Most existential questions have no clear answer. What is my purpose in life? What happens after I die? Is there a higher power guiding my destiny? Does my dog have a soul?
Other "existential questions," however, are answered by 2 U.S.C. §§?192 & 194. Compliance is mandatory. https://t.co/QJdGfMxIA9
— Max Kennerly (@MaxKennerly) May 26, 2019
If you want a ‘responsible’ newspaper to gin up false sympathy for a treason-adjacent GOP minion, the NYTimes is your outlet. And if you want a reporter who’ll do a dishonest job with real dedication, Maggie Habermann is your willing gull:
… Like few others in the White House, Ms. Hicks was witness to some of the president’s angriest moments and most pointed directives about the investigations into the Trump campaign and its contacts with Russians in 2016. Her dilemma now is how to respond to House Democrats, who have grown frustrated and increasingly aggressive in the face of a sweeping decision by the Trump administration, and the Trump Organization, to oppose such subpoenas.
Ms. Hicks was instructed by the House Judiciary Committee to turn over documents by June 4 and to appear in person on June 19. She and another former West Wing aide, Annie Donaldson, who was the chief of staff to Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel at the time, were subpoenaed to testify…
A White House spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment about whether they will instruct Ms. Hicks to follow Mr. McGahn’s lead, or what legal grounds they might invoke to do so. But for Ms. Hicks, the options are fraught.
Witnesses have generally followed the White House lead, in part because of institutional concerns about areas that could be viewed as covered by executive privilege. But if Ms. Hicks does not cooperate, she would potentially be in legal jeopardy with the House.
The likeliest possibility would be a compromise, where she would submit to an interview as long as certain topics are off limits. More recently, Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached a deal with the Senate Intelligence Committee to come in for a limited interview, after he balked at a subpoena…
Always there with a helpful suggestion, our Ms. Haberman!
(Side note: The Washington Post — which is interested in the business of politics, not the politics of our oligarchical ‘betters’ — chose to focus on note-taker Annie Donaldson, not ego-fluffer Hope Hicks. And they got there almost a month ago, because honest reporting takes less time than beat-sweetening.)
Fisking by Emptywheel, who’s an expert at this:
And by "cooperated with the congressional investigations," you mean, "refused to talk about what she did at the White House.https://t.co/2zhCkkitj7
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 26, 2019
If you answered, 'Oh my goodness! In a bid to make Hope look totally innocent, Maggie left out the bit where Hope suggested they were going to withhold evidence," you would have better command of the Mueller Report than the NYT's journalist. pic.twitter.com/AROd3WYmeM
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 26, 2019
Okay. It's not ironic at all.
It is a journalist doing an unbelievably favorable piece on a former source who played a central role in routinely lying to the American people.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 26, 2019
(There is much more in Marcy’s twitter thread, if you click the link.)
What is the enduring mystique exactly? Being the Marilyn Munster of the west wing? pic.twitter.com/4qg9mEnOaP
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 26, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/hope-hicks-subpoena.html
How different would the impression be if they went with this? pic.twitter.com/ZIIWO4qIbi
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 26, 2019
Baud
From the prior thread.
https://youtu.be/8JOpPNra4bw
Emerald
Hope Hicks lives in California?
Can we deport her?
Kay
It’s weird how regular people have to comply with subpoenas and depositions and discovery demands and testifying as witnesses and they go trooping in and do that, every single day, hundreds of people a month all over the country for all kinds of disputes, but fancy people have this whole decision process where their very existence is at stake.
Testifying is awful and it’s no fun turning over tax records and business records. No one wants to do it. Yet they all do. Except the low quality Trump hires, who are special.
Kay
I love how they all say they won’t appear because it’s not important. You try that. Tell whichever tribunal or government body calls you that you believe their inquiry is not important so therefore you will not be appearing. See how that goes.
Kay
And as to the NYTimes defense that she’s now a “private citizen” it doesn’t take a fucking rocket scientist to figure out that they way to escape scrutiny and accountability would be to quit your job after lying for the President. Even the low quality Trump hires figured that out. That’s why they call “private citizens”. Because quitting your crime job shouldn’t mean you get off, or, you know, everyone would do it.
low-tech cyclist
Sam Wang for the win: “Should a federal employee obey a lawful order, or stay loyal to an individual? Here at
@nytpolitics, we can’t say. It’s just all a partisan game! We’re not going to make a value judgment! We have great portrait photographers though.”
Steve in the ATL
@Kay: I testified the other day and had fun doing it! But I admit that my situation was highly unusual. My favorite part: the NLRB attorney asked me a question. I responded “are you seriously asking me for a legal opinion?” The NLRB judge jumped in and said, “well you’re a lawyer—give us your opinion!” The NLRB and union attorneys looked very uncomfortable, while the company attorney couldn’t suppress a smirk. And give a legal opinion I did, much to the chagrin of the NLRB and union attorneys!
But, obviously, my situation was highly unusual.
Eric S.
There’s so much BS with admin I can’t keep it straight. Wasn’t Hicks subject to “slut shaming” by Trump and or his minions? I remain baffled by the loyalty shown to Small Gloves.
Villago Delenda Est
The Haberhack twit is an outright propagandist for Donald the fascist twit. Two twits in a pod, as it were.
No mercy for Haberhack at the truth and retribution commission.
MomSense
@Kay:
Yeah when regular people fail to appear in court, arrest warrants are issued causing housing vouchers to be discontinued. People lose their apartments and their kids. It’s unbelievable how many parents give up their parental rights because they can never get back on their feet after all of that.
Aleta
Willis’ article from April 2017
http://oliverwillis.com/2017/04/30/attention-liberals-the-ny-times-isnt-your-ally/
Aleta
Baud
The core assumption among Republicans and the media is that Democrats are not legitimate in the exercise of authority and therefore cannot demand anything of their betters without their consent.
Steve in the ATL
@Aleta: but her emails! I mean, but the crossword puzzle!
Baud
@Aleta:
Lotta words to say the NYT is garbage.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Times of India, PrintIndia and IndiaToday are garbage^n.
Duane
@Kay: Institutional concerns. I like that one. “Let’s all us crooks and traitors hide behind the White House!”
Yutsano
I just want to make one point.
Fawn Hall at least testified.
Anne Laurie
Steve in the ATL
@Yutsano: “qui es mas caliente?”
Not that you care.
James E Powell
It’s pretty common to read or hear people wondering “Has the media learned nothing since 2016?” What the NYT learned is that they can smear a Democrat and put a corrupt RWer in the White House and their loyal liberal readers will not desert them. The real question is, “Have liberals learned nothing since 2016?” If there had been mass cancellations, it would be a different paper today.
Steeplejack
@Steve in the ATL:
¡Ricardo Montalban, por supuesto!
Aleta
https://twitter.com/EricColumbus/status/1132740212193452038 noticed (screenshots) that the “existential question” angle used for a story sympathetic to Hicks has been used before. It was fed to the press a year ago (NY Mag, writer olivia nuzzi) to soften opinions of Hicks.
Even though this (using canned info that came straight from the PR office of obvious manipulators) has been going on a long time at the NYTimes, NY Mag, etc., it never ceases to appall me. It’s not fcking journalism !!!!!!!!!!! Don’t do it. And don’t pretend it’s reporting when you’re only repeating the slant and sources they gave you right down to the phrasing.
James E Powell
@Yutsano:
Didn’t Fawn Hall get immunity? I recall she admitted hiding documents that were the subject of the subpoena.
Jay
@James E Powell:
They learned nothing from 9/11, the Iraq War, going all the way back to the rise of Hitler.
NotMax
“Please answer yes or no, Ms Hicks.”
“In due course, but before losing my train of thought I want to continue giving you my recipe for avocado toast.”
Steve in the ATL
@James E Powell: IIRC she hid them in her giant 80’s hair
Jay
@James E Powell:
“In June 1987, Hall, herself, began two days of testimony in front of the United States Congress. She confessed to altering, shredding a large number of documents (so much was destroyed, she said, that the office shredder jammed), and smuggling others in her boots and inside her clothing and giving them to North on November 25, 1986, who was fired after his role in orchestrating potentially illegal aid to the Nicaraguan Contras became public.[4][5] Among her other testimony was a claim that, “Sometimes you have to go above the law.”[5] Journalist Bob Woodward recorded that her legal defense justification was summarized in her words: ‘We shred everything’.[6] In 1989, in exchange for her testimony against North for Iran-Contra affair, she was granted immunity from prosecution.[7]”
NotoriousJRT
It is often said that DJT has no capacity for feeling shame.True enough. But, clearly, Maggie Habermann also lacks that capacity.
chris
@schrodingers_cat: OT: Did you see this? More than 40 per cent of lawmakers in India’s new Parliament face criminal charges – some as serious as murder and rape…
When I first saw it I thought it couldn’t be true but the article is pretty damning.
Steeplejack
@Steve in the ATL:
Hollow shoulder pads.
schrodingers_cat
@chris: True and not new or unique to this incoming class of MPs.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
It was her boots.
justawriter
The look on Hicks’ face in the Brenner photos makes me think she is about to say, “Where have you been walking, you have some Trump on your shoe?”
Anne Laurie
@Aleta:
I remember that Nuzzi article — I may have posted about it! — and IMO, Nuzzi was using the framework to mock Hicks (or rather, the people trying to sell Hicks as some kind of martyr). Nuzzi’s a straightforward journalist assassin-for-hire, which is why she’s working at NYMag and not at the NYTimes, because the NYTimes suits get a rash when a political reporter doesn’t have the correct ‘sensitivity’… to write up subjects as the suits want them written up, without needing instructions that might leave evidence.
chris
I recall posting a picture of Hopey here and remarking on her dead-eyed expression. Someone else chimed in with “shark eyes.” Figures the FNYT wouldn’t want that in a puff piece.
Anne Laurie
@Jay: The disheartening part of Fawn Hall’s wikipedia entry (for me, at least) is that the publicity enabled her to ‘marry well’, and get the heck outta DC. Hicks has demonstrably terrible taste in men, but IMO it would seem to me that she’s more interested in an old-fashioned upper-upper-middle-class Aryan-from-Darien legal (marriage) partnership than in a media / political career — she might take Hall’s post-Irangate status as encouragement!
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Oh, God, I forgot the boots.
NotMax
OT.
Phew. Went out earlier to change a tire on landlady’s car. 90-something degrees and no breeze. The shade inside the garage offered some protection, still shirt was wringing wet and am now totally knackered. Stupid ass tools and jack that come with her Subaru didn’t help – they’re practically toy sized.
chris
I think this was the picture.
https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/hope-hicks.png?w=1000&h=562&crop=1
TS (the original)
It always comes down to
If a democrat did any of this …..
Imagine the GOP reaction if President Obama told his staff not to speak to congress. The situation is mind boggling and more and more like Germany 1937
Aleta
@Anne Laurie: ok thanks !
Here’s the article
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/03/hope-hicks-didnt-break-overnight.html
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
A friend of mine’s mother worked for Harding, and she said she was the “Fawn Hall of the Teapot Dome scandal” because she also smuggled out some torn-up documents.
Ruckus
@Aleta:
I have been saying basically the same thing for a long time. The people who work at the FTFNYT are employees. They get paid to write what their employers want them to write. Just like I get paid to make what my boss tells me to make. Or what a doctor at a Catholic hospital doesn’t do because that’s what his employers tell them they can not do. Most of us have had jobs that we did things we either didn’t want to do or thought would be better not to do, because we were getting paid to do X, not X +/- whatever the hell we wanted.
ruemara
Fuuuuuck these people and fuck Maggie with a chainsaw. Pulled the trigger on the voices website. No time like the present, since I have the credit.
It’s now 4 hours later and I’ve submitted to 7 jobs so far and my throat is burning, so yay? Slipped in some recording for Ostium and I have an adorable cat pic for y’all of Mr. Odo in his usual position. Also, here is miss Himesama just fucking up things while I work.
Ruckus
@NotoriousJRT:
Two piles of shit or birds of something, something…….
(((CassandraLeo)))
Fuck the fucking New York Times.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
I hope they were whistle-blower docs!
Aleta
@Ruckus: In the 90s I noticed that the Times Science section had begun to publish “new technology” articles that looked too much like what you’d see in product or press releases from companies. A lot of it was silicon valley oriented. Articles written not from reporting but from from press handouts. (There was real stuff to report from SV of course.) After a while the Times merged their Science section with technology, esp digital tech (I forget the new name of the section). More of it seemed to dovetail with attracting stock buyers or investors. Not objective. Then some of the science reporting began to seem (to me) fluffier too.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Uh, I think not.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Wait, so she was helping the corrupt regime?!
sylvainsylvain
I’ve about decided that Hope Hicks, the FTFNYT, and Maggie in particular, actually ARE facing an existential threat. Putin, or McConnell, or the Koch Bros, or someone else out there, have made it clear that They Are Not To Be Crossed.
Maggie hasn’t written a puff piece, it’s a cry for help. Unfortunately (for them), I’ve stopped listening to their foolishness, and I’m trying to focus more on what’s actually happening.
It’s sad that the DC press corps treats the Mean Girls in the lunch room as some sort of Kremlinology, but that’s the world they live in. They probably don’t even know they’re doing it. Oh well.
Doug R
Website note: on android phone page loads but loading bar gets stuck at about 70% and still hasn’t loaded completely.
Doug R
@Doug R: ….but commenting seems to have fixed it.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Baud:
Perhaps it’s time we proved to them that there’s serious consequences for disobedience. Have them arrested and thrown in jail
Steve in the ATL
@Doug R: on iOS, the page never stops loading, as if it’s an ad problem, and it kills my battery
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
I believe so. I don’t remember the details! It was a long time ago! I just remember my friend saying that her mother was the Fawn Hall of Teapot Dome.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@NotMax:
Knackered? Did you have a spot of tea afterwards? How’s Merry Old England this time of year, old chap? ; p
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Blame it on all the Brexit talk of late.
;)
Years and years ago, made up a word to express the extreme of the same condition but no one outside my IRL circle of acquaintances would recognize it. Tattersnapped.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Steve in the ATL: OT, but I just finished An Unquiet Grave and your alma mater has a cameo near the end. Of course the book begins by introducing a lawyer working on his release from an asylum, so it may not be your cup of tea.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
I thought from your first comment that the mother was the one saying she was the Teapot Dome Fawn Hall. I thought it was a strange thing it brag about.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Yes, I wrote it badly. And now that I think about it, it was my friend’s son who dubbed his grandmother the Fawn Hall of Teapot Dome.
Steeplejack
I had a friend who was always getting deep into “pronoun syndrome” when telling anecdotes. A few people’s names would be mentioned at the start, and then it was “he said this” or “she did that” all the way down.
And I would inevitably get my ass kicked because at some point I would say something like: “She got pregnant?!”
“Of course not! She’s 70 years old!”
“Wait, you were talking about the grandmother, not the granddaughter?”
“Of course!”
And then I would get booked for “men don’t listen” syndrome.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@NotMax:
Yeah, the entire world seems to be collectively losing it’s mind. It honestly quite scary and couldn’t have come at worst time re climate change.
When I first read “tattersnapped”, that made me think AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” for some reason lol
mrmoshpotato
@Steeplejack: Book ’em Dano! :)
Ruckus
@Aleta:
The people who pay for those things that the FTFNYT reports on make and spend money by getting people to purchase the stuff they make, be it good or bad. They aren’t willing to spend money to have the absolute truth told about their products. They are paying money to make themselves/their companies look better. Kind of like the shit for brains that is our president. He has, his entire life, only spent money to make himself look better. He stiffs anyone or everyone who doesn’t do that. And that is what the FTFNYT knows, to make money at their level one has to bullshit. They print fluff pieces about stuff, written by the companies that pay them in one way or another to do exactly that. So they hire bullshitters or better yet they just print what the company writes. Saves them from having to do almost any work at all.
mrmoshpotato
Ugh. It’s too late for this shit. I’m too drunk for this shit. I hope she burns in hell after the prison sentence.
Good night.
I’ll fucking read about Southern Belle Lindsay in the morning.
CapnMubbers
@ruemara: wow, you went for it! Hope that works for you, I’ve been worrying about your adorable kitties (and you too.) Love the pics and videos you post of them.
bupalos
So I’ve really only had three [[[[BA-DOING-OING-OING]]]] moments in this whole Trumpy timeline, where something seems to have shifted way past where I thought it was at. Which really have nothing to do with the most immediate harms, but points where subjectively I was like “whoah… where am I” :
1: Seeing the “Freedom Kids” dance at the Trump rally, and people act like we’re not entering an insane dumb-nazi timeline.
2: Reality TV Moron “wins” election, and people act like it’s not totally insane.
and then today, #3, where an ostensibly(!) MSM outlet writes a blazing-siren headline that basically the poorest member of the Senate has APPROACHING AT LEAST (a 1984 formulation I may simply never recover from) 2 million net worth, with mansions and money trees sprouting from his ears. Approaching at least. Not there yet but definitely past there, by god knows what Jewy measure. AND WHERE DID HE GET THESE(This) SECRET(totally not secret) MILLION(s)??
I do think that if this is the end of civilization, that, approaching at the least, the asshole that came up with this formulation– either to feather his nest, or because he went to Davidson and was told about Leo Strauss and subsequently went stark raving mad– I think he needs to be fed to Kim Jong Un’s dogs or something. Or to be approaching at least the kennel.
NotMax
@bupalos
Offensive and sickening rhetoric in the extreme. Abject apology in order.
Darkrose
@ruemara: That’s some painful cuteness there. And sending good vibes to the universe for the jobs.
SiubhanDuinne
@bupalos:
‘Scuse me?
Matt McIrvin
@bupalos: That last one has me wanting badly to defend Bernie Sanders, a feeling I have not had in years. This guy has accumulated a perfectly reasonable nest egg for a superannuated dude with a six-figure professional salaried existence. If someone doesn’t like that because they’ll never see that kind of money and people shouldn’t feel compelled to accumulate it, well, the remedies are systemic and Sanders has always been on the correct side here.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: I do believe bupalos was attempting to accuse said MSM outlet of antisemitism here.
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
Yup, and effectively.
@Matt McIrvin:
Yup.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
Please don’t make excuses for hate speech.
J R in WV
@bupalos:
Pretty sure you have crossed a line that will get you permanently banned from this web site, forever. Hoping so anyway. Also hope you figure out why, someday, in a year or two. But doubt it.
I mean, really?! Don’t want an apology — just want you to go away, far, far away, forever!
Jay
@NotMax:
The article in question, highly slants Wilmers “accural”, and mentions his faith, a lot.
Meanwhile, Yurtle the Turtle has garnered over 2 million in Needy Amin bitcoin from the Trade Wars are easy to Win, by dint of being a “farmer”, in less than a year.
Yutsano
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah not seeing it that way. Might need a front pager to do some cleanup here.*
*I am NOT suggesting banning him or giving him a time out. But that sort of comment doesn’t belong here.
Jay
@J R in WV:
The article in question, is highly anti-semetic, and inferrs that Wilmer’s $2 million, $1 from a book, the other, from real estate and 401k accruals off a 6 figure salary, means he’s a crook.
While ignoring all those who have made billions in much less time than that, by being actual crooks.
NotMax
@Jay
The article is not what we are directly taking issue with, which is the words (and sentiment ineluctably tied to those words) expressed by the commenter.
FlipYrWhig
@NotMax: The commenter is OBVIOUSLY mocking the wording of the article and its headline. I know these are tense times but, come the hell on, it couldn’t be more obvious.
Jay
@NotMax:
The commenter is calling out the anti-semetic aspects of the article and the innuendo, in leet speak.
Yeah, there are better and more articulate ways to do it, but sometimes a molotov cocktail is needed, or the author feels it’s needed.
The article has been up all day, and maybe, because it’s a long weekend, it’s just starting to be slagged for it’s veiled anti-semitism,
Or maybe, that’s just another norm these days.
Steve in the ATL
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Yeah, too soon!
Jay
@FlipYrWhig:
Yup.
NotMax
@FlipYrWhig
No, not obvious at all. It is what it is. Am totally unfamiliar with the article. which again, on its own is not the point. Blithely reaching for such bile is on its own repellent, repulsive and more than deserving of a smackdown.
Jay
@Steve in the ATL:
When did you get out?
And for the curious, ( you don’t have to answer), were you Steve in the ??????
Yutsano
@FlipYrWhig: @Jay: Take a moment.
Look at who is talking.
MAYBE we’re seeing things that cause us concern that you’re not.
Or in my case, big fucking warning signs,
There was better language to use. He chose that language.
I think we are rightly calling it out as at the VERY least inappropriate.
But dammit LISTEN TO US.
Jay
@Steve in the ATL:
Self commitment or Court Mandated, or a Friends and Family package?
Steeplejack
@FlipYrWhig:
Agreed. It seemed clear to me that bupalos was writing satirically.
Steve in the ATL
@Jay: yes.
@Jay: Steve in the [redacted for HIPAA compliance]
Matt McIrvin
@Jay: Evidently ineffectively.
Jay
@(((Yutsano))):
Do you understand the reference?
Do you understand “reclaiming”?
Yeah, it was’t elequent, it was a bomb thrown.
It got attention. That was the goal.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: They let you out?
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
We are dead threading it, so the bomb worked,
And pointed out that the MSM is more than happy to gin up anti-semetic tropes.
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It was either that or have their Union Contract “arbitrated”,…..
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I know, right?
NotMax
@Jay
Do you understand “blind?”
It is not acceptable usage in any circumstance.
Dave
@James E Powell: I agree. I am not a “mass” (well, I am 30 pounds overweight, so maybe I am), but after subscribing to every paywall scheme the NYT ever put forward, I finally gave up on them, about a year ago. They keep sending their offers begging me to renew, I keep telling them to bugger off.
Steve in the ATL
@Jay: like I’m the only poster here who has been in a home for the criminally insane….
jl
@Jay: ” Or maybe, that’s just another norm these days. ”
This NYT article is crap, the sad ass attempted hit job by Politico on Bernie Sanders is crap, and with just as much antisemitic trappings as that first Omar comment about ‘the Benjamins’ and venturing near Trumpster territory.
Edit: Yeebus, could any corporate media outlet be bothered to write an investigative piece on Trump’s dirty money during 2016? No.
A person could write a long article about the problems of Bernie Sanders as a presidential candidate without BS and smears about his ‘millions’ and his three rather pedestrian houses. How many reactionary goy GOP gazillionaire geezers in the Senate get a treatment like that. None.
Huge swatches of our corporate dominated media are complete corrupt and publish crap and lies on a regular basis to protect corporate power and kiss that ass of whoever is in power.
Jay
@(((NotMax))):
I wouldn’t use it, but then, I’m not Jewish.
I do use the ((( ))) from time to time.
There’s a bunch of words that I don’t use, that some of my friends use, because they are allowed to reclaim them.
But then, strange times, when the MSM can publish a “Protocols of Zion” op-ed that’s complete bullshit, with out major push back because the Insane Clown POSus might pardon War Criminals tomorrow.
Jay
@Steve in the ATL:
“In” a home,……..
Pedantry badge torn off in shame,….
Jay
@jl:
Yup, double yup.
Steve in the ATL
@Jay: I lived on the roof.
NotMax
@Jay
If science is correct about an infinite number of parallel universes, have no doubt that in one of them you get the point.
hervevillechaizelounge
Are any elder-libs still awake? I have a Clinton question (related to both Hill and Bill).
Why don’t the Clintons ever go scorched earth? For example, why didn’t Bill reveal Newt’s affair during the impeachment kerfuffle? Why didn’t he do any digging into Lindsey Grahamcracker’s well-known affinity for underage rent boys?
Hillary reportedly has a shit-ton of oppo on Wilmer, and she presumably knows he’s a Russian asset dedicated to fucking the party; why doesn’t she set the information free?
I’m obsessed with understanding how we got into our present predicament—and I suspect the simultaneous Clinton impeachment and the birth of Fauxnews (the Rosemary’s Baby of the airwaves) sowed the seeds of Ragnarok.
NotMax
@Steve in the ATL
Insane with shingles? That’s like a real double whammy.
;)
Jay
@Steve in the ATL:
Word I had, was it was full Hannibal Lecter, and to torment you, the dolly was Union Made, In the USA.
With big stickers.
Jay
@hervevillechaizelounge:
“Why don’t the Clintons ever go scorched earth? For example, why didn’t Bill reveal Newt’s affair during the impeachment kerfuffle? Why didn’t he do any digging into Lindsey Grahamcracker’s well-known affinity for underage rent boys?”
IOKAR
Aleta
Yutsano
@hervevillechaizelounge: @Jay: It wasn’t QUITE as simple as IOKIYAR but the media was complete trash back then too, A lot of the political media regarded the Clintions as backwoods yokels who didn’t play by the norms of the Washington Elite. And oh man did they HATE Hillary from the outset! How DARE she not be the traditional first lady? How DARE she disparage baking cookies and having tea! How DARE we have a feminist president! The media had it in for the Clintons since they won the White House.You think they would take scorched Earth seriously from THEM???
Jay
@Aleta:
Yup,
@Yutsano:
Double yup.
West of the Rockies
@Steve in the ATL:
Well, you are a Falcons fan… There’s a certain kind of cray-cray in that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yutsano:
Yup. Will never forget David Broder’s summation of the Clintons’ tenure in Establishment D.C.: “They came in and they trashed the place, and it isn’t their place.”
Jay
Reading about the battle of Ap Bac, 1963.
VC presence was detected by SIGINT of a VC headquarters in the village.
Also the headquarters of the 7th ARVN Regiment.
The village had 700 people.
Funny that.
Amir Khalid
@hervevillechaizelounge:
I guess some people do ask themselves,”If I do this, how am I better than the other person?”. Not everyone thinks it’s okay to go there.
hervevillechaizelounge
@Amir Khalid:
I suppose that makes sense, although it seems contrary to everything I’ve been told about Bill Clinton’s political instincts.
Thanks for taking the time to answer!
Anne Laurie
@bupalos: I understand your outrage, but you really should have thought twice about your phrasing, if you want people to sympathize with your point.
I will admit the dishonesty of Politico’s hit piece almost made me feel indignant for Sanders, but he’s not the “poorest member of the Senate”. He wasn’t in 2016, and that was before he became, in his own words, a best-selling author (and the beneficiary of a massive mailing list). The main reason he’s susceptible to borderline anti-Semitic attacks like this is that he’s so shufflingly defensive about his finances, as with his stubborn refusal to release his tax returns. Politico’s hit piece is dishonestly slanted, but their facts are legally unimpeachable.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Yes. Abhorring/denouncing the tactics and then turning around and utilizing the same is not only inherently contradictory, it grants validity to them.
Brachiator
Business is not clamoring for infrastructure. This was a Democratic Party wet dream to stimulate the economy. But it has now become self-justifying for Democrats, but of no particular value to the GOP. And Trump never promised massive federal spending. He mumbled vague ideas of a business and government partnership. But the corporations prefer to keep their profits rather than contribute to any infrastructure plan.
I don’t know. Trump and his family benefit greatly from the tax cuts. Plus, the GOP leadership turns a blind eye while Trump enriches himself any way he wants through side deals and ripping off the government.
Also, Trump is stupid. He signed off on the GOP tax plan, and took credit for it, because he is too lazy and too ignorant to outline his own proposal or to evaluate any congressional plan.
But the GOP also needs Trump because he can deliver the voters better than any other Republican. They could not cut him loose, even if they tried. And Trump isn’t too weak and powerless to fix the roads. He doesn’t care. He’s got planes and helicopters to fly over bad roads.
And of course, there is the Putin connection.
ETA The Heritage Foundation is crafting a proposal to cut more taxes and to shrink the government by eliminating programs to help the poor and the middle class. Look for this to become official Trump administration policy very soon. Here’s a link:
https://www.heritage.org/blueprint-balance
Ruckus
@Steve in the ATL:
Well it wasn’t criminal and I was just visiting………..
Brachiator
@hervevillechaizelounge:
When you strike a match and throw it, you cannot control who might get burnt.
Washington is a corrupt and sleazy place that can operate only if people keep secrets. Every now and then someone who is hated or who goes too far is exposed or cast out, but people close ranks and life goes on.
Mnemosyne
@Jay:
Yutsano and NotMax are both Jewish, at least in part.
So you marking the nyms of 2 Jewish men with a white supremacist’s ((( ))) method of highlighting Jewish names online is … not a good look for you here, to say the least.
Dial the gentile savior act back several hundred notches and consider that there may be a reason that a Jewish person would be offended even when your non-Jewish self is not.
trnc
@NotMax: It’s a pretty roughly written post, but in the context of the whole line …
… it’s pretty clear he was satirizing the commentary of right wing douchebags.
trnc
@Anne Laurie:
That’s how most hit pieces work. They don’t outright lie, but they often leave out important context of which they are likely aware or commit both-siderism or highlight arguments known to have been made in bad faith or all of the above. Legally unimpeachable has long been established as a pretty low bar.
different-church-lady
Does she mean ‘existential’ in the literal sense, or in the “I have no idea what that word actually means” sense?
NotMax
@tmc
I disagree that it’s “pretty clear” and, regardless, resent the ‘Just lie back and enjoy it, honey’ implication that used in that context makes it an okay slur.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@different-church-lady: I would hope it were used in the hyperbolic sense, but I imagine it’s more a combination of the “I have no idea what that word actually means” sense and a firmly held belief that actually following the law is for the little people. It’s the FNYT, after all.
StringOnAStick
teRegarding Maggie Haberman, please remember that her mom is a big wheel with the publicist firm that has often represented Trump family and business crap for years. Once you know that, Maggie’s POTUS polishing makes a lot more sense.
Crosspalms
Sticks nix Hicks pix