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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Oct292017

The Commentariat -- October 30, 2017

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Oliver Darcy of CNN: "NBC News and MSNBC have severed ties with 'Game Change' co-author and veteran journalist Mark Halperin, days after multiple women told CNN he sexually harassed or assaulted them during his time at ABC News. An MSNBC spokesman told CNN on Monday morning that Halperin's contract with both had been terminated.

The Guardian has a liveblog of developments in the Russian investigation. Latest: Manafort & Gates have pled not guilty.

The Hits Just Keep on Coming. Politico: "A former foreign policy adviser to ... Donald Trump's 2016 campaign secretly pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to the FBI about his outreach to Russian officials, court records made public on Monday show. George Papadopolous, 30, entered the guilty plea in a closed courtroom in Washington on Oct. 5, special counsel Robert Mueller's office announced. Unlike the just-unsealed indictment against Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and adviser Rick Gates for money laundering and other charges, the single felony count against Papadopolous directly relates to 2016 presidential campaign activity." ...

     ... Matt Apuzzo has the New York Times story: "A professor with close ties to the Russian government told an adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in April 2016 that Moscow had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton in the form of 'thousands of emails,' according to court documents unsealed Monday. The adviser, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about that conversation. The plea represents the most explicit evidence connecting the Trump campaign to the Russian government's meddling in last year's election."

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Well, that's funny, because President Lizalot keeps tweet-screaming, "there is NO COLLUSION!" ...

... Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday called for the focus to be shifted to Hillary Clinton after his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort turned himself into the FBI after being indicted on 12 counts, including conspiracy against the United States. 'Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????' Trump tweeted. 'Also, there is NO COLLUSION!'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes, I too was wondering why there isn't more focus on stuff Trump made up. ...

... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "Keep in mind that the pressure to flip will be huge on Manafort and Gates due to the fact that Mueller closed the pardon loophole by partnering with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman." ...

... BUT. Jonathan Chait: "The [Republican] party apparatus is gearing up for a frontal attack on Mueller in particular, and the idea that a president can be held legally accountable in general.... Republicans have developed a bizarre theory of alt-collusion, which holds that the real interference was Russia feeding false allegations against Donald Trump to private investigator Christopher Steele. Since the FBI investigated Steele's charges, the FBI is the agency that colluded. And since Robert Mueller is close with the FBI, Mueller, too, is tainted.... In today's [Wall Street] Journal op-ed page, two Republican former Department of Justice staffers, David Rivkin and Lee Casey, who frequently pop up in the media to defend party-line arguments..., urge Trump to issue sweeping pardons to everybody involved in the scandal, himself included, so as to hopefully neuter Mueller's investigation.... Two courses of action -- neutering investigations into himself, and ordering them against Democrats -- seem to be linked in Trump's lizard brain.... [Paul] Ryan, of course, is tacitly allowing his chamber's investigative bodies to run point for Trump.... We are watching an important marker in the GOP's slow metamorphoses into an authoritarian party[.]"

*****

... Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "Paul Manafort and his former business associate Rick Gates were told to surrender to federal authorities Monday morning, the first charges in a special counsel investigation, according to a person involved in the case. The charges against Mr. Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, and Mr. Gates, a business associate of Mr. Manafort, were not immediately clear but represent a significant escalation in a special counsel investigation that has cast a shadow over the president's first year in office." ...

     ... New Lede: "Paul Manafort and his former business associate were indicted on Monday on money laundering, tax and foreign lobbying charges, a significant escalation in a special counsel investigation that has cast a shadow over President Trump's first year in office. Mr. Manafort, the president's former campaign chairman, and his longtime associate Rick Gates, surrendered to the FBI on Monday. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, said Mr. Manafort laundered more than $18 million to buy properties and services." ...

... Evan Perez & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "Manafort was indicted under seal on Friday and is planning to turn himself in, the source said. The indictment is expected to be unsealed later Monday. The indictment of a top official from ... Donald Trump's campaign signals a dramatic new phase of Mueller's wide-ranging investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and members of Trump's team as well as potential obstruction of justice and financial crimes." ...

... The New York Times has a copy of the indictment here.

... Susan Glasser of Politico: "James Clapper, a crusty ex-cargo pilot who rose through the Air Force ranks and retired as director of national intelligence in January, only to emerge publicly as one of ... Donald Trump's foremost critics, wants you to know that no matter how much Trump rants about the 'Russia hoax,' the 2016 hacking was not only real and aimed at electing Trump but constituted a major victory for a dangerous foreign adversary. 'The Russians,' he said, have 'succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.' Far from being the 'witch hunt' Trump has repeatedly called it, the investigation of whether Trump's team colluded with Russia constitutes a 'cloud not only over the president, but the office of the presidency, the administration, the government and the country' until it is resolved, Clapper told me in an extensive new interview for The Global Politico, our weekly podcast on world affairs." Includes audio.

... Mrs. McCrabbie: BTW, the "Mueller Time" video in yesterday's thread is pretty clever.

Sad! Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "On Sunday morning, President Trump expressed frustration that his campaign is under investigation over possible ties to Russia's plot to influence the 2016 election but that his former opponent Hillary Clinton is not facing the same level of scrutiny. In four tweets sent over 24 minutes, Trump wrote: 'Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?), the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more. Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia, "collusion," which doesn't exist. The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R's are now fighting back like never before. There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

 

... Sadder! Last week, after Trump announced, with some braggadocio, that he had "decided" to release government files on John Kennedy's assassination (he was required to do so by law), he "decided" to withhold many of the papers at the urging of the CIA. Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker: "... on Friday night the President tweeted, 'I will be releasing ALL JFK files other than the names and addresses of any mentioned person who is still living.'... The pretense last week was that, in releasing the files, Trump took action on behalf of the American people, in the pursuit of openness. But Trump acts in his own interest, and his pursuit of apparent openness has as its real end the undermining of public institutions and practices which depend on professionalism, independence, and trust.... The implicit, and increasingly explicit, argument here is: Don't listen to special counsels who worked for the F.B.I.; those are the guys that withheld all those documents about the J.F.K. assassination. As David Frum has pointed out, what Trump's surrogates really mean by 'the deep state' is the rule of law." ...

... Sadder! Avi Selk of the Washington Post: "The president left Trump National Golf Club at 3:12 p.m. [Sunday] after spending the day there on the edge of the Potomac River. A thick column of black SUVs escorted Trump past two pedestrians, a Guardian reporter wrote in a pool report -- 'one of whom gave a thumbs down sign.' 'Then it overtook a female cyclist, wearing a white top and cycling helmet, who responded by giving the middle finger.' The cyclist was photographed for posterity. So was an 'IMPEACH' sign held aloft outside the golf club that day." ...

... Saddest! Mark Murray of NBC News: "... Donald Trump's job approval rating has declined to the lowest point of his presidency, and nearly half of voters want their vote in the 2018 midterms to be a message for more Democrats in Congress to check Trump and congressional Republicans, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Thirty eight percent of Americans say they approve of Trump's job performance -- down five points since September -- while 58 percent disapprove."

Of Family, Friends & People Trump Pretends He Barely Knows

... Cristina Alesci of CNN: "The Maryland attorney general is investigating one of the Kushner family's real estate businesses after media reports surfaced earlier this year about allegedly abusive debt collection practices and poor conditions at several of its properties.... The inquiry does not mean charges will be filed." ...

... Jonathan Swan of Axios: "In a Friday night phone call, President Trump's former chief strategist and enforcer Steve Bannon told Trump he was going 'off the chain' to destroy Paul Singer, a New York hedge fund billionaire who is one of the most influential donors to the Republican Party. Trump agreed with Bannon that it needed to be done, according to two sources familiar with the conversation. (Though I'm also told that Trump has since told at least one other person that Singer is 'on the team' -- suggesting that maybe he's telling everyone what they want to hear.)... Bannon spoke to Trump shortly after the New York Times broke the news that a Singer-funded conservative website first paid for anti-Trump research by the firm, Fusion GPS, that later produced the infamous Russia dossier." ...

... Olivia Nuzzi of New York: "Roger Stone is in full-on cartoon-villain mode since being banned by Twitter on Saturday night, vowing to sue the company and characterizing their dispute as a battle for free speech itself. 'I'll be baaaaaak,' the sometimes adviser to ... Donald Trump wrote in a text message to New York. 'They will soon learn they have bitten off more than they can chew.'... 'I am advised I have a very strong legal case. Twitter wants to avoid being regulated like a utility. No one has been willing to file the antitrust case. I am.'" ...

... Jason Leopold & Anthony Cormier of BuzzFeed: "The FBI's investigation of Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, includes a keen focus on a series of suspicious wire transfers in which offshore companies linked to Manafort moved more than $3 million all over the globe between 2012 and 2013. Much of the money came into the United States. These transactions -- which have not been previously reported -- drew the attention of federal law enforcement officials as far back as 2012, when they began to examine wire transfers to determine if Manafort hid money from tax authorities or helped the Ukrainian regime close to Russian President Vladimir Putin launder some of the millions it plundered through corrupt dealings."


Annie Karni of Politico: "... Jared Kushner returned home Saturday from an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia -- his third trip to the country this year.... Kushner was accompanied in the region by deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt.... The Trump administration has said its strategy is to try to draw in neighboring Arab leaders to play a role in Middle East peace."

"Swamp Things." "Governance" in the Age of Trump. Lachlan Markay & Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "Nearly a year since he won election, the president has turned federal agencies over to the private industries that they regulate. And he has done so to a degree that ethics groups say they have never witnessed. The Daily Beast examined 341 nominations the president has made to Senate-confirmed administration positions. Of those, more than half (179) have some notable conflict of interest, according to a comprehensive review of public records. One hundred and five nominees worked in the industries that they were being tasked with regulating; 63 lobbied for, were lawyers for, or otherwise represented industry members that they were being tasked with regulating; and 11 received payments or campaign donations from members of the industry that they were being tasked with regulating."

Frances Robles & Deborah Acosta of the New York Times: "Facing withering criticism from members of Congress and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the governor of Puerto Rico moved on Sunday to cancel a $300 million contract awarded to a small Montana company to rebuild part of the island's battered power grid. While government officials in Washington and San Juan have argued over how a company from Whitefish, Mont., with connections to the secretary of the interior but only two full-time employees secured an emergency contract that requires the work of thousands of people, the majority of Puerto Rico is still without electricity, nearly six weeks after Hurricane Maria knocked down thousands of poles and lines.... The House Committee on Natural Resources, which oversees Puerto Rican affairs, sent a letter on Thursday to the power authority demanding all records connected to the contract. That same day, the inspector general's office at the Department of Homeland Security said it was investigating. [Gov. Ricardo] Rosselló also ordered an audit of the contract, and the board that Congress created to oversee Puerto Rico's financial affairs asked a federal court to appoint a new manager to supervise the utility. The chief executive of the power authority, Ricardo Ramos, defended the contract, which he awarded. But he said on Sunday that he understood the governor's decision to cancel it because negative publicity and politics on the mainland had made the situation untenable." This is an update to a story linked here yesterday afternoon. ...

... Sheelah Kolhatkar of the New Yorker: MEANWHILE, vulture lawyers, hired to help Puerto Rico resolve its huge debt obligation, are eating the island alive. "... the government has paid nearly three hundred million dollars in advisory fees since 2014.)

Mike DeBonis & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "The Republican effort to overhaul the tax code suffered a bruising setback over the weekend when a powerful corporate interest group came out against the proposal just days ahead of when House leaders plan to release it to the public. The National Association of Home Builders, after learning that a 'homeownership' tax credit it had wanted will not be in an initial version of the bill, is preparing a nationwide campaign against it. The development underscored just how difficult the prospect of a successful tax overhaul will be, given the complex and competing interests that President Trump and GOP lawmakers are trying to serve." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Every "bruising setback" these jamokes "suffer" is good news for ordinary Americans.

Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) once pinned former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) against a wall and held a knife to his throat during a heated debate about earmarks. John Boehner told Politico about the incident in a new profile published Sunday. The former speaker described his difficulties in banning earmarks, or measures that funded projects in lawmaker's home districts.... Young held a 10-inch knife to Boehner's throat. Boehner responded by staring Young in the eyes and saying, 'F[uck] you.' Young confirmed the account as 'mostly true' to Politico, but pointed out that he and Boehner later became such good friends that Boehner was the best man at his wedding."

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Navy criminal authorities are investigating whether two members of the elite SEAL Team 6 strangled an Army Green Beret in June while they were in Mali on a secret assignment, military officials say. Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar, a 34-year-old veteran of two tours in Afghanistan, was found dead on June 4 in the embassy housing he shared in the Malian capital, Bamako, with a few other Special Operations forces assigned to the West African nation to help with training and counterterrorism missions. His killing is the latest violent death under mysterious circumstances for American troops on little-known missions in that region of Africa."

AP: "Only 10 active Houston Texans players stood for the national anthem with the rest of the team kneeling down. The Texans had indicated there would be some type of protest following comments by owner Bob McNair. McNair has issued two apologies and is attempting to explain his comments after a story in ESPN The Magazine this week revealed that he said 'we can't have the inmates running the prison' during a meeting of NFL owners about players who protest by kneeling during the national anthem."

Adam Vary of BuzzFeed: "In an interview with BuzzFeed News, [actor Anthony] Rapp is publicly alleging for the first time that in 1986, [actor Kevin] Spacey befriended Rapp while they both performed on Broadway shows, invited Rapp over to his apartment for a party, and, at the end of the night, picked Rapp up, placed him on his bed, and climbed on top of him, making a sexual advance. According to public records, Spacey was 26. Rapp was 14.... After the accusations leveled against Harvey Weinstein have sparked an unprecedented conversation about sexual abuse and harassment in the entertainment industry, Rapp said he feels compelled to come forward." ...

     ... Update. Michael Paulson of the New York Times: "Kevin Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner, apologized Sunday night for what he said 'would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior' after the actor Anthony Rapp accused him of making a sexual advance on him 31 years ago, when Mr. Rapp was 14 years old.... He then disclosed that he had 'loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man.'"

Margaret Hartmann of New York: "Hamilton Fish V, the publisher of The New Republic, is taking a leave of absence from the magazine pending an investigation into allegations that he behaved inappropriately toward female staffers."

Beyond the Beltway

... Jess Bidgood, et al., of the New York Times: "Nearly 200 women have signed a letter denouncing a culture of rampant sexual misconduct in and around the [California] state government here in Sacramento. They complain of male lawmakers groping them, of male staff members threatening them and of a human resources system so broken that it is unable to give serious grievances a fair hearing. In dozens of interviews, women -- including legislative aides and lobbyists who said they had endured years of sexual harassment -- said the flawed system had left them with few options to stop behavior that threatened their livelihoods and careers.... In interviews, women said that they saw no benefit in taking their grievances to authorities. 'Retaliation can come in the form of intimidation, public trashing or being blacklisted,' said Naveen Habib...."

Dinner with Racists. Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "Hours after a 'White Lives Matter' rally unfolded Saturday in Shelbyville, Tenn. -- resulting in lots of counterprotesters, but no violence -- a fight broke out between a smaller group of white supremacists and an interracial couple at a restaurant in Brentwood, about 50 miles to the north.... ['One of the group] told [the woman, who was white,]to join their table and leave her boyfriend,' police said in a statement. 'The argument inside apparently escalated even after the female victim had gone outside to de-escalate the situation.' Police said another woman from the self-identified 'white lives matter' group began to argue with the 30-year-old woman, who was then reportedly punched in the face by a man, causing a cut above her eye."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (10)

Manafort, money laundering, fraud and more. The perfect Trump campaign manager!

October 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

Mueller time indeed.

It may also be time for a little game of chess. Hmmm....let's see...who could be a better chess player? Bob Mueller, cagey, ex-FBI head and serious minded prosecutor, or President* Pussy Grabbing Tweety Bird?

I can't imagine that Mueller and his team of bloodhounds have spent all this time and effort to wrangle Paul Manafort into a box. My guess is that Mueller is attempting that classic move of unapologetic material gain, the knight fork. The idea is to maneuver one of your knights into a position whereat he can attack two pieces (or sometimes three or four, commonly known as a "family fork", which, although it smacks of a paleolithic household squatting around a fire sharing a bony utensil, can be devastating to an opponent). If set up properly, the opponent has no choice but to give up the most important piece in order to save the other(s). Thus, if the king is in danger as well as a rook or the queen, there's no alternative. Save the king and lose a vital piece. It's one of my favorite moves, especially if your opponent is too focused on his or her own game plan to see it coming.

Speaking of focus, the little king, like a small child, is so focused on trying to keep everyone from realizing that the Russians were in business to help him win, he's lost sight of the larger issue: that the Russians were in the game in the first place. Instead, like a little kid who runs out of the pantry, with frosting on his face, he shouts, "I didn't eat that cake! Really! No way! She ate it. Hillary! Waaaahhhh..."

So rather than agree that Russian meddling in the election of an American president is probably not a great thing, he was first obsessed with trying to get everyone to believe that what happened didn't happen at all. But now that that tactic is looking silly, he's trying to get everyone to believe that it wasn't him that did the colluding, but Hillary. Crooked Hillary, no less.

Mueller probably doesn't have any actual proof of true collusion consummation, as it were, but there sure was a lot of foreplay with consummation in mind.

And by putting Manafort into a knight fork, Mueller may hope that in order to save his most important piece (his own ass), Manafort may give up something else.

So, while Mueller examines the chess board, Trump is racing around the room trying to figure out the best way to cheat at Chutes and Ladders.

Not sure if we'll get a checkmate out of this, but I'd settle for a seriously degraded force of Trumpist pieces. And keeping Trump in check for the next four years and making him scurry around the board to save his fat ass wouldn't be bad either.

October 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Violence on the Right.

It's as common as lying and willful ignorance. And it seems to go across the board. So here we have an elected official, a member of the House of Representative, holding a knife to the throat of the Speaker of House. Oh, no biggie. We're good pals now.

And down the line a bit (but not that far, given the bigotry quotient in the Republican congress), a white supremacist asshole punches a woman in the face for the crime of having lunch with a black guy and refusing a direct order to leave his company and join the Nazis.

So, yeah, these could be two entirely disparate examples being inexpertly and perhaps incorrectly tied together, but the idea of "do what we tell you or we'll hurt you" is too common a trope in RWW. Even the president* does it.

These guys are not far off from throwing projectiles at the other tribe in hopes of dragging a dead animal back to their cave for lunch. Another reason giving the king of the cavemen access to nuclear weapons doesn't seem like the best idea.

At some point, we, or at least some of us, decided that cooperation in the service of larger and more productive goals, was a good thing. Unfortunately, Confederates have yet to reach that milestone in human development. They're still content to gnaw on bones and hit the other side in the head with rocks.

No wonder they don't believe in evolution.

October 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Someone must have tied down the little king or taken away his Tweety toy. I expected by now that there'd be a score of nasty, lying attack tweets. Don't ever forget, Trump was trained by professional, hall of fame piece of shit, Roy Cohn, whose first rule of ratfucking is to attack early and attack often, especially if the charges are true.

And look for Trump TV (Fox) to come out with guns blazing tossing around their usual mix of unsubstantiated claims, misdirection, uncontrolled sobbing about how victimized they all are, and outright lies, all in support of the Orange Headed Baboon.

I see that High Pressure Secretary SHS will be going before the press corps this afternoon to toss out some hand grenades and fire a few RPG's at Mueller and company and likely Clinton (or the "Clinton Administration" as another Trump moron--Lewandowski--has it. Sometimes I wonder if things like "Clinton Administration" are simply examples of lazy, dull thinking, or if it's the result of a kind of wishing for the good old days when they didn't have any responsibilities except to hock loogies at the adults doing the actual work of governing).

Nonetheless, I'm going to allow myself a blissful few moments to imagine the Mad King Donald storming around the palace, er, White House, throwing things in the air and shoving inferiors to the floor, complaining that Comey/Mueller/Clinton/Obama/Failing NYTimes/Amazon WaPo/NBC stole the strawberries.

October 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Oh noes! That lovely Mark (Sit on my lap, baby) Halperin is gone for good from ABC and MSNBC. No more "what a dick" comments? Oh, the humanity!

Never fear, Marky. You can always find work at Fox. Sexual harassment is a condition of working there. It's in the job description. That plus all your bullshit, non-sequiturial two-cents-worth-but-not-worth-that-much commentary, and you'll be in like Loofah Boy.

Maybe you'll even get to cover a war in the Falklands.

October 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

I rather like and agree with Charles P. Pierce's take on how the Mueller indictments and his plans will unfold. More to come...
Whadda a money game Manafort played! Can't help but think that Roger Stone's weekend outbursts have Mr.-Nixon-tattooed-on-my-back more than a bit concerned for his own thin skin.

There are so so many creeps deserving of humiliating and legal takedowns awaiting theirs!

Almost finished watching the Joan Didion documentary on Netflix, I gotta read more about how she skewered Dick Cheney. Funny, how, we never seem to get rid of these same types of malignant, self-serving bastards.

October 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

MAG,

Even the tightest ships will have a few rats. The problem with the Confederate ship of state is that there are so many holes and so few sailors concerned with how the ship is doing, as long as they get theirs, so the rats stream in through every chink and porthole. Let's put it this way, their ship ain't exactly Bristol fashion. And now that the captain is the biggest cheese eating rat of all, it's an open invitation to the worst, most disease-infested rat bastards (or bastard rats) to come aboard and do their worst.

So they did. And they'll continue to do so. It's unlikely the other gnawing rodents will mutiny as long as Captain Rat is at the helm. Too bad they can't see he's steering in circles.

October 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Think the indictments (the first two with maybe more to come) will break the congressional investigative logjam? Or will the wagons circle ever tighter?

Don't know how to submit this now that the CW has gone to her reward but wanted to pass on today's delicious New Yorker cartoon depicting a scene we're all familiar with--with one wondrous change.

And the Borowitz isn't bad either.

Smiles all around.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/millions-disappointed-it-wasnt-jared?

October 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

And one more bit of fun as the Pretender reportedly fumes in his room:


https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=QXUlhT3-r0c&sns=em

October 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes
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