AP: Greg Abbott Given $35K Campaign Donation by Trump after Trump University Probe Dropped https://t.co/w4BERJw7Ya
— DaveT62 (@DaveoutofAustin) September 6, 2016
Trump has bragged that he gives money to get things from politicians. This is a textbook example of pay-to-play https://t.co/k9xA9dlVZb
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) September 6, 2016
Given new Trump pay to play revelation, this previous report from TX all the more startling. https://t.co/8XQYKxsBKw pic.twitter.com/PB6hg6g6lN
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) September 5, 2016
@rickhasen I could not find any other Trump contributions in TX except for those two to Abbott. This stinks! pic.twitter.com/3MpnZflp9P
— Wendy Miller (@wemesq) September 5, 2016
For sale to approved bidders, it would seem — and so cheaply!
Trump Foundation isnt the only Trump situation raising questions about pay-to-play. There's also this: https://t.co/uOSPzfoOFA
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) September 6, 2016
Between 2011 and 2014, in the aftermath of Trump University folding, Trump put money into state attorney general races in CA, FL, MI and TX.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) September 6, 2016
Washington Post reporter who’s been chasing (and failing to find) Trump’s purported “charitable donations” —->
Updated story: @realdonaldtrump no longer bragging that his $ forced pols to do what he wanted. Now: $ had no effect https://t.co/OhR2O1rpbi
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) September 6, 2016
Trump last year (and since): “When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.” https://t.co/ZAuPvIdUgS https://t.co/prrvVEGVl8
— Rebecca Sinderbrand (@sinderbrand) September 5, 2016
raven
Washington (CNN)Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a $1.1 billion bill to combat the Zika virus.
They opposed provisions in the bill that would have blocked funding for Planned Parenthood and that would have allowed Confederate flags to fly at military veteran cemeteries.
dmsilev
@raven: ‘GOP Assholes’ has long been a redundant phrase.
PPCLI
@raven: For a party that prates on about how they are the “Party of Lincoln”, they sure do love that Confederate battle flag.
Lincoln was on the Union side, right?
PPCLI
This story appears to be getting some legs. Journalists don’t seem to want to cover a story unless it gets new revelations every day. That’s why Judicial Watch makes sure to dribble out mini-revelations every couple of days. They have ferreted out standard journalist practice and they’re milking it.
Happily, this is a story that just keeps on turning up sleaze. The fact that the only Texas contributions were to Abbott is incredibly damning, as of course are the complaints by Abbott’s own regulator concerning Abbott’s mystifying decision to fold the tent. Etc.
Trollhattan
California AJ? Who did he donate to?
Redshift
And let us not forget that Trump’s claim that he demanded that the Clintons come to his wedding, and he could do it because he’d donated to the Clinton Foundation, is a complete lie; the wedding was in 2005 and the donation was in 2009 (and came from the Trump Foundation, aka other people’s money.)
SiubhanDuinne
OFF-TOPIC!
Apologies for going off-topic so early, but I wrote these Three Sonnets for Walter last night and shared them at almost the tail end of a nearly dead thread. A couple of commenters suggested that they should get the Walter hashtag — I don’t know how to do that, but assume all FPs are highly trained. Anyhow, so many of us love Walter’s story (such an incredible arc, from Hell to Paradise) that I thought a few might enjoy this offering.
Redshift
@PPCLI: And apparently on one of the Sunday shows, Christie didn’t have any better response to the Bondi bribe than “it’s outrageous to suggest any such thing!” But because it was a Sunday show, of course they “moved on” shortly afterward.
kindness
Too bad they can’t jail them all together.
NoraLenderbee
@efgoldman: Good one!
Trollhattan
Know many here share my special love of HOAs and their dictatorial powers over their neighbors. One in SoCal has decided being water-conscious is icky so the hapless owner writes the LA Times.
Fvck these people. I say we use our water for the salmon until they get their collective acts together.
SiubhanDuinne
@Redshift:
Did not know about the four-year discrepancy in dates, but that whole “I gave Hillary money and made her come to my wedding” always smelt most redolently of the finest bullshit. What kind of person pays people to come to parties and celebrations? I mean, in such an obvious quid pro quo fashion?
Steeplejack (tablet)
Matt McDermott above:
Assuming Pam Biondi in Florida is the “new” one: WTF?!
Gonna skip the Google-fu because I’m on the tablet, but my clear memory is that the Florida and Texas AG donations were both reported back in June—and promptly went down the memory hole. So it has taken the press three months to get their thumb out and get on the follow-up?! Hell, cub reporter Jimmy Olsen wouldn’t have taken as long, even with time out for brown-nosing Superman. Our failed media experiment indeed.
Trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
I guess I “get” the rich daddy paying Selena Gomez to attend his kid’s bat mitzvah…sort of…but paying a former president to come to your [counts on fingers] third wedding sounds like something Al Capone would try.
Villago Delenda Est
Everything Drumpf accuses Clinton of…from foundation chicanery to health issues…is projection. Every bit of it.
Chuckles the Toddler and the rest of NBC have demonstrated their supreme hackitude by breathless reportage of Clinton’s cough, and Mrs. Greenspan has confirmed her total lack of professional demeanor.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: Reader’s Digest condensed version:
His owner was mean
So Walter got lean
Then along came Cole
Now Walter is full
And in doggie paradise
Now, isn’t that nice?
Mike E
@efgoldman:
prolly making sure that Phyllis Schlafly is truly dead!
hovercraft
@raven:
Good, they should run Ads all across FL asking Rubio why families are being put at risk of Zika so that women are denied access to health services and to fly Confederate flags in military cemeteries, run the in NC too.
BruceFromOhio
But Hillary was coughing, and her emails don’t look presidential, and CNN says Trump will win, so you libtards should sit down and shut up.
Skerry
@efgoldman: @PPCLI: In August I drove along Rt 30 – the Lincoln Highway- through part of central Pennsylvania to visit the Flight 93 memorial. I was dismayed to see at least a dozen confederate flags over a 30 mile or so stretch of road. Most of them also displayed Trump signs along side. I wonder what history PA is teaching.
The Pale Scot
Literary/philosophical Question;
Is calling a woman a schmuck proper Yiddish grammar?
Im reading the Theranos story, and that’s the only description I come up for the CEO.
Pogonip
@Trollhattan: how can they handle it so they don’t have to wait years to change THEIR OWN YARD?
Move. ASAP.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne:
Someone who can’t get people to show up just for the food and drink.
Gravenstone
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Yep, this was “out there” a few months ago. And as noted, fell without so much as a THUD, completely out of sight. Maybe someone in the media is actually looking for a convenient escape hatch from the Trumpenfolly?
Pogonip
@The Pale Scot: what is the literal English translation of schmuck?
Possible substitutions: asshole, dipshit (more female options) bitch, slattern, virago, that word Cole won’t let his readers use. No, not “fat” as in “Your cat’s too fat.”. The OTHER word. Also tipa if you’re willing to criticize her in Spanish.
Give it a day or two and Siubhan Duinne can probably come up with an insulting sonnet.
Gravenstone
@Pogonip: I was gonna suggest pave it and paint it green. Your move, HOA.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: “My name is Walter. I take mighty dumps!” sounds sort of like a Viking announcing himself in single combat. (Even those only marginally familiar with Scandinavian history have probably heard of that grim martial ritual, the Great Viking Poop-off.)
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike E: Pounding a wooden stake through the space where a heart is usually found to be absolutely sure of it!
Pogonip
@Gravenstone: I like it! Or pave it and paint it bright ROSE pink.
eclare
@Pogonip: Astroturf is another option. You can get it in different colors.
ETA: I’m sure the HOA would be thrilled at the sight of the homeowner vacuuming his turf with a shop vac.
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
Perfect.
The Pale Scot
@Pogonip: Oh no, I’m from northern Jersey, lots of my friends went to temple.
But is schmuck a gender specific noun in Yiddish? I’ve never heard it used for woman.
eclare
@Pogonip: Both sonnets/poems are lovely! Very creative!
cokane
this is the attack ad dems need to be running, just clips of him saying he’s bought pols and these recent news stories. good lord how is this race so close?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@eclare: Some of the artificial turf looks really good now, pricey but it looks and sort of feels like grass.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cokane: I think that was covered by NR the troll in a previous thread, it’s because HRC is a horrible candidate and the Dems are corporate sellouts.
H.E.Wolf
Schmuck is very gender specific in Yiddish. It means schvantz. :)
Mnemosyne
@The Pale Scot:
It’s a, er, anatomical term for something women don’t have.
ETA: yes, it’s Yiddish for “dick.”
Denali
@Siubhan Duinne,
You truly have a gift!
Turgidson
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I’m trying to preserve my sanity by not following the campaign coverage as obsessively as I sometimes have in the past, so I could be wrong, but I think the Trump/Bondi Bribe-a-palooza reentered the news because someone discovered that Trump had paid an IRS penalty for making the bribe/donation out of his Foundation, which is against the rules for charity activity.
And the discovery of Trump’s IRS penalty was made just as the media was wrapping up another banner week of breathlessly writing a bunch of stories about completely legal Clinton Foundation activities that nevertheless “raise questions” and “dog HRC’s campaign” and “are a cloud”.
So the timing meant the media got caught covering a nothingburger as if it was Watergate while what looks like an actual act of quid pro quo corruption so obvious that even the Roberts Court might notice was conspicuously passing right under their noses, with minimal coverage. A bunch of commentators with at least some Villager cred joined the “wait, WTF?” chorus, pointing out how insane the coverage is when a non-scandal is getting 100x more coverage than the real deal. So now it looks like the MSM has been shamed into doing what they should have in the first place, at least until people stop yelling at them and they can get back to business as usual.
germy
@Trollhattan:
I remember an anecdote about Fats Waller being kidnapped and blindfolded… and then finding himself at a party for Al Capone. He was forced to spend three days there playing piano.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
Love it!!
Omnes Omnibus
Has anyone else noticed that Bondi got 70% of what Abbott did?
germy
Lara Logan is on Jeopardy tonight. With Michael Steele and Anderson Cooper.
geg6
@Skerry:
That’s the Pennsylbama (or Pennsyltucky for some) part of PA. Thankfully, the people of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and the Philly burbs are much more numerous than the resentful white rural working class that populate the vast ignorant wilderness of the “T” of PA.
debbie
@efgoldman:
I wish Reid would introduce legislation requiring single issue bills. The complaint used to be that single-issue bills would take up too much time. That seems to be moot now, what with all the GOP obstruction.
germy
Lara just raised her hand instead of using her buzzer.
Trebek told her it wasn’t necessary. General laughter.
PsiFighter37
This isn’t even new news. News organizations are so fucking terrible these days.
This is the kind of the thing that should have sunk Trump during the GOP primary if the media bothered to do its job.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
I think that’s kind of what I had in mind, although I wasn’t thinking explicitly of Vikings. More “I have a name and here’s what it is and it is mine” and “My poops are so beautiful and huge that people take pictures of them and share them on the flat machine with the clicky thing attached” — in iambic pentameter and ending in a word that can be easily rhymed.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
I have an O/T lawyer question: Local news is reporting that Brock Turner plans to appeal his sentence. Is there any chance he could end up having to serve a longer sentence? Would the judge have that option or not?
Gelfling 545
@SiubhanDuinne: ?
hovercraft
@Steeplejack (tablet):
It came back to life because the IRS just levied the fine/penalty for the illegal political contribution by a ‘charitable’ foundation. Lefties were all over it yelling bias, and they had to talk about it, especially after virtually every talk show on Sunday ignored it except John Dickerson. And even then it was one question to Christie, who responded how dare you.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, you have to admit, few dogs get their poop blogged!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37:
Or his primary opponents.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@efgoldman:
Why, yes, it is.
By this metric, she may have been overpaid.
God help me, I love that site.
Kay
Republicans are poor judges of character. They can really pick ’em.
p.a.
@Mnemosyne: Oh. Thought that was putz.
The Pale Scot
@efgoldman: In my locale it’s means the part of the foreskin that’s removed by the mohel (I think Google is fudging). But I guess the women have their own version for the female equivalent that I’d never hear.
And that’s today’s lesson in Yiddish everyone
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: And I bet even fewer dogs get comments on their poop or get it mentioned in a byGod sonnet! An actual sonnet!
The Pale Scot
@geg6: I have it on good authority (Pittsburghians) that it’s spelled Penciltucky.
p.a.
Well here we go:
Schmuck versus putz – Grammarist
grammarist.com › spelling › schmuck-ve…
Mar 3, 2015 – Even though they don’t seem similar, putz and schmuck share the same meaning in Yiddish. Schmuck comes from shmok meaning pen1s. And putz comes from putz, which is another word for pen1s. These terms are informal and could even be called slang.
PatrickG
@efgoldman:
Pretty sure that was a riff on Trump’s enforcing the gender pay gap even when it came to bribes.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
With what might be the oddest and most awkward rhyme scheme ever devised: ABCD ABCD EF EF EF
Kay
I love that he believes people are such dopes that they would buy that a 7 year old gave a music teacher “a black eye”.
Let’s interview some more people from Kew-Forest. Flesh out this horror show of a human being a little more.
Mnemosyne
@p.a.:
It does. Like English, there are many euphemisms for the same organ, many of which are also applied to jerks of various types.
p.a.
here we go:
Schmuck versus putz – Grammarist
grammarist.com › spelling › schmuck-ve…
Mar 3, 2015 – Even though they don’t seem similar, putz and schmuck share the same meaning in Yiddish. Schmuck comes from shmok meaning pean1s And putz comes from putz, which is another word for pean1s. These terms are informal and could even be called slang.
lets see if the ‘an1’ helps the comment avoid moderation.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@PatrickG:
Pretty sure efgoldman realized that.
hovercraft
@efgoldman:
It’s funny how they are so “outraged” when they are accused of stuff, and their fee-fees get hurt so easily, but their insults and accusations are totally okay. Obama said mean things about them so they can never work with him, but you can call him a Kenyan, socialist, apologist, traitor, and he should be big enough to get over it.
Kay
The warm memories of Donald Trump are rolling in. The high school years:
He was known for asking people what their father did and then telling them his father was rich.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: First, i am not licensed in California. Second, as a general rule, you cannot receive a higher sentence after taking an appeal. there are a couple of exceptions: 1. if retrial or resentencing is ordered and the defendant has committed another crime or other aggravation since the original sentence, the new information can be considered in imposing the new sentence and 2. if the original sentence was actually illegal, and therefore void, the new sentence must comply with the law. The second exception is the one that might possibly apply. And the fact that I am not licensed in CA means that I can’t competently speculate further.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@p.a.: You could just use embedded HTML, pen[strong][/strong]is. Penis.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
I wish I could remember who, but somebody observed that it was telling that Yiddish has so many different words for the different types of assholes and jerks that one might run into in the course of a day. It’s like snow for Eskimos.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Hmmm… Could be that. Could be the traditional male-female pay gap.
Frankensteinbeck
@cokane:
We had a black president for eight years, and racist whites – which it turns out is a majority of us – have well and truly lost their shit. That effect is so huge, it’s hard to say how much ‘a woman is running for president’ is affecting it, especially because there’s so much bigotry overlap.
Eric U.
@geg6: here in the socialist republic of State College, you often hear southern accents. Even the surrounding county is not populated by reliable Democratic voters, a majority of idiots that work at Penn State University Park campus have been voting for the people that have defunded the university so badly over the last 15 years or so.
I have been tempted to drive around Central PA setting fire to confederate traitor flags, but so far I have contained myself.
@debbie:
I suppose Brock Turner thinks he might be able to prove himself innocent? Probably by slandering the victim. I really doubt he’s going to do himself any favors with that.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
I suspect that Anne Laurie’s internet diagnosis has some basis in truth and Trump has some level of ADHD mixed in with his Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
germy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ailes got 40 million to leave fox. Carlson got 20 million.
p.a.
cool, a fusion of indo-european and semitic language.
Yiddish (ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש, yidish/idish, literally “Jewish”; in older sources ייִדיש-טײַטש “Yiddish-Taitsh” (English: Judaeo-German)[3]) is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century[4] in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with an extensive Germanic based vernacular fused with elements taken from Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as from Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages.[5][6] Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized alphabet based on the Hebrew script.
The earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז (loshn-ashknaz = “language of Ashkenaz”) or טײַטש (taytsh), a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון (mame-loshn, literally “mother tongue”), distinguishing it from לשון־קדש (loshn-koydesh, “holy tongue”), meaning Hebrew. The term “Yiddish”, short for “Yiddish-Teitsch” (Jewish German), did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century the language was more commonly called “Jewish”, especially in non-Jewish contexts, but “Yiddish” is again the more common designation.
germy
@Mnemosyne:
I watched the ABC news Trump interview, and he was rocking back and forth waiting for the next question.
Pence sat stock-still like a lizard on a rock, but Trump was all restless.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sounds competent enough to me! Thanks.
Kay
@Mnemosyne:
I think he’s an entitled asshole and no one ever called him out for bad behavior over 70 years on the planet.
But he could be ADHD too :)
This is from Drudge, of all places:
They’re shocked that Donald Trump is ripping people off.
Mike J
Squat 737? Looks pretty sleek to me. (Of course they make ’em right next to my sailing club’s dock and I have friend who are machinists there, so I’m partial to them.)
Strewn with white paint? Looks like a professional paint job to me.
Thanks NYT.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
There was a feature a day or two or three ago on Morning Edition which referred to the fact that Trump’s “home minister” (my words, not NPR’s) was the famous Norman Vincent Peale, who preached at Marble Collegiate Church where the Trump family attended. Peale, for the youngsters who possibly may not know, was the author of The Power of Positive Thinking, one of the earliest of (and template for) the self-help books. Between the influences of Dr. Peale and Fred Trump, young Donald apparently recited mantras to himself throughout his childhood, youth, young adulthood, and quite likely even today: Winning is everything. I can do it all. Nothing can stop me. I will win and I will be successful. I do not recognize failure.
I’m all for aspiration and affirmations and positive visualizations and that, but DJT seems to have taken the lessons to heart to such an extent that reality gets completely locked out.
gene108
@hovercraft:
For a good chunk of the populations in FL and NC, more so NC I think, would approve of flying Confederate flags everywhere and gutting Planned Parenthood.
Sticking these miscellaneous items in the Zika bill allows Republicans to strut around saying Democrats are blocking funding (technically true), while the roadblocks in the bill are popular items for their base and either in victory or defeat Republucans will energize their base.
Jeffro
@Kay:
I’m still shocked* that not one of the “deep bench” was able to lay a glove on this guy during the primaries…but then again, not one of them had any actual principles, a clean record, or the foresight to tell where a plurality of the GOP base was at (despite decades of helping said base get there).
*not really…the “deep bench” was full of people with some degree of cunning, and a great deal of ambition, but not a whole lot of big-picture intelligence. Or small-picture intelligence, for that matter.
hovercraft
@gene108:
You are probably right, sigh.
Mnemosyne
@p.a.:
There’s also Ladino, which is the language of Sephardic Jews and similarly mixes Spanish and Hebrew.
hovercraft
Tweety’s back, sigh, with false equivalency between Bill’s 17.6 million and Trump buying off Bondi. But on a much happier note Joy is still filling in for Chris Hayes.
Kay
@Jeffro:
I still think they could have beat him. It would mean putting ego aside and certain lesser lights dropping out and some semblance of joining forces and solidarity…oh, well, impossible. For them.
They’re not really a political party. They’re a collection of political entrepreneurs. Trump is the inevitable result of the belief system. Every man for himself.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Oh, he’s got a whole toxic stew brewing in his tiny head. IMO, the ADHD is what causes that weird impulsiveness and need to blurt things out because you just. can’t. hold. BACK!
Mnemosyne
@Mike J:
They’re saying that the plane has cankles. ;-)
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
:: SPIT!!! ::
p.a.
@Mnemosyne: It survived the expulsion? Or did enough Jews remain ‘conversos’ etc. to keep it viable?
p.a.
@hovercraft: Except for Fox employees, which is so blatant I think the workers have to know they’re frauds, I really think most of the rest of the MSM crowd really are just stupid. Stupid also implies lazy.
gene108
@PsiFighter37:
During the GOP primary it was fairly clear each candidate had their own sugar-daddy billionaire, so the connection of GOP candidates doing the bidding of the rich was somewhat entrenched in the primary’s narrative.
This is why Trump’s statements about buying influence resonated and allowed him to be the alpha-male on the debate stage, because it went unsaid the rest of the field was already bought.
The rest of the GOP was so slimy, in their own way, or too boring to notice. I’m not sure any revelations could have derailed Trump, after he caught the base’s imagination. The competition was not there.
MCA1
Doesn’t matter, and won’t compute if it does start to matter to the national political media. Trump could skullfuck a live kitten on TV at this point, and it would be discussed only in regards to the tonal contrast to Clinton’s e-mail “troubles,” with a chiding side order of both parties brought this on themselves and some woe-is-us nonpartisan both choices are so awful right now and isn’t it horrible how off the rails America’s gone. And even if it were reported as “My god, this person is a monster, uniquely and wholly unfit for office is ways previously unimagined, and whatever you may think of Hillary Clinton she’s clearly and obviously a better person and potential president” it would be either unseen, misunderstood or distrusted as further evidence of lack of balance by so-called “independents” ever-vigilant against the liberal media bias they’ve been so well-trained to see, and treated as a badge of honor by the Drumpfenproletariat.
America does not pay attention anymore, and cannot differentiate between propaganda and news when it does.
Sorry for the pessimism. But there have, quite literally and without a shred of hyperbole, been at least a hundred things in Trump’s record of speech and action to date that would have immediately disqualified any other presidential candidate, ever. Irrevocably. I just don’t see how “actual criminal bribery” is going to change the game at this point.
eclare
@Mnemosyne: Hahaha…that made me laugh!
geg6
@Eric U.:
This s why I never applied for an open position at UP.
Van Buren
@Eric U.: My wife’s brother’s wife’s sister teaches at PSU. And is to the right of Trump.
debit
@SiubhanDuinne: That is so lovely! Beautifully done.
Mnemosyne
@p.a.:
According to Wikipedia, it survived in the rest of the Mediterranean and North Africa — basically, where the Spanish Sephardic Jews fled to, they brought their language. It’s just not as well known in the US since our entertainment that incorporates Jewish words (and thus language) is dominated by Ashkenazi Jews and Yiddish.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
Hayes does do some pushback but it’s always half laughing in a “wtf nonsense are you trying to get away with?”
Joy is much more, “That’s BS podner.”
What I’d like is some Tamron Hall in primetime doing her “I am fucking exasperated with this attempt to bullshit me. Step the fuck back, fool.”
But, tbh, I just want some more Tamron Hall whatever I have to do to get it.
Corner Stone
@p.a.: Whatever, cudlip.
Fair Economist
@PPCLI:
The was to say that is: Lincoln was on the United States’ side.
Corner Stone
What I am sick to fucking death of is Chuckles Todd, Jr. Also known as Steve Kornacki.
Reading his “data” off the “big board” and concern trolling the fuck out of all of us. The Kornack Era is long past its sell date.
I don’t want to hear from him again until Bridgegate has legit indictments.
Aleta
Good 2014 NYT article about trend in corporations buying influence via state Attys G. There’s a section on Bondi + one mention of Trump and Giuiliani hosting a fundraiser for her (guess where).
“The increased focus on state attorneys general by corporate interests has a simple explanation: to guard against legal exposure, potentially in the billions of dollars, for corporations that become targets of the state investigations.
It can be traced back two decades, when more than 40 state attorneys general joined to challenge the tobacco industry, an inquiry that resulted in a historic $206 billion settlement.
Microsoft became the target of a similar multistate attack, accused of engaging in an anticompetitive scheme by bundling its Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system. Then came the pharmaceutical industry, accused of improperly marketing drugs, and, more recently, the financial services industry, in a case that resulted in a $25 billion settlement in 2012 with the nation’s five largest mortgage servicing companies.
The trend accelerated as attorneys general — particularly Democrats — began hiring outside law firms to conduct investigations and sue corporations on a contingency basis.
The widening scope of their investigations led companies to significantly bolster efforts to influence their actions. “
Corner Stone
Jamie Foxx is all over the place these days! Now he’s reading polls on MSNBC?
scav
Well Heysus above knows the police are responsible for nothing and can’t be trained, so it clearly must be time for a law to teach all drivers what to do in those dangerous dangerous situations where they encounter the police. It’s not as though the schools in Illinois have anything else they’re wrestling with at the moment.
I mean, it’s not the exact knowledge / instruction itself that’s really the issue, it’s really the abject inability to get any quick movement on police training and responsibilities in this state in conjunction with the whiz-bang consensus that it’s all those nasty drivers fault. Making innocent policemen all nervous and shit. Let’s just sit around and pound upward on the entire board until the nails are firmly embedded in the wood.
JMG
If America votes for Trump (could happen, probably not), then whatever happens is what we deserve. Those of us who knew better should’ve done a better job explaining the stakes.
I wonder if the MSM would go back to the oxy-ridden enclaves of loser white males they love so much every election a year later to see how the saps felt about being betrayed and being worse off than before.
Naah. Not a story.
TS
@cokane:
Political media – today with multiple events, Trump is shown 100% – Hillary occasionally shows in a small window. Trump is presented as the savior, the outsider. From the last cnn poll – white evangelicals going 73-14 for Trump – the man who has NO religion, while Hillary’s long term faith is questioned. Trustworthy 50-35 for Trump – this one is ALL the media attacking the Clinton Foundation for doing good & ignoring everything that Trump has done in the past.
Just 2 of the many reasons why the race LOOKS close – I don’t think it is – but the media is happy to promote such ideas.
Corner Stone
@JMG:
White people are stupid and racist. There’s no coaching that up.
germy
http://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/DgJbA72.jpg?w=600
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
I love her too.
EDIT: Instead of Tamron, we get an hour of Brian Williams at 11pm beginning tonight. Sigh.
Aleta
@Aleta: NYT chart showing size of some corporate donations to AGs, by party, in 2013-14.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman:
No argument here.
Mary G
@SiubhanDuinne: Love, especially
JMG
@Corner Stone: I’m a white person. I’ll cop to stupid, but not racist. I’m sure I have racial attitudes, but I honestly don’t think they affect my life choices.
pat
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh crap, now I’m tearing up again.
Well done. Well done.
sinnedbackward
@Skerry: Now you know why it’s called Pennsyltucky.
p.a.
@Corner Stone:
I’ve Clearly Missed Something
December 2, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Written by John Cole
125 comments
What is up with all the “cudlip” references? What does that even mean?
SiubhanDuinne
debit:
Gelfling 545:
Denali:
eclare:
MomSense:
Thank you, all, for very kind comments. Never was the word “doggerel” more apt.
Bobby Thomson
@Omnes Omnibus: First thought – notice Trump waited for results before making with the check for the higher payment. Second thought – well, she is a woman.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
It was funny today, Chuckles Sr. was much more positive about Hillary than Steve, he basically said that the CNN poll was bullshit and that Hillary is still winning, and he does not see a path for Trump. Steve delights in playing with the numbers and the board, and doing hypotheticals that have virtually no chance of ever coming to pass.
TS
@efgoldman:
They sure come cheap – unless there were some other payments not yet seen.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
@pat:
You are very kind. Thank you.
hedgehog mobile
@SiubhanDuinne:Lovely!
Patricia Kayden
@raven: Good on Dems for blocking Repub partisanship. I cannot understand why Repubs are playing around with Zika virus funding. This is not a joke.
debit
@p.a.:
It’s a question many of us have asked ourselves, with no real answer forthcoming. You can try here.
Kay
@JMG:
We have to trust Robby Mook. That’s all there is to it. We have no choice :)
He seems smart enough.
Jeffro
@Kay:
I think there was an outside chance that either Kaisch or Rubio could have beaten him, but Kaisch would have had to have been a much more doctrinaire modern GOP candidate, and Rubio would have had to not be such an obvious lightweight. Also, if a frog had wings, etc etc etc.
Jeffro
@gene108:
it’s almost like…like…CU is biting the Rs in the butt, too. They just don’t realize it yet (will they ever?)
SiubhanDuinne
@hedgehog mobile:
Thank you!
k
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, but isn’t Florida’s population about 70% that of Texas?
Patricia Kayden
@SiubhanDuinne: Tears everywhere! You really have a way with words. That is absolutely beautiful and is a great tribute to John, Debit and our precious Walter.
Hoodie
One of Joy Reid’s guests got close to the problem with press coverage of Hillary/Trump, noting that Trump’s payoff of Bondi fits his own narrative and thus is dog bites man. Members of the press are biased towards contrarianism, because that’s where they find their own identities. Hence, Gore is the smart one, but the contrarian knows that Gore is just a smarty-pants and W really is the clever one. Trump is a documented sleazeball but the contrarian knows that Hillary is the real crook. Of course, it’s a perversion of the muckracker myth, kind of like “just because you bake your bread on human dung doesn’t make you a prophet,” but that’s where hackery arises.
Pogonip
@eclare: Hers was lovely. Mine was DOGgerel.
Old Broad in California
@SiubhanDuinne: Your Walter sonnet made me tear up a bit. Well done.
On Trump, it seems to me that in the last day or two there’s been more pushback against the execrable media reporting on this campaign. Paul Krugman’s piece, Facebook and Twitter posts, letters to the editor, and now finally some reporting on buying off Attorney Generals. But maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.
Pogonip
@debit: hi Debit! Do you have any more poopdates–er, pupdates? Our poet laureate needs more information.
Pogonip
@debit: that pendejo who left Walter to starve is a (bleep)ing cudlip as far as I’m concerned.
sinnedbackward
@SiubhanDuinne: Gee!
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: have you thought about submitting this, with an explanatory foreword, to a pet magazine?
Bobby Thomson
@efgoldman
According to the Rude Pundit, she certainly does so often.
SiubhanDuinne
@Patricia Kayden: Thank you so much, Patricia! It’s really as much a tribute to this amazing BJ community as it is to any one individual in the chain.
@Pogonip: We should team up with a composer and write musicals.
@Old Broad in California: Thank you, OBiC. That’s very nice of you to say.
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
@hovercraft:
Kornacki has openly stated he hates the Clintons.
He’s on the record saying he was raised in Lowell, Massachusetts and his hero was fellow Lowell resident Paul Tsongas. He says he hates the Clintons because he feels they were unfairly negative on Tsongas during the 1992 primaries.
#Liberal media bias
amk
@Kay: Or the dems could haul their asses to the actual polls. Rethugs win since they fucking turnout instead of freaking out over ‘polls !!!’.
debit
@Pogonip: Nothing terribly earth shattering. Walter continues to be a Very Good Dog. I discovered that he can manage the stairs when it’s stormy out. The other night I woke to a boom of thunder and was almost back asleep when I hard “pant pant pant.” I rolled over and there was Walter. I gave him a pat, and he settled down to sleep. He also does not like the rain. I had to stand out there with him before he’d poop this morning. Like I said, pretty dull, which is just fine with me. I think Walter has had enough drama for a while.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
No, I haven’t. Not sure that backstory wouldn’t end up swamping the poem. It’s really meant for people who were present at the creation, i.e., all of us. But thanks!
That said, I did post a couple of before-and-after photos of Walter on my FB page a few weeks ago, so I might put the poem there, with sufficient updates. Not sure. Once I’m done with them, usually, I’m kind of done.
PhoenixRising
@efgoldman: Yes, FL is smaller than TX, but the obvious note to hammer is that she got 70% of what a man in her same job received in bribes from Donald Trump to stop looking into his frauds in Florida.
SiubhanDuinne
@sinnedbackward:
LOL!
hovercraft
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch:
Good to know.
Mnemosyne
@JMG:
The nice thing about this election is that it’s giving us a very easy way to figure out who’s racist. If you think Donald Trump is equally as qualified to be president as Hillary Clinton is, you’re a racist. Case closed.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: Sometimes that’s true. But other times…it’s complicated.
SiubhanDuinne
@debit:
Walter is incredibly lucky to have a nice, calm, predictable life. Three squares a day and soft places to sleep and ease his bones, what could be better?
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
@SiubhanDuinne:
Pogonip, if I do end up putting the sonnets on my FB wall, or moat, or facade, or whatever it’s called — may I also include your TL;DR Reader’s Digest version? It made me laugh.
Kay
@Jeffro:
Rubio is too childish to be the GOP nominee. Child-like. Republicans like manly men of strength. The kind of people who punch their music teacher.
ding
@debbie: Just a wild guess but Turner might be appealing only the “sex offender for life” sentencing and not the trial verdict
Anne Laurie
@p.a.:
Just as we American-English speakers need both prick and dick as insults, there are so many of that tribe that Yiddish requires multiple closely-related descriptors!
Kay
@amk:
No one who freaks out at polls stays home on election day. We have “sporadic” voters, but it isn’t the people who freak out over polls.
Think of them as..coy. They need to be ASKED, okay ? Several times. Nicely. And then reminded. :)
tybee
@p.a.:
it means that corner stain is a shtik drek
Corner Stone
@tybee: Man, stop sucking raven’s cock yo. Nobody cares.
Matt McIrvin
@Steeplejack (tablet): What Fits Into Russia?
Kay
Oh, boo hoo.
She was the star of a NYTimes piece on corrupt attorney generals 3 months ago. Which she’s well aware of. Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with her growing reputation for blatant corruption. That rock was turned over already.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne:
To be honest, I said I thought Trump had ADHD, which is a pretty firm medical diagnosis these days. But “NPD” is still in the catchall-for-not-otherwise-labelled, more-an-insult-than-a-disorder category, as far as I’m concerned. Even on the internet, I’ll agree Trump behaves like a narcissist, but I’ll only specify ADHD as a medical/psychiatric issue for him.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
I’ve been way too up close and personal with two sisters-in-law with personality disorders lately (one NPD, the other BPD), so I feel reasonably confident in my totally non-professional internet diagnosis of Trump on that score.
;-)
Kay
“Lobbyists bearing gifts pursue attorneys general”
Bondi prominently mentioned. Big photo. Two years ago. Well before the Presidential campaign.
NonyNony
@Turgidson: I think all of this is largely correct, but also Josh Marshall has been beating the crap out of reporters over this story this past week on Twitter and on TPM and how they’ve treated Trump’s actual influence buying compared to the Clinton Foundation nothingburger. He’s been especially hard on the Times who it appears didn’t report ANYTHING about these stories even back in June when they landed. It may be that he’s touching a nerve with them and is shaming a few of them into doing some actual reporting (or shaming their editors into letting them do some actual reporting – or both).
jl
At this point, it is beyond the issue of the press’ responsibility in the general election.
This stuff was all known years before the primaries. Could have vetted the primary candidates when no partisan balance BS was at stake.
What do this high paid do-nothing layabouts in the cable and broadcast media and the high toned papers do all day?
Waiting by the phone for latest GOPer BS about Bill and HRC, I guess.
We have an utterly corrupt incompetent and worthless corporate media in this country.
tybee
@Corner Stone:
you sure seem to, shtik drek.
and that reminds me, did you ever figure out which of your parents was the whore?
Matt McIrvin
@efgoldman: Ah yes. I thought I’d already mentioned that over here–she plays French horn in the Middlesex Concert Band out of Wakefield. Some years ago they were playing the Faneuil Hall Festival of Bands regularly, though they haven’t done it in a little while.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, Christ, the “snow for Eskimos” thing rears its head. It is COMPLETE BULLSHIT. Totally made up. No basis in fact. An academic linguist even wrote a goddamn book about it, and it will not die.
I Am Not King Jon Snow
@NonyNony: Are the apparently tightening national polls also a factor in the media’s renewed focus on Trump? Could it be that at least some of them now realize a Trump presidency is a real possibility and that a Clinton victory cannot be taken for granted?
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne: To phrase this as delicately as ever I can: I, personally, have ADHD. It’s on my permanent records! I’ve not just done the reading, I’ve lived the life — as have many of my nearest & dearest. So I feel like I can say “X is acting like someone who has ADHD”, if I can spell out my reasoning.
Throwing around terms like NPD or Borderline Personality Disorder (talk about a catchall diagnosis-of-the-moment), just because I’ve diagnosed people around me for being self-centered, self-destructive, and extremely tiresome to deal with… not so much.
Corner Stone
@tybee: Yeah, one comment a year at ya. Message: I care!
It’s ok if you feel compelled to follow the old fool and his lead. Good luck on your island.
Uncle Cosmo
@Jeffro: GODDAMNIT THE MAN’S NAME IS KASICH, NOT “KAISCH”!!! HOW THE FUCK MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO CONTINUE TO MISSPELL IT???!?!?! YOU DON’T EVEN SPELL IT RIGHT BY ACCIDENT, YOU DYSLEXIC SCHMUCK!!!!!
Pogonip
@debit: It would not surprise me to learn that Walter has spent a whole lot of rainy days outside with no shelter.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: i’d be honored. And so would Walter, I’m sure.
Omnes Omnibus
@Uncle Cosmo: That went from zero to raging pretty quickly.
JR in WV
@efgoldman:
So Bondi takes bribes from anyone, not just Republican Presidential candidates!
Huh!
So, so not surprised~!!
Corrupt from the gitgo. Like those Hiasson novels, sort of. Sounds like Florida.
Matt McIrvin
@efgoldman: Sam joined during the David Rox era.
Steeplejack
@Matt McIrvin:
Only Antarctica comes close. (China and Canada come in at about half the size of Russia.)
Jean
@efgoldman: Exactly. Why can’t they pass a Clean bill that is necessary to combat Zika? Instead they include a provision to cause MORE health problems (opposition to Planned Parenthood).
hellslittlestangel
@hovercraft: It would be good to know, if it were true. There’s no cite. He declared a few weeks back that “Rachel Maddow openly stated she hates the Clintons.” (Sorry, I don’t know how to search the comments here.) Same deal, no cite.
I don’t know if he’s a deep-cover troll, or what, but in this case he’s just full of shit.
JR in WV
@Uncle Cosmo:
Easy, Unc’ – don’t go off too high, you’ll hurt yourself over a guy who cain’t spell. That ain’t any good a’tall.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
Done.
amk
Who does the internal polling for clinton campaign? Kenyan had Joel Benenson who was pretty good.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
My sister-in-law brought a U-Haul to her estranged husband’s house less than 6 hours after he died inside the house. She made her kids and her new boyfriend come with her to try and take stuff out.
And I have more stories like that. Lots more. That’s just the one that makes people understand immediately that she’s not just a garden-variety asshole that we like to complain about.
Manyakitty
@SiubhanDuinne: Brilliant!
scott alloway
@SiubhanDuinne: Wonderful. Thank you.
sukabi
@efgoldman: naw, he’s just paying less cuz she’s not a he.
SiubhanDuinne
@Manyakitty:
@scott alloway:
Thank you kindly.
tybee
@Corner Stone:
so it was both.