If there really is a Deep State, suckering the Trumpers into talking about Fusion so that this would end up being in the release was a pretty smart play.
Alternate version: Trumpers harping on Fusion never understood what was going on in all this in the first place. https://t.co/l3t6wb51oe— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 9, 2018
Back on January 2nd, from Glenn R. Simpson & Peter Fritsch, “The Republicans’ Fake Investigations”:
… In the year since the publication of the so-called Steele dossier — the collection of intelligence reports we commissioned about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia — the president has repeatedly attacked us on Twitter. His allies in Congress have dug through our bank records and sought to tarnish our firm to punish us for highlighting his links to Russia. Conservative news outlets and even our former employer, The Wall Street Journal, have spun a succession of mendacious conspiracy theories about our motives and backers.
We are happy to correct the record. In fact, we already have.
Three congressional committees have heard over 21 hours of testimony from our firm, Fusion GPS. In those sessions, we toppled the far right’s conspiracy theories and explained how The Washington Free Beacon and the Clinton campaign — the Republican and Democratic funders of our Trump research — separately came to hire us in the first place.
We walked investigators through our yearlong effort to decipher Mr. Trump’s complex business past, of which the Steele dossier is but one chapter. And we handed over our relevant bank records — while drawing the line at a fishing expedition for the records of companies we work for that have nothing to do with the Trump case.
Republicans have refused to release full transcripts of our firm’s testimony, even as they selectively leak details to media outlets on the far right. It’s time to share what our company told investigators…
The NYTimes still has sources to protect, because this appeared online last night:
From the start, he was a central casting misfire — the dark artist slicing through the capital by electric scooter, a cloak-and-dagger digger better known to former colleagues for scratching his bare belly in plain office view.
In a past career, Glenn R. Simpson had been a reporter’s reporter, tenacious through two decades in journalism, often driving the Washington story of the day — congressional corruption, fund-raising shenanigans, sundry misbehavior — but never becoming it himself. “It’s not news when things go right,” he told a group of students in 1991, describing his craft. “When things go right, it’s boring.”
Mr. Simpson’s life has not been boring for some time now. It has, perhaps inevitably, become news.
As investigators circle President Trump’s administration over ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Simpson, a 53-year-old Wall Street Journal veteran-turned-master of high-dollar research, has arrived at the biggest story of either of his careers, lurching to the center of the Russia-tinged scandal that clouds the presidency…
Mr. Simpson himself has been hauled before three congressional committees for some 20 hours of questions and answers, placing him among the most significant players in the Trump-Russia affair, if math is the metric.“Uncooperative,” Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said of Mr. Simpson’s turn before the Judiciary Committee, which he leads.
“Very cooperative,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, where Mr. Simpson also appeared.
Mr. Simpson can be both of these things — according to interviews with dozens of friends, colleagues and investigative targets — and a few more: brash, obsessive, occasionally paranoid, perhaps with cause…
In practice, Fusion’s task has often translated, roughly, to finding unsavory things about unsavory people, at the behest of not-especially-savory clients. The firm often represents corporations, hedge funds or law firms, providing a sort of public-records forensics that resembles journalism. It leans on its understanding of the news media, and its contacts among reporters, to elevate its clients and squeeze their adversaries.
In election years, political opposition research can consume more of Mr. Simpson’s time, with bipartisan demand.
The pay is good. And the targets are rich…
Gosh, however could you trust a guy who’s only in it for the money?, says the Grey Lady, piously.
… More notable to some lawmakers is Mr. Simpson’s connection to two figures with deep bonds to Russian power, who have long fought for a pet Kremlin cause: Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist, and Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, a lawyer known as a formidable Moscow insider.
The two have worked to turn back the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 American law detested by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, that punishes Russian human rights violators. And together with Mr. Simpson, the trio worked on behalf of a Russian-owned company accused by the United States government of laundering some of the funds stolen in a fraud uncovered by Sergei L. Magnitsky, after whom the act was named.
Mr. Simpson had been hired by a law firm, BakerHostetler, representing the company. As part of this work, he compiled damaging allegations against William F. Browder, an American-born financier and Kremlin foe who was the driving force behind the Magnitsky Act.
“He’s a professional smear campaigner and liar for money,” Mr. Browder said of Mr. Simpson. “The credibility of anything that he does is in question.”…
“We collect facts,” Fusion said in a statement, describing itself as a research company. “Occasionally, the facts turn out to be helpful to people we deplore, like Vladimir Putin, or undermine people for whom we have considerable sympathy, like William Browder.”
For his efforts, Mr. Simpson has been presented with a defamation lawsuit and a congressional subpoena demanding bank records, which the firm is fighting in court, saying it could jeopardize a confidential client list in an industry where privacy is paramount. A legal defense fund has been formed, one of Fusion’s lawyers, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., said, adding that the firm’s legal costs had by now outstripped all compensation for investigations into Mr. Trump and his links to Russia during the campaign.
But the work has not stopped. Fusion continues to look into ties between Mr. Trump and Russia, according to several people briefed on the research. Mr. Simpson’s specific areas of focus, and information about any current benefactors, are closely guarded…
And that’s from just the first third of the article!
I have no doubt that Glenn Simpson is a “colorful” individual, who’s probably spent much of his “tumultuous life” straddling some ethical lines. Not many plaster saints take up journalism, never mind opposition research. But I’d have a lot more faith in the NYTimes’ sudden interest in the seamier side, if the people in charge of the paper weren’t so blatantly bent on sucking up to the worst of the Trump Oval Office Occupation.
schrodingers_cat
Vichy Times is all in. Has been for over a year. So not a surprise.
chris
NYT, New Yorker and Mother Jones were all briefed by Steele. MJ and David Corn ran with it, the NYT went the other way and are now desperately trying to back away from what they did, the “no evidence” article. At some point I expect the “why” to come out. With a bang.
Good thread from Clara Jeffrey:
Jumbo76
Don’t we know that this was Papadopoulos?
Jumbo76
Seems to be Papadopoulos:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/glenn-simpson-testified-that-the-fbi-had-a-source-inside-the-trump-campaign-corroborating-collusion-claims.html
dmsilev
Until and unless the NYT burns the sources which flat-out lied to them re: the existence of a Russia probe prior to the election, they have essentially no credibility on this subject.
Isn’t that supposed to be the arrangement? Anonymity, but only if the information is accurate? How come that second clause never seems to get exercised?
Lapassionara
@Jumbo76: Yes, per my twitter feed.
mike in dc
Funny how there was a double-whammy by the FBI at the tail end of October–putting Emailz! back in the spotlight while seemingly clearing Trump on Russia collusion at the same time. Had this happened in reverse–with the FBI confirming an investigation into Trump-Russia collusion and Comey shitcanning the NY field office push–Clinton wins by 5+ points. And the GOP’s conspiracy theories would have been even more unhinged.
Lapassionara
@dmsilev: Maybe they want to make sure no one ever finds out why they ran that story. Maybe they are not acting in good faith, and wanted Trump to win, and put their thumb on the scale to help it along.
laura
I got through to Senator Feinstein’s Office to thank her for the bold, necessary action. She is extremely conservative and will almost always err on the side of the Senate traditions. I could not think of her ashen face after being briefed last year. I’d hadn’t seen that look since she stepped forward and reported the deaths of Mayor Moscow and Supervisor Harvey Milk. I can only presume that she did this out of a sense of ungency and seriousness -almost like reporting a bank robbery while in the vault. Her staffer said the phones have been ringing off the hook and has no knowledge of any criticism or objection by her constituents.
I asked for more of this please.
debbie
Baby Man is back and whining that U. of Cincinnati is charging too much to let him speak there. Wah, wah, wah.
The best part is in italics:
debbie
@laura:
I like how she stood up to Grassley.
sharl
{Just like “investigative” “journalist” Brian Ross at ABC did all those years ago after being lied to about a (non-existent) connection between Saddam and the October 2001 anthrax attacks, then propagating that lie for a couple weeks or so, he responded bitterly…}
Mnemosyne
I know Fred Clark was a newspaper copy editor, not a reporter, but I should check in at Slacktivist and see if he has something to say about all this. ?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat:
Watch out, Amaranthine RBG might take you to task.
Mnemosyne
@laura:
Feinstein is conservative in the classic sense of being innately cautious and believing in institutions (sometimes too much), unlike the reactionaries on the right who have hijacked the term.
Cheryl Rofer
I am about a third of the way through the testimony. I think this is another of those revelations that raises more questions than it answers.
Villago Delenda Est
The Vichy Times has egg on its face.
Again.
If they were smart, heads would be rolling right now. Haberhack. Baquet. Lichtblau. Meyers. Thrush.
But they’re not smart. They’re going to double down.
Cheryl Rofer
Mnemosyne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I wish a motherfucker would. I would love to give ARGB a piece of my mind about the increasingly obvious failure of the New York Times to fulfill their moral and ethical obligations to the people of this country.
Adria McDowell
@debbie: LOL, saw that on the local news here in C-bus. Baby Man and his team are claiming what U of Cincinnati is doing is “unconstitutional.” IANAL, but I don’t see how, seeing as how U of Cincinnati is a private institution, not a state school.
Mnemosyne
@Adria McDowell:
I’m guessing someone didn’t do their homework before choosing that venue. As usual.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer: I just love wild-eyed liberal Norm Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, going after the NYT
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
Any idea what it was that empowered the Trump people to bully the FBI like this?
Mary G
@debbie: DiFi doesn’t get mad, she gets even. Grassley and Graham made a unilateral move with their bogus criminal referral, she does the same thing, but with actual information. I thanked her and told her office to tell her to keep it up.
Gelfling 545
@Adria McDowell: Is any institution , even state schools, required to allow anyone who please to come and speak on their grounds?
debbie
@Adria McDowell:
Right! UC is saying what they’re charging him is a fraction of the overall cost. Also, I remember reading that his check to UF bounced. Hopefully, that will be brought up when Baby Man slimes his way into the courtroom.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
Some student out of UGA is setting up the appearances.
debbie
@Mary G:
Yes, she acted like an honest to goodness grownup! Bet Grassley’s still twitching.
NonyNony
@Adria McDowell: UofC is a public school. You might be thinking of the U of Dayton, which is private.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
What’s new to me about how the Rs are treating all this is the shamelessness of it. They’re not even pretending to care about a hostile foreign power attacking an election. They dish out lunatic theories as if we won’t notice. It feels like the whole R party has become Fox news, and the Beck/Hannity strain of Fox at that.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
Being a particular type of troll, he’s impervious to any taking-to-task that might be sent his way. I made the mistake of responding to his usual bullshit earlier today, please learn from my mistakes.
Mnemosyne
@debbie:
You get what you pay for. ?
amygdala
Just sent Senator Feinstein a thank you email. The severity of the rage on the other side of the aisle only proves that she did the right thing.
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
That would change approximately one femtosecond after Dems regained power. Same as with deficits, etc.
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
I’ve actually managed to get under his skin a few times. I enjoy watching him sputter and whine about how unfaaaaaair I am. ?
mike in dc
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Well, it would be nice if Woke Dianne Feinstein set a trend, and the Dems starting taking “active measures” to deal with Republican fuckery contemporaneously.
Betsy
I don’t get it at all. Does anyone have an explanation of all this for someone like me who can’t really read that well between the lines or connect the dots? Not my superpower :(
Cheryl Rofer
@debbie:
There are some big questions here about the New York FBI office and the New York Times reporters and editors who are responsible for that October 31 story. The two reporters are no longer with the Times. What’s the reason for that? And why didn’t the editors question it more?
I was surprised at the story, because a couple of things in it had seemed to me to be becoming more important, not less important, as the story said, that mysterious computer connection to Alfa Bank for one. My general feeling on reading it was the same as the feeling I had when I read Judy Miller’s story on the aluminum tubes – that something just didn’t add up. Why didn’t the editors get that feeling too?
dmsilev
@Adria McDowell:
During the 2008 campaign, there was a campaign to get William Ayers (remember him?) fired from his job at the University of Illinois – Chicago. There was also a rather more amusing campaign to get him fired from his (nonexistent) job at the University of Chicago…
bystander
While we’re demanding the NYT divulge their anonymous sources of erroneous information, could we ask about their sources who told them that HRC was to be charged criminally who were also totally wrong?
Adria McDowell
@Gelfling 545: I am not a lawyer, so I’ll leave a better answer up to those that are. But I’m guessing that an argument can be made that a state school is an extension of the government, so standards for upholding free speech are higher.
Bobby Thomson
@Lapassionara: maybe?
They’re the New Fox Times.
les
@Cheryl Rofer:
When a man’s job depends on…just a thought.
Mnemosyne
@Cheryl Rofer:
Adam says it’s pretty well-known that the NYC FBI office is mobbed up with Russian mobsters to a huge extent. There’s a reason publicity hound Rudy 9/11 has been laying low.
Betsy
This is specifically what I don’t understand
“suckering the Trumpers into talking about Fusion so that this would end up being in the release was a pretty smart play.” Huh-whut? Sounds interesting, but I don’t have the spy mind I wish I did.
Yutsano
@Adria McDowell: Denying a venue on campus is not the same thing as a government denying a person a right to speak. Universities get a lot of latitude when it comes to safety on campus.
Also: LOL on their cheapness. $500 for a large venue isn’t that unreasonable. And having them pay the OT for the security folks is pretty much standard now.
martian
Has it gone down the memory hole that Harry Reid tried to drag Trump’s collusion with Russia out into the light? The NYT torpedoed him with the Comey cover-up job, is how I recall it. Even the WaPo was calling Reid’s plea to Comey to go public with the threat to our country “evidence free”, though. Hell, even people here were speculating that Harry was lying, Comey having such a sterling reputation and all – not enough eyerolls in the world for that. I don’t think Reid’s attempt to head off the disaster we’re now living with should be forgotten.
Harry Reid tried, Comey lied.
mike in dc
@Mnemosyne: So Felix Sater is the Russian Whitey Bulger?
Bobby Thomson
@Villago Delenda Est: they’re also dirty AF.
MomSense
The Vichy Times has been flirting with bankruptcy for years. Do we know where they have been getting their credit?
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
@Mnemosyne:
Ah, yes. I didn’t realize it was the NY FBI office. That explains everything. You’d think the mother ship would have ejected that contagion immediately.
Adria McDowell
@Yutsano: Hey, I fully claim to be a moron and not a lawyer, so I’m sure what you are saying is correct. I remember the traveling “preacher” coming to New Mexico State to tell all of us womyn types that we were whore and going to hell. He at least had the “decency” to keep it outside. :-)
My guess is Baby Man and his team are looking for an out of court settlement from U of Cincinnati- maybe they think the university will find it cheaper just to pay them off than to keep defending it in court….but what do I know.
debbie
@Yutsano:
Still, the best part is that it’s scheduled during spring break when no one’s around.
Baud
The NYT is garbage.
Gelfling 545
@Adria McDowell: Probably but just anybody who can plunk down a rental fee?
Adria McDowell
@Gelfling 545: Maybe? I could probably scrounge up $500 to rent the place to speak about absolutely nothing.
@debbie: True, but there are a few white supremacist groups in the area (I’m sure you know seeing as how you live in the area IIRC) who could show up to hear him speak.
ruemara
@martian: True, thanks for the reminder.
Yarrow
@MomSense:
This is my question. I know Carlos Slim was (is?) a part owner, but seems like there may be questionable ties we don’t know about.
El Caganer
Thank God there’s at least one part of this country where Democrats and Republicans can work together: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/south-florida-state-senators-acknowledge-extramarital-affair
Yarrow
@debbie: The suggestions I’ve read are that the NY FBI office is wrapped into Mueller’s (as well as formerly Comey’s) and Schneiderman’s investigations. It may be that they aren’t outing them at this point as they connect the dots. It would make sense that they wouldn’t want to shut them down and mess up the larger investigation.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Can’t spell ‘arglebargle’ without ARBG.
grammypat
@debbie: Plenty of RWNJ / bigots in the immediate area will attend, irregardless of school calendar. Spring break means no students, fewer protestors. Win/win.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Over at the DailyBeast
Yutsano
@El Caganer: We need to send that one to Adam or Betty later.
@Adria McDowell:
Oh. So using the Westboro Baptist Church funding method?
LurkerNoLonger
@El Caganer: Now that’s what I call reaching across the aisle. Heyoooooooooh!
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Sorry, as far as I can tell he only talks about pie.
martian
@ruemara: Sure thing. As rightly outraged as people are by the NYT’s credulous enabling of treason, I think remembering the whole sequence of events makes them look even worse.
Good for DiFi finally showing her teeth, but Harry Reid stuck his neck out trying to warn us about what was in the classified briefings more than a year ago. It’s thanks to Comey and the “paper of record” that he failed and Russia succeeded.
Gvg
@Yutsano: state schools do not have a lot of latitude about speakers. UF’s president said the legal advice was against denying the venue. He was pretty vocal about not wanting to. I gather previous court descissions were pretty definite.
I was disappointed but not really surprised. I don’t think that town in Illinois was happy about the Natzi’s marching.
Still we got through it with no violence and he was forgotten here a week later. Over planning paid off. Notice this guy isn’t getting big crowds as much. He is only in the news for suing to be allowed to be obnoxious ahead of time.
Adria McDowell
@Yutsano: As someone mentioned before, his check to UF bounced, so might as well! Lol.
CarolDuhart2
UC is an urban school right in the heart of town, with a lot of commuter students. So there will be protestors whenever he speaks. But coming down to protest is a different animal than going between classes and skipping a few for this. I also suspect that UC is also worried about casual contacts between students and his rabid supporters as well, and having classes out minimizes that aspect.
different-church-lady
@chris: If I recall correctly, David Corn was also the one who vetted Romney’s 47% video.
Funny how Greenwald constantly gets his ass kissed while guys like Corn do all the real lifting.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s not a question of whether they’re smart or stupid. It’s a question of why they’re publishing their paper. It should be obvious that they’ve given up on the idea of informing the public and accepted the role of propagandizing. This should have been obvious when they spiked their article on Bush’s warrantless wiretapping, supposedly out of fear that it might affect the 2004 election. They still seem to have competent reporters in other departments, but their political reporting is clearly dominated by a pro-Republican slant on everything.
Yutsano
@Gvg: To be fair, U of C wasn’t denying him the venue. They were just going to make him pay more than he wanted to. The school didn’t out and out say no. They played hardball.
debbie
@Gvg:
I don’t think schools should have to pay any part of the expense. Someone wants to speak there, pony up. Otherwise, they’re just freeloading moochers.
Fair Economist
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s only ‘not-smart’ if they’re really trying to be a good newspaper.
The endless attacks on Clinton nothingburgers and defense of Trumpian atrocities shows they are doing this intentionally, and the rot probably goes to the top. Not all the reporters there are in on it, obviously, but the rot goes deep. Not just politically, either – NYT people have been front and center on defending the sexual abusers as well.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So Simpson is like Wolff, a literal bottom feeder. That doesn’t change the truth of what they dig up.
joel hanes
@Mnemosyne:
the increasingly obvious failure of the New York Times to fulfill their moral and ethical obligations to the people of this country.
I’ll give them credit for consistency, at least: they’ve used the present pusillanimous approach since the earliest days of the Whitewater stuff, when they apparently decided once and for all that there was no longer any benefit to them in pushing back against Republican lies.
joel hanes
@Adria McDowell:
I remember the traveling “preacher” coming to New Mexico State to tell all of us womyn types that we were whore and going to hell.
[hazards guess]
“Brother Jed” Smock and his assistant, “Sister Cindy” ?
What a clown act.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: You’re right about that. It’s a question of what they wish to be known as; journalists, or propagandists in service to an authoritarian regime.
They seem to have made a decision.
joel hanes
@Roger Moore:
This should have been obvious when they spiked their article on Bush’s warrantless wiretapping, supposedly out of fear that it might affect the 2004 election.
This.
Adria McDowell
@joel hanes: I actually don’t remember the guy’s name- I was just a married “whore” ignoring him and trying to get to class. Lol.
Patricia Kayden
@amygdala: Me too. I hope she’s getting a lot of support for her brave act. Every Democrat with information relating to Trump’s collusion with Russia should do the same.
hellslittlestangel
Well, heavens to fucking Betsy, who could trust such a disgracefully vulgar beast? Fetch me my smelling salts!
sharl
Very good questions here, but a minor correction: Steven Lee Myer is still with the NYT – see his bio at his still-active twitter account – but is now at their Beijing-based Far East bureau. To be added to the questions you posed: what was the reason for that transfer?
The post-NYT career of Eric Lichtblau took a weird and (for him) very unfortunate turn, with a dismissal from CNN after he had been there for only a very short time. As far as I know he’s not currently associated with any media outlet in any “permanent” way.
I would love to be in on the private chatter about these two that has taken place among the notoriously gossipy NYC media people in their favorite watering holes, but I haven’t seen much of anything.
schrodingers_cat
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: At this rate, I am going to win the Ms Congeniality award over here.
ETA: In addition to stalker, troll and asshole.
Jay Noble
Even at Public U’s, where a student group is sponsoring a speaker – for anything bigger than a conference room, some one is going to be ponying up a rental fee at the very least.
Jay Noble
@joel hanes: Jed “The Sledge” Smock??? Bwhahaahah! Used to haunt the fountain at UNL in the 80’s
Lyrebird
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Glorious, isn’t it?
I’m not bullish on the chances of the NYT changing their ways compared to the past… cough, Judith Miller, cough, downplaying news about Nazi atrocities,etc … no accident Schroedinger’s Cat calls it the Vichy Times.
But strange things have been happening, some of them (as you point out) quite wonderful.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: He criticizes Ds, that’s the ticket to the bro heart.
Roger Moore
@joel hanes:
I’m still incredibly pissed off about the decision to spike the warrantless wiretapping article. We normally think of propaganda as being about publishing lies and bullshit in an attempt to convince people, but it’s just as much about hiding knowledge you don’t want the public to find out about. The day a paper refuses to publish a timely, important article because they’re afraid it will make people vote the wrong way is the day it stops being a news source and starts being a propaganda operation.
Lyrebird
@schrodingers_cat: Honorable Gadfly?
Cheryl Rofer
@sharl: Thanks! I wasn’t sure about Myers, thought he had gone too, but I must have been thinking about his transfer.
Mnemosyne
@Gvg:
Fun fact about that case that everyone forgets: the American Nazi Party won the right to march in Skokie, but chickened out when they saw how large the planned counter-protests were.
Why they thought that a town with the largest population of Holocaust survivors in the US was not going to counter-protest uniformed Nazis marching down their main street is an interesting question.
Another Scott
@Adria McDowell:
Cincy was a private school initially, but had financial problems and was taken over by the State of Ohio in 1977.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jonathan Swan gets very bitchy about the Wolff book, and any reporting that disagrees with what he knows to be true
Adria McDowell
@Another Scott: Ah ha! Thank you for the correction. They sure as hell don’t charge state school tuition, though!
Uncle Cosmo
@Mnemosyne: By “ARBG” are you by chance referring to the poseur, um, poster whose screen name sounds something like “I’m A Ranting POS” – which FTR is a pretty fair description of same?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I know that Wolff said the Trump hates McMaster, he’s too gloomy and talks about details.
ETA: McGahn may just career self preservation or an attempt to keep himself out of jail.
chris
@different-church-lady: Yeah, but wasn’t Corn wrong about something once? I can’t remember what it was but of course no one would ever take him seriously again. /S
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@?BillinGlendaleCA: and McMaster was quoted as calling trump a moron, I believe it was, with the intelligence of a third-grader. The Dotard has a mind like a steel trap for that kind of stuff.
Steeplejack
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I think you’re accepting the Times‘s false framing there.
Sab
@SFAW: @Mnemosyne: Occasionally, esp EST, ARBG has thoughtful comments.
But I do love it late night (EST) when GOKU (the young nightowl) and you west coasters tease and poke ARBG being a troll.
schrodingers_cat
@Lyrebird: I will wear that crown with pride. Thanks! When my mother was particularly irritated with me she would call me Ram Shastri.
dopey-o
@Mnemosyne:
This seems an extraordinary claim, which calls for extraordinary evidence. Any links?
Gvg
@debbie: UF’s lawyers said UF could not charge for security. The President was incredulous, but I can see it. It’s a simple way to supreme free speech, and would be used all the time if t was allowed. A state school is the government and just can’t do that under the first.
For a while they were smart enough to learn and try for state schools. Seem to have unlearned going back to private. I wonder if state school audiences are not just hostile, but also not resulting in any recruitment. At UF, once it was safely over, it just dropped off the radar. Nobody cared as long as nobody got hurt.
Joseph Nobles
Can’t be Papadopoulos. He was flipped after lying to the FBI. The source in the Trump campaign Steele found out about in the Rome debrief was described as “voluntary.”