July 16, 2017

Scott Adams laughs hysterically at the idea the Democrats are intimidated by Kid Rock.

And before he gets to that, there's some excellent discussion of why — given his opinion that everyone smart would have taken the meeting Don Jr. took with the Russian lawyer — some people who seem to be smart claim they would not have taken the meeting. Adams does a great job with the comic delay of the answer. And I love the part where he demonstrates what it's like for the kind of person who takes a lot of meetings to process the introductions at a typical meeting:

122 comments:

James Pawlak said...

Ничего себе!

Robert J. said...

Scott Adams needs to edit his 17 minutes of empty rambling down to 2 minutes of content if he expects me to listen to him.

Ann Althouse said...

"Scott Adams needs to edit his 17 minutes of empty rambling down to 2 minutes of content if he expects me to listen to him."

Wrong.

Robert J. said...

"Scott Adams needs to edit his 17 minutes of empty rambling down to 2 minutes of content if he expects me to listen to him."

Wrong.


Right.

Also, it should be "flower-soup cafe" (with a hyphen), not "flower soup cafe."

Leslie Graves said...

Watching his coffee chats reminds me of watching Mr. Rogers.

Unknown said...

Krauthammer seems to be a far more intelligent and reasonable voice on this issue. Why didn't they take the meeting but only after contacting the FBI? Do a sting of sorts. Maybe they didn't want the FBI to know what they promised for the dirt on Hillary.

rhhardin said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWbxPn8oz8w

Youtube version for people that his player doesn't work for.

Michael The Magnificent said...

Number of Democrats (hell, anyone of any political stripe) who claimed Collusion! and/or Treason! when John McCain fetched opposition research on Trump from a former British MI6 agent who claims to have enlisted the aid of Russian sources? ZERO.

Which is correct. There was no collusion or treason when McCain did it, just like there is no collusion or treason when Don Jr. did it.

Unknown said...

I listened to the entire video. He makes my skin crawl.

Spiros Pappas said...

Mr. Trump Jr. acted like an ignorant slob.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael The Magnificent said...

Why didn't they take the meeting but only after contacting the FBI? Do a sting of sorts.

A sting? For what crime? A private American citizen took a meeting with a private Russian citizen who claimed to have damaging information on another private American citizen.

Please cite the United States criminal code you think was violated by this meeting.

Etienne said...

I listened to the entire video. He makes my skin crawl.

I thought it should have been filmed in Technicolor at 24 frames a minute.

That is to say, I'm ignoring the message like you, and instead attacking the messenger.

Typical social media M.O.

Yancey Ward said...

Bob,

Ms. Althouse is correct- the entire 17 minutes would be impossible to edit down to even less than 14-15. The only extraneous part that was completely unneeded was the first minute or so with the coffee.

Chuck said...

I have never taken a meeting.

I have attended a great many meetings.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"DETROIT— Let’s be clear, when Kid Rock speaks on matters of social issues he speaks for all those who support him. That includes organizations that have honored him. The Detroit Branch NAACP led by Wendell Anthony honored Kid Rock."

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/07/10/kid-rock-to-critics-kiss-my-ass-re-confederate-flag-what-will-detroit-naacp-do-now/

Proggies voicing concern, not raw Obama-drop-the-mic-level condescension about the potential Senate bid is wise seeing as how Rock speaks for so many millions of people.

Anything Patti Murray, Deb Stabenow, or especially Bernie Sanders can do, or that Lowell Weicker actually did, Rock can do better.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Achilles said...

There needs to be an option to speed the video up. If you don't edit it and get to the point 17 minutes is way too much time.

Or post a transcript.

Do something better than this.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Eggs-sackly.

Someone offers dirt on your opponent during a campaign- you find out what it is.

The left think that only THEY are allowed to do opposition research. they are creepy dictators.

Chuck said...

I posted this in another Althouse comments page, but the notion that Michigan Republicans would support Kid Rock in a primary is very weird to me.

The leading candidate for the party nomination is former Supreme Court Chief Justice Bob Young. Young is intensely bright, hard-working, and scandal-free. He has won repeated statewide re-elections as a multi-term justice.

He is a member of the Federalist Society, and a rock-solid conservative. Trump placed Young on his list of possible SCOTUS nominees. (Which made Young laugh.)

Oh; and he is black.

Meanwhile, Kid Rock is -- to the extent that he has ever made any hard political pronouncements -- pro-choice on abortion, and pro-Obergefell on same-sex marriage.

n.n said...

Call the DOJ to learn their... I mean, her, motives.

Yancey Ward said...

Adams is correct throughout the video. As someone who used to regularly sit through meetings with people I didn't know and didn't meet again, I couldn't have told you even a month later what their names were, and I have a memory that is quite a bit above average.

In the meeting from June 2016, one of things that seems to have been lost in the muck is that Veselnitskaya doesn't appear to speak English very well or at all. Trump Jr. etal may well have thought of Ms. Veselnitskaya's partner her interpreter and have given him no additional weight. For all we know, this is actually case.

Of course, a lot of people who viscerally dislike Trump will say they wouldn't have taken the meeting or would have contacted the FBI. This is what is known as ethical bullshit. Ed Rollins is definitely not a Trump supporter, but he is fairly honest in that he admits the truth in the end- that you send some lower ranking person to take the meeting, especially if you think it likely that the promise of valid opposition research is bullshit. That was my main critique of Trump Jr.- if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Trump Jr. comes off as naive, in my opinion, but certainly not corrupt here.

And just to drive home the point- the Clinton Campaign paid people to gather opposition research from Russian sources and trafficked the research to the media. John McCain also trafficked this same opposition research to the media late in the campaign. All of that is worse violation of ethics and the "law" if you are taking the position that Trump Jr. behaved unethically and illegally in taking a meeting in which it now appears no information was actually exchanged or even available.

George M. Spencer said...

Fabulous. Adams is the future of political commentary...a guy a home in a t-shirt in a badly made video cracking up, and he's a guy who draws cartoons for a living.

Who needs those stuffed shirts sitting at a table.

If the Democratic Party wants to win in 2020, they have to run Bruce Springsteen. Name recognition. Can self-fund campaign. Excellent physical condition. Fun rallies. Handsome, i.e. women's vote. Can compete with blue collar, whites. Wins NJ. Was born in USA.

eddie willers said...

Nickelback for Senate!

I don't really know who they are, but Adams got me laughing so hard with it anyway.

Levi Starks said...

Until I watched this video I had no idea what Scott Adams even looked like.
He's refreshingly candid, I enjoyed it. If I were a Democrat it would probably make my skin crawl.

traditionalguy said...

Taking a meeting is what big operators do to the demands on them to listen to sales presentations hoping to make a deal with the one with connections to talent or money. There is no up front fee charged like lawyers demand for their time. But big time, connected lawyers always bill for their time at Lunch meetings the others invite them to and pay for.

It's like accepting a phone call.

David Begley said...

Yancey Ward makes a key point. This woman Russian lawyer barely speaks English. She had a translator. The meeting supposedly lasted 20 minutes. So she talked for maybe 10 minutes?

Achilles said...

Blogger Chuck said...
"I posted this in another Althouse comments page, but the notion that Michigan Republicans would support Kid Rock in a primary is very weird to me."

That is because you don't want republicans to win.

Hagar said...

There would be no need to call the FBI, and if they had, chances are the response would have been to go and just call them back if anything worth reporting should happen to come up at this meeting.

However, I think Manafort should have known who this Goldstone person was, and if not should have called around to find out and then nixed the meeting.

Hagar said...

The Soviet Union fell almost 30 years ago. You have any idea how many more or less "Russian" Russians there are in DC by now and meeting with people for this and that reason?
The person at the FBI taking such a call may not even have felt like being polite responding to Trump Jr.

Hagar said...

I just got to thinking about the time when I was young and parked my car downtown while I went to a movie. It was gone when I got out so I went to the police station and said I thought my car had been stolen. Th cop behind the window lifted one eyebrow and said: "You think so, eh?" in a tone that I did not at all care for.

Heywood Rice said...

The leading candidate for the party nomination is former Supreme Court Chief Justice Bob Young. Young is intensely bright, hard-working, and scandal-free. He has won repeated statewide re-elections as a multi-term justice.

Yes, yes, but can he wrestle? The show must go on!

Kevin said...

The only extraneous part that was completely unneeded was the first minute or so with the coffee.

That's how he starts all of his episodes. It's like the title credits.

Bill Peschel said...

Well, at least he got his point across, although I didn't think it was as funny as he thought it was. I listened to this because I was putting up a post on my website, so I didn't waste my time.


tim maguire said...

My first reaction to more names added to the meeting list was, yeah, where's the word "allegedly" in all this? But Adams makes a great point that I didn't think too much about--there's no reason why Trump Jr. should have remembered any of these people if he even knew who they were at the time of the meeting.

Even within my company, I couldn't name half the people who were in the meetings I attended Friday. The idea that I could name anyone on my own staff who was in a particular meeting 6 months ago, unless they played a pivotal role, is ludicrous. People I didn't know before the meeting? Just the ones leading it.

What's getting so frustrating is how many Republicans are willing to dance to the Democratic tune no matter how many times they play the same broken record.

Drain the swamp. All of it.

Birkel said...

In which a fopdoodle whose predictions have proven wrong at all turns makes another prediction.

Bated breath. Or maybe baited tenterhooks.

madAsHell said...

"Scott Adams needs to edit his 17 minutes of empty rambling down to 2 minutes of content if he expects me to listen to him."


It was 15 minutes of Jedi mind tricks. I kept hearing "It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood", and thinking of the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow man. How was your experience?

Scott said...

I kept waiting for the punchline. I gave up at 11:08.

Gusty Winds said...

The chair recognizes Senator Rock....

Unknown said...

I play tennis 5 times a week with various people. On any given day I have to think hard about who I played a couple of days ago, and I know all of the people I play well. Ask me about a meeting a year ago that lasted 20 minutes, with people I'd never met before and nothing coming of it? No way I'd recall that unless you spelled it out for me, and even than I doubt I'd remember any of it.
As for taking the meeting in the first place, any politician who says he wouldn't have taken it is a liar and a hypocrite. Especially since it was known at the time that the Clinton's had received a lot of Russian money into their foundation (RICO scheme?) and for a speech Bill gave in Moscow after she approved the sale of 20% of our Uranium to Russia--that was already in the news.
As for the Republicans, almost none of them are defending Trump, which indicates to me they wouldn't mind him going down, so the establishment can regain control. Shameless.

eddie willers said...

The chair recognizes Senator Rock....

"Can we call you Kid, kid?"

WA-mom said...

About Kid Rock, I loved tweet by Alexandra Petri‏:
"Quick someone run Kid Paper.
It is the only thing that can defeat him

madAsHell said...

I read his Wiki page.
It changes nothing. He's a strange dude.

Kate said...

What an infectious laugh. He had me crying. Still giggling. Kid Rock. If you can't laugh at our current political climate, you'll go bonkers.

madAsHell said...

I kept waiting for the punchline. I gave up at 11:08.

Someone named Scott in the Pacific Time Zone waiting for a punchline?

Just makes me think!

Michael K said...

"Blogger Unknown said...
I listened to the entire video. He makes my skin crawl."

Are you sure it wasn't fleas ?

Anonymous said...

A lot of people here who don't have much of a sense of humor today - or maybe Adams and I are just on the same wavelength. Just sit there for a moment and imagine Fauxahauntas going nuts over Kid Rock's candidacy. Doesn't that tell you an awful lot about the state of the Dem mind at the moment? How can you not get the giggles?

I also enjoy watching someone else having fun while he strips the "lies and hypocrisy" from those involved in politics with humor instead of pomposity. Lincoln was famous for disrupting meetings with jokes. All the way-too-serious commenters here would clearly have been appalled.

Me, I am still smiling from watching the video and am convinced that Dilbert is one of the most astute observers of our world today. A touch cynical, but astute.

Thank you, Ann.

tcrosse said...

I wonder if I could stand to watch Adams with Seinfeld on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Quayle said...

"Doesn't that tell you an awful lot about the state of the Dem mind at the moment? How can you not get the giggles?"

Especially when - and this is serious so don't laugh - especially when we have Ivanka Trump singlehandedly setting back feminism and the many gains women have been making, by wearing a pink dress to a meeting.

She set back feminism by wearing pink!

grackle said...

Krauthammer seems to be a far more intelligent and reasonable voice on this issue.

Sadly, Krauthammer, almost from the beginning was a NeverTrumper. He’s dreaming of a Pence administration where he doesn’t have to write about a phenomenon that to Krauthammer is puzzling and a bit frightening. Trump wasn’t supposed to win and the Krauthammers of the world were as depressed about Trump’s win as the Democrats were.

I posted this in another Althouse comments page, but the notion that Michigan Republicans would support Kid Rock in a primary is very weird to me.

This commentor missed Adams’s point entirely – which was that it was laughable that the Dems(and the commentor, BTW) would take Kid Rock’s announcement seriously.

Hagar said...

After Trump, the American political world will be different.

A lot of people have difficulty getting used to the idea.

Wonder what they will do if Trump pulls a Bloomberg and runs as an independent in 2020?
And wins?

grackle said...

Wonder what they will do if Trump pulls a Bloomberg and runs as an independent in 2020? And wins?

Trump already HAS a party – it’s called the GOP. A lot of the tight-ass eGOP doesn’t like it which is why they are acting like the fools they are. Bloomy was never a serious candidate – no independent would be because of the way our political system is currently arranged.

Bloomy was hoping to siphon off some of the Trump voters to benefit Hillary, nothing else – it was a “stop Trump” gambit that did not pay off. Bloomy realized this was a lost cause after 3 or 4 months of absolutely no enthusiasm for his run and went ahead and openly endorsed Hillary – who was Bloomy’s choice all along.

Chuck said...

Wonder what they will do if Trump pulls a Bloomberg and runs as an independent in 2020?

I have a great idea; we could call the new Trump party "the Bull Moose Party." It should be fabulous.

tcrosse said...

I just read that Caitlyn Jenner is contemplating a run for the Senate. Over to you, Scott.

Fabi said...

Rock / Pence 2024

rcocean said...

Adams is one of the few people who can make #Nothingate interesting.

I've stopped watching the news on this, its just the same old boring crap. We've been hearing about Russia-Trump for 8 months.

Where's the beef?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Goodbye Joe Scarborough... hello Kid Rock.

Hagar said...

Bloomberg - a Life-Long Democrat - has successfully run for mayor of New York as a Republican, Independent, and - finally - a Democrat.

Heywood Rice said...

Bloomy was never a serious candidate – no independent would be because of the way our political system is currently arranged.

The word is rigged.

Quaestor said...

Short-Attention-Span-Bob wrote: Also, it should be "flower-soup cafe" (with a hyphen), not "flower soup cafe."

WRONG.

There are turtle soup and tomato soup, mushroom soup and French onion soup, chicken soup and bean soup, lentil soup and vegetable soup. Nary a hyphen amonst them. According to Campbell it's split pea soup, whether it's Canadian or not. Martha Stewart claims it's split-pea soup. Maybe she's right, but I wouldn't rate her an authority on punctuation. Notice, however, that the hyphen comes between split and pea, and not between pea and soup.

Just what rule of punctuation did you apply when you decreed flower soup needed a hyphen? Unless you can satisfy me in this regard I'm going to give a new nickname. The late Inga was always Abby Someone due to her... shall we say peculiar thought process. Unless and until I see a non-insane explanation of how "flower-soup" is correct, you, Bob, are henceforth the Soup Hyphen Nazi.

grackle said...

Who needs those stuffed shirts sitting at a table.

Exactly why I don’t watch the Sunday morning panels unless there’s someone like Laura Ingraham or Mollie Hemingway sitting in.

I think that Trump supporters on these panels are chosen for their lack of knowledge of the issues surrounding Trump and/or inability to communicate effectively. Seeing these non-entities half-heartedly defend Trump is not worth viewing.

bagoh20 said...

Yea, I don't get any of this hoopla. You are trying to win the biggest prize in the world of power, which is a world where rules are for losers, because everything is at stake, and it's politics. Of course anyone would take the meeting. Hillary people would have taken it twice, and did much worse many times. Besides that, anybody running or not, including any reporter, analyst, prostitute, janitor lawyer or housewife would have wanted to hear such dirt. And besides that, if she did have such information, wouldn't it be important for the public to know it before the election? It doesn't matter where it came from. If Hillary did something bad enough to cost her the election, then the public needs to know it. In fact, taking the meeting could have been a very patriotic act, and would still be if the parties were reversed. Outing dirt isn't a bad thing as long as it's true. The public can sort it out, and has a right to. The problem is that too much dirt did not get out. Dirty people should not expect to win elections, but they do.

Rick said...

["Scott Adams needs to edit his 17 minutes of empty rambling down to 2 minutes of content if he expects me to listen to him."]

Wrong.

Maybe, but certainly he needs to leave it up longer.

Fred Drinkwater said...

I have business meetings with roughly 10 new people every month. Most of these are the product of a referral of some kind, which, as Adams notes, makes the decision to meet easy. Most of the rest are targets of opportunity. I almost never turn down a meeting that's offered.
But my main goal in these meetings is to decide if there's any "there" there. Most of the time there isn't, and if you asked me a month later I couldn't tell you the name of the person or the company. Maybe there's a trace in email somewhere, maybe a page of notes, but mostly there's nothing (except for the inevitable business card, which goes in the business card pile.)
And I'm way over on the low end, compared to my friends in this business, some of whom are seeing 5-10 times the numbers that I do. (Adams is probably up there, based on the couple times I've been in meetings with him. And yeah, I remember him because he's atypical and memorable.)
It's worth the effort because of the interesting few percent that float to the top.

Unknown said...

Krauthammer isn't half as smart as he or Foxnews thinks. He was totally dismissive of Trump until he won, and his reaction to the Don Jr meeting is inane. He's been wrong more than right over the years. I have a lot less respect for him now than I did years ago. He's a not recovering nevertrumper.
I think a huge mistake Trump is making is that he has a weak communications staff, as did GWB. It's critical to be able to drive the narrative ther than being the punching bag. Spicer is in way over his head, and Huckabee-Sanders is too junior. I don't even know who his top communications director is, or even if he has one. Trump is amazing at handling the press in live press conferences but he hasn't had one in months. He should have one asap and remind everybody of the policy accomplishments he's had so far ( sadly with little to no GOP Congess help except for approving Gorsuch). He should then lay out how rediculous the story line All Russia All The Time is, and how it's taking away from getting things done that the nation needs.
I also think he should give a speech to the country in which he gives Mueller a specific time (3-6 months) to put up or shut up, rather than the endless, expensive fishing expedition that idiot Rosenstein sanctioned.

Quaestor said...

bagoh20 wrote" In fact, taking the meeting could have been a very patriotic act, and would still be if the parties were reversed.

Bingo. Christopher Steele got paid actual money for his supposed dirt, thus establishing the Democrats definitely traded for something of value with a foreigner, a direct violation of the law. But we nothing about that from the NYT, do we?

Dr Weevil said...

Something I haven't seen anyone mention:

If there's information out there damaging to your opponent, there's nothing the least bit sleazy about wanting to know about it, whether it's true, false, or somewhere in between, even if you have no intention of spreading it. It would be professional malpractice for candidates and their campaign workers not to want to know what it is.

After all, if the dirt on your opponent turns out to be (a) big enough that it would force her out of the race if generally known, and (b) the kind of thing that will become known whether you reveal it or not, you need to start preparing a contingency plan immediately, planning how you will deal with a last-minute substitute candidacy by (e.g.) Sanders or Biden or Warren, when your whole campaign has been based on fighting Hillary.

Of course, what is sleazy and possibly (IANAL) illegal is when you know the reports are false and spread them anyway. Case in point: the 'piss dossier'. Odd that the people who spread (splattered? drizzled?) that fairy tale all over the media (including John McCain) have gotten far less grief than Don, Jr.

Dr Weevil said...

OK, while I was writing that, Quaestor just anticipated my last paragraph. But the two preceding it seem important and true.

The Godfather said...

If the Republicans don't repeal and replace Obamacare, it will be time for a new party (and I really am a lifelong Republican). There may well be a place for Kid Rock in the Senate. He'd be better than quite a few incumbent Senators I can think of.

Heywood Rice said...

Christopher Steele got paid actual money for his supposed dirt, thus establishing the Democrats definitely traded for something of value with a foreigner, a direct violation of the law. But we nothing about that from the NYT, do we?

You are stating the facts incorrectly on two counts. Steele was hired by Fusion GPS an American firm and at the time he was hired the funding was from Republican sources. This has been widely reported, originally by the NYT.

wikipedia

According to reports, the dossier was created as part of opposition research on Trump. The investigation into Trump was initially funded by "Never Trump" Republicans and later by Democrats.[5][6][7] In September 2015, a wealthy Republican donor who opposed Trump's candidacy in the Republican primary hired Fusion GPS, an American research firm, to do opposition research on Trump. For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee in May 2016, the Republican donor withdrew and the investigation contract was taken over by an unidentified Democratic client.[7][8]

Yancey Ward said...

How do you explain Never-Trumpers?

The Never-Trumpers spent the entire primary season, and continuing through until 10:00 p.m. EST on November 8th stroking their chins and tut-tutting about how Trump was sure to lose an election any other Republican could have won without even having to try. They assured anyone who would listen to them that Trump would not only lose, but lose so badly that he would take down the Senate and House, too. This was Krauthammer, Will, almost everyone at NRO, The Weekly Standard, the WSJ, FoxNews, and Chuckles, etc. That Trump won despite all these brilliant political writers assurances it wasn't possible will never be forgiven. Trump destroyed their plans of telling everyone, "I told you so," over and over and over. It is to the point right now that every single one of them will gleefully cut their own freaking noses off with a spoon if they can take Trump down on some bullshit conspiracy theory- all in an attempt to salvage what they see as the loss of respect they suffered for being laughably wrong last November.

Chuck said...

grackle I'm glad that you like Mollie Hemingway as I do. She had the good sense to call Trump "reprobate and immoral," having chosen a "wanton, unscrupulous lifestyle and brag[ging] about it."

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Right-o Bagoh.

It was patriotic to want to learn what the Russians knew about Hillary's secret deals.

Not treason, as the left cry and whine and stomp - but patriotism!

buwaya said...

But antiphone, what you just cited shows that Democrats did indeed pay Fusion GPS, regardless of who paid them initially.

And that Fusion GPS sourced information from Russian sources.

Surely the law, if such it is, cannot be so easily bypassed by such a cutout? If I pay an assassin, am I not also guilty of murder? If I bribe a politician by passing the money through a mobster, am I not guilty of bribery?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Americans chose wanton reprobate over private server for personal profit and Podesta government crime syndicate.

Too damn bad.

buwaya said...

The Duke of Wellington was also, behind the scenes, quite a reprobate. His affairs, that are known, or well established, are legion. He was not merely promiscuous, but notorious, and often contemptuously so.

And in the modern world he would, most likely, have come off, in modern media, with a tone of haughty cruelty on all sorts of matters that would leave modern society catatonic.

And yet, and yet, and yet, he was the Duke of Wellington. Savior of his nation - several times, and of the concert of Europe. And not least a savior of of his men, as unlike so many others in his position he was extremely careful of their lives. And if it mattered, so also of the lives and welfare of his opponents and civilians.

Hero or devil? History has always said hero, because whatever was wrong with him was in small matters, and what was great was in great ones.

You need to see the world in context. What are your own subjective standards that stand in your way? An analysts first responsibility is to understand his own biases, and to the degree possible account for them. What are small matters, and what are great?

buwaya said...

To put things into greater context - as a historical figure, Donald Trump is already far more important than the Iron Duke.

That is partly the nature of the modern world and the US Presidency, but also his peculiar role in the modern situation. We are really talking about great matters, not tabloid foolishness. That stuff is passing entertainment.

Michael K said...

Steele was hired by Fusion GPS an American firm and at the time he was hired the funding was from Republican sources.

Actually, probably John McCain, may his dick shrivel to a peanut.

The Democrats also hired them and buwaya is absolutely correct.

It's amusing to see you lefties twist and turn and try to blame someone else, usually a Republican.

Jon Ericson said...

TPM Pow-Wow over.
Let the lunacy flow over you.
Do not feed the trolls.

Not once!

Jon Ericson said...

Hit it, Pedro!

Heywood Rice said...

And that Fusion GPS sourced information from Russian sources.

Surely the law, if such it is, cannot be so easily bypassed by such a cutout?


Globalization, all the way down.

Tarrou said...

I can't say what the suits and the shrews in the Republican Party of Michigan are going to push for in the senate race. I doubt it will be Mr. Ritchie. What I do know is that I live in Michigan, and half my facebook feed is Kid Rock memes right now. Rick/Rock* for president, that sort of thing. The political operatives will care about policy and carefully crafted messaging. The core of Michigan doesn't, never has, and never will. If Ritchie decides to make it a serious run, I expect it to be every bit as dirty as the DNC did to Bernie.

*White Boy Rick, it's a Detroit thing.

Heywood Rice said...

It's amusing to see you lefties twist and turn and try to blame someone else, usually a Republican.

Cheer up, it must have been McCain (or Jeb). The point is we don't know and there's little point in pretending otherwise.

buwaya said...

antiphone,

Regardless, if the accusation vs the Republicans is valid, then so are all similar cases, logically. If so the number of guilty parties in Washington are, well, nearly all of them, no?

One cannot wave away logic with "globalization".

If the Democrats insist on selective application of laws, if there are such laws, then that is tyrranny. This is nasty, destabilizing stuff. Its this sort of thing that, in the old days, gentlemen learned, when they studied the fall of the Roman Republic. That was a favorite subject, its no accident that Gibbons book was a bestseller, nor was it an accident that the first volume of the "Decline and Fall" came out in 1776.

Paul from Decatur, GA said...

As to the Duke of Wellington and his many affairs: when a former mistress tried to blackmail him with a threat to have his letters to her published, he famously replied "Publish and be damned!"

Jon Ericson said...

Isn't 7:30 the bitching hour?
Or is that just M-F?

I wouldn't want to unclog Pedro's drain.
Or maybe I would if I could get enough for my chicken grease powered truck.

Heywood Rice said...

f the Democrats insist on selective application of laws, if there are such laws, then that is tyrranny. This is nasty, destabilizing stuff. Its this sort of thing that, in the old days, gentlemen learned, when they studied the fall of the Roman Republic.

Good heavens, but then again I would presume that these learned gentlemen of yore first checked to see what the laws were before making wild allegations of tyranny and the collapse of civilization.

Jon Ericson said...

Excusez-moi.
Steak grease of course.

Freeman Hunt said...

"Scott Adams needs to edit his 17 minutes of empty rambling down to 2 minutes of content if he expects me to listen to him."

I almost never watch videos, and when I do rarely watch them, I also rarely finish them.

I watched/listened to the entire 17 minutes of this.

Jon Ericson said...

re: unclogging Pedro's drain.
Shower drain of course.
No rainbow stickers on my bumper!

Heywood Rice said...

One cannot wave away logic with "globalization".

Au contraire buwaya, in fact the process is very, very lucrative. Just be sure you're not seen as a "globalist" (that's a no no).

Jon Ericson said...

Freeman: Ditto!

Jon Ericson said...

I'll have what antiphone's having.

Jon Ericson said...

Sounds soothing.
la la la.

Jon Ericson said...

Aw, it looks like the communists have a night off.
Sweet dreams, powder-puffs.

Jon Ericson said...

Dream of starving Kulaks! and Siberia! and Cuba!
and Venezuela! and Nigeria! and Sweden!... ad infinitum.
Pleasent dreams Comrade!

Jon Ericson said...

sant

Jon Ericson said...

Beddy-bye time for deleters.
Count down.
Shit show 'til abt 4:55AM.
It's like watching the Aurora Borealis.

buwaya said...

Indeed, antiphone, those gentlemen of yore were not inclined to overstep their authority, such as prosecuting their opponents on laws that had not previously existed, covering the same practices as they themselves had been happy to indulge in, as the Democratic party seems to be insisting on doing these days.

The lesson of the Roman Republic was that you play dirty pool at your own risk. We moderns, and the politicians, are far worse educated than those men of yore.

David said...

"Scott Adams needs to edit his 17 minutes of empty rambling down to 2 minutes of content if he expects me to listen to him."

It's the two minutes of content types that provide Scott Adams with his living.

You want brevity from Adams? Read Dilbert. But avoid the Sunday version. Probably too long for you.

Jon Ericson said...

Ha!

Jon Ericson said...

God Bless You, Everyone.
And I mean it.

Snark said...

I was going to try to watch 17 minutes of Scott Adams, but I decided last minute to put my head in the vice and have my son drill through a few molars while I dropped bricks on my toes instead, so I don't know what his point was about Kid Rock. Was he saying the bid was almost certainly not serious?

Jon Ericson said...

Sorry, asshole, but it was bringing tears to my eyes.
Are you a mutant?

Jon Ericson said...

Tears of laughter, "80 and below"

Jon Ericson said...

Here's a puddle.
waddle in it.
dry yourself off.
and think about it.

Jon Ericson said...

Or, if you prefer,
Squirt, squirt in the mouth.

Jon Ericson said...

Tell us about how wonderful it feels.

Jon Ericson said...

HEY! WAKE UP, SOROSLIZZARDS.
WHO GAVE YOU THE NIGHT OFF?

Bad Lieutenant said...

In September 2015, ... For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee in May 2016, the Republican donor withdrew and the investigation contract was taken over by an unidentified Democratic client.[7][8]
7/16/17, 5:30 PM


Taken over? How does THAT work?

Narayanan said...

How confident Are the GOPe that Trump won't run his own candidates in 2018.... I can't wait to see them blindsided while they scheme for Pence to ascend.

Jon Ericson said...

The funniest people in the world (heh).

Be said...

Long Form.

Jon Ericson said...

That's me, baby.

Quaestor said...

Steele was hired by Fusion GPS an American firm and at the time he was hired the funding was from Republican sources.

What antiphone is describing is money laundering, and it's no defense in court as many thugs and miscreants have learned since the trial of Al Capone.

Bad Lieutenant said...

But what is this insanity about Republicans funding Fusion GPS to do research, Republicans ending the funding, then Fusion GPS resuming the work under Democratic pay? Who is the actor here? Do you think Republicans who ended paying for Fusion wanted Fusion to continue? No rights to the work or confidentiality or something? Lawyer for the defense goes to work for the prosecution? There's something wrong here.

Yancey Ward said...

Trump's political enemies were Democrats and Republicans. It is likely the GPSFusion funding came from Jeb! donors initially, and when that dried up, the company shopped the work to the DNC who probably lined up the funding from some individuals. Grassley really should subpoena GPSFusion, but likely won't because of that early link to Republicans.

Heywood Rice said...

Do you think Republicans who ended paying for Fusion wanted Fusion to continue?

These things do take on a life of their own don't they, but according to the broadly accepted media (MSM) narrative, by the time it became publicly disclosed the dossier had already been shopped around to lots of news outlets who had declined to use it.

The original claims of a Republican donor cited in Wikipedia all seem to lead back to the initial NYT report from which, upon reading, one could defiantly infer --if indeed one were so inclined-- that if the NYT knows that the person in question is a wealthy Republican, they also know whom that person is

Bad Lieutenant said...

But they paid and yet got no rights to the work product? Crazy stupid.

grackle said...

grackle I'm glad that you like Mollie Hemingway as I do. She had the good sense to call Trump "reprobate and immoral," having chosen a "wanton, unscrupulous lifestyle and brag[ging] about it."

I thank the commentor for raising this issue. It gives me the chance to clarify my own thoughts on the subject.

I like Mollie Hemingway because she gives an honest and realistic assessment of the MSM’s fake news attacks on Trump – NOT because she is a fan of Trump’s prior lifestyle. I do not know who she voted for but I’ll bet it wasn’t Hillary. I think that like our hostess(and like the commentor himself) Hemingway probably voted reluctantly for Trump.

I have no such compunctions. I don’t care if Trump fucked dozens of groupies. Celebrities like Trump attract them like flies. I also like Rolling Stones’s music, Errol Flynn’s movies and Norman Mailer’s essays, although it is well known that they all went through groupies like a deck of cards.

It would be nice, perhaps, if our politicians were as chaste as monks but it would certainly limit who you might vote for. There are no monks in Congress.

Just as I am able to separate my cultural preferences from their sex lives I am also able to separate my politics from irrelevancies like how many women might have spread their legs for a given Senator, especially when many of the politicians attacking Trump are probably fucking their staffs – or assorted political groupies they might meet at random.

Chuck said...

Just as I am able to separate my cultural preferences from their sex lives I am also able to separate my politics from irrelevancies like how many women might have spread their legs for a given Senator, especially when many of the politicians attacking Trump are probably fucking their staffs – or assorted political groupies they might meet at random.

That sounds like the way that Democrats tried to explain away Bill Clinton. (They were right; there were all sorts of miserable Republican hypocrisies including not one but two or three Speakers of the House. And of course there was Jesse Jackson, who brought his own mistress to the White House when he was providing ministerial counsel to President Clinton.) ALL of those people seem compromised to me. ALL of them seem like undesirables, unworthy of any great political following. Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Jesse Jackson, etc., etc. Bill O'Reilly and his "falafel." Etc., etc.

One of the last things that has concerned me about Donald Trump is his three marriages and his history of adultery and his private conversations about the opposite sex. I have complained about all sorts of Donald Trump lies, obfuscations and stupidities. Rarely if ever have I delved into Trump's sex life. I presume that like his net worth, it's overrated.

grackle said...

That sounds like the way that Democrats tried to explain away Bill … Jesse Jackson, who brought his own mistress to the White … ALL of those people seem compromised to me. ALL of them seem like undesirables, unworthy of any great political following. Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Jesse Jackson, etc., etc. Bill O'Reilly and his "falafel." Etc., etc.

Oh? I’m curious … could the commentor name a few politicians in Congress who he is sure are desirable? Who he is sure who have never lied and are therefore worthy of our vote?

One of the last things that has concerned me about Donald Trump is his three marriages and his history of adultery and his private conversations about the opposite sex.

Yet the commentor quoted Mollie Hemingway who WAS writing about that very subject – Trump’s sex life. The quote came from an article written in October, 2016, a month before the election, when all the “smart” money was on Clinton. I thought there might be a problem in this regard when I noticed that the commentor failed to provide a link for the quote.

I have complained about all sorts of Donald Trump lies, obfuscations and stupidities. Rarely if ever have I delved into Trump's sex life.

Our subject here is not what the commentor has complained about in the past. We are all too familiar with that very, very long list. So long that a kind of fatigue sets in after the first couple of dozen. No, the subject here is the quote offered by the commentor – which WAS about Trump’s sex life, despite the commentor’s attempt to gloss over this fact.

I presume that like his net worth, it's overrated.

After the first billion who’s counting? Trump is a rich man by anyone’s standards. But as we all know - the commentor NEVER misses a chance to denigrate Trump. The commentor writes of “hypocrisies.” Hypocrisy comes in many forms. So does irony.