Hey, remember “Putin’s best friend in Congress” Dana Rohrabacher? He lost his sweet sinecure, but he’s still out there grifting!
I was going to be in Congress, but then I got high
I was going rep Moscow in DC, but then I got high
Now I'm building a hemp wall and I know whyyyyyyyy-yy-yyy
Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high https://t.co/kiwWjzoTBE— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) February 8, 2019
Elsewhere, Roger Stone is arguing that he can’t be gagged, because he’s no Kim Kardashian, per CNN:
Roger Stone is trying a new tactic in arguing against a federal judge who may restrict what he says in public: He’s claiming he’s not much of a celebrity…
His speech shouldn’t be restricted, because his lifeblood is writing and speaking about politics and fashion, his attorneys say. But while he’s known in some circles, Stone is nowhere near as famous as Kim Kardashian, his attorneys argued. That lack of fame means he will be able to have an unbiased jury when his case goes to trial.
“While Roger Stone may be familiar to those who closely follow American politics, he is hardly ubiquitous in the larger landscape of popular consciousness,” his attorneys wrote.
“An example of how limited and narrow his public presence is, is that Kim Kardashian has 59.5 million followers on Twitter,” they added. Stone, meanwhile, has no Twitter presence (he was banned by the service in 2017). Stone has 39,000 followers on Instagram, while Kardashian has 126 million, his legal team argued…
Jackson said last week that if she imposes a gag order, it won’t limit all of Stone’s speech. He would still be able to opine on “foreign relations, immigration and Tom Brady,” she said, for example, but shouldn’t treat his in-court proceedings “like a book tour.”…
Shut up, Roger, nobody wants to see your sex tapes.
Translation: "Your honor, if you want to gag Stone, we'd be happy to go along with it. But we are also happy if he keeps running his mouth off with statements against interest and statements we can use to impeach him if he is foolish enough to testify" https://t.co/fP7bmm8cQI
— Nicholas Weaver (@ncweaver) February 8, 2019
Then again, a gag order might deprive us of slapstick like this…
New tonight: Former Roger Stone associate Jerome Corsi (aka "Person 1" in Stone's indictment) is suing … Roger Stone, accusing Stone of defamation for repeatedly saying that Corsi lied https://t.co/p4JLz5aSsR pic.twitter.com/zXKWfHofUd
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) February 8, 2019
Real tension here between Corsi being a career bullshit artist and Stone being exactly the sort of asshole who'd think like this. https://t.co/s041CkY3TE
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) February 8, 2019
@waltshaub is all of us pic.twitter.com/wo0twfM1GU
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) February 7, 2019
Sebastian
One thing about these right wing assholes is that THEY NEVER SHUT UP.
Their flying monkeys, their TV drones and consultants, their politicians, all of them … they completely drone out any normal conversation. It’s either them attacking others, or loudly blaring stupid conspiracy theories, or shouting falsehoods and lies, and when finally called out or cornered IT’S AGAIN ALL ABOUT THEM.
JFC, can we get a fucking break and just have them go away? No wonder people wish to kill them. It seems to the only way to shut them up.
Raoul
Speaking of ratfuckery, what the fuckity fuck fuck is this? This is how the Democrats get ripped to shreds … by Vanity Fair? What?
“JUST LIKE TRUMP”
Jebus F LeChristmas. Our hot takes press is so bad it’s beyond redemption.
Wag
@Raoul:
Well, c’mon, Amy has beeen a fixture in the Twin Cities high end real estate market for decades and has had affairs out the wazoo, has fathered children by three different woman, including a soft core porn actress, and is known to stiff people right and left. The parallels are uncanny.
Said no serious or thoughtful person ever
Kent
@Raoul:
I know nothing about Klobuchar but wow…someone really has the knives out.
On the other hand, this is EXACTLY how 2020 is going to play out. The mudslinging will be relentless and come by the tanker load. We need a candidate with the savvy and charisma to flick it off and set their own media agenda. Obama could do that. They flung EVERYTHING at him to no avail. Clinton not so much. She became owned by the media narrative not the other way around.
It’s not fair but that’s how it is. I, for one, am going to be paying much less attention to parsing each candidate’s 3rd tier policy positions and watching more closely their command of the media.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Raoul: So much for Minnesota nice. Apparently she expects her office staff to show up for work on time, the tyrant!
Sebastian
@Wag:
You forgot to mention she ran a pipeline of hot underage model from Eastern Europe and a bunch of scams like the Klobuchar University.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: They were ready for Hillary, Obama caught them off guard.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Raoul:
Will admit this all has a whiff of “but-her-emailz!”, but:
The stories of Klobuchar’s imperious treatment of staff are legion (and not limited to the right-wing media).
Is this just a hit-job? Mebbe.
But will say this: If this is an accurate assessment of her management style, I appreciate knowing. (And am hoping it goes w/o saying that if it ain’t, am glad to have it “out there” early, where it can be effectively refuted if it ain’t true.)
Dems are gonna get this treatment irrespective of what they actually are. Part of surmounting the insanely unfair hill we gotta climb is countering the unfair horseshit that’s gonna get leveled no matter what.
If that ain’t her, part of her (unfair but very real) problem is knocking it down. And if it is: me, I’d rather know now, cuz one of the dictums I’ve lived by all my life is: Praise in public and damn in private.
Jay
@Wag:
The Fuckin MSM is building a “narrative” off of nothingburger. If they pound the sand often enough and long enough, it will “stick”.
It’s sabotage.
Brickley Paiste
@Kent:
Kamala Harris don’t play around. Sanders neutered, Warren on the defensive, Biden forced to troll around Capitol Hill for remnants of support. She is clearing the field like a motherfucker.
Good for her. We need a candidate with a certain skill set.
Sebastian
New Trump Probe Looks a Lot Like a RICO Investigation
I know, it’s never RICO or Lupus. But this is starting to get veeeery interesting:
Wag
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, to their credit, they had a couple of decades to work on their anti-Clinton schtict Obama took them by surprise.
Kent
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Maybe. They sure TRIED to throw a lot of shit at Obama with the birther nonsense, the muslim nonsense, the Ayres nonsense, the Reverand Wright nonsense and every fake investigation they stirred up from the IRS non-scandal to Fast and Furious and Bengazi. None of it stuck because he simply had too much charisma and serenity. I think they were frankly just shocked as hell that they couldn’t smear him in any meaningful way.
Regarding the Clintons, Bill had the outsize personality to push through the mud, even through all the impeachment nonsense. Hillary simply did not. Neither did John Kerry frankly. And I say this as a big Hillary fan.
Sebastian
@Wag:
The financial crash and possibility that the world as we know it might end suddenly cleared a lot of bullshit, too. CNN started to sound like the BBC for short periods.
Raoul
@poleaxedbyboatwork: The HuffPo piece that came before Vanity Fair, while relying on three anonymous ex employees, didn’t blare this sort of garbage headline.
It also sought comments (on the record) from staff not angry at Amy.
Should we know about her work style? Sure. If she’s likely to chew up WH staff, does that matter?
Yes.
But the Vanity Fair thing is utter trash.
Oh, by the way, do you suppose any news orgs could dredge up some disgruntled Starbucks folks who had to deal with that dude? Where are those stories? Whazzat? Press hasn’t gotten up off their knees yet from polishing his Feragamos?
Right.
Kent
@Brickley Paiste:
I taught for a decade at a big highly diverse Texas HS. One thing I learned from observation. You do NOT fuck with the middle class black moms. Not if you are the kid, not if you are the teacher, and not if you are the principal. I had black moms show up every fall during open house, hand me their business cards and say “my kid gives you any trouble or looks at you crosswise you give me a call right away and we will deal with it. No need to deal with the administration.” And they absolutely would. White parents tended to take the opposite approach, whine to the administration when their kid got a bad grade and so forth.
I’m warming up to Harris in a big way. We need someone who knows how to take no prisoners. But I haven’t seen enough of her to have a good sense of her charisma and crowd appeal. I also frankly like Warren. She definitely has it. Klobuchar I’m not so sure of.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Kent:
Don’t reckon that’s true. Most of that pseudo-scandal bullshit-manufactured smearyness stuck to Obama. Cited ad infinitum. And it hobbled him.
In some ways, think we all misremember the Obama years. Largely cuz it’sa soothing reassuring tonic that speaks and stands resolute against our benighted times. Part I remember, tho, is how Obama couldn’t never do no right for the right, in spite a gamely (over)trying at times (e.g. Grand Bargain that Teahadists were too stupid to take yes for an answer), then, come year-six, Obama hadn’t no more fucks to give and let his inner fuck-y’all out to play. Obama from aught-six to aught-eight is, by far, my favorite Obama.
Only wisht he’da got there sooner.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Raoul:
Fair enough. I take your point. Din’t meanta poke a bear with a short stick, sorry if I done so.
Raoul
I’ll add that as one of Amy’s constituents, I’m not dancing with joy that she’s probably running. She’s kind of too moderate for me. I’m just pissed that the anonymous knives are out, and places like Vanity Fair are carrying RW water.
I mean, he’s an old bag, but George Will pretty much has said “l’ll take Amy over Donald” so I smell some rat pee with this early, hard attack.
Moderate centrist who impressed at the Kavanaugh hearings is suddenly a horrible harpy. Uh huh.
Raoul
@poleaxedbyboatwork: Sorry. I’m just really crabby. I’ve had a boring, crappy cold for days. Finally feeling a little better. I should sleep instead of being ranty.
Gnight, all.
Kent
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
I don’t think I misremember it. The tea party nonsense mostly took out the Dem Congress, not Obama. Although Romney was perhaps the least likely candidate to appeal to the teahadist base.
Of course Obama could do no right for the right and Fox news. But we knew that was going to be the case going in. Mitch McConnell told us so. Yet he still managed to pull off the most successful and scandal-free presidency in the modern era. That is no small accomplishment. I still don’t think we fully appreciate the achievement. And he won twice when Gore, Kerry, and Hillary did not. As a black man with a muslim terrorist name. That is sheer force of personality.
I still have no idea who is going to rise to the top in 2020. But it sure as hell better be someone with the force of personality to take on Trump and make him small. So far Nancy Pelosi is the only one I have seen who knows how to do that.
Martin
@Brickley Paiste: Did people think Kamala learned nothing from Willie Brown? Democrats didn’t kiss Brown’s ring for fun.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Kent:
Perhaps we’re talking past one another, to invoke a BettyCrackerism. Don’t disagree with what you’re saying on balance.
Was mostly disagreeing with the assertion that Obama was proof against the GOP bullshit-smear-factory. Don’t think he was. It hurt him. And consequently it hurt our country. Not his fault, but that is the field as it (ahem) lies.
One of the biggest proving points for any Dem nominee is, I think, the ability to quash like a bug the bullshit-smear-factory approved Gooper talking points.To do that, a body needs to acknowledge and forcefully refute that that’s what’s happening.
We ain’t allowed the luxury of pretending nomores. Me, I want someone who gets that from jumps. (Which is why, subject to correx, I ain’t high on Klobuchar or Booker.)
Kent
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
We are on the same page. I would 100% agree that the relentless right wing fox news smears hurt Obama. No one could question that. They are going to hurt anyone. That is the world we live in and it isn’t going to change. As we saw in 2016 it is only going to get worse. Rather than whining about the unfairness of it all, we need a candidate with the charisma and presence to succeed in spite of it as Obama did. He was a winner and carried himself as such in everything he did. Hillary not so much.
Who that candidate is in 2020 I still have no idea. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I was an Edwards fan at this point in 2008. Although by the time the caucus finally got to Texas I was seriously behind Obama and caucused on his behalf. We are still a LONG ways from November 2020.
For a reality check, in April 2015 I found these poll results from Quinipiac
Emerald
@Brickley Paiste:
Yeppers, I’m coming around to her fairly strongly. She’s handled all of it perfectly, so far. She squashed the cop-prosecutor slur by running on her record as a prosecutor, and she trashed that leftier-than-thou type who tried to slam her with it in her townhall so sweetly he couldn’t even complain. He was stunned.
Watching that, I realized what Hillary did wrong. Yeah, she accepted the media narrative. She should never have apologized for the emails: she should have said that she kept her emails more secure by using the server set up for the ex-president by the Secret Service. That approach would have had the advantage of being true: the State Dept server was hacked; her’s wasn’t.
Kamala is owing it so far.
Of course, if she emerges as the front-runner, no doubt the FTFNYT will invent something to smear her. She appears to know what to do about that, however. So yeah, I’m coming around.
hervevillechaizelounge
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
While I agree with your assessment I think a candidate’s pre-election treatment by the media and post-election pillorying by the right-wing nut-o-sphere are two different issues.
Obama’s past was so tidy the best the media could dredge up was some shit his pastor said when he wasn’t even present. He was young enough and new enough to public life that he had very little baggage, unlike Clinton.
Another major difference: by the time of Obama’s candidacy decent people knew racism was bad and constantly checked their own biases for race-based prejudice. Most people (both male and female) aren’t as cognizant of their own misogyny—they’ll immediately accept any narrative that syncs with their preconceived notions.
Kamala Harris slept her way to the top. Amy Klobuchar is a ball-busting bitch. Kirsten Gillibrand is the duplicitous Gone Girl. Elizabeth Warren is a shrill schoolmarm who prospered by lying about her native heritage.
Every single article about Kamala Harris will mention Willie Brown, every single article about Gillibrand will mention Al Franken, et cetera et cetera. We’ve already found the but-her-emails albatrosses of 2020.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Kent:
True dat.
Will say: Was an Edwards guy my own self back when “Two Americas” seemed like it hadda viable messenger who wasn’t a compromised entitled ninny.
Dunno what the future holds, Kent, but you seem like a good egg. Here’s hoping you don’t hold my strident idiocy against me.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@hervevillechaizelounge:
Ya, perhaps so. Certainly not sayin’ you’re wrong.
But this, to me, speaks to the nimble acrobatic mind of Gooper seek-and-destroy self-justification more’n it do to any reality-based critique. If that’s what yer saying, then I’ma wholeheartedly agreeing.
Kent
@hervevillechaizelounge:
I would agree to a point. But I think it is possible for strong women to turn the narrative. Look at Pelosi. It was only a few months ago that the media was on Pelosi death watch and every Dem in a slightly purple district seemed to be eating the anti-Pelosi San Franciso liberal nonsense and be running against or away from her as fast as they could.
These days you can literally see Trump’s balls shrink any time she is around. My 15 year old daughter who never heard of Pelosi 3 months ago how has her clap meme on her phone. How that happened, I don’t know. Obviously success breeds success.
What we need is the 2020 Presidential candidate who knows how to make Trump look small with a slight smirk and a clap. That is talent you simply cannot teach. You either have it or you don’t.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
the dumb bastards were so outclassed by Obama they were left grasping over a tan suit and mustard on a hamburger.
Planetjanet
Don’t worry, Roger. I have a retirement plan all worked out for you. Three meals a day, your own room, and interesting companions and lots of security.
The Midnight Lurker
No fan of the MSM here, but the stories you’ve heard about Ms. Klobuchar’s mistreatment of staff (and others) do not even begin to scratch the surface. She is petty, vain, contemptuous and cruel. Yeah, she get’s shit done, but she’s a bully and the poster woman for anger management therapy.
And no, I would NOT tolerate this behavior in a man. As a matter of fact, if a man treated my wife, family or friends the way Ms. Klobuchar has, I would bust him one in the chops.
If Amy Klobuchar winds up on the ticket… WE WILL LOOSE!!!!!!
Kamala Harris is a much, much, much stronger candidate.
Chris Johnson
I think the Russians really badly want to run Kamala Harris against Trump.
Must think they can pivot, or something.
Mathguy
@Raoul: Tina Nguyen is the worst of the VF reporters for this kind of crap. Must be angling for a FTFNYT job.
horatius
@hervevillechaizelounge: You are doing Jeremiah Wright a disservice here. That sermon that got selectively quoted is very very powerful. It channeled the spirit of James Baldwin and Ta Nehisi Coates. White America’s too coddled and weak to digest it, but it was beautiful and it is the truth. Obama may have increased his chances to win the Presidency by disowning him, but he harmed the African American community by disowning its’ righteous anger.
There’s even an LGM post about it.
T