All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[L'Emmerdeur]

I read it. What an asshole.

Stone's an asshole who knows how to weaponize misinformation though. His 'Hillary Clinton has health problems!' got excellent traction in the mainstream media and as far as I could tell Forty Two swallowed it whole.

[JimC]

Are you telling me that 42 swallows?

[Seabass]

Where's Forty Two been, anyway? Did he go off in search of a safe space? Why isn't he here explaining to us that Roger Stone is an innocent victim of a witch hunt, but if not, nothing more than Trump's coffee boy so who cares?

[L'Emmerdeur]

Rick Wilson has an entertaining piece on Roger Stone's past, present, and future. I learned two new phrases: fesselspiele is German for bondage play and ¿Qué pinga? is Cuban slang for 'What the fuck?'

'Cosplaying Supervillain Roger Stone Meets Robert Mueller’s Real-Life Feds'

The irony of today is that the weird, bullshit arc of Stone’s long investment in Trump is over today. What must truly sting for Stone is the inevitable process of Trump-world’s denials and distancing; after investing 40 years of his life in Trump, Stone was screwed out of the massive financial payday he expected from the campaign, then frozen out of the massive lobbying windfall that lesser lights like Corey Lewandowski have enjoyed. If he holds the line, he’s of no use to Trump and will be forgotten and dismissed. If (and more likely when) he breaks, he’ll be a traitor, a coffee boy, a ghost in the Trump machine.

Stone was an architect of Trump’s world view, his politics, and his ideological positions, such as they are. Roger was there at Trump’s side when Orange Bull Connor declared Central Park Five were guilty and deserved to be executed. He was at Trump’s side as one of the architects of Birtherism. His toxic brand of dumb ratfuckery for the sake of ratfuckery is the Trump Administration writ large.

Roger survived for decades on his wits, blustering one campaign, interest group, scam PAC, or donor after another on his “I elected Nixon, Reagan, and Bush” line of white-hot horseshit. As I wrote in my book Everything Trump Touches Dies, Stone’s outsize image and reputation were his primary product, not elections or campaign work. As the famous (and sometimes infamous) Ray Harding, then chairman of New York’s Liberal Party, once told me in the late 1990s, “The only two people who believe Roger Stone’s bullshit are Roger Stone and that fucking moron Trump.”

[L'Emmerdeur]

Are you telling me that 42 swallows?

Only when he lets his insatiable appetite for Trumpian bullshit get the better of him.

[Brian Peacock]

So since he is getting the wall anyway, it seems extra-shitty that the Democrats voted against getting some federal employees paid.

But maybe I'm misreading it. Maybe their hissy-fit has benefits to the Dems I can't see yet.

They have been shutting down SO HARD, they should go on a beach vacation and do some self-care.

Yeah, you should always pay your blackmailer.

[Cunt]

Of course, both sides are declaring victory from the same facts.

With repeated examples of media being dogshit, can I ask you to weigh in on a bit of crazy shit, please and thanks?

A doctor named McKnew, is a cyber-warfare expert who works with the US gov't, described the kinds of attacks that were done by a Russian group attacking US elections. The group is called IRA.

They were operating media accounts which experimented with liking and following different content, sometimes in (virtual) gangs, characterized by some behaviours, such as having heaps of followers in a very new account, liking and promoting content from both sides of any given issue. Stuff like that.

That same kind of shit is what started the magateens / indiginous vet / Isrealites media feeding frenzy. I blamed the media at first, but the kind of promotion used by the initial account was similar.

That account, was removed shortly after because Twitter identified those behaviours.

Makes it tough to look further into it.

So am I nuts? Or are all four groups victims of some social media manipulator?

[Tero]

Steve Bannon is the ‘high-ranking’ Trump official in Roger Stone indictment who asked about future WikiLeaks releases in October 2016
This source added that Bannon has spoken with Mueller’s team, along with the Senate Intelligence Committee, about the exchange.

“On or about October 4, 2016, the head of Organization 1 held a press conference but did not release any new materials pertaining to the Clinton Campaign. Shortly afterwards, STONE received an email from the high-ranking Trump Campaign official asking about the status of future releases by Organization 1,” the indictment reads. “STONE answered that the head of Organization 1 had a ”serious security concern” but that Organization 1 would release “a load every week going forward.”

The email exchange was first reported by The New York Times in November.

Stone, a long-time Trump political advisor, faces seven counts, including witness tampering, obstruction of justice and making false statements to Congress.

He was released after posting on a $250,000 bond.

Bannon is the person closer (than STONE) to Trump so getting anything from him, eventually, would be important
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/25/steve-b ... tment.html

[L'Emmerdeur]

Having a long-standing interest in etymology and the cultural history associated with it, I very much enjoyed the article below.

'Roger Stone and "Ratf—ing": A Short History'

Roger Stone, now under indictment on several counts related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, has always reveled in being a political mischief-maker. It’s a reputation he has burnished since he was 19 years old, when he was involved in the “dirty tricks” operation of Richard Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign. More recently, he bragged publicly about purported contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign, the subject of Friday’s indictment.

When asked in the 2017 documentary Get Me Roger Stone why he has embraced the role of “dirty trickster,” he shrugged and said, “Well, I’m stuck with it now. It’s going to be in the first paragraph of my New York Times obit, so I might as well go with the flow.”

“Dirty trickster” is one thing. But Stone, who says he will plead not guilty to the charges against him, hasn’t been so eager to embrace another, more profane Nixon-era label with which he’s often tagged: “ratfucker,” or a political operator who engages in roguish behind-the-scenes behavior to undermine rivals. He’s inexorably linked to the term, even if he doesn’t like it. “Stone’s specialty is being a ‘ratfucker,’” wrote Will Greenberg of Mother Jones in 2017. Abigail Tracy of Vanity Fair called him a “professional ratfucker” last year—a description echoed by the Law & Crime website after Friday’s indictment.

Where did the word “ratfucking” come from, and how did Stone become one of its prime targets?

[Sean Hayden]

I read it. What an asshole.

Stone's an asshole who knows how to weaponize misinformation though. His 'Hillary Clinton has health problems!' got excellent traction in the mainstream media and as far as I could tell Forty Two swallowed it whole.

I have to admit that I found that part funny because 42 had fallen for it. But then I remembered that 42 strikes me as being the kind of guy that knew it was bullshit and didn't care.

[Cunt]

42 had fallen for it.

I hope he's ok.

[JimC]

42 had fallen for it.

I hope he's ok.

So do I...

For certain values of "OK"...

[Sean Hayden]

42 had fallen for it.

I hope he's ok.

He's been gone a week, think you'll make it Cunt?

[Sean Hayden]

Seriously, what a prick.

[JimC]

Seriously, what a prick.

Trump?

(which is OK, since he's not a member here... )