Sunday, October 16, 2016

Sunday Morning Comin' Down: UPDATE



Fundraiser Day One Edition.



In which our precious democracy is once again strengthened and embiggened (h/t Jebediah Springfield) by the most powerful media corporations on Earth handing a microphone to some of the worst people in the world.

Cue montage music...

Congenital liar, disgraced serial adulterer and ride-or-die Trumpkin, Newt Gingrich wants you to know that it's all a conspiracy. A vast, Commie conspiracy!




While raving madman, disgraced serial adulterer and ride-or-die Trumpkin, Rudy Guiliani, would also like you to know that it's rigged, I tells ya! It's all rigged!  (from CNN):

Giuliani on rigged election: 'Dead people generally vote for Democrats'

Top Donald Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani claimed Sunday that Democrats could steal a close election by having dead people vote in inner cities, while vice presidential candidate Mike Pence said the ticket will "absolutely accept the result of the election."

"I'm sorry, dead people generally vote for Democrats rather than Republicans," the former New York City mayor told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." "You want me to (say) that I think the election in Philadelphia and Chicago is going to be fair? I would have to be a moron to say that." 
But he did say the amount of cheating would only impact extremely close races -- noting, for example, if either Trump or Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania by "5 points," the cheating he alleges would occur would be negligible and not change the outcome.

Giuliani was backing up Trump, the Republican nominee, who has repeatedly claimed on the campaign trail -- without providing evidence -- that his race against Clinton is being rigged.
...
Oh Rudy, you have rocketed so far beyond "moron" at this point the English language hasn't fully caught up.  We're going to need something much, much longer and probably German ("Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth." h/t Mark Twain.)

And speaking of the English language, after demonstrating that he does not understand his own mother tongue (h/t Sam Ervin) --
GOV. MIKE PENCE: I really do, Chuck. You know, what, what we have this week is a, is a series of, of unsubstantiated allegations. And Donald Trump--

CHUCK TODD: Let me stop you there. They're not unsubstantiated.

GOV. MIKE PENCE: --has made it clear. He's categorically denied--

CHUCK TODD: Well hang on. They're not unsubstantiated.

GOV. MIKE PENCE: --he's categorically denied those allegations, Chuck.

CHUCK TODD: You have firsthand accounts. They're unproven but they are not unsubstantiated. You have a, you have a first-hand account. We have somebody that disagrees with that first-hand account. But they are substantiated, no?

GOV. MIKE PENCE: Well, I, no. These are not substantiated accounts...
-- and trying to thread that delicate crazypants needle of hinting at possible riggery (and jiggery and pokery) by invoking Holy Truthiness ("so many Americans feel...") without getting too much treason stank all over his immaculate halo (emphasis added) --
CHUCK TODD: Well.

GOV. MIKE PENCE: --so many Americans--

CHUCK TODD: I--

GOV. MIKE PENCE: --feel like this election is being rigged by a national media that's constantly trying to change the subject away from and practice willful ignorance--

CHUCK TODD: So, so Governor, we should ignore--

GOV. MIKE PENCE: --toward the corruption and misdeeds and pay for play politics of the Clintons.

...
GOV. MIKE PENCE: It's getting virtually no attention--

CHUCK TODD: You just cited the New York--

GOV. MIKE PENCE: --in the national media while--

CHUCK TODD: You just cited the New York Times.
-- Christian Pharisee Power Bottom, Mike Pence, was finally cornered into stating that, fine! fine! the Republican Party ticket will, however grudgingly, honor the results of the election.  Are you happy now, Chuck Todd!
CHUCK TODD: Will you accept the results of the election?

GOV. MIKE PENCE: We will absolutely accept the results of the election. Look, the American people will speak in an election that will culminate on November the 8th. But the American people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. That's where the sense of a rigged election goes here, Chuck.
 Too bad Big Mike didn't check with the racist orange fire demon to whom he sold his political soul:
Really should have written that safe-word down there, big guy.

Also on Meet the Press, Hugh Hewitt and Chuck Todd (and Maureen Dowd-by-proxy) get very excited --
HUGH HEWITT: I thought Mike Pence did a very good job. In fact, I'm a Game of Thrones geek and I was thinking there is Davos Seaworthy defending Stannis Baratheon, in the bad days of Stannis Baratheon.

CHUCK TODD: By the way, you and Maureen Dowd, she made a Game of Thrones reference this morning, too, calling him the mad king.
-- catching up to where I was six months ago ("The Orange Wedding")*

In case you are unfamiliar with Mr. Hewitt, he is the liquid metal wingnut, T-1000 version of Rush Limbaugh.  He's the weaselly kid who openly rooted for Joe Cantwell when they showed "The Best Man" in his high school civics class.  And he's they guy they hired after Phil Griffin looked at game tapes of Bill Kristol and demanded to know why the hell  MSNBC didn't we have a smirking neocon asshole of it's own.

Finally. on the subject of conspiracy mongering, I should also mention that The Greatest Reporter In The World has also thrown in with Trump, Gingrich and Guiliani when it comes to reading Sinister Collusion into this year's round of political reporting:

Also, in the interest of full disclosure, this is the Tweet that got me blocked by The Greatest Reporter In The World:

Seems like sitting on fat stacks has thinned Mr. Greenwald's skin considerably.

Ah well, I've been thrown out of better places than that (h/t Lucy Ricardo.)

And I don't need fat stacks (although hitting the tip jar on the way out would be appreciated.)

In fact, I really only have one, small birthday wish this year, which you can help grant on November 8th.




UPDATE:  Kim Jong Orange opened his gaping lie-hole this morning to set the record straight and cut off whatever was left of Mike Pence's yams by making it absolutely clear that by "rigged" he means the election will be stolen from him at the ballot box by "large scale voter fraud".

From The Hill:
Trump: 'Of course there is large scale voter fraud'

Donald Trump on Monday claimed widespread voter fraud was taking place before Election Day, ramping up his charges that the presidential election is being rigged.

Trump also criticized Republicans who have not backed up his claims. A number of GOP officials, including Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.), have said they are confident in the state election processes and safeguards.

"Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day," the GOP nominee tweeted on Monday.  "Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!"...
 Don't worry, Mike Pence; you'll still be able to sing in the wingnut choir.

You just can't sing bass anymore.

*(Thanks for the catch!)

10 comments:

dinthebeast said...

So that billion or so dollars in free media that won him the primaries, that doesn't count anymore?

-Doug in Oakland

Mike R said...

Having not been more than an occasional reader of Greenwald, has he always been that big of a jerk.

Fritz Strand said...

No one has done more to destroy the inner workings of our democracy than Gingrich. Unfortunately, it was hidden on the other side of the wonk curtain where the everyday press will not go.

SHOON said...

The political and media elite of the U.S. are virtually united behind Clinton and against Trump

Except for where they are not so united. Yet, one should hope they are united too!

Has it occurred to any of the t-shirted, baseball capped legions, that the leader of the Trump campaign, Hair Duce himself, has demonstrated, by leading his cratering campaign, that similar "anti-skills" would have been deployed to the office of POTUS?

Dave McCarthy said...

Gingrich gives what is the very definition of a specious argument. Again.

And of course the fact that he, perfectly accurately described by Driftglass as a "Congenital liar, disgraced serial adulterer and ride-or-die Trumpkin..." ALWAYS has a place at the microphone of his choice, on ANY network, kinda sorta shoots the shit out of his pathetic "coup" schtick.

Dave McCarthy said...

"You just can't sing bass anymore."

Nice!

D. said...

Hi!

Excellent stuff as always, o holder of the Mike Royko Memorial Emeritus Chair at the Prestigious University School of Journalism in a better universe.

Unfortunately, your link to the Orange Wedding is "http://really%20should%20have%20written%20that%20safe-word%20down%20there%2C%20big%20guy." when it should be "http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-orange-wedding.html"

You're welcome.

Unknown said...

"Christian Pharisee Power Bottom, Mike Pence"

White Power Bottom works, too.

Alfred Lehmberg said...

Shouldn't Donald Trump be arrested for inciting a National riot?

bluicebank said...

'Dead people generally vote for Democrats'

In another era, in a certain city, sure. But the GOP has a lock on the undead vote, that shambling, rotting class lacking all but a brain stem. And as the media has reported often, these walking corpses outnumber election-day resurrected souls by 1000-to-1