Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Everybody saw this coming.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / “Sir, this is an Arby’s drive-thru…”

“Sir, this is an Arby’s drive-thru…”

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Guess what, guys? The caravans are back, at least in Twitler’s defective brain and Twitter feed:

More troops being sent to the Southern Border to stop the attempted Invasion of Illegals, through large Caravans, into our Country. We have stopped the previous Caravans, and we will stop these also. With a Wall it would be soooo much easier and less expensive. Being Built!

So, if WALL is “Being Built,” why did shit-fer-brains shut the government down for a month-plus, threaten to do so again in 16 days and yap endlessly about declaring a national emergency to build WALL?

It’s a moronitude, wrapped in a dumbassery, inside an imbecility.

Trump has tweeted more than a dozen times so far this morning because he doesn’t do his job. I wonder who’s running the government? My guess is Jared since whomever it is sucks at his or her job, like a callow, unqualified nepotism hire inevitably would.

Anyhoo, each and every tweet is as idiotic as the sample above. No cherry-picking here!

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

175Comments

  1. 1.

    Elizabelle

    I want a caravan of Team Mueller to come down on this jackhole’s head.

    And take out Mitch McConnell too. Lindsey Graham. The whole crowd of enablers and those corrupted by foreign money. Currently in office and retired. Paul Ryan can’t outrun this one, even on a 14K slope.

    Put our system to right. It’s not just Trump, and the system out of whack is its own protector. (Our shitwad press, that remains wired for Republicans and won’t report on important stuff that might take some extended attention, by reporters and readers. Treat us like adults.)

  2. 2.

    Sebastian

    It’s Thursday and increased tweet volume means he is scared of something, tweeting is how he let’s off steam. There might be a shoe dropping tomorrow.

  3. 3.

    The Moar You Know

    Were I a touch more cynical, I’d believe these “caravans” are being put together and funded by the GOP. You can’t tell me these folks call the media, assemble for some crowd shots down on the southern Mexican border, then can traverse one of the largest countries in the world the long way (well over a thousand miles) and show up in Tijuana only a week after departure with clean clothes.

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Perhaps Bannon is next on Bobby Three Stick’s hit parade? Or, dare we hope, Uday, Qusay, and Javanka? Although I expect they’ll be part of the grand finale package, which will point a finger at Donald and say “Congress, do your thing, if you’re not treasonous Russian agents, of course..”

  5. 5.

    Duane

    The normalization of using our military against innocent people is unacceptable. The illegal invasion is inside the White House.

  6. 6.

    mad citizen

    Yes, weren’t there 11 counts of stuff the Grand Jury approved, and Stone only took 6 of those. Hopefully tomorrow is Indictment Friday.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Donald J. Trump
    Lets just call them WALLS from now on and stop playing political games! A WALL is a WALL!

    WALL is WALLS! And WALLZ is FENCES! FENCEZ will be our new PRECIOUS! We always winz!

  8. 8.

    feebog

    I have yet to see any reporting on these caravans from major news sources. Is it too cold down in Central America to cover this? Or is it all in Trumpov’s tinly little brain?

  10. 10.

    The Midnight Lurker

    Whatever happened to the last two caravans?

    And… ten buck says the Orange Hamberderaler declares a National Emergency before the debt ceiling showdown.

    And… I saw Chuck Todd on The Daily Show. He wants to start ripping off band-aids, or something. I can’t think of a single ‘corporate media smiling person’ that is this vapid. Oh, wait…

    And… it looks like ol’ Shultz!! is toast. Or is that roast? I can’t tell, but I smell something burnt!

    And finally… Dear Lord, please make Chris Christie go away.

    That is all. Now I gotta go do that thing that billionaires never do… pay my taxes.

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    I wonder who’s running the government?

    Jared Kushner, Stephen Miller, and John Bolton.

    And on that cheery note…

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    @schrodingers_cat: “UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.”

    (Ten Internet-Old-Fart points to anyone who can name the writer of that without having to Google it)

  14. 14.

    geg6

    @mad citizen:

    I think Mueller is waiting for the House Intelligence Committee to meet and approve release of testimony transcripts before unsealing the next indictments. My guess is Junior’s. But I hope something happens sooner.

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: Mango Mussolini actually explained that once in a ghostwritten tweet. Here’s the idiotic explanation:

    After having written many best selling books, and somewhat priding myself on my ability to write, it should be noted that the Fake News constantly likes to pore over my tweets looking for a mistake. I capitalize certain words only for emphasis, not b/c they should be capitalized!

    I suspect that was ghostwritten (or dictated to an unusually literate staffer) because he spelled “pore” correctly. Also:

    When referring to the USA, I will always capitalize the word Country!

    Except when he doesn’t.

  21. 21.

    Plato

    Inflicting your bigoted personal beliefs on the public comes at a cost, I guess.

    Lawyers for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin say Kim Davis should be held responsible for nearly $225,000 in legal fees and court costs incurred by couples who sued her in 2015 when she refused to issue marriage licenses to them. https://t.co/sPQDkYidig
    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 31, 2019

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    I wonder who’s running the government?

    No one. There has been no one at the wheel, really, since Inauguration Day.

  24. 24.

    MattF

    If you’re looking for something coherent or reality-based in Trump’s tweets– well, bon voyage— I’ll meet you when and if you find your way home. Trump is the ‘Home Alone’ Chief Executive.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    @delk:
    Not so random, actually. In the first sentence, Trump appears to be paying homage to his Drumpf roots with German-style initial caps on all nouns.

  26. 26.

    Cermet

    Since this thread covers assholes = people that deny AGW I’ll add this not good note: Northern California has lost more than 90% of its kelp forests thanks to the massive starfish die off. Scientist strongly suspect AGW has fueled a pathogen that the starfish can’t handle. This has resulted in a massive disruption to the local food chain. This ignores the infamous “Pacific Hot Water Blob” that devastated many fish and animal populations in the Northern and Eastern Pacific ocean impacting the Alaskan, Canadian and American Pacific regions a few years back. AGW disasters aren’t in the future folks – it is here and now. Only going to get far worse.
    The average moron amerikan thug voter thinks walls will keep people out when their entire eco-systems collapse due to AGW warming and droughts? Dream on.

    Oh, and good cold morning to all the Jackals under the polar vortex regions – just means as some noted: more warm air to the arctic.

  27. 27.

    TaMara (HFG)

    I want Mitch McConnell to spend the rest of his life suffering the same pain he inflicted on others. All of this rests on his stooped, turtle-shoulders.

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    @FlipYrWhig: That makes more sense. The WH comms shop can’t put out a basic press release that isn’t riddled with errors, so the “unusually literate staffer” is a myth!

  31. 31.

    satby

    Happier news: I have been worried about one shy semi-feral cat who comes to eat on my porch since this latest cold snap started. This morning
    I discovered he has taken up residence in the empty heated cat shelter in the porch since my neighbor’s cat has been kept inside and isn’t around to chase him away. I just brought him a gently warmed bowl of cat food to eat in the shelter. I’m so relieved he’s ok.

  32. 32.

    The Moar You Know

    Northern California has lost more than 90% of its kelp forests thanks to the massive starfish die off.

    @Cermet: SoCal experienced the same thing back in the early/mid 1980s, for the same reason. Starfish left, urchins went out of control, ate the kelp. Kelp can’t grow back as the urchins hit it as soon as it gets a foot high.

    Utterly wiped out the entire coastal marine ecosystem here. I have finally seen kelp make it to the surface in only the last five years, but it is intermittent, does not stay.

  38. 38.

    SFAW

    @dmsilev:

    (Ten Internet-Old-Fart points to anyone who can name the writer of that without having to Google it)

    I’m guessing either TIMECUBE guy, or Dorothy Parker. Wait a minute … Dorothy Parker was Final Jeopardy last night.

    I’m an Old Fart, but not a genuine Internet Old Fart, so I had to google it. Still not ringing any bells.

  40. 40.

    cmorenc

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Perhaps Bannon is next on Bobby Three Stick’s hit parade? Or, dare we hope, Uday, Qusay, and Javanka? Although I expect they’ll be part of the grand finale package

    If Trump’s immediate family, including perhaps Trump himself, are to be included in Mueller’s list of criminal perps, it will indeed not be revealed until the final act, final report – because prematurely indicating that family members will ultimately be named as indicted or unindicted criminal co-conspirators would risk giving Trump and his enablers time and incentive to sabotage Mueller from being able to further carry through. Unless the early revelations where so irrefutably convincing and devastating as to quickly force at least 20 GOP Senators to openly support impeachment, they would remove the inhibitions currently restraining Trump from firing Mueller and blanket-pardoning his family members, because he would have nothing to lose at that point because he’s fucked anyway if he doesn’t try to press the red “destruct” button on Mueller’s project, rather than merely rant and bully-bluster against it.

    If you try to kill the king, better not miss.

  41. 41.

    Cheap Jim

    @dmsilev: Was that Alexander Abian? Or Archimedes Plutonium? One of the old-fashioned cranks folks like Kibo used to toy with on usenet, at any rate.

  43. 43.

    Cermet

    @The Moar You Know: Hopefully, some starfish are getting immunity to what ever the pathogen is; hopefully. But even if, bet it takes decades to get into an equilibrium so that some kelp forest return. The long term impact, of course, will be that the original system that benefited so many, is gone for good.

    AGW deniers are so stupid – shitting in your own bed always is a bad idea – but for these people: mostly thug voters – they just want more shit.

  44. 44.

    marklar

    Why won’t a reporter ask “Given that the Caravans end up at legal ports of entry, how exactly would building more ‘wall’ change anything?”

  46. 46.

    dmsilev

    @SFAW: It’s Robert McElwaine, one of the illustrious (?) members of Usenet’s Golden Age of Whackaloons. From Wikipedia,

    Robert E. McElwaine (1948?–2008) – self-described Bachelor of Science in physics who wrote a series of ranting fringe science essays characteristically peppered with capitalized words for emphasis. Each essay covered topics such as alien influence on violence, free energy, coming UFO landings, and cancer cures, often carrying a message that there existed a conspiracy to suppress the information. The essays often concluded with the signature “UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.” McElwaine’s writings stopped appearing on Usenet after 1998, although he continued writing essays up to 2003. He died at age 59 in his home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on 12 February 2008.[3]

  48. 48.

    Mike in NC

    Yes, a shitload of indictments tomorrow would be a fitting way to wrap up this frigid month. But Fat Bastard sez global warming is a Chinese hoax, even though they keep giving his brain dead daughter more trademarks.

  49. 49.

    Ken

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The truly sad thing is that his entire communications team (such as it is) has been correcting journalists who call it a “wall”. They’re trying to get them to call it “border security”.

    Did I say sad? I meant hilarious.

  50. 50.

    VeniceRiley

    @FlipYrWhig:

    @Betty Cracker: I saw that one being mocked by JK Rowling because it had said “pour” instead. So he must have fixed it.

    I suggested he fix it with “pou’re” *hahahaha. No dice, but a good try.

  52. 52.

    Leto

    I wonder who’s running the government?

    I’m old enough to remember when there was an anonymous FTNYT op-Ed about how “the grown ups are in charge, so don’t worry!” I really think it’ll take a second anonymous op-Ed to reassure us all.

  54. 54.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: McElwaine was one of the first to recognize that the Internet could replace the hand-cranked blue-ink mimeograph machine, for people with IMPORTANT information that had to reach the public. Now of course we have Twitter.

  55. 55.

    NotMax

    Someone explain the Arby’s reference, please?

    Can’t say much positive about the sandwiches but the horsey sauce was great.

  56. 56.

    germy

    @Ken:

    his entire communications team … has been correcting journalists who call it a “wall”. They’re trying to get them to call it “border security”.

    Maybe that’s a good thing. Pelosi and Schumer are also for border security. Is it possible he’ll acquiesce and say it was never an actual wall he was talking about and then reach an agreement with them?

  60. 60.

    Chip Daniels

    My favorite tweet in response:
    “These caravans…do you see them in the room with you right now?”

  61. 61.

    Ken

    @NotMax: It’s the punchline to a joke. It involves some guy ranting into a microphone for ten minutes, before the clerk breaks in and explains he’s at the order window.

  62. 62.

    Leto

    @NotMax: Which reference? I do know that there was a recent article stating that more you frequented Arby’s and Applebee’s, the more conservative you are. I didn’t read the article, as I thought it was clickbait, but Avalune and I both lol’d at the headline. But it also made me really want a roast beef sandwich. So…

    Edit: @Ken: ahhh! Well that’s funny too :)

  66. 66.

    Mike in NC

    @germy: Nope, it must be a Big Byootiful WALL but he will deny — against a hundred pieces of video — that he Ever Claimed MEXICO would pay for it.

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: it’s just become a snarky retweet of rambling from trump or his supporters in the last few months: “Sir/Ma’am, this is an Arby’s/Burger King/Taco Bell”

    a recent internet tradition to be aware of

  69. 69.

    Ken

    @germy: That may be the idea, but after they spent so much time drumming “wall, wall, wall” into Trump’s head during the campaign they probably can’t dislodge it. So he’ll keep undermining his team’s messaging, sad trombone…

  70. 70.

    NotMax

    @Ken

    Aha. Thanks.

    The late Taylor Negron had a marvelous similar bit involving him misinterpreting the question asked him by a diner waitress with a thick Southern drawl about how he took his coffee. Shortest synopsis.

    Negron: Do I scream? You bet I do! [lengthy list of injustices, inequalities, etc.] Of course I scream, any halfway sensible person would!

    Waitress (enunciating very slowly): Sir. Do. You. Use. Cream.

  71. 71.

    germy

    @Mike in NC:

    Nope, it must be a Big Byootiful WALL but he will deny — against a hundred pieces of video — that he Ever Claimed MEXICO would pay for it.

    Wait… Mexico isn’t paying for it??

  73. 73.

    trollhattan

    @chopper:
    J-Stew used Arby’s as a go-to joke for his entire TDS stint and they were brilliantly ballsy buying lots of ad time on his final show.

    I do not go there any more than I go to Weinerschnitzel.

  75. 75.

    Ken

    @germy: No, Mexico isn’t paying for the wall. Later the US might ask for Mexico to make a payment for the hundreds of square miles of territory effectively being ceded – including the entire lower Rio Grande! – by siting the wall on the US side of the border.

    Ooh, maybe even rent…

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    Hmm. Is this a browser issue (Firefox Windows)
    The top says that there are 40 comments
    But my system is stuck at displaying 56 comments (and of course I might never see this message)

    ETA: When I create this message, 76 comments display

  77. 77.

    chopper

    @trollhattan:

    I do not go there any more than I go to Weinerschnitzel.

    never went there, but always wanted to go in and scream at the top of my lungs YEAH I WANT TWO LARGE COKES TWO LARGE FRIES CHILI CHEESE DOG LARGE DR PEPPER SUPER DELUXE WITH CHEESE AND TOMATO

  79. 79.

    jc

    If Trump’s policies are too often “a fraud wrapped in quackery inside of a bamboozle,” what does that say about his supporters? How can we be sympathetic to such willful ignorance? Trumpsters, using only your middle fingers is no way to run a country.

  83. 83.

    joel hanes

    @dmsilev:

    Remember Stefan Hartmann, with Testatika FREE ENERGY ?

    or Canter & Siegel, Green Card Lawyers ?

    or Ted Holden, the last Velikovskian ?

  84. 84.

    Martin

    @germy: He has slipped into that once or twice, probably because he was speaking within 3 minutes of someone screaming it into his ear, but it never seems to stick.

    If I were Pelosi I’d start a campaign to convince him to call it a curtain of iron, if only for the lulz.

  87. 87.

    J R in WV

    @Leto:

    Hey, Leto, you’re back, again!

    So glad you are here with us today… remember, do what the PT dungeon masters tell you to do, no matter what. Or find another PT for a second opinion if it isn’t working, I guess…

  88. 88.

    Jeffro

    Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee are wasting their time. Democrats, despite all of the evidence, proof and Caravans coming, are not going to give money to build the DESPERATELY needed WALL. I’ve got you covered. Wall is already being built, I don’t expect much help!

    -DJT, just a bit ago

    This could be the solution we’re looking for, people. Send the MF out there with a pick and shovel to help with this ‘already-being-built’ construction. He’s not expecting much help, after all. The exercise will do him some good!

  89. 89.

    Martin

    @jc: Well, while we certainly would have been better off with a President Sanders, I can’t say that’s a super endorsement of the wisdom of the left, either.

    Put simply, democracy and complacency don’t mix well. We’re living the consequences.

  90. 90.

    Martin

    @Jeffro: I wonder if that isn’t a viable strategy? Just tell him it’s being built. Pull out some scenes from World War Z and Pacific Rim as proof and call it a day.

  91. 91.

    Ken

    @joel hanes: Hey now, Holden wasn’t the last Velikovskian. He was always reporting on new publications, conferences, and so forth. He may have been the only Velikovskian with a USENET connection.

    (The conference reports were always things of beauty, because there were multiple strands of Velikovskianism. So Ted would breathlessly report on three separate “papers” showing mainstream science was completely wrong, while ignoring that none of the three agreed in their supposed alternate histories of the solar system.)

  92. 92.

    waspuppet

    I wonder who’s running the government? My guess is Jared since whomever it is sucks at his or her job, like a callow, unqualified nepotism hire inevitably would.

    Never forget that Kasich was offered the job of VP and told his job would be all foreign and domestic policy. When he asked what that would leave Trump to do, one of the moron sons replied, “Making America great again.” Translation: Go around making speeches, being racist, taking credit for the sunshine and blaming Hillary for the rain.

    Never forget that someone else doing all the actual work was the plan. Jared and Ivanka are essentially geriatric nurses, signing the checks, reassuring all the nonwhite people around then that Grampa doesn’t really mean what he said and telling all the women he gropes that they should probably stand a little farther back from now on.

  96. 96.

    catclub

    @jc: I

    f Trump’s policies are too often “a fraud wrapped in quackery inside of a bamboozle,” what does that say about his supporters?

    I just read Trump is considering Herman ‘9-9-9’ Cain for the federal Reserve Board ( not yet chair).

    And then it turns out Cain was on the the Kansas City Federal reserve board. He might actually be a qualified candidate for a Trump job
    appointment.

  97. 97.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jeffro:

    The exercise will do him some good!

    I see the flaw in your model there, pal. Set him up at the border in a recliner with endless buckets of fried chicken and conveyor-belt delivered hamberders instead!

  101. 101.

    Ken

    @waspuppet:

    Jared and Ivanka are essentially geriatric nurses

    I remain convinced that if Trump had lost the election, his children would by now have begun proceedings to have him declared incompetent.

  102. 102.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Cheap Jim:

    Off-the-top-of-the-head guess, is it the Time Cube guy?

    @Joey Maloney:

    Was that Alexander Abian? Or Archimedes Plutonium?

    You people are giving me such flashbacks!

    Don’t get many chances any more to pull out the John Baez crackpot-scoring index, but just for old times sake, here it is

    Physicist John, incidentally, is related to singer Joan Baez. But I forget the relationship. Cousins maybe?

  104. 104.

    ruemara

    Just a reminder that we have about 7 presidents. This is why he has so much time to tweet. Each person around him gets to set policies in areas they care about. Why else do you think a guy who definitely didn’t care about gay or trans suddenly is dictating so many anti-trans policies? You already have president Pence & Miller et al.

  105. 105.

    jc

    @NotMax: ” Sir. Do. You. Use. Cream?”

    A lazy grocery clerk asked the customer: Di’you need a bag? And the customer got upset — that’s very offensive! The clerk had no idea what the problem was. How dare you say: Jew, need a bag?

  106. 106.

    Martin

    @catclub:

    And then it turns out Cain was on the the Kansas City Federal reserve board. He might actually be a qualified candidate for a Trump job
    appointment.

    Based on what we’ve heard him say, I think it’s safer to conclude that he wasn’t qualified for the Kansas City Fed position to begin with.

  107. 107.

    Mandalay

    @PJ:

    It’s not a browser issue. It also happens in Safari, and Firefox for Mac.

    Well that sure looks like a browser issue. The problem is fixed in Chrome by turning off caching.

  108. 108.

    bemused

    @Ken:

    I think I read trump did something shady with his elderly, unwell parents finances until trump’s siblings stepped in. I don’t doubt trump’s kids would do the same.

  110. 110.

    NotMax

    @jc

    Have been unsuccessful finding either an audio or video clip of that Negron bit. Part of a number of riffs he did, all ending with him saying to the audience, “I share too much.”

  112. 112.

    Ken

    @MattF: I think it was Isaac Asimov who told of a conversation – possibly at a faculty meeting – where Velikovsky came up. There was a physicist who said the physics and astronomy were absolute nonsense, but thought V. might have something in his interpretation of ancient myth. To which an anthropologist replied, “What a coincidence! I thought his interpretation of ancient myth was absolute nonsense, but that his astronomical ideas could have merit!”

  113. 113.

    JoeyJoeJoe

    @NotMax: Homer Simpson does this, discussing his night school class, in a 1993 episode of the Simpsons. That may be the origin, even if many people, particularly younger people who weren’t around in 1993,haven’t seen the episode.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    So we know the NRA aligned with the oligarchs and we guessed the religious Right was in there too- a given that if the rest of the groups on the Right were in then they were, so is this the event?

    Dan Schmidt, who worked for decades at the Bradley Foundation, was serving as one of the foundation’s vice presidents in 2014. That same year, according to leaked emails, Russian operatives involved in cultivating the American religious right listed him as attending a swanky gala alongside Russian fascists like Alexander Dugin and now-sanctioned Russian oligarchs like Konstantin Malofeev. The emails indicate the gala also included Igor Shchegolev, who was then working as an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Sergei Rudov, who helped host leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA) during the gun group’s notorious 2015 trip to Russia.


    Is 2014 the furthest date back     we’ve seen for this activity, where the various groups on the Right start to coalesce around Russian government/oligarchs? Probably much earlier, right, because they were traveling to conferences by 2015.

    I wonder when it started. Which group on the Right first saw the Russian Right as allies and potential partners?

  115. 115.

    FlipYrWhig

    @waspuppet:

    Never forget that Kasich was offered the job of VP and told his job would be all foreign and domestic policy. When he asked what that would leave Trump to do, one of the moron sons replied, “Making America great again.”

    I remember that and found it frankly shocking. This story should really be better known.

  116. 116.

    joel hanes

    @Cheap Jim:

    Alexander Abian was an Iowa State math professor who felt that he had disproved General Relativity with a thought experiment he called “Abian’s Trolley”.

    Also, he taught my Statistics class, and was a damned good math instructor.

  117. 117.

    catclub

    @chris: This is just evidence that wackaloons get on e.g. the Kansas City Federal Reserve bank board.
    He was also a high ranking executive at Coke.

  119. 119.

    Mandalay

    The media needs to start portraying Facebook as a criminal organization rather than a mixed blessing. How much more evidence do they need?…

    Facebook had allegedly exploited a loophole in Apple’s approval system to bypass rules that banned the harvesting of data about what apps are installed on a user’s phone. Facebook Research, an app the company paid users as young as 13 to install that routed their iPhone traffic through the company’s own servers, had been built using an enterprise developer certificate (EDC) issued by Apple to companies that need to build applications for internal use.

    Apple revoked Facebook’s EDCs, telling the Guardian: “We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organisation. Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple. Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.”

  122. 122.

    Seanly

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I think it’s a throwback to his German heritage. Aren’t nouns capitalized in the original German?

    Gratuitous Simpsons’ quote: “No one who speaks German could be evil.”

    LOL, hadn’t seen there were some other Simpson’s references upthread. I drive my wife crazy by being the Duncan Idaho of Simpsons’ quotes.

  123. 123.

    Peale

    @Kay: My guess its the either the white supremacists, who’ve been mucking about eastern Europe for at least a decade or the hedge fund/private equity/asset manager types. I would not be surprised if it turned out to the the Mercers who made them respectable within right wing circles.

    ETA: My guess is that they started buying the GOP as soon as Citizen’s United made dark money possible.

  125. 125.

    Punchy

    Wall is already being built, I don’t expect much help!

    Holy fuck, if Pelosi doesn’t take this and run 100 miles with it, she should be fired. He just said he doesn’t need help (actually, he doesn’t have any idea WTF he just said, but it’s there nonetheless). Exhibit A why the budget needs no additional wall money. He said it’s already being built! Exhibit B why the status quo is just fine, from the Man Himself.

    Repeat this line in every interview. Hang him and his party on this very tweet.

  127. 127.

    Aleta

    What a shame the feds were so uncivil and did not politely contact him to make an appointment to come in on his own. As Glen G and other Republicans said, there was no justification for surprising him, forcing entry and rushing him out of the house.

    Natasha Bertrand @NatashaBertrand
    JUST IN: According to Mueller and DC USA, discovery in the Roger Stone case is “both voluminous and complex,” and “is composed of multiple hard drives containing several terabytes of information”—including bank records & comms taken from iCloud/email accounts, electronic devices.

    (Short excerpt at link.)

  128. 128.

    CatFacts

    If Roger Stone was involved with the NRA/Russian connection, investigators probably know or will know exactly how long it’s been going on. Looks like the FBI and Mueller investigation collected several years and several terabytes worth of his electronic data when they arrested him. (source: Natasha Bertrand on twitter)

  129. 129.

    Brachiator

    @catclub:

    This is just evidence that wackaloons get on e.g. the Kansas City Federal Reserve bank board.
    He was also a high ranking executive at Coke.

    He sounds like an executive high on coke.

  130. 130.

    Gravenstone

    @Aleta: But remember, Acting AG Whitaker claimed that the Mueller investigation is “close to wrapping up”. It’s going to take them months or more just to fully unwind all this new information. And that’s just from one (very major) source.

  132. 132.

    chris

    @MattF: Haha! I went through my two=week Velikovsky phase shortly after I went through my two-week Ayn Rand phase. I was 16-17 at the time and the phases came fast and furious. I wonder if libraries still carry Velikovsky?

  135. 135.

    Renie

    trump’s not going to be happy there was just an announcement of a huge bust of drugs coming in from Mexico captured from a truck at a LEGAL port of entry at Nogales, AZ

    so much for those cantaloupe muscled people running across the borders with drugs or the others tossing them over the wall

  136. 136.

    Brachiator

    @Mandalay:

    The media needs to start portraying Facebook as a criminal organization rather than a mixed blessing. How much more evidence do they need?…

    Facebook had allegedly exploited a loophole in Apple’s approval system to bypass rules that banned the harvesting of data about what apps are installed on a user’s phone. Facebook Research, an app the company paid users as young as 13 to install that routed their iPhone traffic through the company’s own servers, had been built using an enterprise developer certificate (EDC) issued by Apple to companies that need to build applications for internal use.

    Fecebook’s response is … interesting.

    Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s defense? The teens “consented.”

    “So I want to be clear what this is,” Sandberg told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on Wednesday. “This is a Facebook Research app. It’s very clear to the people who participated. It’s completely opt-in. There is a rigorous consent flow and people are compensated. It’s a market research program.”…

    As for whether the teenagers involved in the program “consented,” legal minors cannot sign contracts without parental or guardian consent. Facebook has insisted that all participants below the age of 18 submitted parental consent forms, but it would be impossible for Facebook to remotely verify that the teens just didn’t fill them out themselves without extra steps.

  138. 138.

    Kay

    @Peale:

    or the hedge fund/private equity/asset manager types.

    oooh. Good guess. They’d like the loot it and then burn it down ethos. The starving masses and the plutocrats.

    My husband read an article in the Christian Science Monitor that Putin is weakening laws on domestic violence (a huge problem in Russia, apparently). It’s due to pressure from the Russian Right, who want him to reassert the dominance of males/husbands in the legal system. Scary stuff, for women. Not “culture” or “religious preference”. Laws subordinating women’s legal rights to men’s legal rights. The inherent right to beat the shit out of your wife.

  139. 139.

    Aleta

    @Aleta: To be more honest about what they said, they were also objecting about the guns and militaristic entry (that I agree are a horrible and dangerous part of standard forced entry). The hypocrisy is the disproportionate outcry. And that they were prob. being unusually careful to not injure Stone or pets or kids. Going after evidence of something truly dangerous, not a small amount of plant.

  143. 143.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    OT – I made the error of discovering Door Dash.

    I now have Smashburger fries and fried pickles coming to visit me mid afternoon.

  144. 144.

    dmsilev

    @otmar:

    @dmsilev: aw bugger. You were on Usenet in the stone age as well?

    Bronze age, really. Early nineties is when I started on the whole Internet thing. There were plenty of people around who had lived through e.g. the Great Renaming and so forth, so I picked up some of the earlier stuff by osmosis.

  146. 146.

    Martin

    @Kay: My understanding is that Torshin started reaching out to the NRA in 2001.

    I don’t think the NRA initiated any of this, but they were dumb enough to fall for it. Adam of course is the expert in this, but from what I’ve read the Russians like to recruit slowly. They look for a point of mutual interest and build a friendship around that interest. They ask for small, non-sensitive favors, and are generous in their thanks. They rely on our sense of obligation – that if they do something generous for us, we’ll feel obligated to repay them.

    The obvious point of interest with the NRA was widespread gun ownership. Putin absolutely hates that idea, so it would never in a million years fly in Russia, but Putin himself likes guns enough to convince incurious Americans that there is mutual self-interest here. When the Russians offer to fund the NRA to help elect pro-gun politicians in the US, I don’t see how they can refuse. They aren’t the most ethical organization to begin with, so I’m sure they had no problem rationalizing this as great for America.

    I doubt the NRA ever considered they were being used. Ideologues never seem to. (See Stein, Jill)

  147. 147.

    dmsilev

    @Brachiator: This has been one of the very few times that I’ve read about some dispute between two big companies and not thought to myself “root for injuries”. Apple was absolutely right to hammer Facebook over this, and pulling that certificate probably cost Facebook millions of dollars in lost developer time, missed deadlines, pissed-off staff, etc.

  148. 148.

    SFAW

    @dmsilev:

    Yeah, I read that too. My inarticulate comment was meant to convey that “Robert McElwaine” was not a name I recognized.

    I used to be able to write kleerly. I blame Obama and Hitlary.

  150. 150.

    SFAW

    @Brachiator:

    Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s defense? The teens “consented.”

    What the fuck? 13 years old is now the age of majority?

    Fucking asshole. She’s as bad as Zuckerberg.

  151. 151.

    Mike in NC

    Just read that Chris Christie put out a book this week in which he mostly blames other people (Kushner et al) for Trump’s stupidity and all-around incompetence. The book should be of great interest to the five people who’ll buy it.

  153. 153.

    otmar

    @dmsilev: well, I was the Usenet admin at Salzburg University ’93 to ’97.

    Yes, you might call that bronze age. At least we got the feed over ip and not via dialup.

  154. 154.

    Aleta

    @Kay: Which group on the Right first saw the Russian Right as allies and potential partners?

    This doesn’t answer that, but as refresher info about dates:

    Data from the Federal Election Commission show that Blavatnik’s campaign contributions dating back to 2009-10 were fairly balanced across party lines and relatively modest for a billionaire. During that season he contributed $53,400. His contributions increased to $135,552 in 2011-12 and to $273,600 in 2013-14, still bipartisan.
    In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik’s political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.

    May 8, 2018: This column originally published December 15, 2017. New allegations about $500k in payments from a Russian oligarch made to Trump attorney Michael Cohen have placed it back in the news.

    Len Blavatnik a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen [was] one of the largest donors to GOP political action committees in the 2015-16 election cycle. Blavatnik’s family emigrated to the U.S. in the late ’70s from the U.S.S.R. and he returned to Russia when the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late ’80s.

    Ruth May is a business professor at the University of Dallas and an expert on the economies of Russia and Ukraine. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News. Twitter: @ruthcmay

    From a Ruth May column in the Dallas Morning News. There is much more there about Russian oligarchs and GOP campaign contributions (dates, Mercers, Kushner, McConnell).

  155. 155.

    Brachiator

    @Mike in NC:

    Just read that Chris Christie put out a book this week in which he mostly blames other people (Kushner et al) for Trump’s stupidity and all-around incompetence. The book should be of great interest to the five people who’ll buy it.

    Let’s see. That would be Christie, Christie’s wife (out of loyalty), Jared, Ivanka, and some random person who picked it up and bought it by mistake.

  158. 158.

    Martin

    @dmsilev: Apple was telling Google they would pull their certificate as well if they didn’t stop their similar program.

    The Screenwise Meter iOS app should not have operated under Apple’s developer enterprise program — this was a mistake, and we apologize. We have disabled this app on iOS devices.

    I get the opposition to Apple, but the mistake Facebook made, and which Google rapidly addressed, is that there is a fair degree of outrage in Congress over this stuff, but they’re also paralyzed by action because they don’t know what the fuck to do to rein this in without damaging the industry. None of them understand how social media actually works as a business model, and they don’t want to destroy a huge US industry. But Apple is leading the charge within the industry to crack down on this kind of stuff. And we can argue over whether they’re going far enough or not, but the point is that all Congress needs is one champion within the industry to support their position, and they’ll gain the confidence to act. Apple has been relatively political in not calling out other tech companies, but Facebooks fuck-up is probably going to change that.

    Apple controls Facebook and Googles access to about half of the US population, and about 80% of the 13-35 year olds. They have significantly more power than they’re using (which is good and bad). Consider that Google pays Apple $1B per month to remain the default search engine on iOS. That’s not for exclusive access, just for being the default. But their greatest power here may be as a catalyst to convince Congress to act. One of my friends inside Facebook reiterated the view that Facebook could handle having Congress as an enemy, but having Apple as an enemy could ruin them. Apple doesn’t seek to ruin Facebook, but they sure as shit don’t want Facebooks constant fuckups to cause Congress to overreach and damage their own business either. Apple can harm them directly as they did with the pulled certificate, as well as indirectly by how they lobby Congress. My sense is that among Facebook employees, blame is falling a bit more against their employer than against Apple. Paying 13 year olds to install an app that can bypass *every* security measure on the device is indefensible.

    Apple is pissed by the way. I’m sure a few of the execs needed to be talked off the ledge of pulling the Facebook app entirely.

  161. 161.

    joel hanes

    @otmar:

    Usenet admin at Salzburg University ’93 to ’97

    Cool. Right during Scientology’s War on the ‘Net, and the cancelbot.

  164. 164.

    Leto

    @J R in WV: Hey! Though not as frequent, I try to hit some threads and drop comments. I’m still here :)

    I’m definitely doing what the evil PT docs tell me to do. Things are getting better, though maybe not at the speed I want. But at least they’re getting better.

    @chopper: :) /wave

  166. 166.

    Ken

    @Brachiator:

    some random person who picked it up and bought it by mistake

    I thought it was the next book in Rick Riordan’s Magnus Chase series…

  167. 167.

    ET

    So the feds just caught a huge cache of 254 pounds of fentanyl and 395 pounds of methamphetamine being smuggled into the US. In Nebraska. Meaning this likely didn’t come in via Mexico. Wonder how that works with tRumps narrative about the hordes of drugs coming in from the southern border. Even better… it was second only to another bust also in Nebraska in 2017.

  168. 168.

    Brachiator

    @ET:

    So the feds just caught a huge cache of 254 pounds of fentanyl and 395 pounds of methamphetamine being smuggled into the US. In Nebraska. Meaning this likely didn’t come in via Mexico.

    Some elements of this mystery have yet to be revealed.

    In the latest case, the tractor-trailer was stopped Saturday trying to enter the U.S. through the border checkpoint in Nogales, Arizona.

    Authorities said it was driven by a 26-year-old man who was arrested and charged with possessing drugs with the intent to distribute them. His identity and nationality were not immediately available.

    And what a terrible thing to do to cucumbers. And meth.

    Customs and Border Protection officers said Thursday they discovered 254 pounds of the drug hidden in a floor compartment of a truck loaded with cucumbers. They also found 395 pounds of methamphetamine.

  169. 169.

    Kenneth Kohl

    @Sebastian: “It’s Thursday and increased tweet volume means he is scared of something”

    You’re probably right. In anticipation of the dreaded Friday News Dump. Seems Team Mueller is getting closer to “the source”

  171. 171.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Ken: I seem to recall seeing that comment in on of Carl Sagan’s essays on Velikovsky & his theories. But I could be mistaken..

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