The UK is having an election in less than a month, and last night, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn debated Tory archclown Boris Johnson for a televised debate in which Johnson had to defend his record as a lying, racist, philandering, cowardly failure of a human being, and of a leader to his party and the nation. Read the rest
Devin Nunes is such an idiot. Read the rest
The Donald Trump impeachment hearings are yielding much interesting drama today. Read the rest
On her official Twitter account, New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced that NY is suing Juul. Read the rest
CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip was among the first to share a provocative tidbit of Washington gossip on Twitter today. Read the rest
The president made an unscheduled weekend visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to "get a head start on his annual physical", but everyone is so accustomed to him and his staff lying about things it's blown up into a credible health scare. NBC News reports on the "skeptical reaction."
For any president, a sudden trip to the hospital would raise questions. But such scrutiny was magnified with a president who has a history of exaggeration and playing loose with the facts, giving skeptics room to run with their own theories.
“The one thing you can be absolutely sure of is this was not routine and he didn't go up there for half his physical,” tweeted Joe Lockhart, a press secretary under President Bill Clinton, who was himself impeached for perjury and obstruction. “What does it mean? It means that we just won't know what the medical issue was.”
Note how the speculation abut his health echoes his own crude rumor-monging about the health of others. Bullshit is a hallmark of autocracy, but getting everyone to play by the same rules is another. Read the rest
The Supreme Court today issued an administrative stay that blocks a subpoena from House Democrats for Donald Trump's tax returns. Read the rest
Rudy Giuliani's shady business dealings in Ukraine with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman of “Mafia Rave” and “Fraud Guarantee” fame are the subject of an ongoing investigation by federal prosecutors in New York. Read the rest
Well this is awkward.
Donald Trump, a very normal and innocent President of the United States, just tweeted:
So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come. Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn’t they lie?....
LOL.
Lol you know everything you touch dies, right? https://t.co/PO2els1IWF
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) November 15, 2019
Who is next?
Roger Stone is the latest in a line of people around Trump who spent careers one step ahead of the law - until he became president, and now they're behind bars. Manafort, Cohen, Gates, now Stone. Who's next?
— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) November 15, 2019
PREVIOUSLY ON BOING BOING:
Oh, I've been waiting for this day for a long time. Read the rest
Roger Stone, advisor to Donald Trump and longtime political "ratfucker", was convicted today on all counts, including obstruction of justice, lying to congress, and witness tampering. Axios:
The big picture: Prosecutors alleged in closing arguments that Stone lied to congressional investigators because he "knew that if this information came out it would look really bad for his longtime associate Donald Trump," the New York Times reports.
CNN notes that the most significant revelation from Stone's trial was "the extent to which Stone was in touch with Trump directly and other campaign officials, and how they eagerly anticipated WikiLeaks' releases of hacked Democratic emails in 2016."
Those communications also allegedly involved a July 2016 phone conversation between Stone and Trump in which the two discussed future WikiLeaks email dumps, former deputy campaign manager Rick gates testified.
Stone, 76, joins other Trump aides and officials Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen and George Papadopoulos among those convicted of crimes related to his presidential campaign and presidency. Read the rest
Political books by random MAGA people are a hot genre, but Donald Trump Jr's "Triggered" lands in a saturated market. Morevoer, Trump fans generally prefer the attention dance of Fox News and social media to hours spent curled up with a bad book. So how did it get to number 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list? Vast bulk purchases, leading the Times to list it with a "dagger" symbol insinuating fraudulent or suspicious activity.
“It has the big dagger [symbol] next to it, which means a large portion of the sales came from bulk orders.”
The source added: “It’s known in the industry as the ‘deadly dagger.’ A rare penalty that is only called for flagrant fouls,” such as when an author or someone close buys large quantities.
It’s at Times editors’ discretion when to plunge the dagger. Fine print below the best-seller list explains, “Sales are defined as completed transactions by vendors and individual end-users during the period on or after the official publication date of a title. Institutional, special interest, group or bulk purchases, if and when they are included, are at the discretion of The New York Times Best-Seller List Desk editors based on standards for inclusion that encompass proprietary vetting and audit protocols, corroborative reporting and other statistical determinations. When included, such bulk purchases appear with a dagger (†).”
Scientology perfected this trick in the 1980s. It's extremely costly, reports the LA Times, but the benefit is clear: L. Ron Hubbard atop the bestseller lists for decades. Read the rest
Whose house? Nancy's house.
The Speaker stopped a speech to explain what "exculpatory" means to the national dolt.
Holy crap. 😂 Nancy Pelosi stopping her statement to the press and taking a moment to explain what the word "exculpatory" means to Trump is a whooooooleass mood. 💀💀💀 #Thursdaythoughts pic.twitter.com/nfjJRbc1oy
— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) November 14, 2019
NBC News, as many people as loudly saying, can "go fuck itself" for publishing an item that claims the impeachment hearings lack the "pizzazz" necessary to make news. But what if NBC reporter Jonathan Allen was not in fact a towering smarmy moron but had simply made a typographical error? Because when you think about it, is it not true that the impeachment hearings could do with more Pazuzu, the Mesopotamian demon king of the southwestern wind, the bearer of storms?
Infuriate your racist Facebook uncle this Thanksgiving with a Leopard RBG shirt. Read the rest
Chris Wallace of Fox News was impressed with Ambassador William Taylor's testimony in today's impeachment hearings:
"William Taylor was a very impressive witness and was very damaging to the president. First of all, as you pointed out, he took very copious notes at almost every conversation... I think very nonpolitical. He went out of his way to talk about what he knew, what he was specifically testament to. The only thing he talked about was a strong feeling that it was in the U.S. national security interests to support Ukraine in the fight against Russia. But he certainly wasn't taking any partisan position."
Chris Wallace: "I think William Taylor was a very impressive witness and was very damaging to the president." pic.twitter.com/QvCe5FEqL9
— Lis Power (@LisPower1) November 13, 2019
