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

Dems throwing her under the bus is absolutely idiotic though

there are a lot of dems who were chomping at the bit to throw her under the bus

(sorry, mixed metaphor)

Listening and learning, but standing strong 💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/7TSroSf8h1

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 11, 2019

that's a good statement, and so is this:

STATEMENT: Weaponization and Oversimplification of Israel Debate Must End https://t.co/Vrz5OaBe5O pic.twitter.com/oTTY0tHWci

— J Street (@jstreetdotorg) February 11, 2019

jfc Dems suck

Rep. Omar’s use of an anti-Semitic stereotype was offensive and irresponsible.

This kind of intolerance has no place in Congress—or anywhere in American society.

No one should invoke anti-Semitic tropes during policy disagreements.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 11, 2019

yes to be clear the Dem response is also extremely dumb

I dont think the mainstream dems want much to do with ilham omar. They have to seem to tolerate eg bernie and aoc because of their popularity

fwiw I thought "all about the Benjamins" was a reference to Netinyahu

not that I expect much from establishment Dems but immediately siding with bad faith GOP actors in the age of Trump is still infuriating

schumer is definitely siding with his donors who called to complain rather than the GOP, but it's still annoying.

that j street statement is well put

donors, you say?

ugh "weaponization"

weaponized mimosas

"The Biden Test" is when you ask yourself what portion of the negative response to a woman, millennial, or other person threatening mainstream liberal stances would be, say, "Diamond Joe lays down hip-hop knowledge on AIPAC tweet" if the former VP said it.

Try it out!

The letter concerned the company’s release of a magazine praising Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, published to coincide with a visit he took to Washington in March 2018.

“According to your submission, [U.S. corporation] created and published [publication] [text deleted], to coincide with the visit of [foreign government leader],” the redacted letter reads.

The DOJ decided that American Media’s activities did not qualify it as a foreign agent under FARA.

The letter also says that American Media hired an unnamed advisor to the Saudi government to write an article for and edit the magazine, titled “The New Kingdom.”

The WSJ reported that the magazine included an editorial praising the Saudi leader by French financial advisor Kacy Grine, who has experience working in Saudi Arabia and who reportedly visited Trump in July 2017 with American Media CEO David Pecker and Chief Content Officer Dylan Howard.

Pecker admitted last year to buying embarrassing stories about Trump and not publishing them as part of an immunity-for-testimony deal with federal prosecutors investigating Michael Cohen.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/wsj-national-enquirer-publisher-asked-doj-if-it-should-register-as-saudi-agent

Bibi plays footsie with *literal* nazis and the democrat leadership is busy w a bad-faith interpretation a female muslim rep's tweet. cool country.

fwiw someone pointed out to me that All About the Benjamins has the line "stackin chips like the Hebrews." Suddenly I started to second guess my reaction -- is it a dog whistle?

still think its just a clever reference to Netanyahu

was there a firestorm over this? just wondering

Eric Trump says Bob Woodward wrote book to make "shekels" https://t.co/ikdmWOxKv2 pic.twitter.com/klUPxlJ3gu

— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 13, 2018

i dunno, many ppl in the pre-panic days used shekels casually... maybe if Woodward was Jewish

there's totally going to be another shutdown right?

A lot of older Jews use shekels in a slangy way fwiw, probably entered the lexicon through them along with putz and schmuck and chutzpah

yes but if airline workers strike it'll probably be short lived

feelin' the Dems are gonna cave this time but who knows

And I thought we couldn’t possibly get a stupider non-story than “OMG the white house intern might have made an OK sign!”

AMI is so goddamn crooked. i mean that was obvious. i was rereading a piece about ami, trump, and the saudis from last year and these bits stuck out in the context of 11 feb 19:

And by January, Mr. Pecker was confident enough about his growing rapport with Saudi investors that he sought their help bankrolling a possible acquisition of Time magazine, which he had long coveted, according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks. A.M.I. disputed that.

...

Mr. Pecker has continued to hunt for new acquisitions. Last year, he bought Us Weekly from Wenner Media. But money remained scarce, according to A.M.I.’s financial advisers. When Mr. Pecker’s friend Harvey Weinstein suggested last fall that they team up to purchase Rolling Stone, Mr. Pecker expressed little interest. “I can not contribute any cash,” he wrote in an email obtained by The New York Times.
In that same Sept. 28 exchange, he wrote to Mr. Weinstein: “I am in Saudi Arabia on business. Can’t call from here.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/business/media/david-pecker-trump-saudi-arabia.html

the circle of all the worst men is pretty wide!

gamey recognizes gamey

Was ami just blackmailing and silencing people all the time for decades and never caught?

What’s striking is how casual they are about it. It’s just protocol.

ilhan being hung out to dry

feelin' the Dems are gonna cave this time but who knows

― frogbs, Monday

I would imagine so

Was ami just blackmailing and silencing people all the time for decades and never caught?

blackmail? no no, they just offered the subjects exclusive rights to the story.. :/

Was ami just blackmailing and silencing people all the time for decades and never caught?

caught by who? they weren't playing tip

here's a four-part, eight-billion-word history of their ratfucking from a couple of years ago

https://popbitch.com/2017/10/the-united-states-of-american-media-inc/

it’s really good

I thought Matthew Yglesias's explainer on the Ilhan Omar tweet controversy provided some welcome context:

https://www.vox.com/2019/2/11/18220160/ilhan-omar-aipac-benjamins-kevin-mccarthy

they have a deal

According to the Washington Post, the deal cuts the total number of detention beds from 49,000 to 40,500, and gives $1.375 billion for border barrier construction — short of the $5.7 billion Trump has previously demanded.

arguably i already said my piece, so

“We started at zero on the wall, and we compromised a lot after that, and we are now asking them to change, too,” said Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, Democrat of California and a member of the 17-member House and Senate conference committee tasked with hammering out a compromise.

I can get behind this IF Trump refuses and they then come back with 20,000 detention beds and $0.375 billion for wall (fence)

at least beto gets it

Beto O'Rourke at rally in El Paso, Texas:

"There is no bargain in which we can sacrifice some of our humanity to gain a little more security. We know that we deserve and will lose both of them if we do." pic.twitter.com/91DOqLYJB2

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 12, 2019

Well, tbh he can stake that position because he's not in Congress.

Meanwhile

Hannity: "On this so-called compromise, I'm getting details. 1.3 billion and non even a wall or barrier... Any Republican that supports this garbage compromise, you will have to explain." pic.twitter.com/9HXaooxBGP

— Contemptor (@TheContemptor) February 12, 2019

Well, tbh he can stake that position because he's not in Congress.

i suppose. american politics is a weird game. you can speak the truth if you're not in congress. and you can speak the truth if you're trying to be the president (i don't expect harris, warren, sanders, gillibrand, or even booker to vote for it). but anywhere in between and you have to be a fucking asshole

!!! Trump: "Certain types of dogs. You do love your dogs, don't you? I wouldn't mind having one, honestly, but I don't have any time. How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn?...Feels a little phony to me...That's not the relationship I have with my people."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 12, 2019

is he making an announcement or is this just a thing he's doing to feel good

Dale is livetweeting from Trump’s campaign rally in El Paso

was there a firestorm over this? just wondering

Yes, in Jewish circles people noticed that Eric Trump accused Bob Woodward of criticizing Trump "for shekels" and were like uuuuuuggggghhhh.

But it didn't make a big splash outside those circles, because the sad truth is that everyone already expects people like Eric Trump to casually traffic in anti-Semitic stereotypes. It's a man bites dog story.

Eh. It was just culturally commonplace Merchant of Venice stuff, like "pound of flesh."

good morning!

honestly, mad respect to Yglesias for this, I'd love to see every major pundit/columnist try this exercise

Here’s eight big politics things I remember having been pretty confident about that turned out to be wrong and why I am trying to be less confident about things. pic.twitter.com/2JcRhauJXN

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 12, 2019

i'd be equally, if not more, interested to see a list of what he and other pundits actually got right tbh