9 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

1. Casey Rodham DeSantis?

   The Casey DeSantis Problem: ‘His Greatest Asset and His Greatest Liability’ – POLITICO

   Favorite quote: 

   “'Have you ever noticed,' Roger Stone, the notorious political mischief-maker who is both a DeSantis antagonist and a many-decades-long Trump loyalist, remarked in a Telegram post last fall, 'how much Ron DeSantis’ wife Casey is like Lady Macbeth?' — an agent, in other words, of her husband’s undoing."

   At least Moody Melania knows enough to keep her mouth shut most of the time.

    

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2. Anti-Immigrant Ratfuckery. Via Josh Marshall at TPM.

   I’m feeling exhausted after a long week and you probably are too. But I want to put something on your radar. Because there’s something more going on here. A week ago the New York Post went to town with a made-for-Fox News story of a group of veterans who had been booted out of hotels about an hour north of New York City to make way for migrants. As I said, it was a made-for-Fox News: Here are these disabled or impoverished American veterans getting kicked to the curb to make way for migrants with no permission to be in the country in the first place. Politicians jumped on the story. The Post ran it. It made the rounds of the wingnutosphere. Fox of course got on board.

   But none of it was true. And I don’t just mean not true in the sense of being misleading or incomplete or embellished or sensationalized. It was a hoax. Sharon Toney-Finch, the founder and head of a small local nonprofit, the YIT Foundation, which focuses on veterans issue and premature births (?) was the source of the original story. But it turns out the she recruited a group of 15 homeless men from a local shelter to impersonate veterans and talk to the press about their tale of woe.

   A bunch of the homeless guys explained what happened to reporters and Toney-Finch has now seemingly admitted she made the whole thing up but not yet on the record for reporters. To add insult to injury, Toney-Finch didn’t even pay the homeless guys the $200 a piece she promised for participating in the scam.

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3. Rudy Giuliani is Sooooo Fucked. Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel

   Dunphy reveals that — whether because he thought it’d be a good idea or because he got really drunk and did something stupid — Rudy accessed his work email account from her computer, giving her access to a his email correspondence with a whole lot of corrupt people.

   "93. Therefore, Giuliani added one of his work email accounts into Ms. Dunphy’s email program on her computer, typing his password onto her computer.

   94. Once Giuliani’s email account was loaded onto Ms. Dunphy’s computer, at least 23,000 emails associated with the account, including many from before her employment with Giuliani, were stored on her computer.

   95. Since Giuliani gave Ms. Dunphy access to his email account, she had access to information that was, upon information and belief, privileged, confidential, and highly sensitive.

   96. For example, Ms. Dunphy was given access to emails from, to, or concerning President Trump, the Trump family (including emails from Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump), Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, former FBI director Louis Freeh, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow, Secretaries of State, former aides to President Trump such as Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, and Kellyanne Conway, former Attorneys General Michael Mukasey and Jeff Sessions, media figures such as Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson, and other notable figures including Newt Gingrich, presidential candidates for Ukraine, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, the Ailes family, the LeFrak family, Bernard Kerik, Igor Fruman, Lev Parnas, and attorneys Marc Mukasey, Robert Costello, Victoria Toensing, Fred Fielding, and Joe DeGenova.

   97. Ms. Dunphy understood that she was given access to these emails because she was employed by Giuliani and the Giuliani Companies. Indeed, although Giuliani and his surrogates have argued that Ms. Dunphy was not an employee of Giuliani or the Giuliani Companies, it is impossible to understand Giuliani’s decision to give Ms. Dunphy complete access to (and copies of) these sensitive emails in any other context.

   98. As a lawyer, Giuliani sent and received emails containing privileged information that could not legally be shared with Ms. Dunphy if she were not an employee or consultant. Likewise, Giuliani’s business often involved highly confidential information, and upon information and belief, there were confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements governing access to some of this information. Upon information and belief, those agreements barred Giuliani from sharing covered confidential information with someone who was not an employee or consultant.

   99. Giuliani never asked Ms. Dunphy to sign a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement."

   Dunphy suggests she continued to have access to Rudy’s emails and his social media accounts — the very same social media accounts he is trying to hide from Ruby Freeman — through January 31, 2021.

   And, as she notes, Rudy never asked Dunphy to sign a non-disclosure agreement about all this.

   The FBI may be seeking this information. Several plaintiffs, including Freeman, definitely are (Dunphy also helpfully includes a summary of the property he owns, including five homes). And nothing prevents her from sharing it with them unless Rudy retroactively claims she was an employee, covered by non-disclosure obligations, through this entire period, with the $2 million payment she claims he promised her to go along with that nondisclosure agreement.

   Not just Rudy — but also the entire Trump family (have I mentioned there’s an election coming up?), Rupert Murdoch and some of his star current and former employees, as well as a bunch of lawyers who’ve been involved in some shady shit — all of them have an incentive to retroactively make her status as an employee official, so that she won’t release these communications.

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4. A little trip down memory lane. Twelve years ago today something really big was supposed to happen. 
    

    

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   1. I wonder what kind of prophet they made on that those T shirts, and whether they had them back ordered in case they ran out after May 21. Also, could they get a refund in case they were not enraptured with the product?😉

      It is true that the left was behind in Colorado Springs but now we’re catching up! It helped that the Springs has been represented by drooling grifters  like Klingenschmitt and David Williams

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      1. Has there been any word on what Klingon Shit plans to do since he lost his city council seat?

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         1. Have you watched “Way Down” on HBO?  The Gwen Shamblin cult.  Once you get to episode four you’ll not be surprised to see Colorado residents (CoSprings) that ended up there. 

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            1. I'm going to have to check this out. Thanks!

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         2. Chaps is still grifting , on his PJIN show crried on Truth network,  making millions off people sending him their meager earnings to hear him preach on the evils of homosexuality and democracy, how to see demons, etc.

            His natural mother passed away recently. He was adopted at age 3 by the Klingenschmitts. 

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