BREAKING: EPA Admin. Pruitt resigns, President Trump tweets.
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) July 5, 2018
Open Thread
by David Anderson| 290 Comments
This post is in: IOKIYAR, Open Threads, "Lock Her Up!!", I Can't Believe We're Losing to These People, I Can't Believe We're Still Talking About Fucking Nazis, Nobody could have predicted
BREAKING: EPA Admin. Pruitt resigns, President Trump tweets.
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) July 5, 2018
Open Thread
This post is in: Excellent Links, Open Threads, Vagina Outrage, "Lock Her Up!!", All Too Normal, DC Press Corpse, Flash Mob of Hate
That “smoky-eye” joke was in such poor taste. Just horrible. pic.twitter.com/wpQSQtc6rA
— Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) May 1, 2018
Keep in mind — Ana Navarro is a professional Republican. Jen Chaney, at NYMag Vulture blog:
… It would have been easy for Wolf to take a cheap shot at either of these women for some superficial offense, like the way they dress or talk. As Nussbaum points out, that’s what Trump would have done, and has done on many occasions. But nothing about what Michelle Wolf did on Saturday night was easy. It was hard, harder even than the truthtelling that Stephen Colbert did to President George W. Bush’s face at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. True, Colbert was dressing down the commander in chief in his actual presence, something Wolf didn’t have the opportunity to do since Trump, for the second year in a row, couldn’t muster the courage to show up for this event. But Colbert could at least hide behind his alter ego as the conservative host of The Colbert Report. Wolf had to go out there as only the fourth female comedian to perform solo at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, drop a bunch of truth bombs, then sit back down with no shield to provide cover…
Not surprisingly, though, it’s the jabs that Wolf threw at Sanders and other Trump staffers that are getting criticized today, not just because some of them were funny but because they legitimately stung. To acknowledge what actually made the smoky eye line funny meant that some of the people in that ballroom had to reflect on the fact that they either lie, enable liars, or act nicely to liars because that’s what they sometimes have to do to get the information the public deserves to know. That’s the sort of situation that makes people itchy.
But here’s the thing: If the worst thing that happens to you while you’re working for Trump is that a woman from The Daily Show says a few mean things about you while you’re wearing a nice dress, eating a free meal, and drinking some wine, you are still having a better day than a hell of a lot of people in this country. Also, this is part of the job when you’re a public servant…
Late Night Open Thread: (Probably) One Last Nerdprom ReviewPost + Comments (29)
This post is in: Open Threads, "Lock Her Up!!", #notintendedtobeafactualstatement, DC Press Corpse, Our Awesome Meritocracy
the white house correspondents dinner is one of the worst things in washington, they should end it, and even though trump is a terrible dumb horrific big baby, he's right not to attend it.
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) April 28, 2018
We are counting on the next generation to lead us all—like @davidhogg111. Enjoyed talking with him tonight at #whcd. pic.twitter.com/NW5IRw7mmF
— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) April 29, 2018
One good thing about last night: Seems like Trump’s latest Fox & Friends call-in set such a high bar, only the most professionally committed media folk could force themselves to pay attention to last night’s ‘Revival Tour: All Your Greatest Hits Live’ rally in Michigan. Which will further aggravate Donny Dollhands, once he comes down off the post-gig high.
Meanwhile, at the NerdProm…
Deadline Hollywood:
…Wolf gave the room full of press a thrashing, as Stephen Colbert had done so many years ago in a WHCD Dinner appearance that TV news talking heads were still talking about tonight, in the walk-up to Wolf’s appearance, as if Colbert’s speech had been the one that could not be topped.
They were wrong.
“I know a lot of you want me to talk about Russia, Putin and collusion,” she said, but would decline because “I never wanted to know what any of you look like when you orgasm.”
“Except for you, Jake Tapper,” Wolf enthused. Tapper’s network, CNN, which loves to cut to its table at the clambake whenever their networks is referenced, held off for maybe the first time in WHCD history.
Wolf credited CNN with loving to “break news. You did it. You broke it. Good work. The most useful information on CNN is when Anthony Bourdain tells me where to eat noodles.”
“Fox News is here, so you know what that means, ladies: Cover your drinks,” Wolf warned.
“People want me to make fun of Sean Hannity. I cannot do that. This dinner is for journalists,” the comic said, getting some applause in the massive ballroom.
“We’ve got MSNBC here,” she said, noting its new slogan is This Is Who We Are.
“This is not a good slogan,” she advised, telling them it’s what their mom thinks that “new sad show on NBC is called.”…
You know, it's almost like there's a different standard for the white guy that "speaks his mind," and for women, who are immediately labeled "vulgar" and "insulting."
(Trust me, there is.)
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) April 29, 2018
Tonight’s #WHCD was a disgrace
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) April 29, 2018
Thank you! https://t.co/0Nsx5ZBj8c
— Michelle Wolf (@michelleisawolf) April 29, 2018
Can you imagine what a terrible comedian you'd have to be to play the White House Correspondents Dinner during the Trump era and NOT upset conservatives?
— Schooley (@Rschooley) April 29, 2018
Sunday Evening Open Thread: Another Nerdprom <em>SCANDAL!!!</em>Post + Comments (205)
This post is in: Russiagate, "Lock Her Up!!", Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell
Back in 2010, a couple of things seemed strange to me about the Ukrainian election. Yulia Tymoshenko came across as much more corrupt and autocratic than I had recalled. At the same time, Victor Yanukovych had greatly upgraded his image from unimaginative apparatchik.
I don’t follow Ukraine as closely as I do the Baltic states, so I figured that I had missed some things about Tymoshenko and that maybe Yanukovych was transcending his origins. This week I learned that those impressions were a result of Paul Manafort’s work with Yanukovych’s campaign.
Manafort’s campaign against Tymoshenko was intended to discredit her beyond Ukraine. Through Breitbart and by other means, the negative information reached US media. The US media is often taken in by pro-Russian propaganda. For years, American media have repeated Russian claims of unfair practices of language requirements in the Baltic states. In fact, another storm on that issue is brewing in Latvia. If American media cover it at all, look for a lean toward the idea that Latvia is persecuting Russian speakers. So it probably was easy for Manafort to get his material into the mainstream media.
Yanukovych won the election. Immediately after that, he prosecuted Tymoshenko for corruption and put her in prison. Compare that with Donald Trump’s encouragement of “Lock her up” chants. Similarity of election tactics, to be sure, is not a prosecutable offense, but other Trump connections to Manafort’s activities may be.
As president of Ukraine, Yanukovych was notably corrupt and willing to do Russia’s bidding. The response to this was the demonstrations in the Maidan, a major square in Kyiv. Yanukovych’s government eventually responded to those demonstrations by shooting protesters. If Tymoshenko had been president, things might have gone differently. Without the Maidan protests, there would have been less pretext for Vladimir Putin to move his “little green men” into the Donbas.
Manafort has a lot to answer for. We may not yet know the full extent of it.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner.
Paul Manafort in Ukraine’s 2010 ElectionPost + Comments (76)
This post is in: "Lock Her Up!!", Clown Shoes
Tom already discussed this, but Nunberg was apparently not satisfied with his two CNN interviews or he scored another 8-ball because he was just on MSNBC with Ari Melber. He still batshit crazy and defiant, although occasionally mewling that it is not fair.
Y’all don’t quote me on this, but I don’t think this movie is going to end well for Nunberg. I don’t see him sanding a boat on a Mexican beach with Morgan Freeman right before the credits roll.
On the other hand, he may be immortalized in both law schools and the urban dictionary with the phrase “to pull a Nunberg.”
by $8 blue check mistermix| 161 Comments
This post is in: "Lock Her Up!!"
Hope Hicks is resigning after learning that even if a lie is white, that doesn’t make it a good lie.
Looks like we need an open thread.
by David Anderson| 88 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, "Lock Her Up!!", #notintendedtobeafactualstatement, I Can't Believe We're Losing to These People, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own
I am not a lawyer but is this as dumb as trying to ford the Amazon during flood season with an open wound or dumber than that?
Breaking: Former Trump aide Rick Gates admits his false statement to the FBI came during a "proffer session with his counsel at [Mueller's] office."
So he LIED to them WHILE trying to cut a deal with Mueller.
(I reported that was the likely source of Count 2 earlier today…) https://t.co/n9OT8nGxzz
— Ari Melber (@AriMelber) February 23, 2018
Lawyers — what is the dumbest thing that you can reveal without breaking confidentiality/ethics rules that a client has ever done against your advice?
Open thread