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You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / His Picture Is NOT In The Dictionary Next To “Good Lawyer”

His Picture Is NOT In The Dictionary Next To “Good Lawyer”

by Tom Levenson|  December 19, 201811:37 am| 160 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift, Republican Venality, Bring on the Brawndo!, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue, Not Normal, Schadenfreude, Sociopaths

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The incredible unveiling of Rudy Giuliani, Ace Defense Counsel™ continues apace, as Talking Points Memo documents:

After Giuliani claimed on Sunday that Trump never signed a letter of intent for the project, CNN obtained a copy of the letter, which contained Trump’s signature. [link in the original]

Chris Cuomo actually had the gall, the infinite gall, to brandish the signed letter, complete w. Donald Trump’s self-implicating scrawl, on live camera!  What’s an Ace Defense Counsel™ to do?

Never fear, never flinch, and always remember the last refuge of the fidelity-challenged: “who you going to believe, me, or your lying eyes.”

In the interview with the Daily News, Giuliani refused to acknowledge that he told CNN Sunday that “no one signed the letter.”

“I don’t think I said nobody signed it,” Giuliani told the Daily News.

Ummm.  Rudy.  There is videotape!

Anyway, says Ace Defense Counsel™, what’s a little light conflict of interest.  Seriously, folks, what do you expect a perpetually-skating-the-edge-of-bankruptcy to do?  And who the f**k cares anyway?

But Giuliani argued during an interview with New York Daily News that the letter is “bullshit because it didn’t go anywhere.” [link in the original]

According to this line of analysis by our Ace Defense Counsel™, if an attempted coition fails to reach fruition, it don’t count.   That is, one can remain mostly virginal, as long as you don’t fully enjoy yourself.

This is funny.  It really is.  It would be more so, of course, if it wasn’t so damn serious, if this weren’t the state of affairs that emerges when small time and stupid crooks wield enormous power.

But even as we live in fear for our selves, our republic, and the world…we can still take unfeigned pleasure at the sight of Rudy Noun-Verb-911 Giuliani showing himself to everyone being what New Yorkers have known for a long time: a Flatbush fugazi.
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Images:  Jean de Paleologu, Poster for Loïe Fuller at the Folies Bergère, 1897.
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Albrecht Cuyp, Cows in a River, c. 1650
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Reader Interactions

160Comments

  1. 1.

    Yarrow

    December 19, 2018 at 11:39 am

    But his picture is probably in the dictionary next to “Criminal.” Possibly also “Felon.” Maybe even “Traitor.”

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    December 19, 2018 at 11:46 am

    @Yarrow:
    Rudy G’s picture is definitely in the dictionary next to “Comical ineptitude”.

  3. 3.

    Schlemazel

    December 19, 2018 at 11:55 am

    cut him some slack – he is doing the best he can given the client. He chose this to be his last moment in the spotlight and, like an actor way past his prime who takes a crappy role simply to feel the rush one last time, he is getting his fix.

  4. 4.

    bemused

    December 19, 2018 at 11:55 am

    Rudy just opens his mouth and twaddle gushes out. Trump must think Rudy is doing a great job or he wouldn’t let Rudy give interviews helping dig Trump even further down a hole.

    Rudy is a disgusting, ridiculous man. I can’t believe he managed to get three women to marry him.

  5. 5.

    Raven Onthill

    December 19, 2018 at 11:57 am

    Just another damn white male mediocrity, who turns out to have been coasting on popularity and privilege

  6. 6.

    germy

    December 19, 2018 at 11:58 am

    “I don’t think I said nobody signed it,” Giuliani told the Daily News.

    At this point it wouldn’t surprise me if he really didn’t remember saying it.

    If a man spouts lies morning noon and night, how is he expected to remember every word?

  7. 7.

    germy

    December 19, 2018 at 11:59 am

    @bemused:

    Rudy is a disgusting, ridiculous man. I can’t believe he managed to get three women to marry him

    He’s no incel, I’ll give him that.

  8. 8.

    Mary G

    December 19, 2018 at 12:01 pm

    Tucker Carlson is another person who is learning the hard way that not everything can be said in the era of Twitler without consequences:

    UPDATE: 17 companies have pulled their ads from Tucker Carlson's show:Pacific Life, Indeed, Smile Direct Club, Bowflex, Nerd Wallet, Zenni Optical, United Explorer, ScotteVest, Just For Men, Land Rover, Voya, Ancestry, Minted, CareerBuilder, Takeda, IHOP, SodaStream— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 19, 2018

    His defense for saying that immigrants make America look dirtier is that they leave so much trash around the border. What a schmuck.

  9. 9.

    germy

    December 19, 2018 at 12:03 pm

    @Mary G:

    “An outrage!”
    – Glenn Greenwald

  10. 10.

    Cermet

    December 19, 2018 at 12:06 pm

    Does it ever get better then that? Really – the very next day proof that not only did the lawyer lie, but that his client had massive motivation to collude and at the time it really mattered?

  11. 11.

    Kraux Pas

    December 19, 2018 at 12:10 pm

    @Mary G:

    UPDATE: 17 companies have pulled their ads from Tucker Carlson’s show:Pacific Life, Indeed, Smile Direct Club, Bowflex, Nerd Wallet, Zenni Optical, United Explorer, ScotteVest, Just For Men, Land Rover, Voya, Ancestry, Minted, CareerBuilder, Takeda, IHOP, SodaStream— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 19, 2018

    His defense for saying that immigrants make America look dirtier is that they leave so much trash around the border. What a schmuck.

    What’s their defense for advertising on Tucker Carlson thus far? He’s been a racist liar for as long as I’ve known who he is.

  12. 12.

    LAO

    December 19, 2018 at 12:10 pm

    You know, when he was US Attorney, Giuliani ruthlessly pursued white collar criminal convictions (many of which were overturned on appeal). I find this new “is that even a crime” Rudy to be very disconcerting.

    ETA: he was also an authoritative prick as Mayor with his “broken windows” fixation.

  13. 13.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2018 at 12:13 pm

    I had to LOL watching the segment with Cuomo. When he showed Dolt45’s chickenscratch signature,…..

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA AH

    Had to come from Cohen.

  14. 14.

    Hildebrand

    December 19, 2018 at 12:13 pm

    Maybe Rudy is just pulling an elaborate con on Trump. Some kind of long-form revenge for some long-ago slight that has eaten at him all these years. So, he cozies up to Trump, works his way into his confidence (not hard, it only takes a simpering compliment or two), and then slowly but surely destroys Trump, one incompetent interview at a time. All the while, Trump, oblivious as always, doesn’t see it coming until Rudy drops the last veil.

  15. 15.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    December 19, 2018 at 12:14 pm

    But Giuliani argued during an interview with New York Daily News that the letter is “bullshit because it didn’t go anywhere.” [link in the original]

    Perpetually moving the goalposts.

  16. 16.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    @Mary G:
    When you’ve lost Smile Direct Club….

  17. 17.

    zhena gogolia

    December 19, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    @Hildebrand:

    You really give Rudy too much credit.

  18. 18.

    The Dangerman

    December 19, 2018 at 12:20 pm

    @Mary G:

    ….that they leave so much trash around the border.

    More jobs for people with a rake. We’ll have to pay the rakers, so we’ll have to raise taxes on people like Carlson, of course.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    December 19, 2018 at 12:22 pm

    I assume that this is laying the ground for the next line of defense, that as a person visibly suffering from incipient dementia, Trump can’t really be said to have “knowingly” done anything up to and including treason.

  20. 20.

    Hildebrand

    December 19, 2018 at 12:22 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Oh, I know. Rudy is dumb as a post, and can’t plan far enough ahead to get dinner reservations. That said, even my fervent imaginings of yet another of the Orange One’s inner-circle turning on him (even if for self-preservation) makes me smile.

  21. 21.

    germy

    December 19, 2018 at 12:23 pm


    Blackwater security guard convicted in 2007 Iraqi civilian massacre at third U.S. trial

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/blackwater-security-guard-convicted-in-2007-iraqi-civilian-massacre-at-third-us-trial/2018/12/19/e8b3d8ac-fd5f-11e8-ad40-cdfd0e0dd65a_story.html?utm_term=.c184a61defb7

  22. 22.

    dmsilev

    December 19, 2018 at 12:23 pm

    @The Dangerman: As a serial adulterer, Trump could fairly be described as a rake. Perhaps we could use him to clean the border? It’d be probably the only honest work he’s ever done in his whole life.

  23. 23.

    Felanius Kootea

    December 19, 2018 at 12:24 pm

    @Hildebrand: No, there is no long con or n-dimensional chess going on here. These are spectacularly incompetent men and I shudder to think that we have a gaggle of them in DC, running the largest economy in the world into the ground for the short-term benefit of a few billionaires.

  24. 24.

    jl

    December 19, 2018 at 12:24 pm

    A question for informed commenters or poster who happens by.
    There is a lot about the Trump scandals I don’t understand, and many parts I think I understand but don’t make sense.
    I understand the Trump Foundation scandal. I don’t understand how the Trump Russian hotel scandal.was supposed to work as a payoff from Russia, even as a small part of any supposed deal Trump was making with Putin.

    Suppose the deal went through. Isn’t the whole thing too out in the open to be anything but a huge problem for Trump?
    Was this going to be an official Trump property, with ‘Trump’ in big gold letters on the damn thing? Or was it going to be some random huge and classy hotel in Moscow, with the connection to Trump hidden, that Trump mysteriously obsessed over and insisted everyone doing business between the US and Russia stayed at?

    Why would he lie at all about such a huge deal, that seems to have a vastly inflated return to him compared to his other hotel deals that he has done recently? What did he imagine would happen after the thing opened? That no one would notice it?

    The only explanation I can think of is that Trump planned to lose and then no one would care. That would paint a pic of Trump trying to grift off Putin while Putin was trying to use Trump for the purpose of disrupting US policy. The whole thing seems senseless and stupid. If the inflated return for Trump was part of his payoff, and supposing he won, wouldn’t you want any part of the payoff much more hidden?

    What am I not getting about this Trump Moscow hotel deal? It just seems unimaginably stupid and counterproductive to have continued it once he started his campaign. Maybe Trump thought he could step immediately into dictator of the US mode upon taking office and he could just tell everyone to get off his back about it, and that would happen?

  25. 25.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    December 19, 2018 at 12:25 pm

    @LAO: This makes perfect sense when you consider that Rudy is of the “there is a class the law protects but doesn’t bind, and a class the law binds but does not protect” school of justice theory.

  26. 26.

    LAO

    December 19, 2018 at 12:25 pm

    @Hildebrand: @dmsilev: There is no “offense” or strategy to the Trump Legal Team — all that they are doing is “reacting” — which is why they’re always on their heels and engaging in never ending, constantly evolving spin. It’s very bad lawyering.

  27. 27.

    SFAW

    December 19, 2018 at 12:26 pm

    @Hildebrand:

    Back in early 2016, I (foolishly, as it turned out) speculated that Shitgibbon was running so that he could get to the RNC convention, get up on stage, and say something like “You stupid, racist assholes! I was spouting that shit during the campaign, just to show how screwed up and un-American this party is. So, yeah, I’ll run on your ticket, but I sure as hell ain’t going to implement your platform.”

    I ran this by my brother, a New York native/resident, and his response was “Nah, Trump’s just an asshole.” So I said 100 Ave Marias and 100 Pater nosters, and never considered that idiotic hypothesis again.

    This is my long-winded way of saying: “No, Rudy is just a lying, adulterous, racist, grifting, possibly-treasonous asshole.” And he pretty much always has been.

  28. 28.

    Hungry Joe

    December 19, 2018 at 12:27 pm

    @Schlemazel: I figure Rudy’s still compensating for Steven Van Zandt’s beating him out for the role of Silvio.

  29. 29.

    jonas

    December 19, 2018 at 12:28 pm

    It used to be considered humiliating and, well, bad form, to go on tv regularly and beclown yourself like this. For anybody, much less a former prosecutor and politician. The ability to go around in public spraying bullshit everywhere and not be shunned from polite company the rest of your life is possibly the worst thing bequeathed to our country by Trump and his idiot cultist followers.

  30. 30.

    The Dangerman

    December 19, 2018 at 12:28 pm

    @dmsilev:

    ….Trump could fairly be described as a rake.

    So he’s an expert on rakes and hoes, then.

  31. 31.

    gene108

    December 19, 2018 at 12:30 pm

    After Giuliani claimed on Sunday that Trump never signed a letter of intent for the project, CNN obtained a copy of the letter, which contained Trump’s signature. [link in the original]

    Clearly the signature is a forgery and is part of a plot to get Rudy in a perjury trap.

  32. 32.

    Cheryl Rofer

    December 19, 2018 at 12:33 pm

    @jl: You are touching on something that I noticed while I was working through the Steele dossier again. There is an assumption around that Trump owes Putin in some way for the deals, outside of whatever sexual kompromat the Kremlin may hold on him. But everything that is reported in the dossier, with the exception of one thing, is Trump trying to cozy up to Putin. The one exception is the offer to Trump through Carter Page, of a commission (or something) on the sale of part of Rosneft.

    Trump has been intrigued by Russia since at least the late 1980s. I hope to write more about that. He looks up to Putin.

    Why does Trump lie? Isn’t this a senseless and stupid deal? Those are the continuing questions, and I think the Dunning-Kruger hypothesis may have some answers.

  33. 33.

    SFAW

    December 19, 2018 at 12:35 pm

    @jl:

    It just seems unimaginably stupid and counterproductive to have continued it once he started his campaign.

    Considering all the unimaginably stupid things Lying Littledick has done since 11/9/16, I’m puzzled why you would think that he wouldn’t have done other unimaginably stupid things.

    Maybe Trump thought he could step into dictator of the US mode upon taking office and he could just tell everyone to get off his back about it, and that would happen?

    Gee, do dictators try to use their private police force to go after their political opponents? Because that’s one of Shitgibbon’s preferred “modalities.” Fortunately, he hasn’t been able to get that to happen as much as he’d like.

  34. 34.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2018 at 12:36 pm

    @jl:

    Suppose the deal went through. Isn’t the whole thing too out in the open to be anything but a huge problem for Trump?

    I agree that there’s something here that doesn’t add up, because a Trump property in Russia would be a big headache for Trump as president. That leaves three plausible explanations:

    1) He was really dumb and didn’t think about the consequences.
    2) He never expected to win the election and thought having a property in Russia wouldn’t be a problem for private citizen Trump.
    3) He thought his power as president would let him shut down any investigation into his wrongdoing.

    There’s at least some evidence for each of the three hypotheses.

  35. 35.

    SFAW

    December 19, 2018 at 12:37 pm

    @gene108:

    Clearly the signature is a forgery

    Forged by either Hitlary, or Robert Mueller, or George Soros, or James Comey, or Judge Sullivan.

  36. 36.

    raven

    December 19, 2018 at 12:37 pm

    If you haven’t seen Michelle Obama and Fallon ambushing people on the 30 Rock Elevator do yourself a favor.

  37. 37.

    japa21

    December 19, 2018 at 12:40 pm

    @jl:

    It just seems unimaginably stupid and counterproductive to have continued it once he started his campaign.

    That can be said about most things connected to Trump.

    Actually, I don’t think Trump, or even Putin, expected Trump to win. Putin actually had to spend very little to get the results he wanted, so if Trump lost, it would have been no big loss for Putin. Plus, it still would have hobbled Clinton and created a major mess, which was his main goal.

  38. 38.

    catclub

    December 19, 2018 at 12:43 pm

    @LAO:

    ruthlessly pursued white collar criminal convictions (many of which were overturned on appeal).

    I thought the trick that Chris Christie did was not have a fine, but the defendant has to pay for ‘monitoring of compliance’ and the DA picks the lawyer – his friend – to get paid for monitoring. Wasn’t Christie under Giuliani fora while?

  39. 39.

    PJ

    December 19, 2018 at 12:44 pm

    @jl: From the reporting at the time, it was pretty clear that Trump never expected to be President (he was reportedly shocked when he found out that he was winning on election night), and it’s definitely the case that he doesn’t want to do the job of President. Running for President was just one grift in a career of fraud and con jobs, and he clearly saw it as a vehicle to raise his brand profile and to enrich himself, not just with a Moscow Trump Tower, but, as President, with using transition funds for himself and, most likely, inauguration funds as well, and all the foreign money being specifically directed at his hotel and resort properties (and small shit like charging the Secret Service exorbitant amounts to protect Melania and Baron in New York). And, of course, there was that percentage of Rosneft that he was supposed to get for lifting sanctions on Russia and letting the Exxon deal go through.

    You have to understand that Trump has no shame, and no compunction when it comes to making money. If the Moscow Trump Hotel deal had gone through, he would have just said, “oh, I don’t have anything to do with that, Don Jr. is in charge of that now,” and the Republicans would go along with it without a peep. Short of a live boy or a dead girl, there is no crime he could commit that the GOP would not support.

  40. 40.

    feebog

    December 19, 2018 at 12:45 pm

    @jl:

    What am I not getting about this Trump Moscow hotel deal? It just seems unimaginably stupid and counterproductive to have continued it once he started his campaign. Maybe Trump thought he could step immediately into dictator of the US mode upon taking office and he could just tell everyone to get off his back about it, and that would happen?

    I think you answered your own question; Trump never expected to win. This is why the transition was so woefully inadequate, why prepare for an administration when you are not going to win?

  41. 41.

    LAO

    December 19, 2018 at 12:46 pm

    @jl: While I fully believe that Trump never expected to win the election; I think what we are seeing with respect to the Russian deal and all of his compulsive, serial lying, is partly a product of a 72 year old man who has lived a consequence free life. He has never faced any negative consequences for his fraudulent behavior. I think he simply can’t comprehend that he should face any — it’s really remarkable.

  42. 42.

    catclub

    December 19, 2018 at 12:46 pm

    @SFAW: If your life is a lie, then isn’t every signature of yours a forgery?

  43. 43.

    PaulWartenberg

    December 19, 2018 at 12:46 pm

    Okay, very much off-topic, but can someone explain to me what bug is up Glenn Greenwald’s butt this morning? Something about boycotts? I don’t know where the argument started, only that it’s up to the point where GG is misquoting Martin Luther King Jr…

  44. 44.

    LAO

    December 19, 2018 at 12:48 pm

    @catclub: As far as I know Christie was a US Attorney in New Jersey, not an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York.

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2018 at 12:49 pm

    @raven:

    That was a treat! Thanks!

  46. 46.

    LAO

    December 19, 2018 at 12:49 pm

    @PaulWartenberg: As far as I can decipher, GG is equating boycotts with censorship.

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2018 at 12:50 pm

    @catclub:

    Wasn’t Christie under Giuliani fora while?

    Phrasing!

  48. 48.

    Mary G

    December 19, 2018 at 12:50 pm

    I am becoming quite the fan girl of Judge Sullivan, who lacerated Michael Flynn yesterday:

    BREAKING: Judge Emmet Sullivan isn't done this week, striking down most of AG Sessions' move to heighten standards for "credible fear" asylum determinations and order the return of those deported under that policy. pic.twitter.com/KuCELoasoV— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) December 19, 2018

  49. 49.

    Mary G

    December 19, 2018 at 12:53 pm

    @PaulWartenberg: GG likes attention and doesn’t want to lose any of it. He is a frequent guest on Tucker Carlson’s show, which is hemorrhaging advertisers because people are upset that Tucker said immigrants make America dirtier, among other things.

  50. 50.

    Archon

    December 19, 2018 at 12:54 pm

    @jl:

    There is a Hitler quote in which basically he says, “If you win, you no longer have to explain yourself and if you lose there is nothing to explain”.

    I honestly think Trump figured that if he lost nobody would bother or care about his dealings with the Russians. And if he won nobody would be able to hold him accountable for it.

  51. 51.

    Cheryl Rofer

    December 19, 2018 at 12:54 pm

    The more detailed hot takes on Syria are now emerging, and some of them are pretty good, but I am stepping back from that until we see if Trump’s desires/ fantasies override other considerations. Maybe 24 hours.

  52. 52.

    Wapiti

    December 19, 2018 at 12:55 pm

    @jl:

    The only explanation I can think of is that Trump planned to lose and then no one would care.

    This would be my guess. If Turnip expected to lose, he still could have made impressions on Putin by making changes to the Republican platform wrt no support for Ukraine, etc. He was supporting Russia to make a gain in a personal business venture

  53. 53.

    laura

    December 19, 2018 at 12:55 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: The one exception is the offer to Trump through Carter Page, of a commission (or something) on the sale of part of Rosneft.
    I’ve heard that the selection of Rex Tillerson was in anticipation of the sale and the opening up of drilling in the Arctic.

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    December 19, 2018 at 12:57 pm

    @raven: That was fun!

  55. 55.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 19, 2018 at 12:59 pm

    @jl: I think Trump very strongly expected to lose, though he wasn’t playing to lose. He probably figured that in the unlikely event that he won, he’d be King and could do as he liked– past Presidents just didn’t act like that because they were big wusses.

    So, a combination of a couple of your hypotheses. Yes, he expected to lose and yes, he’s also very stupid.

  56. 56.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    December 19, 2018 at 12:59 pm

    @jl:

    Was this going to be an official Trump property, with ‘Trump’ in big gold letters on the damn thing?

    Is there any other kind?

  57. 57.

    SFAW

    December 19, 2018 at 1:02 pm

    @catclub:

    If your life is a lie, then isn’t every signature of yours a forgery?

    And THAT is why I got my degree in engineering, not philosophy.

    Is that one like “If Lying Littledick says he’s smart and in the best shape of any athlete EVAH, and none of his minions dispute that, then do we believe him, or our lying eyes?”

  58. 58.

    PJ

    December 19, 2018 at 1:05 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Trump lies because he has always lied, and it is a deeply ingrained habit, but he made it a habit because the truth is painful to him, and living with it would mean acknowledging that he is dishonest, unreliable, stupid, incompetent, petty, mean, disgusting, vile, unlikeable, completely self-serving, and that he has no friends, and the only people that respect him are even worse creatures than he is.

    Re Russia, if you read about Churkin and the other operatives cultivating Trump in the 80’s, Trump talks about how much they admire him and how much they want him to build a hotel in Moscow. This was under Gorbachev, but it’s still the Soviet Union, the most powerful Communist country in the world – they were never going to make a deal with Trump to build anything in Moscow. Trump was not a hard person to read, and they saw that the way to manipulate him was by appealing to his vanity and his greed. I assume they also now have kompromat on him, but they probably didn’t need that in the beginning to get him to put full page ads in major US newspapers advocating that the US abandon Japan and its other allies. They just said, “Hey, I don’t get it, isn’t the US being ripped off by these free-loading allies? Why do you guys put up with that? Doesn’t seem like a smart deal to me. They should be paying you!” Which is what Trump always thinks: they should be paying me!

    The other thing, of course, is that Trump has no loyalty to anyone or anything but himself, so as long as, in Adam’s terms, he is “treated fairly”, he has no scruples about betraying the US, or anyone.

  59. 59.

    ruemara

    December 19, 2018 at 1:05 pm

    @PaulWartenberg: Boycotting racists is anti-free speech, according to a guy who won’t acknowledge that the people he’s championing would toss him in jail at the first opportunity. Just Glenn being Glenn.

    Based on the courting that Russia has done to Trump & vice versa, plus his explorations of running going back decades, I dismiss the idea that he didn’t plan to win. You don’t cheat & make deals to cheat when you don’t plan to win. Him being surprised it worked is more likely. He definitely felt that being president would allow him to prevent any investigations, use the force of the DOJ against his enemies and generally get him adored by all once his magnificence was revealed.

  60. 60.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2018 at 1:06 pm

    @Mary G:

    He is a frequent guest on Tucker Carlson’s show, which is hemorrhaging advertisers because people are upset that Tucker said immigrants make America dirtier, among other things.

    I can understand why GG would dislike the implication that anyone associated with Tucker Carlson is endorsing white supremacy. And in typical GG fashion, he’s focusing on attacking everyone else rather than engaging in any kind of introspection on the matter.

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2018 at 1:10 pm

    His Picture is NOT in the Dictionary Next to “Good Speaker of the House.” Paul “Wonk” Ryan delivers his farewell address in a few, per the WaPost website, which has a link.

    The WaPost has been trying, I guess, to flog the notion he was a good Speaker. Or a principled one. Or … something. I dunno. I did not actually read this Robert Costa (“Republican whisperer”) and Mike DeBonis article.

    ‘He was the future of the party’: Ryan’s farewell triggers debate about his legacy

    House Speaker Paul D. Ryan is using his final weeks in Congress to leave a lasting image of a brainy conservative warrior for lower taxes, free markets and a more muscular America abroad — in public appearances, a taxpayer-funded online video series and a farewell address set for Wednesday.

    But after two decades in the House and three years as speaker, the Wisconsin Republican’s long-term legacy is already a matter of fierce debate inside his own party …

    ….. Politically, the picture is just as bleak, according to a bloc of Ryan’s former fellow-travelers in the conservative intellectual sphere. His brand of aspirational conservatism has shown little currency in the face of President Trump’s brash populism, and November’s midterms put an exclamation point on Ryan’s efforts to insulate the GOP from Trump: Republicans lost 40 seats, their worst showing in 44 years, and relinquished the House majority.

    Because they are the same damn thing, brainiacs.

    Paul Krugman had Ryan’s number as a flim flammer from the outset. So, didn’t read the article but I sure enjoyed cruising the top rated reader comments. They weren’t having any of it.

  62. 62.

    A Ghost To Most

    December 19, 2018 at 1:10 pm

    The word is “fuck”, not “f**k”, not “phuck”. If you’re going to use it, have the courage to spell it correctly. The same goes for “shit”, and “god”.

  63. 63.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    December 19, 2018 at 1:12 pm

    @ruemara:

    I dismiss the idea that he didn’t plan to win.

    Of course he planned to win, but maybe that didn’t include the Presidency. If he lost there was more opportunity for money in having Trump TV.

  64. 64.

    James E Powell

    December 19, 2018 at 1:15 pm

    @SFAW:

    “No, Rudy is just a lying, adulterous, racist, grifting, possibly-treasonous asshole.” And he pretty much always has been.

    But he just happened to be the mayor of NYC on 9/11 so the press/media created “America’s Mayor” and gave him attributes that he never had, honors that he never earned, and a license to lie on TV that has no expiration date. He’s been living off that ever since.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2018 at 1:17 pm

    Wow, yesterday’s announcement about the Trump Foundation has the Twitterer-in-Chief more ranty and agitated even than usual! He has three raving tweets up (or one long tweet in three section). They must be getting very, very, VERY close.

    Tick tock.

  66. 66.

    Ruckus

    December 19, 2018 at 1:18 pm

    @jl:
    Individual 1 was not running for the office you think he was.
    He was running for King of the World. I believe it has dawned on him that that’s not the election that was stolen for him.

  67. 67.

    Van Buren

    December 19, 2018 at 1:19 pm

    @The Dangerman: Plus, that way they won’t have forest fires.

  68. 68.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2018 at 1:19 pm

    @A Ghost To Most:
    “That’s ‘God’ to you, mortal.”

    –You know who

  69. 69.

    D.W. Gregory

    December 19, 2018 at 1:19 pm

    @Kraux Pas: He has an audience of fellow racists who buy crap. That’s why he gets advertisers.

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    December 19, 2018 at 1:19 pm

    @LAO:
    Its very bad humaning as well.

  71. 71.

    Tom Levenson

    December 19, 2018 at 1:20 pm

    @A Ghost To Most: I’m sixty years old, raised by an English woman who had strong views about how to cloak one’s epithets (she used them, but stiletto-like, not bludgeoning).

    So fuck you and the horse you rode in on if you don’t like the way I talk or write.

    We good now?

  72. 72.

    Wapiti

    December 19, 2018 at 1:20 pm

    @catclub:

    If your life is a lie, then isn’t every signature of yours a forgery?

    This was the subject of my retirement speech when I left the Army. Because of a paperwork fuck-up, I was told to sign my commissioning oath and date it for the following week. So the very first official act of my career was a fraud. The next 20 years was based on a lie.

  73. 73.

    jl

    December 19, 2018 at 1:21 pm

    @A Ghost To Most: G*d dammitall to sht and fvckitall, don’t tell us how to k*&#!@@&!@**!ss.

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2018 at 1:21 pm

    @jl:
    Another possibility worth considering is that Trump was thinking in terms of contingency planning, where one thing would happen if he won the election and a different one if he lost. It’s not as if he had completed the negotiations for the Moscow property by the time the election rolled around. If he lost, he’d be free to continue the project, maybe presenting a fig leaf that he had given up on the negotiations during the election and gone back to them after the loss. If he won, he might have to abandon the project, but there would be so many other possibilities for making money from his office that losing out on one project, even one that big, wouldn’t be a big deal.

  75. 75.

    jimmiraybob

    December 19, 2018 at 1:22 pm

    Once the Trump Cartel gets it all boiled down to “crime is not really crime and thusly, ergo, also too, et voila, criminals aren’t criminal” I’m going into crime to augment the SS. Are there any good “How to get Started” books out there?

  76. 76.

    bemused

    December 19, 2018 at 1:22 pm

    @raven:
    Oh man, I just get happy, smiley when I see anything with Michelle or Barack especially when they are doing something fun. It’s a rush of normalcy!

  77. 77.

    jonas

    December 19, 2018 at 1:22 pm

    @japa21:

    Plus, it still would have hobbled Clinton and created a major mess, which was his main goal.

    I think this is exactly right. Trump wanted to expand his business into Russia, so was running his campaign basically as a way of networking with a bunch of Russian oligarchs with cozy relationships with the Kremlin, and Putin saw him as a useful idiot for crippling a potential Clinton presidency. I think both were a bit shocked when he won. Thanks, Comey.

  78. 78.

    zhena gogolia

    December 19, 2018 at 1:24 pm

    @raven:

    Ooh, so great!

  79. 79.

    Tom_23

    December 19, 2018 at 1:25 pm

    Would this be step 3 or 4 of the Four Dog Defense? (I leaning towards 3)
    1. First of all, I don’t have a dog.
    2. And if I had a dog, it doesn’t bite.
    3. And if I had a dog and it did bite, then it didn’t bite you.
    4. And if I had a dog and it did bite, and it bit you, then you provoked the dog.”

    I recently was made aware of this tactic and now I see it in much of the disinformation that exists in the MSM.

  80. 80.

    zhena gogolia

    December 19, 2018 at 1:26 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    And if Franken hadn’t lured Sessions into the trap so that he had to recuse himself, it just might have worked. (May still work, actually.)

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2018 at 1:33 pm

    @Tom_23:
    Good one.

    Am fond of the famous case Clouseau v Innkeeper:

    “Does your dog behht [bite]?”
    “No, mah dog does not behht.”
    “Rawwhr!!” [dog, upon being petted]
    “I thought you said your dog does not behht?”
    “Is not my dog.”

    It’s never their dog.

  82. 82.

    Martin

    December 19, 2018 at 1:33 pm

    Meanwhile, Fox News is whistling past the graveyard arguing over the gender of cookies.

    “The War on Christmas is a global struggle,” Tucker Carlson said Tuesday night at the beginning of a through-the-looking-glass segment kvetching about gender-neutral gingerbread cookies at a cafe in Scotland.

    We were going to make cookies tonight, so I’m going to put a giant dick on every one of them, just to make sure everyone is clear on the gender. Because that’s apparently really important. Conversation I’m almost positive will happen with my daughter:

    Daughter: Dad, why do the gingerbread cookies have 3 legs?
    Me: They don’t have three legs. They have one leg and a two-headed dick. Why are you criticizing my art?

  83. 83.

    Cheryl Rofer

    December 19, 2018 at 1:34 pm

    @laura: There are a lot of maybes and what-ifs. We still don’t even know the details of Flynn’s negotiations with Kislyak, although it seems to have been that if the Russians would hold back on retaliating for the US seizures of their embassies (shutting down much of their signals monitoring), the sanctions would be lifted once Trump was in office. New sanctions levied today for the Skripal poisoning. It’s hard to evaluate the maybes and what-ifs when we don’t know the overall plan.

    And yes, I know Trump’s only overall plan is to glorify himself and get more money. But there seems to have been something else going on, perhaps a way to his perceived condominium with Putin in which the two of them rule the world.

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2018 at 1:34 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Trump was thinking in terms of contingency planning

    Oh, Roger, you just crack me up.

  85. 85.

    raven

    December 19, 2018 at 1:34 pm

    @trollhattan: zat iz not my dog

  86. 86.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 19, 2018 at 1:35 pm

    @Schlemazel: Trapped in a neverending take from Sundowning Boulevard…aieee!

  87. 87.

    JPL

    December 19, 2018 at 1:38 pm

    Putin is calling in his favors. First it was Syria and now this:

    The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has notified Congress of its intention to terminate the sanctions imposed on Oleg Deripaska’s companies..

    https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1075455024921223168

  88. 88.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2018 at 1:39 pm

    @Mary G:

    Regarding Fucker Carlson:

    His defense for saying that immigrants make America look dirtier is that they leave so much trash around the border. What a schmuck.

    Driving on I-10 from Tucson to Phoenix AZ is quite an experience. Mostly empty space with a tiny state park at a solitary mountain in the middle, with nary but a Dairy Queen for lunch. More trash in the median than any highway I’ve ever traveled, ever, anywhere.

    I also don’t think immigrants deposited that trash, as they typically don’t drive on the Interstates, because they don’t sneak across the border fence with a Chevy, after all.

  89. 89.

    Barbara

    December 19, 2018 at 1:40 pm

    @jl: He wanted to keep his options open. Doing it out in the open during the course of the campaign would have sabotaged his campaign from the get go. He thought that he could do it in secret or that if he funneled it through Cohen he could maintain the shield of attorney client privilege or that he could create 100 shell corporations that somehow ended up in the name of one of his kids.

    Why he felt compelled to treat Cohen so badly is the real mystery, one that I believe can only be explained by his pathologic need to dominate.

  90. 90.

    Martin

    December 19, 2018 at 1:40 pm

    @A Ghost To Most:

    The word is “fuck”, not “f**k”, not “phuck”. If you’re going to use it, have the courage to spell it correctly. The same goes for “shit”, and “god”.

    And nigger. If you’re going to say it, say it and own it. Don’t half say it, knowing damn well the other person will hear it, so that you can backtrack and claim you never said it. The word is offensive. The least you can do is own the offense.

  91. 91.

    NotMax

    December 19, 2018 at 1:41 pm

    Meanwhile, in da heartland –

    When the Kansas state government reconvenes in January, three of its formerly Republican members will report as freshly minted Democrats.

    The two state senators and one state representative, all women, cited varying sources of their discontent within the GOP.

    State Sen. Barbara Bollier started the trend last week, as first reported by the Kansas City Star.

    Bollier attributed her change of heart to her disgust with President Donald Trump and the state GOP’s decision that it would “oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity.”

    “I cannot be complicit in supporting that,” Bollier told the Star, referring to the Trump presidency. “I can’t call it leadership. I don’t even know what to call him. He is our President, but he is not representing my value system remotely.” Source

  92. 92.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 19, 2018 at 1:43 pm

    @bemused: Ghouliani (America’s Goombah) opening his cannoli-hole reminds me of that scene in “The Tin Drum” (trigger alert: the horse’s head is dragged out of the Baltic & multiple eels slither out & nausea ensues) … only this time it’s the other end of the horse & much more decrepit/less nourishing/less tasty wigglies …

  93. 93.

    Aleta

    December 19, 2018 at 1:44 pm

    I can see Giuliani going with ‘Trump lied to me too’ as his defense or announcing that he had moments of memory fail. Or the ‘I love beer: ambi en made me do it’ defense.

    It’s hard to make sense when the sky actually is falling on your chicken existence.

  94. 94.

    raven

    December 19, 2018 at 1:46 pm

    @Martin: Try this

    And fuck Frank Sinatra

  95. 95.

    SRW1

    December 19, 2018 at 1:47 pm

    The Trumpster and Rudy totally deserve each other.

  96. 96.

    Lalophobia

    December 19, 2018 at 1:48 pm

    @raven: Well fuck you too and fuck Michael Jackson.

  97. 97.

    artem1s

    December 19, 2018 at 1:50 pm

    @jl:

    It just seems unimaginably stupid and counterproductive to have continued it once he started his campaign.

    yes. it is. most cons are. the trick is keeping the mark in the dark long enough to get away with the money. Donnie has been kind of successful in working the construction type con for a long time and sticking someone else with the bill after he declares bankruptcy. he’s been floating on that Ponzi type development financing scam for so long, he doesn’t believe it will ever end. I think the most unimaginably stupid part of this is that he believed he could pull this kind of con on Putin. If he hadn’t won the election, he and Jr. might very well be in much worse trouble than they are now.

  98. 98.

    NotMax

    December 19, 2018 at 1:50 pm

    Both Emmet Flood and Pat Cipollone would have their pictures in the dictionary next to ‘under the radar’ if they came out of their cubbyholes long enough for someone to snap them.

  99. 99.

    raven

    December 19, 2018 at 1:53 pm

    @Lalophobia: You ain’t gonna do shit but sit your monkey ass on this bench. . . I love some Sweet Dick Willie.

  100. 100.

    bemused

    December 19, 2018 at 1:54 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Oh lordie, somehow I’ve missed that movie scene…blech.

  101. 101.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2018 at 2:07 pm

    @Martin:

    And nigger. If you’re going to say it, say it and own it.

    I think you need to be careful about the use/mention distinction here. If you’re going to use it, you should use it. If you’re going to discuss other people having used it, it’s OK to say “the N-word” or “n****r” or the like to indicate where somebody else said it without saying it yourself.

  102. 102.

    Aleta

    December 19, 2018 at 2:08 pm

    @A Ghost To Most: Writer’s choice.

  103. 103.

    hw3

    December 19, 2018 at 2:09 pm

    Darn it. Now I am going down the “fugazi” rabbit hole.
    Apparently, from Tom’s usage it’s the Italian slang for fake, but it also has the same connotations in mil-speak as fubar — “Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In [a body bag].
    Not sure which I prefer “a Flatbush fugazi” to mean here, honestly.

  104. 104.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2018 at 2:12 pm

    @NotMax:
    Just great, “Democrats” who lurve tax cuts and cutting taxes. Just what Kansas needs.

    “John Brown’s body lies a-spinnin’ in his grave.”

  105. 105.

    Bill Arnold

    December 19, 2018 at 2:12 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    1) He was really dumb and didn’t think about the consequences.
    2) He never expected to win the election and thought having a property in Russia wouldn’t be a problem for private citizen Trump.
    3) He thought his power as president would let him shut down any investigation into his wrongdoing.

    Pretty sure it was 2 with some very poorly formed thoughts about 3 as a contingency plan.
    And DJT was not the only entity working the narratives/memes/electoratemanipulations; I believe that most of the smart players among them though thought DJT would lose, and it was sort of a rogue wave caused by a political analogue of “randomly occurring wave reinforcement” because the players didn’t have valid models about each other. Bannon seemed pretty confident of a DJ Trump win, and perhaps others were as well for reasons that were valid (like having a valid model of the election including wave reinforcement). (And it would be crazy to think that there was/might have been a long game involved. :-)
    I also believe (and it has been widely reported) that most players were seeking a weak Clinton presidency.

  106. 106.

    Downpuppy

    December 19, 2018 at 2:15 pm

    With Dershowitz running away from Epstein accusations, Guiliani is all they have to trot out.

  107. 107.

    Baud

    December 19, 2018 at 2:15 pm

    Saw the title and thought this was going to be a Baud! 2020! hit piece. Whew!

  108. 108.

    Mary G

    December 19, 2018 at 2:16 pm

    @J R in WV: Not to mention that when CBP takes people into custody, everything they are carrying is thrown on the ground and left there as part of the campaign to “deter” people from asking for asylum, so it isn’t even the immigrants’ trash, it’s their most precious possessions.

  109. 109.

    Di

    December 19, 2018 at 2:17 pm

    @raven: She is having the time of her life. Did you see how thrilled people are to see her? That’s kind of an antidote to these . . . interesting times.

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2018 at 2:19 pm

    ????

    ABC News (@ABC) Tweeted:
    NEW: Rep. Elijah Cummings, in line to become chair of House Oversight Committee, sends more than 50 oversight letters to White House, Trump Organization, other agencies asking for documents and records.

    https://t.co/UH2MFX7XPW https://t.co/THykMerylL https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1075431623645118465?s=17

  111. 111.

    Jay

    December 19, 2018 at 2:20 pm

    @jl:

    There’s Trump Towers all over the World. They were all built, financed, condo’s sold, managing and lisenceing contracts, the same way, with more or less criminality involved, dependent on region.

    Hair Shitler believes that Trump Towers Moscow, something he’s chased since the Cold War, would be no different, and no big deal.

    He’s stupid like that.

  112. 112.

    Aleta

    December 19, 2018 at 2:20 pm

    @Mary G: Thanks for pointing that out. I never thought about what happens to their most precious possessions.

  113. 113.

    gvg

    December 19, 2018 at 2:22 pm

    When he was first elected, and all at once people started examining him closely, it seemed to me that Trump really had not understood how closely everyone in the world watches the US president, and that much of that attention is not friendly. I thought he was an idiot for that, too. He thought he would enjoy all the attention I think. He also seemed to think winning meant most people would admire and like him from then on. I can’t remember any President that didn’t get amazing amounts of negative attention including for things they didn’t really control. But Trump doesn’t really think about things evidently.
    I suspect he also doesn’t recognize how crooked he has always been, so he didn’t know he shouldn’t go anywhere near running for office.

  114. 114.

    artem1s

    December 19, 2018 at 2:25 pm

    @NotMax:

    When the Kansas state government reconvenes in January, three of its formerly Republican members will report as freshly minted Democrats.

    srsly, the Dems in KS need to tell them to shove it when they demand that they get to continue to behave like rePukes, We don’t want the Dixiecrats back just because their Grand Racists Party is falling apart.

  115. 115.

    Hoodie

    December 19, 2018 at 2:27 pm

    @Roger Moore: all three in combination with 4) he thinks he can bullshit and bully his way out of anything. It’s worked in the past and continues to work to some degree. He would just emanate a fart cloud of disjointed reasons, such as the property isn’t really owned by him, he’s actually losing money in the hope of improving US/Russia relations, the success of the property is bringing money to the US, etc. The essence of Trump is naked will to ignore anything that stands in the way of him making money and stroking his ego.

  116. 116.

    rp

    December 19, 2018 at 2:28 pm

    Glenn also retweeted something from the Daily Caller attacking the Steele dossier. He might as well come out as a Trump supporter at this point. The charade is boring.

  117. 117.

    Ryan

    December 19, 2018 at 2:29 pm

    So as long as I don’t take any money, I can break into a bank at night when no one is around?

  118. 118.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2018 at 2:34 pm

    @Ryan:
    Take all the deposit slips you’d like but leave the pens.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    December 19, 2018 at 2:42 pm

    @Downpuppy:

    With Dershowitz

    More and more I think Trump has dirt on all these people and they know he’ll reveal it if they don’t obey orders.

    It sort of feels like blackmail. How they’ll say anything, literally anything, to defend him. The other option is the giant grift- they’re all making out like bandits with the unchecked corruption, but more and more I’m leaning “fear based”, not “reward based”

    50 years of collecting dirt on Trump’s part. He knows a lot about them.

  120. 120.

    jl

    December 19, 2018 at 2:46 pm

    @Ryan: ” So as long as I don’t take any money, I can break into a bank at night when no one is around? ”

    Sounds like one of those rink-dink process crimes they are using to frame the poor Trumpsters, who are just trying to make a living like the average Joe and Josephine..
    It’s a damn dirty shame what the dirty rat fed did to poor Al Capone.

    Edit: you go after a guy for premeditated murders, and all you come up with assaults and mayhem on deadbeats, it’s a bum rap. Let ’em go!

    note: snark above

  121. 121.

    FlipYrWhig

    December 19, 2018 at 2:46 pm

    @rp:

    Gee, why would Glenn Greenwald throw a fit about how people are being SO MEAN to Tucker Carlson over immigration?

    “The parade of evils caused by illegal immigration is widely known, and it gets worse every day.”
    –Glenn Greenwald, 2005

  122. 122.

    Kraux Pas

    December 19, 2018 at 2:47 pm

    @Kay:

    It sort of feels like blackmail. How they’ll say anything, literally anything, to defend him. The other option is the giant grift- they’re all making out like bandits with the unchecked corruption, but more and more I’m leaning “fear based”, not “reward based”

    That “grift” is the vast right wing conspiracy, which is the major enforcement mechanism of the white supremacist power structure. It has migrated from reward to fear based as they’ve started losing their grip on power and the elite among them fear jail time for the crimes they’ve committed on its behalf.

  123. 123.

    geg6

    December 19, 2018 at 2:51 pm

    @ruemara:

    This. I agree with this comment completely.

  124. 124.

    catclub

    December 19, 2018 at 2:52 pm

    @jimmiraybob:

    I’m going into crime to augment the SS.

    re: crime is not crime any more
    1. Are you white? offer void if not white.
    2. Are you already rich? offer void if not already rich

  125. 125.

    raven

    December 19, 2018 at 2:54 pm

    OK football haters

    Hanahan Hawks’ Dawson Cooper chooses Syracuse

    I brought Kingsley out here today because he has inspired me a lot through the torn ACL process,” said Dawson. “He taught me the only disability is having a bad attitude, and if he can come around every day with this big smile on, I can do it just the same.”

  126. 126.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2018 at 2:59 pm

    @Kay:

    More and more I think Trump has dirt on all these people and they know he’ll reveal it if they don’t obey orders.

    You have been saying this for awhile, Kay…and, you are very probably right.

  127. 127.

    Doug R

    December 19, 2018 at 3:06 pm

    @Hildebrand:

    Maybe Rudy is just pulling an elaborate con on Trump. Some kind of long-form revenge for some long-ago slight that has eaten at him all these years. So, he cozies up to Trump, works his way into his confidence (not hard, it only takes a simpering compliment or two), and then slowly but surely destroys Trump, one incompetent interview at a time. All the while, Trump, oblivious as always, doesn’t see it coming until Rudy drops the last veil.

    So a variation on Clint Eastwood’s “chair speech”?

  128. 128.

    Avalune

    December 19, 2018 at 3:06 pm

    @dmsilev: I thought the rakes were for the Forrest floors?

  129. 129.

    piratedan

    December 19, 2018 at 3:11 pm

    speaking to the speculation that commenter jl raised… I wonder if what happened was this….

    Putin recruits/grooms Trump for a presidential run… tells Trump that he wants chaos and to wound Clinton and in return Putin will financially back Trump and that will pay off some of the vig and principal that is outstanding on all of the financial debts that Trump has outstanding, meanwhile Trump runs his own grift on the GOP and the rubes to milk them for whatever he can because that is who Trump is and what Trump does….

    Meanwhile, Putin plans to actually hack the election and win it so he can maximize his financial backing and weaken the US dramatically… Trump doesn’t have to know he’s going to win, he just has to run and be Trump. Putin also cuts a deal with the GOP to help them gain control of the Senate and the House so that even if Clinton does win, she won’t be able to do a damn thing because McConnell will continue to abide by the Obama playbook for any real changes that she may want to make, so he still “wins” but with a GOP win and a Trump win, he can set progress back in the US for easily twenty years, fuck up Western Hegemony and reset the game board.

    That’s what I think went down, the GOP sold us out to allow them to get their hate on, Trump went along with the game because he’s up to his asshole in debt with Putin and his oligarchs and is completely their creature and the rest of us get screwed in the process.

  130. 130.

    Schlemazel

    December 19, 2018 at 3:12 pm

    @Kay:
    IF he has dirt is was given him by Putin.
    I think you are right on Rudy & Desh, neither should have to debase themselves like they are. The others I can think of are just in it for the grift, nobody with any serious credibility is on his team

  131. 131.

    catclub

    December 19, 2018 at 3:19 pm

    The Border Bonds for America Act directs the Secretary of the Treasury to issue government savings bonds, known as “border bonds,” specifically for the construction of a wall, as well as related technology and improved infrastructure. Under the proposal, the face amount of the bonds sold cannot exceed $5 billion.

    Palazzo’s office said there are no other co-authors of the bill at this time.

    Can I suggest bonds to ‘pay’ for other things the Legislature has refused to fund?
    How about Mueller investigation bonds? Now that I would be interested in!

  132. 132.

    Yarrow

    December 19, 2018 at 3:20 pm

    @Kay:

    More and more I think Trump has dirt on all these people and they know he’ll reveal it if they don’t obey orders.

    Trump acts like a mob boss and that’s how they work and keep people in line. Of course he’s got dirt on people. And Putin has dirt on Trump and probably a lot of others.

    Good news is, Mueller knows all about the dirt that Trump thought ho one knew. That’s why Trump is panicking. He’s got nowhere to hide. He’s always gotten away with things by walking away and leaving others holding the bag. That technique is not going to work this time.

  133. 133.

    tobie

    December 19, 2018 at 3:22 pm

    @piratedan: This strikes me as spot-on. Pumping Trump’s campaign was a win-win situation for Putin. He must have thought either he’ll weaken and hobble a Clinton administration or he’ll get Donnie, who will lift the sanctions. Of all the possible conspiracies, this strikes me as the simplest and most likely one.

  134. 134.

    mapaghimagsik

    December 19, 2018 at 3:25 pm

    @trollhattan: Remember when Rush lost Ashley Madison?

  135. 135.

    catclub

    December 19, 2018 at 3:25 pm

    @Yarrow: This is where Trump plays the game better than others. Trump only lies, so if Trump is threatening to reveal some secret about me, I should just assume that everyone will know he is lying – again.

    But instead, people give him credit for telling the truth about some dark secret. Suckers.

  136. 136.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2018 at 3:25 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    “The parade of evils caused by illegal immigration is widely known, and it gets worse every day.”
    –Glenn Greenwald, 2005

    And that, Ladies and Gentlemen….is called a RECEIPT.

  137. 137.

    BroD

    December 19, 2018 at 3:32 pm

    I take exception to “Flatbush fugazi”. Rudy is Manhattan all the way.
    .

  138. 138.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 19, 2018 at 3:33 pm

    @Subaru Diane ;^D: “Pardon me, Mr. President, but there’s someone for you named Rico on Line 1″…

    Trickety, dickety, dock,
    The guns are belching smock.
    Indictments sealed,
    Somebody squealed–
    Crickety, prickety, crock.

  139. 139.

    JPL

    December 19, 2018 at 3:36 pm

    @piratedan: Same. Now putin’s cronies are shocked by trump’s actions today.

  140. 140.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 19, 2018 at 3:41 pm

    @Ruckus: Did someone say “King of the World”?

    When you come around,
    No more pain & no regret–
    Watch the sun go brown
    Smoking cobalt cigarettes.

    There’s no need to hide
    Taking things the easy way:
    If I stay inside
    I might live till Saturday.

    No marigolds in the Promised Land:
    There’s a hole in the ground where they used to grow.
    Any man left on the Rio Grande
    Is the King of the World as far as I know…

  141. 141.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 19, 2018 at 3:44 pm

    On Rudi and Dersh, I doubt trump needs blackmail. Dershowitz is 1) an attention whore, 2) an Obama-hater and 3) a Likudnik. I don’t know how close trump and Epstein are/were, but with all that’s coming out about Dersh and Epstein, trump didn’t need to get involved. I think Rudi’s as dirty as fuck with Russian dirt, but it probably has more to do with his post-mayoral money-grubbing than specifically with trump or 2016. Also Rudi appears to be in some kind of decline, people talk about his drinking, his marriage is falling apart spectacularly (kind of surprised that’s not getting attention) and he’s dumb enough to still think trump can give him the balcony the little man has spent his life in pursuit of

  142. 142.

    Mandalay

    December 19, 2018 at 3:45 pm

    A RWNJ has created a gofundme begging bowl to fund Trump’s wall, and it is going gangbusters: $865,522 raised in 2 days, with an average contribution of about $61. The target is gofundme’s limit of one billion dollars.

    Here’s the scam: “If we don’t reach our goal or come significantly close we will refund every single penny….”. The “or come significantly close” qualifier has been added; it wasn’t here yesterday.

    Since a million dollars represents a thousandth of their goal, the probability of actually raising a billion dollars is close to zero. OTOH, the probability of the scam artists issuing any refunds is zero, regardless of the amount raised.

  143. 143.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 19, 2018 at 3:46 pm

    @Martin: So you’re saying the sheriff is near? /ducks

  144. 144.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2018 at 3:53 pm

    @JPL:

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

  145. 145.

    Tom Levenson

    December 19, 2018 at 3:55 pm

    @BroD: born in East Flatbush.

  146. 146.

    gvg

    December 19, 2018 at 4:08 pm

    the one mistake Putin may have made is thinking Trump or any President really could just lift the sanctions. Of course, maybe he knew better, so he knew he wouldn’t have to pay Trump whatever he promised…This also indicates that most GOP aren’t actually compromised directly by Russia. Even the republican congress just wouldn’t go along with that.
    It’s probably pretty easy for Russia to see our weaknesses. I wonder if they missed some of our strengths? It takes a lot of real consensus to actually pass laws in our system, and a lot of things can’t be done secretly. We do a lot of politics right out in public where the voters see it and expect our legislators to respond when enough of us yell.

  147. 147.

    tobie

    December 19, 2018 at 4:17 pm

    @Tom Levenson: East Flatbush native here, too.

  148. 148.

    Frankensteinbeck

    December 19, 2018 at 4:26 pm

    @gvg:

    I suspect he also doesn’t recognize how crooked he has always been

    It’s complicated, or rather it’s a murky haze of emotions that haven’t been clearly thought through. First, he assumes everyone is as corrupt as he is. They may be suckers, IE not good at it, but it’s the only state of being he understands. Second, he barely think about questions like this, because no one else is entirely real to him, and because Third, if he does it, it’s morally correct and good, and if someone else does it when he doesn’t want them to, it is morally wrong and is self-evidently a crime.

    This is all based on how narcissists think, and Trump is a textbook narcissist.

  149. 149.

    Frankensteinbeck

    December 19, 2018 at 4:30 pm

    @gvg:

    the one mistake Putin may have made is thinking Trump or any President really could just lift the sanctions.

    It didn’t matter. Supporting Trump was totally win/win for him. Even if Trump lost badly, just having Trump in the Republican primaries gave him fodder for his ‘America is as bad as we are and democracy is useless’ propaganda campaign back home. That campaign is hugely important to him politically. Everything past that has been gravy. He’ll wring everything he can get out of Trump, sure, but this is and has been in ‘Let’s see how high I can run the score’ territory for a long time.

  150. 150.

    H.E.Wolf

    December 19, 2018 at 4:34 pm

    @A Ghost To Most:

    The word is “fuck”, not “f**k”, not “phuck”. If you’re going to use it, have the courage to spell it correctly. The same goes for “shit”, and “god”.

    For some Jews, to spell out (and, in some cases, to pronounce) the name of the deity is considered inappropriate. There may be some Protestant sects which have a similar belief.

    I’m not a practitioner in either of those [specifically enumerated] traditions myself, so my apologies if this is a poor description.

    It seems to me that freedom of religion applies to religiously-motivated spelling, nu?

  151. 151.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2018 at 4:51 pm

    @gvg:

    the one mistake Putin may have made is thinking Trump or any President really could just lift the sanctions.

    No, never doubt that.he wanted those sanctions GONE.

    I don’t believe for one minute that he didn’t do all of this with the goal of getting those sanctions lifted.

    That was the reason for the Secretary of Exxon to be chosen.

  152. 152.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    December 19, 2018 at 4:52 pm

    @J R in WV:

    Driving on I-10 from Tucson to Phoenix AZ is quite an experience. Mostly empty space with a tiny state park at a solitary mountain in the middle, with nary but a Dairy Queen for lunch. More trash in the median than any highway I’ve ever traveled, ever, anywhere.

    I’ve driven that I-10 route back and forth between Phoenix and Tucson (mostly for business) nearly 1,000 times in the past 38 years I’ve lived in the Phoenix area, and I have no idea what you’re talking about. Lots of negative things can be said about my (mostly) benighted adopted home state (would fill a book) but “most littered highway in America” isn’t one of them. I’ve logged over a million miles driving all over the country in my so-far 47 year driving career, and the I-10 Phoenix/Tucson corridor doesn’t rank as especially “dirtier” than anywhere else in America I’ve been (I have, in fact, seen worse elsewhere).

    Maybe you came by right after one of our haboobs blew shit all over, I don’t know. It is, of course, much easier to spot any bit of trash in the open desert compared to places with trees and bushes and grass all around.

    Still, sticking with the subject that provoked your bit of highway calumny, fuck racist-ass Tucker Carlson and his “immigrants are dirty” bullshit. On that (and, truth be told, many other comments of yours I’ve read here) we’re in total agreement.

  153. 153.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2018 at 4:57 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    ????????????

  154. 154.

    Wild Cat

    December 19, 2018 at 5:34 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: No. Christie, in his Tom Landry costume, was the top.

  155. 155.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2018 at 6:14 pm

    @LAO:

    GG is equating boycotts with censorship.

    So we’re all censoring Fox aka Faux News by never watching it, ever?

    Glen is dumber than I thought!!!

  156. 156.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2018 at 7:43 pm

    @tobie:

    He [Putin] must have thought either he’ll weaken and hobble a Clinton administration or he’ll get Donnie, who will lift the sanctions.

    Unfortunately for Putin, he didn’t understand that here it isn’t like Russia. Presidents, even white ones, don’t always get what they want. Our legislature based system tends to keep absolute leadership from actually being absolute at all. Fortunately in this case.

  157. 157.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 19, 2018 at 7:54 pm

    @J R in WV: GG is either an FSB stooge, or a paid FSB agent. Either way, he should be visited by SEAL Team Six.

  158. 158.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2018 at 7:54 pm

    @Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot:

    We have a small winter camp in AZ, and I like the place mostly. Especially now that Democratic people appear to be winning elections again!

    But the one time we flew into Phoenix instead of Tucson, because Tucson was really booked up on account of the Gem show crush of February, that road was a F’in mess from Phoenix to Tucson and back… really. Some stuff lying on the ground, some stuff in the foliage, but everywhere.

    Obviously, out there a sudden wind storm could move a lot of loose crap around, but it really impressed us, and we’ve seen a lot of litter in spots over the past 50 odd years of touring around the countryside.

    No offense, not picking on AZ, but to say the immigrants are dirty is so racist compared to the truth that litter and dirty is as American as apple pie. There are very few immigrants here in the center of the United States, and we have our share of litter!

    But I-10 seemed like the perfect example of an area with lots of litter (“dirty”) with no chance it was the fault of the immigrants common in the area… no offense, it just struck me as the perfect counter to Fucker Carlson’s racist fascist banter…

    Glad we agree more than not!!! Happy Holidays, also too, everyone!!

  159. 159.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2018 at 9:09 pm

    @dmsilev:

    Won’t work, he passed his military exam with flying colors just a few months ago. Just ask that admiral!1!

  160. 160.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 19, 2018 at 9:48 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: I look forward to the day when the question Where’s Greenwaldo? is correctly answered “Dangling from a lamppost by his neck.” Scumbag.

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