I know my girl Rachel isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the Parnas interview is a huge scoop. Anyone else gonna watch?
Also, have you seen the second tranche of Parnas documents? (An aside: I’m loving the elevation of the word “tranche.”) Holy shit!
Open thread!
zhena gogolia
I can’t watch but I’ll look forward to the analysis here.
I did see some texts from Lutsenko with some VERY salty language in them.
Baud
I’m not home yet but I hope to catch some of it.
zhena gogolia
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
Someone replying to that tweet says “Pence too.”
Baud
@zhena gogolia: .
Like the language you used to see on BJ?
TaMara (HFG)
Alexa, order ALL the popcorn.
Wouldn’t miss it.
Did you catch that McConnell is going to limit television and reporters’ ability to cover the trial? Fucker
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Yep.
Wow, this didn’t work.
Baud
@TaMara (HFG):
What does that mean?
Josie
“he also implicated AG William Barr.”
Oh please, oh please, oh please
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Use the text tab.
dmsilev
According to Susan Collins, the real crime here is that House Democrats were simultaneously too fast and too slow in how they handled this information. Goldilocks was unavailable for comment.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
yeah, it’s like they will only let in one woman with a steno pad or something. He’s such a fucker.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I did!
zhena gogolia
Baud
@zhena gogolia: But it’s going to be televised, right?
hitchhiker
If you can’t catch the show, there will be a podcast of the audio up about an hour after it ends. This is my go-to method for finding out what Rachel has to say. She comes on at 6 pm where I am, and I’m either making dinner or eating it.
Few (or no) commercials, 42 minutes long, easy to download. Go, Rachel!
dmsilev
@Baud: Yes, CSPAN will have a feed, but nothing else.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
On nights like this, I often wonder what kind counter-programming Fox is doin
ETA: Y’all think The Beast is watching? Would someone at NBC have slipped him an advance copy? I shall get out of the boat and check his twitter
ETA, A: Only three tweets in the last 12 hours, all about the (not so) big trade deal. Kellyanne must’ve hid his phone in the fruit bowl. He’ll never look there.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
In one of these texts he says, “What kind of fucking freedom of speech do you have over there?” and some other choice language that I can’t really translate. Expletive based on the vulgar word for the female genitalia.
Baud
Joe Pesci plays Parnas?
sab
@Baud: Nope. A lot of the deliberations will be in closed session. We will get to see the witnesses testify on C-span, but we will not be able to see Senators speechifying amongst themselves.
That’s according to former Sen. Russ Feingold on MSNBC. He was serving during the Clinton impeachment.
I am not sure that is such a bad thing.
FlyingToaster (Tablet)
@dmsilev: Holy fuck! I have to upgrade my TiVO.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/478501-fight-over-planned-impeachment-press-restrictions-escalates
dexwood
@Baud: Good choice. Or, Bob Hoskins. Is he still alive? Googled. Nope.
Ajabu
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
me too, but never enough to actually go find out. I can’t afford the drop in IQ points…
Baud
@sab: I agree. Closed session is better for deliberations.
Jay
I’ll wait until tomorrow to see what falls out. Crooks are rarely honest and open.
Open thread however, so:
and:
Baud
Bolton is the key witness. According to Parnas.
sdhays
I was just reading this link on TMP to see the clip of Rachel’s interview (holy shit!), and then read down a bit to see this:
What kind of farce is this that you can fuck around saying I won’t testify to the House (well, maybe, if the judicial system in all its glacial speed enforces a Congressional subpoena), but you’ll publish all this shit in a book released to the public?
I understand the House not wanting to get slowed down by this nonsense, and it was clearly the right call, but damn, I’m tired of these people flaunting the law and then using that flaunting to try to make a buck. I wish the House would just subpoena him and send the Sergeant at Arms to haul his grifting ass into a hearing, but it’s not worth it.
lamh36
lamh36
lamh36
lamh36
Alain
Just..wow! Can you imagine what week 2-3 of the actual Senate trial, perhaps 4 will be like? Just craaaazyyyy.
With a capital Roberto
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jay: Popehat is warning people to remember Avenatti when listening to Parnas, but Parnas has the documents. Jill Wine-Banks said no one would have believed John Dean if the tapes hadn’t been backed him up.
Avanatti was one of a long line of White Guys Who Shout who get a certain kind of internet leftie (I suspect mostly guys) very excited– Alan Grayson, pre-dick-pick Anthony Wiener. I sense that’s the whole point of Chapo Trap House– They’re Angry!– but I’ve never listened.
Baud
Parnas says creepy text messages by Hyde regarding ambassador were not serious.
ETA: calls Hyde a drunk.
Kent
Trust me, any Dems who want to find a TV camera during impeachment will have no trouble doing so. No matter how much McConnell tries to limit hallway conversations. All this does is protect the GOP from getting “uncomfortable” questions they don’t want to answer.
Baud
Barr coming up after break.
TaMara (HFG)
Is it just me, or does Parnas seem very credible?
His lawyer, on the other hand, looks stoned.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“Joe Aherne was my contact at the America First PAC”
Joe Aherne; Do you have a lawyer? not the guy who handled your closing or drew up your estate plan.
clay
@Baud: Yeah. Rachel was like, hey these texts lasted a week; surely he wasn’t drunk the whole time?
And Parnas says, No. He’s ALWAYS drunk.
Baud
@TaMara (HFG): He’s smooth and relaxed. But who knows with people like that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz will find cameras. Cory Gardner, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins will be driven away from side exits with bags over their heads
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Yeah, before Cole told us to clean up our act.
Steeplejack (phone)
I missed the first five or ten minutes but have been watching since then. Parnas is coming across as lucid and matter-of-fact, and his “testimony” is damning.
I just did a spit-take because before this commercial break the teaser was that AG Barr is “on the team” and was aware of all the Ukraine shenanigans.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You are very funny tonight.
Keith P
Anyone else notice an elevation of the word “curated” lately I’m seeing people use it *everywhere* now, even over f’n music collections.
PS: I have to be part of a large crowd who discovered Lev Parnas sounds *nothing* like expected.
geg6
@TaMara (HFG):
LOL! My thoughts exactly. I think ol’ Lev knows he’s going down and he’s making certain he doesn’t take the entire fall for these people.
debbie
@sab:
Seconded. Not sure if Collins or Jordan would be allowed in (as managers?), but I’d hate for them to get any air time. All that yelling!
I can’t embed from an iPad, but Stonekettle has a tweet about the Parnas dump, and a couple commenters think the Dems are being set to be made fools. ?
dmsilev
@clay: Have you seen the pictures that guy posted of himself? ‘Drunk all the time’ is very plausible.
Baud
@debbie: Schiff will play it by the book.
Immanentize
@Keith P: Never read High Fidelity?
patrick II
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Having just seen pictures and heard him referred to as a thug, I am surprised at Parnas’s presence and obvious intelligence. Based on appearance I was expecting someone more like Edward G Robinson.
Barbara
@Keith P: I will take curated over “cravable” any day. You can take “pure” and “kind” while you’re at it. As in, pure insurance and kind food. WTF?
Kent
@Steeplejack (phone): I have Rachel on standing TIVO. I only actually watch it about once a week. But this way I can skip commercials.
I’m about 5 minutes into the interview. He is pretty well spoken and lucid. Definitely more credible and brighter than the goober that he looks like in all the photos.
sab
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Lol. My parents’ family lawyer did wills and trusts and taxes.
My family lawyer does low end criminal stuff.
We consulted a real estate lawyer for one issue, and we had a trust and estate guy do our wills, but the guy we really need in a pinch is the criminal guy. “Kids these days.”
I really wish the little guys would mature sometime in their thirties. Time is running out.
geg6
@Immanentize:
Or even the movie?
dmsilev
@debbie: The managers from the House are all Dems; they’re essentially the prosecution team. Defense is whatever legal team Trump has scraped up from various Pits Of Despair, and while in theory he could include some of the House GOP Screaming Monkey Brigade, most of the news stories I’ve seen have said that he was talked out of that idea. For now, anyway.
clay
Parnas just says he was GIVEN documents by John Solomon. Seems to be the opposite of how journalism normally works, no?
Baud
Biden’s “object of their affection” line just got a lot more juice.
Steeplejack (phone)
@sdhays:
“Flouting the law.”
Immanentize
@geg6: ok. Fair enough. But I thought this was a high brow crowd.?
HalfAssedHomesteader
It would be too perfect if Trump’s ultimate undoing came from a document dump. And we didn’t even have to steal them!
debbie
@Keith P:
I heard someone on NPR say even their thoughts have been curated. //
clay
@patrick II: Hey now. Edward G. Robinson was sharply intelligent, and was a lifelong liberal Democrat, to boot.
Keith P
@Alain: I have this dream where Team Trump negotiates for witnesses and then calls “The Whistleblower”, leading to several weeks of court proceedings as to if/how he would testify, dragging the impeachment trial out further, much to Moscow Mitch’s chagrin.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: I saw speculation that they might be included on the Trump’s defense team.
Kent
My 16 year old daughter can’t watch. She finds the comb-over abhorrent and vaguely creepy.
Kent
@Keith P: Better yet, it turns out to be Bolton
patrick II
@clay:
Yeah, I should have made that clear. Edward G when he was playing a gangster in the movies. I always liked him and his work.
Immanentize
Has anyone in the media yet reported that Gym Jordan is both simian and pocket sized?
Jay
@Jay:
crap, not the posts I meant to send.
– the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security is using his pulpit to lie about the crime rate in NYC, blaming their Sanctuary City status,
– at the same time that the Department Heads in the ODNI are telling the staff to not create, circulate or publicize intelligence assessments that contradict the Dump Administration’s statements.
geg6
@Immanentize:
Well, I’ve read the book and seen the movie. Multiple times. One of my faves. Top fifty, at least. Does that make me unibrow? ?
debbie
@dmsilev:
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I can’t imagine Trump won’t get his way on this.
sdhays
@Steeplejack (phone): I never would have made that mistake before having a baby.
jl
‘Tranche’ is a cool word. But ” Another tranche of Parnas’…” anything doesn’t sound wholesome.
But Cracker is made of sterner stuff than I.
sab
@Immanentize: No, but they should because he is. Does no one in north central Ohio have any self-respect? They choose to be represented by this guy.
Baud
Nunes named
Immanentize
@geg6: duo brow!
Which is kinda scary.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Small comfort, but he is clearly losing his hair.
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I thought about this. There certainly is a lot of room for Parnas to spin and shade things, but, as I said above, his affect comes across as pretty solid, and he does have the goddamn documents, at least for some of his claims. (Something that Avenatti was always alluding to but never produced.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: Unless they’re witnesses or Senators, Trump can choose whoever he wants to represent him.
Kai-two
The timing of all of these disclosures is fantastic.
Immanentize
@sab: I don’t know about his district. Could it be the storied land of Oompa Loompa? I mean, Gym’s light and reason is oddly orange.
WaterGirl
@debbie: That went into moderation because you had an extra “c” at the end of your email address. I fixed it, but you’ll want to fix it in your browser before you comment again.
clay
Heh. Rachel’s catchphrase of the evening is “We contacted XXXXX’s office about these allegations, but we have not yet received a response.”
Immanentize
@Kai-two: fantastic in amazing great! Or fantastic as in too good to be credited?
Baud
Part 2 tomorrow.
jl
@Baud: ” Nunes named ”
Nunes seems to have trouble with the name Parnas. I don’t know why. It’s a mystery.
Probably his wife handed to phone over the Nunes and didn’t give the guy’s name.
Yeesh, this mess is like a set of nested Russian dolls. Scams within scams within scams within…. Is it scams all the way down?
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Thanks.
Baud
Rachel believes Parnas was worried about being whacked.
Kai-two
@Immanentize:
In the amazing and great sense.
I posted the other day wondering how much control or input the House Leadership had in obtaining this stuff. My understanding is that it was all pretty much up to some fed. ct. judge, but I could be wrong.
I remember Parnas sort of wondering around a few weeks ago saying “these documents are really great and you will want them…”
clay
@clay: And of course, right after I posted that… she received a response! Rudy!
Steeplejack
@TaMara (HFG):
I think his role is just to sit there, monitor the conversation and jump in if anything catastrophic for his client pops up. I’d probably look stoned too after an hour or two of that. Plus he can entertain himself with a mental image of his $600/hour meter ticking away.
Immanentize
@debbie: OK. Balding, simian, and pocket sized.
Shana
@Immanentize: High Fidelity is a wonderful book that was very well adapted to a screenplay, and made into one of my favorite movies.
Immanentize
@Kai-two: Parnas would really like some Congressional immunity. It’s a smart play. Ollie North’s conviction for perjury was ultimately tossed because of a Congressional immunity deal. If I were the House, I would give it to him right about…
Three
Two
One
Now!
Immanentize
@Shana: Shana! Hi!
Me too. One of probably my top five adaptations.
ETA. Ok I have a little Iben Hjejle thing. Unrequited of course.
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Breaking Bad (paraphrasing from memory): “You don’t need a criminal lawyer. You need a criminal lawyer.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@clay: and Rudi decides to further antagonize him. Brilliant!
hitchhiker
This is the John Dean moment.
A lot of olds here, so I know you’ll remember … the way he sat there deadpan, and just went on and on and on describing shit that seemed insane. Couldn’t be true. Impossible.
That was almost 14 months before Nixon had to resign, which would NOT have happened if there hadn’t been tapes. Dean was crucified in the press right up until people got to hear Nixon’s own voice ordering crimes, and it turned out that Dean’s notes and memories of meetings (that he hadn’t known were being taped) were almost perfectly accurate.
Parnas might be gilding and blowing smoke — but he’s got emails. Phone records. Chat logs. And of course the whole public record of what happened when.
I actually think this might be it.
Kai-two
@Immanentize:
I wonder why more of the Trump confederates haven’t pursued that path
Steeplejack
@sdhays:
LOL. Mothering is hard. You get a pass.
Kent
@hitchhiker: And remember….he came within a gnat’s eyelash of escaping to Vienna. Didn’t the FBI grab him waiting for his plane at Kennedy Airport?
Gotta think there are Trump appointees at Justice who are pissed off that the FBI did their job here
A couple of “what ifs” here and there and we never even hear about Ukraine at all and are living in a world in which Biden scandal leaks out drip by drip.
clay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I would never be one to quest the legal acumen of a rambling, bug-eyed nosferatu.
Kent
The Nixon option of resignation followed by blanket pardons from Pence for Trump and the Trump spawn is going to start sounding better and better. I gotta wonder if some GOP strategists are looking at the 2020 election calendar and figuring out how to make that work for Pence or whoever is their top alternative. The clock is ticking.
Kai-two
@hitchhiker:
I thought this last night as I was reading the notes written on the Ritz notepad. Then I said “Don’t get your hopes up, dumbass.” And that’s where I am tonight.
Somebody posted the other day “Slowly and then rapidly” and I hope that’s what we are seeing.
Steeplejack
@Immanentize:
Get Shorty. Extremely faithful to Elmore Leonard’s excellent novel. That’s in my top five.
Jay
@jl:
yes, scams all the way down.
Baud
@Kent:
feebog
I usually read all the comments before chiming in, but no time tonight. In a sane political world this would be the end of Trump. However, we are in the land of Trumpistan and there is no sanity, political or otherwise. This may move the needle for a small percentage of citizens, but I doubt it makes any impact on Republican Senators.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@clay:
who probably thinks Robert Hyde is just a social drinker
Baud
The longer this drags on, the more Republicans that will be implicated.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Kent: Dulles not JFK, but otherwise correct. He had a one-way ticket to Vienna as I recall.
sdhays
@Steeplejack: Well, I didn’t “have” the baby – I’m the father, but it’s the constantly interrupted nights that have noticeably destroyed braincells.
Immanentize
@Kai-two: They do not yet see that everything will fall down. It’s just like a big drug gang trial. Someone snitches first. Sometimes it’s because they already got caught…. Yes. But not everyone arrested turns. It is mostly because someone gets caught AND they see the whole shithouse is about to collapse. Then, first one out of the gang and who testifies gets the biggest prize. It is a really tenuous moment for someone to flip.
Look at Flynn. He thought he was flipping at the right moment because everything was about to crash. Then it didn’t. So he is just sad. And totally fucked.
hilts
Susan Collins strikes again. No one should pin their hopes on her doing the right thing regarding witness testimony. She’s as phony as a $3 bill.
h/t https://www.newsweek.com/susan-collins-trends-after-republican-senator-throws-cold-water-lev-parnas-docs-1482446
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wondered up thread about Fox’s counter-programming:
“Nancy Pelosi’s Impeachment Conflict of Interest?” featuring Ken Starr’s replacement as Inspector of Monica Lewinsky’s underwear drawer. Haven’t seen a good old Cavuto mark in a while
Baud
@hilts: Maine deserves a Dem Senator.
Jay
@Kent:
Parnas and Fruman, on the runway at JFK, with one way tickets to Vienna.
For some strange reason, not in the edition I have of Clue.
Steeplejack
@sdhays:
I considered that possibility but ruled it out. My bad.
zhena gogolia
I don’t buy his dismissal of the stuff about Yovanovitch (basing this on you guys’ comments — I was watching Brideshead Revisited).
phein60
@Keith P: “Tranche” is a term you hear in DoD circles about disbursements of appropriations, as in, “When is the second tranche of continual resolution funding going to be available?”
What you don’t want to hear is reclama, as in, “There’s a reclama on unobligated funds from that latest tranche, something about needing funds for a border wall.”
Kai-two
Ted Lieu on Maddow interview: Amazing Lev Parnas interview on #Maddow. Also, I’m disclosing that the lawyer for @DevinNunes wrote a letter saying Rep Nunes will sue me if I didn’t apologize for saying last month that Nunes conspired with Parnas.
Devin, I’m adding to my statement: “Your pants are on fire.”
https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1217645011703160832
Kent
@Baud: In my mob world, the Senate GOP goes to Trump, tells him he no longer has the votes to acquit, and his best option is to step down with the promise of blanket pardons. Because if he drags it out and gets removed there are no pardons.
Then, of course, the media goes into “bygones” mode and we are in the Pence “Honeymoon” phase because the “grown-ups are back in charge” and just need a chance to govern without Dem hounding or interference. And we get 10,000 photo ops of Pence looking steely, determined, and so “presidential”
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I set up my monthly donation to Sara Gideon this evening.
Kay
@Baud:
This is how we all talk now.
Jay
@hilts:
And yet none of the vaunted MSM bother to point out to Gin Collins that the phone data was only released to the House this week.
Useless as,……..
Immanentize
@Steeplejack: I’ma gonna go out on my limb here, but I think Women in Love, the Ken Russel film, is one of the greatest adaptations of a really complex text ever.
Flames accepted at the following number:
Murray Hill 8878
scribbler
@Steeplejack:
@Immanentize:
To Kill a Mockingbird. Hard to say which is better, the book or movie.
Kent
@Kay: Unbelievable isn’t it? And seriously, not in jest.
Jeffrey Epstein?
Baud
@Kay: It could be worse. We could all be wearing tan suits.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: I might do that. Could be the most important Senate race in the country.
zhena gogolia
@Immanentize:
I can go on record to say that the 1981 Brideshead Revisited is NOT the greatest adaptation ever. But it’s very pretty.
jl
@Kay: We’re all ‘going to go through some things’.
Baud
@phein60: It’s used in corporate financing too for disbursement of funds.
jl
@clay:Heh. ‘ Rachel’s catchphrase of the evening is “We contacted XXXXX’s office about these allegations, but we have not yet received a response.” ‘
That took up that last third of the show?
Immanentize
@Baud: This is my hope — and the spooky calculus that all Republicans are contemplating. There is a strong “I had nothing to do with this” contingent who might bail to save their skins. Collins is the type I am thinking of. Completely self driving and if it gets really bad, she will stand strong as the bulwark of the real non-corrupt Republican party (of your grandmom)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: @Baud: I think I pledged two hundred dollars to the Anybody But Collins fund back at the height of the the Kavanaugh hearings, once when it was set up and again when she made me mad– probably her weaselly, look-at-me speech. I don’t know if that money was ever billed, or if they’re waiting for the D primary to be over.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
I am watching it too! About to go to Venice…
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Audio of Warren/Wilmer confrontation revealed: (video)
Steeplejack
We’ve got an interesting gap here until the second part of the Parnas interview airs tomorrow night. Twitter is going to go nuts, of course. All of the Trumpistas are going to jump in with denials and excoriations of Parnas, but they have to be worrying about what new revelations may come out.
clay
@Kent: I think it’s very unlikely Trump wouldn’t have enough votes to be acquitted; 67 votes is a high threshold!
However, a somewhat more likely scenario is that a majority of Senators vote guilty, but not a supermajority. What happens then, if Trump “wins” 45-55? Obviously he stays in office, but what’s the political shakeout from this? There’s no precedent for it.
Feathers
Any thoughts on the new TV version of High Fidelity? Starring Zoe Kravitz, TV series on Hulu, debuting on Valentines Day. Trailer
I know nothing more about this than that it is happening.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Crazy idea I just had. Probably wrong. But if Biden does well in Iowa and maybe even New Hampshire, enough Republican voters will decide they can live with him as president for four years since he’s old and mushy and not very progressive, and they will decide Trump isn’t worth the continued fight.
The problem is timing, though since the Senate trial will probably be over in a couple of weeks.
Immanentize
@sdhays: When the Immp was born, I took every night time disruption but feeding times. I wandered around the house in the dark dazed with him in a snuggly. Sometimes I would build model train cars while he dozed in the Bjorn or whatever because he wouldn’t sleep horizontal. I was a mess for months. But I would not now trade that for one minute of sleep then.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
It’s practically word for word of the book.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Kent:
I just watched the whole interview and am now watching Rachel chat with L. O’Donnell, and she’s recapitulating Parnas’s statements showing that Pence was in this up to his unnaturally smooth and likely Botoxed brow ridges.
I know “President Pelosi” is a pipe-dream, but I can’t see how Pence escapes from this sewer without being permeated with the stench.
zhena gogolia
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Somebody set it to the music from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Back to the snakes!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kai-two:
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Huh. I haven’t seen it since it first came out, but I remember it as being pretty good. But, yeah, not a top five adaptation. Definitely better than the horrible 2008 movie.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
We just watched the Venice episode! (I assume we’re both talking about the Jeremy Irons version.)
Kay
Oops. Another crime.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I thought it gained wide currency during the bailout.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Maybe that’s when it became well known, but it was used in corporate financing documents well before that.
debbie
@scribbler:
The Road.
Immanentize
@Baud: I don’t think that is wrong at all. But you have to hope/expect? that even though the timing might be off primary wise, the poor proceedings in the Senate will just increase that near-republican feeling that Biden will be fine for four.
Baud
@Kay: At this point, what’s one more?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@clay:
Andrew Johnson.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
I know, that’s the problem. Because Charles Ryder narrates the book, and they didn’t write any DIALOGUE for him. So he sits around staring at people while they talk.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Yes. I thought the movie version was just horrible.
lgerard
Before we get too excited, let’s remember Lev Parnas is a career con man
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I’m sure, I just meant it was the first time laypeople started using it.
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia: Sit by me.
Baud
@Immanentize:
I just get the feeling the average GOP voter doesn’t really hate Biden the way they hate the average Democratic candidate, and especially Hillary. Don’t get me wrong, they’ll smear him and vote against him if they think it’s worth it, but I think they are just less motivated by hate when it comes to him.
dmsilev
@Kay: You know, even the vague hint that there was a slight possibility of taking money from “mysterious person in China” was seen as the end of the world as we know it back in the before times when Al Gore was Vice President.
BruceFromOhio
Got it DVR’d, gonna go watch it now that the day is done.
But first, a little RickRoll.
Baud
@lgerard: Dems shouldn’t rely on him, but his interview helps increase the pressure for true witnesses and a real trial.
Also, it could help influence Roberts not to side with Trump on the executive privilege claims. Roberts has blinked before when faced with pressure.
danielx
@Jay:
Can’t say those DPRK guys don’t have a sense of humor
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
I was fine with that. He was such a wannabe when he was young. ?
I remember a short prequel was published in, I think, the New York Review of Books about Ryder’s school days prior to Oxford. Did you ever read it?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: I’ve been meaning to head out to that temple in Hacienda Heights(and the Temple-Workman house).
Immanentize
@clay: Not accurate. There is a precedent. President Johnson was not removed from office by one vote. So, today, 65 remove, 35 nope.
clay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, fair enough, but also so long ago and in such a different landscape that it may as well not have happened.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@danielx: Being that it’s parody site, that’s the point.
Immanentize
@Baud: agree
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
No.
Bill Arnold
@dmsilev:
Really? No backup? If so, and If the CSPAN feed “fails”, no mercy.
Kent
I agree totally. If it is simply a binary option of acquit or convict we are unlikely to get to 67. However, if thing disintegrate to the point that:
cutting a deal with Trump to declare victory and resign might be their best option. Alternatively, they could just get him to agree to not run for reelection (as the quid pro quo for a senate acquittal) and all the wind gets taken out of the impeachment sails. He could then really go on a red state MAGA victory tour while Pence, or whomever goes into the 2020 campaign.
Kay
What was so shocking to him? That his criminal co-conspirators lied in a congressional hearing? Prior to that he thought they were honest public servants?
I’d just like to remind everyone that all of these people were frantically lawbreaking in several countries because they’re scared of running against Joe Biden.
Donald Trump was so scared of competing honestly in a political contest he and his bungling idiot “team” cooked up this elaborate scheme and spent more than a year on it. It would have been easier to just run a normal political campaign, and probably more effective. For one thing, he wouldn’t be getting impeached. Worst campaign strategy ever.
zhena gogolia
@Bill Arnold:
You mean like the cameras outside Epstein’s cell?
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
I wonder if Parnas now thinks that missing that flight saved his life. Lots of opportunities for “accidents” in Vienna.
Aleta
This video of Hyde’s, of himself calling out to T at Mara Largo to introduce him to a ‘new member.’ Like a movie scene of gov’t grift. No wonder T goes down there. Pretending it’s for golf, but he’s working the room for kickbacks.
https://twitter.com/rfhyde1/status/1194078814227369990/video/1
zhena gogolia
@Kent:
I fully expect a quick trial followed by acquittal. But I’m just that kind of gal.
Kent
@Baud: I agree. Similar to how people felt about John McCain. I don’t think the average Dem voter really hated McCain either. He was broadly liked in much the same way. But of course 2008 was completely different from 2020. And 2008 Obama is not 2020 Trump.
dmsilev
@Kent: I can’t see any way Trump agrees to something like that. He’d be implicitly admitting that he did something wrong, and he’d be knuckling under to a bunch of nitwits in Congress, both of which are very much Not Possible for him. If someone broached a possibility of such a deal to him, he’s far far more likely to go the alpha-ape dominance route and try to get them to back down.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: The Best People, Kay, The Best People…
Immanentize
@clay:
C’mon Clay, that’s weak. Now is then is like tomorrow. The differences are more our clothing and devices than they are human nature.
From Kenneth Fearing, Green Light:
hilts
Speaking of adaptations, anyone ever see the film version of Slaughterhouse Five?
jl
@Bill Arnold: I think McConnell already said there would be sessions of the Senate trial proceedings that will be closed to the press, aka, secret. So, nothing bad has to happen to C-SPAN.
Another Scott
TheHill:
(Emphasis added.)
Hey, it was good enough for Clinton and that’s what Moscow Mitch keeps telling everyone – he’s going to run the trial like they did for Clinton – so what’s the problem?!?
Other than Donnie will be livid, of course.
I can’t find a link, but I heard some of Schiff’s comments during the press conference with the Speaker today. I liked very much that he pushed back against Moscow Mitch about witnesses, etc., during the Clinton trial. Schiff said that the witnesses were deposed – and all the Senators had access to the tesimony – before the trial started, and that the question that came up in the middle of the trial was whether they were going to have live witnesses testifying in the Senate about sex acts between consenting adults or accept the depositions or not. Not quite the same thing as Moscow Mitch is trying to say here…
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
Chris Murphy did a good video.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
two tweets I heartily agree with
Especially the last one. According to Parnas, these people just hung out in the bar of the post office hotel in DC until they made contact with people who have access to the President of the United States, who likes to impress his customers by sharing classified information and whatnot, and who people have figured out can be flattered (one of many ways) if you sympathize, and act on, his resentful and vindictive obessesions.
TaMara (HFG)
You know what would be nice? If the freakin’ back button worked. Sigh.
Jay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Peter Thiel.
oops, sorry, Peter Thiel?
Kay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Part of the con of the low quality hires is scaring people into thinking they’re smart, but they didn’t have to do any of this. It would be more likely Trump is re-elected if they had done nothing at all. The whole gang are a net negative. The best thing they could do for Donald Trump is stop showing up for work. You know, “work”. If that’s what they call these…activities.
hilts
@lgerard:
This has proven a successful strategy for Trump. He recruits sleazy individuals and then when they flip on him, his defenders will accuse these individuals of having no credibility.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: interesting comparison, Biden and McCain, broadly liked, perceived as decent even by people who disagree with him politically (excepting Rose twitter, of course), and Biden ain’t gonna pick a Palin.
I would say the point of comparison there is 2008 Bush to 2020 trump
zhena gogolia
@Jay:
Is the question mark supposed to keep you from getting sued?
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
Well, me, us Jackals, the Blogmeister, the Front Pagers, TaMara’s ducks, etc. You know Devin,…….
Immanentize
@hilts: I did. Oddly, Holly Near is in it. Not on my favorite adaptations list. Nor are any of the Heller Catch 22 movies (although I heart Alan Arkin). It may just be too hard to pull that kind of horror insanity off in anything as short as a movie.
Jinchi
It was witness testimony during the House hearings that captivated the public attention. Civil servants bravely and professionally testifying to clear evidence of wrongdoing. That’s what McConnell wants to avoid. He can always dismiss anything said by Democratic Senators and Congressmen.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TaMara (HFG): The back button is…unpredictable.
debbie
@hilts:
Yes, and I liked it very much.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
It came out after the series, apparently a part of the book that was edited out. Kirkus called it bland.
debbie
I know that Twitter is rife with paranoia and that these clowns couldn’t find their way out of a wet paper bag, but I sure hope this doesn’t turn out to be the real hoax.
And from one of the responses:
James E Powell
@Feathers:
I was not aware of a High Fidelity HULU series. Thanks for letting us know about it. The trailer looks good. I will definitely check it out. I loved that book. Zoe Kravitz’s mother was in the movie.
Kent
Well, if we are comparing the two. Clinton didn’t block a single witness from testifying and complied with every document request and subpoena. So yes. Exactly the same circumstances.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: I’ve had those fears, I thought Lev’s phone was gonna be like Al Capone’s vault, but.. all those documents. The texts, the names, the voicemails, the notes on Vienna hotel stationary.
I would dial back the assassination talk– that’s something that should wait for stronger evidence.
(and I still think Bolton is playing some kind of weird game, and I don’t trust him)
Jinchi
Have you seen Mike Pence?
I mean seriously, it’s going to be hard for him to switch from human house plant mode to steely, determined and presidential. Plus he’d eventually have to start speaking in complete sentences.
TaMara (HFG)
@Jay: Thank you for thinking of the ducks! Their lawyer isn’t very good.
feebog
The corollary to that is that most career criminals are stupid. Parnas did not come across as stupid in this interview tonight, but good grief, his participation in this entire shitshow demonstrates he is not a smart person. Let’s also remember most career criminals lie as easily as they breathe. Every word he uttered tonight needs to be fact checked and double fact checked.
Feathers
I will argue that the best film adaptation of a book is The Princess Bride. Why? Because William Goldman had the genius inspiration to keep the story within a story the same, but use completely different framing devices for the book and movie. The movie has charming Peter Falk telling the “good parts version” to adorable grandson Fred Savage. The book has William Goldman trying to abridge the favorite book of his childhood, which he learns has enormous amounts of political commentary when he goes to read it to his own son, who is bored by it. So you get the adventure story with a (hilarious) summary of the removed portions.
It is the only adaptation pairing I know of where you can read or watch first and then go and have the entirely different experience of the book or movie without either being spoiled by having seen the movie or read the book first.
William Goldman is a genius.
Also, if your library has it, read his memoir Hype and Glory. It’s about the year where he was on both the Cannes Film Festival jury and the judging panel for the Miss America pageant. It was the year Gretchen Carlson won the Miss America title. The backstage story on that is all in the book, but I haven’t heard or read anyone bringing that context into her present story.
Immanentize
@James E Powell: and speaking of the talented Kravitz family. By far my hands down favorite most beautiful Lenny Kravitz song:
I Build this Garden
Enjoy. Then sleep like I am about to….
cain
You know that’s not going to happen. Trump will not step down and he will make sure that he takes everyone down with him like a mob boss would do.
Even if it went down the way you think it would, do you think that Trump will allow Pence to replace him? Oh no.. there will be a blood letting there too. He will fuck up everyone’s world after he has exhausted every legal option. Eg he will force his legal team to go to the supreme court if it went against him. He will use it all, but it will come to naught.
Another Scott
@Kai-two: Hemingway – The Sun Also Rises:
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
@Jinchi: I’m not saying he is presidential. I’m just saying that he will walk around with a stern look on his face like this: https://thinkprogress.org/mike-pence-dmz-mean-mugging-4416f20192f9/ and Tweety and Brooks will wet their pants about how “presidential” he looks, FOX will gush 24/7 and that will become the narrative. Because that’s what they do.
hilts
@Immanentize:
@debbie:
Speaking of Alan Arkin, another film adaptation I liked was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. He won a NY Film Critics Circle award for his performance.
Also, I’m a big fan of the film adaptations of The Andromeda Strain, MASH, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Fahrenheit 451, and Ice Station Zebra.
Immanentize
@hilts: 7 (3) Days of the Condor?
All your suggestions are very good. But… Not all those books are so great. I do think the original Farenheit 451 was pretty moving.
Alan Arkin = Simon.
This topic deserves a whole thread some day. But I gotta go
Aleta
Maurice, Makioka Sisters
Hon. Mention: The Fly (w/Jeff G)
debbie
@hilts:
What did you think of the Road (if you’ve seen or read it)? I thought both showed the strength of the medium. There were parts of the book that were more chilling than they were in the movie, while some things in the movie better conveyed the desolation than the book did.
hilts
@Immanentize:
I’ll second that.
Love Three Days of the Condor.
Kent
Since you guys are talking book adaptations, did anyone catch the Jane Austin adaptation of her unfinished novel Sanditon on Masterpiece Sunday? It was a promising start. My daughter, a Jane Austin fan, liked it. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/shows/sanditon/#
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Immanentize: Teri Gross recently replayed her interview with Francis Ford Coppola, and how he made a great movie out of a mediocre novel
also, he shoots down an old Mario Puzo story about how Puzo claimed he recruited Brando for the part, and how Danny Thomas, who was richer than god from TV, was at one point gonna buy the almost bankrupt Paramount so he could cast himself as Don Corleone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: I thought the movie looked like it was very well done, and friends I trust told me it was very well done, but I was so gutted by the book I’ve never been able to watch it.
hilts
@debbie:
Unfortunately, I’ve neither read the novel nor seen the film, but I’ve heard great things about Cormac McCarthy. I know many critics regard him as one of the great novelists of his generation, so he’s on my insanely long list of writers to check out.
Tom Q
Late additions to the lit discussion:
Slaughterhouse Five is a surprisingly impressive approximation of a novel that you’d think would defeat any attempt to adapt.
The gold standard for improvements between page and screen would have to go to The Godfather. Borderline trash novel, with whole sections that seem out of Harold Robbins. But an epic movie without flaws.
On a lesser level, Jaws achieved something of the same: purged the airport-book stuff, emphasized the adventure.
For me, best book making best movie is The Unbearable Lightness of Being — a great novel transferred beautifully.
And, going back in time, The Maltese Falcon (Huston version) is a perfect equivalent of Hammett’s book. And Double Indemity is beyond great.
eddie blake
ffc’s bram stoker’s dracula is one of my favorites.
Kent
@hilts: Blood Meridian is Cormac McCarthy’s western epic. Searing and violent. Kind of a American Apocalypse Now or Heart of Darkness. I don’t think there have been any film adaptions.
hilts
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I heard that Coppola interview a few years back. I’ve also heard an interview with Mario Puzo in which he stated that his goal while writing The Godfather was to create a bestseller to make lots of money to support his family and that creating a great work of literature was the farthest thing from his mind.
Steeplejack (phone)
See, stuff is already starting to percolate. Tee-hee.
Scott Alloway
@Baud: Concur. The MAGATs I hear from kinda let him be with mild trashings, as opposed to Bernie, Warren, Hilary and Obama. They can’t seem to get worked up over him. And I’m in PA.
clay
@Immanentize: I just don’t see how something that has happened exactly once, 150 years ago, is in any way predictive. The past is a foreign country, after all.
They didn’t have TV or internet or women’s suffrage. They barely had mechanical transportation. Hell, Senators weren’t yet directly elected. The political pressures and consequences of a president “winning by losing” an impeachment vote — and the Senators who voted on it — are completely different now than they were then.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I was gutted too, and so very resistant to seeing the film. But I’m glad I did. The scenes were filmed in NO after Katrina and on Mount Saint Helens, so there was plenty of devastation to be seen.
hilts
@Tom Q:
Because of my intense love of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II , I can’t bring myself to read the novel knowing that it would be a major disappointment. I second your recommendation of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Also have to give a shout out to David Lean’s wonderful adaptation of Great Expectations.
hilts
@Kent:
I’ve read several reviews of the book and it certainly sounds great.
Jay
@TaMara (HFG):
how’s his/her bill? ( the duck’s lawyer,….. groan)
Kent
Well, impeachment and Parnas has certainly blown the Warren – Biden spat off the internet.
Martin
Regarding the interaction between Warren and Sanders at the end of the debate, I believe her, and I’ll leave it at that.
hilts
@Kay:
Very disappointed that MSNBC killed Gura’s weekend show. The bosses at the network are supposedly planning many lineup changes. Chuck Todd is supposedly pissed off about MTP Daily being moved to sometime in the morning.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hilts:
Yeah, I think Coppola told that part of the story on Fresh Air. And I think it was on last weeks WTF that Joe Mantegna said that GF-3 got completely thrown off the track when Robert Duvall got mad (about his salary?) and dropped out at the last minute
@Martin: me, too
TomatoQueen
@Kent: If you mean Jane Austen, then yes, as a loyal Janeist I watched part one, and had the feeling that she didn’t finish it for the perfectly good reason that other efforts were better by far. Also, if the timing is right, she may have been too ill to continue. Still, can’t complain about lovely lovely sets and costumes.
Kent
@Martin: Me to. You don’t make up a lie like that unless you are Trump. No one else baldly lies like that out of the blue, making up a conversation that didn’t happen.
Anya
@Kent: Not from Twitter though. The misogynist wing of Bernie supporters are still replying with snake emojis whenever anyone mentions Warren’s name. It’s like they have a bat single or something.
Jay
patrick II
@hilts:
I did see Slaughter House Five. It missed having what I thought was the most remarkable metaphor in the book. Billy Pilgrim is traveling backwards through time and watches as the fires burning down Dresden are sucked back into steel containers, elevated into large airplanes and taken back back to disassembly plants where the components are taken apart and put safely back in the ground where they came from.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya:
Kent
@TomatoQueen: Austin? Austen? Yes, I meant Jane Austen. I’m not an Austen aficionado but I read some of her stuff in school and have seen most of the big movie adaptations. I found both the setting (a beach resort) and the black characters refreshing for an 1820s work. I had no idea travel tourism was that much of a thing 200 years ago. Obviously as an unfinished novel it doesn’t have the tight polish of her other works. But I’m enjoying it.
Kent
@Anya: Yeah, but about 0.001% of undecided voters follow these election spats on twitter. They are just howling into the wind and making themselves look 13 years old. The snake thing is unbelievably stupid.
Mnemosyne
@Feathers:
Goldman continuously refers to Carlson as the “God-hugger.” He was not a fan, but he was outvoted.
hilts
@patrick II:
I would have loved seeing that included in the film as well, but I’m still thankful that it got made.
hilts
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think that was a total bullshit move by the studio. Duvall was brilliant in the first 2 films and they should have paid whatever the Hell he requested.
I’ve also heard that Coppola was extremely reluctant to direct Godfather Part III and was told by studio execs that this film would get made with or without his participation.
Jay
@Anya:
keep in mind that a bunch of Rose Twitter and the Bernie Bots are engaged in, what the cool kids call “inauthentic behaviour”.
what that means is networks of <350 followers, ( with mostly the same shared follower) , retweeting through 5-8 “nodes”, ( larger number of follower accounts) to amplify and rebroadcast the message.
A bunch of blue checkmark Bernie Bots and Rose Twitter accounts issued “stop it” tweets early today, but it hasn’t stopped.
remember Watergirl’s Pie Filter front page?
Twitter has no pie filter, so it’s basically 400 or so “shit stirrers” keeping the fight going, many of whom, ain’t Americans. Some who are, but you won’t ever see them at a Sanders Town Hall.
A handfull turns themselves into what seems to be a horde through amplification using anger and outrage to get retweets and start fights, and keep them going.
Social Media researchers are just starting to map these nodes and networks, track and bust the “fakes”, because of the way that the networks are being used, ( not just by these Berni-whatevers, also by Nazis, MAGAt’s), which is right out of the Internet Research Agency’s sucessful playbook.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Win!