If you’re looking for this Monday’s post, it was last Friday. In the future, all Monday posts will be posted on Fridays, unless the Friday post is posted on the following Monday, except, of course, on leap years. Glad we cleared THAT up. Continue reading Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – the completion backward principle
I’ve spent a fair amount of time the last few years chastising people for comparing the Trump crime family to The Godfather. The correct comparison is The Sopranos who had a portly hot head as boss as opposed to the … Continue reading Life Imitates The Sopranos: Michael Cohen Edition
I know the “we live in a poorly written TV show” joke is extremely overused but jesus christ pic.twitter.com/MHQb9F9xe9 — Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) April 15, 2018 It’s been a particularly infuriating week, what with pardoning Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and resurrecting the entirety of the monsters’ ball that was the Bush administration to comment on it. We’ve forgotten, people my age say to people younger, what the beginning of the war was. We joke about the memory hole like it’s something new, like Henry Kissinger isn’t our National Foreign Policy Grandpa, like any mention of the antiwar movement doesn’t … Continue reading Remembering the War
I’d like to believe this is true: Of course Trump is raging and furious and terrified. Prosecutors are now looking at his core. Cohen was the key intermediary between the Trump family and its partners around the world; he was chief consigliere and dealmaker throughout its period of expansion into global partnerships with sketchy oligarchs. He wasn’t a slick politico who showed up for a few months. He knows everything, he recorded much of it, and now prosecutors will know it, too. It seems inevitable that much will be made public. We don’t know when. We don’t know the precise path … Continue reading Endgame
A few weeks back I wrote a pulp fiction post about The Gods Hate Kansas and the 1967 movie based on it. Without further adieu, I give you They Came From Beyond Space: We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto. Continue reading Sunday Morning Video: They Came From Beyond Space
We resume our regularly scheduled programming after my Wag The Dog Incoherently post. Somebody’s gotta be normal in these abnormal times.
It’s been an interesting week in New Orleans. A 4,200 gallon oil spill isn’t huge by oil industry standards but it’s stinky enough that residents are raising a stink about it. A good thing: minor oil spills are way of life on the Big Muddy, which could be re-nicknamed the Big Oily or Big Greasy. Either way it’s not good. It’s actually diesel fuel. Vin Diesel was unavailable for comment…
The big local story this week was the sale of Gambit Weekly to the Advocate. Because of savvy management by owners Margot and Clancy DuBos, Gambit is one of the few alt-weeklies that has thrived in the internet era. The deal includes retention of Gambit’s crack editorial team including my friend Kevin Allman as editor. (In the interests of full disclosure, Clancy is also a friend.) Kevin helped bring the publication into online era, which made it an attractive proposition to the Advocate. One reason for the staff retention is that Advocate publisher Dan Shea was purged by the Picayune and has some empathy for other journalists. Imagine that. Besides, the Gambit staff is as talented as all get out. As far as I’m concerned, this is good news as it will allow Gambit to survive in a tough environment for alt-weeklies. Here’s hoping that the Advocate people will keep their word about letting Gambit be Gambit. So far, the signs are good.
This week’s theme song is the title track of one of the greatest break-up albums of all-time. It’s eerie to hear Linda Thompson sing sad songs written by her soon-to-be ex-husband. Shoot Out The Lights has developed into one of the signature songs of Richard Thompson’s live set. We have two versions for your listening pleasure: the original and a swell cover by Los Lobos.
Now we’ve shot out the lights, let’s take a shot at jumping to the break.
Continue reading “Saturday Odds & Sods: Shoot Out The Lights”
11 days ago Donald Trump said he wanted to be out of Syria within a matter of months. Tonight American, British, and French forces bombed Syria. I guess that earlier statement is, to quote Nixon flack Ron Ziegler, inoperative. All week long the fog of scandal has enveloped the White House. The Michael Cohen investigation in New York may prove to be more devastating to Trump than anything Team Mueller can come up with. And now the president* is bombing Syria after a chemical weapons attack that his inability to keep his mouth shut may have caused. It’s bad enough … Continue reading Wag The Dog Incoherently
It’s presidential* projection time. I never thought I’d see this word in a headline at the Failing New York Times: I thought slimeball was one word. Since Trump *is* one, I guess he knows how to spell it. Continue reading History Is Made At The Gray Lady
Yeesh. Every time something spectacular happens in Freeperville, it’s usually right after my Monday morning post. And this week was no exception.
Hence – a special Friday morning “Obsession” :
F.B.I. Raids Office of Trump’s Longtime Lawyer Michael Cohen
New York Times. ^ | April 9,2018 | MATT APUZZOPosted on 4/9/2018, 3:12:01 PM by Hojczyk
The F.B.I. on Monday raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York. “Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,” said Stephen Ryan, his lawyer. “I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.” Mr. Cohen plays a role in aspects of the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He also recently said he paid $130,000 to a pornographic-film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. Ms. Clifford is known as Stormy Daniels. Mr. Ryan said Mr. Cohen has cooperated with authorities and turned over thousands of documents to congressional investigators looking into Russian election meddling. The payments to Ms. Clifford are only one of many topics being investigated, according to a person briefed on the search. The F.B.I. also seized emails, tax documents and business records, the person said.
To: Hojczyk
The Deep State makes its next move.
4 posted on 4/9/2018, 3:12:50 PM by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents__Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
To: gathersnomoss
Time to fire Mueller, this is nothing more than harassment.
11 posted on 4/9/2018, 3:15:32 PM by outpostinmass2
To: AllCan’t wait to see the Qanon-believers, Sundance-supporters, and Gateway-Pundit-guys all coming out of the woodowrk to tell us how this is really a great 4-D chess move by Trump, and that the Military Tribunals will be starting any day now.
Beat me to it.
.
Like I said, “One little problem with that: ”
Mueller is working hand-in-hand with the New York Attorney General, so it’s not clear that even firing Mueller could stop this investigation.
Andy Cuomo is in the driver’s seat and has the means and intention to bring Trump down.
Simple solution : fire every NY State prosecutor and judge!
Whaddya mean, “he can’t do that” ??
By “means” I include:
- aggressive, partisan Attorney General
- all the records from Trump’s lawyers office and home
- a loving, complicit press
- a porn star to play a reprise of the Paula Jones role
- lots of Deep State operatives helping out
- A Special Counsel to feed him information
- the FBI willing to lend a helping hand
- Trump’s associates all under indictment or worried about it.
- probably transcripts of the NSA intercepts of Trump and his associates.
All-in-all, it’s a powerful arsenal.
Only if you’ve broken the law(s).
Team Trump has no real weapons.
(insert “shooting blanks” joke here)
We pro-Trump observers are waiting patiently for an IG report. But even when that comes it isn’t the same caliber of weapon as what Cuomo and Mueller are firing at Trump.
78 posted on 4/9/2018, 3:55:20 PM by Jack Black
Continue reading “Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – I scream Cohen edition”
It’s time for a meeting of the kitty courts update. Della and Paul get along quite well for the most part. There’s still the occasional altercation because he’s a giant kitten and always wants to play whereas she’s entering her … Continue reading Friday Catblogging: Floored
There’s so much food chat in Urban Transport Planning that was I was tempted to call this recap Puckett and Pizza. Puckett after the Minnesota Twins great and pizza after, uh. the doughy delicacy. Glenn the arms control dude is a huge Kirby fan and his Twins were headed to a world’s championship in 1987. Other cuisines mentioned included Chinese and Russian but we’ll get to that after the spoiler break. Hint: the dishes involved are neither chow mein nor borscht. Here’s Puckett without pizza:
Glasnost era tensions continue to fill the Jennings ranch house. Philip is pro-Gorbachev whereas Elizabeth is the hard liner’s hard liner. They bicker about what people think back, back, back in the USSR until they realize the absurdity of the argument since neither has been home in 20 years. The key difference between them is that Philip likes being an American but Elizabeth hates it. It’s spy vs. spy, married couple edition.
A brief pre-spoiler break musical interlude. Macca live at Red Square in Moscow. Woo:
And yes, that *was* Putin in the crowd at the 15 second mark. Rock on, Vlad. Woo. Continue reading “The Americans Thread: The Baby Spy Blues”
It’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s a movable commemoration so perhaps I should post this explanatory passage from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: The internationally recognized date for Holocaust Remembrance Day corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the … Continue reading Never Again
We already knew that Steve Bannon was an extremist and looks like an unmade bed at a thrift shop, but last night we had proof positive that he’s a moron, or as my man Rex would say: A FUCKING MORON. … Continue reading Steve Bannon Is A Moron
This was another one of those weeks where I searched for something completely different and found this book. What’s not to love about the title Pirate Wench? It gives me a pretext to post this ELP opus: Continue reading Pulp Fiction Thursday: Pirate Wench
The Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver tires of herding feral cats and retires. Continue reading Speaker Disconnected
The Rocky & Bullwinkle Conspiracy. Continue reading Toon Of The Week: The Return of Boris and Natasha
It may come as a surprise to those who only know the Bee Gees from the disco era, but they began life as a Beatles influenced pop-rock group. The influence extended to the cover of Bee Gees’ 1st, which was … Continue reading Album Cover Art Wednesday: Bee Gees’ 1st
It’s about goddamn time: Here in Colorado, Alden has embarked on a cynical strategy of constantly reducing the amount and quality of its offerings, while steadily increasing its subscription rates. In doing so, the hedge fund managers — often tellingly referred to as “vulture capitalists” — have hidden behind a narrative that adequately staffed newsrooms and newspapers can no longer survive in the digital marketplace. Try to square that with a recent lawsuit filed by one of Digital First Media’s minority shareholders that claims Alden has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of its newspaper profits into shaky investments completely unrelated to the business … Continue reading Newspapers Finally Fighting Back Against Newspaper Owners
One hundred and seven years old, and god damn, what a badass: An inspector from the Dutch education ministry arrived at Johan van Hulst’s teacher training institute in Amsterdam on the morning of June 19, 1943. He noticed youngsters and, with SS soldiers standing nearby, asked, “Are those Jewish children?” “You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?” Dr. van Hulst replied. The garden of Dr. van Hulst’s Reformed Teachers’ Training College bordered the garden of a Jewish nursery. Under Dr. van Hulst’s supervision, hundreds of Jewish infants and children had been passed across the hedge and hidden … Continue reading Your Occasional Reminder That It’s Possible to Be Good and Brave
There’s been a feeding frenzy over the raid on Michael Cohen’s office, apartment, hotel room, and hot tub. I made the last bit up. There’s even been some tut-tutting about Cohen being Trump’s “lawyer.” At the risk of sounding like a broken record: Cohen is not a lawyer in the usual sense. He’s a fixer/gangster. He’s more like a caporegime in the Trump crime family than a “personal lawyer.” It looks as if the fixer is fucked. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. More alarming was Trump’s latest public meltdown, which may be the creepiest one yet. He was … Continue reading An Attack On Our Country?
A friend asked me the other day why I’m doing fewer malaka of week posts. Surely, he said, malakatude is not decreasing. It is not. There’s been an explosion of malakatude in the Trump error era. Norms are being discarded … Continue reading Malaka Of The Week: Ralph Norman
Hi, good people – not much to offer this week, I’m afraid. The “The Messicans Is Comin’ To Git Us” threads are boring. You could just play the bridge massacre scene from “The Death Of Stalin” and get the gist of what they want to do. I would like to expound on one thing, though. I see a lot of doo-dah about “Reach out to Trump voters” like an olive branch and a kumbayah will somehow turn them into functioning human beings with a soul and stuff like that. Forget it. Na Ga Ha Pen. The only thing they care … Continue reading Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – reach out and touch someone edition
There never is any. I’m getting to the point where I’m thinking anybody working for a non-indy, non-worker-owned news outlet is just getting goddamn taken. A. Continue reading No Money for Journalism
This gets at certain aspects of something I’ve been trying to figure out for a while: In the past decade, travel publishers have become much more active in promoting ideas like environmental and cultural conservation. Guides, for example, now routinely warn readers against attractions, such as poorly run safaris or trained-animal acts, that put wildlife at risk, or against activities that could compromise forests, mountains, or barrier reefs. The results have been promising. It’s not such a huge step to imagine someday that future travel articles might bake into the cake a subtle (or not so subtle) promotion of democratic … Continue reading Travel Gaps and Politics
It’s crawfish season in New Orleans. I’m talking about eating, not catching them. I leave that to the experts. We went to our longtime boiled crawfish restaurant, Frankie & Johnny’s, with some friends from Richmond this week. Several of them were uncertain they’d like the mudbugs but they did. It may be hard work peeling them but it’s worth it. Mmm, berled crawfish.
We’re attending a benefit crawfish boil tomorrow. It’s in support of Team Gleason, a group dedicated to helping ALS patients and their families. It was founded by former Saints player Steve Gleason who has ALS but keeps on fighting the good fight. He’s a remarkable man and it’s a worthy cause. Plus, there’s crawfish and beer involved.
I’m in a swing mood this week so it’s time to break out some Glenn Miller. We have two versions for your musical amusement: Glenn Miller and his orchestra in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade and the Brian Setzer Orchestra’s Gettin’ In The Mood with lyrics by Mike Himmelstein. The tune is the same. Oh yeah.
Now that I’ve got you Lindy Hopping, it’s time to jump to the break but try to do it on the beat.
Adrastos on why he’s not writing about 2020 yet and why the “why not me?” candidacy of Mitch Landrieu ain’t going nowhere. That’s a whole lotta whys. Continue reading Why I’m Not Writing About 2020 Yet
It’s PD’s turn in the closeup barrel. Continue reading Friday Catblogging: The Inevitable Paul Drake Closeup
A sense of doom and foreboding hangs over the second episode of Season-6, Tchaikovsky. Elizabeth seems to think her time on the planet is winding down. She even asks Claudia to look after Paige’s spy life after she’s gone. Remember when she hated Claudia? I do and it had nothing to do Margot Martindale turn as evil hillbilly matriarch Mags Bennett on Justified.
Division continues to be one of the main themes of Season-6. We meet an American hawk who is worried that Reagan is about to give away the nuclear store to Gorbachev. He mutters to Elizabeth about rumors that Reagan is showing signs of senility hence his arm control mania. Reagan *was* showing signs of dementia BUT underneath the bluster, Reagan had long wanted to ban nuclear weapons. He was influenced by his wife, Nancy, and by the sci-fi movies of the 1950’s. This was one time where Reagan’s movie mania put him on the side of the angels. Maybe he was afraid of turning into The Fly after seeing David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake:
https://giphy.com/gifs/jeff-goldblum-geena-davis-the-fly-UvpGACRrX1Tj2
Now that I’ve grossed you out, it’s spoiler break time. But first, here’s the lone rock song used during the episode. The producers have a thing for Talking Heads. Besides, what’s slipperier than a spy? Only Jeff Goldblum as The Fly. My, my, my.
Continue reading “The Americans Thread: Tell Tchaikovsky The News”
Another week, another alien invasion book. Continue reading Pulp Fiction Thursday: The Flying Eyes
It’s the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis. Meanwhile the Tennessee lege is having a hard time passing something that *should* be an easy lift: Twice this spring, lawmakers in the Tennessee Assembly have tried to promote resolutions condemning neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Both times those efforts have failed. The second attempt was abandoned just this week, after a Republican lawmaker unsuccessfully tried to alter the motion’s language to make it more palatable to his caucus. House Republican Caucus Chairman Rep. Ryan Williams’ resolution reworked one put forth by Democratic Rep. John Ray Clemmons, which died in … Continue reading Why Is It Hard To Denounce Neo-Nazis?