Is this why Charlie's looking so rough lately? https://t.co/LEfzjn6C18 pic.twitter.com/Uj7xbGsJWk
— Schooley (@Rschooley) November 27, 2020
It was only a year ago that Charlie and Jerry Falwell Jr. were both riding high, announcing their new ‘Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty’ — “a national think tank with the mission of equipping “courageous champions to proclaim the Truth of Jesus Christ, to advance His Kingdom, and renew American ideals.” And yet for some reason (professional jealousy, perhaps), the Falkirk Center was eyed askance by more traditional education institutes.
Then Falwell’s ‘Poolboy Scandal’ broke. If you need a refresher, TPM has an interview with the young dude at the (ahem) heart of the story: “Sex, Lies, And Regret: Giancarlo Granda Reels From Eight Years With The Falwells”.
Now all the GOP Death Cult machers are pointing bony fingers at poor pitiful young Charlie…
… To Trump’s critics, Biden gained ground with young voters because of who his opponent was: a divisive politician with a culture wars playbook that failed to energize audiences outside of his base. But among the president’s campaign aides and allies, the consensus is far less clear. Interviews with more than a dozen people involved in Trump’s 2020 operation revealed rifts, acrimony and a system in which no one would take the blame but everyone had a scapegoat — from the president himself, to the campaign to outside groups like Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk’s conservative campus organizing group…
Others faulted the Trump campaign, accusing the president’s top aides of “outsourcing” his youth outreach program to Turning Point Action, the political action arm of the conservative campus group Turning Point USA.
Led by its 26-year-old founder, Charlie Kirk, the group oversaw myriad door-knocking and grassroots get-out-the-vote efforts this cycle, in addition to working with top White House aides like senior adviser Jared Kushner to plan events that put the president and his surrogates in front of young audiences. People involved with Kirk’s operation claimed his “herculean” efforts to boost Trump’s reelection were done without input or resources from the Trump campaign — much to their chagrin in the months leading up to the Nov. 3 election.
But two Trump campaign aides who have worked closely with Kirk said the campaign had its own youth outreach efforts that went beyond voters who are still in college. These aides described Turning Point’s messaging as too sycophantic to bring in young voters who might align more closely with conservatism but remain apprehensive about Trump himself. Kirk was afforded a primetime speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in August and has a close relationship with the president and some of his adult children…
Another Trump ally described Turning Point Action as ill-equipped to handle youth outreach for a major party presidential campaign “because it’s a relatively new organization without deeper community ties.”
People close to Kirk rejected these claims, suggesting the young activist and his group did what they could to help the president, and accused the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee of lacking the organizational skills and resources needed to reach broad swaths of young voters in the critical 2020 battlegrounds…
He’s young, I’m sure we’ll be hearing about his ongoing grifts for many years to come. Meanwhile, here’s some context for the picture at the top, because hre really does sound bitter & defeated:
He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. https://t.co/OsTgxvzOq7
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) November 17, 2020
SFAW
“The Left has always hated Thanksgiving”?
For someone who espouses his love of God, he must think God is a fucking moron.
Sister Golden Bear
He looks like Steve Bannon in training.
Those diapers will come in handy during the week-long benders.
Jerzy Russian
I guess there is nothing I can do except root for injuries here.
Mike in NC
Has anybody given us an update on Brad Parscale? Asking for a friend.
Benw
The “Left”, like Germany in WW2, has made a fatal mistake of opening a second front against Thanksgiving in early winter without having decisively won our war on Christmas. To the barricades around our non-denominationally designed Starbucks coffee cups, Comrades!
Jeez this guy is so dumb that he’ll be a successful Republican.
Jerzy Russian
@SFAW:
I am not sure if they are “left” but in my youth I saw a calendar from PETA that listed the fourth Thursday of November as “Turkey Murder Day”. One might have surmised that PETA’s membership were not fans of the holiday the rest of us call “Thanksgiving”.
Bill Arnold
Kirk’s problem, and it’s very common on the right, is that he has no accurate mental model of the left-of-himself in America. It’s really quite pathetic.
West of the Rockies
@Mike in NC:
Dude apparently made a TV appearance today per Mediaite. I didn’t read the article because, well, Parscale.
Ken
@Jerzy Russian: PETA is sometimes called leftist, but they’re really off somewhere on their own axis. It’s sort of like XKCD’s take on apples, except PETA’s axis may not even intersect the usual left-right political axis, nor that extra one the libertarians use.
Shakti
@Sister Golden Bear: I have trouble believing this guy is in his mid-20s. I had him pegged for 35, at least. He looks like an angry, balding potato…. And that photoshopped picture for promos… still looks 35.
dmsilev
Speaking of schadenfreude..
20 days of fantasy and failure: Inside Trump’s quest to overturn the election
It’s a long article. One gets the sense that the Post’s reporters enjoyed writing it.
NotMax
@dmsilev
From the same article:
patrick II
@Ken:
Are all Petans vegetarian?
Anne Laurie
Last I heard (sometime pre-election), Parscale was out of the rehab institution & shopping a book around. Not sure he’ll find a publisher… unless some Regency clone decides it’s better to have him inside the tent pissing out…
On the other hand, if the Permanent GOP is trying to memoryhole That Guy in the WH, ‘I knew him when, here’s more dirt’ is not gonna be the easy money it’s been for the last four years, either.
dmsilev
@NotMax: We’ll find out eventually that those advisers were actually the two turkeys Trump pardoned on Wednesday. Bonus: their legal advice was far more realistic than anything Giuliani has to offer.
MattF
@dmsilev: Good article for a description of events. But, as Anne Applebaum has commented, we should be using the vocabulary and narrative of mental illness here, rather than law or politics
ETA: I.e., decompensation.
cain
It’s always wonderful to celebrate when shitty things happen to bad people.
NotMax
@dmsilev
“Christ on a strawberry. He’s bonkers.”
– Capt. Queeg
.
Kent
Charlie Kirk is pathetic. He’s basically the new Ralph Reed who was the young conservative campus organizer back when I was in college, except that Ralph Reed was actually better at it and did it at a younger age before he went full in on the grift and started working for Jack Abramoff to defraud Indian tribes.
The problem, of course, is that Kirk is from Liberty University which automatically gives him zero cred on any campus to the left of say Oral Roberts University.
Feathers
@patrick II: Vegans, please. Vegetarians get sent to the re-education camps, where they are forced to burn all their wool sweaters.
Couldn’t find it on YouTube, but there was a fantastic clip from some British show where there were a bunch of self-congratulatory vegans became increasingly dismayed as a woman went stricter and stricter vegan, eliminating anything pollinated by domesticated bees. Which meant basically no fruit or nuts. Very funny. You can do vegan with generosity, and it is lovely, but it just curdles so many.
The Oracle of Solace
“The Left has always hated Thanksgiving.” JFC, the lies they are willing to tell—and that conservatives are eager to believe—about their fellow Americans never cease to surprise and astonish. I just did a video on QAnon and the blood libel, dammit, and now I’ve got to deal with the war on Thanksgiving? That’s it, I’m going to bed.
trollhattan
I’m pretty okay with having no idea who this tool is.
MattF
@Feathers: Hey! Beans have feelings too, y’know.
Kent
@Feathers: My wife is mostly vegan but for health reasons. Basically follows and teaches a plant-based diet and never uses the word “vegan” When we go out to eat (pre-pandemic) we mostly search out vegan restaurants to keep her happy. Which is fine and pretty easy to do here in the Portland metro area because there are so many choices, some of them exceedingly good.
The community of folks who follow plant-based diets are OK. For weight loss, lower cholesterol, etc. It’s the moralistic vegans who make my skin crawl.
mrmoshpotato
I’m thankful I can still laugh at assclownery like this.
Juju
@Sister Golden Bear: you made me spew hot chocolate on my phone with your comment. Thanks for the laugh. I have to go clean my phone now.
mrmoshpotato
@Shakti:
As opposed to us sexy-as-hell potatoes.
ETA – actually, what you said is just offensive to potatoes in general. 😁
NotMax
@MattF
“People say in Boston even beans do it.”
– Cole Porter
.
A different oldie but goody: Peas mean something.
;)
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
😂😂😂😂😂
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato:
For your consideration
rikyrah
26?
That’s a harrddd 26🤔🤔
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: I would’ve titles it 20 Days of Dumbfuck Fascism and Assclownery.
Achrachno
@Mike in NC: I’ve been googling him periodically and not finding much. A week or so ago there was an article reporting that he’s selling the house where he fell apart, threatened his wife, and got arrested.
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon:
Published last year
mrmoshpotato
@MattF: Just don’t eat anything that was once living.
That’ll show all those meat-eating savages!
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: Yes, but you have eyes that cannot see.
mrmoshpotato
@Juju: Mmmmmm chocolate phone.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Think of the children.
20 Days In Dismay.
;)
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: Hawt potato.
NotMax
@mrnmoshpotato
But they wriggle around so much if you eat them while they’re alive.
//
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Assclowning Around Before Eviction
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Here ya go.
:)
West of the Rockies
For the 4 people in the nation who are interested, Maria Bartri-whatever on Fox is interviewing toxic male Parscale tomorrow.
karen marie
Republican circular firing squad is fine by me.
oclib
I didn’t know Charlie went to Liberty, but then, why should I. Still, my first thought was if Charlie had caught Becki’s eye during the Falwell’s walk through campus. Noting the pool boy, I think not….it may be time for another glass of vino….
Major Major Major Major
@West of the Rockies: I look forward to something awful happening and reading about it on Twitter.
MagdaInBlack
@oclib: Charlie might catch ones eye, but not in a good way.
Puddinhead
@MagdaInBlack: yeah, a face made for radio as they say. He would have been a pool boy after maybe six to ten wine spritzers for Mrs. Falwell.
Sm*t Cl*de
I’m going out on a limb here to speculate that the only evidence that these herculean door-knocking / phone-banking / voter-registration activities ever took place are statements from Charlie Kirk and his sockpuppets.
Poe Larity
Not seeing it. Maybe if he dyed his hair blonde and shopped at Hugo Boss.
How did Nazi pool boys dress?
Mary G
Charlie’s one of the better grifters – I think his salary is $350,000 a year. He’s also dumber than a stump. I was tweeting at the NRA in 2017 about where they got the millions of dollars they donated to Twitler, and Charlie butted in to mansplain to me that I had the numbers wrong and here was a link to prove it. I tweeted back that the year he had pointed out was 2017, and his own link proved I was right about 2016. Then he blocked me. I was happy.
Achrachno
@Major Major Major Major: I’m hoping Brad will spill what he knows, though I doubt Maria is the person who’ll get it out of him. She’s probably more likely to aid in a cover up in an effort to protect the plutocrats of whom she seems fond. The Trump inner circle is reportedly scared of the possibility Parscale will talk, and of a book he may have in the works. I hope he’s angry and vindictive toward T and his crew.
Feathers
@Kent: Yes, I had a Buddhist friend who I kept a pan in my downstairs cupboard so we could cook for her on a never-meat pan. * Had someone else coming for dinner, calling me to tell me she’s vegan. “Oh, do you want me to use the never meat pans I use for my Buddhist friends.” She was actually really annoyed. You can go far by out crazying an opponent.
*This was just a fry pan and little saucepan I picked up at a yard sale. It turns out never meat pans just can’t be used for meat once you own them. My friend, who lives on the West Coast now, had an asshole roommate who cooked meat using her cookware, so I bought the pans just to show support.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Oh Internet. Don’t ever change.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: You made Trump trash show their ass on the Internet, and they blocked you? Shocking. Not.
lgerard
The irony of Charlie Kirk having some kind of “center” at any university is just over the top.
He dropped out of college when he realized that the libtards were trying to
educateindoctrinate him.The Failkirk Center is just an obvious scam to keep Becki Falwell supplied with young studs.
Jay
TPUSA wore diapers to “own the libs”,
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/diaper-turning-point-usa-kent-state-student-conservative-youth-repulican-kaitlin-bennett-a8230021.html%3famp
This is your ReThuglican brain trust.
Anne Laurie
IIRC, when Charlie first appeared on social media (in his Diaper Boy days), he claimed he was supposed to go to West Point, but his congresscritter gave Charlie’s slot to ‘one of those people’ — booga booga, affirmative action!
The congressional office in question sent out a general message that there were always more applicants than slots available, and that there was a particular plethora of extremely qualified candidates in their district.
Too also, they said, there was no record young Kirk had gone to the trouble of submitting the necessary paperwork, for some reason…
lumpkin
Charlie Kirk looks like he’s been spending some quality time with Donald Trump Jr and a big bag of white powder.
WereBear
It’s no surprise Liberty University is deep into this effort. Their Fundamentalism, stretching back to when that branch went political, relies on followers kept as uninformed and gullible as humanly possible.
They have voluntarily left the mainstream, which is incredibly corporate and self-serving, but still wants to make money in reality.
lumpkin
@Shakti:
Son, it says here you’re 27 but that’s impossible, you look like you could be 45….
https://youtu.be/KfkKaiFiWv0
Yutsano
@Feathers: Fascinating. I had no idea a Buddhist would have an objection like that. Honestly worth holding on to if you have an Orthodox Jewish friend too, as then you have a “clean” set of cookware to make a milk based dish out of.
Ruckus
@Jay:
They keep their brains in their diapers?
Sounds correct……
Ruckus
@lumpkin:
That’s a song of my yout. OK I wasn’t all that much of a yout anymore.
A good friend was a coke dealer when that song came out. It was the best of times. OK it was just a time. He’s one of a very large list of friends who is no longer with us. From Oct 2015 to October 2017 I lost 13 of my friends. He was the first of that group. My family all passed between 2001 and 2012. It’s been a delightful couple of decades. If it wasn’t for the alternative this getting old shit would be crap.
lumpkin
@Ruckus:
Those were the days, my friend. Those were the days.
J R in WV
Geeze, if I lost 13 friends, I would be getting lonely soon.
So sorry for your loss…
WereBear
@Ruckus: Damn. I am sorry.
What is keeping me going is wanting to know how it all comes out…
Ascap_scab
Looks like he’s auditioning for Limbaugh’s spot after he croaks. Just one thing, bring more “funny”.
Luciamia
@SFAW: Yes, and the Left are also against puppies, comfy chairs and the laughter of children. Jesus, what a bitter, desperate fool for 26.
Geminid
@WereBear: Liberty University seems to have fostered a right wing political network that is active in politics here in the Virginia 5th Congressional District. I think they keep it on the down-low to avoid pushback from other republicans and the general public. When Congressman Garrett abruptly announced his retirement spring of 2018, the District Republican Commitee met to pick a new nominee. Surprisingly, a Liberty U. lecturer was a top contender. She had previously contested and lost the 6th District nomination, and her claim to fame were the extremist views she had expressed as a member of the Texas State Board of Education. On the third ballot Libertarian-ish Denver Riggleman beat her by one vote. Her supporters expressed hard feelings, and two years later were able to roll Riggleman at a District Convention, and install another Liberty employee, the loathsome Bob Good, as the new nominee. He won, but I am hoping he will be a one-termer. The 5th was drawn by a republican General Assembly to be a republican district, but will be redrawn more neutrally before the 2022 midterms. I suspect that the hard core Baptists who now run Liberty U. are relieved that Junior is gone. He was becoming a liability even before this summer’s scandals. His brother Jonathan still has the big church. It is said that Jonathan and Junior’s grandfather and great uncles were major bootleggers back in the day.
Frankensteinbeck
They are not making up the “The Left hates Thanksgiving” thing. I mean, they’re wrong, but it has a real basis. Asshole racists (Republicans) have seen liberals point out for decades that the Pilgrims actually treated Native Americans like shit, and if you call out racism, for them that’s it, the disagreement is now black and white and you hate America and American things.
Geminid
I see that Admiral Charles McCraven, former JSOC commander (and forceful trump critic), will be on ABC’s This Week today. I suspect he was invited so he could comment on Friday’s assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has had some good articles about the the assassination and it’s possible impact. There is a paywall, and I could only read one article in full. I may subscribe when the next Israeli election begins, which may be as early as this week. Israeli politics are very complex, hard to keep up with.
Sloane Ranger
@Anne Laurie:
Sorry, slightly OT, but are you saying that politicians get to decide who goes to your country’s elite military training school? It’s not done through some sort of competitive selection process?
If so, that seems…odd for a nation that claims, rightly or wrongly, to be a meritocracy.
Anne Laurie
Well, a West Point degree is a first-class, top-networking degree that costs the applicants essentially nothing, so the competition is fierce. And, yes, most of the successful applicants have ‘letters of recommendation’ from one or more of their congresspersons.
While hardly small-d democratic, it’s been a boon for smart, ambitious young people whose parents can’t buy or name-swap them a place in the Ivy League schools. And the more not-upper-middle-class, not-white, not-male the percentage of the student body… the more walking turds like Charlie Kirk pretend they totally would’ve gone to West Point (i.e., committed to military service after graduation, patriotically) if not for affirmative action.
Geminid
@Sloane Ranger: Senators and congressmen have selected service academy students since the the early 19th century. In his autobiography, U.S. Grant ascribed his West Point nomination to Ohio Congressman Hamer’s desire to make peace with Grant’s father. Hammer and Jesse Grant had been good friends, but had been estranged for years after falling out over some policy of Andrew Jackson’s. Service Academy appointments are now quite competitive, I understand, but are still the perquisite of Congressmembers.
Geminid
@Geminid: Grant had no desire to attend West Point, but his father strongly insisted. When Grant arrived at the school he found that he was enrolled as Ullysses Simpson Grant. His middle name was actually Hiram, but Congressman Hamer did not know it and used the mother’s maiden name as Grant’s middle same. West pointers like nicknames, so Grant became “Uncle Sam” and then just “Sam.” Grant was good at math and got on well with the professor, so his plan was to serve a couple years in the field, return to West Point as junior faculty, and then get a position teaching math at a midwestern college. But the war with Mexico broke out not long after his graduation, and Grant ended up on a different path.
evodevo
@Geminid: Actually, his birth name was Hiram Ulysses Grant…and he supposedly did NOT want the initials HUG on his luggage..at least that’s what I read when I visited his birthplace house in Point Pleasant, OH many many years ago…
Geminid
@evodevo: That’s right. Thank you for the correction. It’s kind of a good thing Congressman Hamer also misremembered the name.
Uncle Cosmo
Major D’Ismay: Bastard and Commander, 01st Chairborne.
Geminid
@evodevo: I’ve wanted to visit Georgetown, OH, where Grant grew up. His autobiography describes a happy childhood. His father was a fairly prosperous farmer who built a tanning business to profit off of Ohio’s prospering economy. Jesse Grant’s sons had to work in the tannery, but Hiram Ullysses was allowed to pay another boy to take his place when he had driving jobs. Grant was an experienced teamster before ever got to West Point, and was considered top rider in his class. During the 4th Infantry’s campaigns in the Mexican War Grant was regimental quartermaster, but when there was a battle Grant would leave a sergeant in charge of the wagon trains and participate in the fighting. Grant’s Autobiography is well-written, and is worth reading.
SFAW
@Luciamia:
Well, in fairness, according to Michael Palin, a comfy chair is an instrument of torture.
Jeffery
Young evangelicals actually expect that hungry be fed, the sick be tended to, the homeless sheltered. Somehow Lil Donald didn’t deliver on any of that. Nor have the so-called leaders of the evangelical movement.
Tokyokie
@Geminid: If I recall correctly, Mark Twain played a big role in creating Grant’s memoir, so of course it’s well written.
Gvg
@Sloane Ranger: the process is old, predating widespread records. Congressmen get some nominations to West Point. In the past it was done very seriously with congressional staff researching applicants. I am not so sure how it goes with some of the crackpots in office now.
Ken B
@Tokyokie: Clemons was the publisher, and he handled the promotion and the sales, but Grant wrote his own memoirs.
He wrote them while he was dying in agony from throat cancer so that his family would have something to live on.
Mark Twain/Samuel Clemons admired Grant, encouraged him to write his memoirs, and moved the heavens and the earth to make sure that they made as much money for Grant’s family as possible. I don’t remember whether he refused any renumeration at all, or agreed to repay his expenses, but Twain didn’t make a profit himself.
Grant’s memoirs was one of the best selling books of its day, and the money pretty much all went to Grant’s family.
jc
I want to hear more about how Trump and Michael Cohen found out about the dirt on Falwell Jr., and used it to pressure Jerry to endorse Trump’s candidacy — the support of evangelicals was crucial to Trump’s win in 2016.
Yes, Falwell Jr. is a creepy, hypocritical perv — but if it’s true that Trump won because he blackmailed poor, pervy Jerry, that’s just another reason that Trump should be disgraced forever more and held criminally liable.
billcinsd
@Sloane Ranger: Well, when I almost had an appointment to West Point in 1980, it was reasonably competitive. We had to score above a certain level on the SAT or ACT, pass a physical test, undergo a physical, and get interviewed by the Senators staff. I believe the prospective appointees were ranked. My eyes were too bad to pass the physical. Had I been selected, I would have had to buy some uniforms (about $350 at that time), and then get paid during your UG years. Also, except for specific events, one couldn’t leave campus during one’s first two years
The Pale Scot
Meth can do that to a person
Uncle Cosmo
@Ken B: Since the proper forms of names is central to this sub-discussion: It’s Clemens, not “Clemons:”
The Pale Scot
@Sister Golden Bear:
He looks like Curtis Sliwa’s eviler twin Błazen