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Grifters Gonna Grift

Late Night Open Thread: Parler, It’s Where the Kewl Kidz Are!!!

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Parler, per Wikipedia, is a “microblogging and social networking service launched in August 2018, promoted as an alternative to Twitter and particularly marketed to political conservatives in the United States”. (The article cites “Brad Parscale, Senator Mike Lee, and activist Candace Owens” as prominent early supporters, for what that’s worth.)

Benny Johnson, formerly ‘Buzzfeed Ben’, is a plagiarist currently serving as “chief creative officer at conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA”.

As you may have heard, Professional Conservatives are currently Big Mad at Twitter and FaceBook for those companies’ recent half-hearted attempts to staunch the sludge of hate speech, misinformation, and monetized lies. Lo, Mr. Johnson proclaims a Solution!

It’s the hot new craze!

Tom Cotton’s aide writes some advertising copy:

Report from Fast Company:

… I have to admit: The Parler site itself is well-designed and organized. It obviously takes many cues from Twitter in terms of features and layout, but it’s got some of its own bells and whistles, such as the ability to tip other users’ posts with influence points, which you must buy with a credit card. You can also vote up posts and “echo” them by hitting a little megaphone icon…

Of course, if Parler has your credit card info, it can sell your data, just like those other evil apps! And because I am an elderly cynic, when a company offers a chance for its marks to send money to their faves, I immediately wondered about the percentage of outright grifters among its users…

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: ‘Rallying’ in Phoenix

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Per MarketWatch:

Regrouping after a humbling weekend rally, President Donald Trump faces another test of his ability to draw a crowd during a pandemic Tuesday as he visits Arizona and tries to remind voters of one of his key 2016 campaign promises…

First, the president will travel to Yuma to mark the construction of more than 200 miles of wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, an issue that he built his campaign on four years ago. Later, he’ll address a group of young Republicans at a Phoenix megachurch, where event organizers have pledged thousands will attend.

Throughout the trip, the COVID-19 pandemic will shadow Trump. The Democratic mayor of Phoenix made clear that she does not believe the speech can be safely held in her city — and urged the president to wear a face mask.

“Everyone attending tomorrow’s event, particularly any elected official, should set an example to residents by wearing a mask,” said Mayor Kate Gallego. “This includes the President.”…

The “Students for Trump” event will be held at the Dream City Church and broadcast to groups across the nation. It is being hosted by Turning Point USA, a group founded by Trump ally Charlie Kirk. Organizers said health and safety measures still were being finalized and it was not clear if attendees would be asked to wear masks or keep socially distant.

Since late May, Arizona has emerged as one of the nation’s most active hotspots for the spread of COVID-19. Use of hospitals, intensive care units and ventilators has set daily records over the past week…

On the positive side (this is snark), when things go badly (in every predictable & probably some entirely new ways), it might force Charlie Kirk far enough out of favor that he has to get a real job — or at least lie low — for the next few months. Yeah, right — as if a GOP grifter ever suffered ‘consequences’!

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Schadenfreude Open Thread: Turmoil in the Trump Campaign

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Thanks to commentor Kay for this refulgent little report on the GOP affray from Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair:

In Donald Trump’s West Wing, being a member of the Trump family has historically been the ultimate job security. But that truism is being stress-tested after a run of polls consistently show Trump losing to Joe Biden at this stage of the race—a CNN poll this morning has him down 14 points. According to a source close to the White House, Trump has mulled taking oversight of the campaign away from his son-in-law Jared Kushner. “Trump is malignantly crazy about the bad poll numbers,” a former West Wing official said. “He’s going to broom Kushner and [Brad] Parscale—the numbers are not getting better,” a Republican close to the campaign said.

Long before the reelection campaign went sideways, Trump frequently blew up at Kushner. For instance, former West Wing officials recall how Trump hated when Kushner received too much positive press (In January, Trump was rankled when Kushner’s portrait graced the cover of Time). “Any time Jared is in the papers, Trump complains, ‘We have to get Jared back to New York!’” said a Republican who heard Trump make the comment. In the end, the source cautioned that Trump won’t push Kushner out. “This is typical with him and Jared,” the source said.

(The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Kushner declined to comment.)…

Over the weekend, Trump called around to New York friends and outside advisers in hopes they would validate Trump’s belief that the polls are wrong. “He’s asking people to agree with him that the polls are biased. But no one is telling him what he wants to hear,” said a Republican briefed on the calls. Republicans know how bad things are, but the party still believes sticking with Trump is the best bet for holding the Senate. Last week, Mitch McConnell told Republican senators that they couldn’t abandon Trump, according to a source. McConnell reminded Republicans that former New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte lost her 2016 reelection bid after breaking with Trump over the Access Hollywood video.

(Through a spokesperson, McConnell denied making the comment.)

My guess is that if #MoscowMitch is telling his fellows that they can’t abandon Trump, then #MoscowMitch has already prepared a draft of his eulogy for Trump’s upcoming defenestration. Because I’m a cynic, like that.

Speaking of defenestrations, Young Prince Jared just set up his own. Knowingly, or not?

Earlier report from Mr. Sherman:

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More ‘Completely Organic’ Protests – Light the On-Beyond-Batsh*t Signal!

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Yes, that is falling (slushy) snow in the second video clip. Points for endurance on the protestors’ part, but it does kinda bring into question the What about my very essential lawncare!?! demands from the rally two weeks ago….

The nutballs are always waiting. MacNabb (and Pitcavage) are professionals at observing ‘grassroots protestors’ in their natural environment:

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Domestic) – Sunday/Monday, April 5/6

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British report (Sky Media):

… With no consistent federal policy, local officials have been left on their own to decide when to enact control measures, Most should assume it is already here, she said.

Over all, the study finds, 70 percent of all counties in the United States — making up 94 percent of the country’s population — are likely to have epidemics. The study defines an epidemic as an outbreak that grows exponentially instead of fizzling out on its own, eventually infecting a large fraction of the population…

People who have been infected and have mild symptoms, or none at all, can pass the disease to others. Those cases, often undetected, are a prime driver of the outbreaks, Dr. Meyers said. Even in counties with no reported cases, there is roughly a 9 percent chance that an undetected outbreak is already underway, she said.

For those reasons, social distancing should be practiced across the United States, whether an outbreak now is visible or not, Dr. Meyers said…

… A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.

By that time, hospitals in several states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate equipment and were pleading for shipments from the Strategic National Stockpile. That federal cache of supplies was created more than 20 years ago to help bridge gaps in the medical and pharmaceutical supply chains during a national emergency.

Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just as the numbers of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old dry-rotted masks.

“We basically wasted two months,” Kathleen Sebelius, health and human services secretary during the Obama administration, told AP…

When an AP reporter attempted to ask Trump about the issue on Sunday, the president cut off the question.

“FEMA, the military, what they’ve done is a miracle,” Trump said with a flash of anger. “What they’ve done is a miracle in getting all of this stuff. What they have done for states is incredible.”

Trump then ended the briefing and walked off the podium…

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Late Night GOP Venality Open Thread: Colorado Congressman

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It’s always performative bullshit…

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Election Year Horrorshow Open Thread: These Are Not Serious People

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Potentially dangerous, yes — but not serious.

This was not a last-minute “response” rally; it was scheduled in advance of the Biden/Buttigieg/Klobuchar lovefest tonight:


I checked the ‘donate’ link; the funds go to Bernie, through Williamson’s account — I assume she takes a percentage, but I’m a cynic that way. But the rally is credited as “Featuring Spiritual Teacher and Author Marianne Williamson and Bernie’s Daughter Heather Titus, Director of Sedona Yoga Festival,” so I guess it’s a joint grift.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota:

Attract a clown, expect a circus…

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Repub Venality Open Thread: The Night Caligula’s Horse Delivered the State of the Union Speech

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Trump's State of Disunion - Jack Ohman

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)

 
Of course it was a load of manure — that’s the best the beast is capable of producing. More shame on the gutless GOP sacks in suits who, to protect their own sinecures, not only voted the horse as their leader, but insisted it was the finest orator and firmest patriot since Tailgunner Joe McCarthy dined alone (with his DTs).

Commentary, at this point, would be superfluous… El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago delivered his State of the Union address, one of the few constitutional responsibilities of his office that he hasn’t ignored. Which is not to say he hasn’t degraded it, too. On Tuesday night, he turned it into a cheesy spectacle that belonged in, say, a casino sinking into bankruptcy in Atlantic City.

He bestowed the Presidential Medal Of Freedom on Rush Limbaugh, hanging it on that rancid bag of old sins, right there in the House chamber. He arranged a surprise family reunion for a soldier home from deployment, right there in the House chamber. He told an African-American schoolgirl that he, personally, was going to see to it that she can go to a good school. He congratulated another child on not having been aborted, and promised that he, personally, would see to it that nobody was. These Dear-Leader-Grants-a-Wish moments are straight out of a dog-eared playbook used by various members of the Kim family in North Korea. Weaponized sentimentality is a powerful tool in authoritarian hands.

The speech itself was the usual farrago of lies and bigotry…

This is a lying, criminal president*, aided and abetted by a political party that lost its mind long before it lost its way, and that now swallows poisonous pablumlike this:

If forcing American taxpayers to provide unlimited free health care to illegal aliens sounds fair to you, then stand with the radical left. But if you believe that we should defend American patients and American seniors, then stand with me and pass legislation to prohibit free government health care for illegal aliens.

It’s morning in American carnage.

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Open Thread: Late Night Notes on Lev Parnas

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Per an unreliable narrator:

But look how happy he was, at Mar-A-Lago!:

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Potential Book Club Material: “A Very Stable Genius”

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I’m kidding, of course — we know most of this crap already. But kudos to the authors on the timing of their release…

President Trump reveals himself as woefully uninformed about the basics of geography, incorrectly telling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.” He toys with awarding himself the Medal of Freedom.

And, according to a new book by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig, Trump does not seem to grasp the fundamental history surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor…

“A Very Stable Genius” — a 417-page book named after Trump’s own declaration of his superior knowledge — is full of similarly vivid details from Trump’s tumultuous first three years as president, from his chaotic transition before taking office to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation and final report…

The book by the two longtime Post reporters — who were part of the team that won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on Trump and Russia — was obtained ahead of its scheduled release Tuesday.

Many of the key moments reported in the book are rife with foreign policy implications, portraying a novice commander in chief plowing through normal protocols and alarming many both inside the administration and in other governments.

Early in his administration, for instance, Trump is eager to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin — so much so, the authors write, “that during the transition he interrupts an interview with one of his secretary of state candidates” to inquire about his pressing desire: “When can I meet Putin? Can I meet with him before the inaugural ceremony?” he asks…

In spring 2017, Trump also clashed with Tillerson when he told him he wanted his help getting rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1977 law that prevents U.S. firms and individuals from bribing foreign officials for business deals.

“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump says, according to the book. “We’re going to change that.”

The president, they go on to explain, was frustrated with the law “ostensibly because it restricted his industry buddies or his own company’s executives from paying off foreign governments in faraway lands.”

The book, the duo writes in an author’s note, is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with more than 200 sources, corroborated, when possible, by calendars, diary entries, internal memos and even private video recordings. (Trump himself had initially committed to an interview for the book, the authors write, but ultimately declined, amid an escalating war with the media).

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday…

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Grifters Gonna Grift Open Thread: Why Is the Sanders Campaign Suddenly In Need of A Big Distraction?

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Warren is an unelectable whore! Biden is an elderly racist! Buttigieg is a larval robot! Sure, it’s crunch time in Iowa, but I had been expecting this kind of noisy media-friendly shite-flinging from the Sanders campaign ever since a certain AP article appeared last week — “Shadow group provides Sanders super PAC support he scorns”:

Bernie Sanders says he doesn’t want a super PAC. Instead, he has Our Revolution, a nonprofit political organization he founded that functions much the same as one.

Like a super PAC, which is shorthand for super political action committee, Our Revolution can raise unlimited sums from wealthy patrons that dwarf the limits faced by candidates and conventional PACs. Unlike a super PAC, however, the group doesn’t have to disclose its donors — a stream of revenue commonly referred to as “dark money.”

Now, with less than one month to go before the Iowa caucuses, Our Revolution appears to be skirting campaign finance law, which forbids groups founded by federal candidates and officeholders from using large donations to finance federal election activity, including Sanders’ 2020 bid.…

…[W]hile Warren has come under fire for courting wealthy financiers in her past Senate campaigns, Sanders and Our Revolution have largely avoided scrutiny during the primary, even as he has accelerated his criticism of others, among them Biden, for relying on super PACs founded by their allies.

In the case of Our Revolution, which aims to boost voter turnout for Sanders, the Vermont senator was the founder…

The campaign finance act says groups “directly or indirectly established” by federal officeholders or candidates can’t “solicit, receive, direct, transfer, or spend funds” for federal electoral activity that exceeds the “limitations, prohibitions, and reporting requirements” of the law. Those limits are currently set at $2,800 for candidates and $5,000 for political action committees.

Our Revolution has taken in nearly $1 million from donors who gave more than the limits and whose identities it hasn’t fully disclosed, according to tax filings for 2016, 2017 and 2018. Much of it came from those who contributed six-figure sums.

It won’t have to publicly reveal its 2019 fundraising until after this year’s presidential election. And money it raises between now and then won’t have to be disclosed until the following year…

Read the whole thing. I’d been waiting to see how much this story would be amplified outside sources like the Daily Caller, or whether the Sanders campaign would mount a defense. But that defense, as ever with St. Bernie, turns out to be “I HAVE NO FLAWS, unlike every other Democratic candidate!”

So, no, I don’t expect to hear Word One about this during tomorrow’s debate — the other candidates can’t afford to waste resources fighting a million bad-faith assaults on their staff and volunteers from the Bernie mob, and the media has no interest in damping down such an ‘exciting’ candidate. They’re saving their ammo until, in Chris Cillizza’s dreams, it’s a two-army battle between the Oval Office Occupant and his mirror-world doppelganger. And as long as he can keep squirreling away money for his ongoing, never-ending national campaign (and his fourth house), Sanders is perfectly happy to take advantage.

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Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Chris Cillizza Will NOT Be Out-Jingo’d

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UpChuck Todd spends ten minutes of high-dollar Sunday tv time trying to gotcha Warren, but Chris ‘The Mad Bitcher’ Cillizza goes straight for ‘SHE SAID LONG WORDS WHICH IS ELITIST & PROBABLY UNAMERICAN’…

Chris just wants there to be a nice noisy horse race until the election, when he dearly hopes we will elect whichever Repub daddy eventually gets shoved to the top of the ticket.

Let’s all keep in mind how good it will feel when The Mad Bitcher has a public breakdown as the Democrats celebrate our new president, come November!

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Election 2020 Open Thread: It’s Not A Campaign, It’s A Performance

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So Sanders’ most online supporters have successfully gamed the system — and the media — into another BIG WIN FOR BERNIE!!! media cycle, this time concerning his fundraising:

Hey, as long as it’s good for the credit-card companies, amirite? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Meanwhile, out in the real(ish) world, where the actual work is done…

Part of the price of relying on volunteers and interns is that every campaign will be plagued with staffers who spend more time cultivating their personal issues than working on their candidate’s official program. But of course the Sanders campaign is the one whose staffers feel the need to contact the media about this eternal dynamic!

Also, it was reported as Excellent news for Bernie! when Jeff ‘Comic Book Guy’ Weaver lost his position as the official face of the Sanders campaign. Perhaps the political horse-race touts predicted this would give Weaver more opportunity to play to his real strength, nitpicking minor details and curating grudges…

Sen. Bernie Sanders frequently attacks Amazon on the campaign trail, vowing to break up the online retail giant if elected, denouncing its treatment of workers and decrying its ability to pay no federal taxes on billions in profits.

That’s why impassioned dissent erupted within the Sanders campaign earlier this year over its purchases of large amounts of supplies through Amazon, according to five people with knowledge of the situation…

The Sanders campaign continued using Amazon despite the concerns. Through September, it had spent more than $233,000 on Amazon purchases — much of it in office supplies, and often through Amazon’s Marketplace feature — a review of campaign finance records shows…

The campaign’s spending on Amazon is a small fraction of the more than $40 million it shelled out on operating expenditures during the same period. But it was more than other campaigns spent on the company, and more than enough to prompt surprise and complaints from staffers who felt it conflicted with the campaign’s principles…

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Saturday Night Horrorshow Open Thread: YOUUUKRANE!!!!

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Not much joy in sercon dissection of the latest foreign policy revelations at this hour on a holiday weekend, but: This man is still, theoretically, the Oval Office Occupant’s personal lawyer.

Earlier this month, Rudolph W. Giuliani made an unexpected trip to Ukraine, accompanied by a TV crew from One America News Network (OAN), a little-known American channel to the right of Fox News. Giuliani’s mission was to exonerate his client, President Trump, of the charge in the articles of impeachment that he tried to bribe Ukrainian officials into investigating Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election, and to dig up incriminating information on Biden and his son Hunter.

The documentary of that trip has now been released, and it tells a truly fantastic tale, as presented by OAN correspondent Chanel Rion. As she and Giuliani tried to uncover the truth, Rion claimed, 1,000 Ukrainian troops were deployed in Kyiv as part of an effort to find them. Once they were found, they raced to the airport, where Jewish Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk and Jewish businessman and philanthropist George Soros were waiting for them with “human Dobermans in little black Mercedes.”

For journalists like me who have lived and worked in Ukraine for years, these claims were comical. Kyiv’s main international airport is about as much of a hub for intrigue as La Guardia. There is no evidence of a mobilization of Ukrainian troops in Kyiv while Giuliani and Co. were there. Soros does not live in Ukraine and hasn’t visited since 2016, and no one else has reported Pinchuk lurking at the airport. (Rion later tried to hedge her claim about Pinchuk and Soros, if only halfheartedly.)…

On cable news shows and Twitter, Giuliani has been echoing the same outlandish claims made by the documentary. He stated that one former Ukrainian prosecutor they spoke to who had proof of a Biden conspiracy had been poisoned with mercury, died twice and been revived. With Trump putting on pressure, the Senate Judiciary Committee has agreed to hear Giuliani and his evidence. In short, Giuliani’s claims about information coming from Ukraine look like they are going to become ammunition for Trump’s eventual impeachment trial in the Senate…

Man who wrote the tweet at the top is a former president of Estonia, where they don’t have our (literally) insular privilege to treat all this as a wacky TV serial.

Also, Rudy has a new “communications director”:


Additional nightmare fuel, via Politico: The mystery of Rudy Giuliani’s spokeswoman. Over the river and off the map!

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Late Night Open Thread: A Truly *Professional* Grifter Takes No Holidays

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Give Ben Domenech due credit — he started grifting for the GOP while in high school, networked his way from the NRO online and RedState through the Heartland Institute into ‘publishing’ The Federalist (funder officially unidentified). And he’s married to John McCain’s daughter — since Meghan’s mommy is a billionaire beer heiress, neither she nor Ben would ever have to work for a living, if they didn’t take pride in their work ethic. (Or at least need a public outlet for their grievances & insecurities.)

Whining about the NYTimes’ 1619 Project has become the latest masturbatory group-grievance for the ‘intellectual’ branch of the Wingnut Wurlitzer, and by Prosperity Jesus, where there’s a grievance to be milked, Mr. Domenech is on it!

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