion, that could prove awkward as the Trump administration seats an anti-choice judge on the Supreme Court.

    Nah — abortion is always the woman’s fault, so there will be much rending of garments about how Bechard “murdered” Trump’s baby against his will and then demanded hush money from him.

  44. 44.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 2, 2018 at 10:39 am

    From the “Everything Old is New Again” file, I bring you the return of punitive psychiatry.

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    July 2, 2018 at 10:41 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    This is when you should consider getting a hotel room for a few nights rather than have everyone be angry all the time until you get on the AC repairman’s list.

  46. 46.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 10:43 am

    I read stories like this, and my heart is filled with nothing but hatred towards those who have does this. And, for those who read this story and think nothing is wrong with what has happened to these children.

    They raid the factories, but don’t bother with arresting the OWNERS? Phuck.outta.here.

    After raid, immigrant families are separated in the American heartland
    Story by Eli Saslow Photos by Michael Robinson Chavez
    JUNE 30, 2018

    He had been afraid to go outside since his mother was detained in an immigration raid 14 days earlier, but now someone was pounding on the front door of their trailer. Alex Galvez, 12, waited until the knocking stopped and then cracked the door open to find a small flier left behind on the top step. He carried it into the kitchen and read it to his older sister. “Emergency giveaway outside the Post Office! Free food in your time of need!”

    “I’m not going,” Alex said, once he’d finished reading the flier. It had been the promise of free doughnuts that enticed his mother and dozens of her co-workers out of the planting fields and into the break room that day, where instead they had been met by 200 federal agents with plastic handcuffs and guns. Alex folded up the flier and tossed it onto the table.

    “I’m sorry, but I think you need to go,” said his sister, Estefany, 18. “We could always use the food.”

    “No. I don’t want to.”

    “We can’t hide in here forever,” she said, handing him an empty plastic bag. “I have to go to work. You’re the only one who can do it.”

    Since the day of the raid, they had been staying in the trailer with a rotation of older relatives — two more children adjusting to a life without their parents as a result of U.S. immigration policies. Even as President Trump and his administration promise to reunite families separated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the U.S. border, a similar crisis continues unabated within the country’s interior, where children are separated from their undocumented parents with little scrutiny and increasing frequency.

    In the past few months, ICE has carried out the three biggest workplace immigration raids of the past decade, including one on June 5 at a nursery here in rural Ohio, where 114 gardeners, florists and other workers were detained and put into court proceedings for deportation. Many of them had lived for several years in a Norwalk trailer park of 74 homes known as Little Mexico, where now aid workers estimate that more than 90 children are missing one parent and at least 20 are left with no parent at all.

    One of them is Alex, an American citizen like most children in the trailer park, with a wardrobe of Cleveland Cavaliers T-shirts and frosted tips dyed orange at the barbershop inside Walmart. He’d spent all 12 of his years in Norwalk, population 17,000, and for much of that time he’d lived in the trailer parks of Little Mexico, in a beige double-wide with his sister and mother, Nora Galvez, who first came to the United States in 1999. The air outside their trailer smelled of smoke and rubber from the neighboring pallet factory. The favorite community soccer field was in fact a gravel lot. But Alex knew every one of the 74 families in the two trailer parks, and he and his friends could wander freely on their bikes from one trailer into the next. Many people in conservative Norwalk regarded Little Mexico as an ugly annex, a place to be left alone, but to Alex that meant it had always felt peaceful and undisturbed.

  47. 47.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 10:43 am

    @rikyrah: Damn network ate my reply after 15 minutes of editing. Grrrr.

    OK, “Avenatti”: The identity of David Dennison has been a matter of speculation for months and months, as you know. I thought Campos (front pager at LG&M, writing at NYMag) was the first to go live in a mainstream publication, but perhaps I’m wrong. Not sure why pride of place matters… in any event “pride of place” wasn’t my point.

    I posted the link to “Who is David Dennison” because it’s a deep dive analysis – deeper than Avenatti’s remarks, deeper than Campos’ essay at NYMag… and I thought that BJ jackals might find the political analysis interesting.

    Whether or not the writer is correct … I dunno. That’s why I said “YMMV”.

    That said, I saw nothing in the essay that contradicts analyses I’ve read elsewhere.

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    July 2, 2018 at 10:43 am

    @westyny:

    I don’t know. Ben Stiller has been crushing that role on SNL complete with his sad blue steel face.

  49. 49.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 10:44 am

    President Trump: “Our laws are the dumbest anywhere in the world.”

    This is literally something that most criminals in America say.

    Our laws are based on our Constitution, that YOU, Mr. President, swore to protect

    Talk about “dumbest anywhere in the world”

    Look in the mirror!

    — Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) July 2, 2018

  50. 50.

    ARoomWithAMoose

    July 2, 2018 at 10:44 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: If you have the credit line, make sure you have a backup plan if “A/C won’t be fixed today, that’s a weird make of AC, we need parts from the supplier’s wharehouse, the company BBQ is tomorrow at noon”.
    Motel or a small cheap window unit for one room (check lowes/home despot, walmart, sams, cosco). I suggest the latter plan (make sure it runs off a normal 110 VAC wall outlet).

  51. 51.

    danielx

    July 2, 2018 at 10:45 am

    @rikyrah:

    The details: The bill, titled the “United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act,” would give Trump unilateral power to ignore the two most basic principles of the WTO and negotiate one-on-one with any country:

    Fuckin’ great.

    Other countries have in all likelihood already figured out that there is no “negotiating” with Donald Trump in the normal sense of the word. “Negotiation” implies that both parties get something out of a deal, and in Trump’s twisted world view, any negotiation in which the other party doesn’t get publicly screwed by Donald Trump is a loss and failure. Whether the other party actually does get screwed is immaterial as long as Trump thinks he won, in his own mind*. His history indicates that he regards a signed contract as the beginning of negotiations. Which was reprehensible but not harmful in a national sense when he was borrowing money without paying it back and refusing to pay contractors and the like. Now he’s negotiating for the United States, and people already know his word is not to be trusted.

    *See negotiations with Peoples Republic of North Korea; results of.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    July 2, 2018 at 10:46 am

    @Shell:

    I think for many of them, they’ve been doing a “the ends justifies the means,” kind of dance, praying that its not becomming a bargain with the devil.

    A “the ends justify the means” dance is inherently a deal with the devil. It’s like praying that paying someone to have sex with you doesn’t make you a supporter of prostitution.

  53. 53.

    PPCLI

    July 2, 2018 at 10:46 am

    Maybe at this point I’m just getting dizzy from the hall of mirrors, but I really think the Broidy announcement is a dodge. There is no doubt in my mind that something is completely bogus about Broidy’s initial story, and I think it exceedingly likely that Trump was the guy. (Especially if Cohen and the Broidy lawyer were illicitly collaborating. You can’t get a lower price than seven figures even when you are fixing the negotiation? To keep a secret about an affair with some schlub that nobody has heard of?)

    My guess is that something like this is going on: If it was in fact Trump, he and Broidy are aware that the bloodhounds are getting pretty close to their hiding place. Absent some distraction, the story will get revealed. So the idea is to act as if Béchard has been released from her contract and can spill the beans. And to act as if he/they have stopped paying her. She gives an interview with the Enquirer which admits to a bunch of stuff that could be mildly embarrassing for Broidy (to give the story slightly more plausibility) but states flatly that Broidy was the one and the only one. Meanwhile, Broidy has not in fact interrupted the payments at all. A desperate red herring to get the bloodhounds off the trail.

    That is my theory, it is mine and belongs to me, and I own it and what it is, too.

  54. 54.

    Spanky

    July 2, 2018 at 10:47 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Last night, she took infinity minus one cold showers and kept applying icepacks to the groin (was genuinely uncomfortable).

    I have to ask – whose groin?

    (PS – Alain tinkering again?)

  55. 55.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    July 2, 2018 at 10:47 am

    @danielx:

    One would think a reasonable and reasonably intelligent person…

    See, right there, that’s your problem. This guy is as dumb as a hatful of assholes. He graduated from the worst “law school” in America. And I guess he’s cheap and too dumb to ask a lot of questions, and he’s loyal, and that’s all Trump looks for in his help. And all the people Trump gathers around him, they all think that somehow they alone will be the one Trump cares enough about to look out for.

  56. 56.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 10:48 am

    @PPCLI: There’s an interesting discussion of this point in comments at the LG&M post I mentioned earlier.

    As esteemed BJ jackal Chet Murthy says (at LG&M): “One abortion, yeah. Six? I think that might be different.”

    You will be shocked to hear that not everyone agrees.

    Also too, the “Who is David Dennison” post. Highly recommend a read.

  57. 57.

    Betty Cracker

    July 2, 2018 at 10:48 am

    @danielx: Cohen doesn’t come across as particularly bright.

  58. 58.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 10:49 am

    @Dev Null:

    I welcome others making the intelligence speculation. More folks need to make the speculation. Connect those dots.

  59. 59.

    efgoldman

    July 2, 2018 at 10:49 am

    @rikyrah:

    The draft legislation is stunning

    Chances it will get thru this congress and senate, in an election year, less than zero.
    All except the kkkrazy kkkaukkkus can see the wave coming.

  60. 60.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 2, 2018 at 10:57 am

    If in fact Trump rather than Broidy knocked Bechard up and subsequently paid for her abortion, that could prove awkward as the Trump administration seats an anti-choice judge on the Supreme Court

    If only we could see this question as to the Smokey Eyed One in a press conference…

    “Yes, a question for Mrs Huckabee; while it’s true the President paid a woman to have an abortion, bizarrely there are people who find that inconsistent with The President’s anti-abortion stance, but likely these people who don’t see how The President hiring Hispanics while declaring them a menace to the country is perfectly logical

    What do you say people with such absurd beliefs?”

  61. 61.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    July 2, 2018 at 10:58 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: LOL. Way too similar to my day.

    We had a great afternoon, immersed in pub music at the Irish pub and chatting with the musicians. Let me just put in a free plug for this guy. He is an amazing musician, and so is every single member of his band. He needs to be lots more famous than he is.

    Anyway, we got home from the afternoon set at the pub, it was still 95+, we turned on the one and only wall-mount AC in our house, settle in to enjoy the cool, and soon see a river of condensation running onto the floor. I’m guessing there’s a drain line that’s clogged, but I don’t see anything consumer-accessible.

    I hauled a couple of old window units out of the closet and started to put them in. My story has a happier ending than yours though, in a way, as I lost my hold on the first unit, watched it plummet to the ground outside (only an 8′ drop fortunately) and scraped the hell out of my arms and hands reflexively grabbing for it as it fell. The happy part is that my injuries got me lots of sympathy and TLC from the wife, so then I could be a hero when I bravely struggled out of the easy chair after a few minutes to finish putting in both units.

  62. 62.

    efgoldman

    July 2, 2018 at 11:01 am

    @Dev Null:

    There’s an interesting discussion of this point in comments at the LG&M post

    I read LG&M too, but shilling for them, over here, is not becoming.

  63. 63.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    July 2, 2018 at 11:02 am

    @Betty Cracker: Cohen doesn’t come across as particularly bright.

    Or threatening. Weird that he was T****’s enforcer, doesn’t seem like the guy you’d choose for that job from Central Casting.

  64. 64.

    danielx

    July 2, 2018 at 11:03 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    I would imagine ‘loyal’ and ‘not too bright’ are among the prime qualifications for Trump hires. In Cohen’s case you could add ‘roaring, flaming, screaming asshole’ to the list, judging by some of the threats he made on Trump’s behalf.

  65. 65.

    LAO

    July 2, 2018 at 11:04 am

    @Dev Null: As a criminal defense attorney, I can state with authority that withdrawal from a Joint Defense Agreement may be a sign of cooperation. A fairly good sign.

  66. 66.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 2, 2018 at 11:04 am

    @Gin & Tonic: An old Soviet tradition.

  67. 67.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 11:05 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
    I live with one of those women, I mean I love her, but man does she kick my ass sometimes. Last night, she was pissing around with the remote control and got frustrated when she couldn’t find the right episode of Goliath. She tossed the remote across the room and somehow when I found the correct episode, it diminished her. I shut the TV off and walked away. After she slammed shit around in the kitchen for 10 minutes, she came out on the porch and apologized, halfway through the apology I was turned into an asshole again. Sometimes I wish she would turn in to a guy for 10 seconds so I could punch her out, because there is no talking to her. She still talks nice to the dog, so there’s that.

  68. 68.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 2, 2018 at 11:05 am

    @rikyrah: They should title it “The Congressional Self Destitution Act” because that’s what it is. Curious if the Republicans are that loony to fall for it since it would mean there is no need for their donars to keep on bribing them.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 2, 2018 at 11:06 am

    as surprising as the sunrise that coincided with the airing of his Saturday show, but still pleasant news

    Natasha Bertrand @ NatashaBertrand
    .hughhewitt’s show was canceled

  70. 70.

    feebog

    July 2, 2018 at 11:07 am

    Michael Cohen is rapidly approaching his fish or cut bait moment. The squabbling over his seized documents is over and he lost biggly. Prosecutors are going through those documents and already have a pretty good idea about the value of the information. Look for a cooperation agreement before the end of the month.

  71. 71.

    Jeffro

    July 2, 2018 at 11:08 am

    Ok, Cohen aside, here is a funny for you: didn’t Trumpov JUST tell Romney they were going to “do great things together” or some other such middle-school nonsense?

    Well, I think Mitt might be thinking about breaking up: “It’s a Little Early” to support Trumpov’s 2020 Re-Election Bid, sez Mittbot!

    LOL

    Former presidential runner-up and Utah Republican Senate nominee Mitt Romney said in an interview aired Sunday that he would not commit yet to supporting President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.

    “It’s too early to say who I will support,” Romney told MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt. “I did say I think he’ll get reelected. That’s not an endorsement. I also think that [California Democratic gubernatorial nominee] Gavin Newsom will get elected in California. That’s not something I want to see, it’s just something that’s probably going happen.”

    Romney said in May that he’d written in his wife’s name on the 2016 presidential ballot.

    “Do you want somebody to run against him?” Hunt asked. “Against President Trump?”

    “It’s not a question of want,” Romney said. “There will be people who decide, I presume, to get in a Republican primary. I think the President’s support among Republicans — what is it now, 90 percent approval? — suggests he will be able to become the nominee relatively easily.”

    “And I think the Democrats are going to go further left. They’re likely to nominate someone further from the mainstream of American thought. And in a setting like that, I think the President gets reelected,” Romney added

    “But you’re not yet willing to say that you’ll vote for him?” Hunt pressed.

    “I’m not willing to say who I’m going to support at this stage,” Romney said. “It’s a little early for that, but the time will come.”

    So. Much. Hope. in this weasel! He’s praying for a Trumpov heart attack just like the rest of us.

  72. 72.

    HermanNewticks

    July 2, 2018 at 11:09 am

    “My loyalty is to my family and my country” sounds like a message to his mob connections that he’ll do what it takes to protect them.

  73. 73.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    July 2, 2018 at 11:11 am

    Bernie marched on Saturday !

    You can read about it here.

  74. 74.

    LAO

    July 2, 2018 at 11:12 am

    @feebog: We’re not going to hear anything from the government side, I expect if there is little to report re: Cohen and his criminal problems in the next month, that will be an absolute signal that he is cooperating. As is standard practice, nothing with be available in the public record until his cooperation ceases. So weirdly, silence is the sign.

  75. 75.

    BruceFromOhio

    July 2, 2018 at 11:12 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    As long as he endorses their spite and puts it into action, they will not abandon him.

    Truth. These two-bit godbotherer’s are too sly to soil their own little paws, that would require facing their own hypocrisy and shortcomings. They’ll happily cheer on those that are willing to wallow in the muck.

  76. 76.

    Spanky

    July 2, 2018 at 11:12 am

    (Tap tap) This thing on?

    Anyway, way back when @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: wrote:

    Last night, she took infinity minus one cold showers and kept applying icepacks to the groin (was genuinely uncomfortable).

    Which prompted me to wonder, whose groin?

    Anywacarry on.

  77. 77.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 11:12 am

    On immigration bill, Trump lies, leaves allies ‘in the wilderness’
    07/02/18 11:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    The same afternoon as Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, House Republicans failed spectacularly to advance their own immigration bill. Despite the backing of party leaders, the GOP proposal didn’t come close to passing, failing on a humiliating 121-to-301 vote.

    Not surprisingly, developments at the Supreme Court eclipsed the legislative fight, and the political world largely ignored the fact that Donald Trump’s ostensible allies had just ignored his instructions on one of the nation’s most pressing issues. But just as the issue started to disappear from the conversation, Trump thought he’d remind everyone of his failure.

    After Congress failed to pass a pair of immigration bills in recent weeks, President Donald Trump over the weekend tweeted that he had “never pushed” House Republicans to support either of them. Except he definitely did, in a different tweet, three days prior.

    This is a tough one to defend. While it’s true that the president gave Congress a series of mixed signals about the bill brought to the floor last week – a bill that was carefully crafted to satisfy the White House’s demands – it was literally the morning of the vote that Trump published an all-caps tweet urging Republicans to vote for it, making the case for its passage.

    Now the president’s position is that he “never pushed” House GOP lawmakers to support the plan. The evidence that he’s lying is overwhelming.

  78. 78.

    BruceFromOhio

    July 2, 2018 at 11:12 am

    On a completely different note, and owing to open threadism:

    So long Bea, Katie, Sonia, Django, Emma, Richie, Sasha (you li’l cutie!), Ola, Shadow, Geneva (it’s okay, kitty!), and Franklin. It was fun seeing your every day and getting to know your faces. Maybe see you again another year!

    Hello, Madame Curie, Chunk, Enzo, Schrodinger, Georgio you luscious hunk, Buddy, Lightning, George, Precious, and Hagrid. Good to see you!

  79. 79.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    July 2, 2018 at 11:14 am

    Serious Constitutional question, first raised in the Very Serious Movie Dave. If the Orange One suffers a non-fatal stroke and is reduced to gibberish even the most talented TV crews can’t cover up, can we replace him with an impersonator (Alec Baldwin of course) till 2020? I’d enjoy the State of the Union and other appearances so much better then. I bet he’d restart the tradition of attending the Press dinner too.

  80. 80.

    zhena gogolia

    July 2, 2018 at 11:14 am

    @BruceFromOhio:

    Haha, I know exactly what you’re talking about! My husband thought Buddy was Lily from across the room.

  81. 81.

    James E Powell

    July 2, 2018 at 11:17 am

    @rikyrah:

    Axios has obtained a leaked draft of a Trump administration bill — ordered by the president himself — that would declare America’s abandonment of fundamental World Trade Organization rules.

    BernieBros & Naderites now feel totally justified.

  82. 82.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 2, 2018 at 11:17 am

    @Shell:

    Screwed over on that. All the windows are long casement windows.

  83. 83.

    James E Powell

    July 2, 2018 at 11:19 am

    @rikyrah:

    Avenatti said a couple of months ago that Briody was NOT the dude in that case. He all but said that Dolt45 was the one who actually paid for the abortion.

    And the press/media completely ignored the story.

  84. 84.

    Dorothy Winsor

    July 2, 2018 at 11:20 am

    @LAO: Is that why we haven’t heard from Rudi Giuliani lately? Please let it be so.

  85. 85.

    MoxieM

    July 2, 2018 at 11:20 am

    @Betty Cracker: Guardian headline last night said it, “Smelled Bad”. Those wonderful Brits and their in-your-face newspapers. (Even The Guardian!)

  86. 86.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 2, 2018 at 11:21 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    I suggested that. She won’t lock the cats up in a hot house, and worries about the dog.

  87. 87.

    Jack the Second

    July 2, 2018 at 11:21 am

    You know, I don’t see Trump as the sort of client who tells his lawyer everything he’s got going on. He just drops turd cluster bomb after turd cluster bomb on his lawyer right before it explodes and expects his lawyer to make the problem go away.

  88. 88.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 2, 2018 at 11:24 am

    @Spanky:

    LOL – Both. I gained insight into the amount of blood that flows through the femoral artery and how cooling an ice pack applied there can be:

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 2, 2018 at 11:24 am

    @Dorothy Winsor: Thufferin’ Thuccotash! he has been rather quiet lately, hasn’t he? I know he was busy last week at the big MEK party in Paris. Don’t know if Howard Dean made it this year.

  90. 90.

    Elizabelle

    July 2, 2018 at 11:25 am

    Power here flickered for about 3 minutes. Richmond, VA. Very hot day. Expect everyone who has it is using air conditioning. Power off and on while what I’m guessing is backup generator strained to kick in. Internet off and on.

    Made me wonder about the long hot summer ahead. What happens if we have a brownout? Or an attack on our energy grid. Not like we maintain our infrastructure as well as other first world nations do.

    Didn’t Chicago experience a lot of deaths among the elderly in a heatwave a few years ago? I know that France did, maybe the same summer or fairly contemporaneously. The elderly living alone, and other vulnerable (or alienated), are in danger.

  91. 91.

    Felony Govt

    July 2, 2018 at 11:26 am

    OT I enjoyed reading this quote from a Mexican political analyst, about Lopez Obrador’s victory: “The citizens participated and expressed their outrage and anger”. We can do it too!

  92. 92.

    Cheryl Rofer

    July 2, 2018 at 11:26 am

    @rikyrah:

    Did someone get punked? Look at the acronym.
    United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act
    US FART Acthttps://t.co/kA6lJt81Mm

    — Cheryl Rofer (@CherylRofer) July 1, 2018

  93. 93.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 2, 2018 at 11:26 am

    @Jager:

    If I’m not home, she can’t watch TV, due to the combination of boxes and remotes.

    She can’t reset the router, either.

  94. 94.

    MoxieM

    July 2, 2018 at 11:27 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Me too- no central AC. I have 2 “R2D2” (moveable) units (one up, one down.) I got a sheet of .22 Plexi and cut a hole for the exit hose fitting in each one. Last year I didn’t have the plexi so I just taped a heavy duty clear shower curtain in place. Tacky, but it worked!

    It’s not a cheap solution, but it does work. Also, they do make Casement ACs, but very pricey. Very. Cheaper than installing central however.

    FWIW, the Black & Decker unit is far superior–quiet & efficient. The Shinco makes cold air, but sounds like a couple of jet engines.

    Quoting Adam,
    “Stay Frosty” :/

  95. 95.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 2, 2018 at 11:28 am

    @rikyrah: Oh, you mean the US FART Act?

    The Trump folk really don’t think things through.

  96. 96.

    sdhays

    July 2, 2018 at 11:29 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    Nah — abortion is always the woman’s fault, so there will be much rending of garments about how Bechard “murdered” Trump’s baby against his will and then demanded hush money from him.

    The only thing I’d change is that I don’t think they’ll bother with pretending it was against Trump’s will. Boys will be boys, so it’s not his fault, even if he threatened to kill her if she didn’t get it. It’s just Trump being Trump. But, of course, she should be imprisoned for murder.

  97. 97.

    LAO

    July 2, 2018 at 11:29 am

    @Dorothy Winsor: I never thought of that. That would be too funny. I expect, Giuliani’s not cooperating, but that the investigation into the FBI leaks is very problematic for him. It’s in his personal best interest to keep his yap shut and these Trumpers are highly motivated by their own self-interests.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 11:31 am

    Womp Womp Womp

    ‘Even the cops don’t like us anymore’: Under Trump, ICE is despised and divided
    Brittny Mejia
    By BRITTNY MEJIA
    JUN 30, 2018 | 9:10 AM

    In May, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were spotted in Union Station. Their appearance triggered a phone call to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office.

    An LAPD officer reached out to David Marin, the director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE in L.A.

    Far from any raid taking place, Marin told the officer that the agents had merely gone there to get coffee.

    “I get calls regularly,” Marin said earlier this month. “It was not like that at all up until this administration.”

    Across the nation, ICE has never seemed more visible, especially as anger continues over the separation of immigrant families at the border under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy. Protesters have rallied across the U.S., demanding that the agency be abolished — calls that have been echoed by politicians. Earlier this month, WikiLeaks published the identities and information of more than 9,000 supposed current and former ICE employees.

    Being an ICE agent has always come with challenges. The agency has faced criticism for years from immigration activists, including during the uptick in immigration enforcement during the Obama administration.

    But Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration has made ICE much more of a target. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf won praise from many of her constituents and criticism from the White House earlier this year when she alerted her city to upcoming ICE raids.

    Many California police departments have longstanding policies against working with ICE to arrest suspects on immigration charges. But since Trump took office, California has enacted even tougher “sanctuary state” policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration officials even more, and that has heightened the strains.

    The mission of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, or ERO, is to “identify, arrest, and remove aliens who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety, as well as those who enter the United States illegally or otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration laws and our border control efforts.” While ERO might be the most well-known, it is not the only division within the agency.

    ……………………………

    On a recent morning, fugitive operations teams with ERO fanned throughout the Los Angeles area, searching for “criminal aliens, illegal re-entrants and immigration fugitives.” When the agents stopped for coffee at a Starbucks in Huntington Park, they noted that the negative opinion of the agency had recently intensified.

    “Even the cops don’t like us anymore because they’re listening to the news also,” said one agent, who did not want his name included. “ ‘Oh you guys are just separating families.’ ”

    As the agents prepared to leave, a Huntington Park police car pulled into the parking lot. Someone had probably seen the agents, Marin said, and called the police.

  99. 99.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    July 2, 2018 at 11:35 am

    @rikyrah: Good. Make them uncomfortable. While they’re hollowing out the good people from the federal agencies we need, it would be nice to shed some of the ICE Gestapo-wannabes, encourage them to find other employment. Preferably as rent-a-cops who aren’t allowed to carry firearms or sharp objects.

  100. 100.

    Spanky

    July 2, 2018 at 11:36 am

    @Elizabelle: Yep, an attack on the electrical grid is about as asymmetric as warfare can get. All it takes is a small group of VERY adept hackers. And while the utilities and govt have put in a lot of effort in defending it, you never really know until someone tries, do you?

    Hmmm. I’d better get serious about getting a backup generator. And NOT connecting it to the ‘net.

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 11:37 am

    The Hill (@thehill) Tweeted:
    #BREAKING: Kentucky GOP governor cancels dental, vision benefits for nearly 500,000 Medicaid recipients https://t.co/Z6YSpghsa9 https://t.co/kZQ5DMNOCz https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1013805933032558592?s=17

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 11:38 am

    @James E Powell:

    And the press/media completely ignored the story.

    Yep, because they wanted to. They don’t want to ask the hard questions.

  103. 103.

    LAO

    July 2, 2018 at 11:39 am

    @rikyrah: What a POS.

  104. 104.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 2, 2018 at 11:40 am

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: They should be banned from ever being an LEO again.

  105. 105.

    JoeyJoeJoe

    July 2, 2018 at 11:41 am

    @PPCLI: In 2014, I recall him only winning his re-election primary by 14 votes; some people may care.

  106. 106.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 2, 2018 at 11:44 am

    @LAO: I imagine Judi is not making things easy for him, either. I’d be surprised if she doesn’t know some shit that could get him in trouble, shit that has nothing to do with trump.

    Link to Page Six because Rudi kind of deserves a link to Page Six.

  107. 107.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 11:45 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    We were binge watching Grace and Frankie a few months ago. Mrs J was attempting to modify her hormonal rage with with a few glasses of Cab. She asked the TV to show “Frank and Gracie” I didn’t dare laugh. Then she tried “Frankie and Grace”…

    This woman owns a successful ad agency, deals with clients all day, she’s tech savvy. She must stuff all her frustrations during the day and then takes it all out on me. The convenient target. And don’t get me started on the middle of the night hot flashes when she throws all the covers on me. When I complain about boiling in my own sweat I get, “Now you know how it feels.” I just want this to be over.

  108. 108.

    burnspbesq

    July 2, 2018 at 11:47 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    It would prove awkward to people who are on the right and care about things like scruples and ethical consistency.

    Both of them?

  109. 109.

    stinger

    July 2, 2018 at 11:49 am

    @westyny: I thought that too, as I looked at the photo at top!

  110. 110.

    trollhattan

    July 2, 2018 at 11:51 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I think it was Adam Davidson who saying on twitter a couple of weeks ago that we need a Big Short type movie to explain all the trump corruption and what, exactly, money laundering is

    At a minimum, a four-parter. Example title within series: “Big Butt III–Sexytime”

  111. 111.

    Prentice

    July 2, 2018 at 11:52 am

    @Dev Null:
    I’m the guy who wrote that Who is David Dennison post. Glad to see that people find it somewhat convincing.

    I promise I’m not a crazy conspiracy person, the only reason I’ve wasted so much time writing stuff about this is to prove to myself that I’m not crazy, and to figure out what I’m missing here.
    They are attempting to pull off a major cover-up, the “fall guy” is not even actually participating, this is all happening out in the open, and no one seems to care.

    I wrote some thoughts this morning on the stoppage of payments, if anyone is interested.
    https://whoisdaviddennison.blogspot.com/2018/07/wsj-elliott-broidy-to-stop-making-hush.html

  112. 112.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 11:54 am

    @rikyrah: Roger that.

    To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure what point you were making.

  113. 113.

    Spanky

    July 2, 2018 at 11:55 am

    @Jager:

    I just want this to be over.

    Sigh. How can I put is kindly …

  114. 114.

    Just One More Canuck

    July 2, 2018 at 11:55 am

    @rikyrah: the US FART Act – right up there with the name that two of Canada’s right wing parties came up with when the merged – the Conservative Reform Alliance Party

  115. 115.

    trollhattan

    July 2, 2018 at 11:58 am

    @rikyrah:
    He seems nice.

    New Kentucky dental policy: Keep takin’ meth until your teef fall out. Problem solved!

  116. 116.

    Just One More Canuck

    July 2, 2018 at 12:00 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: send her to the hotel – you sleep in the basement

  117. 117.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 12:05 pm

    @Just One More Canuck:

    Mine wants to “get the hell out of this house for a long weekend” I suggested she go to a nice spa hotel in Santa Barbara, by herself. Relax, etc. Of course she turned on me instantly…

  118. 118.

    Bill Arnold

    July 2, 2018 at 12:05 pm

    @RSA:

    Federal prosecutors aren’t bringing Cohen’s family into the picture; they’re not under investigation.

    We don’t know what leverage is being used. And father-in-jail is (usually) disruptive to a family.

  119. 119.

    geg6

    July 2, 2018 at 12:06 pm

    @Jager:

    Having recently come out on the other side of what your wife is going through, I say this with the best of intentions. Fuck you. You have no idea how miserable and fucked up in every way menopause makes you feel. I’d do puberty over before I’d do menopause again.

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 12:07 pm

    @Dev Null:

    To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure what point you were making.

    I hadn’t made the connection until I heard Avenatti. And, I am still disgusted by the way that the ‘journalists’ sat around there, not making the logical conclusions to what he said.

    I guess Stormy Daniels is one thing. But, Dolt45 paying for an abortion is another. That money from Briody was nothing but a bribe – something Briody has been found doing time and time before. \

    It was a STANDARD NDA for Dolt45. Meaning, he had done it numerous times before.

    I’ll say again…

    WHAT IF, this had been 44….

    uh huh
    uh huh
    The curve for Unqualified White Men is REAL.

  121. 121.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 12:09 pm

    @efgoldman: So, if I read a post at some other blog that I find interesting, which post I intuit might be of interest to BJ jackals, which post is relevant to the front-pager’s essay, then providing a link is unbecoming?

    And here I thought I was familiar with All Internet Traditions™.

    Shows what I know.

    I tell you what: you needn’t read my comments. That way you won’t be put out when I unbecome, nor will I have to worry whether or not you find me becoming.

    Win-win!

    Incidentally, the “Who is David Dennison” essay is way too long to quote in its entirety. IMO an excerpt would not do it justice. But then it’s not an LG&M post, so you can’t be talking about that link, amirite? (Frankly, if I’m shilling for another blog – I’m not – I’m shilling to get jackals to read the “Dennison” essay, because I’m curious what others think about the arguments.)

    And surely it’s OK to quote esteemed BJ jackal Chet Murthy, even if he’s posting at LG&M rather than here? Or is that another Internet Tradition that I somehow missed?

  122. 122.

    SiubhanDuinne

    July 2, 2018 at 12:09 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Oh, you mean the US FART Act?

    The Trump folk really don’t think things through.

    I actually believe someone on the WH staff (one of the many who, reportedly, have no love for Trump) named it that deliberately, knowing that sooner or later someone would notice the acronym and embarrass Trump by calling attention to it. Trump himself is too dumb and too oblivious to figure it out, assuming he even knows what an acronym is.

  123. 123.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 12:11 pm

    @LAO: good-o, thanks for confirming!

  124. 124.

    rikyrah

    July 2, 2018 at 12:12 pm

    Get?the? ENTIRE ? PHUCK ?OUTTA ? HERE ?

    NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) Tweeted:
    Baffling as it may be to elites on both left and right, Mr. Trump embodies a real if imperfect model of family values. https://t.co/D0AM2Z2T1o https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1013599061658820609?s=17

  125. 125.

    ruemara

    July 2, 2018 at 12:14 pm

    @Shell: FYI, they know it’s a bargain with the devil. They fully understand it. They’re hoping it’s a bargain that reaps more permanent benefits.

  126. 126.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    @geg6:

    I do realize how miserable she is, I live it every day. I don’t say shit to her, I don’t denigrate her. I don’t pick on her, I just try to stay the hell out of her way and keep my mouth shut at all times…does not work. When this started, I tried to learn as much as possible about menopause, so we could discuss it. I got “You Have No Idea” So yeah, I guess I’m fucked, thanks.

  127. 127.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 12:17 pm

    @rikyrah: Whoa. I never thought Bevin would be so crazy he’d carry through on his threat.

    Sux to be you, Kentucky Trumpkins. Enjoy your rotting teeth.

  128. 128.

    randy khan

    July 2, 2018 at 12:20 pm

    @efgoldman:

    I read LG&M too, but shilling for them, over here, is not becoming.

    Is there some turf war that I do not know about? (Sadly, I am not aware of all Internet traditions.)

  129. 129.

    MomSense

    July 2, 2018 at 12:21 pm

    I’ve got a puppy under my desk humping a stuffed bear. I can’t express how ridiculous he looks. He’s so uncoordinated and his legs are too long for his body so he keeps falling over mid hump.

  130. 130.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 12:22 pm

    @rikyrah:

    The curve for Unqualified White Men is REAL.

    Speaking on the basis of my authority as a White Man, uh… yep.

    Not the best judge of (un)qualified.

  131. 131.

    O. Felix Culpa

    July 2, 2018 at 12:22 pm

    @Amir Khalid: From personal acquaintance, some of Trump’s evangelical and fundamentalist supporters are driven by the abortion issue über alles. I’m sure they’ll find some pretzel logic to uphold Trump even if it’s confirmed that he paid for an abortion, but it will make justifying their support for him that much harder. I’m stocking up on popcorn, if there’s any left.

  132. 132.

    Humdog

    July 2, 2018 at 12:25 pm

    @geg6: Thanks for saying this. His wife feels miserable and he wishes he could punch her!?!? Fuckers

  133. 133.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 12:29 pm

    @rikyrah: The takedowns on that article have been devastating. I recommend among other hot takes the one at The Blog Which Must Not Be Named™, not because it’s particularly insightful, rather because it winds up with an absolutely GLORIOUS satire vid. A vid which I have already posted on all my private lists, because it encapsulates everything I despise about the Vichy Times.

    Alas, it’s the Blog Which Must Not Be Named™. Eat your hearts out, jackals. You’ll never know! ~snark~

  134. 134.

    MomSense

    July 2, 2018 at 12:31 pm

    @rikyrah:

    WTAF

  135. 135.

    LAO

    July 2, 2018 at 12:31 pm

    @MomSense: You are having a much better morning than I am. Really.

  136. 136.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 12:32 pm

    @Humdog:

    Clarification, I said, “I wish she could turn into a guy for 10 seconds, so I could punch her” This was after said yelled something about ‘clawing my eyes out” for chrissakes! I’m giving her a pass everyday and she won’t take it.

  137. 137.

    efgoldman

    July 2, 2018 at 12:33 pm

    @Jager:

    there is no talking to her.

    After 40++ years of marriage, I have finally learned that when mrs efg is in a full blown PTSD adrenaline rush I just shut up, no matter what she says or does. Yup, she says and does stupid and hurtful things; later claims she didn’t or I should have known she didn’t mean it. Took me a long time to learn how to deal.

  138. 138.

    Bill Arnold

    July 2, 2018 at 12:38 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    The Trump folk really don’t think things through.

    Or it’s some sort of distraction play, or an intra-admin monkey-wrench (few like Peter Navarro), or …
    As others have said, it would be DOA in congress, and in the Senate in particular.
    Re sanitary and phytosanitary measures in Sec 3(1), who are the power players in the US pushing for such changes? (e.g. is it related to GMOs, and/or chlorinated chickens, or what?)

  139. 139.

    Mary G

    July 2, 2018 at 12:39 pm

    My dumb cat has a skin allergy, apparently to fleas. The vet gave her a steroid shot and told me to be sure to keep up the doses of the flea medicine. Now she has decided she doesn’t want the flea medicine and the bumps and incessant scratching are back. Made an appointment to have the mobile vet come to the house this morning and lured her with treats into letting me pick her up. She fought being put into the cage and finally scratched me, so I had to let go.

    AAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

  140. 140.

    Steeplejack

    July 2, 2018 at 12:42 pm

    @PPCLI:

    That is my theory, it is mine and belongs to me, and I own it and what it is, too.

    Is it going in your newsletter? Asking ’cause I might want to subscribe.

  141. 141.

    Calouste

    July 2, 2018 at 12:46 pm

    @rikyrah: Avenatti’s reasoning was: Cohen testified in court that he only had 3 clients as a lawyer: the shitgibbon, shitgibbon Org, and Hannity. Didn’t mention Broidy. That leaves the shitgibbon or Hannity as “David Davidson” and odds are against Hannity. Or Cohen perjured himself.

  142. 142.

    Mnemosyne

    July 2, 2018 at 12:47 pm

    @Mary G:

    It could have been worse — our kitty Annie figured out that the sure-fire way to get G to stop trying to put her in her carrier was to pee on him.

    And when that stopped working, she went with poop. ?

  143. 143.

    Mary G

    July 2, 2018 at 12:50 pm

    @Mnemosyne: After I let her go, she hid under the bed. For three minutes. Then she came back and is sitting on the shelf next to my desk less than a yard away from me and daring me to try again. The housemates refuse to help, because she hisses at them when they get too close.

  144. 144.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 2, 2018 at 12:52 pm

    @rikyrah: The guy is one of these evangelical “intellectuals” which was not disclosed by the NYT.

  145. 145.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 12:52 pm

    @efgoldman:

    The last time I said anything to her was when I was blackening a steak in a cast iron pan, I had just turned it after side one was perfect. Her hormones were turned up to 11, she strolled into the kitchen ( I do 90% of the cooking) and turned the burner off and said, “you cook everything too fast” put her hands on her hips and glared at me. I said something like, what the hell did you did you shut the fucking stove off for? It went down hill from there and culminated with, “I ought to claw your eyes out for telling me what I can do in my own kitchen.” I saved the steak, served it with a smile on my face and she said it was delicious and added you still cook with too much heat. I just sat there and chewed. So fuck me.

  146. 146.

    westyny

    July 2, 2018 at 12:53 pm

    @MomSense: Yeah, but that’s broad comedy. Carell will underplay just enough to get at Cohen’s schoolyard pathos.

  147. 147.

    Doug R

    July 2, 2018 at 12:54 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    It’s true that a pardon wouldn’t help him with any state crimes, but this guy is the dumbest lawyer in America, so what are the odds that he knows that?

    Supreme Court after 100+ years of precedent is hearing a case related to the Federal/State jeopardy question. We know those “originalists” don’t like keeping to precedent.

  148. 148.

    hitchhiker

    July 2, 2018 at 12:56 pm

    @Jeffro:

    He’s praying for a Trumpov heart attack just like the rest of us.

    I’m not! I’m praying for a stroke … one that leaves him half paralyzed in the face, unable to speak and disfiguring in a way that makes him never want his picture taken again. After that, I hope he lives to 100 and sees former sycophants abandon him until no one is left but paid attendants who are quietly cruel.

    Yes, I know. That’s mean.

  149. 149.

    efgoldman

    July 2, 2018 at 12:59 pm

    @Humdog:

    His wife feels miserable and he wishes he could punch her!?!?

    I might wish that, too, but I never have.
    What did George Carlin say? “The sin is you only have to wanna'”

  150. 150.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 1:01 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Wait, the credits describe him as an editor – senior editor, I think – at First Times. Much as I despise the Vichy Times, I’m thinking that is sufficient.

    Am I wrong?

  151. 151.

    Elizabelle

    July 2, 2018 at 1:02 pm

    Do they have any goddamn editors at the FTF NY Times?

    This is the email alert that just came out:

    Breaking News: 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped in a cave in Thailand for 9 days were found ….

    They’re alive! No idea of condition, but rescuers are talking to them.

    Now. That alert. Why not: Missing Thai soccer players found alive; 12 boys and coach trapped in cave for 9 days —

    The NY Times alert goes through 16 words before getting to the point and truncated the crucial one, at least on my laptop. Could have as easily been found dead.

    Would it be that hard to have a human look at their breaking news alerts?

  152. 152.

    Spanky

    July 2, 2018 at 1:02 pm

    @MomSense:

    WTAF

    I too am not aware of all internet traditions. I’m having trouble sussing what the “A” means. Help?

  153. 153.

    MomSense

    July 2, 2018 at 1:03 pm

    @Jager:

    I’m hearing that you feel scared, confused, and frustrated. I know when I’ve had people throw things in my presence it causes me to feel very scared and physically sets off a strong fight or flight. It is very scary so I understand why you feel the way you do in response. Would your wife be receptive if you told her how much you love her and that you need help figuring out how to be more supportive?

    I also think you may want to go talk to a counselor or doctor and if she wants to go with you to offer input you would welcome that. You are telling her you love her and that you want to be a better support for her. I’d consider talking to a counselor to learn how to raise this subject with your wife.

    @Humdog:

    His wife is throwing things in anger which is a aggressive and intimidating.

  154. 154.

    MomSense

    July 2, 2018 at 1:04 pm

    @Spanky:

    WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!

  155. 155.

    Tazj

    July 2, 2018 at 1:05 pm

    @Mary G: I’ve had to resort to oven mitts and a winter coat with one of my cats to get him to the vet because he scratched me up so much putting him in the carrier. I had a system where I closed all the doors in the house quietly before I would try to nab the two of them, of course he got wise to this. The bigger one would hide and then act like a passive resister when I tried to extricate him from whatever small space he wedged himself into. The smaller one just won’t go in without a fight so I must protect myself. Good luck to you.

  156. 156.

    efgoldman

    July 2, 2018 at 1:06 pm

    @Jager:

    The last time I said anything to her…..

    Mrs efg, at 63, is way past post-menopausal.
    Anything her PTSD perceives as a threat, especially to me (and there have been a lot lately) can trigger her
    This morning she yelled at me for something I may or may not have done IN MY SLEEP

  157. 157.

    Spanky

    July 2, 2018 at 1:06 pm

    @Calouste:

    Or Cohen perjured himself.

    Odds are well above zero for this possibility. Still not as high as aborting another Ivanka though.

  158. 158.

    MomSense

    July 2, 2018 at 1:07 pm

    @LAO:

    I am loving this puppy underfoot. He sleeps on my feet, plays under my desk, follows me around cheerfully – he’s the best co worker a person could ever have.

  159. 159.

    Elizabelle

    July 2, 2018 at 1:07 pm

    More on the missing Thai soccer players: the FTF NY Times story in full:

    MAE SAI, Thailand — Twelve boys and their soccer coach have been found alive nine days after they were trapped by rising floodwaters in a cave complex in northern Thailand, a provincial governor announced on Monday.

    In an interview, the governor of Chiang Rai Province, Narongsak Osottanakorn, said that the boys and their coach were alive, but that he did not know their condition. The cave complex is flooded, and rescue workers are trying to care for the boys and get them in a condition where they can be moved for medical care, the governor said.

    A team of rescuers had used huge pumps to reduce the water level, allowing divers to place guide ropes and air tanks along the route to reach the site of the trapped boys. Getting the boys and their coach out will be tricky.
    The search for the boys, who range in age from 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach has riveted the nation, along with soccer fans around the world. The team disappeared on June 23.

    King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun had said he was following events closely, helping to focus the attention of government officials.

    And wow, that’s a name on that king.

    Please let them all be rescued and healthy. I wonder if they can pipe in the World Cup game audio, while the rescue proceeds.

  160. 160.

    Elizabelle

    July 2, 2018 at 1:08 pm

    @MomSense: Thanks. I’d not seen that acronym either.

  161. 161.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 1:09 pm

    @efgoldman:

    Neither have I. I guess we both have to be miserable, as in “What are you so damn happy about?” I’m not allowed to have a good day? I had lunch with my friend Ray last week, we had a great time. I came home feeling good. I got my ass kicked for being in a good mood.

  162. 162.

    Spanky

    July 2, 2018 at 1:10 pm

    @MomSense: Ahhh. “Actual”. Yes, yes. Thanks.

    Carry on.

  163. 163.

    efgoldman

    July 2, 2018 at 1:11 pm

    @MomSense:

    His wife is throwing things in anger which is a aggressive and intimidating.

    Sometimes (I had to once, some years ago) you have to call the cops and tell them you’re afraid of her.
    In mrs efg’s case, it makes her worse, but at least there are strong, official witnesses who can and will take her away. I never want to do that again.

  164. 164.

    MagdaInBlack

    July 2, 2018 at 1:11 pm

    @geg6:
    Thank You

  165. 165.

    MoxieM

    July 2, 2018 at 1:11 pm

    Reading all the misogynist shit about women and their “hormonal emotions” in this thread (because men wanting to punch people ((rage)) is not a “hormonal emotion”), it’s really clear how the Hillary-hating just slipped on in under the door, like a stinky dog fart. Why otherwise reasonable folk voted Bernie (man)–despite his hectoring outbursts–not hormonal, nope, no siree.

    heave, sigh.

    It’s not really invisible to some of us. Apparently it is to others. Why do people hate menopausal women so much? It’s irrational fear.

    Do you (older men) not have any idea of how annoyed your partners probably are with you, hormones not withstanding–years of “refrigerator blindness–“honey, where’s the cream cheese?”, failing to do your share of housework without being asked and managed, etc. I assure you, it’s decades worth, and no, I don’t want to hear the defensive justifications.

    Christ on a cracker, give it a break.

    edited for crappy typing. I’m 10 years past menopause.

  166. 166.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 1:17 pm

    @efgoldman:

    There could be big trouble if you get a nocturnal erection.

    Mrs j and I have had a code word for sex for 25 years. “Frisky”. A while back she brought up getting “frisky” one evening. We get groomed, hop in the sack, get things going and she pushes me away saying, “I’m too fat”. She’s 5-6 and weighs 115 pounds.

  167. 167.

    efgoldman

    July 2, 2018 at 1:18 pm

    @MoxieM:

    Reading all the misogynist shit about women and their “hormonal emotions” in this thread (because men wanting to punch people ((rage)) is not a “hormonal emotion”)

    You are generalizing and painting us all with the same broad brush.
    I said VERY CLEARLY that mrs efg’s problems come from childhood PTSD, That’s actually more than i care to reveal.
    It causes specific and predictable acting out.
    I deal/have dealt with it as best I can for forty years without calling down the authorities.
    Walk in my shoes (you might as well – I can’t walk anywhere) and then you can criticize

  168. 168.

    MagdaInBlack

    July 2, 2018 at 1:20 pm

    @Jager:
    Im sure shed be delighted to learn this whole issue is being discussed on a blog

  169. 169.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    July 2, 2018 at 1:22 pm

    @hitchhiker:

    Mean? What’s mean about that? Doesn’t seem mean to me…

  170. 170.

    MagdaInBlack

    July 2, 2018 at 1:22 pm

    @MoxieM:
    And Thank You

    Jeez

  171. 171.

    Manyakitty

    July 2, 2018 at 1:23 pm

    @BruceFromOhio: Mme. Curie and Schrodinger are mine!

  172. 172.

    MagdaInBlack

    July 2, 2018 at 1:24 pm

    @rikyrah:
    Thats lovely..
    Now we’re normalizing his effed up family?

  173. 173.

    Steeplejack

    July 2, 2018 at 1:25 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yes, here is the “centrist” Matthew Schmitz, expert on “purple” family values:

    We can and we must overturn Roe. @joshjcraddock explains how to do it.https://t.co/SqbkjuEz1u

    — Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) July 2, 2018

  174. 174.

    Spanky

    July 2, 2018 at 1:26 pm

    That’s actually more than i care to reveal.

    Should be the opinion of several posters in this thread. How ’bout we deal with our issues with a friend or counselor face-to-face rather than bringing it up in this here blog where I’d guess the majority are getting a tad uncomfortable?

    Really, it’ll actually be more beneficial to you if you discuss it in person with someone you trust.

  175. 175.

    ruemara

    July 2, 2018 at 1:27 pm

    @efgoldman: I’m not that bad but I once called the housemate and yelled at him for being in my dream. And I woke up angry at my ex for something he did in another dream. Does your wife know she’s being unreasonable?

  176. 176.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 1:28 pm

    @MoxieM:

    Misogynist shit? I love my wife, I know she’s going through a miserable time in her life. I’m not the bad guy and I’m not pissed at her. But, I am tired of taking the brunt of her misery day after day, we’re going into the 2nd year of this. Yeah, she’s said and done some things, that if she was a man would have gotten her knocked on her ass, I didn’t do it, I did think about it with the the huge qualifier, “if she was a man”. I cut her a ton of slack every damn day. I understand there is no winning here. As the father of two daughters and two granddaughters, if I was some misogynistic piece of shit they would have drawn and quartered me years ago.

  177. 177.

    MoxieM

    July 2, 2018 at 1:29 pm

    @efgoldman: My apologies for the broad brush.

  178. 178.

    efgoldman

    July 2, 2018 at 1:30 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    here is the “centrist” Matthew Schmitz, expert on “purple” family values

    RWNJs never learn from history or how not to overreach. It’s like CA before and after prop 187 never existed.
    Something – maybe overturning Roe, maybe a federal ban, some other outrage – is going to energize purplish state voters the way prop 187 did in California. And like CA, when those voters are gone, whether from changing sides or from staying home, they’re not going back.

  179. 179.

    MoxieM

    July 2, 2018 at 1:32 pm

    As the father of two daughters and two granddaughters, if I was

    … sigh.
    just. not. gonna go. there.

    Feminism is the radical belief that women are people, with full human rights.

  180. 180.

    zhena gogolia

    July 2, 2018 at 1:33 pm

    @geg6:

    Haha, I’ve been trying to think of a nice way to say it.

  181. 181.

    efgoldman

    July 2, 2018 at 1:35 pm

    @Spanky:

    How ’bout we deal with our issues with a friend or counselor face-to-face

    We have.
    I’d be glad to talk w/Jager face to face, but he’s ~3000 miles from here. I wanted him to know that other people were dealing with bouts of unreasoning rage, and how, and why.
    And by the way, this on a blog where some regulars give us every damned detail of their medical problems.
    And yes, I skip them if I can.

  182. 182.

    Steeplejack

    July 2, 2018 at 1:43 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    And Schmitz’s journal, First Things, is published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, “founded in 1989 by Richard John Neuhaus and his colleagues to confront the ideology of secularism, which insists that the public square must be ‘naked,’ and that faith has no place in shaping the public conversation or in shaping public policy.”

    The Institute’s mission is to articulate a governing consensus that supports:

    ‣ A religiously pluralistic society that defends human dignity from conception to natural death.

    ‣ A democratic, constitutionally ordered form of government supported by a religiously and morally serious culture.

    ‣ A vision of freedom that encourages a culture of personal and communal responsibility.

    ‣ Loyalty to the Western tradition that provides a basis for responsible global citizenship.

    Who could disagree with that? Totally middle-of-the-road, amirite?

    What is the reasoning behind the New York Times consistently publishing opinion pieces by right-wing nuts and glossing over, or ignoring, their right-wing origins? Seriously, I’d like to know. There can’t be that many right-wing nuts among the readership.

  183. 183.

    satby

    July 2, 2018 at 1:46 pm

    @Jager: well, I’m a female who went through menopause 10 years ago, and I think that sounds nuts. She needs medication and you need a man cave.

  184. 184.

    Noskilz

    July 2, 2018 at 1:49 pm

    One things puzzles me: shouldn’t Cohen be someone who ought to be able to take a pardon for granted? As Trump’s bagman, pardoning him would be less about helping Cohen and more about Trump helping himself, so this seems like an odd sort of performance unless he just likes messing with Trump these days.

    Since Trump started waving around his pardon powers almost as soon as he started, Mueller seems pretty clear that’s a thing that can happen and seems to be planning accordingly, and Cohen seems like someone who has been in the middle of great deal of peculiar money shuffling around. If those antics result in state-level problems, Trump’s pardon may not be very useful to him.

  185. 185.

    satby

    July 2, 2018 at 1:51 pm

    @MoxieM: to be fair, some of what these guys are describing is abusive behaviour and menopause isn’t an excuse to be abusive no matter how much it may feel like it is. If this stuff was directed at children instead of men it would be fairly obvious.

    And this blog has always been a semi-safe space for people to vent about problems in their lives.

  186. 186.

    Marigold

    July 2, 2018 at 1:55 pm

    @rikyrah: I’m in tears. I work in that town. There were protests here and at the closest customs office on Saturday.

  187. 187.

    hitchhiker

    July 2, 2018 at 1:55 pm

    @jager, what you’re describing here sounds like it might be more than just menopause. More than a year of abusive and irrational acting out? I’d go talk to somebody … whatever is happening is not right. She hates you b/c you’re an actual misogynist jerk? Needs to be dealt with. Her hormones are so out of control that she’s in a state of temporary insanity? You deserve support. Some unknowable (to any of us!) combination of the above? Still needs to be dealt with, in a professional context.

    Take it seriously.

    Context: I do peer support for families of newly disabled folks. It’s very common for spouses and kids and caregivers to think their (very real) compassion for their injured loved ones means taking whatever abuse comes their way. But ill and injured people — while they do (and should) get lots of leeway — do not have a license to torment those around them. Your situation is different because the assumption is that this is all a temporary deal that will naturally resolve by itself at some point … but in the meantime I really hope you’ll find someone to talk to.

  188. 188.

    Mnemosyne

    July 2, 2018 at 1:56 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    They have these things now called “pet-friendly” hotels. You can bring the pets with you.

  189. 189.

    Jager

    July 2, 2018 at 2:01 pm

    @MoxieM:

    What the hell are you talking about? Are you implying that I don’t know women have full human rights? About 90% of the time I take my wife’s (or maybe I should say full life, equal partner, because that’s what we are) reactions with a smile and many grains of salt. 10% of the time she scares the shit out of me. Her 75 year old aunt took her aside during a recent visit and told her she’s acting like an asshole. Counseling, we’ve been there. Her doc suggested mood altering medication, she won’t take it because she has to drive and be on her toes with her clients. Wine? She’s fine with two glasses, 3 watch out. And she reads this blog. She knows how I feel and that I love her. I know once she is finished with this she’ll be her old self again. And magically I won’t be treated like her 13 year old son anymore. I got the 13 year son thing from a guy i was in group counseling with. A group of retired executives dealing with the bullshit you go through when you retire and begin the fast slide down the self esteem scale.

  190. 190.

    sukabi

    July 2, 2018 at 2:03 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Giuliani wants you to hold his beer.

  191. 191.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 2, 2018 at 2:23 pm

    @efgoldman:

    this on a blog where some regulars give us every damned detail of their medical problems.

    Some even post pictures of them.

  192. 192.

    Mnemosyne

    July 2, 2018 at 2:27 pm

    @Jager:

    You may need to get some solo counseling to figure out some strategies for setting up new boundaries with her, because it sounds like what you’re doing isn’t working.

  193. 193.

    MisterForkbeard

    July 2, 2018 at 2:35 pm

    @MoxieM: I get what you’re saying here, but the hormonal adjustments during menopause are a huge thing and several women I know who went through it believe they were sometimes emotional at that time. I don’t see an issue with repeating that.

    And yes, some men can stand to be better husbands. Is anyone debating that?

  194. 194.

    jacy

    July 2, 2018 at 2:36 pm

    @Jager:

    Has she been evaluated for bipolar depression? I say that because I was recently diagnosed as Bipolar II — which stemmed from PTSD from the life events of 4 years ago. It was something that developed since my ovarian cancer surgery, which put me through instant menopause. Whatever happened with my brain chemicals due to stress, anxiety, menopause, and the other hormonal shifts, let me unable to cope, and my “mania” often exhibited as anger. I would become angry over very small things, and sometimes lash out. And a lot of it was my frustration with my own emotions, which I seemed to have no control over. And that’s with three years of weekly psychotherapy. It took a while to find a drug cocktail that makes my life livable, and even that still needs to be adjusted often. It would be something to consider. Do you have a good GP who she can talk to?

  195. 195.

    California Stars

    July 2, 2018 at 2:41 pm

    @Spanky: I was wondering this too. Am looking forward to the many joys of menopause in my near future, but did not realize that groin pain was one of them.

  196. 196.

    satby

    July 2, 2018 at 2:49 pm

    @Jager: hang in there, and maybe get counseling for you without her. “10% of the time she scares me” isn’t right in any relationship. I get her not wanting to take medication, but it could really make her more comfortable and life less stressful all around. Whether she realizes it or not, she’s probably having anger episodes at the kids or co-workers too. You may think you can tough it out, but what other emotional damage might be going on?
    And if your wife is reading: sister, yes, it sucks and makes living in your own skin hell, but help is available and it may be time to reconsider it. No reason for you and your family to suffer.

  197. 197.

    zhena gogolia

    July 2, 2018 at 2:50 pm

    @California Stars:

    That’s a new one on me.

  198. 198.

    Yutsano

    July 2, 2018 at 2:51 pm

    @Marigold: My favourite protest story: Antler, North Dakota. Population 27. 15 came out to protest. Now THAT’S something. And it makes me wonder if Heitkamp isn’t all that worried.

  199. 199.

    California Stars

    July 2, 2018 at 2:56 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Finally got it after reading through the thread. Femoral artery=groin=good place to put an ice pack when you’re hot.

    Good to know.

  200. 200.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 3:05 pm

    Atrios is pushing the vid too:

    First push.

    Second push.

    I guess no one told him.

  201. 201.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 3:12 pm

    And two gratuitous bonus links:

    Jill Abramson on the “narcissistic New York Times”

    and:

    Roy Edroso: Because they suck.

    Speaking of libertarians, at Reason Peter Suderman tries to compare Ocasio-Cortez’ big media moment to the days when “many in the media saw [Dave] Brat’s victory [over Eric Cantor] as a sign that the Tea Party was winning—that the crony-corporatist, big-government-loving wing of the Republican Party was losing out to a libertarian insurgency… Even The New York Times thought so.” Regular readers will remember this as the alleged “libertarian moment” that won the alicublog prize for Bullshit of the Year in 2014. And now the time gives it proof, as all Republicans, including alleged freemarket cultists, march behind the blood-and-soil banner of Trump, which Suderman seems to think is a big own of Ocasio-Cortez. Except she’s offering things like Medicare For All and guaranteed employment, which are either the preference of most Americans or on their way to being it, while Suderman is offering the destruction of Social Security, Medicare, and the minimum wage, and the direct rule of rich bastards, which even morons don’t want. Of course the New York Times kvelled over libertarians — for the same reason they didn’t even bother covering Ocasio-Cortez’ campaign: Because they suck.

    Both from last week. Apologies if they’ve already been posted.

  202. 202.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 2, 2018 at 3:24 pm

    @Dev Null: Without context for what “First Times” is, it’s a non disclosure. At least it does give you a chance to google “First Times” and find out it’s fundie horseshit.

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    July 2, 2018 at 4:05 pm

    @rikyrah:
    Not a family that I want to have any thing/contact with in any way shape or form.
    O
    If that moron likes that family he needs to be investigated for the sake of anyone he might have any human or animal contact with.

  204. 204.

    prostratedragon

    July 2, 2018 at 4:18 pm

    @Jeffro: Tee-hee, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice

  205. 205.

    Mike in Pasadena

    July 2, 2018 at 5:13 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: No, it was more important to chase him out of office. Purity, doncha know.

  206. 206.

    Dev Null

    July 2, 2018 at 6:36 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: OK, I grant you that.

    The name was sufficiently familiar that I was pretty sure of the con, but I admit that I went to wiki to make sure.

  207. 207.

    J R in WV

    July 2, 2018 at 11:12 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Maybe you should go buy a window AC for your bedroom? A Big one!!??

  208. 208.

    MoxieM

    July 2, 2018 at 11:25 pm

    Allow me to refer you to the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, an interdisciplinary organization dedicated to “guidance, expertise, and ethical considerations for those interested in the menstrual cycle.”

    It might help with some facts about menopause, for those with (and without) ovaries. Me, I have one, TMI.

    I also have C-PTSD. (more TMI)

    I sincerely consider claims of “I have daughters” etc to be unhelpful in discussions of interpersonal violence, and repeated denigration of a female partner wherein her scary/crappy/annoying/inconvenient behavior is ascribed to hormones. Even if it IS her hormones, it reeks of sexism. Sorry if that’s hard for you to recognize.

    I hope you have more comfortable lives; when things reach the rage or suicide level it sure is unpleasant. (Me, I live with chronic pain, trauma, and a bunch of other shit, but I generally keep it to myself. On the other hand, I have Murphy the magical wonder dog in my life. Alas, she can’t drive, yet.) People here often do let loose about their personal lives, but ranting in an aggressive and violent way about somebody who isn’t (here) is shitty.

  209. 209.

    J R in WV

    July 2, 2018 at 11:46 pm

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    So I want to know the brand name of the AC that still worked OK after being dropped 8 feet!?!?!?!

    Seriously, that rocks. Built solid, like a Rock!

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