Nearly two weeks ago, media reported that Donald Trump reportedly revealed information about U.S. nuclear submarine capabilities to Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt. And on Sunday, 60 Minutes Australia played recordings of secret tapes where Pratt… pic.twitter.com/VWCWCf0Wsg
— Isabel Santos 🟧🟦🌊🌊🟦📙 (@Busyisaworkshop) October 22, 2023
Mr. Pierce, at Esquire, sums it up:
The Cardboard King sings songs of graft.
The Australian version of 60 Minutes ran an interesting segment on Anthony Pratt, who used to talk cardboard and national security secrets down at Mar-a-Lago with Fulton County (Ga.) Inmate No. P01135809. It adds to the bargeload of evidence that the former president* is a) very corrupt, b) very reckless, and c) very disgusting…
Per Rolling Stone, here’s the Ginger Tintin his own self — “Billionaire Brags About Trump Sharing Secret Information With Him”
…[O]n Sunday, 60 Minutes Australia played recordings of secret tapes where Pratt disclosed other non-public information Trump shared with him, including information about U.S. military operations in Iraq and Trump’s conversations with the presidents of Iraq and Ukraine.
According to Pratt, Trump shared a lot with him, such as information about U.S. bombings in Iraq before they were publicly reported. “I hadn’t even heard it, it hadn’t even been on the news yet, and he said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today,’” Pratt said Trump told him…
[Full 16min clip at the link]“He’s outrageous. He just says whatever the fuck he wants, and he loves to shock people,” Pratt, a businessman with a reported net worth of $9 billion, said of Trump. Pratt is listed as a potential witness to testify against Trump in a case brought by special counsel Jack Smith regarding his mishandling of classified information, and he reportedly shared information with prosecutors about Trump revealing to him sensitive intelligence regarding U.S. nuclear submarines, including how many warheads the subs usually carry and how close they could get to Russian submarines before they are detected.
Pratt also bragged on tape that Trump shared with him some of the contents of a private conversation with then-president of Iraq Barham Salih. According to Pratt: “[Trump] said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today, and the president of Iraq called me up and said, ‘You just leveled my city.’ And I said to him, ‘OK, what are you going to do about it?’”…
The billionaire said of Trump, “He knows exactly what to say and what not to say so that he avoids jail, but gets so close to it that it looks to everyone like he’s breaking the law. Like he won’t go up to someone and say, ‘I want you to kill someone.’ He’ll say, he’ll send someone, to tell someone, to kill someone.”…
Pratt, a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, courted Trump to garner influence, even paying an inflated cost of $1 million on tickets to a the Palm Beach club’s New Year’s Eve gala — far above the actual $50,000 cost per ticket, a witness told prosecutors, according to The New York Times. Pratt also tried to get close to Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, paying him almost a million dollars to attend Pratt’s 60th birthday. The appearance was later cancelled due to Covid, but Pratt said on the recording that Guiliani calls him regularly. “Now he rings me once a week,” the Times reported Pratt as saying on the recordings.
“Rudy is someone that I hope will be useful one day,” Pratt said on tape. “Plus I just think he’s cool. It’s not all just sort of like seat of the pants shit. I think that [Trump] and Rudy are like that, and they’re plotting all this out.”
Now the NYTimes is on the story, more in sorrow than anger:
… Their interactions were ultimately swept up in one of the two federal criminal cases that the special counsel Jack Smith brought against Mr. Trump. Prosecutors have interviewed Mr. Pratt in the case in which Mr. Trump is charged with taking classified documents with him from the White House when he left office and obstructing efforts to retrieve them. Mr. Pratt is listed as a potential witness who could testify against Mr. Trump at a trial next year…
New details of how an American president and an Australian billionaire bonded over their mutual self-interest help to document the transactional ethos of the Trump presidency, and show how Mr. Trump melded his White House with his personal business in a way that, according to prosecutors, had ramifications for national security.
Mr. Pratt was hardly the only favor seeker circling Mar-a-Lago, which became the fulcrum of the president’s two overlapping worlds, and a marketplace of sorts where favors, secrets and opportunities to lobby the president over clubhouse burgers were treated as currency. But Mr. Pratt, who rode in Mr. Trump’s motorcade and attended a White House state dinner, played the game better than most…
In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Trump condemned prosecutors and said the information was coming from “sources which totally lack proper context and relevant information.”…
(Does Maggie Haberman share a byline? Are a bear’s sanitary facilities located conveniently to its woodland demesne?)
If I’m reading the SMH article correctly, Pratt *does* seem to be the kind of billionaire TFG aspired to be: more Rupert Murdoch, less Fredo Corleone. Doesn’t seem to be good for his own image back home, though:
Anthony Pratt, the Australian billionaire who says Trump revealed to him sensitive information about submarines, reportedly paid Rudy Giuliani "about a million bucks" to attend Pratt’s birthday party. https://t.co/RPTwn6YbFN
— Seth Hettena (@seth_hettena) October 22, 2023
Nancy SMASH Just Called and Asked for Your Help
trollhattan
I question the sanity of anybody who would pay money to be near Rudy, as opposed to paying money to assure you are never, ever near Rudy. Bloody Aussies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I didn’t think anything in trump world could surprise me, but this….
If you could bet on a counterfactual I’d bet a million dollars he could have had Rudi show up for five figures. No way Rudi would’ve turned down say, $50,000
also, since the subject is trump, today he compared himself to Nelson Mandela
trollhattan
Caution: Genius ahead.
cain
One wonders when his supporters are going to have enough. But I guess as long as they listen to the right media channels – they will brush it aside.
Incredible how a group like this one that was all about “protecting the troops” and various other national security stuff can just brush shit like this aside.
dmsilev
@trollhattan: He’s just hungry for some turkey. You can understand the natural confusion.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Donald Trump is an obvious example of political persecution; indicted only for bravely standing against the pernicious forces of transparency, honesty, equity, good faith, and good governance.
Gvg
Is this guy Pratt known for telling mostly reality based truth or is he as damaged as Trump? I mean does he exaggerate for attention, even bad attention?
Didn’t any of this stuff seem to him to be a concern for Australia’s security?
sab
@trollhattan: Extremely elderly Aussies?
No, not that old. Very wrinkled, but Australia has fierce sunshine.
What is wrong with MAGAs that they do not realize that their guy is a dangerously mentally deficient moron.
zhena gogolia
@sab: He’s born 1960 — not that elderly, although he looks much older.
sab
@zhena gogolia: I updated without eta. You beat me.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Gvg: Billionaires are a security concern globally and for and within each nation. They wield too much power for someone not elected into their position.
An individual or small group shouldn’t be able to buy a company and wave away thousands of jobs for profit. Capitalism is creating a back door for the restoration of feudal society.
We, at a minimum, need to put an end to anti-regulatory zeal embedded into our political discourse.
I mean seeing how the votes for barring provate ownership of land and resources just aren’t there.
Another Scott
Made me look. Here are more photos from TIFG’s visit to the Wapakoneta paper mill in 2019.
Giant of the House, Gym Jordan, is in the 8th picture on the airport tarmac.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@sab: Oh, now I see.
I do not understand the Trump phenomenon. Never have, never will.
japa21
@Gvg: Beat me to it. Is there any particular reason we should believe anything this guy says?
ETA: Not that I don’t think Trump wouldn’t do this.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
Those fellow authoritarians all just blend together.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Helps explain why I thought Donald Trump is a turkey (metaphorical, not avian kind).
Alison Rose
Rudy has never been and never will be cool in any possible sense of the word.
schrodingers_cat
OT: I got this book in the mail today. The author (now a Twitter mutual) writes in Hindi (this is a translation) and with his books and YT videos is doing yeoman’s work in debunking the lies BJP is spreading about India’s Independence struggle and history in general.’
I am thinking of blogging about it. I know the broad details but this is a deep dive. There were several plots to kill Gandhi by the same group ( members of the same org. as Mr. Modi)
I had read Godse’s screed about why he killed M. K. Gandhi in the language it was written, Marathi. It didn’t convince me when I was a precocious 12 year old.
Any takers on BJ? I will link to it in my comments.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gvg: the fact that trump responded by calling Pratt that red-headed weirdo is pretty much confirmation that Pratt telling the truth, as I read trump
cain
@Another Scott: Why does he look so.. obsequious?
Alison Rose
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I don’t know. Could be both. You know that old agrarian legend about how turkeys will supposedly drown themselves by gazing upward at the rain with their beaks open? It’s giving this.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I think I have some insight into the phenomena. He tells the people (his followers) what they want to hear and what they can’t say aloud themselves.
I have observed a similar phenomena with Modi and his followers.
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t have a Twitter account. Would you name the book. Thanks.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Trump was present. C’mon this is authoritarianism 101 stuff, here.
schrodingers_cat
@Dan B: The translated title is
Why they killed Gandhi, Unmasking the ideology and the conspiracy.
by Ashok Kumar Pande
I got from Amazon.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Alison Rose: 🎶 I’ll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror…🎶
Chris Johnson
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: …MAGAts would make sense if they were rooting for the antihero o/~
like a metaphor
imagine- the turnip calling *anyone* a redheaded weirdo!
sab
Husband had to cook dinner. Tiny dead bugs in the pasta. That happens if you store it to long. He didn’t know. Was horrified. They were already dead. You boiled them. I will fish them out. People eat cooked bugs all over the world.
WV Blondie
@schrodingers_cat: I would read it. I’m often sorry about how little I know or understand about India, given its size, its potential, and its neighbors.
cain
@sab: My grandmother in India when it comes to lentils and rice – would leave it out in the sun for an hour to get rid of bugs, weevils that kind of thing.
WaterGirl
@sab: Absolutely siding with your husband on that one. I would not eat that pasta. shudder.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@WaterGirl: The only bugs I eat are shrimp
ETA: Bugs = All arthropods
dr. bloor
An old, white guy from Oz worth several billion dollars and plainly ready to go all Bob Ford on Trump might be the witness who breaks Trump’s spell on any MAGAs that slip onto the jury.
MisterDancer
@schrodingers_cat: Here is the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Killed-Gandhi-Unmasking-Ideology-Conspiracy/dp/9354470173
That said, I just picked up a new project and a spinoff of an existing project, both due early next year and supporting marginalized communities. And as always, I’m hard pressed on posting here, as it is :(
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m still reeling from the Nelson Mandela quote. Cripes.
ColoradoGuy
The billionaires see the rest of us as serfs, at best, if we follow orders obediently and worship them as a higher order of creation.
I think this mentality dates back to the Lear Jet and all the other bizjets that followed it. Air travel became cheaper, nastier, and more commoditized in the 747 era, while biz jets went the other way. No more associating with the Great Unwashed in the crowded and noisy main terminal. Instead, their chauffeur-driven car goes right up to the jet, they walk no more than a few steps, then get served a pleasant drink as soon as they are seated in the plush, full-width reclining seats, each with a window view in a hushed private cabin.
They are fully isolated by a retinue of servants from door to door, no matter where they live in the world. Of course they have no connection to the public; they never see us, and we are an abstraction to them, something you read about in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal.
Class war is real. They do not have the best interests of humanity, or their country, at heart. We are numbers on a spreadsheet.
CaseyL
@sab: I loved Raisin Bran cereal as a kid, to a really extreme degree. When I was about 12 years old, my grandparents (who ran a diner at the time and would go to auctions to buy food supplies) scored a case of the stuff and gave it to us.
Please note: I don’t know how long that case had been sitting around before it came up for auction.
What I do know is, after eagerly pouring out a bowl of cereal, adding milk, and eating about three spoonsful, I noticed… small dark things… floating in the milk.
My grandmother said, “Oh, those are just bits of raisin.”
Me (in dawning horror): “They have LEGS.”
What they were, were weevils. I will draw a curtain over the very exciting next few minutes and say only that it was about 10 years before I ate Raisin Bran again
ETA: … after checking the cereal very damn carefully!
Geminid
@trollhattan: I don’t know why Trump can’t keep Orban and Erdogan straight. The President of Turkiye actually looks like a turkey.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Dump has no idea who Nelson Mandela was, anymore than he knew who Frederick Douglass was.
Mr. Bemused Senior
It’s almost Thanksgiving. Anyone could make that mistake, really.
Ken
I assume this is as close as the NYT will get to saying “graft”.
Ruckus
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
If we kept score of comments, this one would get a high score. Nice use of the language…
kalakal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in prison there is one way in which I don’t mind TFG being Nelson Mandela
Ruckus
@sab:
What is wrong with MAGAs that they do not realize that their guy is a dangerously mentally deficient moron.
I’d say pretty much every damn thing.
But then I also say that the reason they like him is that they would very much like to be him.
lowtechcyclist
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
How do you tell anymore? Places like Wal-Mart and Home Depot have been crowded with Christmas stuff for weeks already.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
Many people would like to be him because of his wealth, his bigotry, and that he’s really not any smarter than they are.
glc
@trollhattan: Brings back memories.
“Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader”
waspuppet
Trump is 77 years old and he still thinks this is the most genius, subtle, clever thing anyone has ever thought of. Pratt is probably about that old, an actual billionaire (unlike Trump, who is flat broke), and he also thinks this is the most genius, subtle, clever thing anyone has ever thought of. Behold the meritocracy.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@lowtechcyclist: all right, that is a song cue.
Viva BrisVegas
He’s the third generation of Jewish refugees from Poland who escaped to Australia in 1938. Their original family name was Przecicki. The company was created by his grandfather and greatly expanded by his father. It was fined for one of the largest price fixing scams in Australian history and his father would have gone to gaol for perjury had he not been suffering from a terminal illness.
Politically the family have always been opportunists, playing both sides of the political divide depending on who had access to power. Surprisingly, Pratt is regarded as one of the less toxic Australian billionaires. If you want to see pure evil in action look up Gina Rinehart or Clive Palmer.
NotMax
Ginger Zelig.
//
Brachiator
Does Rudy just record this as a nontaxable gift? This is better than corporate welfare.
Ken
@Brachiator: Maybe the right question is, did Rudy record it at all?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Brachiator:
Pratt may be a billionaire, but for how long? Based on this I question his investment acumen.
Mike in NC
The pettiness and mendacity of Fat Bastard is almost unimaginable, but he supposedly cashed a check one time that was 13 cents.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Silly question. Do you find it difficult to keep up on your native language living here and speaking English?
Some immigrants I know stay comfortably bi- or multi-lingual. Others lose their native language. I cannot imagine that.
WaterGirl
@Viva BrisVegas: Wow, thanks for all that information.
Another Scott
@cain: I saw that too.
Why did Lindsey Graham suddenly become TIFG’s biggest fan after visiting him at a golf course?
Why did Justice Kennedy act shocked after talking with him at that press conference announcing his resignation?
Why is nobody in the GQP willing to stand up to him? Hell, even St. Ronald got more criticism from the GQP than this guy has.
Were I more conspiracy-minded, I would say the recent news about him bragging about secrets to his rich buddies shows that he was hoovering up information that he thought was valuable, probably including information that he could use to blackmail people into supporting him and doing what he wants.
I hope Jack Smith (obviously not his real name) has iron-clad evidence that points to ways of answering some of these lingering questions…
Cheers,
Scott.
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks!
schrodingers_cat
@sab: That’s why I like Twitter, it gives me an opportunity to practice those languages. Yes my conversational skills do get rusty but it all comes back to me within a week of being back in India.
Husband kitteh’s family is Tamil so Marathi is kind of his 3rd language, so he can speak the language but doesn’t get quips and sarcasm.
sab
@WaterGirl: Absolutely not eat them even if that means no dinner? I fished them out then ate.
Husband hasn’t eaten yet. He blames his ferocious antibiotic. His afternoon snack was very late, then bugs in the pasta. Either could have upset his stomach.
RevRick
Speaking of Turkey, President Recep Erdogan signed and sent to Parliament a measure approving Sweden’s bid to join the NATO alliance today. This is just another ho-hum diplomatic win for the Biden administration.
Dan B
@waspuppet: Pratt was born in 1960 so 63 years old. He looks as old as TIFG to me.
WaterGirl
@sab: Yes. I would go without dinner rather than eat pasta that was boiled with bugs.
Another Scott
@kalakal: TIFG probably has the song queued up as his theme song when he’s in prison.
Cheers,
Scott.
dmsilev
@sab:
I’ve done the same. I do try not to have it happen very often because eww, but they’re easy enough to skim off and discard as the pasta cooks.
scav
Forget weevils, imagine sitting down and discovering that orange bloated body bobbing and floating in your breakfast cereal at each and every single election or political inflection point, repeatedly and eternally. Breakfast of greatness.
cain
@Another Scott: I hope the dragnet catches everyone that was involved in any leaks related to national security – especially if they are following Putin’s orders. Especially those who gained wealth very quickly after joining congress.
But this guy is dirty and so is the GOP party.
ETA #69 – the year of my birthday! spring chile baby!
Torrey
@trollhattan:
Ouch! Hungarians are not particularly fond of being mistaken for Turks. Bit of history there.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: My sister speaks English of course, and also Mandaran fluently, and some Wu dialect (what we call Shanghainese) the native language of her husband.
Her kids pretend to know no Chinese dialects at all but they seem to be able to talk to their grandparents.
I had some Spanish as a child in Florida. When we moved north to Ohio they switched me to French. My teacher Madame Garcia was fluent in both and laughed when I mixed them up. So I never got fluent in either
Eta I am so jealous of the multilingual. But I had the opportunity twice and blew it both times. Just lazy
Eta Sis also used to be fluent in French.
TriassicSands
I stopped wondering that years ago. Even most of those Republicans and faux Independents who come to disapprove of Trump will still vote for him instead of any Democrat. How else to explain his more than 74 million votes in 2020? Even after there was sufficient evidence of bad, criminal, and incompetent behavior to convince any sane and decent person to never again cast a vote for such a monster.
cain
I had to laugh – this thing on reddit made me laugh:
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/17ekv9k/the_evangelicals_calling_for_war_on_poor_people_a/
Evangelicals calling for a war on poor people, not poverty. I guess Matthew 25:31 does not apply as fat jesus trump has suspended the new testament, (why is it still new?) and all new set of testaments based on the free market as God truly intended.
RevRick
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Lobster is delicious.
cain
@TriassicSands: White supremacy is a powerful drug.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: It’s just some savory seasoning
Geminid
@RevRick: It’s also a win for Sweden and Turkiye. Erdogan got what he wanted from Nato and Sweden, and I think the Biden administration has promised Erdogan that sales of 40 F-16s and 80 modernization packages will be forthcoming. That’s a lot easier with Senator Menendez sidelined.
And Sweden formally ends a period of non-alignment that began over 200 years ago, in 1815. There was opposition on both the Right and the Left over this, but last year the Swedish Parliament voted for Nato accession by a substantial margin.
sab
@Geminid: Turkey used to be mildly friendly to Israel, remembering the Ottoman roots. I knew Israelis my age whose major business relationships were with Turkey. Ties back to grandparents on both sides.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: I can read, write and speak 3 languages but I can understand and may be hold some rudimentary conversations in 2 more.
I took German in college for a semester that was hard. I should proabably learn Spanish. I have been mistaken for someone from Spain and for a Mexican-American several times. I have had random women come and start speaking to me in Spanish. This usually happens at airports when I am traveling alone.
WaterGirl
@RevRick: shudder
sab
@dmsilev: Eww but not inedible.
Scout211
Who?
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
Holy shit, he’s younger than me! I look okay at 65 but he looks ten years older!
MagdaInBlack
@cain: Jesus is too woke.
MagdaInBlack
@geg6: You and I are the same age and I was sitting here thinking the same thing.
frosty
@schrodingers_cat: Any time you have something to post to the front page I would like to read it.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: It was hard when I took it also. I didn’t learn much beyond minimal pronunciation. But there are so many German dialects that even that didn’t work. My teacher was from Augsberg, and everyone in America expects Prussian.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was just in WalMart and they’ve got their Christmas stuff on the shelves
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Question 2. Why is it honorable to drop out of the race when it has just begun?
zhena gogolia
@geg6: Maybe even 20. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he was 90. I know 90-year-olds who look better.
schrodingers_cat
@frosty: Have you ever used Noodler’s waterproof black ink for fountain pens?
sab
@MagdaInBlack: Stay out of the sun, and absolutely do not smoke.
My husband scared our hairdresser’s manicurist to stop smoking. “This is how you will look at seventy if you keep on your current path.”
I think he looks okay, but that is because I remember how he used to look.
Brachiator
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
He might have to work hard, or be as stupid as Elon Musk, to blow through 9 billion.
frosty
@sab: We’re taking online weekly Spanish lessons. I had a little Spanish here and there but four years of French in HS. Teacher will ask me a question and what comes out is peut-etre. We both laugh.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia: He looks much older than me, and he’s a few months younger than I.
Kay
lol
Geminid
@sab: Turkiye recognized Israel in 1948, and for decades after their militaries functioned as allies. Relations between the two countries were on ice during much of the last decade, but the two countries started warming them up two years ago. Turkiye and its Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will likely play a key role in mediating a ceasefire in this conflict.
I read that in 1880, when the Ottomans controlled the area, there were 40,000 Jewish people under their rule, mainly in what is now northern Israel. Some of the communities had existed since before before Rome’s Jewish Wars. They managed to avoid deportation after Jerusalem fell.
There are still 4,000 some Samaritans in the area. They probably avoided deportation by the Assyrians, and have their own version of the Torah. The Times of Israel had an article about a Samaritan cookbook published a couple years ago. It’s like 40 different ways to dish up chickpeas, with and without yoghurt. Desert hillbilly food.
frosty
@schrodingers_cat: Nope. I used Rapidographs for a little bit of drafting and architectural rendering in college. The india ink was whatever came with the set of pens.
schrodingers_cat
@frosty: It is supposedly waterproof but can be used in fountain pens without ruining them.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@RevRick: I’ll respectfully disagree. For me, lobster is too sweet and too voluminous.
prostratedragon
@zhena gogolia: I never even understood why that damn tv show was so popular, even for one season.
NotMax
@Viva BrisVegas
Any thoughts you’d care to share on the Cross River Rail project?
zhena gogolia
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Yeah, I never got the attraction of lobster. Sometimes in a bisque it’s okay. Clams, mussels, and oysters, yes; lobster, no.
MagdaInBlack
@sab: A teenager in the ’70’s, you know we had to all lay out and tan. Somehow tho, I escaped relatively unscathed. Maybe because it was boring and I didnt do it all that much?
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Yeah, I can do mollusks. Though I’ve never had oysters. I hears they’re served raw.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I like lobster but crabs are the best! Especially the way my mom makes them in a broth of herby goodness (cilantro, ginger, garlic, green chilies, thickened with a paste made of fried shallot and fried dried coconut flakes) with hot chapatis.
Glidwrith
@ColoradoGuy: And the reason they have all those mansions with 50+ rooms? It’s the private hotel for them and their buddies.
Geminid
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Oysters are very expensive this year. Not sure why, probably demand. I still want to get a pint for Christma. I like sauteeing them in butter, but sometimes I’ll use bacon drippings.
sdhays
I did not have Rudy being the Paris Hilton of the billionaire set on my bingo card. Clearly, I thought way too highly of billionaires.
How is this stupid fucker (Rudy) broke? (rhetorical question)
Hoppie
@CaseyL: I was a Krumbles guy myself. Almost EVERYTHING I like gets discontinued.
NotMax
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation
They can be served raw or cooked. Oysters Rockefeller, for example, or a hearty oyster stew.
History on the half shell: The Oyster Craze of New York City.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
The SFB phenomenon is easy to understand. This is a guy who couldn’t find his ass with both hands if he had to but who will display his assholiness for the entire world to see for 10 seconds of attention. His supporters seem to me to be likely very much the same way with likely less/far less bank. Not that he’s particularly wealthy but remember he started out when his father died by getting $400 million, some of it in nefarious ways from his siblings which would now be worth a tad more, and he considers himself to be a superior businessman. Which he is NOT. He way over represents himself to be a very wealthy man and now he doesn’t even make the Forbes 400, and last I saw a number of years ago he was around 394/395. He’d be a con artist if he had any talent whatsoever. He seems to only know how to be dishonest with himself. OK yes he doesn’t settle just for himself….. He’s a clown car on 2 legs and lifts.
RSA
There’s a famous essay or short story that maybe someone else will be able to identify—my memory is shot—about living in poverty. The narrator describes flicking a bug off his sleeve and it landing in a pot of broth or milk or or coffee some other potable, which he then had to throw out, and I thought, “Really?” If you’re really hungry…
I think it was a French writer, not de Maupassant, but I can’t think of anyone else.
Ken
@Scout211: Pity, really. Dropping out suggests he can count, and that’s a rare skill in Republican speaker candidates.
p.a.
prat: noun Chiefly British Slang A person who is incompetent and stupid.
sab
@Geminid: Those are very interesting numbers and not surprising. Israel and Turkey used to have strong ties before their current governments. (Fault on both sides of government. People not necessarily on side with the break.)
kalakal
@zhena gogolia: Lobsters and crabs are good by me. Crab claws taste great
kalakal
@zhena gogolia: I was born in 1960, that wazzock looks way older than me
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Mmm. I like crabs too.
sab
zhena gogolia
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: They’re delicious, as long as you’re on one of the coasts.
Mai Naem mobile
@cain: no they aren’t. I talked to somebody I just started working with who’s a Trumper. Middle class middle aged WF. They’re in a different universe as far as the media they consume. She told me TFG bought Mar A Lago was because he was with a black boxer friend(she didn’t know the name) of his when they went to a party at MAL during the 80s and his black friend wasn’t allowed admittance because he was black. She told me to Google it. That it’s a well known story. I have never heard this story and I refuse to have this search on my Google search history. These people are unreachable.
zhena gogolia
Dostoevsky’s House of the Dead (Penguin, trans. David McDuff):
Alison Rose
If anyone in NorCal is looking for a kitty friend and has a quiet, safe home to offer, this post and photos from Forgotten Felines just made me a little teary:
catclub
1960? I say he’s YOUNG.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Deep-fried crickets seasoned with chili and lime are a fairly popular snack in Mexico.
Jay
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
raw, in stews, bbq’d, garnished and baked, schucked and deep fried.
I may missed a few.
Jay
@Geminid:
Global warming mostly.
Frankensteinbeck
America’s Worst Nepo-Baby sounds like a reality show.
@cain:
I’ve checked on this one. The official Evangelical interpretation seems to be that THEY are Jesus in this parable. All that kindness stuff only counts between God’s people – them. Jesus isn’t telling them to be kind to the Other.
catclub
@Scout211: I think whoever can convince them to swear to support, on the floor, whoever wins in that room, should be speaker.
Apparently that is too high a bar.
Gin & Tonic
Meanwhile, the Houston Astros are getting their asses handed to them. Where’s my violin?
catclub
and the rich have won.
Quiltingfool
@geg6: I was shocked that Pratt was born 2 years after me! Man looks rough!
I know sun really ages fair skinned folks, but damn! You’d think a rich guy could afford better skin care. I think his decrepit looks may be more than sun damage. Lots of alcohol and drug usage can age you fast, too.
sab
@Alison Rose: Where in northern CA? My brother is a fucking political asshole, but he is kind to pets, especially impaired pets. He lives in Corte Madera.
Citizen Alan
@sab: they see nothing wrong with that on Account of the fact that they are also dangerously mentally deficient morons.
coin operated
@Gin & Tonic: that was one hell of a 4th inning!
sab
@Quiltingfool: Aussie sun is worse than ours anywhere north of Florida.
I grew up in Florida then moved north at twelve. 22 year old Florida classmates in law school looked like beef jerky.
Dan B
@Gin & Tonic: I believe it’s fried grasshoppers at the Seattle Mariners stadium. Chiquiles
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
Younger than me. Only a year older than Obama.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub: as Warren Buffett said
Ruckus
@geg6:
I am 9 yrs older and I look a lot younger. No one suspects how old I am. Some don’t believe me when I tell them.
Alison Rose
@sab: They’re in Santa Rosa, not very far! Only about 40 miles I think. Maybe send him the link and see if he’s interested and can provide for this little guy’s needs?
Citizen Alan
@Frankensteinbeck: Evengelicals worship the devil and are too ignorant to realize it.
Gvg
@dmsilev: anybody with a shellfish allergy should not do this.
Also a lot of people have bug allergy’s although I think the cooking may change the proteins enough they would probably be safe. But then again we are always trying to poison those critters and they often keep crawling around anyway. I would not recommend eating them.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Please write your blogpost. What an interesting (and ferocious) topic.
laura
@sab: We’ve been going through the pantry inventory and have a passel of bug tussles in a couple few prepared sides including “The San Francisco Treat” (my heart- the Iranian or Lebanese sauted vermicelli and rice that Can’t Be Beat). I developed a Deadly shellfish allergy in 2001 and any exoskeleton pest poses a deadly event. I’ve been reading about dust mites being an allergen trigger (shudder) and that developing an allergy later in life is not uncommon (and what happened to me) and so hope this is helpful comment in some way.
Elizabelle
@Ruckus: You picked the right parents. LOL.
Chetan Murthy
This was interesting: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/23/2201138/-The-Trump-classified-documents-case-has-turned-into-an-espionage-case?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=main
The Trump classified documents case has turned into an espionage case
Bill Arnold
@Mai Naem mobile:
“Mostly False”. (He bought the place 10 years before turning it into a club, dispute the the city, etc etc.)
Stated on January 11, 2018 in a Facebook post: “Donald Trump sued the City of Palm Beach when he bought a segregated club, Mar A Lago, to open it to Jews & Blacks.” (PolitiFact)
Elizabelle
Weighing in on the bugs issue: I’ve been told that you should freeze pasta, rice, couscous, etc. when you bring it home, to take care of any, shall we say, passengers. Good hard freeze, and then put it away.
I guess one could add oats to that list, too. I don’t always, but it has helped with couscous, etc.
unctuous
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I ate half a cockroach once and it tasted nothing like shrimp.
If you think the thought of eating a cockroach is nearly enough to make you hurl I can assure you the actual flavor of a cockroach is also nearly enough to make you hurl.
Uncle Cosmo
@RevRick: Chesapeake Bay blue crab (Callinectes sapidus, “beautiful savory swimmer”) steamed with Old Bay seasoning FTW.
I’ve told this one before here but it seems à propos:
Summer 1987, I get a call from my then-current squeeze: Dad’s just come home from crabbing and he’s steaming them up right now, c’mon over. How could I refuse? When I arrived the classic Bawlmer mise en place was in place:
horse urineAmerican beer analogue at each placeAs we dived into our crustaceans, one of the neighbors allowed as how one guest on an afternoon talk show how the cicadas (17-year locusts, big ugly but harmless mofos) that were swarming in great numbers at the moment and dropping dead all over the area could be processed into food.**
One of the other neighbors said, Eww! How could anyone eat anything that ugly??
and I looked down at the partially-deconstructed 10-legged orange and white monstrosity in front of me, and started to laugh uncontrollably. Because there are very, very few things of this world that look so ugly as a Chesapeake Bay blue*** crab and yet taste so delicious when steamed with the appropriate seasoning.
And when someone asked, What’s so funny? I delicately replied, Oh, nothing, just something I thought of…****
** I dimly recall something about grinding them up and baking them into loaves of bread, but I seem to have repressed the memory (ralph)…
*** For the uninitiated, blue crab exoskeletons (like those of shrimp and lobster) turn orange upon steaming – the vermillion Old Bay powder is a relatively minor contributor to the color.
**** Somewhere in my files there lurks an old Penthouse cartoon: Two ladies in babushkas and sunglasses are stopped on the sidewalk at an intersection as a fluorescent-yellow 13-eyed lizardlike beast scampers across the crossing pavement, followed by a 16-eyed dayglo-pink crablike monstrosity with claws clapping. One of the women turns to the other and says,
:^D
Michael Bersin
This all would be solved if the top marginal tax rate worldwide was 100%.
Aussie Sheila
@Gvg:
No. Pratt is your usual venal billionaire, as transactional as tfg in his own way. But he’s not dumb and he certainly wouldn’t risk his fortune or his family name to sell security information. Why would he? He’s rich and well connected. There are very few, if any, Security services that could afford to pay to make it worth his time and risk.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Is that what killed them? //
sab
@Alison Rose: Called my sister who will call my brother.
Cat is safe where he is? I am assuming so, good cat back in good fostercare?
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle: It really should be translated as “Notes from the Dead House.”
Alison Rose
@sab: He’s at the shelter now, yes. Sounds like an adoption didn’t work out because the home was too loud and active for him. But he is safe with the Forgotten Felines folks, they’re wonderful.
JaySinWA
I thought I had seen this quote here but I can’t find it.
From https://digbysblog.net/2023/10/23/the-republican-front-runner-ladies-and-gentlemen/
It brought to mind the “Digging the Weans” PDF from a 1956 article. Yes Trump, nobody ever thunk of that before.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@JaySinWA: Oh yes! A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown. An old favorite of mine [includes Digging the Weans]
Alas, no longer strictly accurate but a fond memory.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@schrodingers_cat: yes please. I would love to learn more
JaySinWA
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Yup I read there as well. A few years after its original publication.
geg6
@MagdaInBlack:
I was a competitive swimmer at our local private swim club and worked as a lifeguard for many years. My ex and I owned a boat and spent every summer cruising the Ohio, Monongehela and Allegheny Rivers all summer. Today I spend the summer at my sister’s pool. For a northern inlander, I usually have a tan at least 4-5 months of the year. I also smoke. But I am often mistaken for being in my 50s. Got lucky genetically with the skin. My dad also smoked and spent a lot of time in the sun but had good skin without a lot of lines. I also have a whole skin routine I’ve followed for years, faithfully. You’d think a billionaire could manage a good skin routine.
Bill Arnold
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
A not-seen-often-enough bumper sticker says “They Only Call It Class Warfare When We Fight Back”
Chetan Murthy
@geg6:
I read someplace a while back, that a high-probability indicator of wealth is “good skin”. B/c as you say, these richies can afford the people who can do it for them on the regular.
mrmoshpotato
Jesus Fucking Himself!
Another round of applause for the stupid, selfish children.
E.
@RSA: I think this might be Henry Miller discussing his life in a Parisian hotel.
Ken
That’s why after you catch them, you should put them in a bucket and feed them cornmeal for a couple of days —
I’m sorry, I’m informed this is catfish, a different animal that eats rotting debris.
geg6
@Ken:
I love almost all seafood but catfish is disgusting. Maybe because I have been around so many of them here in the rivers.
mrmoshpotato
@geg6: And not being good enough to bread themselves. The nerve!
Frankensteinbeck
@unctuous:
I would expect it to be. You would mostly be tasting the filth it accumulates on its body. Cockroaches and crickets both evolved to be incredibly dirty.
mrmoshpotato
Rangers win! Go cry in a trash can, Trashstros!
But really…
GO PHILS!
JaySinWA
@mrmoshpotato: I read that first as breed not bread. OTOH why don’t they offer themselves as pre-blackened? The ingrates.
cain
@Geminid: you can thank Putin for that. Nobody wants to see a return of the U.S.S.R.
cain
@sab:
I definitely do that. I have never smoked. If I colored my beard or shaved it I probably could shave off ten years and look in my early 40s. Brown skin is pretty good at resisting getting lines as long as you know how to take care of your skin.
As a group we don’t like getting dark I have found in my experience with other Indians. Exceptions probably exists but they tend to be teenagers growing up in the U.S.
like a metaphor
I hope this is not a stupid question, but why is Turnip being tried in Florida? I understand that people have a right to be tried where the crime was committed, but weren’t the documents stolen in DC?
kalakal
@Chetan Murthy:
Keef Richards must be destitute
mrmoshpotato
@JaySinWA:
Born spicy.
Frankensteinbeck
@like a metaphor:
It is not a stupid question. Apparently the issue of DC vs Florida on the documents is a tough one, since he took the documents from DC, but committed all the handling crimes in Florida. There were risks involved if Smith tried and failed to get it tried in DC. It was exactly the kind of situation that presents a tough choice for lawyers. Smith decided to go for different groups of crimes prosecuted in different places.
like a metaphor
@Frankensteinbeck: Thanks, man. The question had bugged me for a while. I knew if I asked it on here, someone would know!
Shalimar
@Mai Naem mobile: Mar-a-Lago has been unoccupied for 4 years when Trump bought it. Between Post’s death in 1973 and ir’s return to her estate in 1981 because it was too expensive to maintain, MaL was owned by the National Park Service. There is no way in hell that story of a black boxer being refused admission is true. The place was never even a private club at all before Trump.
TS
@trollhattan:
Not all of us, only those who supported Scott Morrison & his RW cohorts. Amazing how very few admit to that now
And I never watch 60 minutes Australia, because it is on a RW TV channel (aren’t they all). Interesting that they went down this path – looks like rats and sinking ships and all that.
TS
@Gvg:
100% yes – not to mention the big turnaround & change of contract for “war machines” that cost us $1billion to pay France for breaking a contract with them.
We had no idea as to Pratt/Trump involvement until it came out recently in the US. The ex government of Morrison kept it very quiet.
Viva BrisVegas
@NotMax: I’m no expert on the Cross River Rail. The only point of view I have is that of a tax paying citizen. In which case I can say it’s a game changer for the Brisbane-Gold Coast corridor and it gives Brisbane probably the best urban transport system in the Southern Hemisphere. There is the usual cost and time blowout, but it’s minor compared with the horrendous overruns that have plagued Sydney’s infrastructure projects under conservatives.
All in all, I’d say so far a job well done by the Queensland Labor government and one that would never even have gotten a start under the conservatives.
Aussie Sheila
@TS:
Looks to me like security services cooperating in sinking tfg. One, perhaps the only example of where that kind of cooperation does anyone any good. Pratt didn’t let that recording out by accident.
evodevo
@Mai Naem mobile:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/feb/11/viral-image/trump-did-open-mar-lago-blacks-and-jews-business-m/
NotMax
@Viva BrisVegas
Thank you for the response. Always good to have input from locals.
Paul in KY
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Shows what a Pratt he is! Rudy would have showed up for plane fare, hotel & open bar.
Paul in KY
@sab: I would assume they would taste like pasta.
Paul in KY
@kalakal: I would get a woody if TFG had to spend 18 years in the place Mr. Mandela was incarcerated in.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Yum on the crab dish!
Paul in KY
@RSA: I guess that was ‘1st World Hungry’.
Paul in KY
@Uncle Cosmo: I have ate cicadas. Deep fried them on a skewer. Tasted like the oil they were fried in.
Gretchen
@schrodingers_cat: i would be interested in whatever you write. Now that I have Indian family members I realize how embarrassingly little I know about the place. My relatives are from Kerala and speak Malayalam. It will be interesting to see how much of the language my grand babies will pick up from their grandparents other relatives.