LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Wikileaks, RUSSIA, Hannity and Much, Much Moore.
Archive for 2017
November 15, 2017
SO AT THE NYT, “FAKE NEWS” IS JUST A SYNONYM FOR “NEWS THAT HURTS DEMOCRATS:” NYT reporter wonders how Twitter’s going to handle this fake news about Joe Biden being creepy.
Flashback: Biden Swims Naked, Upsetting Female Secret Service Agents:
“Agents say that, whether at the vice president’s residence or at his home in Delaware, Biden has a habit of swimming in his pool nude,” Kessler writes in the book – due for release Aug. 5.
“Female Secret Service agents find that offensive,” he writes.
“Biden likes to be revered as everyday Joe,” an unnamed agent told Kessler. “But the reality is no agents want to go on his detail because Biden makes agents’ lives so tough.”
Plus: Washington Post: What Are We Going To Do About Creepy Uncle Joe Biden?
Also: Joe Biden’s Woman-Touching Habit.
Related: Talking Points Memo: Why Does Creepy Uncle Joe Biden Get A Pass From Liberals?
Plus:
I mean, sorry, but if you think Talking Points Memo is “alt-right fake news,” then. . . .
AYATOLLAH IRAN’S EXPANSIONARY THREAT: Is a Saudi-Israeli alliance emerging?
WASHINGTONBABYLON.COM’S KEN SILVERSTEIN — one of my favorite curmudgeons — digs up a little nugget from the Don Jr./WikiLeaks traffic. Ken’s question is worth asking:
Why is Mother Jones helping run a site first started by a fucking Political Action Committee (PAC)? It’s like nobody noticed this because they’re all going bat shit over anything having to do with Trump, including the rather pedestrian revelations made in The Atlantic‘s much overhyped story. The rather disturbing relationship with the PAC is disclosed at PutinTrump.org but this isn’t about disclosure. The issue is whether any journalism outfit should be collaborating on a project that was created by a PAC.
I suppose it should shock nobody that Mother Jones has long been a leftist publication, and maybe there’s room for “advocacy journalism.” But it becomes hard to take them seriously:
A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch,” WikiLeaks wrote to Don Jr. The site, which has since become a joint project with Mother Jones, was funded by Progress for USA Political Action Committee, a PAC with seemingly one purpose, and one purpose only.
Says Silverstein: “It’s almost like Mother Jones et al. were the Clinton campaign’s rabid rapid response team.”
LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Zimbabwe’s army said it has Robert Mugabe and his wife in custody.
“Their security is guaranteed,” Major General Sibusiso Moyo said Wednesday in an address after military forces took control of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC).
“We wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not a military takeover,” he added in an address to the entire country.
“We are only targeting criminals around [Mugabe] who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice.”
Moyo also urged other security forces in Zimbabwe to “cooperate for the good of the country,” warning that “any provocation will be met with an appropriate response.”
That doesn’t sound at all like a military takeover.
More seriously, whatever follows Mugabe, it will be difficult to top him for corruption and oppression and ineptitude.
. . . . NOW THAT WE DON’T NEED HIM ANYMORE, AND WE DO NEED TO HUSTLE HILLARY OFF THE STAGE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. “Years of excusing Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct suddenly seems morally indefensible.”
THIS SEEMS UNWISE: 30,000 visas issued to people from terror-sponsoring countries since 2007.
AT AMAZON,on sale, OxGord Aluminum Folding Scaffold Work Ladder 11.5 ft.
Plus, Lightning Deal, Bluedio T2s Bluetooth Headphones On Ear with Mic, 57mm Driver Rotary Folding Wireless Headset.
JOHN PODHORETZ: If Roy Moore Squeaks By, It Will Be Because Of Democrats.
Yet Goldberg cannot keep herself from seeing a truth that was evident during the Clinton presidency to anyone with eyes to see: Bill Clinton was a sexual reprobate whose ascension to the Democratic nomination after the revelation of his relationship with Flowers during the primaries was a hinge moment in American history.
No one before him would’ve survived it. He did by denying it hotly — and was saved from perdition’s flames by his Hillary. She sat there on “60 Minutes” and supported him even as she said she wasn’t the type of woman who’d just “stand by her man.” Later, Clinton acknowledged the five-year Flowers affair in testimony before an independent counsel.
n 1998, when the news of his liaison with Lewinsky became public, the Clintons did it again. Bill said he did not have sexual relations with Miss Lewinsky, and Hillary went on the “Today Show” and said her husband had unjustly been placed in the target sights of a “right wing conspiracy.”
If you want to know how Roy Moore of Alabama might survive these charges against him and win the Senate race in December, look no farther than Hillary Clinton’s words. Again, replace “right wing” with “left wing” (or “GOP establishment”) and you have the entirety of Moore’s defense.
The Clinton play in the wake of the Lewinsky revelation was to signal to their supporters and the entire Democratic liberal-left that any crack in their defense of him would allow a Puritanical right-wing flood to engulf the country.
And anyway, even if you believed he’d done it, what had he done? It was a peccadillo, really nothing more than the sainted JFK had done in his tragically shortened time in the Oval.
Moore is saying exactly the same thing to conservatives.
KEEPING PORTLAND WEIRD — AND ADDICTED: Portland City Club Quashes Addiction Report Because ‘Every Member of the Committee Was White.’
YOU MEAN IT WASN’T “BERNIE BERNSTEIN?” Who planted the Roy Moore story on Washington Post reporters?
I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS HASN’T BEEN IN ALL THE PAPERS — OH, I SLAY MYSELF. The Curious Case of the Black Male Escort Found Dead Inside a Wealthy Democratic Donor’s Home.
On July 27, 2017, 26-year-old Gemmel Moore was found in the bathroom of a West Hollywood, Calif., apartment belonging to Ed Buck, 62. Moore was young, black and poor. Buck was white, wealthy and powerful.
That’s all we know.
Moore’s family is searching for answers. Buck has not spoken publicly about the incident. Police have not charged anyone with a crime, even though multiple reports have surfaced that Buck had a predilection for young, black men. Even after a number of young, black male sex workers have stepped forward with apparent photographic evidence that Buck was one of their clients. Even after each one of those men separately told the same story: Not only did Buck have a fetish for black men, but he was known in West Hollywood’s gay community as someone paying top dollar for the company of 20-something black escorts …
But only after injecting them with drugs.
I’m sure it’s all very innocent.
Entirely unrelated: American tech billionaire who gagged press over hotel rape claim is named.
GAME OVER: Russia posts video game screenshot as ‘proof’ of US helping IS.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence has posted what it called “irrefutable proof” of the US aiding so-called Islamic State – but one of the images was actually taken from a video game.
The ministry claimed the image showed an IS convoy leaving a Syrian town last week aided by US forces.
Instead, it came from the smartphone game AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron.
The ministry said an employee had mistakenly attached the photo.
Uh-huh.
GOOD: Senate GOP tax bill will include repeal of ObamaCare mandate. “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Tuesday that the Senate tax bill will include language to repeal ObamaCare’s individual mandate, which could make it tougher for moderate Republicans to support. Conservatives led by GOP Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) pushed hard to include the provision, which would eliminate the federal penalty on people who do not buy health insurance. President Trump has also pushed for the provision to be part of the tax bill. McConnell told reporters that adding the individual mandate repeal will make it easier to muster 50 votes to pass the bill.”
Better late than never.
MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A CAT: Senate GOP Tax Plan to Include Repeal of Health Law Individual Mandate.
GOP leaders have been cautious about bogging down the tax bill with controversial health-care provisions, but have been suggesting they could include the repeal because it would generate revenue that could be used to pay for tax cuts elsewhere.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said it would be part of the tax bill. “The Senate Finance Committee has decided to include that,” Mr. McConnell said.
Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said Republicans intend to use the savings generated by repealing the individual mandate to lower taxes for middle-income households. “It’ll be distributed in the form of middle-income tax relief,” he said.
Mr. Thune and Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) pitched the idea of including the measure to Finance Committee members Monday night and again at a luncheon for Republican senators Tuesday, a Senate GOP aide said.
Mr. Thune said he didn’t anticipate that adding the repeal of the individual mandate would prompt many GOP defections from the tax package. Republicans, who hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate, can afford to lose no more than two GOP votes if all Democrats vote against the tax bill as expected. Vice President Mike Pence could break a potential 50-50 tie.
“It’s been whipped,” Mr. Thune said, referring to the process of rounding up and counting votes.
The question remains whether some of the Senate’s provisions can make it through the House, or if Paul Ryan will be forced into a position where he has to push through the Senate bill by the end of the year, or chalk up another legislative defeat.
THE ECONOMIST: “Mr Trump’s rise seems to have coincided with a turnaround in fortunes for the middle-class. In 2015 median household income, adjusted for inflation, rose 5.2%; in 2016 it was up another 3.2%. During those two years, poorer households gained more, on average, than richer ones. The latest development—one that will be of particular interest to Mr Trump—is that blue-collar wages have begun to rocket.”
WASTE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Somebody wrote an email bot to waste scammers’ time.
Introducing Re:scam – an artificially intelligent email bot made to reply to scam emails. Re:scam wastes scammers time with a never-ending series of questions and anecdotes so that scammers have less time to pursue real people.
If you think you’ve received a scam email, forward it to and we’ll take it from there. We’ll even send you a summary of the conversations Re:scam has had with the scammer – sometimes they can be quite funny!
I’m in.
CHANGE: Zimbabwe’s army seizes power, targets ‘criminals’ around Mugabe.
Soldiers and armored vehicles blocked roads to the main government offices, parliament and the courts in central Harare, while taxis ferried commuters to work nearby, a Reuters witness said.
Mugabe, the self-styled ‘Grand Old Man’ of African politics, has led Zimbabwe for the last 37 years. In contrast to his elevated status on the continent, Mugabe is reviled in the West as a despot whose disastrous handling of the economy and willingness to resort to violence to maintain power destroyed one of Africa’s most promising states.
“We are only targeting criminals around him (Mugabe) who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice,” Major General SB Moyo, Chief of Staff Logistics, said on television.
“As soon as we have accomplished our mission, we expect that the situation will return to normalcy.”
Neither Mugabe nor his wife Grace, who has been vying to succeed her husband as president, have been seen or heard from.
He’s an awful tyrant who should have been removed decades ago.
November 14, 2017
HE NOW CHOOSES TO LIVE AS A REPUBLICAN MAN: Moore was a Democrat at time of sexual misconduct allegations.
2016: I WAS THE STUPIDEST YEAR EVER.
2017: HOLD MY BEER. Men’s Fashion: The Fanny Pack Returns. “More palatable monikers aside, the question remains: What drove men to go back to this bag, so like a messenger bag crossbred with a colostomy bag?”