You'll never guess which career demagogue famous for skimming off the profits of arms sales is now accused of skimming off the profits of arms sales. https://t.co/Q7Spb23tiW
— Zeddediah Springfield (@Zeddary) April 16, 2019
Politics in the ’80s sucked the first time — which idiots decided we needed a rerun? Oh, right: Republicans, fondly recalling their ‘Glory Days’!
Per the NYTimes:
… The National Rifle Association sued one of its largest and most enduring contractors late last week and raised concerns about the contractor’s relationship to the association’s own president, Oliver North, in a stunning breach within the normally buttoned-up organization.
The suit was filed late Friday by the N.R.A. in Virginia, where it is based, against Ackerman McQueen, the Oklahoma ad firm that operates NRATV, the group’s incendiary online media arm. The suit asserts that Ackerman has concealed details from the N.R.A. about how the company is spending the roughly $40 million that it and its affiliates receive annually from the association.
The suit creates uncertainty about Mr. North’s future at the organization. And it leaves the future of NRATV in doubt, given the new acrimony in the Ackerman relationship.
Since Ackerman created NRATV in 2016, it has often been “perceived by the public as the voice of the N.R.A.,” according to the rifle association’s complaint. It has also taken on an apocalyptic tone, warning of race wars, calling for a march on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and portraying the talking trains in the children’s show “Thomas & Friends” in Ku Klux Klan hoods.
The New York Times reported this year that two prominent N.R.A. board members were among those voicing alarm inside the association that NRATV was often straying beyond gun rights. The Times article also revealed that Ackerman had a previously undisclosed financial relationship with Mr. North…
The complaint details a peculiar standoff with Ackerman over Mr. North, who took over as president last year. The N.R.A. claims it was aware that Mr. North had a contract to act as the host of a web series for Ackerman, but that Ackerman has refused to provide a copy of the contract for nearly six months. Additionally, Mr. North’s counsel told the N.R.A. that “he could only disclose a copy of the contract” if Ackerman said he could, the suit says…
Is there a nepotism issue? Hey, as the Repub Majority Leader once said, “Remember, we’re all family here!”…
… The lawsuit is further complicated by family ties. The N.R.A.’s outside lawyer, William A. Brewer III, is the son-in-law of Angus McQueen, a co-chief executive of Ackerman, and the brother-in-law of Revan McQueen, its chief executive. Ackerman called the relationships an “irreconcilable conflict of interest” and said some kind of family dispute “pervades the Brewer firm’s dealings with Ackerman McQueen.”…
As ever, when dealing with Republicans, the wise choice: Root for Injuries.
chopper
jesus, these fuckers never fucking go away do they?
Another Scott
It was Speaker Ryan:
/pedant
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
The Dangerman
Shootout at the Not OK Corral?
Mike in NC
We lived in NoVA when that scumbag Ollie North ran for a Senate seat. So great that voters wanted nothing to do with him.
Aleta
@chopper: A pestilence of Republicans
dmsilev
Lawsuits? Isn’t that kind of wimpy for the manly men of the NRA? Shouldn’t it be AR15s at 10 paces?
Villago Delenda Est
I can tell you a lot of Marines were not sorry at Ollie’s fall in the 80’s.
NotMax
Powering up the electron microscope to search for that elusive violin.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Scott: Ryan is yet another accomplice to treason.
dmsilev
@NotMax: Behold the nanoviolin.
dm
@Aleta: oh, is that the collective noun? I’d have thought it would be “a grift of Republicans”. (Remember, you can’t spell “conservative” without “con”. The “H” in “GOP” stands for “honesty”)
Another Scott
@Villago Delenda Est: It would be interesting to see if Mueller’s team interviewed Ryan and the other participants in that conversation…
Cheers,
Scott.
lamh36
Repost since I don’t want it to get lost at the end of the last thread…
Video clips at link…give it a listen.
BruceFromOhio
What sequence of events has them dueling with pistols at dawn? They can YouTube it for jillion’s of clicks, and I can root for injuries.
John Revolta
This is hilarious.
“We never thought a Face-Eating Leopard would eat the Face-Eating Face of a fellow Face-Eating Leopard”, says Face-Eating Leopard Party nabobs. “Not cricket, wot?”
Leto
Every day. Every single day.
SenyorDave
Can someone explain what’s going on with Pelosi and AOC? Is this a type of coordinated effort, or is this some type of Sister Souljah moment? Not that I understand what Pelosi gains from it, seems like a miniature version of the circular firing squad.
Jay
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/colombine-lockdown-threats-1.5100909
Police searching for suspect after ‘potential credible threat’ at Columbine High School
Social Sharing
Facebook
Twitter
Authorities on the lookout for woman considered armed and ‘extremely dangerous’
lamh36
@SenyorDave: not sure what you’re talking about…
saw this though….
lamh36
Jay
@SenyorDave:
You gotta be more specific and less cryptic.
Baud
@SenyorDave:
You’re being played. Nothing more, nothing less.
lamh36
zhena gogolia
@SenyorDave:
It’s yet another tweet-extract that completely misrepresents the utterance.
Twitter is so evil.
Brachiator
WTF? From the Guardian. Trump insistent on punishing immigrants.
eemom
@Mike in NC:
Oh my fucking GOD. It was 1994, and I was pregnant with my first child and paid no attention to politics. STILL I remember an evening that spring when a young man knocked on the door of our old house, and asked me to sign a petition against the scumbag….and how I wholeheartedly did so; and I distinctly remember telling the young man that I didn’t want to bring my child into a world wherein THAT could be elected to the US Senate.
Ah, innocent times….
Emma
@SenyorDave: Read the original.
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator: Dump is a racist, white supremacist asshole. We knew since his campaign announcement, and it was reenforced from what came out during the campaign.
germy
lamh36
Oooh…the Aretha Franklin Amazing Grace documentary is going to wide release next week I believe.
Even if gospel is not your thing…you can’t help but be in awe of the Queen of Soul!
Def gonna check it out when it comes to my city!
laura
Oliver North and Elliott Abrams, two vile malefactors of death and misery in the service of profit or benefit contrary to American ideals, policies, the law and common human decency. Their decades of shit-baggery, their current prominence in the party and adminstration is an affront to all that is good and decent.
That they each continue to reveal their natures, lack of character, willingness to foment unrest, to cheer on and destabilize folks here and abroad, and the 47% of our friends, families and neighbors hold them in high esteem because they parade accross their TV’s and are held out as experts, as elder statesmen, as the proud and few who are constantly vigilant against the imagined threats and refutation of actual serious dangers. To forever enshrine the gun as the answer to every possible situation of discomfort, to demand the sacrifice of children in increasing numbers as the cost that must be borne to be free to parade around with your gun hanging out like a common penis.
And now, its come to this, a convicted felon is once again engaging in the exact same conduct -skimming some off the top, and now there’s another brief imbroglio that will have little to no impact on his ability to traipse the green rooms and think tank luncheons of every rich, twisted, corrupt walking private equity funder.
North and Abrams make me think bad thoughts.
laura
I said the p word, and am in moderation.
I’m not sorry I said the p word.
Jay
@SenyorDave: @lamh36: @Baud: @zhena gogolia:
Googling Pelosi, AOC shows that the MSM and The Ususal Suspects are using Nancy Pelosi’s two comments about AOC during her 60 Minutes Interview to sell clickbait.
germy
@laura: pussy? penis? prick? What p word is forbidden here?
Booger
@eemom: We made t-shirts that said “The Senate is Not The Federal Institution Ollie North Belongs In.” Also turned our backs on him at a small-town parade in the Shenandoah Valley. Good times.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
Wow, thanks. I have the CD — that’s not how I pictured the church at all!
It’s not coming to my town, boo hoo.
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: It’ll be out on DVD soon enough. :)
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: The malevolent Elton John double strikes again. Elizabeth Warren was still a Republican when he did his dirty work the first time.
Cheryl Rofer
@SenyorDave: Pelosi doesn’t want to be seen as unconditionally supporting AOC because she’s afraid she’ll lose the moderates. She has been pretty supportive of Omar and AOC, but she says contradictory things. Not the first politician to do this.
lamh36
Oh puleaze…
this reminds me of the folks with the “Jesis is returning”…”New Orleans is sodom and gomorrah” during Mardi Gras…
get a new schtick RWNJS…smh
lamh36
Ok…so I’ve posted at least 3 clips so far of Kamala Harris talking about her time as DA/AG.
A couple of days ago, some commenter said…they didn’t know enough about Kamala Harris and they just wished more folks would post somethings about her.
Welp…there ya go..
Tokyokie
Ajax knocks off heavily favored Team Evil (Juventus) 2-1 to advance to the Champions League semifinals!!!!!
sdhays
@SenyorDave: Every time I see a headline that says that Pelosi dissed AOC, once I read what Pelosi said, it’s clear that the media is salivating to write that Democrats are in disarray and are working overtime to figure out to manufacture the story they want to write.
They can’t stand writing about the Republican dumpster fire, so they are desperate to get back to their comfort food: how pathetic those stupid Democrats are.
Jay
@Cheryl Rofer:
She got “hit” with a gotcha question,
“CBS’s Lesley Stahl began a question to Pelosi, saying, “You have these wings — AOC, and her group on one side–”
And rather than doing the “big tent” stichk, she dissed AOC and other “progressives”.
Like I mentioned yesterday, it was an error and would be seized on a beated half to death by the MSM and hacks.
Steve in the ATL
@Booger: funny—I went to college with his daughter in a small town in the Shenandoah Valley. Didn’t know her well, but never saw a sign that she had inherited the treason gene from her dad.
schrodingers_cat
@lamh36: Both Sully and Frum are all but ready embrace T for 2020. Now that they are in they want to bolt the door after themselves.
planetjanet
@sdhays: Pelosi backed up Omar after she unartfully referred to 9/11. If the freshman representatives want to be bold and make waves, they can not run and hide behind Pelosi’s skirts if there is serious blowback.
lamh36
Another Kamala Harris clip.
Never let it be said that I don’t advocate for the candidate that I like by just posting fluff video and speeches
Another great clip…check out the entire thing..
ETA: Spellig mistakes are mine..sorry bout that
Patrick Linnen
While I first encountered the saying reading the Vorkosigan series, the Napoleon quote “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” is always in order.
Baud
@sdhays:
To be fair, there’s an election to influence.
Raven
Mike in NC
@sdhays: The media are trying to coronate Bernie Sanders because “it’s his turn” to be nominated.
Emma
@Jay: NONONONO. She did not diss anyone. Listen to the whole segment, for crying outloud!
Baud
@Emma:
If people didn’t want to believe it, the media wouldn’t report it that way.
GregB
Has anyone ever gotten that gun out of Charlton Heston’s cold dead hands?
Jay
@Raven:
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/15/saudi-weapons-yemen-us-france/
WaterGirl
Has this been posted here yet?
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-fundraising/
It’s really interesting — you can click on a candidate and see not just amount raised but also how much of their first quarter fundraising was from big donors vs. small donors, how fast they are going through their money, etc.
Some of what I saw surprised me!
Democrats collectively raised 119.5 million; Trump raised $30 million. But 73% of Trumps money was transferred from elsewhere. And nearly 10% of the Dem money was “self-funded”. I imagine we’re looking at Mr. Starbucks.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
I’ve contributed to her more than any of the others.
Jay
@Emma:
“Lesley Stahl: You have these wings– AOC, and her group on one side–
Speaker Nancy Pelosi: That’s like five people.
Lesley Stahl: No, it’s– the progressive group is more than five.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Well, the progressive– I’m a progressive. Yeah.”
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-the-2019-60-minutes-interview-2019-04-14/
Google Pelosi, AOC and take a look at what news stories pop up on top, which media is flooding the zone, and who’s writing them.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
I would suggest a corollary: If people vetted information like that before they passed it around, the disinformation campaigns wouldn’t be nearly so successful.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
Has Burnt Coffve Boy actually declared?
Has Burnt Coffve Boy joined the Democrat Party?
Isn’t wilmer still an Independent?
Hitlesswonder
@Another Scott: how could that not have been a bigger story…. imagine the outrage on the Fox and the serious questions the nytimes would have if they were Dems
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I contributed to three candidates in the first quarter. I am guessing that’s not too uncommon at this stage of the game.
lamh36
NYT straight trash… wow!
WaterGirl
Do we know for sure that Julian Castro has crossed whatever thresholds he needed to cross in order to make it to the debate stage? Last time I googled, I wasn’t able to get an answer.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Is that the right link? Because all I get when I click that relates to Julian Castro needing 13k more unique donors to make the debate. I can’t figure out what that has to do with doxing or the NYT?
lamh36
@WaterGirl: I’m on the email list and there was an urgent email saying they need 13K more UNIQUE donors to get him on the stage
Mary G
@schrodingers_cat: Sully’s already there. “White people have a right to be scared of the other” is the gist of his latest writings.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: I wish I could help, but I already donated to him and no one can be counted twice.
But what does that have to do with this: (in your comment with the Castro link)
lamh36
@WaterGirl: shooot…wrong link you’re right…
here it is:
lamh36
@WaterGirl: it was the wrong link…I posted another comment with the correct link
WaterGirl
@Mary G: I read that as “White people have a right to be scared of the other” and I thought, “holy shit – I’m scared of the republicans and nazis; I’m white and so are they, I am agreeing with sullivan, just shoot me now”.
Then I re-read twice and noticed it’s “scared OF THE OTHER”. I am now simultaneously relieved that I did not agree with sullivan on something and disgusted that he is such a fucking pig.
lamh36
Mike in NC
@Mary G: I haven’t read anything by Andrew Sullivan in several years, and feel better for it.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: I’m so glad to hear that! Sometimes with twitter I feel kind of stupid — like I am coming into the middle of a conversation that I don’t understand.
I am appreciating your links and quotes from Harris. She’s in my top 3, and I like her but I am not yet excited about her, so the more I can learn about her the better.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Holy shit!
NYT: “Regina is the University aware of how much time you spend trolling on here?”
The person who wrote that should be fired immediately.
lamh36
lamh36
Jim, Foolish Literalist
he… he doesn’t know what that last phrase means….
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Maybe everyone here on BJ needs to get one friend to donate at least a dollar. Or maybe DougJ could put up a BJ Act Blue thermometer for Julian Castro?
Emma
@Jay: I’m beginning to lose it here. I heard the damned thing. I’ve tracked down everything Pelosi said. If you listen to the context, you would understand but nooooo. The boss she-wolf has to be taken down. She has basically saved our political asses, backhanded Trump across the net without a racket, laid out a plan to win the next election, but hey, everything she says and does is suspect. WTbleedingF is going on here?
Bill Arnold
@sdhays:
Finally watched that interview, and sheesh, you’re absolutely right. She said “like 5 people”, and it looked like she could have named names, probably had their faces in a mental tally. This is a woman who can famously count votes precisely. Also it was about self-described socialists, per a previous bit in the interview.
Pelosi has famously said[1] that the US is a capitalist country politically, but this is a true statement at the current time.
[1] Nancy Pelosi to Leftist NYU Student: We’re Capitalists, Deal With It
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: In what way did Pelosi diss AOC?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good for Pelosi. She’s been fighting, effectively, for progressive causes since before AOC, much less twitter, was born. Why the hell would she let Leslie Stahl define the term “progressive”?
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: It was a manufactured diss. A tweet took a single Nancy Pelosi phrase out of context and made it look like a strong diss of AOC. If you read the whole thing or watch the whole video, it comes off completely different.
edit: google “pelosi glass of water”
chopper
@lamh36:
if booker releases the last 6 years, he’ll have done something like 21 or 22 on record.
Bill Arnold
@Emma:
Top hits per Jay’s search suggestion now are all right wing media, and center-right CNN.
AOC and Pelosi don’t seem to mind much, if at all.
“Democrats in disarray”. (Not, but it sells eyeballs.)
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: I know. I was wondering if Jay did.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, sorry!
That’s really odd. I can’t normally see Jay’s comments (or replies) because he is pied. I can’t figure out how I saw your comment with the word “diss” in it, because now I can’t see it. Interesting. Sometimes if the page loads slowly, I see the comments and then they are replaced, so maybe that’s what happened.
James E Powell
@Mike in NC:
The press/media are promoting him because they know he cannot win a national election.
tobie
@Emma: If there are two people to say a prayer for in our Republic, it’s Nancy Pelosi and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Scarcely a days goes by when I don’t think that what stands between our present political situation and full-blown autocracy is Nancy Pelosi.
Plato
sdhays
@Bill Arnold: And the point isn’t that she was dismissing AOC, she was pushing back on the premise that they she represents some vast “wing” of her caucus. She could have more explicitly made that point, but it’s really the kind of comment that you have to choose to take offense to. And the media are beside themselves to talk about divided Dems in a way they weren’t about Republicans when there actually was a vast wing of the caucus making it impossible to govern. Republicans were so divided that the country nearly defaulted several times, major Republican initiatives failed to pass, and they hounded their own Speaker to quit.
They simply can’t stand how the she-demon Pelosi is the only actual adult leader the capital and the sober party is the hippie Democrats. It’s eating them alive.
Redshift
@Booger:
Niiiiice!
Mike in NC
@James E Powell: Yeah, well that too…
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@zhena gogolia: Same
Ladyraxterinok
@Mike in NC: I’ll never forget little Ollie all dressed up in his shiny uniform standing there before the world wide-eyed and oh so innocent in a ‘I cannot tell a lie face’ testifying before Congress in the Iran-Contra hearing. It was disgusting.
And then later in VA saying of Clinton ‘he’s not MY commander in chief!!’
I think he was in the Reserves then.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
She didn’t let Stall finish his question, ( which would have given her the gotcha framing),
Jumped in with a quick, dismissive comment, that there were only 5 people , ( in the Progressive wing of the comment), then tried to walk it back by claiming the Progressive lable.
And whoosh, people keep missing the point I keep trying to make eversince Major, Major, Major, Major put up the gloating CNN tweet in full colour yesterday, ( like he can as a front pager),
Goggle Pelosi, AOC,
The MSM is running with it and pounding on it, even Faux NotNews.
That’s what is being fed to 90% of the voters right now.
It doesnt’t matter if it’s a quip, a diss, a brain fart, if a Democratic Party Member says anything that’s not 100% supportive or inclusive, the MSM is going to beat that to death like Butter Emailz.
eemom
Then there was former Senator John Warner, literally the Last Decent Republican, who spoke out against Ollie that year.
Hell, even not-yet-zombie Reagan and the Mrs. did so as well.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
Most people in the US don’t get their media from Balloon Juice.
The point I keep trying to make, since Pete’s comment on Hillary’s 2016 Campaign, is that no Democrat should be trying quip or soundbite politics, when talking about anything Democratic, people, bills, past or present,
Because the MSM, Faux and the Berners are going to Butter Emailz the hell out of it, and that’s going to get pounded in hard into voters heads by the time the Polls open.
Ladyraxterinok
@lamh36: The 2nd story of the condemnation of Sodom is in Ezekiel I think. There it’s laid out in detail that God condemns Sodom for not welcoming the foreigner and harming the poor.
For some reason that version of the story is never mentioned.
Also in the widely told story the ending is not mentioned. The householder tells the men calling for the Angels that he will send out his virgin daughters instead. So gang rape of virgins is ok!
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@lamh36: Yeah, let’s do remember the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah! Oh look, here’s Yahweh Himself in inerrant scripture defining exactly what that sin was! Let’s review it together, shall we?
Ezekiel 16:47:
This was the sin of thy sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy.”
SFAW
@Jay:
You make all sorts of excellent points. Therefore, I’m going to take it as a “holy” (so to speak, since I’m an atheist) cause to make sure history’s newest Greatest Monster, a/k/a Speaker Pelosi, sticks to saying things like “Happy happy joy joy” and “Everyone and everything is wonderful” and so forth. Because Lord [sic] knows that she must guard against ever ever ever saying anything which might ever ever ever be mis-characterized by the paragons of ethical journalism at Fox or the FTFTFNYT.
SFAW
@Ladyraxterinok:
I remember that, and I agree with your assessment.
I’m not rooting for injuries; I’m hoping he and Wayne LaPierre decide to prove which of them is the manliest manly man ever, and end up killing each other in a duel.
Jay
@SFAW:
All Nancy Pelosi “had to say” was “Big Tent”.
The MSM’s looked back on 2016, realized that they were weaponized by amongst others, Foreign Powers, to rig an election,
and realized they want to keep that power for themselves.
SFAW
@Jay:
Thanks for all your valuable advice. It shows a depth of thought far beyond anything I have ever encountered on this blog.
Jay
@SFAW:
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-well/201206/think-sarcasm-is-funny-think-again%3famp
SFAW
@Jay:
Wow, the insight continues unabated.
In other news: the MSM are reporting that I don’t give a flying fuck whether you, or Charles Lazarus, think(s) sarcasm is funny. The MSM are also wondering: “Was SFAW trying to be funny? Or was he merely trying to get across the point that hand-wringing over what Speaker Pelosi said — because the MSM might be as intellectually dishonest as they have been for any Democrat or strong woman for the last NN years — is a mug’s game?”
Are they mis-characterizing me? Who can say? But your disapproval certainly gives me pause, almost as much as the disapproval of Bob Shrum would give me pause.
Jay
@SFAW:
Assholes gotta asshole always don’t they.
Free Pie.
SFAW
@Jay:
Pot calling the snow black, I guess. I’m merely aspiring to attain your elevated levels thereof.
Poor baby. As Shakespeare or someone else once said: Grow the fuck up.
David Evans
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: How long before someone explains that the gays all lived in Gomorrah (which, alas, is not mentioned in Ezekiel)?
Sloane Ranger
@David Evans: Ah, but if that was the case, why did the laws forbidding male same sex relationships refer to Sodomy and not Gomorrahy?
J R in WV
@laura:
And well done, Laura, thanks for the great comment and proper use of a good old AngloSaxon word.