On Water And A Duck's Back

Trump shrugs off lifetime of scandals

For the third straight election, tens of millions of Americans will vote for a candidate who boasts an encyclopedia of scandals — personal, political and criminal — unprecedented in any corner of public life.

Why it matters:

Donald Trump has defied political gravity. He has survived the unsurvivable, normalized the abnormal and bulldozed through every red line drawn by his predecessors. And yet he just might win — again.

Driving the news:

Days before the election, Trump's former chief of staff, retired four-star Gen. John Kelly, went on the record to warn that the former president is a "fascist" who would rule like a dictator.

"He commented more than once that, 'You know, Hitler did some good things, too,' " Kelly alleged to The New York Times, choosing to speak out after Trump floated using the U.S. military against political enemies.

Kelly, who left the White House in December 2018, also told The Atlantic that Trump wanted the kind of military generals Hitler had — generals who he said were "totally loyal to him."
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that Kelly "has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated."

What they're saying:

Kelly's comments have landed like virtually every Trump scandal of the past eight years — drawing outrage from Democrats and liberal pundits, shrugs and spin from Republicans.

"It's kind of par for the course. Unfortunately, with a guy like that, it's kind of baked into the vote at this point," New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a moderate Republican who has endorsed Trump, told CNN in response to the Hitler allegations.

Fox News' Brian Kilmeade argued: "I can absolutely see him go, 'It'd be great to have German generals that actually do what we ask them to do,' maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals who were Nazis."

The big picture:

Pull any one of these 10 Trump scandals out of a hat and apply it to any other politician — or even just a typical American. More likely than not, it would end their career.

1. Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts in New York for paying illegal hush money to a porn star, making him the first former president to be charged, convicted and potentially sentenced to prison.
2. He refused to concede the 2020 election, and spread baseless claims of voter fraud that inspired a violent mob to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He's been indicted twice on charges of trying to overturn the election.
3. He was indicted on federal charges of illegally retaining classified documents that included nuclear secrets, leading to an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. (The case was dismissed but could be reinstated upon appeal.)
4. He was impeached twice — once for his actions on Jan. 6 and once for withholding military aid to pressure Ukraine's government to investigate his political opponents.
5. He has publicly praised dictators and sided with Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies that assessed that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election.
6. He was found liable of sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll, and has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least 25 other women. He was caught on tape in 2005 bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.
7. He and his company were ordered to pay $350 million in a New York civil fraud trial for artificially inflating his net worth to secure favorable loan terms.
8. He placed full-page ads in The New York Times in 1989 calling for the death penalty for five Black and Latino teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of raping a jogger in Central Park. He has refused to apologize.
9. He promoted the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, wasn't born in the United States.
10. He made more than 30,000 false or misleading claims during his four years in office, according to Washington Post fact-checkers.
11. Zoom in: He hasn't seemed to slow down in the four years since. In recent weeks, Trump has lied about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio, called Jan. 6 "a day of love," and attended a 9/11 memorial with a 9/11 truther.

Between the lines:

At this point in his career, it's hard to envision a scandal that could shake Trump's grip on the Republican Party.

In the eyes of Trump's most loyal supporters, the media has lost all credibility by engaging in yearslong "witch hunts" attempting to take him down.

For the rest of his voters, it boils down to a more practical calculation: Trump's policies, especially in contrast to a Kamala Harris presidency, are worth the price of his character.
The bottom line: Trump "has survived more scandals than any major party presidential candidate, much less president, in the life of the republic. Not only survived but thrived," writes The New York Times' Peter Baker.

"He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator."

About That Hunter Biden Thing

I'll start by saying there's nothing that will "defang Republican criticism", as Ms Cox puts it.

Given what we know so far about the behavior of DumFux News in the Dominion v Fox lawsuit, "conservatives" don't give one empty fuck about the truth - it's been an open secret for decades that finding the demarcation point between Republicans and Rupert's Gang Of Merry Pranksters is nigh-on to impossible.

Second - and this has come to be one of the big ones in my mind - there's still an awful lot of housecleaning to do before the Justice Department can be said to be relatively free of the kind of inside rot that makes it all but sure that every investigation is wired to some degree against whoever the GOP has decided needs to be tagged a "dangerously liberal".

And there's the rub - it's always pretty clear that the point of the exercise is not to prove anything, but only to plant the seeds of doubt, no matter how ridiculous. In fact - for some of the rubes - the more ridiculous the better.

Ana Marie Cox, trying to play PR Consultant. She makes some valid points reminding us that politics is a shitty game, but as always, NYT pays people to keep us on the knife's edge.

Whatever else happens we can't lean too far one way or the other because asshole conservatives buy dick pills and panty liners too.

So maybe Cynical Mike would like to know how the New York Times is so much different than DumFux News?

Nah - I'll think about that some other time.

Hunter Biden Has Some Explaining to Do

Name a recurring Fox News segment, and there is a Republican congressional investigation for it: the origin of the coronavirus, the threat to our capital markets, supposed collaboration between social media companies and the Democratic Party. Some representatives have launched an investigation into whether the Department of Justice targeted parents who protested vaccine and mask mandates at school board meetings. No bit of pique is too tangential to escape their notice; Lauren Boebert recently demanded during one of these investigations that former Twitter representatives answer for her perceived shortage of likes: “Did either of you approve the shadow banning of my account @LaurenBoebert? Yes or no?”

Nothing feeds the perpetual outrage machine like a sprawling investigation into a vague but titillating scandal. And no pursuit is more vague and more titillating than the so-far-fruitless obsession with Hunter Biden.

For two years now, conservatives have accused President Biden’s wayward son of influence peddling, money laundering, bribery and illegal foreign lobbying — and they have sought to turn his misadventures into a tawdry, sprawling hydra powerful enough to entangle and distract the whole administration. With control over House investigations, they may finally get what they want: a chance to turn Hunter Biden’s life inside out.

It may counter every instinct a loving parent (or a political consultant) could ever have, but the president should want a version of that, too. During Hunter Biden’s active addiction, Joe Biden made it clear to his son and the world that his paternal love was not contingent on his son’s behavior. Now is the time to make it clear that his behavior does have consequences. Joe Biden should clearly call for his son to cooperate — not with the Republican circus on the Hill but with the Justice Department. That would let Hunter Biden stand on his own and allow the administration to focus on issues that matter most to the American people.

Up until this point, the Biden family has — publicly, at least — brushed off Republican threats: “Lots of luck!” Joe Biden told them last fall. Jill Biden simply asserts that “Hunter is innocent.”

But even the most optimistic Democrats know Hunter Biden has some explaining to do. The Justice Department has been investigating him since 2018. Last fall, The Washington Post quoted sources close to the inquiry saying the department had enough evidence to charge him with criminal violations regarding tax crimes and lying on a federal form.

Of course, cheating on your taxes and lying on a form are nothing compared with the operatic tale of corruption at the highest levels spun out by Tucker Carlson et al. But the president’s Hunter Biden problem goes beyond the strict letter of the law. All Republicans want to do is conjure the clingy atmosphere of deviousness that Hillary Clinton never escaped.

Last month, Hunter Biden introduced a daring tactic in his defense: His legal team requested that the Delaware attorney general, the Justice Department and the I.R.S. investigate the key figures responsible for perpetuating the laptop story and disseminating his personal information without his permission.

As wild as the accusations against him are, the one nugget of irreducible truth is Hunter Biden’s privilege. It has served him as a just-about-literal get-out-of-jail-free pass. The same is true for countless other politicians’ kids — certainly including Donald Trump’s. But pointing out the double standard won’t be enough to defang Republican criticism. And neither will just waiting for it all to blow over.

Democrats have tried ignoring Republican fishing expeditions before, hoping that the accusations would evaporate or that voters wouldn’t really care. Sometimes that works. (R.I.P., Operation Fast and Furious.) But with enough prolonged effort, they really can do damage. They succeeded in tarnishing the Clinton brand forever.

Whatever Hunter Biden did or didn’t do, if his father endorses the Justice Department investigation — and promises to stay out of it entirely — that would elevate law enforcement’s slow and steady conventional machinery over the thirsty ravings of far-right Congress members. (As a bonus, the Justice Department will be far less likely than Congress to delve into the most salacious elements of this story.)

And then there’s the fact that Joe Biden built a national profile as an eager participant in the war on drugs, which sent hundreds of thousands of people — primarily Black men — to prison. His son wound up a working artist in Malibu, Calif. Joe Biden’s honesty about that could dampen the nefarious background noise of “rules for thee but not for me” that followed the Clintons wherever they went. His reputation as an essentially honest politician (and a kind, loving father) is the mortar that has glued his career together; not admitting that his family has benefited from his position in this one case gives every other accusation a toehold.

Hunter Biden has endured considerable scrutiny, but he has advantages that most people don’t: No matter what happens, he is unlikely to find himself destitute or without opportunities. Even more of a privilege, perhaps, is that his family has such clear, unconditional love for him. As a person in recovery, I’ve been moved every time Joe Biden has come to his son’s defense. I know that his testimony to Hunter Biden’s value as a person has helped destigmatize the disease of addiction on a significant scale.

Being willing to fight for his son against all comers has been one way for Joe Biden to show love. Letting his son stand on his own two feet and loving him all the same is another.

The Gov's Loves

Here's the thing: I don't care about this. I care that Kristi Noem is a blindly ambitious Trump-sucking lying sack of shit, and personally, I wouldn't fuck her with somebody else's dick, but she didn't ask me, so it's none of my fuckin' business who she physically fucks - I'm only interested in her not fucking us in ways that are political and financial and a few other figuratives.

That said, it's always a little interesting to watch when these weird little spats break out.

WaPo: (pay wall)

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem dismisses conservative website’s claims of extramarital affair with former Trump adviser

South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) on Wednesday dismissed a conservative media outlet’s claim that she is having an extramarital affair with Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump adviser who is also advising Noem.

“These rumors are total garbage and a disgusting lie,” Noem said in a tweet. “These old, tired attacks on conservative women are based on a falsehood that we can’t achieve anything without a man’s help. I love Bryon. I’m proud of the God-fearing family we’ve raised together. Now I’m getting back to work.”

A conservative website, American Greatness, published a piece Tuesday claiming that, according to “multiple” sources, Noem has been having an affair with Lewandowski “for months.” The website did not identify any of the sources.

Lewandowski was Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign manager. He was fired by the campaign in 2016 but remains part of the former president’s inner circle and ran the pro-Trump Make America Great Again Action super PAC.

Noem and Lewandowski have traveled extensively together across the country for political events, and he has promoted her to members of the media. At one event in January, they were spotted partying together late in a hotel bar.

Separately, a Trump donor is accusing Lewandowski of repeatedly groping her and making unwanted sexual comments at a charity event in Las Vegas last week.

“He repeatedly touched me inappropriately, said vile and disgusting things to me, stalked me, and made me feel violated and fearful,” the donor, Trashelle Odom, said in a statement provided to The Washington Post.

“Corey bragged multiple times about how powerful he is, and how he can get anyone elected, inferring he was the reason Trump became President,” she added. “Corey claimed that he controls access to the former president. He said he is in charge of the donors and the Super PAC. . . . He also made it clear that if he was crossed, he has the power to destroy anyone and ruin their lives.”

The accusations were first reported by Politico.

Late Wednesday, a spokesman for Trump said Lewandowski has been pushed out of the former president’s political operation after the allegations.

“Corey Lewandowski will be going on to other endeavors and we very much want to thank him for his service. He will no longer be associated with Trump World,” Taylor Budowich, Trump’s director of communications, wrote in a message on Twitter.

Budowich said former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi will run the pro-Trump super PAC.

John Odom, Odom’s husband, said that he wants “accountability now” from Lewandowski and that the couple is exploring their legal options “to make sure he cannot harm anyone else.”

“Corey called me on Monday evening,” John Odom said in a statement. “He sounded distraught and scared. He said he had been intoxicated. He was sorry for his actions, wanted to know how he could make it go away, and that he would do anything to make it right with Trashelle and our family.”

The Odoms’ statements were provided by a public relations person representing them. The couple themselves could not be reached for comment.

David Chesnoff, a Las Vegas-based attorney for Lewandowski, said in an email Wednesday afternoon: “Accusations and rumors appear to be morphing by the minute and we will not dignify them with a further response.”

Noem, who is considered a potential 2024 GOP vice-presidential contender, has recently come under scrutiny for a meeting she organized for her daughter and the state employee charged with leading the agency that moved to deny her application to become a certified real estate appraiser. The meeting prompted allegations of abuse of power among some state lawmakers, and South Dakota’s attorney general, Jason Ravnsborg, is reviewing the matter.

It’s not clear what steps Ravnsborg plans to take, and his office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.

Noem reportedly organized a meeting in her office on July 27, 2020, to discuss “appraiser certification procedures” that included her daughter Kassidy Noem-Peters; Sherry Bren, head of the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation’s appraiser certification program; Bren’s supervisor; and South Dakota Labor Secretary Marcia Hultman.

While Noem’s daughter secured her certification months later, in November 2020, Bren says she was subsequently pushed to retire in a conversation with Hultman. That’s according to an age-discrimination complaint Bren eventually filed against the Department of Labor and Regulation.

Bren settled with the state for $200,000 on March 31, but the department did not admit fault, and she agreed not to disparage it in public, according to a copy of the complaint shared by South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

Cynical Mike says there's prob'ly not much beyond the sound and fury of it all, but that doesn't really matter. It's easy to see how maybe Lewandowski was tasked with wheedling his way in, getting kinda close with Noem - then making sure people picked up on how they seemed "a bit too close", which then creates a very convenient opportunity to slam a woman who's been making noises about challenging Trump for supremacy in the GOP.

Ain't it kinda funny:

Dems will fight each other hammer-n-tong about policy and approach, while Republicans seem to spend their time and energy concentrating on what everybody's doing with their slippery parts.

And also too - there's something oddly reassuring about how this story just ain't got the legs. Like maybe all this Make-Her-A-Slut-And-Then-Shame-Her-For-It nonsense is starting to lose its oomph as a political weapon. Worth pondering.

BTW - #BothSidesDont

Republicans Are Prone To Scandal

when you wish people would start talking

about your drinking problem again

What A Revoltin' Development

So now, there's just no way for anyone to be unclear as to what 45* meant when he told Zelensky that Marie Yovanovich would be "going through some things".

Business Insider:

• Newly-released texts show discussions by Rudy Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas that talk about stalking former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
• The texts, one of which refers to Yovanovitch as 'that b---h', were made public by the House Intelligence Committee as part of a cache of evidence linking Parnas to President Donald Trump's efforts to put pressure on Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
• Yovanovitch, who testified during President Donald Trump's impeachment inquiry, was abruptly recalled from her position in May after what she described as a smear campaign.
• Upon the release of the documents, Yovanovitch demanded an investigation to look into the extent of surveillance that was conducted by Parnas and his associates.

Newly-published text exchanges involving Rudy Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas show him discussing efforts to stalk former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and refer to her bluntly as 'that b---h'.

The conversations were made public by the House Intelligence Committee, along with letters and handwritten notes that illustrate Parnas' role in President Donald Trump's pressure campaign in Ukraine.

Yovanovitch, who testified during President Donald Trump's impeachment inquiry, was abruptly recalled from her position in May after she what she characterized as a smear campaign.

The conversations back up Yovanovitch's testimony, showing Parnas and his associates plotting to "get rid" of her.

Parnas texted his associate Robert Hyde, a Republican running for Congress in Connecticut, in which Hyde called Yovanovitch a "b---h" for being anti-Trump.

- and -

Hyde later sent several texts suggesting he was keeping tabs on Yovanovitch in Ukraine, adding, "They are willing to help if we/you would like a price."

Afterward, Hyde wrote, "Guess you can do anything in the Ukraine with money."

At the end of March, Hyde texted Parnas updating him on Yovanovitch's location and the state of her security.

He followed up saying how they "have a person inside."

Robert F Hyde is just another GOP Rat-Fucker - who, of course, 45* has never met, doesn't remember, is off doing something maybe for Rudy, maybe not, I'm not sure if Rudy is blah blah fucking blah.

Daily Beast:

Before Tuesday, he was best known as a little-known, scandal-scarred Republican congressional candidate who tweeted an obscene joke at Kamala Harris. But new documents from the House Intelligence Committee have put a completely different kind of spotlight on Robert F. Hyde, the Trump donor who appears to have tracked U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s movements in Ukraine.

In WhatsApp messages exchanged in March 2019 with Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who provided the committee with the files, Hyde and Parnas discussed Yovanovitch’s location. Hyde, a retired Marine, appeared to have associates in Ukraine monitoring her.

The Stormy Thing

I'd like to know how it's kosher for people to use pseudonyms on a binding contract.

Whoever got that one to square up with the courts is a fuckin' genius, and I'm just trying to decide whether I want him on retainer or a barbecue spit.

Anyway, 2 things:

1) Stormy Daniels used Peggy Peterson as her alias. PP - pee pee - whenever the subject is 45*'s sex preferences, it seems like everything keeps pointing back to water sports. 

2) Like the man said: Who're you gonna believe, a porn star who has nothing to lose by telling the truth, or a Trump who has everything to lose by telling the truth?

Gene Robinson, WaPo:

Thanks to Daniels, her lawyer and an unforced error by Sanders, the story Trump has tried so hard to squelch is out. Take a minute and think about it.

The personal lawyer of Donald Trump, days before the election, paid $130,000 to apparently buy the silence of a porn star. Said porn star credibly describes an affair she had with the president and the ham-fisted attempts by his lawyer to keep her from talking about it. All of this unquestionably speaks volumes about the president’s character and morals.
How many mulligans does this guy get?

"Unsubstantiated..."

But knowing what we know - what we've heard 45* say out loud and on record - even allowing for the total bluster of a guy who so rarely tells the truth about any-goddamned-thing at all - how hard is it to believe what this woman is telling us?

That Cruz Thing

Yes, the senator's twitter wrangler hit 'like' on a porn site's tweet.

And yes, Cruz is unlikely to know much about his social media operation.

And yes, it looks like he kinda Anthony-Weiner-ed his own bad self.

But please please please - stop tweeting and posting about Ted Cruz's "staff" - I'm easily nauseated these days.

the internet is fucking blessed pic.twitter.com/QRuh6hOC6j

— anime you ok? (@gokunaruto67) September 12, 2017

the woman from teds video and his wife Heidi haha pic.twitter.com/qB9n2b5Z4B

— mr. understood (@EMlNEMOBAMA) September 12, 2017

It's always fun trying to rub their noses in it, but this has been going on for decades, and none of it has moved most "conservatives" off their positions - so, as usual...

The Inoculating Attack

FBI Joins Investigation Of #FlintWaterCrisis https://t.co/qlZKC2Rb8a #p2 pic.twitter.com/uZbPVLrePw

— R.Saddler (@Politics_PR) February 2, 2016

The main reason Repubs are always launching what are truly silly "investigations" into non-troversial un-scandals like Benghazi and Voter Fraud and Whitewater and IRS and Fast And Furious and Vince Foster and whether or not Hillary was on the grassy knoll in Dallas and and and - anyway, they do it partly because they know their little fishing trips will uncover something eventually that embarrasses whoever they're sliming, plus they can use it to sell the baloney about "aren't you tired of all the scandal surrounding [insert Democrat's name here]?  But mostly, by constantly using this one government power tool, in the most cynical and manipulative way possible, they set the frame that makes it easier for them to claim "it doesn't mean anything; it's all just political" when (eg) there're legitimate reasons for somebody to slap Rick Snyder's face around to the other side of his head.

And BTW - if you can't point out at least 6 times the Dems pulled this kinda shit, then shut the fuck up with all that Both Sides bullshit.

Today's Best Blog Line

From Charlie Pierce at Esquire, talking about the new scam going on in Big Insurance:

"Give them a suit with rubber pockets and they'd steal soup."

Here's the article Charlie's referring to, at NYT DealBook:

These complex private deals allow the companies to describe themselves as richer and stronger than they otherwise could in their communications with regulators, stockholders, the ratings agencies and customers, who often rely on ratings to buy insurance.

What gripes my ass the most is that these boneheads are busy all the time coming up with new ways to game the system, which fucks everybody over, which tends to make normal people more than a little reluctant to be willing participants in being fucked over  - these are the same guys who show up on CNBC and DumFux News to piss and moan about how there's way too much "uncertainty in the market place", and gee, if only Obama would just get outa the way blah blah blah.

So, while we're conveniently distracted - Eddie Snowden, George Zimmerman, Darrel Issa's Clown Parade et al - we're not paying attention to another potentially massive collapse.

No soul and no honor.

Say It Ain't So, Peaches

David Petraeus (nicknamed Peaches as a teenager) has seen a good bit of shittiness in his career, but I get the feeling he ain't seen nothin' compared with the enormity of what's coming down on him now.

So far, it's been just kind of interesting to watch the Villagers as they cluck their tongues and wag their fingers at him, acting shocked that he'd let himself in for something like this.  I get the feeling that a bunch of 'em knew about it (or at least suspected it - because they go to the same parties as all of the players in this High School Fuck-Around Melodrama) and now they get to pretend they're not just jumping up and down on the guy's head yelling, "See?  I told you this'd blow up in your face, and you'd end up helping us sell a shitoad of diapers and deodorant".  For the Press Poodles, this is way better than the standard Dead White Girl story any day.

My take: unless there's a serious threat to People or Mission, I don't care if he's fucking frogs.  Everything else is just Reality Porn you can get on basic cable 24/7.

Not that this is related - well maybe, but barely:

Penn State Update

From Michael Collins at The Agonist:

The relentless deviate, former PSU defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, is accused of sexually assaulting children for years. According to the grand jury, he gained easy access to children and early adolescents through a foundation he founded in 1977, the Second Mile Foundation. He continued the assaults at his home and in the PSU showers on at least one occasion. The foundation serves over 100,000 at-risk youth. Sandusky started the foundation as a group home for "troubled boys" in 1977. Since hiring Jack Raykovitz, PhD, a licensed psychologist, as president, the foundation has grown into a multimillion (sic) enterprise serving over 100,000 children throughout the state.

I'm not advocating violence - don't kick him in the nuts and don't throw anything at him - but if you see this Sandusky guy out in public, he needs to be made to feel as small and unwelcome as it is humanly possible to feel.