I have no idea where everyone is and I’m probably the least qualified person to be posting about this, but here you go:
JUST UPLOADED: In sentencing memo, MUELLER accuses MANAFORT of "bold" crimes, "some of which were committed while under a spotlight due to his work as the campaign chairman &, later, while he was on bail from this Court." https://t.co/JNkwbz5ELE
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) February 23, 2019
Just a reminder. Mike Pence was Manafort’s handpicked choice for VP. Wonder why??
The Midnight Lurker
Hello? Helloooooo?
Fine. I’ll just sit here and play with myself then.
The Midnight Lurker
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“With.”
“With who?”
“With whom.“
WaterGirl
LOL!
Thank you, TaMara. Nearly 12 hours without a thread… we must have been very bad.
WaterGirl
@The Midnight Lurker: Me.
JPL
@WaterGirl: Betty is still celebrating her birthday. I assume that a good time was had by all. I’m still bitching about the weather and such. Also I didn’t see my grandchild today, and he probably grew another ounce.
The Midnight Lurker
Okay… I’ll do the news. (clears throat) Our top story tonight…
Rally Against Apathy Draws Small Crowd.
Fruit Truck Jackknifes, Causes Jam.
jeffreyw
Coffee mugs! Lookee Lookee!!
Kent
Yes. I’ve been wondering about the Pence link. Manafort didn’t swim in the same heartland fundie circles as Pence. So what is the connection that he was so insistent about? What does he have on Pence?
Yarrow
I’m here!
Because he was told to make it happen. He even had the pilot of Trump’s plane fake engine trouble so Trump would have to stay over another night in Indianapolis and spend more time with Pence.
As for why Pence, well, Pence is compromised so he’s also controllable. Kompromat is a helluva thing.
JPL
Twitter tells me that there is most likely a sealed indictment for Rohrabacher, which is long overdue, but no other smoking guns. Of course, 775 pages were redacted so there is still hope.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Cold and rainy here today. And I was wrong when I said Cole’s dad’s surgery was today.
They change so fast when they are young!
Yarrow
@Kent:
Kompromat of a sexual nature.
Major Major Major Major
There were a bunch of draft threads up so I assumed somebody was going to post one, otherwise I’d have done a Samwise open thread. This is better!
WaterGirl
@Yarrow: That would imply that Pence has had sex, which would be very surprising because he surely thinks it’s icky. Unless Mother had him castrated after he strayed? Or do we think he secretly likes
memen, which freaks him out? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.edit! edit! edit! just so you know, the “me” was accidental, and not freudian.
SFAW
Not sure I see how that is a problem — or unusual — in this joint
Kent
@Yarrow:
MOTHER!!!
MomSense
@Kent:
The Russians have been making the mo$t of their shared homophobia, Christianity, racism, anti abortion, and pro Uber wealthy economic connections with politicians like Pence for some time now. There’s also the kink factor with pence. I have zero information and not even gossip but I get the vibe that Pence is into some kinds of sex that definitely do not have Mother’s approval.
TaMara (HFG)
@MomSense: Eeewwww.
Wag
So Pence too could be indicted, leaving Pelosi as President
Yarrow
@WaterGirl: The rumors are that he likes younger men. Most of them are 18 or over but some of them may be underage, which puts him in greater jeopardy.
eclare
@MomSense: “Pence is into some kinds of sex that definitely do not have Mother’s approval”.
They always, always are. Chickenshit hypocrites.
StringOnAStick
OK, off to the gym to do my knee replacement pre-hab. Will look into this fascinating topic when I return!
MomSense
@TaMara (HFG):
C’mon you know it’s true.
@eclare:
Yup.
Yarrow
@MomSense: You are correct. The whole “Pence won’t be alone in a room with women out of respect for my wife” thing is so dumb. It’s a complete smoke screen for what’s actually going on.
FelonyGovt
I would love for Pence to prove to be irreparably compromised.
TaMara (HFG)
@MomSense: Yes, but you made me think about Pence doing it…with anybody. Just ewwww.
WaterGirl
@Yarrow: If that’s the case, then why would he be forbidden to be alone with women instead of young boys?
edit: I see you spoke to that issue at #24.
oatler.
They’re Knee Deep in the Hoopla now.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Via TPM
Tim C.
@Kent: I’m not saying that it’s likely, but it’s possible. Pence might simply be the most useful idiot in Washington. Not that I believe that, but I’ve heard no specific information yet that makes Pence anything other than just a loyal, if dim, right wing religious nut-ball along for the ride.
MomSense
@TaMara (HFG):
Eeeeewwwwwwww!
trollhattan
@The Midnight Lurker:
We’ll have none of those shenanigans on this Family Blog!
trollhattan
@Tim C.:
He’s basically a more-presentable Louie Gohmert. Sterny McSternface.
debbie
@MomSense:
It will be even more enjoyable watching the evangelicals turn themselves into pretzels defending Pence. Like they haven’t slipped innumerable discs defending Trump.
trollhattan
@StringOnAStick:
That’s a lot packed into one sentence.
Martin
@The Midnight Lurker:
TMI, dude.
eclare
@Yarrow: Wonder if he also has a “wide stance”?
Yarrow
@WaterGirl: I did mention it but to elaborate, Pence has a brand as a committed evangelical Christian. He could not possibly like men and still keep that brand. Wouldn’t work. So he needs to hype his Christian credentials. As part of that he focuses on the “sanctity of marriage” by promoting this dumb idea that he can’t be in the same room as a woman who is not his wife. It’s very popular with the evangelical set, everyone talks about what an amazing Christian he is. Meanwhile, his activities outside his marriage don’t get scrutiny.
trollhattan
@debbie:
Trump wrung out the last drop of whatever shame they once possessed.
Another Scott
Jane Mayer:
It’s a plausible story, but note the bolded stuff… And note that Pence was asking Donnie for money in 2011. There are connections among these people that go back longer than 2016.
Cui bono?
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
My years of editing would have had me tell the writer to break that sentence up, but for Manafort, the longer, the better!
debbie
@eclare:
Remember that first logo the campaign had, where the T was penetrating the loop of the P? It may have actually been a cry for help…
MomSense
@debbie:
It’s just gross. It has my mom and my kids saying disparaging things about Christianity generally so I remind them that Rev. Dr. William Barber is a Christian.
debbie
@MomSense:
Remember the days when loose women were said to be giving Christianity a bad name? Someone here loves Pogo, so I apologize if I don’t get the paraphrase exactly correct, but it turns out the enemy they have met is themselves.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@jeffreyw: Yes!!! I got mine this week, too – I have the Tabby Cat. It’s really nice quality and a good-looking mug. All y’all get over to jacy’s shop!
MisterForkbeard
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Has me a little worried. Is Mueller going to say that Manafort just misled Trump about what he was doing? Ugh.
The Midnight Lurker
You people make me sick. It’s nothing but sex, sex, sex!
Fine.
Sign outside the Orchids of Asia Massage Parlor in Jupiter, FloriDUH:
“We’re closed! Beat it!”
Elizabelle
@Another Scott:
Appears Jane Mayer has not had a New Yorker story since November 2018. Last article was on Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica. Here is link to her author page from The New Yorker.
I wonder if I’ve just missed them (not reading the magazine closely lately) or what she is up to. I have been on a bit of a news break …
Gelfling 545
@WaterGirl: A neighbor of mine firmly believes that if the police were to raid Pence’s house they’d find evidence of unimaginable perversions. She bases this on the fact that his wife has to keep him from meeting women alone which is admittedly pretty strange.
trollhattan
@Gelfling 545:
A certain pizza parlor comes to mind. What’s in that basement?
trollhattan
@The Midnight Lurker:
Heh. Kraft is dreaming if he thinks this story is going away any time soon. ?
JPL
@MisterForkbeard: That’s a possibility.
Chris Johnson
@debbie: That’s Walt Kelly environmentalism, from waaaay back in the Seventies. “We have met the enemy and he is us”.
Pence being too lusty for women so he can’t be alone with them, could be a beard. Meaning he’s really into little boys, or jello pudding, or ducks, or God knows what. It doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing about him that it’d mean about Joe Biden :D
J R in WV
My shoulder replacement procedures took longer than anticipated, and were more arduous for both the doctors and me — I was too strong, and they had trouble retracting all those manly muscles. I had marks from the BIG clamps they used post op. Surgeon’s PA was a young strong-looking guy, too. Ouch.
This is not a brag, just telling you not to overdo pre-op conditioning. But knees are certainly different, so who knows? Not I ~!!~
Steve in the ATL
@JPL: yuck weather day on the island, so no need to cuss me out today!
mad citizen
As a lifelong Hoosier the Jane Mayer clip seems the most plausible explanation to me: Pence was chosen from “central casting”, to tick the evangelical box. I have never heard as much as a peep about the dude having an alternate lifestyle, etc. I really think he is just plain dull and average, and by Trump’s standards, poor. The one thing I find odd is why Pence flew to Trump in 2011 to ask for money, but maybe they go to whoever can fund them, hoping for something substantial.
John Revolta
@Another Scott: The idea that Pence had to struggle with the decision to run for VP is absurd. His approval numbers in IN were in the 20s. He was going down. If Trump lost, well, at least Pence is a national figure now instead of a schmuck loser form Podunk.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: the only thing that doesn’t make sense to me is that a sitting governor and former congressman, even a generally acknowledged mediocrity from a smallish state, who wanted to graze in the tall grass would choose to join what was believed until the polls closed to be a losing campaign.
Then you start to wonder about the Mercer connection, or at least I do.
Ladyraxterinok
@Yarrow: Loosing track. Pence is probably compromised, I agree, bit are there any sources exploring this?
JanieM
@John Revolta:
Just like what’s her name, the former governor of Alaska. ;-)
Ladyraxterinok
@WaterGirl: Was a Pence daughter interviewed by M McCain on the View recently?
Ladyraxterinok
@Yarrow: Where are these rumors posted/discussed?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: I haven’t seen/heard those rumors, but if there turned out to be true I’d be about as surprised as if I flipped a coin and it came up heads instead of tails. Like I said earlier, he gives me the same vague “I don’t know what ain’t right about that boy, but that boy ain’t right” spidey-sense as Santorum and– in the context it came up in earlier– Jared.
John Revolta
@JanieM: Well, exactly. He probably ends up with a sweet wingnut welfare gig somewhere, lecture circuit, maybe his own cable TV show.
Uncle Cosmo
@MomSense: For some reason this reminds me of the “Milestones” section of the Harvard Lampoon’s 1968 parody issue of Time, in which was reported something like** this:
(** Paraphrased, from memory across 51 years, having long since lost my copy & inadequate with the google-fu to dredge it up from the Net. But I would bet the mortgage that the quote about the lizards is accurate, except that “in the basement” may have been inserted after “lizards.” ETA – I also suspect there were a couple more scholarly terms for perversions in the original. The Lampoon’s motto often seemed to be “nothing succeeds like excess.”)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@John Revolta: also, Pence is/was much better connected in DC than Palin, and if his pappy was an oil man (I did not know that) I can’t imagine money was really a concern, unless he’s even dumber than I give him credit for and A) couldn’t figure that out and/or B) he’s so damn dumb that his dumbness wouldn’t be an asset to the Exxon or Chevron or Roseneft (sp?)
Wiki says his father “ran a chain of gas stations”, from the context in the Mayer report, that must mean “owned”, but not quite the oil business?
JPL
@Steve in the ATL: Sweet! Supposedly once the thunder storms move through the are tonight, our weather is going to clear.
Uncle Cosmo
@Wag:
More likely agnewed, i.e., willing (even eager), once confronted with the Feds’ possession of such ironclad evidence of his having committed a felony, enter into a plea arrangement to resign the Vice Presidency in exchange for some level of leniency (the then-USAG, Eliot Richardson, deeming it more important to get Spiro out of the line of succession to the Presidency than to measure him for an orange jumpsuit [which may be an anachronism for 1973].)
Ladyraxterinok
@trollhattan: Read there’s another Boston white billionaire in his 70s involved with the FL prostitution/trafficking ring.
John Revolta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He’s notorious in DC for being dumb. His nickname in Congress was “Mike Dense”. His father’s firm went bankrupt and the article says he had 15 thousand dollars in the bank in 2016.
Uncle Cosmo
@The Midnight Lurker: I saw what you did there.
Signed,
Harry Palmer & his 4 Stubby Sisters
Uncle Cosmo
@John Revolta: Mikey was known in his Congressional daze as the Stupidest Member Of The House Of
ReprehensiblesRepresentatives. Which I have acronymed into SMOTHOR. And if they could say that while he shared a chamber with Louis “Gomer” Gohmert => boy howdy!Jim, Foolish Literalist
@John Revolta: I saw that about the bankruptcy, I was thinking of the connection he might have from his father’s business, and even without those, it strains credulity that even the dumbest hack couldn’t parlay his connections and resume into a quick fortune. “The Michael and Karen Pence Institute for Traditional American Values” could probably bring in six figures for its president and vice-president with a handful of strategic emails to baited Bubbas and ten-toothed rubes.
trollhattan
@Ladyraxterinok:
Let’s collect the whole set! How about the Bruins owners? They’re douches too.
J R in WV
In what world will Mike Pence cease being a nobody from Podunk, ever???
I noticed that Paulie’s fine is about $25,000,000, plus restitution of about $25,000,000… gonna be a poor boy in the slam, Paulie!!
Also; off topic: In what world is a one million dollar bond anything but peanuts for R Kelly? Did he post bail with a check or pocket change? Absurd!
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
There are no accidents. — Freud
Mainmata
This is really one of the most interesting (and funny) threads I’ve read in a long time. Is it because the subject is Pence? I dunno but this is great. Manafort was trying to pay back Oleg Deripaska, of course, for his enormous debts after Yanukovich had to flee to Moscow so he volunteered to work for free as campaign chair, which El Cheapo Trump loved. Also, I’m sure he was already told by his Russian buddies that Trump was a de facto (if not active) Russian asset. The rest is history.
As for Pence, I had always assumed he was picked as impeachment insurance since only the fundies like him. And he is as dull as a brick. The alternative was Chris Crisco who’s nasty but also smart and politically adept. (Of course, he comes from the same regional demographic as Trump but I really wonder how much that matters any longer in the age of the internet.) I hadn’t even thought of the kinky stuff but Dog knows so many prominent fundies have been compromised sexually.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
“There are no Freuds.”
–Accident
John Revolta
@J R in WV: Did he post bail with a check or pocket change?
Bling.
SiubhanDuinne
@Another Scott:
Going by memory here — have not double-checked this — but I seem to recall that at the VP announcement Trump went on stage solo, talked about himself for 10-15 minutes, finally introduced Pence and then walked off stage and left his VP pick alone.
Might have been one of his early Cabinet picks, though. Really can’t remember now.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
“There are no foxes in atheist holes.”
mad citizen
@SiubhanDuinne: I know the thread is almost done, but yes, your memory is correct about the Trump/Pence announcement–classic narcissist Trump!
wvng
It’s obvious why he chose Pence. Pence won the presidency for Trump because of his rock star status with fundies. He is why fundies voted for Trump.
Yarrow
@Ladyraxterinok: A lot of different places. One was on a gossip site, but take that with a grain of salt. The others I’ve seen in a variety of places, not like one main post or anything. I pieced a lot of it together in 2017 so I’d have to hunt to find it again.
CraigM
Let’s come up with the strangest story tying all of February’s news together. Why did Manafort pick Pence? Maybe Pence appeared in blackface in a semi-private role in Manafort’s abusive marriage… sorry, tasteless…
https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/kompromat-or-revelations-from-the-unpublished-portions-of-andrea-manaforts-hacked-texts/
An interesting read raising interesting questions. Brad DeLong’s econ blog pointed to the article
r€nato
ABC – Always Be Criming
akryan
@Kent: As much as I hate to chalk this up to just normal politics, I’ll play Devil’s Advocate. Pence was a decent pick for Trump. He had all the Christian conservative cred that Trump clearly lacked. He had a good resume as a senator and gov. He was also known to be really dumb. His nickname in congress was Mike Dense. He was also in a good position to take the job when a lot of other guys didn’t want it because he was way underwater in the polls in his own state as a Gov. He wouldn’t have won re-election there; no way was he going to ask any tough questions. So, he’s a Jesus freak, really dumb, looked good on paper, and he needed a job. Sounds like the perfect VP for Trump.