GOP Will Shit Itself

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Yoji
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Yoji » Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:51 am

zaratustra wrote:Well, for Alabama standards, it was a fucking landslide.

I forget who (Lawrence O'Donnell, I think), but someone on MSNBC pointed out that the last Senate race in the state was in 2014 and the Democrats didn't even put a candidate forward. It was pretty much Jeff Sessions vs write-ins, and he won by 97%.
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Thad
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Thad » Wed Dec 13, 2017 1:36 pm

Thad wrote:It's not clear how much of that is because of the trend against Trump, how much is because of the pedophilia revelations, and how much is because Moore was already a pretty shitty candidate before the pedophilia revelations.


Silver disagrees, and argues that each of those three factors cost Moore about 10 points. He notes that the generic ballot favors Democrats by 10 points, and that polls showed Jones outperforming that metric by 10 points before the allegations against Moore, and ultimately picking up another 10 after.

This is back-of-the-napkin shit, obviously. Every race is different, and Moore was uniquely bad. But every Republican candidate next year is affected by one of those three criteria, all of Bannon's pet candidates should be worried about the second, and as for the third, we're just getting started on allegations of sexual misconduct.

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Wed Dec 13, 2017 2:24 pm

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Blossom » Wed Dec 13, 2017 6:14 pm

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:18 pm

Asked by @JParkABC if he denies latest allegations of sexual misconduct against him, Rep. Blake Farenthold replies, “There’ve been so many, I don’t know what all is going on.”
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:49 pm

Politico: On Paul Ryan's impending departure. One way... or another.

He's denying it, of course, but apparently it's an open secret among his friends and family that he wants to retire after the 2018 midterm elections. More publicly, practically everyone knows he hates being speaker and never wanted the job.

However, there's a wrinkle. Rubio is holding up the budget bill in the Senate (and every day counts with Doug Jones' seating imminent) and rumours keep circulating about Murkowski wavering, so Ryan's greatest "achievement" (*spits*) may yet fall apart. On top of that, there's a massive amount of critical bills which need to be passed in early January and February (silly pedestrian things like, say, funding the government) and it's expected Ryan will have to make some concessions to Democrats to get everything passed (the horror!).

So there's a good possibility the shit will hit the fan, with the House Freedom Caucus subsequently trying to oust him forcibly early next year.

The thread title may be poised to be more apt than ever.

EDIT:

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Metal Slime » Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:29 pm

That moment when you reveal too much about yourself.


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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby IGNORE ME » Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:32 pm

Is it weird to want to pity fuck Ann Coulter?

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby atog » Fri Dec 15, 2017 3:16 pm

Brentai wrote:Is it weird to want to pity fuck Ann Coulter?

If sticking your nozzle into a pile of barbed-wire coathangers is your thing, then no, I guess it's fine, don't judge right?
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Fri Dec 15, 2017 3:17 pm

As much as I'm a fan of schadenfreude, I think this is one of those occasions where I'd actually hold off (not that she isn't scum, but there's something about people admitting profound vulnerability that short-circuits my willingness to kick them when they're down).

But I do gotta say, Goth Ms. is really on her game here:



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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Tue Dec 19, 2017 5:50 pm

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Thad » Tue Jan 02, 2018 3:56 pm

Hatch confirms he's retiring.

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Wed Jan 03, 2018 4:43 pm

Actual tweet from Mitch McConnell today

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Thad » Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:07 am

Michael Wolff has a book coming out called Fire and Fury. NY Mag has an excerpt and The Guardian has some of the juiciest Bannon quotes.

It's entertaining as hell; Wolff tells a good story. But it's a good idea to take this stuff with a grain of salt. Here's a case in point:

Murdoch suggested that taking a liberal approach to H-1B visas, which open America’s doors to select immigrants, might be hard to square with his promises to build a wall and close the borders. But Trump seemed unconcerned, assuring Murdoch, “We’ll figure it out.”

“What a fucking idiot,” said Murdoch, shrugging, as he got off the phone.


Now, I see three possibilities here:

1) Michael Wolff is an animagus. He knows what Murdoch said when he got off the phone because he was in the room, spying on him in the form of a Wolff-spider.

2) As Rupert Murdoch's biographer, Michael Wolff has unprecedented access to Rupert Murdoch, who willingly told him "And then I shrugged and said 'What a fucking idiot' as I got off the phone."

3) Michael Wolff is making shit up.

However, it's notable that Bannon hasn't denied any of the quotes attributed to him. And the quote that's gotten the most attention is this, referring to Don Jr and Kushner's meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower:

The meeting was revealed by the New York Times in July last year, prompting Trump Jr to say no consequential material was produced. Soon after, Wolff writes, Bannon remarked mockingly: “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers.

“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

Bannon went on, Wolff writes, to say that if any such meeting had to take place, it should have been set up “in a Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire, with your lawyers who meet with these people”. Any information, he said, could then be “dump[ed] … down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some other more legitimate publication”.

Bannon added: “You never see it, you never know it, because you don’t need to … But that’s the brain trust that they had.”

Bannon also speculated that Trump Jr had involved his father in the meeting. “The chance that Don Jr did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero.”


(Aside: I love the part where he casually acknowledges Breitbart is not a legitimate publication.)

Trump is unhappy; he (or somebody speaking on his behalf) has responded with a statement saying that Bannon has "lost his mind". He is, as usual, doing the "he wasn't that important or influential in the campaign or presidency anyway" dance.

There's a lot of schadenfreude to be had here, including the Breitbart comments erupting into anger against the guy who runs Breitbart.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the excerpt on NY Mag, but I don't know that I'll pick up the book; there's a definite feeling of tabloid sensationalism here, I suspect that a lot of it will be gross, inconsequential, and/or made up, and all the best bits will show up on the Internet.

But hey, at least Michelle Wolf is having some fun with it.



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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Cait » Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:11 pm

Wolff hosted the dinner those comments were made at, and has tapes of everything, it turns out! https://www.axios.com/how-michael-wolff ... 60813.html

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby zaratustra » Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:37 pm

"The White House says Wolff was cleared for access to the West Wing fewer than 20 times."

so basically if he wanted to burgled the place down to the copper in the walls he could

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Thad » Fri Jan 05, 2018 10:46 am

The Hollywood Reporter has another excerpt.

Trump and America's favorite anti-press attorney, Charles Harder, have threatened Bannon, Wolff, and publisher Henry Holt and Co with lawsuits and demanded the book not be published. Result: they moved up the publication schedule; it's out today.

This may just be chest-thumping and Trump may have no intention of actually suing. But you never know with that guy.

It's unclear whether they have a case. Harder's letters don't mention any specific statements that are defamatory, which is a red flag that there probably aren't any. (As Ken White likes to say, vagueness in legal threats is the hallmark of meritless thuggery.)

As Mongrel notes, Wolff claims he has tapes; the standard for defamation for a public figure is very high, and provided he cites all his sources accurately, his ass is probably covered.

As for Bannon violating an NDA, that might be a firmer case (though, as Masnick notes, "violating NDA" and "defamation" are mutually exclusive; the same statement can't be both, as violation of an NDA requires truth and defamation requires falsity). If Trump actually sues, Bannon will likely argue that the NDA is invalid, and maybe that he's protected as a whistleblower. As far as I know this is legally uncharted territory and nobody's ever been sued for violating an NDA by the POTUS before. I know a lot less about this area of speech law than I do about defamation law (and in the scheme of things I don't know that damn much about defamation law, I'm just a guy who reads free speech blogs), so I've got no idea what would happen here; even if Bannon is found guilty, there are movements in Congress to limit the power of NDAs (specifically in cases of sexual harassment), and I could see this issue playing out in future legislation. (Not that I'd expect a Republican congress to protect people reporting unflattering things about Trump, but presumably someday there's going to be another Democrat in the White House.)

Meanwhile, there seems to be a serious push to fire Bannon from Breitbart. In the scheme of things, whoever ends up running Breitbart, it's still gonna be Breitbart, but I do derive a certain amount of glee at the prospect of Bannon being forced out in disgrace for biting the tiny hand that feeds him.

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Cait » Fri Jan 05, 2018 11:53 am

Not cool, Thad. I'm not Mongrel.

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Fri Jan 05, 2018 1:29 pm

And aren't you glad you're not!

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby pacobird » Fri Jan 05, 2018 1:33 pm

Thad wrote:
Now, I see three possibilities here:

1) Michael Wolff is an animagus. He knows what Murdoch said when he got off the phone because he was in the room, spying on him in the form of a Wolff-spider.

2) As Rupert Murdoch's biographer, Michael Wolff has unprecedented access to Rupert Murdoch, who willingly told him "And then I shrugged and said 'What a fucking idiot' as I got off the phone."

3) Michael Wolff is making shit up.



Wolff explains in the foreword that some of this stuff is deep background, as in it's based on statements from interviewees with such a large interest in anonymity that their account has to be presented in floating third person.

I mean, Wolff might be totally full of shit, but he at least would have a good reason for presenting the info this way considering how close the interviewee would have to be to Murdoch to get it.
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