New York Assemblyman Brian Kolb, no need for you to tell you which party, had his day in court for a DUI today. The guy’s a prince among men:
Court documents allege that Kolb consumed four or five cocktails at a restaurant in Pittsford, about 15 miles away. He also allegedly told a tow-truck driver that his wife was to blame when his state-owned vehicle was found in a ditch near his home.
The driver told deputies that Kolb told him “My wife was driving!” and then said, “you know how women drive.”
The driver also told deputies he did not see anyone else near the vehicle.
On Thursday. Kolb told reporters that his words about his wife driving were simply him “trying to make light” of a bad situation, and was taken out of context in news articles.
“I was kidding around and they took it seriously. I would never blame my wife. That was a joke,” Kolb said.
“I love my wife and would never throw her under the bus,” he said
The guy called a tow truck for a car stuck basically on his driveway. If he had gone inside and slept it off, there would have been no charges filed. Instead, he calls a tow truck, I don’t think he impressed the driver, the driver called the cops, and now, here we are. He’s resigned as Minority Leader [edit: he’s keeping his seat, though]. Open thread.
dr. bloor
Wait, he resigned instead of stating that he was set up by the truck driver, who Alex Jones said is an agent of Deep State? Piker has no place in the modern GOP.
Steeplejack (phone)
So clearly drunk dialing was the problem here, not drunk driving.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@dr. bloor: He resigned as minority leader. He’s still staying on as assemblyman. He might win his next race, but his district isn’t all banjos on porches (it’s Victor, Canandaigua, Seneca Falls, South Bristol), so he might not.
MJS
You do need to tell me which party, because I’m completely thrown by “He’s resigned as Minority Leader.” Only Democrats are forced to resign.
trollhattan
Tow truck is not technically a bus, so I suppose the assemblyman has a point. His wife loves him unreservedly, of that I am certain. (Duncan Hunter the second, methinks.)
burnspbesq
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes:
jesus. If i had to live in any of those places, staying drunk all the time would look like a viable option.
Cheryl Rofer
The Moar You Know
Says the drunk guy who did his level best to throw his wife under the bus, and chose that course of action as the first option.
Can’t wait for the nasty divorce details.
John Revolta
would have went
AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHHH
patroclus
It seems clear to me that everything he said to the cop was “perfect.” There was clearly no collusion or obstruction and it’s a Deep State WitchHunt to assert that there was. Read the Transcript!!
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@burnspbesq: Really? That’s winery country in the Finger Lakes. There are lots of nice places to live around there, plenty of good food, etc. It’s not Elmira, for example.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@John Revolta: Fixed. Put your nitro back in the medicine cabinet. :) Thanks
A Ghost To Most
@burnspbesq:
“I ain’t never goin’ back to buttholeville”
– Patterson
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Cheryl Rofer: Finally, a credible leader makes a statement.
ellenr
@John Revolta: If he had gone…..
germy
NATOME
germy
jeffreyw
@Cheryl Rofer:
“I was cleaning it and it went off.”
Elizabelle
I would much rather talk about the lives that were lost in the Ukrainian plane crash in Teheran.
Lot of scientists, Ph.D. students, really educated and wonderful people who were going to help save our world. Can we talk about them, or at least notice their passing? A lot of educated Iranians are horrified at their society and political structure, and embrace democracy as well as education. They can be our allies.
Also, FWIW, I suspect the jet was shot down by the Iranians, but I also place the blame on Trump, who is why they had twitchy fingers that night. I think Trump is as morally responsible for these deaths as were those who likely shot down the plane (probably in error, even more horrible if not a mistake).
Lot of young people on that flight, more than half the passengers were born in or after 1990; many children. A lot of bright and promising lives that are just gone.
WaPost:
176 people died in the Ukrainian plane crash in Iran. Here are some of their stories.
They had names. And they had futures. Until Trump put in motion the events that led to them falling from the skies.
germy
I remember the old W.C. Fields film “It’s a Gift” where he’s driving erratically on some wealthy person’s estate and knocks over one of his marble statues.
“She ran right in front of the car!” he yells.
Mary G
Nancy SMASH got this week’s cover of Time and I’m sure the president will be fine with it.
germy
@Mary G:
Maybe one of his minions will photoshop Donald’s head over her head and he’ll retweet it.
Mary G
@Elizabelle: What a waste of human potential.
Elizabelle
@Mary G: Nancy Smash. Love her.
pamelabrown53
@Mary G:
Thank you for that info and hope all you click on the link! Phenomenal woman. Added bonus is her TIME cover will push Trump further over the edge.
NYCMT
What an interesting development this will be:
MCCONNELL backs resolution to change Senate rules to dismiss impeachment articles if they don't arrive from the House within 25 days of passage — or Jan. 12 in this case.
Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney)
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1215367914100051970?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw“>January 9, 2020</a>
Repatriated
@NYCMT: Open new hearings, amend the articles, and send them again. It’s just that easy. Or is there some other “own goal” in play here?
Elizabelle
@pamelabrown53: That actually is kind of perfect. Trump expects the cover, for his audacious courage in taking out an Iranian general.**
But nope. It’s Nancy. Who does actually courageous things every single day of the week.
** For which his administration could not provide suitable justification, which did not escape notice by even some Republican senators.
germy
@NYCMT:
He’s playing Calvinball.
jeffreyw
NeenerNeener
@burnspbesq: Canandaigua has some of the most expensive lake front property in the US.
Elizabelle
@jeffreyw: It’s so tragic. There was so much science and curiosity and technical skill and, as Mary G said, human potential on that flight.
I think of the renowned AIDS researcher killed in a Swiss Air crash years ago, and of the NGO and aid workers taken out in the Ethiopian Boeing Max 8 crash. Every accident is a tragedy, but some are really a setback.
John Revolta
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: Thanks Dukie
Cheryl Rofer
Thread about reaction to the crash in Canada.
pamelabrown53
@Elizabelle:
Yep! And if you clicked on the link, you’ll view a short video from President Obama as to why he thinks she’s headed for the history books! He clearly defines an element of courage as being willing to withstand a barrage of criticism and do the right thing anyway!
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: I have clearly watched too much Law and Order because I wondered earlier today whether Trump could be charged with depraved indifference for his part in this plane being shot down.
ChrisS
“I was kidding around and they took it seriously. I would never blame my wife. That was a joke,”
It’s always a joke after they get caught saying something offensive. Conservative republicans are hilarious, you can tell because there so may wildly successful conservative comedians and sit-coms.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Morally, he is responsible. But I guess it will be like the photographers who chased Princess Diana to her death. Blame it on the drunk driver.
@pamelabrown53: I will give that a listen. President Obama is balm for the senses.
“an element of courage as being willing to withstand a barrage of criticism and do the right thing anyway”
We don’t see enough of that. Got to celebrate it when we do.
Resolution for 2020: watch as many Nancy Smash press conferences as possible.
John Revolta
@NYCMT: Yertle can back whatever the fuck he wants; if he hasn’t got 67 votes to change the rule he can STFU.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: I have helped two Iranians get asylum in the U.S. It’s been a while now, but it really brought home to me how the U.S. has failed to make any kind of strategic investment to reduce tension with Iran over time. I do think Obama tried to reverse course, hence the JCPOA. But any time it seems like there might be some kind of breakthrough or progress it seems like someone, somewhere, for some reason is determined to make sure it is squelched. It might not always be the same someone, and I am not a conspiracy theorist, but whether it is Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, John Bolton, the U.S. weapons industrial complex, or whoever, it always seems to serve someone’s strategic interests to have the U.S. be on a near war footing with Iran. It’s a form of national stupidity.
West of the Rockies
@Elizabelle:
The rage or fear-hyped moron who launched the missile or ordered its launch… You think he knows, cares, feels remorse? I think I’d go a little insane.
Elizabelle
@Cheryl Rofer: I know. The connections. One after the other after the other.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: That’s beyond awful.
Not to mention… we don’t even know what the others who were lost might have done. It’s like all those kids who were murdered several years ago – all young leaders – with such bright futures ahead.
Elizabelle
@West of the Rockies: I think he does know at some level, and it shut him up for the time being. Don’t watch Trump ever, but it sounds as though he has cut the swagger.
Enough of the BSD activity. (Big Swinging D….)
Nancy
@burnspbesq: Now, now, the places of which you speak are home to lovely scenery.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: Yes, very curious that, no? Because there are definitely points of agreement and opportunities for progress.
Ruviana
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: Lol! I live in Elmira! I was going to comment that the weirdest thing about moving here from L.A. was all tje woman-driver jokes that I hadn’t heard at home in years!
Kent
Someone should photo-shop Nancy’s Time cover as a framed portrait on the wall in Mar a Lago! and send that around the Twitterverse. That would really make his head explode!!
Barbara
@Elizabelle: The largest population of Iranians living outside of Iran is in Los Angeles.
OzarkHillbilly
@John Revolta: I’m not sure but I don’t think he needs 67 votes to change the rules, a simple majority will do.
Patricia Kayden
Sigh.
Kent
Normally the only time you can change the rules without being subject to a filibuster is at the start of each session of Congress. Unless he wants to throw out the filibuster for rule changes like he did for SCOTUS appointments. Then the Dems could make up any rule changes at any time they wanted next time they are in power.
So you wouldn’t necessarily need 67 votes to make a rule change. But you need to overcome a potential filibuster.
The Senate is set up by design to make it much easier to block changes than push them forward.
Denali
@Satby,
Missed an earlier thread. What happened?
OzarkHillbilly
@Kent: Thanx for the clarification. I was pretty certain I had read about the majority vote on rules, obviously I could not remmeber the particulars. So he’ll need 61 votes, right?
John Revolta
@Kent: @OzarkHillbilly:
“Harvard legal scholar Laurence Tribe pointed out that it requires 67 votes to change Senate rules”
-Igor Derysh @ Salon
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
“N-NATOME!?”
Kent
@John Revolta: OK, I stand corrected. It is 67 votes for rule changes after the start of the session. But the larger point is that there are very few instances in the Senate where the filibuster doesn’t apply. Basically the exceptions are for budget reconciliation and confirmations. Rule changes after the start of the session are not one of those exceptions.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
Your question reminded me of an interesting scenario:
We know there’s a DOJ memo from the 70s that says that presidents are basically immune to being charged while in office, unless I’m assuming they’re directly witnessed killing somebody.
However, are US presidents (and other administration officials) immune from being subpoenaed to appear in a criminal court, whether municipal/local, state, or federal, as witnesses? Genuinely curious, because I don’t believe the DOJ memo covers these instances
I remember an old episode of SVU where the ADA subpoenaed Donald Rumsfeld as some kind of tactic. The case never got as far as getting an answer
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Bill Clinton wasn’t: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._Jones
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
Our society has a narrowly legalistic view of responsibility. We want to pin the blame on one person as the one who was truly at fault and leave it at that. The real world doesn’t work that way. Everyone involved contributes to this kind of tragedy to different degrees, and we need the language to express how somebody like Trump is morally at fault even if he was nowhere near the scene.
Kent
@Roger Moore: Ultimately the 62 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 are responsible for this. They knew he was unstable and utterly unsuitable for the job. Let’s put the blame where it really lies.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
That case concerned civil law litigation, not criminal. What I’m wondering is, could a cabinet-level administration offical or even the US president be compelled to testify in a criminal trial, perhaps a murder case, if they were somehow involved? I don’t think the president’s so-called temporary immunity would apply here under current law, but not sure how executive privilege would work in such a scenario
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Yes. All of those people have blood on their hands. It’s something I love to taunt Trump supporters with when ever I meet one
Barbara
@Roger Moore: Well I suppose you can count me among the narrowly legalistic types. Princess Diana was chased just about every day of her life by photographers and it must have been hard to bear, but she was involved only in one car accident that we know of, and that was when her driver was drunk. He was responsible. The photographers might be immoral, awful people, responsible for serious emotional distress, but they were not responsible in any way, shape or form for her death.
If there is a party who is responsible for the shooting down of the Ukrainian flight, it is whoever in the Iranian government knew about impending rocket launches and failed to hold civilian air traffic on the ground until that action had been completed. I hate Trump with the heat of a thousand suns but it’s ridiculous to hold the view that he is responsible in some measure for it.
Elizabelle
@Kent: No. Don’t throw the “we are all responsible, so no one is personally responsible” shit out there.
Trump assassinated an Iranian general via drone for reasons that his administration has not been able to satisfactorily explain to friendly Republican senators.
His action led directly to the chain of events that brought this passenger jet down. It looks very much like the Iranians fired on it. But they were extra twitchy that night because of Trump.
I think Canada gets that.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: I disagree WRT Diana. The Fayeds made the terrible decision to bring the driver back into service because they were trying to elude the ever-present photogs. Some of whom described chasing Diana as following a stag.
No pack of crazy ass photogs, no need for the diversionary tactics.
All that said, the Fayeds should not have been responsible for Diana’s security. (And this makes me wonder how the Royal family will handle personal security after Megxit, because Harry and Meghan and Archie are certainly targets and deserve extra protection.)
I think the pack of photogs was as culpable as the drunk driver. I realize the French legal system disagrees. But morally, they were the reason. And they chased her.
Had they dispersed, it would be on the drunk driver. Who likely would not have been speeding madly into that tunnel.
Because the car was being chased. By photographers.
TS (the original)
@Kent: Don’t forget the political media who aided and abetted the election of trump by amplifying GOP lies and calling them truth.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Elizabelle:
Trump supporters and all of the voters who voted for him in 2016 are just as responsible for this as Trump is. They knew what he was and just didn’t care. I do hold them all personally responsible, just as if they had ordered the airstrikes themselves
A few months ago, I had the “pleasure” of arguing with a nihilist “classical liberal” who was just fine with Trump because he was destroying “the system” that both parties support.
Eventually, I just told him what a worthless piece of shit he was and that he had blood on his hands, with the migrant children suffering and dying in US custody. You know what he said in response?
Pure evil. He reduced it to “think of the children”. Like I was complaining about some 5 year old accidentally seeing a boob on tv
Kent
@Elizabelle: Iran was twitchy that night not because of Trump, but because they knew they were inviting American air strikes by firing missiles at US bases. They weren’t compelled to take military action against the US. They did it for domestic political purposes.
And I’m not saying “we are all responsible so no one is responsible” Not in the slightest. I am saying, every single fucking American who voted for Trump is collectively responsible for every damn thing he has done from worsening climate change to killing thousands through his sabotaging of Obamacare to this particular tit for tat with Iran. The blood of the planet is on their collective hands.
J R in WV
I agree with Elizabelle, Trump was the trigger for everything that has happened in the Iran-Iraq area since, hmm, since January 21, 2017. Every death, injury, PTSD affected trooper sent home to kill his family, everything is Trump’s fault.
That’s why we call him the Commander-in-Chief, he is in charge and is fully responsible for everything.
Elizabelle
@Kent:
Excuse me, why were the Iranians having to do this at all? Something had just happened recently; gosh, what was it …???
Kent
Unless I am mistaken in the timeline, Iran’s military was on unusually high alert that night in Tehran because just HOURS EARLIER they had fired ballistic missiles at US targets. And then the apparently horribly fucked up and shot down a civilian airliner. The Iranians have agency here. They had a lot of other options available to respond to Trump other than going on high alert and firing missiles at US military targets.
Yes Trump is in the running for the most horrible leader this nation has ever had. But Iran is a horrible regime as well. How many of their own people did they brutally murder last month to put down peaceful protests? Thousands? They were firing missiles at US targets mainly for domestic political consumption. I’m willing to blame Trump for most anything including ramping up tensions in the region. But it takes two to tango and this particular disaster is on Iran.
Your logic is the same as saying that Europe is responsible for Trump pulling out of the climate talks because European leaders laughed at him. Or some such.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kent:
There is a different in scale so great between those examples as to be a difference in kind. Trump took an extreme action that he was told would get an extreme reaction, and he specifically ignored that because he did not want it to be true. I grant you that Iran bears culpability, but so does Trump.
Yutsano
@Kent:
[CITIATION NEEDED]
Kent
@Yutsano: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Iranian_protests
Follow the footnotes if you want. Reuters put the number at an estimated 1500 but no one really knows.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
The point is that they’re all at fault: Trump, the people who voted for him, the elected officials who could do something to stop him but don’t, the Iranian who ordered the missile launch, etc. Blame doesn’t dilute when it’s shared; it just gets on everyone.
Kent
@Roger Moore: Yes, of course. There are a lot of horrible people who deserve a lot of blame, here, and in Iran. And of course that doesn’t absolve Trump of anything. He is a unique horror. But he also has uniquely high approval within the Republican party. So he is them and they are him. And now we are just waiting to see exactly how the Senate will go about patting him on the head and say “so sorry about how all those mean Democrats bothered you with all that unfair impeachment stuff. Keep doing all the crimes you want. We got your back because judges and taxes and MAGA”
Sigh
Jay
@Kent:
Doltus, by deliberate action, murdered Iranian Quds Force General Solomeini, ( by mistake or otherwise), who happened to be travelling to Iraq, to arrange a “de-escalation”.
he then threatened in other words, to “bomb Iran back to the stone age”, for anything Iran or Iraqi PMU’s PMF’s and political Militia groups, ( like the Mahdi Army) did in response or on their own.
Iran launched missiles at roughly 1:25 am local time, (Iran), the Ukraine Airliner crashed at 6:15 am, local time, (Iran).
Iran announced “publically” the missile launches at 6:32 am ( Iran time). It’s unlikely that an Air Defence crew, over 100 miles from the launch sites, would have seen anything, or have been informed of the missile launches.
Another Scott
@ChrisS:
That word took on new meaning for me after hearing Terry Gross’s interview with Peggy Orenstein about her new book Boys and Sex.
It’s well worth a listen. (It inspired me to get that book and her previous volume Girls and Sex, though I haven’t read either yet.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: They were ever present. They had no idea her driver was drunk, which was unthinkable. Fayed senior switched arrangements at the last minute and has ever since been looking for a reason that supersedes the choice of driver, for obvious reasons. The security guard who wore seat belts survived, and Diana would also have survived if she had been wearing seatbelts. Photogs are a long way down the list in culpability here. You might as well blame the people who buy the magazines in which the pictures appear.
Barbara
@Jay: But I would assume that Iranians were looking for potential retaliatory or reconnaissance aircraft so soon after the strike. So long as Iran’s military was on high alert there should have been precautions regarding civilian aircraft. And there may well have been.
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
This is where I think the main point of disagreement is. Saying that Iran didn’t have to respond to the United States assassinating one of its top generals while he was on a diplomatic mission at the request of the Iraqi government is a pretty ridiculous thing to say. OF COURSE THEY HAD TO RESPOND. If Iran had assassinated the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he went to Israel for talks, do you think we would just shrug it off?
We are fortunate that Iran decided to be strategic — for now — and do a symbolic shelling of a US base where everyone was forewarned to get into their bunkers so no one would get hurt. But I think that assuming that will be their only response would be a foolish mistake.
Their domestic politics don’t count in this. Yes, they have a horrible and repressive regime, and the general we assassinated killed a lot of people. That doesn’t mean that it was a great strategic move on our part to assassinate him.
PIGL
Cracked up his car after four or five cocktails? in his own driveway? Fookin’ light weight. Guy his age and experience should be able to hold his liquor.