Consider this an open thread to talk about anything listed here, or not listed here.
- Eric Clanton has been arrested by Berkeley police.
Score one for the good guys. This is the Nutty Professor who was allegedly assaulting people with bike locks on behalf of Antifa, during those riots in Berkeley.
“His work in political philosophy also centers on mass incarceration and the prison system,” Clanton’s former faculty page read. “He is currently exploring restorative justice from an anti-authoritarian perspective.”
I hope Prof. Clanton will be finding out a lot about mass incarceration, the prison system, restorative justice, and authority.
- The 4th Circuit has blocked Trump’s travel suspension.
I find this a bit of a yawner. President Trump’s orders on the suspension (sometimes called a “Muslim Ban” by our biased media) have been pretty reasonable. The opinions blocking the suspension have been mostly ridiculous. There’s nothing I can do about it except hope it goes to the Supreme Court. And SCOTUS will do whatever they’re going to do, one way or the other.
- The Gianforte matter. Again, yawns from me. If Gianforte committed assault, let the police/justice system take care of it and let him rot in jail. That’s what the police/justice system is for. Let it work. There, I just condemned Gianforte (provided he’s guilty).
- NYT reporting that Russian officials discussed how they might influence Trump. Again: Yawn. Does anyone think that Russian officials hadn’t spent the previous 8 years discussing how they might influence Hillary and Obama?
- This is more interesting. The Washington Post discusses how Russians may or may not have tipped off the FBI that Obama’s AG Loretta Lynch was planning to block any prosecution of Hillary Clinton in her e-mail scandal.
So…Hillary Clinton(‘s campaign) colluded with the Obama administration, to block investigation and/or prosecution? And Russia had spies, in the Obama administration? Or somebody fooled them with phony tips? Sorry, my head is spinning from all the Inside Baseball.
Trump’s travel restrictions are completely within the law – the statute is short and easily understood.
If SCOTUS fails to uphold this, it will confirm we’re ruled by appointed people in black robes; we no longer have a means of restraining our rulers (although we’ve been seeing this for years).
Some of these judges should be removed. The Constitution provides impeachment as a remedy for runaway judges. My chances of winning the lottery are magnitudes higher than the odds of the GOP growing a set.
If the ban goes to SCOTUS will the dried up prune recuse herself?
Will the Russians plant more false information for the WaPo to rpint as “truth”?
How much crowd funding will the bike lock coward get from other cowards like lil letter mike?
Will the press continue to parse every Trump phrase pushing themselves into total irrelevance?
Will Michelle Obama erase the face off the pictures of Mrs. Trump looking stunning in almost everything she puts on?
Will my husband convince me to sell GOOG and GOOGL because they are the enemy even though we will take a huge hit in taxes?
After a conversation I had with a computer hacker who was hired by the RNC last year to beef up their security shortly before, I’m leaning towards the Russians having nothing to do with the leaked DNC emails.
CCP.. I especially like the fact the FBI warned the DNC of hacking activity. The DNC said they couldn’t verify that the FBI actually issued the warning. The FBI and the DNC HQ are within walking distance. The DNC is simply too lazy to care. Also, Podesta, a self proclaimed internet security expert used “password” for his password. The idiots at the DNC also turned off the phishing filter on their email server. There is a reason the DNC refused the FBI access to the DNC email server.
AFAIK it’s a misdemeanor assault charge. Even if convicted, in a lot of places that wouldn’t even be enough to get a Democrat onto a primary ballot.
Thanks ILC. I’ve been waiting for updates. Finally.
I think there was a belief by some that Berkeley police would protect ANTIFA or turn the other way.
However, my inclination is to disagree.
Yeah, but that doesn’t always eliminate the problem. Ever hear of Alcee Hastings? Before he became one of South Florida’s [CD-20] Congresscritters For Life, he was a federal judge appointed by the former Worst US President in 1979, and later impeached by Congress in 1989 for bribery and perjury. So the question then becomes: Are they better off ruling on existing laws or helping to make new laws?
So the person San Fran Nan called a “wannabe Trump” got elected to fill the seat previously held by the current Secretary of the Interior. Not quite the squeaker The Resistance had hoped for, with 50.3% of the vote to the troubadour pothead’s 44% (and the perennial bridesmaid aka the Libertarian candidate with 5.7%). Oh well, there’s still Jon Tossoff’s [as Bruce’s Twitter feed refers to him] second chance next month in Jawja.
As far as Gianforte goes, he is facing a misdemeanor charge. Due to overcrowding, most jurisdictions settle them with a fine or probation if at all possible – since he is the newly elected (and only) state Representative, that is likely what will happen.
I have heard the claim, so far not backed by evidence, that this reporter was particularly obnoxious and pushy, so Gianforte could possibly argue extenuating circumstances. Another possibility is some type of settlement to get the reporter to withdraw the charges. However it goes, I don’t see it as a problem – UNLESS the Gallatin County Sheriff has it in for Gianforte, in which case all bets are off.
As far as the 4th circuit goes, this is clearly another political ruling where they refused to rule solely based on the order and insisted his campaign statements mattered more than what he wrote in the order AND they claimed it was a religious ban despite the fact that it only affects a few percent of the people following that religion globally. If it doesn’t get overturned at SCOTUS, we’re in big trouble.
“So…Hillary Clinton(‘s campaign) colluded with the Obama administration, to block investigation and/or prosecution?”
No the opposite. Turns out the story of collusion between Obama and Clinton was simply part of a Russian misinformation campaign to get Trump elected. And conservatives fell for it….smh
That awkward moment when the left’s new victim-hero, Ben Jacobs, said he wanted to punch a 16 year old boy for being a conservative.
https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/442428951752097792
Clanton has a purdy mouth. Good thing he’s going to be putting it to good use.
Cray, it would had been better if the cops had tried to stop the violence at the time it was occurring.
And mike, the Communist UI, spouts off with yet another dissimulation.
I suspect he did.
But …. A squirrel in the snotty press got up in the wrong face and he got popped. Like a weasel. Oh, the horror! The press is sacred, you know. What they say it 100% gold and what they don’t report didn’t happen. What is the world coming to?
I kind of like a hard boiled man who crushes a cockroach every now and then. That, of course pisses off PETA and it makes the whole “safe places” crowd of bedwetters scream about civil rights and freedom of the press and social justice.
Back in the good old days, you learned early that some types of behavior gets you smacked.
As to Gianforte: Yes, the left-wing propagandists can provoke on purpose and Jacobs might have even done a soccer-player flop to exaggerate things….but flying into an uncontrolled rage is unmanly. Unmanly. The behavior of a street person. Gianforte needs to find his own inner peace, before he tries to represent Montana.
Helio – What I don’t like on the audio (and perhaps the reason I see it differently), is the bit where Gianforte basically shout-whines.
You know the expression, “He’s losing it” or “He’s lost it”. – What would be “it”? Composure, inner peace, self-control, rationality, moral authority. If we don’t keep those things, we’re children. Or animals. Or street people.
(continued) I’ve been around GP for years and one of my favorite little moments, believe it or not, is when a certain commenter screamed at me in ALL CAPS expletives. Just because he was an empty person and he couldn’t refute my argument.
Gianforte handed experience that to Jacobs / The Guardian. They will be laughing about Gianforte for years to come.
In an argument: He who keeps his reason and composure and inner sense of authority, wins.
ILC, the”better angels” of myself agree with you without reservation.
I have become so jaded by the practiced and certain hypocrisy of both the DemonizingRats and the mainstream media that I take pleasure in seeing a pesky gnat get cold-cocked. Its my military side speaking out.
One side of me says the pesky reporter got what he “asked for.” My civilized side says that Gianforte was a fool to lose it. However, when it comes to “manliness” I believe that the event was when two unmanly folks met. If the “reporter” had a set, he would have been much more gentlemanly and professional.
Back in the late 50’s, Mike Wallace (father of Chris Wallace) was on a CBS attack journalism show and he was instrumental in developing the art of cornering people and badgering them into making fools of themselves.
So, it appears to me the this Guardian attack putz triumphed by pushing Gianforte into the circus ring of shame. Moral relativity in action.
Ah. Fair enough.
The thing is, Gianforte has apologized (this morning’s news) and is getting praise for it; but it still doesn’t sound like he has come clean. From http://theweek.com/speedreads/701613/greg-gianforte-says-hes-not-proud-altercation-reporter
Claiming that Jacobs “aggressively” put a recorder in Gianforte’s face, then “grabbed Greg’s wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both the ground,” does not pass the smell test. Especially not when a Fox eyewitness contradicts it.
The apology doesn’t count, if he’s (still) lying about what happened.
Especially not when a Fox eyewitness contradicts it.
The “eyewitness” has also “walked back her story.”
http://the405media.com/2017/05/25/breaking-fox-news-eyewitness-walks-back-gianforte-neck-grab-story-montana/
Not much of it. She’s drawing a distinction, as I read it, between pushing someone at the neck and trying to choke them. She’s making clear that Gianforte was in no way trying to choke Jacobs. But he still had his hands at Jacobs’ neck/trapezius area.
WELL THAT CHANGES…absolutely nothing. Acuna still saw Gianforte grab Jacobs and body slam him, which is unacceptable behavior for anyone, let alone someone running for Congress.
http://www.redstate.com/jimjamitis/2017/05/25/laura-ingrahams-site-peddles-fake-news-defend-candidate-accused-assault/
Ingraham’s Twitter comments about the incident are equally dismissive, veiled zingers aimed at the attack victim rather than the hot head Republican who lost control. Rush Limbaugh was making similar comments on the radio today, only condemning the assault sarcastically while describing Gianforte as “manly” for reacting to questions with violence.
That’s what high profile conservative media has become in the age of Trump. Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others like them have voluntarily become little more than the Republicans’ version of MoveOn.org. Deny, deflect, dismiss anything that reflects badly on their team and conversely promote anything that does the opposite (even if it’s a debunked crackpot conspiracy theory).
They have decided that their job is not to defend ideas anymore but to defend politicians, provided those politicians wear the right color jersey. Remember when they all said they cared about a candidate’s character and we fell for it? Good times.
Ask yourself how the coverage of this incident from the right would have been different had Gianforte been a Democrat. Conservatives can’t complain about media double standards when conservative media is just as guilty of them. You don’t defeat fake news with more fake news.
So… you like my comments? 🙂
As to the conservative commentariat: I think people just aren’t thinking things through. Occasionally, we will get a bad apple and had best cut out the rot. That’s the place I’ve gone to.
I’ve seen signs that Rush is ambivalent. Ed Morrissey at HotAir is one of the people praising Gianforte’s apology and Ed is normally awesome, I love Ed to death, but nobody bats 1000 and in this case, I don’t think Ed has quite matched everything up to Gianforte lying (still?) about what happened.
I want to see Gianforte come really clean. If he does, I’ll sing his praises. Until then, his pattern is:
– Shove people who bother you.
– Shoutwhine as you do it, to justify yourself.
– Lie about what you did.
– Then apologize ostentatiously, like you’re a big man for apologizing, except you still haven’t yet really admitted what you did.
Not so great.
Gianforte doesn’t seem like someone I’d defend to the last, but I’m not going to let people who supported Ted Kennedy and Gerry Studds lecture me on who’s unfit to serve in Congress.
I do enjoy GP and ILC I enjoy your poses and comments
Posts
V – Touche!
That’s the thing about double standards. They confuse everybody. Someone commits a crime that’s a “7” or “10” in criminality. Their team spins and rationalizes and they get away with it. Then, logically, someone on your team should be able to commit a “2” crime and get away with it. All the sudden it looks like you could be condoning level “2” crimes. When the real problem always was, and still is, the fact that the level “7” and “10” criminals got away with it.
Also, is it just me, or has this one dust-up between a Republican congressman and a reporter gotten more mass media coverage than all the violence inflicted by Antifa, the Portlandia Anti-Trump mob, the Middlebury/Berkeley/UW-Madison college Democrats, and the woman in Tennesee who tried to run a Republican congressman off the road combined?
Rusty, calm down.
A pesky reporter got body slammed by a candidate. Your own “veiled zingers” include: attack “victim” and “hot head” Republican.
The DemonizingRats have made a cottage industry of using language like yours to report an incident. It comes fully colored with nuance that is about as subtle as those bull balls rednecks hang from their bumper hitches.
You know what frosts you the most about Trump? He spits it back in your face as good as you give it and even better. You prance around fluttering away the vapors if anyone speaks of radical Islamists. So, Trump calls them “evil losers” and you wet yourselves worse than a flood of flop sweat.
There is a Mt. Everest sized hole in your idea that if this had involved a DemonizingRat candidate, we conservatives would have been on the other side.
Nope. You see, the mainstream media and the DemonizingRats are birds of feather worthy of as much sympathy and trust as Hillary Clintoon or Anthony’s weiner.
Andrew Breitbart and Roger Ailes latched onto your Alinsky propaganda pornography and they plotted against you and dished it back at you. They forced you to own it or shut up. They are both dead, but they left a heck of a mark and now the cat is out of the bag.
You can come here crying about mean Republicans all you want, because you DemonizingRats have a standing army of liars and haters for every Republican who pees on your tasseled Gucci loafers.
I am not saying that turn-about is fair play. I am saying you are wusses who can give it but can’t take it.
A Republican candidate body slammed a reporter. Simple as that. He shouldn’t have done it. And Mark Rich shouldn’t have shot himself in the back of his head. And Hillary shouldn’t have played around with a server. And all those people who used their cell phones to record the TEA Party people who spit on John Lewis and called him the “N’ word should have cashed in on the $100,000 Breitbart offered for the evidence.
Nope. Your slime and sleaze game has come back to bite you and now you want a special counsel to lock up the people who hurt your feelings.
Wow, I forgot to ask my own question.
heliotrope
That was http://www.redstate.com/jimjamitis/
Does the apology even count because one is apologising for getting caught.
A recording surfaced, charges were filed, and Paul Ryan made a stink. Only then did he express regret for doing something the he got caught for.
Agreed. Gianforte is sorry that he was caught.
Integrity is behind someone who apologises for actions/behaviours they have thought about out of their own volition. Not because they’re trying to save face.
There are commenters on GP who have acted in ways of street people (such as making up lies, or using free speech to say vile things) to other commenters who have not owned up to their behaviour. They do so because they speak anonymously and won’t be held accountable, which gives them license to act in such a way.
Gianforte acted in the way he did in part because he felt entitled and didn’t believe he would be held responsible for his actions. Winning the election further established that, yes, indeed, enough voters of Montana do not expect him to change.
It would be better if cops did all kinds of things (like think before shooting, not letting certain cops with an established record of ill behaviour back on the beat). But, what I was discussing was that people (on the right) were convinced Clanton was NOT going to be held responsible for his action because, “Berkeley police were going to protect such actions.”
I don’t know Ben Jacobs from Adam. I don’t support such tweets from anyone. Nor committing acts of violence, whether it be from ANTIFA or someone who runs for office and shortly thereafter gets elected.
Never say never, and it’s big of you to be filled with such optimism for another person. But, sing his praises? In his existing apology, did he actually ask Jacobs for forgiveness? That’s essentially the soul of an apology: that you ask for forgiveness from another person and let them decide if they accept your remorse. He didn’t even do that. It was, like you said, “Hey I got caught, here’s me trying to be a bigger person.” And it was after all those things I mentioned in the previous post about the recording, charges, and Paul Ryan calling him out (on top of it, he won the election). The guy isn’t sorry he committed an act of violence. And there is nothing suggesting in his words or the circumstances that he will come clean. And, by come, I mean genuinely ask Jacobs for forgiveness. Anything short of that would not be worth singing someone’s praises over. But, perhaps you were being loose with your language. I do that all the time, as commenters here are quite aware. Perhaps more than most everyone.
This happens with all politicians. You can convincingly argue that this applies to a lot of politicians when it comes to things they say, lies, etc.
One major difference here is that with Gianforte, there is no nuance for the layperson like myself. An act of violence is pretty straight-forward. It is what it is and there is no justification if it’s not a response to another act of physical violence. And, as one can see, some people here don’t bat an eye. It’s all the same to them.
And maybe it is. It does feel like we’re watching one big circus. Except, we keep having to foot the bill of the tickets, and prices keep going up (probably because there is too much government involved).
I’m not aware that Rusty owns such a thing. You might want to check the back of Gianforte’s closet, though. You just *might* find a pair.
But, what about that hot hunk of a Navy SEAL cowboy Gianforte is replacing: Ryan Zinke …
He has suspended citizens’ advisory councils on public input. #GoCapitalism!
CCP, you are correct, never Gucci
Kenneth Cole or Cole Haan
Recent summer addition. White Kenneth Cole Reaction Driver size 14
https://www.amazon.com/Kenneth-Cole-REACTION-World-Hold/dp/B001M4IZZU
But with the shift to fashion
Melania Trump’s first outing in the Sicilian sunshine was in a colorful floral applique jacket by Dolce & Gabbana that sells for $51,000, or several thousand dollars below the median U.S. income in 2015. She also carried a matching clutch to lunch with spouses of the G-7 leaders, held at the historic Elephants Palace and hosted by Catania’s mayor.
That seems well north of Michelle’s budget.
Well … you know what they say … 😉
Yes, I am a tall person
Gian’s “body slam”. Turns out the reporter has a girlfriend who pulled this same stunt on Trump’s assistant during the campaign, claiming she was shoved to the ground, then later evidence proved it was a load of horse crap. Strange her boyfriend is the reporter claiming the same, with absolutely NO evidence apparent to substantiate the same charges his girlfriend made against Trump’s assistant.
Coincidence?
mark: I’m open to that argument (or possibility). But then…why would (or should) Gianforte do a big apology for the cameras?
Either he committed assault, or Jacobs did. Gianforte has “acted guilty”; which is not the behavior of a “studly, manly” person as Rush calls him. Unless Gianforte really is guilty…in which case, IMO he hasn’t gone far enough (in terms of admitting what he did).
Also remember that Fox actually had a crew of 3 people (not just the woman we’ve seen on TV) whose accounts seem to line up with Jacobs.
mark, are you referring to Michelle Fields, and her encounter
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/us/politics/corey-lewandowski-trump-campaign-manager.html?_r=0