look at all of you shouting better things aren't possible https://t.co/xf0PDFAF3k
— zeddy (@Zeddary) January 3, 2022
Any word on who Putin is going to appoint as his replacement? https://t.co/vChA2mCoS7
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) January 3, 2022
JUST IN: New York Attorney General has officially subpoenaed Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
2022 is starting off great!
— Aaron Parnas (@AaronParnas) January 3, 2022
Some smart political scientist w campaign finance chops should look at her fundraising, & her use of Twitter, analyze the relationship, & then track the inevitable decline in revenue now that she can’t fundraise for free. https://t.co/sG1eOqKzua
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) January 2, 2022
debbie
To add to that third Tweet:
Chief Oshkosh
I wonder if Jarvanka still gets seated at NYC restaurants.
David Fud
Has anyone seen represent.us and what do they think? Is this a No Labels clone or something more important and better?
Baud
@David Fud:
Name sounds fishy. But I don’t know.
NotMax
@Chief Oshkosh
In the stall furthest from the rest room door.
;)
germy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chief Oshkosh: depending on the restaurant, I’m sure they do. A few days after the ’16 election, trump got a standing ovation at a fancy Manhattan restaurant– I wanna say 21? There was a piece in New York mage a couple of weeks ago about a place on the upper east side that’s a hangout for right wingers.
germy
topclimber
@debbie:
They have to beat the Russian mob if they want any Trump assets, net of liabilities.
germy
“Hold hands, you love birds!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I read once that one of the Kardashians gets paid an obscene amount of money to tweet the words “Diet Coke” so many times a month. I don’t know how the whole ‘influencer’ thing works, but does this look to anyone else like Melanie is looking for an independent source of income? I saw something a couple of weeks ago that made me think the same thing.
zhena gogolia
@germy: Cauvin has already lampooned it.
Raoul Paste
Can you imagine the AG of New York seizing trump organisation assets? Very unlikely to happen, but if it did, boy, you couldn’t write fiction like that
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That reminds me.
Jack Daniels.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: I wish them a long and detailed prenup, cause that will minimize the odds of him making more trumps, of which he has made enough
JPL
@debbie: They are asking for the subpoena to be quashed, because of the ongoing criminal investigation. We’ll see what happens, but legal eagles are saying it’s doubtful that they win.
Ken
@JPL: “We should not have to testify because we are under criminal investigation”? Sounds like the old adage about murdering your parents and asking for the court’s mercy because you’re an orphan.
The possibility that Nunes resigned to join a company that’s about to be seized is nice, although I suppose Trump has everything so compartmentalized that seizing the Organization* won’t affect this new grift.
* Not to be confused with the Syndicate, the criminal organization from the Mission: Impossible TV show.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As I understand it, the idea with influencers is that they develop a following for whatever it is they’re supposed to be good at- it can be anything from putting on makeup to playing video games- and then get paid to mention sponsors in their videos. The pay may be direct money for mentions, or it may just be “we give you free [whatever] if you promise to give us a good word”.
narya
@Chief Oshkosh: Because I am a petty person sometimes, this pleases me more than almost anything other than actual conviction and imprisonment. They have this vision of themselves as part of a global elite, and to have that punctured, repeatedly, would be (is?) a thing of beauty.
West of the Rockies
Honestly, I thought Nunes had been out of Congress for a couple years.
burnspbesq
I give Nunes 60 days as CEO of a public company before he’s in deep shit with the SEC. If I were a betting man, I would bet that he will be under indictment by the end of 2022.
eclare
@narya: Those two were at the Met Costume Gala years ago. That is gone…Anna Wintour does not approve. Meow!
Baud
@burnspbesq:
I like the way you talk.
Redshift
@burnspbesq: He has “resting fall-guy face.”
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
I’m not sure if the business will still be a going concern in 60 days.
Ken
How does California handle empty Congressional seats? Is there going to be a special election in Nunes’ , or will it just be open for the rest of the term?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@debbie: Sweet! I just read this tweet to my husband, who said, “Sounds like a win-win to me”. Me too!
jnfr
@germy:
Can we say “spousal privilege”?
burnspbesq
Nunes’ most fundamental problem is that he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.
A special election to fill that seat will be a democratic feeding frenzy.
burnspbesq
@jnfr:
Yes, but we can also say “crime-fraud exception.”
germy
@jnfr:
Same trick that Matt Gaetz pulled?
Roger Moore
FYI, it sounds as if the jury will be reading the verdicts on the 8 of 11 charges against Elizabeth Holmes for which they can agree. This seems a bit unusual to me- they announced they were deadlocked earlier today, and I thought they were usually given more time to come to agreement- but it will be good to know how they saw those 8 counts. I assume that if they find guilty the prosecutor won’t bother to go back and retry the other 3 counts.
Miss Bianca
@germy:
One of those lines that will never fail to crack me up.
Scout211
@Ken:
There hasn’t been an announcement yet, but the final redistricting map splits Nunes’ current 22nd into three different different districts. So the candidates running to finish his term (if they run a special election) will have to decide which district they want to run in for the 2022 midterms.
germy
I’m not sure if the Palmer Report is a legitimate source.
I honestly don’t know. Does anyone here have any info on that?
H.E.Wolf
Ms. Guilfoyle will turn 52 in a couple of months. I think the odds are (thankfully) minimal already. :)
narya
@eclare: THAT is exactly what I mean. They have pretensions of belonging to the Gala crowd, and they just do NOT.
burnspbesq
Elizabeth Holmes guilty on four counts, not guilty on five, jury deadlocked on three.
germy
@Miss Bianca:
Emil Sitka! And that line is on his headstone.
hueyplong
@burnspbesq: I give Nunez until 5 days after the 10k is filed.
Redshift
@burnspbesq: Isn’t the company already under investigation for their partnership with a sketchy Chinese company with a history of setting up shell companies with no employees and exaggerated claims about supposed products?
Miss Bianca
@germy: So, funny story – according to my ex, who was friends with the Raimi brothers coming up in Detroit in the 70s and 80s (he went to the University of Detroit with Ted Raimi, Sam’s brother), Emil Sitka was actually a relative of theirs, a great-uncle or something, I think on their mother’s side. If I ever run into Ted R again, I will have to ask him about it. : )
Leto
(WaPo) Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes found guilty of some charges in landmark Silicon Valley fraud case
skerry
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Kim is 52 years old. The odds of more children are slim.
ETA: Saw I wasn’t the first to note this.
germy
West of the Rockies
Look up DJT Junior on Google and it says “American Activist.” I think on the second word they misspelled Asshole.
Nicole
@germy: The Palmer Report tends to draw some… perhaps more optimistic, shall we say, conclusions than a less biased source might. I found it a very comforting read in early 2017, when I couldn’t believe Trump was really going to last in the Oval Office for 4 years, but eventually realized it was a lot of big speculations based on some pretty small facts.
eclare
@narya: Jill and Michelle were on the cover of Vogue, Melanie was not. Like you, I love it.
burnspbesq
@Leto:
Guilty on three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years plus a $1 million fine.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@H.E.Wolf: I was thinking of a pre-nup that kept Junior on a very short leash…. He has his father’s high regard for martial vows.
Fair Economist
The Holmes verdict works out to guilty of some counts of investor fraud, hung on the rest, and not guilty (!) on all counts of patient fraud.
Guess it’s OK to make money by tricking patients into dying, but not OK to trick billionaire investors.
Bizarre, but at least she’ll have serious consequences.
JPL
@germy: Do you really expect them to cover white grifters? Geez, it’s not like she was missing or something.
JPL
This is from the GA Dept. of Health.
Quinerly
@germy: ?
dmsilev
But not Eric. I guess the theory is “too stupid to know anything useful”?
germy
@dmsilev:
No law against eating jars of library paste. So there’s nothing to charge him with.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fair Economist: Which do you think is easier to prove? I’ll give you a hint. Look at the verdict.
VeniceRiley
@Roger Moore: Small influencer try to use what little clout they have to contact YOU and try to get you to give them your product/service for free. It’s pathetic and funny at once.
burnspbesq
@JPL:
I don’t doubt it. Our little county (pop. 609k) had over 7,500 new cases last week, more than double the previous high and approximately 3.5 percent of the unvaxed population.
Ken
@dmsilev: If there is a legal theory , it would be “He’s the one dumb enough to be insulted, and go public to brag about what he knows.” But I think he was already subpoenaed — wasn’t he nominally in charge of the organization?
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: I’d love it if they didn’t need to subpoena home because he is voluntarily cooperating.
VeniceRiley
Elizabeth Holmes found GUILTY.
Banner day!
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-verdict-guilty_n_61d353fde4b0bb04a63bae72
burnspbesq
@Ken:
Eric sat for a deposition a while ago.
Nicole
@dmsilev: Eric was interviewed by James’ office last year
Or, what burnspbesq just said.
germy
“We weren’t smart enough to collude with Russia”
(Eric Trump)
guachi
That juju post from two threads back about getting help from David Anderson is so good it should be a front page post. Maybe in the morning at the time Anderson used to post regularly.
Drop it as an Open Thread with an invitation for others to post about any benefit they’ve gotten from the blog.
Ken
@burnspbesq: I wonder if Eric sold out his siblings, and if so whether it was deliberate or accidental.
Baud
@germy:
If the guy’s a twit
You must acquit.
Mai Naem mobile
@germy: probably has something to do with spouses having legal privileges. IIRC Kim Guilfoyle is a lawyer. I still can’t believe Gavin Newsom and Kim Guilfoyle were a couple. Makes you question Newsom’s judgement. Also cannot believe that she’s part Puerto Rican and hanging out with a Trumpov.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ken:
I always said one of the biggest surprises of the Mueller investigation was that Fredo and Gummo stuck to the script
I wish I could remember which celebrity lawyer (MSNBC celebrity) posted a screenshot of a page from Andrew Weisman’s book on twitter and said “This is as close as Weisman can legally come to telling us Don Jr took the Fifth”
Mai Naem mobile
@VeniceRiley: lock her up. The stuff from the trial was awful and Holmes was trying to pass it off all on the partner. Her faux ‘I’m just an easily misled vulnerable little woman’ act was just disgusting.
jnfr
@burnspbesq:
Point.
craigie
@germy:
I bet each of them thinks the other has money.
cain
@Mai Naem mobile:
She might have been a different person when Gavin met her.
@germy:
Looks like the best is yet to come! (for them!)
cain
@craigie: Well, someone is paying for all the cocaine they both are using!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@craigie: I always said Ivanka married Jared because she’d seen her father’s books, and his. But old Fred had real money, and I’m sure passed some of it along to that generation if only for tax purposes. I’m sure the Beast controls it. That’s why Junior came back from Aspen.
Tim O’Brien, who has also seen trump’s books, estimates he has two billion in assets and a billion in debt. I have seen it noted that his biggest assets are commcercial real estate, one third shares in three large office buildings in Manhattan (2) and San Francisco (1). I wonder how the pandemic has affected those values.
danielx
@burnspbesq:
It should only be so!
Roger Moore
@cain:
And he showed the good sense to dump her.
HumboldtBlue
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
I wouldn’t expect any big announcement. Probably a fairly generic speech.
Steve in the ATL
@JPL: this is a quality post.
Spanky
Greetings from the winter wonderland of Southern MD! Where 9 inches of very wet snow has brought down trees and power lines, making us one of the 41,000 currently without power.
At least the utility’s power. We’re running the whole house generator, though one of our two failover switches shit the bed, leaving half our circuits dark. Including the well, but giving us the furnace. Since it’s supposed to hit 16° tonight, we’ll take it.
HumboldtBlue
On the sports side, ESPN paring up the Manning brothers for a casual live blog of the Monday night game has been a stroke of pure genius.
Highly entertaining and the two invite guests to join them remotely (they’re both remote) and it can be very funny.
They’re the only reason to watch tonight’s dog of a game between the Steelers and Browns.
Tony Jay
@guachi:
Yes.
I don’t understand most (I flatter myself) of what he says, because it’s complicated mathy stuff that leaves me agog with whatthefuck every three words, and it’s also completely irrelevant to me because I’m foreign and we currently have a National Health Service paid for via taxation, but even at this distance I can smell the importance of his posts and am so very glad I can ignore them.
He don’t swear, but you can swear by him. That’s a pretty accurate tagline for one of the most important but underappreciated BJ front pagers.
trnc
I’m watching CNN do a report on the skyrocketing number of cases and hospitalizations – report by Randi Kaye, then Anderson Cooper hosting panel with Gupta and Leanne Wen. The whole segment is, how can we have this many cases, how do we stop overwhelming hospitals, etc. The only mention of the vaccine was Wen urging parent to get their kids vaccinated. Otherwise, the gist was –
– Why, it’s worse now than it was under DT
– The federal govt’s changing guidance is so confusing. This was accompanied by a clip of Fauci telling people that they could be outside without masks – BACK IN MAY
If CNN isn’t actively trying to get more republicans elected, I’d hate to see what that looks like.
SteveinPHX
@burnspbesq:
I haven’t done any looking, but would Trump’s new media venture be publicly traded? Seems to me any Trump media expedition would be privately held. Makes the book keeping easier! No SEC filings?
HumboldtBlue
@Baud:
Nope, and he won’t be naming names or any charges.
JoyceH
@Spanky: Here in Virginia I think we got about 15 inches. Lot of lost power, but mine is still on. (Yay for buried power lines!) But trees are down all OVER the place. The front and back entrances of my development are blocked and I haven’t heard a snow plow yet. A small tree went down here and hit the side of my house. I don’t think there’s damage but waiting till daylight to go look.
Dan B
Moar Good News: Betsey DeVos invested $100 mil in Theranos. Pffffft – gone.
Elizabeth Holmes isn’t all bad.
Baud
@trnc:
“Let’s compare Biden’s and Trump’s first year in office as it relates to mask mandates.”
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
Nunes is the CEO of a TFG business. Well that ought to fail spectacularly in those 60 days. Also, Nunes is the only person he could get to be Chief Effluent Officer? I mean it is fitting but still…
Patricia Kayden
Mai Naem mobile
@Dan B: don’t forget Rupert Murdoch invested in her too.
Dan B
@Mai Naem mobile: Liz is looking better and better!
Steve in the ATL
@JoyceH: no trees down in my section of Atlanta, but the exciting news is that the rain finally—after several years—knocked the deflated Mylar balloon out of the upper branches of a tree in our front yard!
So, condolences to those of you without power or roofs or whatever, but remember that there is always a bright side!
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Our floors have been installed for three weeks and they were supposed to begin sanding and finishing tomorrow but the house they were working on lost power so “not so fast. . . “!
Mike in NC
@germy: Where do we mail the anthrax?
Steve in the ATL
@raven: I have my calendar blocked out for next Tuesday morning, either way it goes. I wouldn’t let those guys work then either if I were you!
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Gotta try to breathe. . .
Jeffro
@JoyceH: wow – 15 inches in your neck of the woods?
My best guess here in central VA is that we got 9-10 inches. Power is out for tens of thousands in Charlottesville and Albemarle County, us included.
BUT:
– my gas grill still works…we totally feasted tonight!
– we had a nice family game night by candlelight afterwards
– even walking the dog just now was amazing…with everyone’s lights out in our neighborhood, the stars are unbelievable.
Tomorrow we may have to take the kids up to NoVA, to stay with my mom for a bit – this outage is supposed to be a “multi-day event”, according to Dominion. But still, it’s manageable and we are probably luckier than most.
Be safe folks!
Suzanne
Soooo, I think I mentioned to y’all that my cousin (my age) and his wife and all three of their kids got Covid and all had to stay home for Christmas. Anyway, I reached out to check in with him today, and they are all fine. Except for his oldest Spawn, K, who fractured his skull while sledding as soon as he was over Covid. Apparently everything appears to be fine neurologically, but they will know more at the end of the week. Poor guy had to spend a couple of days in the hospital. This is so typical for the SuzFam.
Sebastian
@Jeffro:
This truly sounds amazing, I am glad you are enjoying the circumstances. But what I am -really- jealous about is the night sky!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it is, in fact, an amazingly specific bumper sticker
Mike in NC
Put on Wheel of Time on Amazon, but it wasn’t the wife’s cup of tea. Instead we’re going to watch Young Franknstein.
Spanky
@Jeffro:
Enjoy! The high pressure that flowed in behind the snow has left a crystal clear, breezeless sky, I was out enjoying it myself, bundled up in my parka, but the lights from DC and the 301 corridor made the western horizon look like it was about 15 minutes after sunset, what with the snow on the ground.
Plus, our power came back! Yay! But then it randomly flickered a couple of times, obviously as a warning not to get too comfortable.
Jeffro
@Sebastian: it was very cool.
The dog was like, “whys are we pausing. And why. Did you turn off the light stick. For a minute”? ?
(to check out Orion and the Pleiades, dog!)
Jeffro
@Spanky: congrats on the power coming back on ?
This morning, the predawn light and storm made everything look electric blue for about 20 minutes. It was WILD.
phdesmond
@Redshift:
very funny!
debbie
@Suzanne:
Hope K and his head mend quickly.
zhena gogolia
I had to give up on Stay Close when they started torturing somebody. Ugh. Back to The Pursuit of Love, I guess.
Anya
It’s so discouraging the jury in the Holmes case didn’t think the patients were worth a guilty verdict but I can somewhat understand why. The patients actual stories were not told because the judge excluded all of the emotional beats. But she got a guilty verdicts on the counts of investors fraud. Her investors were a collection of the worst people in the world and I could careless about them.
mali muso
@Jeffro: Up in our tiny corner at the “top” of Virginia, we must have just missed the storm. Got a dusting last night of about an inch, just enough to make the morning roads slippery but essentially gone by this afternoon. The kiddo was sorely disappointed as she really wanted some sledding and snowball fun.
Spanky
@Spanky: Why did I even say anything? Power’s out again.
Captain C
@Chief Oshkosh:
The ones in Brighton Beach.
Roger Moore
@Anya:
So much of what happens at a trial is determined beforehand based on what the judge does and doesn’t allow. If you don’t allow a victim to tell their story, it’s very hard to convict on fraud.
Jeffro
@mali muso: you’ll get some snow up there eventually!
Our house was abuzz with who could overcome their food-pickiness issues and eat various things (Chunky Soup, beans, etc) straight out of the can if necessary. We all concluded that Fro Jr was screwed and would probably starve even if the pantry was full of garbanzo beans and dried apricots.
Naturally, no one had any doubt that I would come through just fine ?
trnc
Sorry to pee in the punch bowl, but she’d have to make about 19 more bad investments like that before starting to worry about how she’ll buy another cabinet appointment.
Steve in the ATL
@Captain C: zing!
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … Phys.org:
Good, good.
Cheers,
Scott.
mali muso
@Jeffro: Yeah, if there is one thing I have learned living in “the valley” it’s that the snow forecast is almost always off. Something about the mountains on either side and the snow either not making it over them or coming over and dumping way more than expected. Hope you all stay warm!
dmsilev
@Another Scott: Per the Webb team’s blog, they’ve successfully tightened three out of the five layers of the sun shield, and will work on the last two tomorrow.
persistentillusion
@Steve in the ATL: We had an epic wind storm in CO on the 15th of December, 100 mph. Finally knocked some deflated mylar balloons out of my pine tree in the front (those things are the devil’s toys) after 2.5 YEARS. Small joy.
mrmoshpotato
Click the link and enjoy.
Steve in the ATL
@persistentillusion: [fist bump]
OldDave
I once had that album on CD, but it went off to college with my daughter. Might have to finally pick up a replacement.
Another Scott
@dmsilev: ?
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yup, that’s that John Roberts
Kay
@Anya:
Holmes lobbied Arizona lawmakers and they allowed her to run the experiment there:
The story was interesting in who she fooled, but also who she didn’t fool. A lot of people saw through it.
Basically anyone who understands blood science rejected her pitch- pharma companies, for example.
Mattis fell for it, people who work in health services for the military did not fall for it.
Another Scott
@Kay:
Too much of the business press is based on creating new wunderkinds, also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Kay: Allow me to tell you what a shitshow the Arizona Department of Health Services is. It’s….. comically bad.
James E Powell
@Leto:
I’m quite surprised. Those cases are tough and you never know with juries and, after all, she does have blonde hair & white skin.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Maybe Devin Nunes’ Cow will run for the open seat, is the cow over 25?
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@James E Powell:
you have to be somewhat hawt like Casey Anthony or Claudine Longet to get away with murder
trollhattan
@Ken:
The deposition of Eric Tiberius Trump:
“I’m Eroc. Eric.”
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
In cow years? Bossie’s way over 25. Oops, blew her cover!
trollhattan
@Captain C:
“Not zee Borscht Shack, again!”
“No, is today zee Borscht Dacha.”
yellowdog
@Chief Oshkosh: They would have to show a vaccine passport. So, no.
burnspbesq
@Tony Jay:
The word “currently” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. We both know the City is full of smart, amoral boys and girls who are just dying to get a slice of the Incalculable pot of gold that would be NHS privatization.
burnspbesq
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I thought the cow lived in Iowa where the actual family farm is.
Soprano2
@Mai Naem mobile: My sister had great instincts about people – except when it came to personal romantic relationships. I don’t worry about Newsom’s judgement in other areas because of his relationship with Guilfoyle. Plus, people do change.
Soprano2
@trnc: That’s so crazy. The guidance that being outside without a mask is ok if you’re not in a crowd is older than last May. Plus, I’ve heard both of them, and they cannot possibly misunderstand why we’re where we are with Covid.
evodevo
@Spanky: That happens frequently…I guess central transformers get overloaded from the surge and then blow…we had fun here in KY one ice storm year when they didn’t have backup transformers in stock and we had to wait 3 more days for the electric to come back on after tantalizing flickers…
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: I kind of liked this Philip Bump op-ed calling out disingenuous right-wing pundits for intentionally confusing advice from different time periods to make it look like scientists are lying or flip-flopping. But he may underestimate the extent to which this is a mainstream news-story tactic:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/03/this-is-not-same-pandemic/
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, it *is* a fucking amazing song.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Was that book called Bad Blood? I devoured it last year – too fascinating to put down, but so, so infuriating I was often pacing around the room, book in hand, as I read it.