by John Walters
Tweet Me Right
LEAHY: Judge Kavanaugh, I’m trying to get a straight answer from you under oath. Are you Bart Kavanaugh that he’s referring to, yes or no?
KAVANAUGH: You’d have to ask him.
Letter is signed “Bart.” https://t.co/i2p0japj5v
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) October 2, 2018
He wasn’t exactly lying, it’s just that he knew the truth and chose not to share it. Bart O’Kavanaugh’s going to make such an upstanding Supreme Court justice.
Starting Five
Tuesday night (actually Wednesday morning)
1. Successive Celebration Rule
Let’s raise a lukewarm Hamm’s to ol’ Rule No. 7: Last night, actually earlier this morning, the Colorado Rockies became the second visiting team in as many days to celebrate on the infield at Wrigley Field. As our friend Cecil Hurt tweeted, “Wrigley Field’s infield is now available for weddings and bar mitzvahs.”
Monday afternoon: The Brewers win the NL Yeast
What a bad October for the Cubs: two homes games in which they score one run each game. And now they’re out. You can talk about The Hug, or Gore’s swinging errantly at ball 4, or how the Rockies scored the winning run on a trio of consecutive two-out singles, or how this was, in terms of innings (13), the longest elimination game in Major League history.
Arenado, Baez: Theres’ NO HUGGING in baseball
Us? We just doubt you’ll ever see two different visiting clubs celebrating on the same team’s infield on consecutive days.
2. Human Filth
WATCH: President Trump mocks Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Trump’s Supreme Court pick Judge Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, during rally in Mississippi. https://t.co/pZfWN8IFMV pic.twitter.com/81YEs8oXr5
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 3, 2018
You had to expect this, right? Donald Trump, at a rally in Mississippi, demeans the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. This is vintage “Grab ‘Em By The P*ssy” Trump. The real Trump. This is how he feels about any woman who would dare to disrupt a man’s power game.
We will give him this: he’s an excellent performer when he’s focused. Ted Cruz couldn’t deliver that oration. Little Marco couldn’t. Jeb? Child, please. Obama could’ve, he just wouldn’t focus his energy on calling a woman who comes forward with a sexual assault allegation “really evil people.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuAUI_0knfk
Our friend and weekly MH contributor, Chris Corbellini, posted this video from Talladega Nights last week. Even though the movie is 12 years old, watching it we realized this is who we are as a country: Half of us are Chip, and the MAGA crowd is Ricky Bobby, Cal, his wife and sons, Walker and Texas Ranger. Watch and tell us different.
3. Feeling Queasy on Sulawesi*
*The judges won’t even consider accepting “It’s Not Easy Being Sulawesi”
Last week, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, inciting a tsunami that killed more than 1,400 people. Think about that number. Then, a day or two ago, a volcano erupted. No wonder people create gods.
And here I am on the East coast bemoaning humidity or subway delays. It’s all relative, yo.
4. The Ballad of Fred and Donald
So yesterday The New York Times came out with the latest “This Will Blow The Doors Off The Trump Presidency/Campaign” story (what are we up to now, 413?), alleging massive tax fraud that began with Donny’s dad, Fred Trump, and continues to this (yawn) day.
For your sake, we read the piece. Items:
— Starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day, DonaldTrump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges. As Stephen Colbert wondered aloud, ” “So, let me get this straight: At one point, Donald Trump was an extraordinarily wealthy toddler. And today? He is still that.”
—Trump’s parents, Fred and Mary, were able to transfer more than $1 billion to their children and avoided paying the 55% tax rate. Their rate was closer to 5%. You got a problem with a 55% tax rate? So do we. But the law’s the law. Of course MAGA will just proclaim that the Trumps are smart on one hand while insisting that a first-time drug offender be cuffed and imprisoned (now, if the Trumps had tattoos…).
We love this. Because the Times realizes that most people won’t take the time to read their exhaustive special investigation, they’ve gone Reddit on themselves and added a story titled “11 Takeaways from The Times’ Investigation of Trump.” It’s like, here, read this Cliff’s Notes version of our own story.
5. What Is Gwen Jorgensen Thinking?
You remember Gwen Jorgensen, the certified public accountant-cum-triathlete who won gold in the triathlon in Rio? Now Jorgensen, 32, has transitioned to the marathon with aspirations of a gold medal in Tokyo. Seriously.
There’s just one problem: She’s never run a marathon.
That changes this weekend as Jorgensen, a Wisconsin alum who lives in America’s Dairyland, ventures south to race in the Chicago Marathon. It’s a flat, fast course.
Music 101
I’m Amazed
My Morning Jacket, 2008. Rolling Stone and the rock critics couldn’t have loved this song any more if Radiohead had released it. The Kentucky band’s signature tune.
Remote Patrol
A.L. Wildcard
Athletics at Yankees
8 p.m. TBS
The Yanks and A’s knew they’d meet in this game since late August; it just became a matter of where. After stumbling much of July and August and for half of September, the Yanks finally look solid again, having won the last four season series they played. The A’s are red-hot and have been for months. The venue tonight may make all the difference.
Cubs win 95 games but are bounced from the playoffs after one game; the same will happen tonight to either the 100-win Yankees or the 97-win A’s. Should the Yankees lose, tomorrow’s tri-state media will be full of lamentations about the unfairness of the one-game wild card round; they won’t mention it should the Yankees win.
At one point in June Oakland was 34-36; they were the best team in baseball after that, going 63-29 the rest of the way. They have the lowest payroll in baseball and their starting pitcher tonight is an Australian reliever who has pitched 24 innings this season and has a career ERA of 4.72. Go A’s.
I have zero concern about a team being bounced after one game. Six months from now people will be celebrating such a concept. Most of people’s problems revolve not around the absolute truth of something but instead around how it differs from the accepted paradigm.
That’s some deep insight stemming from an MLB playoff elimination game. I’m picturing Rust Cohle making this comment.
My counter: one-and-done playoff rounds devalue the regular season, which is longer in MLB than in any other sport. Playoffs are great fun but are best when they are the least gimmicky, and in baseball one-game playoffs are nothing more than a coin flip. The Premier League’s champion is the truest of champs because EPL has no playoffs at all. My desire for MLB (which would never, ever happen, as the genie is long out of the bottle): four divisions of 7-8 teams; eight teams make the playoffs (top 2 of each division); three rounds of best-of-seven playoffs.
The answer is simple.: be better. Don’t expect to have things you have not earned. It’s pretty simple.
I couldn’t agree more. So have a structure that follows up a 162-game season with a one-game “playoff?” If your mantra is “just be better” why not have 8 teams qualify for the post-season rather than 10, and get rid of the one-game elimination round.
Also, Tony Wolters, the Rockies’ backup catcher/second basemen who hit .170 this year but drove in the run that knocked out the Cubs, is a true man of the people, as shown by this mid-summer tweet: https://twitter.com/TonyWolters/status/1014187086356807680
Because 1) it’s fun and 2) it separates division winners. It rewards that.
Love the title for item #2 (“HUMAN FILTH”) but did you have to remind us he is part of our species? 😉
I think you are downplaying the NYT article – it was FANTASTIC as even though many of us (MOI! MOI! YOU! anyone with a functioning brain!) have ALWAYS assumed his so-called wealth was largely ill-gotten gains or outright lies, THIS article lays it allllll out using Fred Trump’s actual company documents & tax returns! If you read it all (I did so last night), the Trump family is basically a CRIME family. Sure, some of the tax “dodges” were just taking advantage of loopholes, but others are out & out FRAUD. The one thing that pisses me off more than what the Trumps actually did is the UTTER FAILURE of the IRS! Hell, I bet Al Capone did less & he went to the slammer!
And of course, the main takeaway (besides proof once AGAIN that Trump is a LIAR) is that many of the gullible people in this country who voted for that “HUMAN FILTH” did so because they believed the MYTH that he was a “self-made billionaire” & some financial whiz who would be able to, wait for it, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN”. I told you that my father had thought that too before I set him straight. WHY did he believe it? Because Trump was MARKETED that way on that god awful TV show, also by himself in every freakin utterance since at least the 80s when I 1st became aware of him & then by his Presidential campaign. The media failed to adequately combat this lie, possibly because they ASS-UMED no one would actually believe it.
One more thing – I would bet my HOUSE that Donald Trump has done far WORSE in the last 15 years & of course, THAT is the main reason he refuses to release his tax returns. It’s within the past 15 years that he & his grifting family have gone GLOBAL in their fraud & malfeasance.
Susie B.
Agree with most of what you wrote but I’m not with you bad-mouthing the media. Reporters, much like prosecutors, have to rely on facts. On what they can prove to be true. The reason the media didn’t rip Trump a new one isn’t because they assumed America wouldn’t believe it. It’s because they didn’t have the cold, hard evidence.
Today, they do. Why? Not thru an FBI or IRS investigation. Nope, through a newspaper investigation. It’s a little hypocritical to rip the media for not calling out Trump sooner when the only reason you truly know he deserves to be called out is due to the information that the media has provided you.
jdubs, I’d read snippets about Trump for DECADES so it’s not like the “media” didn’t already have some of the facts. My point is that they (as a loose “group”) did not fully expound this info to the masses once the Presidential run began & especially after his nomination. Why not? Because I believe THEY believed his run was a joke* & that
“everyone” would see through the con as they had long done. Whether this was due to arrogance or big city-myopia, I don’t know. Bottom line – they FAILED to recognize the nauseating power of CELEBRITY in this country. Compounded with the MYTH of “self-made billionaire”, my god, that’s catnip to the naïve/uninformed types, heck, it’s amazing he didn’t actually win the popular vote!
I’ve subscribed on/off to Vanity Fair mag for about 25 years & it’s too bad it didn’t have the circulation/cash-sale of People the past decade, because then we wouldn’t be saddled with a SOCIOPATH in the WH. It was especially juicy during the previous editor’s reign (Graydon Carter) as he HATED Trump even more than me, ohhhh, how I looked forward to his “Letter from the Editor” every month & was devastated when he stepped down last year.
* Completely understandable as I too thought it was a joke until too late. And I also couldn’t really believe that so many in this country were fooled or worse, are as heinous as he. I guess I let my longtime disgust of that cretin obfuscate how someone thrilled by his TV celebrity would view him. And what kills me is that I once bet my dad that Ahh-nold would win the CA gov all because of his celebrity. ($100!). My dad just couldn’t believe it.
And of course, if YOU were read as much as the likes of People mag, the WH would also be Trump-less & the country and the WORLD would not now be going to Hell, so really, it’s all YOUR fault! 🙂 🙂
I gotta disagree, Susie B. You’re missing the point. You could literally put Trump’s tax returns on every TV in America and show him to be fraudulent and it wouldn’t have changed a goddamned thing. There’s a reason “FAKE NEWS” was perhaps his most oft-repeated mantra. The people who support him, too many, aren’t interested in the truth. They’re interested in having their fears assuaged. And their prejudices confirmed. And he did that.
I remember sitting in a bar in Asbury Park, NJ, talking to an elderly gay male couple. And one of the gay men kept referring to “the Mexican judge” and I finally lost my sh*t. I mean, I erupted. I thought, Wow, even a person who’s known discrimination on perhaps a daily basis can back Trump because he too has prejudices.
It was the closest I’ve ever come to a bar fight, but then I’ve never attended a UB40 concert.
I stand by what I wrote as I think of my father’s 1-time misguided admiration for the POS based SOLEY on the belief that he was a “SELF-MADE MAN”. He & all his buddies thought that was actually true & that ALONE made him “President-worthy”. (As mentioned 2 years ago, I informed my father of the “facts” a few months before the election, so at least HE did not vote for the Sociopath. I don’t know if he attempted to enlighten his friends). My father died exactly one year ago tomorrow & if he was still alive & read that NYT expose, I’m thinking some paint would have peeled off the ceiling from his overflowing stream of curses. 😉
I do agree with your point about at least SOME of his “supporters” & I guess I’m just having a hard time truly accepting that 25-30% of this country is THAT racist/sexist/heinous. 🙁
It’s not all a racist thing, Susie B. It’s a fear-of-change thing. It’s the same reasoning that made people afraid of long hairs singing about piece while Robert McNamara, well-coifed and in a nice suit, was responsible for killing nearly 60,000 American men. The threat was the hippies. McNamara was a patriot. Or at least that’s what people found it easier to believe.
It’s far more primal and visceral than a 14,000-word NYT expose. Once you realize that, you realize that it’s a culture war. Not a fact war.