Apparently the “last honest and forthright” man east of the sea has gone on something of a purge binge.
This is extraordinary. @theintercept founder @ggreenwald, who in the past has called people who delete their tweets "cowards", appears to have deleted over 27,000 on July 22nd. This seems to be a very deliberate & systematic purge. Some I've checked relate to Russia & Syria https://t.co/c5YrAMVZWB
— Idrees Ahmad (@im_PULSE) July 27, 2018
Check out this one, for example. The tweet is now gone. https://t.co/h8p3tZlpIl pic.twitter.com/s0lfcjLhLq
— Idrees Ahmad (@im_PULSE) July 27, 2018
This tweet is also gone pic.twitter.com/85urOKsZzT
— Idrees Ahmad (@im_PULSE) July 27, 2018
It appears Greenwald has deleted tweets by date. All older tweets in date ranges from 2013, 2014, 2015 are gone.
— Idrees Ahmad (@im_PULSE) July 27, 2018
Note that Greenwald's views have paralleled the Kremlin since the start of the Syrian conflict. He has in fact actively recruited regime apologists. https://t.co/eNdA6kxgYe
— Idrees Ahmad (@im_PULSE) July 27, 2018
I don’t normally pay much attention to Greenwald, I had one email exchange with him back in 2008 or 2009 (I’m not going to check), which was only slightly more pleasant than the day Seb Gorka cold emailed me to try to sell me on taking his course on irregular warfare. This included him getting belligerent and declaring I obviously don’t care about irregular warfare when I asked him how he got my personal email address, followed by him groveling when I explained just who I actually am, followed by him breaking contact completely when I sent him my full CV. Good times… Anyhow, a couple of you emailed me to ask me if I’d seen this and what I thought was going. I honestly hadn’t until the first email came in and I have no real idea other than there are tweets that Greenwald doesn’t want anyone to see anymore. Maybe he’s trying to clean up his timeline. Maybe he’s worried about something. Maybe it’s am agreed upon clandestine signal to someone. Maybe he fell asleep with tweet deck open and his face mashed the delete button on his keyboard as he was having a nap. Perhaps the NSA or GCHQ will offer to provide him copies of what’s deleted just to feed his megalomaniacal paranoia Feel free to speculate in the comments before he or one of his sock puppets shows up to tell us all how this is all a neo-liberal plot and you’re all part of my national-security and intelligence communities conspiracy to silence him.
Speaking of the national-security and intelligence communities, yesterday was Intelligence Professionals Day.
Today is Intelligence Professionals Day, a day we designate each year to say thank you to the men and women of our Intelligence Community and commemorate the sacrifices they and their families make for our country. https://t.co/p1lvcZ3tGV
— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) July 26, 2018
Did any of you bother to get a card? Flowers? Balloons? Cake? No, no you didn’t. All of your dossiers have been updated accordingly!
Open thread.
trollhattan
Sorry, was too frosty to order cake.
Fvcking Greenwald, what a hump. And Gorka reached out to you? The hell…how long a shower did it take to wash off the stench?
Omnes Omnibus
Geh?
p.a.
Did any of you bother to get a card? Flowers? Balloons? Cake? No, no you didn’t. All of your dossiers have been updated accordingly!
Hey, I sent thoughts and prayers!
Walker
Speaking of purges, any other NYS residents have an opinion about the hammer that just fell on Spectrum Cable? Ordered to sell all assets and exit NYS in 60 days.
Yarrow
The best gift to an Intelligence Professional would be so secret and quiet that even the Intelligence Professional wouldn’t know it had arrived. I was just following protocol.
Eljai
I’ll be sure to raise a glass this evening in honor of Intelligence Professionals Day. The card is in the mail.
Mary G
The thought of Seb Gorka taking you on cracks me up. I imagine a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon shrinking and crashing.
Also, in other news, LA Times is reporting that a federal judge in LA has ordered an independent audit of the conditions ICE is keeping immigrant children in:
The LAT was bought by a rich guy who is building them a new building and they have unionized, so I am hoping for a least a bit of quality coming back after Tronc ran it into the ground. They have done good work on the kids held here in CA.
ETA: which has resulted in quite a few being moved out of state, which is why I’m glad this judge ruled the way he did.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Despite having a head that generates its own gravity, he’s not particularly bright.
This thing is huge!
KSinMA
Would you just look at all the summer suits on Truman et al. You’d think they didn’t have air conditioning in the summer of ’47!
mike in dc
Glenzilla hasn’t even commented on the deletions yet. I wonder if there was some specifically embarrassing or incriminating tweets that the mass deletion was intended to cover?
Tim C.
It’s interesting; I would also think futile. How could anyone, even medium profile as Greenwald think his twitter-feed wasn’t trackable like that? On the other hand he’s basically been “not quite right” for a long long long time. So basically, who knows?
Platonailedit
The day lil greenwald became the yellowballed?
namekarB
Obviously his feed was hacked by Anonymous. He has always been the victim. Alert Alex Jones. New conspiracy.
Adam L Silverman
@mike in dc: I basically ignore him, so I have no idea.
Timurid
I thought my capacity for surprise was exhausted, but…
This was the quietest Friday in months, largely because the Cohen allegations and the three new members of the Trump hush money club fell out of the news cycle in less than 24 hours.
#wasf
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: There is also a point where my snobbery kicks in. A TA Lance-Corporal has little to say to me about anything.
lollipopguild
So Adam, you are going to update everyone’s Permanent Record?
Eljai
Since you said we could speculate, then I’m going to put on my tinfoil hat and ponder the timing between Glenn deleting tweets just as Julian is about to be booted from the Ecuadorean embassy.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: A TA Lance Corporal who can’t seem to get the name of the one and only unit he’s ever served in right, as well as claiming that as a TA Lance Corporal he was training SAS personnel in anti-terrorism techniques (this was while he was doing his bachelors degree in theology) and that he was also pulled to serve as a translator in support of operations in the Balkans even though he didn’t speak any of the languages in the Balkans and his service dates don’t line up. But other than that, I’m sure he has tons of hard won experience.
Adam L Silverman
@lollipopguild: It has already been done. We are watching you…//
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Like I said, my snobbery*…
*Which does exist…
Adam L Silverman
@Eljai: The source for that is The Intercept, so I’ll believe it when I see it.
hueyplong
Every explanation I can conjure for the deletions makes me smile.
It is nice when weaponized sanctimony hits a rough patch.
Platonailedit
rikyrah
BWA HA HAHA HA HAHA ??
@Travon: Finding out Ronan Farrow is writing about you is like finding out Omar is looking for you on The Wire. It won’t end well. https://twitter.com/Travon/status/1022995594900516865?s=17
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Technically, RT made the story up first. The Intercept just picked up the RT propaganda and ran with it.
YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)
@lollipopguild: I believe Adam was deliberately using passive voice. Plausible Deniability or Delegation?
seaboogie
Adam – consider this an e-card – the true refuge of the ill-prepared and fundamentally lazy:
You are my most favorite intelligence professional ever, and not just because of the tiara and frilly apron – but your sartorial sense certainly goes a long way towards helping me to appreciate your unique talents, hereabouts. Being in FLA, do you have one of them fancy summer suits too, along with a bow-tie that you would surely know how to tie by hand?
Srsly tho – your thoughtful and detailed analysis (combined with humor) is one reason I visit this joint when something is afoot. Cheers to you!
Yarrow
@Eljai: It’s not a coincidence. Glenn has been doing Russia’s bidding for years now. He’s scared.
J R in WV
Don’cha think Sputnik probly had their scoop stolen by RT???
Eh?
Gozer
Got no use for any of those. A woobie and a decent pair of boots for me.
Major Major Major Major
Oh man, great post title.
Platonailedit
@lollipopguild:
Oh please, this effing blog can’t even remember your sign-ins.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Tracking. And not surprising.
dmsilev
Nothing Glenn Greenwald does could possibly be hypocritical in any way. Just ask Glenn Greenwald.
dexwood
Glen who?
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: I have two tan suits. Or had. I had the coat of one get destroyed in the middle of a Great Decisions lecture by a leaky pen, which was given to me as a gift. The trousers in the other one were destroyed by the cleaners. I have an 18 inch neck and am not a fan of bow ties.
The jacket was destroyed during the Q&A after this lecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqySjFXMCbk&t=1s
sharl
Someone asked Marcy Wheeler if she knew, since she is cordial with Greenwald, though in frequent disagreement (especially on Russia stuff). She doesn’t know, but her guess based on timing of the mass deletions:
The “Glenn is not my source” thing has to do with something else (I think).
Major Major Major Major
Given the quality of his analysis of the Snowden documents, it’s entirely possible he believes deleting tweets makes them go away.
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: Thank you for the kind words.
B.B.A.
Glenn is the most prominent example of the loopy far-left that believes if America is evil and Russia is anti-America then Russia must be good.
The flaw in this reasoning ought to be obvious, but as an experienced litigator Glenn knows how to use lots of flowery language to hide the fact that it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Bobby Thomson
@rikyrah: Shari Redstone’s fingerprints are all over that.
HumboldtBlue
Maybe Greenwald didn’t want to take a bath.
And now he’s all pissy and mad.
Barbara
@Eljai: I second your view. Although how GG’s tweets would be significant is a mystery.
Omnes Omnibus
@B.B.A.: Gosh, you are so insightful.
Ken
@sharl: Maybe “Glenn is not my source” applies to the following sentence?
Also, would Assange be taken in US custody? I thought Sweden had first dibs.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
The RT story was Alex Jones quality CT, targetted at Gullabillies unaware that such things as secure communications exist or that an extradition deal would involve a couple dozen people including courts and lawyers, and would have to be done in public.
Doug R
I asked him on one of his FB posts, but I turned off notifications for the post because I didn’t want to be hounded by fanboiz.
RedDirtGirl
@trollhattan: And re: Gorka, was it just email, or did you get to listen to that oleaginous voice, also, too!
B.B.A.
@sharl:
For what? I thought he was hiding from Swedish rape charges (since dropped, unfortunately), and is wanted in the UK for jumping bail. He made up the story of being in hiding from the CIA or whoever to distract from the fact that he’s a rapist.
B.B.A.
@Omnes Omnibus: I love you too.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: I know. I love this blog.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: Meow! Nice analysis of the Gorka CV there.
Adam L Silverman
@RedDirtGirl: All by email. I’ve never met him in public, never spoken with him by phone.
RedDirtGirl
@Walker: Um, what? Just used the interwebs and found it to be so…
efgoldman
@frosty:
Somebody at LGM (Nexon?) fskd Seb’s “doctoral dissertation” a year or more ago. Short version: he’d have flunked it in middle school.
dmsilev
@sharl: That makes no sense whatsoever. Any agency that cared at all about the relationship between Greenwald and Snowden has long since made copies of any of his public statements on the matter.
JanieM
@Ken: @B.B.A.: Sweden dropped the investigation over a year ago. If they’ve reinstated it, I haven’t heard about it and don’t see it via Google.
See also here.
(Praying to the link deities….)
different-church-lady
And Twitter can die in a gutter along with Facebook.
DCL +3
efgoldman
@dmsilev:
Maybe he can’t find a photocopier in Brazil.
Mary G
Seriously, though, Adam, almost every day I see something and think I hope Adam explains that in the next day or two. Or I Google for an old post of yours, even though I still ask questions you’ve already answered. I appreciate your clarity and calmness.
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: All of that is sourced by a bunch of retired, but actual/real, British military intel officers who are quite put out that he’s making them all look bad and basically posted a bunch of take downs on the Internet and social media. His dissertation is terrible and I say that as someone that wrote one of the first, if not the first, dissertation on terrorism that both put forward an empirical theory of terrorism rooted in/developed from empirical criminological, political science, and sociological theories of political actions (Wald’s theory of religion and political mobilization), criminogenisis (Akers’ social learning theory), and sociological behavior (Agnew’s general theory of strain) and attempted to test them using statistical analysis. And in doing all of this used the wrong statistical test because the idiot professional methodologist the department hired lied when he assured everyone that sure, he understood his job was to provide a quick methodological check for students in the department who weren’t his specific students to ensure everyone was using the right statistical analyses. It also shows just how robust ordinary least squares is, because it returned very similar results as the wrong test to the poisson model I eventually learned to use because my outcome variable of terrorist incidents per year is non-linear and violates the Gauss-Markov rule regarding linearity.
different-church-lady
So just how does one delete 27k tweets? Do you have to go through them one at a time?
Starfish
In fairness, we have seen the desserts you have baked, and your baking skills would put ours to shame.
different-church-lady
@Mary G:
For example: what the fuck happened to Carrot Top?
(DCL, still +3…)
sharl
@Ken: Hmm, hadn’t thought of that. My thinking was that the “source” thing went to her story a month or two ago where she tried to explain why she contacted the FBI, subjected herself to interview(s) by them, and gave them unfettered access to her home – EXTREMELY uncharacteristic for her, if you know her history and political interests – all based on contacts and incidents that had spooked her. She has promised to write about all that one day, in the event Mueller/DoJ doesn’t find it worth reporting.
In the meantime, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
{I could turn up links to her posts if you’re interested, but they are unsatisfying as reportage, and raise more questions than they answer. If I understand things here, those enigmatic posts (and subsequent follow-ups) were intended to serve as components of a self-developed “insurance policy” in the event something unfortunate happens to her. Ever since she did those posts, and talked about them on shows like “On the Media” and “All In With Chris”, people on twitter have been pestering her with their guesses on who the mystery/creepy source was. She keeps saying ‘nope, not him/her’, so I assume it’s someone very obscure or completely unknown.} As I noted above, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
burnspbesq
I suppose it could mean that Greenie is planning to exit public life, but I’m skeptical that God loves us that much.
Mnemosyne
@sharl:
Marcy Wheeler recently said that she reported one of her long-term sources to the FBI because she strongly supected that the source was working for Russia. She hasn’t said who the source is since it’s an ongoing investigation, but she has said before that it is not Greenwald.
RedDirtGirl
@Mary G: I just signed up for 12 weeks for 99 cents! I’ll be interested to give it a read.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
You just reminded me that I have a can of cheap wine spritzer that I had taken out of the fridge but not opened yet. Cheers! ?
Jay
@Ken:
Marcie burned a “source” to the FBI on the Russia Trump investigation when it became clear he was manipulating her, lying to her, and trying to hack her on behalf of Russia.
Ruckus
@Walker:
Not a NYSer but am a Charter customer and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of fucking assholes.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne: My life has not been in vain!
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: You are quite welcome.
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady: if he did them by date range, it would be pretty simple to automate.
RedDirtGirl
@rikyrah: Just had to retweet that!
I feel a little bad, since most of my 30-odd followers are from here, and will have already seen it.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
At lying?
At being a douchebag?
At being a lying douchebag?
sharl
As someone noted in a reply to you, the Swedish government seems to have lost interest in Assange as a legal matter. Regarding extradition to the U.S., I read Greenwald’s piece on Ecuador kicking Assange out of their London embassy, and according to Greenwald’s source(s), the UK promised Ecuador that they would not extradite Assange to the U.S. But Assange trusts no government promises on this matter (he never has). Assuming Greenwald’s story is accurate, Assange’s fear about being turned over to the U.S. is apparently not sufficient for the more conservative government of Ecuador to continue protecting him.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: Everyrhing I know about Poisson distributions I learned from Gravity’s Rainbow. ?
I know enough about hydrologic statistics to be dangerous but not competent, and that’s about it. Oh yeah, and the house always wins.
ETA frosty+2.5 MOE=0.5
West of the Rockies
@different-church-lady:
That’s a shit-ton of tweets! Isn’t that something like 9 a day for 10 years? Has Twitter been around that song
eemom
@B.B.A.:
uh, you mean the years he spent as a big ass law firm document review drone after he got out of law school? Or his 15 minutes of fame defending a neo Nazi before he dumped the practice of law in favor of the more lucrative “libertarian” blogger schtick?
different-church-lady
@West of the Rockies: You know, I can’t even imagine being so much of a douchebag that I would have 27 thousand thoughts I wanted to share with the world…
Major Major Major Major
@West of the Rockies: keep in mind he likes to get in endless back-and-forths with critics.
Duane
@Adam L Silverman: That the first time I’ve seen Greewald’s ugly mug. Always imagined his a Putin creation, a myth propagated by right-wing misinformation and a good ad agency. My version is better. Gorka and the TPUSA jerks deserve each other. Pull your diaper up Seb.
Adam L Silverman
@different-church-lady: If he did it the hard way, a lot of boiled chicken and broccoli and protein powder and time in the gym. If he did it the easy way all of that and steroids and human growth hormone.
RedDirtGirl
@opiejeanne: @Major Major Major Major: Hugs, all around! We deserve it!
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
As I understand it he has one or two of those.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Eez a puzzlement!
SiubhanDuinne
@seaboogie:
You know that seer ain’t gonna sucker itself.
RedDirtGirl
@Mary G: Now your just sucking up!
(snark)
eemom
And FFS, poseur of a thousand faces Marcy Wheeler again?? What is this, National Jane Hamsher Vice-Grifters Day?
burnspbesq
Even at his best (say, 2005-7), Greenie was second-rate. Marty Lederman was a regular at Balkinization at that time, covering the same ground and doing it much better.
sharl
@eemom: That is bullshit, m’lady. But you do you!
Anne Laurie
P.S. Still a skeptic about ‘national security professionals’, but *you*, I love!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Here’s bumbling Griftwald predicting Romney’s win on election eve 2012 (video)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
Shirley, you jest.
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Don’t call me surely.
opiejeanne
@West of the Rockies: Almost. Remember that twit who carved a B on her face and claimed that black kids had done it, and then tweeted about it? That must have been 2008 because it was during Obama’s first campaign.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I do not have a subscription, so can’t link, but if anyone does….
ETA: Looks like this is a story TPM did a couple weeks ago, and a reader retweeted it when the story about Glenn’s self-purge came up
divF
@SiubhanDuinne: My high school (in DC) required us to wear a coat and tie. The real swells among the students switched to seersucker sportsjackets around May 1.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Wow! Poisson regression!
As a thank you for being conscientious with your statistics, I volunteer to be the troll tonight. OK, here goes:
This is all a neo-liberal plot and you’re all part of my national-security and intelligence communities conspiracy to silence him
Edit: my apologies for being a cut-and-paste troll, but I haven’t followed Greenwald enough to understand what this is all about. Though, IIRC Greenwald is the kind of hyper righteous man who would call deleting over ten thousand tweets suspicious. Anyway, best trolling I can muster right now.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Who said:
Drumpf or Griftwald?
RedDirtGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Apropos of nothing, Congrats again, and, did John ever make nice on your inaugural post?
Ken
@sharl: Thanks for the background. However:
Personally, I’d rather know who Carly Simon was singing about…
Omnes Omnibus
@Ken: It was me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
John Foster Dulles
seaboogie
@SiubhanDuinne: Reminds me of ‘O Brother Where Art Thou?’. “Mwah! to you, dearie…”
EBT
Finally unwinding after the stressful day.
Major Major Major Major
@RedDirtGirl: Thanks. He did, in the morning. I am therefore now immune to his… <snape> teasing </snape>… but it was a rough introduction!
@EBT: Have a whatever you use to unwind, if anything! You deserve it!
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks for the link. My dad attends the Great Decisions forums. I went to two of them when I was visiting him in Florida in March.
I’ve never trusted GG.
MomSense
@Ken:
Didn’t she go public a couple years ago about that? It was Beatty BTW.
sharl
@Ken: LOL, understood. This whole thing serves as spectator sport for some; that kinda applies to me as well, though I don’t have the full blown obsession others do. Regarding “You’re So Vain”, you got me all curious: there’s a rather lengthy section in the Wikipedia article for the song that addresses your question. Whether she intended it or not, that’s been a great marketing hook for Carly for a lot of years!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Ken: you probably think the song was about you
Mary G
@MomSense: Yeah, I remember way back in the days of Netroots Nation, even before John saw the light, I read a million blogs and all the lefties loved Greenwald at Salon and I could never get through even one post, and I felt kind of dumb. Now I realize a lot of them didn’t read him either, but would pick a paragraph or two from the beginning of his posts criticizing W and never noticed he was a blatherer unable to muster a cogent argument.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: I do not have a seersucker suit.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: That’s some real Visalia trolling there, jl.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That’ a pretty dismissive and uncivil response to a troll. You gotta come with something better than that, or I think the rules are that I won. Ha ha.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: Watched my roommate play Mario Odyssey for awhile, then commentated on a twitch stream of a friend playing Rabi Ribi.
eemom
@sharl:
What’s bullshit?
eemom
but it WAS
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I don’t have any idea what this is about either to be honest. I have no idea why he did this.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: Nice, a sea lion pivot, didn’t see that coming.
@EBT: I hadn’t heard of that game! You deserve it!
Yarrow
@MomSense:
Me either. I remember reading his stuff when he posted at…was it Slate?…and he’d just add and add to an initial post. It was all so long and self-important. I couldn’t see why people thought he was so great. Seemed really enthralled with himself.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: I did about a 1/2 dozen when assigned at USAWC. Two as part of USAWC’s program and the remainder for other organizations who reached out either to me directly or were directed to me by the Public Affairs Officer. They were always a lot of fun.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Typical Visailia response, try harder jl.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Adam L Silverman: Well that caused a flashback to grad school.
Adam L Silverman
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: You’re welcome.
MomSense
@Mary G:
I didn’t appreciate his gaslighting about his support for W and the Iraq mess. He wanted untainted progressive bonafides and was vicious to anyone who just wanted some honest clarification about his prior opinions. If you ignore his spin, his arguments are not persuasive even if you assign good faith to him. I don’t and I think we are getting close to finding out what his motivations have been.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: Makes one wonder how long he’s been toiling on Vlad’s farm.
Platonailedit
Didn’t the gg asshole come down to this blog ‘cuz someone said mean things about him? Talk about narcissistic scums. No wonder he is a trumpanzee.
sharl
@eemom:
I don’t see the poseur thing at all. Save for this recent call-in-the-FBI skulduggery, she’s pretty good about showing her work. She doesn’t always clearly label her speculation as such, and she’s occasionally wrong about stuff, but neither falls under the category of being a poseur
I would probably disagree with the Vice-Grifters thing as well – that sounds like it’s not a good thing – but I don’t understand what is meant by that.
Mary G
@MomSense: Whatever gets attention and money.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Platonailedit: He went after ABL when she was a front pager here.
Mary G
Twitler trolling on Hollywood Blvd.:
Adam L Silverman
Well played!
Juju
Seb Gorka? Euw. You poor thing.
Calouste
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Griftwald obviously. Way too many big words for the shitgibbon.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
The discussions I attended got pretty heated (it wasn’t because of me for once!!) but I think that was
because the group was half super wealthy neo-conservative retirees and half liberal retirees like my dad. One discussion was about South Africa and the first group formed their opinions when Mandela was still considered a terrorist. Then there were a few of us who were part of the divestiture movement who were pretty shocked by the attitudes. It was really interesting to see how people cope with new information.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: that’s hilarious, and some dedicated resistance theatre. Isn’t it like a hundred degrees in Los Angeles these days?
jl
@Adam L Silverman: No wonder nobody trolls here anymore. No fun.
I’m going to sleep now. So, maybe you can ban me for the rest of the evening so I can feel like my effort wasn’t a complete waste.
Adam L Silverman
@Juju: It was fine. About four email replies total for him to get whiny and grovelly and slink off.
MomSense
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
What he said was particularly gross and vicious.
MomSense
@Anne Laurie:
Oh my that is so funny. Glem is really in character.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: Yes, it was.
Mary G
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, they had to be schvitzing like crazy and I hate to imagine what those coats smelled like after. They may have been with Jimmy Kimmel’s show, and if so, they got good pay at least.
ETA: I wouldn’t be surprised if the businesses around Twitler’s star started sabotaging it on the regular. There were hordes of tourists filming the Hispanic gentleman in the straw cowboy hat who was repairing it.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: Well that sounds interesting.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
I used to read him back in the Bush years, and then I realized how often he insisted that his interpretation of someone’s actions as being actively malevolent was the only possible explanation. There was no room for error or mistaken belief or bad judgment, just good or bad. He made me feel like I had to defend Bushies, FFS!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Ah, giving up I see; I win, HA!
Juju
@Adam L Silverman: Did you have to shower afterwards? Does his email leave a slime trail?
I think I’d rather share a hairbrush with Willie Nelson, than have contact with Seb Gorka. He defines the word repugnant. Euw.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: Trump’s star gets lots of traffic, it’s right by the Hollywood/Highland Metro station.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Which also means it’s right by the swarms of people who cosplay for a living.
Adam L Silverman
@Juju: I think I went to the gym. So probably showered after that.
Honestly, it was just a cold email attempt to get me to give him money to take his course. I knew how he got my personal email – one of the knuckleheads at a research center where I’d been a senior fellow gave it to him as he had, unbeknownst to me when I took the job, an adjunct affiliation with the research center. He then took the email and attempted to monetize it. However, he had no idea how he got my email. He first blamed it on his intern, then his wife. It was about 30 minutes of cheap amusement.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: I added a pic of it to my comment, you can see the subway emergency escape above and to the right of trump’s star.
ETA: Kind of fitting ain’t it?
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: He didn’t try to impress you with his car and his mad parking skillz?
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: By email? No.
eemom
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
IIRC that was one of the few 1000+ threads in recorded history. Can’t remember what it was about, though.
Ya mean GOT lots of traffic, and WAS right by the metro station. ?
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: He’s so proud of his car I thought he might include a photo of it along with his contact info.
Mnemosyne
@eemom:
Aww, c’mon, think of all of the poor doggos who had become accustomed to stopping on that star to do their business while their owners told them what a good dog they were. Now what are they going to do while they wait for it to be repaired?
(Yes, Trump’s star was a popular place for people to have theor dogs poop. He is … not popular in Southern California.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@eemom: While I won’t repeat what Glen said, the gist was that ABL would defend Obama no mater what he did.
If it hasn’t already been repaired, it will be. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has an obligation to maintain the stars. The pic I posted of Trump’s star was after it was ‘altered’ the first time.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@?BillinGlendaleCA: As I noted the other night, the only star that looks worse than Trump’s is LAPD’s Hollywood division’s star, it looks like it’s been set on fire a few times.
Major Major Major Major
I feel like it’s time for a Floriduh Man post.
piratedan
@?BillinGlendaleCA: what’s ironic, is that after 8 years or shrub and now coming up on two years of yam, I wonder wtf did Obama ever do that would have caused GG to have the vapors, its not like he ever lied his way into an international conflict because of Daddy issues or turn us into a proto-fascist state…
I’ve always thought GG was just another white gay guy with race issues who buried his lede during his pontifications in order to perpetuate an everlasting Argument sketch. Later he sold out to whoever was buying.
Yarrow
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I have to think at some level people destroying his Hollywood star is really getting to Trump.
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major:
Trump’s deserted Mar-a-Loco for his ‘Summer WH’ in New Jersey. There’s only so much schvitzing the Secret Service can allow a fat old man!
Probably some excellent “Jersey Guy” weird news out there, though, if some west-coast front-pager wants to risk looking for it…
ericblair
@piratedan:
Besides his fairly clear race issues from his legal career, I read somewhere that he had some pretty significant tax problems with the US (due to kinda not paying them), and that caused him to skedaddle out of the country
Anne Laurie
@Yarrow:
Only if he’s heard about it. Did Fox even mention the story?
Brickley Paiste
Is it even possible to delete tweets? I see posts all the time showing posts of tweets that have supposedly been deleted.
There are sites that exist solely to mirror reddit posts that people have deleted.
Surely there is something for twitter like that.
Give how obvious all of this is – why even attempt to delete tweets. Its’ like the Streisand Effect on steroids.
YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)
@Adam L Silverman:
I see a gofundme in our future.
Major Major Major Major
@Anne Laurie: I guess I can stop reading this 1983 “Write Your Own Adventure Programs For Your Microcomputer” book I found and poke around a bit.
James E Powell
@YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S):
Don’t forget the white bucks.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yarrow: Maybe someone should video the other things folk do to Trump’s star and post it to Twitter.
L85NJGT
Maybe he had worked blue early in his career and wanted to get out in front of some questionable posts.
More likely he saw they were sifting through Trump’s tweets, and is fucking dumb enough to think his work hasn’t been archived by multiple actors.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Moderation, really?
YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)
@James E Powell:
Apparently I already have.
YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)
@L85NJGT: I suspect it is more about facilitating gaslighting the rubes. Perhaps in coordination with “they tried to silence me by deleting my history”
ruemara
Good heavens. Those are the whitest men I’ve ever seen. They look like they’d be uncomfortable in short sleeves. No wonder people rebelled in the 60’s.
toschek
@Glenn Greenwald:
Backups, how da fuq they work?
JAFD
So _now_ I learn that my birthday is also Intelligence Professionals Day. 7/26 is also the birthday of the US Postal Service. An interesting concidence, that, I find.
Amir Khalid
@Platonailedit:
Being a onetime commenter here makes Glenn Greenwald an actual jackal — like Pasty Bricks, but more famous. I don’t know how I feel about that. What about you?
satby
@JAFD: belated Happy Birthday!
@Amir Khalid: I think Griftwald would reject the idea of him being a member of our snarling vitriolic pack. Which suits me fine.
Tarragon
Bwa-Ha-Ha-Ha.
I can’t believe you waited this long to tell this story. This is awesome.
Matt McIrvin
@B.B.A.: As far as I can tell, Greenwald is not even left, let alone far left. We think of him as part of the left because he became associated with them during the Iraq War.
LAC
Ugh, Greenwald. The original chinless fuck. He will never be able to purge or delete the fact that he is an asshole who managed the feat of making Salon.com an unpalatable read.
SRW1
@Omnes Omnibus:
Who do you think you are? Hindenburg?
Nancy
Wondering if there is a way to share amusing twitter posts (did we every really call them tweets?) without requiring B-J readers to go to someone’s twitter account to see the photo. Screen shots, still giving credit to the original account, perhaps? The post-soviet street theater picture was worth clicking for, but I am not happy with twitter and its fake people and its most indulgent user. Don’t like to even briefly support the platform right now.
Someone who knows about these things maybe can tell me.
John Smallberries
@p.a.: I wanted a card :^(
StringOnAStick
Ugh, Greenwald. I read him when he posted at Salon until the constant self righteousness got overwhelming, which was fairly quickly. Not before I sent a link to my now exfriend, the then-anarchist, now MRA advocate though. That guy loves Greenie and was the first to shout “honeytrap” about GG’s sexual assault charges in Sweden. I guess going MRA wasn’t that big a step after all for that loser.
Adam L Silverman
@SRW1: That’s Von Hinderburg to you!//
Bobby Thomson
What’s a little spoliation among Russian assets?
Steve in the ATL
@Eljai: “I’ll be sure to raise a glass this evening in honor of Intelligence Professionals Day. The card is in the mail.”
Mail—WTF?! You were supposed to leave it at dead drop Charlie India 6!
Jeez, the tradecraft at this blog has gotten terrible….
Steve in the ATL
@John Smallberries: omg way to blow your cover.
Jeez, the tradecraft at this blog has gotten terrible….
cliosfanboy
I left your card at the usual deaddrop.
grubert
FWIW, I read Greenwald on Salon back in the Clinton years. He was a truly welcome voice; coming out and calling Whitewater a witch hunt, as it was..
Around 2003 or so I stopped reading him because he started wearing on me with his self-righteous and scolding tone, and by then there were no shortage of better voices to pay attention to. ( and Salon dropped off my must-read list shortly after. )
But some of the criticism here is over the top, IMO. He’s at worst a gadfly, not worth turning into a prime villain.