US Politics February 2019: This is one of the great losers of all time.

My my

A source familiar with the matter tells me that Lavely & Singer, Marty Singer's law firm, did not know in advance that Bezos would be posting this essay. Nor did they know that Bezos would be publishing the threatening emails that AMI sent them.

They found out when we did..wow. https://t.co/dO7jADseG0

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) February 7, 2019

Bezos’s investigator in this is the guy who wrote gift of fear

Haha that figures. A certain VP at AWS was and presumably still is obsessed with that book.

Not unrelated.

In his note, Jeff Bezos mentions a guy named Gavin de Becker; I interviewed de Becker for @TheAtlantic, profiling a new anti-terrorism unit at LAX. Dude is serious business—he has an entire airplane fuselage for training against assassination attempts. https://t.co/A52RyoZch7 pic.twitter.com/wty0Pmbnhj

— Geoff Manaugh (@bldgblog) February 8, 2019

Hahah look who caved

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-panel-authorizes-subpoena-for-acting-attorney-general-whitaker-just-in-case/2019/02/07/1e5ec47a-2af2-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html

while this could be just another instance of a trump person dragging their feet just to be a dick about it, there is every indication that this shady AG has shit to hide, or at the very least will do a poor job hiding it under oath.

Bezos's response is actually a textbook example of how to respond to extortion. His consultant, Gavin de Becker, literally did write the textbook - here's the section on extortion from his book "The Gift of Fear": pic.twitter.com/Wt7JDNhBCl

— Leigh Honeywell (@hypatiadotca) February 8, 2019

it's hard to make me sympathetic to jeff bezos, who basically starves his employees to make billions, Gilded Age style, but this has almost done it.

I dont feel a smidge of sympathy for him but I do admire his balls.

...er, in a manner of speaking.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/02/07/john-dingell-michigan-dies-obituary/1339577002/?#_=_

I dont feel a smidge of sympathy for him but I do admire his balls.

...er, in a manner of speaking.

they're really big!

https://www.google.com/search?q=bezos+balls&client=firefox-b-1-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjom4SFlKvgAhVFJ30KHa7JDEIQ_AUIDygC&biw=749&bih=497&dpr=1.5

but in his sole act of civic generosity, he allows the public inside them for a few hours two Saturdays a month

lol you have to book at least 30 days in advance, I'd never looked into this before

https://d39w7f4ix9f5s9.cloudfront.net/18/be/aa7655f845b99057cfc6a29b1a69/the-spheres-logo-rgb.svg

it's too bad extortion's not fatal

They need to stop slapping the smile on everything! It doesn’t work on logotypes other than the main “amazon” one. Just use it alone.

That’s not a smile; on the Amazon logo it’s an arrow indicating they’ll sell anything from A to Z.

I know but they call it the “smile” in brand guidelines iirc from working there

it's both at once, obvs

sort of like how the nike symbol is both a "swoosh" and a pipe, representing how the shoes were originally designed as slippers for men to wear while smoking a pipe in their dens.

Hm hm hm.

New: Washington Post reporter just said that Bezos’ investigator suspects that “a government agency” intercepted Bezos’ text messages.

— julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) February 8, 2019

I kind of assume that NSA intercepts all text messages

Seeing a suggestion or two it doesn't have to be a US government agency but ehhh

Oh yeah meanwhile

New tonight: Former Roger Stone associate Jerome Corsi (aka "Person 1" in Stone's indictment) is suing ... Roger Stone, accusing Stone of defamation for repeatedly saying that Corsi lied https://t.co/p4JLz5aSsR pic.twitter.com/zXKWfHofUd

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) February 8, 2019

Oh and earlier today

WOW: Per new court filing, KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK, the Russia intelligence-linked PAUL MANAFORT deputy, was in DC for TRUMP's inauguration, & met with Manafort about a Russia-Ukraine peace plan that we know envisioned a role for Russia-aligned former Ukrainian president YANUKOVYCH. pic.twitter.com/qo4JX2YWPm

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) February 7, 2019

KEY CONTEXT FROM MUELLER: MANAFORT had motive to hide & lie about the $125k paid to him through the pro-Trump @RebuildingAmNow super PAC because:
1) he was trying to hide his financial problems.
2) he had billed himself to TRUMP (& the world) as working for the campaign for free. pic.twitter.com/6V8cWPXLkG

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) February 7, 2019

VERY INTERESTING: Prosecutors for MUELLER's team assert that the subject of PAUL MANAFORT's lies about his interactions with his Russian intel-linked deputy KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK during the campaign go "very much to the heart of what the Special Counsel's Office is investigating." pic.twitter.com/Rmttanp4eh

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) February 8, 2019

Kind of odd for Mueller’s team to be speaking about the case, right? They’re usually pretty tight-lipped

It’s a court filing....

It's consistent with the theory and of what we've seen in filings periodically, that unredacted details are the way Mueller gives us a road mapping of where the investigation is at.

hey, good morning!

Norm’s Superego (silby) at 9:29 7 Feb 19

I know but they call it the “smile” in brand guidelines iirc from working there


um pretty sure suzy went to high school with the Amazon logo so

Hahahaha no, but one of my closest friends from school moved to London with her husband, an Amazon SVP (he left a few years ago and is now a gazillion times happier running a big startup).

<3

tfw you live in London and work in Slough..

I hate billionaires but Bezos is acting admirably here. 👍

he is ably showing one how to deal with a bully

Right. It’s incredible AMI has been doing this so long and, seemingly, people caved every time.

Hey man they’re on the case.

BREAKING: AMERICAN MEDIA, LLC RESPONSE TO STATEMENT BY JEFF BEZOS: pic.twitter.com/SWg17REDyx

— Ryan Ruggiero (@RyanRuggiero) February 8, 2019

They can’t argue the pics were “newsworthy” if they were willing to stash them in exchange for terms. I’m no lawyer but

He's riled up this morning.

Not only did Senator Burr’s Committee find No Collusion by the Trump Campaign and Russia, it’s important because they interviewed 200 witnesses and 300,000 pages of documents, & the Committee has direct access to intelligence information that’s Classified. @GreggJarrett

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2019

Now we find out that Adam Schiff was spending time together in Aspen with Glenn Simpson of GPS Fusion, who wrote the fake and discredited Dossier, even though Simpson was testifying before Schiff. John Solomon of @thehill

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2019

The mainstream media has refused to cover the fact that the head of the VERY important Senate Intelligence Committee, after two years of intensive study and access to Intelligence that only they could get, just stated that they have found NO COLLUSION between “Trump” & Russia....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2019

...It is all a GIANT AND ILLEGAL HOAX, developed long before the election itself, but used as an excuse by the Democrats as to why Crooked Hillary Clinton lost the Election! Someday the Fake News Media will turn honest & report that Donald J. Trump was actually a GREAT Candidate!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2019

they interviewed 200 witnesses and 300,000 pages of documents

"Trump"

He's got a lot of time on his hands since he's stuck in the waiting room at the doctor's office.

it's weird for a guy who's been president for two years to be desperately insistent that he was a great candidate for president

It's weird for a human being to behave the way Donald Trump behaves throughout his every waking moment.

yeah its pretty clear that he doesn't fear any legal trouble (the idea of suffering any real consequence whatsoever is totally foreign to him) but the idea of people thinking's he's illegitimate or only won because of interference terrifies him

damn this Whitaker dude is a fucking stooge to the highest degree

lol he couldn't look more guilty if he tried

still doing better than Kavanaugh though

it's weird for a guy who's been president for two years to be desperately insistent that he was a great candidate for president

Jerry Nadler asks Matthew Whitaker if he has ever been asked to approve any request or action to be taken by the Special Counsel.

Whitaker: "Mr. Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up."

The response in the room is remarkable. Via CSPAN2 pic.twitter.com/UAcOyulX46

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 8, 2019

it's not so much chutzpah as the boneheaded hubris of trying to fly to the sun

https://i.imgur.com/xeXMKtA.png

If that's not a smile, then I guess they were trying to make an 'Er indoors joke.