Former mayoral  candidate Joe Lhota now working as day-laborer

How the mighty have fallen. Joseph Lhota, who lost to Bill de Blasio in the 2013 mayoral election is now working as a day-laborer for the New York State MTA.

When asked where they located Lhota, Veronique Hakim, the agency’s managing director, said, “We just drove up to the local hardware store. Out front, there was the usual gaggle of people looking for per diem work. One of my staffers asked,  ‘¿Quién tiene experiencia en el transporte?’ A well dressed man answered, ‘¡Tengo experiencia, señor!’

“We told him to get in the van,” Hakim continued. “He proceeded to open his backpack and pull out a pair of wing tips, an iPad, and an American Express Platinum card. We knew right away that he was just the kind of person we were looking for.”

Source: Group wants MTA boss Joe Lhota probed over lobbying | New York Post

How To Call Your Elected Officials, According To A Former Congressional Staffer

Executive summary:

  1. If you have moderate views, please call.
  2. You’re most likely going to speak to a staffer, not your congressperson—and that’s fine.
  3. Contacting someone you can’t vote for is a waste of time.
  4. We want to have honest communication.

Now go read the article: How To Call Your Elected Officials, According To A Former Congressional Staffer | HuffPost

Donna Brazile sticks shiv in the Democrats’ back

Former Democratic National Committee boss Donna Brazile, in her newly released 2016 campaign tell-all, tore into her DNC predecessor over the “perks” she enjoyed while the party was suffering from a cash crunch that left it dependent on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Source: Donna Brazile rips Schultz over ‘perks’ that kept chair ‘fat and happy’ amid DNC cash crunch]

Why would Brazile do this after working for Democrats for decades? Why settle her old scores at the very time when the Dems have Trump over a barrel? Are the Russkies blackmailing her?

Our best guess is that she has taken a page from the Dick Morris playbook and concluded that there’s more money to be made by attacking Clintons than by helping elect Democrats. And for that, she can Bite Me.

Trump nominates some club members to plum government jobs

President’s paying customers at his private clubs nominated to be ambassadors and serve in other high-profile federal government roles

Personally, I’m convinced that President Trump is the most integrity President in history. However, if I were looking to get a hearing with the prez on some important project, I’d buy a condo at Trump Tower, a membership at Mar-a-Lago, and treat him to an all-expenses-paid trip to Bimini to learn about their Muslim ban.

Source: Trump nominates some club members to plum government jobs

Gen. Kelly takes second swig of the Kool-Aid

Remember when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron”? And then was forced to walk it back?

“He [Trump] loves his country. He puts America and Americans first. He’s smart. He demands results wherever he goes and he holds those around him accountable for whether they have done the job he has asked them to do.”

Hey, Rex: that was some serious groveling!

Now on to General John F. Kelly, current White House Chief of Staff. It had looked to us here in the Bitecastle like Kelly had brought some much-needed order to the chaotic Trump White House. Then the poor guy started hitting the Kool-aid, and hitting it hard.

In October 2017, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-FL) criticized Trump for his phone call to the widow of a slain U.S. soldier, saying his remarks had been insensitive. A few days later, Kelly held a press briefing where he defended Trump’s phone call, which he had overheard, saying Trump “expressed his condolences in the best way that he could.” He harshly criticized Wilson, calling her “the empty barrel that makes the most noise” and stating that in a 2015 speech she had “stood up” to inappropriately claim credit for securing federal funding for an FBI building in her district. Video of her 2015 speech showed his description to be inaccurate. [Wikipedia]

Then Kelly took his second swig:

In an October 2017 interview with Laura Ingraham, Kelly claimed that “the lack of ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”

. . .  Two historians of the Civil War described Kelly’s remarks as ignorant, a misuse of history reminiscent of Lost Cause mythology, and they broadly reject that a failure to compromise led to the war, noting that a number of compromises on slavery were made in the lead-up to the war. [Wikipedia]

Deep thoughts from the Bitemaster

The tsunami of sexual assault allegations and swift punishments that have followed the October, 2017, revelations about Harvey Weinstein seem to me like a moral panic. See also tulip mania, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, and McMartin preschool trial. Also, anyone who didn’t agree with the prevailing view was immediately attacked (see Mayim Bialik, Lindsay Lohan, Donna Karan).

I read a bit of the Paul Manafort indictment. The indictment includes: not registering as a foreign agent and money laundering. While the indictment doesn’t charge Manafort with tax fraud, it does say, “In furtherance of the scheme, MANAFORT used his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States, without paying taxes on that income.”  So will Manafort do some serious time in a federal prison? It’s hard to say. Right after Manafort pleaded not guilty, his attorney, Kevin Downing, said there’s no evidence of collusion between the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the Russian government. To me. that sounds like Manafort signaling the White House that he’ll keep quiet if the President will grant him a pardon. I see only two problems: 1) Trump is a liar, so Manafort better get his pardon up front; and 2) Manafort will also need a wad of state pardons.