May 26, 2020

"The boogeyman plunging him and the family of his late wife into the very worst of memory holes is a conspiracy-theory-loving, twitchy-fingered and often shameless tweeter who also happens to be the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump."

Writes Kara Swisher in "Twitter Must Cleanse the Trump Stain/The president is spreading a vile conspiracy theory on the platform. Maybe Twitter should finally hold him to its rules" (NYT).

The "conspiracy theory" in question is that Joe Scarborough had something to do with the death of a woman long ago. The woman's husband wants some Trump tweets deleted. There's also the idea — pushed by Mika Brzezinski (Scarborough's wife) — that Twitter should throw Trump off the site entirely.

But what exactly did Trump tweet? The woman's husband is quoted saying that Trump "allud[ed] to the repeatedly debunked falsehood that my wife was murdered by her boss, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough." Alluded! We need the text of the tweet, but, incredibly, it's not in this long column.

I had to look it up. I found: "A blow to her head? Body found under his desk? Left Congress suddenly? Big topic of discussion in Florida...and, he’s a Nut Job (with bad ratings). Keep digging, use forensic geniuses!"

One reason not to quote the tweet is that it's just asking questions, and we'd have to spend time going into a subject we don't know. The woman's husband implies that the questions have all been asked and answered, but all he says is that there is one "falsehood" — that Joe Scarborough murdered the woman (Lori Klausutis). But Trump didn't tweet that statement. Does the debunking of the idea that Joe Scarborough murdered the woman make the things Trump actually did tweet into the sort of statement Twitter should take down?

First, Trump just asked questions, but even if we reject that loophole — I'm only asking! — it is true, I take it, that the woman suffered a blow to her head, that her body was found under his desk, that he left Congress suddenly, that it's a big topic of discussion in Florida, and that "Morning Joe" has bad ratings. And it's nothing but inane opinion to call Joe Scarborough "a Nut Job." Trump is called things like that constantly on Twitter, so there's no way there's a Twitter policy against calling famous people mentally ill.

And Kara Swisher is calling Trump a "boogeyman." According to the OED:
boogieman n. (now often in form boogeyman) originally and chiefly U.S. an imaginary evil spirit or being, esp. as invoked to frighten children... (also figurative) an object of fear or hostility.

1880 J. P. Skelly Boogie Man (sheet music) 5 Look-out for the Boogie man.
1939 C. Odets Rocket to Moon 381 You frightened me! Frenchy: I'm a boogey man.
1989 C. Boylan Concerning Virgins (1990) 65 Her eyes bulged at me as if I was a boogie man....
Is "boogeyman" the right term for what Trump is or what Kara Swisher means to say he is? I think it's a word to use when you mean to make fun of the person who's afraid of the one you're calling the "boogeyman." But Swisher meant to stir up empathy for the dead woman's husband. She meant to say that Trump shouldn't be casting aspersions on Joe Scarborough because we should protect the people who loved the woman who died. That directs us away from thinking about whether we ought to want to protect Joe Scarborough. That's a more difficult question... especially in this era of sifting through old stories about violence against women.

Should we bring on the "forensic geniuses" and point them at that ancient dirtpile or not? The easiest answer is that the family of the dead woman says to let her rest in peace.



ADDED: From a 2005 Vanity Fair article about the filmmaker Michael Moore:
After an intern died in the office of the rightwing congressman Joe Scarborough (now a right-wing pundit and perpetual Moore attacker on his MSNBC talk show), the filmmaker registered the domain name JoeScarboroughKilledHisIntern.com.
Didn't the famously empathic Michael Moore care about the family of Lori Klausutis? Answer: No, but it wasn't a failure of empathy because Joe Scarborough was right wing at the time.

ALSO: The WaPo article on the subject — "Florida family grieves as Trump spreads debunked conspiracy theory to attack MSNBC host" — quotes the Trump tweet I quoted, above, plus another Trump tweet:
So a young marathon runner just happened to faint in his office, hit her head on his desk, & die? I would think there is a lot more to this story than that? An affair? What about the so-called investigator?
Again, we see a series of questions — or questions plus a declarative statement with an inappropriate question mark: "I would think there is a lot more to this story than that?"

Let's see if the WaPo article gets into the substance of the debunking:
The police said they found no signs of foul play. The medical examiner concluded her lonely death was an accident. She had fainted, the result of a heart condition, and hit her head on a desk, he said.
This made me think of the allegations against Woody Allen. He cites the authorities who decided he didn't do what he was accused of, but he can't make the suspicions go away, and mainstream media often treats his accusers like brave truth-tellers.

Back to this WaPo article:
Scarborough... was 900 miles away in Washington on the day Klausutis died....

Klausutis had spent two years as a constituent services coordinator in Scarborough’s Fort Walton Beach annex. She was not a college intern, as some have claimed. She was not pregnant, either, as some have asserted. And she was not, as Trump claimed Sunday and others have before him, a marathon runner....

She told two people [on the day she died] that she didn’t feel well. Her husband was out of town on business, and she’d planned to go to a girls’ night out, but she canceled. A second employee in the office was on vacation, so Klausutis was working alone....

Klausutis’s job was helping people in Scarborough’s district who needed assistance navigating bureaucracy. The couple who showed up Friday wanted a work permit. They found Klausutis lying near a desk and called 911. They told the local paper they saw no sign of an attack and assumed she had had a seizure and collapsed.

Police reported no signs of a robbery or a violent attack. When the medical examiner was slow to announce a cause of death, speculation began to swirl... Finally, on Aug. 6, Assistant Medical Examiner Michael Berkland announced his findings. Klausutis, he wrote, “died as a result of an acute subdural hematoma which occurred as a result of a closed head trauma sustained in a simple fall.”

The position of the body and her hands showed she had made no effort to break her fall, he wrote, and the nature of her brain injury wasn’t consistent with an attacker hitting her. Her heart had a “floppy mitral valve,” suggesting she suffered from an abnormal heart rhythm that led to a fainting spell. It also explained why she had felt ill, he said....

But Klausutis’s death occurred while the nation was caught up in speculation about the disappearance of Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy and her ties to Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif). Soon the stories merged in the public’s mind, with some labeling Scarborough the Republican Condit (who was never charged with any crime).

Posts on such sites as Truthout and the liberal Daily Kos all but accused Scarborough of murder. Filmmaker Michael Moore talked about registering the domain name “JoeScarboroughKilledHisIntern.com.” Rumors claimed her death had something to do with the 2000 election or 9/11 or that it had prompted Scarborough to resign from Congress two months afterward — although Scarborough had announced his resignation before her death. He married his second wife, a Jeb Bush fundraiser named Susan Waren, shortly after his September resignation took effect....

142 comments:

narciso said...

maybe if they had a competent medical examiner in berkland, but he went to prison in 2012, for grave robbing,

Roger Sweeny said...

The Boogeyman wrestler

rhhardin said...

It's Trump turning the tables. That shouldn't be hard to notice.

rhhardin said...

The lady may have been Vince Fostered, is all he's saying.

Fernandinande said...

Boogie chillen are produced by Hookers, especially John Lee.

Lucid-Ideas said...

I see nothing wrong with what Trump did. 'Boogeymen' take on all forms, like Russians, or ex-strippers, or criminal lawyers, or rape accusations, or pink-polka-dot man-bear-pigs coming to feast on the beset-by-wolves media because it's Tuesday.

So eff you, dredge the sludge and sling it fast. Poo-flinging apes only understand one language...poo-flinging.

Tom said...

Trump isn’t the boogeyman. He’s the Baba Yaga - the guy they send to kill the boogeyman.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

If the Swetnik-Avanetti Russia Russia Maddow Hillary lost butthurt Media
are allowed to lie about Trump or any R at any time... What's the big deal asking about and finally getting to the bottom of an unsolved crime - a crime where Joe S needs to answer about his where-abouts.

hmmmm?

Craig said...

Swisher and Mika of course join Kamala in wanting Twitter to prevent the President of the United States from communicating directly to citizens, because they think he's icky.

The modern-day version of book-burning is alive and well in the Democratic Party.

richlb said...

Remember four weeks ago when it was fun to speculate that Carol Baskin killed her husband?

Jake said...

https://gawker.com/remember-when-a-dead-intern-was-found-in-joe-scarboroug-1711985081

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2011/03/15/956651/-The-Ugly-Story-in-Joe-Scarborough-s-Political-Closet

From the right wing DailyKos.

Dave Begley said...

This is the part of Trump I dislike, but I take the good with the bad.

Yes, Joe Scarborough is terrible and boring. TDS. His wife is even worse. The laugher here is that Trump is using the First Amendment against "reporters" who are in the First Amendment business. But for the Left, only approved opinions are allowed.

As to Kara Swisher, she is one of the most bitter and disagreeable women in media. I've seen her on CNBC many times and she's really something. I don't care what Kara Swisher thinks. She should have ZERO power.

Howard said...

There's nothing to figure out, Trump is scum.

chuck said...

It works better to avoid responding to distractions and move on. Some people haven't learned that and chase the rabbit.

Bob Boyd said...

How is Trump "plunging him and the family of his late wife into the very worst of memory holes"?
Doesn't memory hole mean that something or someone is expunged from history so that no one remembers? Isn't Trump doing the opposite of that by raising this topic?
Swisher seems to be changing the meaning of the phrase to mean Trump is trapping the family in a mental place where they have to recall something painful.

narciso said...

has everyone been bought off, well remember seth rich, that case turns out not to be as open and shut as presented.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Innuendo can only be flung at Republicans.


We can depend on twitter and youtube (owned by google) to delete and wash clean any information that doesn't reflect well on democratics.

Who did kill that women? Like Seth Rich's death - nobody in the media really cares.
You're not even allowed to ask.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

“We’re just raising questions that people have.” Riddle me this: when is a Congress critter (R) not treated like a dog by the press? When he’s “grown” into a reliable progressive nevertrumper, that’s when. Suddenly the media flank and guard Scarborough as if he’s shears had a (D) after his name. How fascinating by which I mean utterly predictable and droll.

Kevin said...

What Trump said about Scarborough may be false.

What Scarborough said about Trump has been proven false.

Which one should be kicked off Twitter?

roesch/voltaire said...

Please do not delete Trump’s tweets as they will be a great historical mine to help show how far our country and president descended into smears, lies, and innuendo in the time of a national crisis

narciso said...

consider judge sullivan's corrupt clique, and his associations with james comey,

Kevin said...

Every “OMG Trump Did This” story ignores everything that happened before.

Because if you see the real patterns, Trump’s actions are well inside them.

Kevin said...

Shorter article: Mom! Trump said something mean!

narciso said...

and the way only slate pointed out that biden had been lying for 34 years, about his wife's death, and nary an outlet has revisited that story,

Charlie Currie said...

Get on up, on the floor
'Cause were gonna boogie oogie oogie
'Till you just can't boogie no more
Ah boogie, boogie no more
You can't boogie no more
Ah boogie, boogie no more

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The hack-Schitt(D) press spent 3+ years and more insisting Trump won because of Russian interference.

No mention that Hillary and Bill pocketed millions from the Russians while she was Sec of State under Obama. No mention that the Russians really wanted Hillary to win, and that info was purposefully kept secret by the hack-Schitt(D) press.

Darkisland said...

Boogity, boogity

Ive read the post headline several times. Each time I read it, it makes even less sense.

Is English "Karen" Swisher's native language.?

Kidding,I'm pretty sure it is but sheesh.

J&M toss shit at pdjt daily. Seems perfectly fair for him to ntoss some back.

Proper, even.

John Henry

Bay Area Guy said...

"..,,repeatedly debunked falsehood that my wife was murdered..""

You a forensic pathologist, Sir? If you have the autopsy report, please provide it.

The phrase "repeatedly debunked falsehood" is a strange, strange, phrase. Sorry about the death of your wife, but "repeatedly debunked falsehood" doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in whatever you are trying to say.

tcrosse said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bay Area Guy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
narciso said...

in light of the fact we discovered that crowdstrike was a fraud, that fusion's wurlitzer were fed by dem operatives, like sussman and elias, the alpha bank stories, the lies told about miss lokhova by stefan halper a dia funded operative in the telegraph and the journal, that jeh johson indiscriminately leaked the petraeus investigation and damaged jill kelley because he could,

Darkisland said...

Twitter can't afford to ban pdjt. If they do, he can move to Gab mastodon, parler and other similar sites in minutes.

So they won't shut him up

They will give the competition a huge boost

They will prove the so-called conspiracy theorists right

They will open a huge can of legal and regulatory snakes

Yeah, Twitter. Ban the president of the USA.

Whatever you do don't throw him in the brier patch.

John Henry

narciso said...

the medical examiner did go to prison, like hunter's business partner's associate who went up for transferring nuclear technology to china, only two years natch,

narciso said...

in light of the fact we discovered that crowdstrike was a fraud, that fusion's wurlitzer were fed by dem operatives, like sussman and elias, the alpha bank stories, the lies told about miss lokhova by stefan halper a dia funded operative in the telegraph and the journal, that jeh johson indiscriminately leaked the petraeus investigation and damaged jill kelley because he could,

wendybar said...

Just imagine for 1 second what the media would do with this information if it happened to Trumps intern. Then turn around and laugh at the idiots screaming the loudest. Trump has been called a rapist, Hitler, a Nazi, Racist and every other ignorant thing because they hate that he won, and that their lies, and their deceit is going to be uncovered. If not now...just wait until he is out of office. I can't WAIT!!!

Michael K said...


Blogger Howard said...

There's nothing to figure out, Trump is scum.


Scum sucker Howard, at it again,.

Darrell said...

C'mon! The police would be just as incurious if a dead body was found in our home office. The Media is all about facts. Like Putin swinging the election to Trump.

JAORE said...

"it wasn't a failure of empathy because Joe Scarborough was right wing at the time."

And so the awakening continues. Or the bait is spread?

Ya pays yer money. Ya takes yer chances.

narciso said...

I do fault the fact that in the flurry of words, the fact the examiner in the case went to jail is somehow amiss, curious no,

Michael K said...

You a forensic pathologist, Sir? If you have the autopsy report, please provide it.

The phrase "repeatedly debunked falsehood" is a strange, strange, phrase. Sorry about the death of your wife, but "repeatedly debunked falsehood" doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in whatever you are trying to say.


Maybe he killed the wife. What the hell, let's have some fun.

Todd said...

You just don't understand! This is THEIR platform! They get to determine who is and isn't on Twitter! And their folks in Twitter get to control who does and does not get a blue checkmark! The platform needs to be cleansed of all "unclean" tweets and the current king of the unclean tweet is POTUS so we MUST get POTUS off of twitter! Do it for the children!

JAORE said...

Hey! Didn't the left sue to say Trump could not block people from his Twitter account?

Why yes, yes they did.

So they want Trump to have to leave the most rabid haters on his account, but they want to control his account.

Consistency is not the hallmark of a progressive mind.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Progressives once again proving the old adage that Leftists always seem to censor their declared enemies while Republicans shine a light on their tormentors and suggest they keep talking. Remember when all the lefties here criticized Nancy “dog doo” Pelosi for coarsening they culture and lying on Twitter about Trump being “Putin’s puppet”?

Uh huh.

TreeJoe said...

I support a Ban of DJT on Twitter if first Twitter bans all journalists who have tweeted or retweeted stories and innuendo that later turned out to be false.

Fair? No?

How are these people not tired? I mean, everyday I see them carrying around twice as many standards as me.

Temujin said...

I don't know what happened. And I never even heard of the dead woman in Joe's office until Trump started tweeting about it. Still- I always did wonder what happened to Joe Scarborough. He was, at one time, a young rising star on the Republican bench. Then...he was suddenly gone.

What happened. And, no- I don't buy any politician saying they are leaving to spend more time with their family. Even if it's occasionally sometimes true. Usually it's BS. In Joe's case, he left congress. Moved to Manhattan. And fell in love with another woman. A woman he works with. So, in a way he does get to spend more time with the family now.

Not saying he did anything. Just saying I always wondered why this wunderkind of Republican politics suddenly went away. He had Senator and maybe more written all over him, then...gone.

MayBee said...

I wish Trump wouldn't tweet about it, but Hillary's poor health during the last election was also a debunked conspiracy theory until she went dead limp in the view of a private citizen.
The FBI targeting Flynn was a debunked conspiracy theory until just now. The FBI "wiretapping Trump" was a debunked conspiracy theory.

Not a debunked conspiracy? The Russia/Trump Collusion apparently.

So these days, the more the media tells me something is a debunked conspiracy theory that must not be discussed, the more I wonder if there's something to it.

MadisonMan said...

Things that will happen after the Trump Presidency: Twitter will go into bankruptcy.

rhhardin said...

Trump is our St. Uhro, the man who drove the grasshoppers out of Finland.

"Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, menetaalta hiiteen."

AMDG said...

Ironically the biggest beneficiary of a Twitter ban of Trump would be Trump himself. This less that President Costanza does to remind people of why they do not like him and the more the focus will be Grandpa Simpson.

Prior to the idiotic tweets the issue was the racism of Grandpa Simpson and why the media would not report it. Then President Costanza steps in and it is the Grandpa Simpson gaffe that does down the memory hole.

If President Costanza refrained from tweeting about crap like this he would be at 55%. If he had dumped the money he inherited into a stock index fund he would be wealthier than he is now.

walter said...

roesch/voltaire said...Please do not delete Trump’s tweets as they will be a great historical mine to help show how far our country and president descended into smears, lies, and innuendo in the time of a national crisis
--
Pales in comparison to Spygate.

narciso said...

it's an uninteresting story, except for the post script, as compared to this,


https://clarionproject.org/us-intel-dropped-ball-corpus-christi-pensacola-attacks/

frenchy said...

Remember when Laura Bush killed her boyfriend?

The Crack Emcee said...

I'm enjoying the left freaking out at the lunacy I've been complaining about, here and elsewhere, for over a decade - but now coming from the right. It's remarkable how they see the problems of quackery and pseudoscience so clearly now - as long as it's from the OTHER party - but all those years of Oprah pushing the paranormal, psychic powers, new age spiritualism, conspiracy theories, quack celebrity diets, past life regression, angels, ghosts, alternative therapies like acupuncture and homeopathy, anti-vaccination, detoxification, vitamin megadosing, and virtually everything that will distract a human being from making useful progress and informed decisions in life, they totally missed that.

They trust Oprah so much they even let her pick their last president - who now has no legacy - like a con artist always leaves his marks: with nothing.

Even now, or did Marianne Williamson (Oprah and Hillary's "spiritual advisor") really get the expose' she deserved? Hardly. She coaxed gays to their deaths in the '80s, spreading NewAge misinformation during the AIDS crisis, and nobody said shit during her presidential run.

Anyway, we're flying near the target area, but we're not there yet. Stay tuned.




Wince said...

"The boogeyman plunging him and the family of his late wife into the very worst of memory holes...

Beside Kara Swisher reversing the implication of "boogeyman," Swisher herself suggests the story was a cover up.

A memory hole is any mechanism for the deliberate alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts or other records, such as from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened.

Jeff Brokaw said...

Not a comment on this case but just in general ... whenever the media uses the term “debunked”, I find their standards for what constitutes a real debunking to be laughably weak.

These are not people who understand or know to employ intellectual rigor, and they’re simply not interested in getting to the truth unless it helps Dems.

cf said...

Sing it, BleachBit!

haha, Loud and clear true

Bob Boyd said...

"Debunked" is the new memory hole.

frenchy said...

consider judge sullivan's corrupt clique, and his associations with james comey

Not to mention his ex-parte contact with Obama on Flynn, which is why he lawyered up.

Gunner said...

Daily Kos used to bring this up in every thread about ScarJo when he was pretending to be conservative. No online Karens cared.

Bob Boyd said...

Swisher is actually objecting to Trump pulling this woman's death out of the memory hole.

TreeJoe said...

Have you guys read that medical examiner's report of the intern's death?

I've read a lot of technical reports written by docs, including my own pathology report for a cancer I once had.

That thing was written to be read by the general public. It was written to carefully explain how there is no possible sign of foul play and this was totally a freak accident.

And I get it: It was a death in a congressman's office. If I'm an ME, I know that means the death is going to be scrutinized and his report is going to be read. Nonetheless, I look for the inconsistencies.

There's no notes about indications of CPR or attempts to resuscitate, which often creates it's own signatures and injuries. So no one tried?

She had a heart condition that 5% of the population has....but doesn't really kill anyone. She is claimed to have died from it by falling onto a desk and the ME report is written 100% in defense of this being an accident.

I'm sorry but that's kinda freakish.

William said...

I always wondered why none of the family and friends of Mary Jo Kopechne ever expressed a negative opinion of Ted Kennedy. Perhaps it was because no reporter ever asked them about the repeatedly debunked rumors that Ted had something to do with Mary Jo's untimely death.

Bob Boyd said...

Where's Lt. Columbo when you need him?

iowan2 said...

This is exactly how the dnc/media operate. They report what others say. How did the dossier get into the media? It's existence and some content was "reported" by a blog. NYT then reported that someone blogged it. I have seen entire "news reports" sourced by nothing but twitter.
Fucking idiots.

MacMacConnell said...

Mika is what Joe's third wife? Joe cheated on all of them. Joe has always hard a problem fuckin the help. Not just the help, but married help (see Mika). It was rumored that the the dead office worker was having marital problems at the time of her death because of her time spent with Joe. It was also rumored in Joe's Florida district that Joe was having an affair with said office worker at the time of her death. So yes this brings up bad memories for the cuck.

So why else would Joe quit congress? A dollars to a donuts, Joe was fuckin the help in DC too. Of course that's all sealed and the slush fund payouts done.

Nonapod said...

Trump is actually doing a huge favor for Joe Scarborough here by attacking him like this. It's all so silly. My theory is that Trump really likes Joe and his wife and their silly show for some unfathonable reason.

tim maguire said...

Howard said...There's nothing to figure out, Trump is scum.

Irrelevant.

Mary Beth said...

Scarborough... was 900 miles away in Washington on the day Klausutis died....

It's not like the Clintons were in Epstein's cell either, though.

William said...

Jefferson employed the newspaper editor James Callender to spread vile rumors about his political opponents. Callender, for example, wrote that Washington was in his dotage and was unduly influenced by the manipulations of Alexander Hamilton. Washington was too sacrosanct for Jefferson to attack, but there were others who could for a fee. Callender and Jefferson later had a falling out regarding the fee schedule for spreading vile rumors. It was Callender who, by way of revenge, first printed the story about Sally Hemmings....The Lord works his miracles to perform in strange ways. This story about Joe Scarborough is probably a vile rumor, but Trump isn't the one who first publicized it. If you're going to Scarborough fair, please remember me to one who's dead there.

Howard said...

No worries, it's just the chloroquine talking.

readering said...

Not just one Trump tweet. Multiple tweets this month. The widower's letter to Twitter embeds three others that are worse than the one AA quotes. Trump calls on his boss "to open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough . . ." And the tweets go back to 2017. From the President of the United States. AA takes pride in coming up with problems in statements by Trump opponents but what else do you call it when the president of the United States says this stuff a daily basis for years and years?

Bob Boyd said...

The media is now at the point they are literally calling Trump the Boogeyman.

Lurker21 said...

First problem is that the medical examiner had such a sketchy record, not just in Florida, but in the Midwest where he came from.

Second problem is that Joe resigned a few months later before his term was expired to spend more time with his children. When people do that it always sounds suspicious. According to Wikipedia, Joe got married for the second time that year, and that also makes the "for the children" excuse suspicious.

Joe isn't exactly the most trusted man in broadcast journalism, so who can say what happened?
I have sympathy for the family, and the tweets certainly are unpresidential, but as conspiracy theories go, this isn't the loopiest or battiest.

Nichevo said...

What's better: this, or audit/lawfare him? Or do a Seth Rich? Because PDT has all those options. If the media people did their jobs no sort of retaliation or counterpunching would be needed.

Consider that President Trump has the resources of the FBI available to him. They might know more about Scarborough than has been revealed.

No, Howard, PDT isn't scum (and it's fascinating to learn what it takes to make you people squeal). Heracles wasn't scum, but after mucking out the Augean stables, I'm sure he needed a bath, bigly.

cacimbo said...

Media is "pouncing" on Trump for following their own standards and norms. If reporting unsubstantiated rumors got you banned from twitter what news outlet there would be on the platform.

mikee said...

Trump uses tweets to destroy people. Doesn't he understand that the proper way to attack opponents is to buy foreign made false dossiers on them, then try to get those falsehoods into the press pre-election? And if that fails, use the FBI, CIA, DOJ, & legislature to spend years defaming and leaking lies and eventually impeaching the opponent?
BECAUSE THAT IS MORE ETHICALLY VALID THAN MEAN TWEETS.

narciso said...

berkland was at best an incompetent examiner, it's like with benghazi, they found two ringer khattalah and al imam as the fall guys, but the ringleader was bin qumu, an ex libyan army officer fighting with the taliban, spent some years at gitmo, michael ratner's ccr got him sent to tripoli, and he was released from ali salem prison, then he was hired to train the rebels, in powers and rice's big libyan adventure, they declared him dead in 2013, but he resurfaced last june in eastern libya, an inconvenient case of blowback,

Lurker21 said...

Scarborough... was 900 miles away in Washington on the day Klausutis died....

Just the alibi I'd set up if I had something to do with the murder.

And she was not, as Trump claimed Sunday and others have before him, a marathon runner....

I would suspect things like this would be more likely to happen to someone with a heart problem if she was a marathon runner, but I'd want to look into how the rumor got started. High school track team, maybe?

If Scarborough really was in Washington at the time, it does make me less inclined to believe that he was involved, but his behavior is still very suspicious. People are always accusing politicians of mental conditions and it's usually exaggerated, but Joe does seem to have a piece missing.

Thanks for the Michael Moore bit. Markos "Daily Kos" Moulitsas, another lefty, also suggested Scarborough should be investigated and got banned from MSNBC for it a decade ago.

Jack Klompus said...

Crack is back!!! I knew he was on point when he said he was a fan of the Butthole Surfers.

Howard you insignificant needle-dick, go back and write some more essays on Nitschke and make up more stories about your Marine adventures. You'll grow a few millimeters in your own mind!

bagoh20 said...

OK. I submit. The author of that sentence has taken my crown as the worst writer on this blog. I had a good run though.

Drago said...

Howard: "There's nothing to figure out, Trump is scum."

Both Howard and r/v have pushed every anti-Trump anti-Trump family lie, smear and innuendo for 5 years now.

Every single one. Without exception.

Quick test for both Howard and r/v: Do either of you retract your claims that Trump paid hookers in Moscow to urinate on a bed?

Do either of you retract your insinuations that Melania was an escort (that one is STILL a popular accusation from the lefties on twitter)?

Do either of you retract your accusations that Trump is a treasonous traitor who colluded with Russia?

Note: despite all the clear evidence that has come out, neither r/v nor Howard have ever taken those accusations back.

CWJ said...

"How is Trump 'plunging him and the family of his late wife into the very worst of memory holes'?
Doesn't memory hole mean that something or someone is expunged from history so that no one remembers?"

Bob Boyd beat me to it. But given Althouse's interest in George Orwell, I'm surprised she didn't include this in her analysis.

bagoh20 said...

Crack, I think the attraction of snake oil is in our DNA, at least some of us. There will always be a market for it. It will just change form, so that people do not have to give it up. It's like a drug. Even if you find a way to eliminate that form, someone comes up with an alternative way to get high. The human mind wants to believe.

The good news: You'll never run out of targets, but don't let that mess with you.

Drago said...

frenchy: "Not to mention his ex-parte contact with Obama on Flynn, which is why he lawyered up."

And now we also know that Judge Sullivan was the mover and shaker that delivered a $100,000 speaking fee at Howard University to.... .....wait for it.... ......wait for it.......JAMES COMEY!

Gee, "unexpectedly"...again.

bagoh20 said...

That song "Boogieman" would be a hilarious into for Trump at the GOP convention.

Narr said...

Joeborough's an idiot. He was elected by idiots, and has been typecast as the house idiot for MSDNC. Mika is even worse.

Narr
Dollars to donuts this story is only beginning

Lurker21 said...

I would be wary about what "was rumored in Florida at the time," though. It "was rumored" that Seth Rich was a die-hard Bernie Sanders supporter who was angry at the party for mistreating Bernie. So far as I know, nobody who knew Seth Rich has actually come forward to confirm that. It "was rumored" after Rich's death because the rumor was necessary to support the conspiracy theory, not because people were saying it while he was still alive. Rumors often spring up after the fact.

Chris N said...

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traditionalguy said...

The bad Orange Man is simply saying Res Ipsa Loquitur in NYC English.They got dumb Joe with that unless he has an alibi that checks out.

n.n said...

Another intern. Perhaps when the lawyers finish investigating trans/homo priests and scoutmasters and a politically congruent environment that enabled them, they can investigate Democrats, subordinates, women, children, and babies, too. Oh, and granny who was thrown off the cliff with a pathogen in progress.

Howard said...

Drago loves to reminisce about golden showers and hookers when she love you longtime, Sailor-boy.

wendybar said...

It's quite okay for Joe himself to go on the Imus show and joke about it right after it happened though....right??? I wonder how THIS made her family feel. Mika needs to get off her high horse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NhxfP-Pkro

wendybar said...

frenchy said...
Remember when Laura Bush killed her boyfriend?
5/26/20, 9:07 AM

Remember when Ted Kennedy killed Mary Jo Kopechne??? And then kept getting re-elected anyways???

Bilwick said...

"Conspiracy theory" is Liberalese for conspiracy theories that don't fit the Narrative. "Journalism" is Liberalese for conspiracy theories that do fit the Narrative--indeed, constitute the Narrative. (For example, the Trump/Russia collusion hoax.)

Drago said...

Howard: "Drago loves to reminisce about golden showers and hookers when she love you longtime, Sailor-boy."

And there you have it.

After all this time with the complete debunking of every lie Howard has told for 5 years against Trump and his family, and in a thread dealing with debunked conspiracy theories, Howard refuses to retract a single lie he pushed for those 5 years.

Not a single one.

Including having called Melania an escort.

And that's all you need to know about the lefties.

"debunked conspiracy theory" "civility".

Also happening today: lefty blue check marks are tweeting out messages that claim all Trump did this last weekend was play golf while Biden visited a war memorial......and lots of them are doing it.

Steven said...

Doesn't memory hole mean that something or someone is expunged from history so that no one remembers? Isn't Trump doing the opposite of that by raising this topic?

Yep, the "memory hole" is from 1984; it's where you send evidence that contradicts the official Party line to be incinerated.

But, you know, that simply emphasizes Swisher's blatant idiocy. An hour after Twitter bans Trump, he'd post to a Gab account, and his postings there would get 100% of the publicity that his current tweets do.

The only possible change it would cause in the world would be to weaken Twitter (and thus its content policing) by motivating a switch by many of its current users to a rival platform that the President uses. How in the world would that be a win for Swisher's side?

Howard said...

Who are you talking to, Drago? The Althouse blog court of appeals? Your lips move, but can't hear what you're saying. I have become comfortably numb.

Francisco D said...

Howard said... I have become comfortably numb.

That explains some of your posts.

It's not even lunch time in the Midwest.

Gunner said...

Michael Moore and Scarborough have made up by now, so he can’t be that outraged about the intern death.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

@ Jeff Brokaw -

whenever the media uses the term “debunked”, I find their standards for what constitutes a real debunking to be laughably weak.

These are not people who understand or know to employ intellectual rigor, and they’re simply not interested in getting to the truth unless it helps Dems.

*and "truth" is defined by the left. They can shovel any fake-truth they want into their 5 lb bag.

John henry said...

Blogger AMDG said...

Ironically the biggest beneficiary of a Twitter ban of Trump would be Trump himself. This less that President Costanza does to remind people of why they do not like him and the more the focus will be Grandpa Simpson.

Why do you think PDJT would stop tweeting if banned from Twitter?

Yes, he would not "Tweet" but he would continue "Tooting" and "Gabbing" and whatever Parler calls it.

And he would lose no followers. Even the haters and the press would continue to follow him. We would have constant news reports "In a Toot this morning President Trump said..."

They could not afford not to criticize him. If they did, the media audience would blow away. Every article they posted, good or bad, would be publicity for the various Twitter competitors.

It would kill Twitter's monopoly. It would likely kill Twitter.

And it not only wouldn't silence or quiet PDJT, it might make him even louder.

Not to mention the regulatory snakes coming out. There is already a White House commission to investigate Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube and others to see if they are interfering in elections.

Banning the President of the USA would not help at all. Not even a little bit.

But go ahead and try. I hope you get what you wish for.

John Henry

roesch/voltaire said...

Drago why do you make up claims about posts I never made-- is this your attempt to imitate Trump?

narciso said...


This guy


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nwfdailynews.com/article/20121114/news/311149981%3ftemplate=ampart

steve uhr said...

So long as you phrase your accusations as questions no one can legitimately accuse you of believing anything. Bad rule.

steve uhr said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
doctrev said...

Francisco D said...

That explains some of your posts.

It's not even lunch time in the Midwest.

5/26/20, 11:16 AM

During lockdown, chemical therapy is pretty common. Not for me, though. My brain is a 24/7 superweapon.

I had one hell of a nice time reviewing the history of "Doctor" Michael Berkland. Him keeping crudely preserved organs is only a tiny piece of the puzzle. He went out of his way to help reopen the Sheena Morris suicide- but the pathologists who reviewed that case pushed back vigorously. Turns out his opinion of the lividity patterns was very controversial... and that he had been fired in 1996 for falsifying autopsy reports, fired in 2003 for similar issues, and lost his medical license indefinitely. This was the guy trotted out to "debunk" the Klausitis death in DC? Yeah, you may as well announce that Joe Scarborough is a Cainite and major player in a criminal conspiracy.

If he had a brain in his head, he would have told his idiotic blabber wife to shut the fuck up, before dueling with the President made guys like me dig deeper into Michael Berkland.

Drago said...

Howard: "Who are you talking to, Drago?"

Going Full Inga I see.

As expected.

narciso said...

Isnt it francisco.

madAsHell said...

Joe has always hard a problem fuckin the help.

Is it Freudian, or is it spellcheck?

Birkel said...

FACT:
There are NOT 900 miles between the 1st Florida congressional district and Washington DC.

Not sure that matters, but the distance offered is by car and he wasn't driving back and forth.

John henry said...

I think PDJT should take this and run with it. He needs to Tweet out "I've been the boogity man for these people for a while. Now they are finally admitting it. Everybody is scared of the boogity man. Well, they should be scared of me."

Or a nice, noir, photo of himself captioned "I'm the boogitty man and I'm coming after you all you deep state mofos. Damn right you should be scared of me."

And call himself the "Boogity" man, not the "boogie" man. That will get the deep thinkers all worked up about how dumb he is, not knowing that it is the "boogie" man. But in America we know who the boogity man is.

Should be good for dominating the news cycle for a week or two at least.

Then he could work it into other things:

"Boogity, Boogity, Boogity! Let's go campaigning guys!"

https://youtu.be/pFMvQLzV1VU

Or,

"I ain't crude
Boogity, boogity
I ain't lewd
boogity, boogity
I'm just in the mood to run in the nude"

On second thought perhaps not. Even diehards like me would have a problem with that imagery. Cool song, though. Been a fan of Ray for nearly 60 years now.

https://youtu.be/XtzoUu7w-YM

In other news, my grandson, 2, has decided that me saying "boogitty, boogity, boogitty" in the funniest thing he has ever heard.

I sneak up behind him or just say "Hey Pierre: Boogitty, boogitty, boogitty" and he bust out laughing and can't stop.

His sister, now 4 is not impressed. But, when she was his age, I clipped a whole bunch of boogitty's from youtube and made her a tape which she enjoyed immensely. Not falling down laughing like Pierre, though.

John Henry

Drago said...

Roesch/voltaire: "Drago why do you make up claims about posts I never made-- is this your attempt to imitate Trump?"

Which collusion, hoax dossiers, Trump is a traitor, Carter Page is a russian spy, Javanaugh is a rapist lies are you now claiming never to have made?

This should be amusing.

John henry said...

Thanks, narciso,

I especially liked that the place he kept the body parts was called "Uncle Bob's Storage" Sounds like something from a bad Rocky Horror Show parody.

John Henry

Drago said...

Howard, r/v and Inga have all decided that pretending the previous 5 full years worth of smears and lies never happened.

Precisely as predicted.

Amadeus 48 said...

The irony of Joe Scarborough or his defenders asserting that Trump has trafficked in unsupported, discredited conspiracy theories is overwhelming and hilarious. That is how Joe and Mika make their living.

Do you think Wille Geist is ever embarrassed by the antics of his co-hosts?

PubliusFlavius said...

@roesch/voltaire

As if that is the marker of descent....

Not utilizing the TOO POWERFUL tools of intelligence to inundate your opponent with investigation?

Pft...History will show Trump laughing last.

Wait for the end it's the best :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrF5x1OSJuQ

"O' shit your serious?"



Drago said...

Amadeus 48: "The irony of Joe Scarborough or his defenders asserting that Trump has trafficked in unsupported, discredited conspiracy theories is overwhelming and hilarious. That is how Joe and Mika make their living."

This is why across the lefty/democratics spectrum they have launched a Forget The Last 5 Years Campaign so that they can attempt to position themselves as innocents in the smear game.

Lefties gonna lefty.

FullMoon said...

This controversy gonna seem like a Dad joke when the Biden/groomer video goes mainstream.

https://twitter.com/KristySwansonXO/status/1264692821325426689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1265083437532286978&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Face.mu.nu%2F

FullMoon said...

Was this Trump insult Joe story in any mainstream media prior to NYT?

The Crack Emcee said...

bagoh20 said...

"Crack, I think the attraction of snake oil is in our DNA, at least some of us." and "That song 'Boogieman' would be a hilarious into for Trump at the GOP convention."

Some of you is correct, but not me. I drives me mad and makes it impossible to live - you can't reason with people if, basically, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

(Remember I've got almost a two decade head-start on the rest of society, for instance getting the "Believe women" treatments long ago, I blew beer out my nose the first time I heard it from someone other than my wife. I really am, still, the only person watching the NewAge pulling society's strings, aren't I? You guys should be ashamed by now.)

Anyway, also - weird - the first song I ever recorded was called "Boogieman" and I still think Trump would like the one I did about him, here.

TrespassersW said...

Howard said...
There's nothing to figure out, Trump is scum.

So he should fit right in with the rest of DC (a wretched hive of scum and villainy if ever there was one).

The fact that he doesn't is illuminating.

TrespassersW said...

roesch/voltaire said...
Please do not delete Trump’s tweets as they will be a great historical mine to help show how far our country and president descended into smears, lies, and innuendo in the time of a national crisis

Because we all know that smears, lies, and innuendo has NEVER been allowed in politics.

Said nobody ever.

Smears, lies, and innuendo are SOP in politics and in the media. Pretending that Trump is unique in this is just more smears, lies, and innuendo.

Inga said...

“Who are you talking to, Drago? The Althouse blog court of appeals? Your lips move, but can't hear what you're saying. I have become comfortably numb.”

Me too. He gets nothing more than...yawn.

Birkel said...

Royal ass Inga enjoys the fact we know it is a liar.
The point of the effort is to make us Green Grocers, accepting the comfortably numb lies.

The psychology is interesting from a distance.

Drago said...

Inga: "Me too. He gets nothing more than...yawn."

Yep. The Great Lefty "Forgettening" is upon us.

Again, exactly as we predicted.

Drago said...

So here's one of the key reasons Inga and r/v and Howard and the rest of The Clueless Crew are desperate to rewrite their history of Smear Merchanting: they need to clear the decks so they can pretend they werent rooting for mass deaths and a permanent economic shutdown.

Unfortunately for our lefty twirps, not even Politico is fooled:

"The general election scenario that Democrats are dreading: We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country," says a top former economic adviser to Obama."

stan said...

Kara Swisher is a nasty, nasty piece of work. Always has been.

tcrosse said...

Please: Boogeyperson, or Person of Boogey.

walter said...

Additionally, he's a bogey person.

Todd said...

tcrosse said...

Please: Boogeyperson, or Person of Boogey.

5/26/20, 2:46 PM


Or would that be BoogeyXe

doctrev said...

Drago said...

Precisely as predicted.

5/26/20, 12:14 PM

Even the current year smear of "Trump fiddled while America burned" is limping out of the starting gate. The states with the highest death tolls are all blue states: the states with the slowest exits from lockdown are blue states. The states that will have weak economies in November are blue states- the states ripe for conquest will be blue states.

I can't wait.

daskol said...

Wow, the first three questions at today's Trump presser are all about Joe Scarborough, the letter, etc. Trump has to say "any questions on other topics, insulin, anything important?"

He may be a boogeyman, but he's good.

mezzrow said...

Boogie nights
Ain't no doubt we are here to party
Boogie nights
Come on now got to get it started

Dance with the boogie get high
'Cause boogie nights are always the best in town

Howard said...

Drago cares

Crazy World said...

Pretty sure President Trump has a bit more information than Mika.

Michael K said...

Howard said...
Drago cares


Unlike you lefties who want people to starve. Lots of autoworkers going to care about Hertz going BK thanks to your panic.

Drago said...

Howard: "Drago cares"

Howard "courageously" abandons 5 straight years of lies, smears and talking points.

Can't wait for a few more years to pass for him to abandon his current smears and lies.

gadfly said...

The medical examiner, Michael Berkland, found that Lori had an undiagnosed heart condition, that she had likely passed out and hit her head on the desk as she fell and a blood clot in her brain killed her. Berkland said her heart had stopped her breathing and that blood also pooled in her skull from her fall.

Here is the medical examiner's official report. End of story!

narciso said...

And he went to jail for body snatching.

doctrev said...

Here is the medical examiner's official report. End of story!

5/26/20, 7:17 PM

Why don't you say "Doctor" Michael Berkland? Is it because he lost his license some time ago and was fired from multiple jobs for criminal cause?

It's almost like the spin can't save Scarborough from this one!

The Crack Emcee said...

The NewAge leftists who assume, if we only hear how "bad" Trump is, we'll dislike him, still don't seem to have that reaction to Bill Clinton. Trump works as their mantra, to avoid discussing weaknesses the Clintons (and Oprah) created in the party/cult, now that the Democrat Party was and is, credibly, being exposed as run by rapists, pedophiles, and murderers - facts it's hard to get around.

Discussing it, maybe, has been taboo - for a while - but our lives will always be there, waiting, in the end.

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