Month: October 2019

Saturday Night at the Movies

Creepy lodgers and seedy inns: 10 worst places to stay in the movies

By Dennis Hartley

“People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.” So says a character in the 1932 film Grand Hotel. Obviously, he never lodged in any of the dubious caravansaries on tonight’s top 10 list, where one-star Yelp ratings go beyond bad room service or a fly in the soup. So for a spooky Halloween movie night, I triple dog dare you to check in to one of these flops! As usual, I listed them alphabetically, not by ranking. Enjoy your stay…?

The film: Barton Fink

Where not to stay: The Hotel Earle

This is one of two films on my list involving blocked writers and eerie hotels (I’ll entertain anyone’s theory on why they seem to go hand-in-hand). The Coen brothers bring their usual blend of gleeful cruelty and ironic detachment into play in this tale (set in the 1940s) that follows the travails of an angst-ridden New York playwright (John Turturro) who wrestles with his conscience after reluctantly accepting an offer from a Hollywood studio to move to L.A. and grind out screenplays for soulless formula films. Thanks to some odd goings-on at his hotel, that soon becomes the least of his problems. The film is a close cousin to Day of the Locust, although perhaps slightly less grotesque and more darkly funny. John Goodman and Judy Davis are also on hand, and in top form.

The film: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Where not to stay: The Mint Hotel

Okay, so the hotel in this one isn’t so bad. It’s the behavior going on in one of the rooms:

When I came to, the general back-alley ambience of the suite was so rotten, so incredibly foul. How long had I been lying there? All these signs of violence. What had happened? There was evidence in this room of excessive consumption of almost every type of drug known to civilized man since 1544 AD… These were not the hoof prints of your average God-fearing junkie. It was too savage. Too aggressive.

Terry Gilliam’s manic, audience-polarizing adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s classic blend of gonzo journalism and hilariously debauched, anarchic invention may be too savage and aggressive for some, but it’s one of those films I am compelled to revisit on an annual basis. Johnny Depp’s turn as Thompson’s alter-ego, Raoul Duke, is one for the ages. My favorite line: “You’d better pray to God there’s some Thorazine in that bag.”

The film: Key Largo

Where not to stay: The Largo Hotel

Humphrey Bogart stars as a WW2 vet who drops by a Florida hotel to pay his respects to its proprietors- the widow (Lauren Bacall) and father (Lionel Barrymore) of one of the men who had served under his command. Initially just “passing through”, he is waylaid by a convergence of two angry tempests: an approaching hurricane and the appearance of notorious gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) and his henchmen.

Rocco takes the hotel residents hostage while they all ride out the storm. It’s interesting to see Bogie play a gangster’s victim for a change (in The Petrified Forest, and later on in one of his final films, The Desperate Hours, he essentially played the Edward G. Robinson character). The acting is superb. Along with The Maltese Falcon and The Asphalt Jungle, it’s one of John Huston’s finest contributions to the classic noir cycle.

The film: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

Where not to stay: Mrs. Bunting’s Lodging House

Mrs. Bunting is a pleasant landlady and all, but we’re not so sure about her latest boarder. There’s a possibility that he is “The Avenger”, a brutal serial killer who is stalking London. Ivor Novello plays the gentleman in question, an intense, brooding fellow with a vaguely menacing demeanor. Is he or isn’t he? No worries, I’m not going to spoil it for you! This suspense thriller has been remade umpteen times over the last eight decades, but IMHO none of them can touch Hitchcock’s 1927 silent for atmosphere and mood. Novello later reprised the role of the mysterious lodger in Maurice Elvey’s 1932 version.

The film: Motel Hell

Where not to stay: Motel Hello

OK, all together now (you know the words!): “It takes all kinds of critters…to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters!” Rory Calhoun gives a sly performance as the cheerfully psychotic Vincent Smith, proprietor of the Motel Hello (oh my, there seems to be an electrical short in the neon “O”. Bzzzt!). Funny thing is, no one ever seems to check in (no one certainly ever checks out). Vincent and his oddball sister (Nancy Parsons) prefer to concentrate on the, ah, family’s “world-famous” smoked meat business. Despite the exploitative horror trappings, Kevin Conner’s black comedy (scripted by brothers Steven-Charles and Robert Jaffe) is a surprisingly smart genre spoof and actually quite well-made. The finale, involving a swashbuckling duel with chainsaws, is pure twisted genius.

The film: Mystery Train

Where not to stay: The Arcade Hotel

Elvis’ ghost shakes, rattles and rolls (literally and figuratively) all throughout Jim Jarmusch’s culture clash dramedy/love letter to the “Memphis Sound”. In his typically droll and deadpan manner, Jarmusch constructs a series of episodic vignettes that loosely intersect at a seedy hotel. You’ve gotta love any movie that features Screamin’ Jay Hawkins as a night concierge. Also be on the lookout for music legends Rufus Thomas and Joe Strummer, and you will hear the mellifluous voice of Tom Waits on the radio (undoubtedly a call back to his DJ character in Jarmusch’s previous film, Down by Law).

The film: The Night of the Iguana


Where not to stay: The Hotel Costa Verde

Director John Huston and co-writer Anthony Veiller adapted this sordid, blackly comic soaper from Tennessee Williams’ stage play about a defrocked minister (Richard Burton) who has expatriated himself to Mexico, where he has become a part-time tour guide and a full-time alcoholic. One day he goes off the deep end, and shanghaies a busload of Baptist college teachers to an isolated, rundown hotel run by an “old friend” (Ava Gardner). Add a sexually precocious teenager (Sue Lyon, recycling her Lolita persona) and a grifter with a prim and proper exterior (Deborah Kerr), and stir.

Most Tennessee Williams archetypes are present and accounted for: dipsomaniacs, nymphets, repressed lesbians, and neurotics of every stripe. The bloodletting is mostly verbal, but mortally wounding all the same. Burton and Kerr are great, as always. I think this is my favorite Ava Gardner performance; she’s earthy, sexy, heartbreaking, intimidating, and endearingly girlish-all at once .

The film: The Night Porter

Where not to stay: The Hotel zur Oper

Director Liliana Cavani uses a depiction of sadomasochism and sexual politics as an allusion to the horrors of Hitler’s Germany in this dark 1974 drama. Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling are broodingly decadent as a former SS officer and a concentration camp survivor, respectively, who are entwined in a twisted, doomed relationship years after WW2. You’d have to search high and low to find two braver performances than Bogarde and Rampling give here. I think the film has been misunderstood over the years; it frequently gets lumped in with (and is dismissed as) Nazi kitsch exploitation fare like Ilsa, SheWolf of the SS or Salon Kitty. Disturbing, repulsive…yet weirdly mesmerizing.

The film: Psycho

Where not to stay: Bates Motel

Bad, bad Norman. Such a disappointment to his mother. “MOTHERRRR!!!” Poor, poor Janet Leigh. No sooner had she recovered from her bad motel experience in Touch of Evil than she found herself checking in to the Bates and having a late dinner in a dimly lit office, surrounded by Norman’s creepy taxidermy collection. And this is only the warm up to what director Alfred Hitchcock has in store for her later that evening. This brilliant shocker from the Master has spawned so many imitations, I long ago lost count. Anthony Perkins sets the bar pretty high for all future movie psycho killers. Anyone for a shower?

The film: The Shining

Where not to stay: The Overlook Hotel

“Hello, Danny.” It has been said that Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of his sprawling novel about a family of three who hole up in an isolated Rocky Mountain hotel for the winter. Well-that’s his personal problem. I think this is the greatest “psychological” horror film ever made…period (OK that’s a bit hyperbolic-perhaps we can call it “a draw” with Polanski’s Repulsion). Anyway…Jack Nicholson discovers that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Jack Nicholson discovers that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Jack Nicholson discovers that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Jack Nicholson discovers that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, etc.

Happy Halloween!

Previous posts with related themes

13 songs the lord never taught us: A Halloween mixtape
Frightfully amusing: Top 10 Horror Comedies for Halloween
Fright night at the art house: A top 10 list for Halloween
The docu-horror picture show: Top 10 documentaries for Halloween
Hitch by ten best (Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock films)

More reviews at Den of Cinema
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—Dennis Hartley

Corruption all the way down

by digby

How much of this do you suppose is going on throughout the government?

A new biography of former Defense Secretary James Mattis reports President Donald Trump personally got involved in who would win a major $10 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Pentagon, according to the website Task & Purpose, which writes about military issues.

That hotly contested contract was awarded to Microsoft on Friday evening over Amazon in a months-long battle.
Task & Purpose reports the new book, “Holding The Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis” by former Mattis speechwriter and communications director Guy Snodgrass recounts that Mattis always tried to translate Trump’s demands into ethical outcomes.
According to Snodgrass’ book, Trump called Mattis during summer 2018 and directed him to “screw Amazon” out of the opportunity to bid on the contract.

Task & Purpose obtained an advanced copy of the book. CNN has not yet seen the book.

For several years Trump has voiced his displeasure with Amazon and Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post. He has accused Amazon of taking advantage of the Postal Service although independent investigations have disagreed with that contention. He also has linked his unfavorable view of Washington Post reporting to Amazon although the Post makes clear it is run separately.

“Relaying the story to us during Small Group, Mattis said, ‘We’re not going to do that. This will be done by the book, both legally and ethically,'” Snodgrass wrote according to Task & Purpose.

How many of his minions do you suppose refuse?

Sure sounds like an abuse of power to me …

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They just love the taste of his boots.

by digby

There was a time when you would expect Senators to be less stupidly partisan than your average congressman like, say, Louis Gohmert.
No more:

These aren’t hearings, they’re interviews, and they’re always done this way. Also, 48 Republicans are allowed to participate and some chose not to. These rules were set by your buddy, Boehner.
Ok, Good talk 👍🏼 https://t.co/Rp6Xmj1Ci1— Brian Ray (@brianrayguitar) October 26, 2019

What if, just what if, the Obama administration, including the leadership of the Justice Department and FBI unlawfully coordinated with the DNC and the Clinton campaign to “go after” an opposing presidential campaign? No problemo?— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) October 25, 2019

John Kennedy is allegedly a highly accomplished academic who went to Oxford. His cornpone act is just that. But he is clearly also a dishonest hack. Good to know.

And Cornyn was on the Senate Sect Committee on Intelligence that just released a voluminous report elaborating in detail on the Russian interference in the election. He signed it personally as did every Republican on the committee.

So he’s just giving Trump a nice clurpy bootlick with this tweet.

I used to call the Republican congress during the Bush administration “the Eunuch Caucus” (which I now understand is an insensitive term that I wouldn’t use today.) I only bring it up because it’s important to remember that modern Republicans are always suck-ups to their presidents in a way that is almost sickening to watch. There is nothing unique about them doing it now except for the fact that Trump has abandoned virtually every tenet of conservative ideology in favor of a pure cult of personality and it has changed nothing.

They just love the taste of their Dear Leader’s boots, no matter who it is.

Trump waking to the danger

by digby

I think he may have really bought his own hype about being too successful to impeach. He was wrong:

Somebody is thinking about impeachment this morning.

President Donald Trump’s latest weekend tweetstorm took aim at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), two of the top Democrats leading the chamber’s investigation into whether Trump’s request for Ukraine to investigate a political rival merits his removal from office.

He described Pelosi’s congressional district in San Francisco as “very bad and dangerous” due to “these hazardous waste and homeless sites” and repeated the false claim that Schiff “got caught cheating when he made up” in a hearing what Trump told the Ukrainian president during their July conversation. (Schiff, during the hearing, said his abbreviated retelling of the call was meant to reflect “the essence of what the president communicates”—not an exact transcript.)

The tweets, which also included a ding at Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)’s “badly failing” presidential campaign and a video highlighting his administration’s response to the opioid crisis, occurred during the weekend broadcast of Fox & Friends, Trump’s favorite morning news show.

After the show finished airing, Trump turned to his other favorite subjects: the anonymous whistleblower, whose report incited the House’s investigation into Trump’s Ukraine call, and the “Fake Washington Post,” which published a story late Friday night detailing how Trump is “increasingly frustrated that his efforts to stop people from cooperating with the probe have so far collapsed under the weight of legally powerful congressional subpoenas.”

Friday night brought more bad news for Trump by way of a federal judge’s ruling that the impeachment inquiry is legal. The 75-page ruling also said lawmakers would be able to view redacted materials from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling, which could add a different component to the House’s widening inquiry.

This afternoon’s tweets so far..

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Bolton to testify?

by digby

This could be fun …

Lawyers for former national security adviser John Bolton have had talks with the three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry about a possible deposition, according to a source familiar.

If he does give a deposition, Bolton would join a handful of current and former Trump administration members who have been interviewed this month as part of the Democratic-led inquiry into President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
As House members who serve on the Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees have been interviewing witnesses in private, some of the committees’ Democrats have said they believe there’s a need for Bolton to testify.

Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top Russia adviser, told lawmakers last week that she saw “wrongdoing” in American foreign policy and that Bolton had encouraged her to report her concerns to the National Security Council’s attorney, sources had told CNN.
A source told CNN that Hill testified that Bolton referred to Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who was working to dig up dirt on the Bidens, as a “hand grenade,” who was “going to blow everybody up.”

Hill also spoke about what she described as a rogue operation carried out by US Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, which Bolton characterized as being like a “drug deal,” that source said.
The top US diplomat to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, told Congress this week that Bolton had expressed concern about the July call between Trump and Zelensky, according to Taylor’s opening statement.

Taylor’s opening statement also alleged that Trump was pressing for Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into the Bidens before he would greenlight US security assistance and a White House meeting with Zelensky.

Tim Morrison, a top Russia and Europe adviser on the National Security Council, had listened to the Trump-Zelensky call and informed Taylor about the conversation. Morrison is expected to testify before House impeachment investigators next week, making his testimony one of the first from someone who directly heard the call.
Trump fired Bolton as his national security adviser last month, after Trump made clear he “strongly disagreed” with many of Bolton’s suggestions. Bolton, however, insisted that he had resigned.

Bolton is as much of a loose cannon as Trump but in a completely different way. He’s arrogant and narcissistic but he’s not stupid and that makes the difference. The smart person in this situation would be looking for a way to distance himself from Trump’s crimes.

Bolton is also reportedly very angry. He was treated shabbily by this imbecile and he doesn’t like it. The only question is if his big book deal requires him to keep his mouth shut until it’s published. Yes, he’s just as corrupt as the rest of them.

So who knows?

Foreign policy as scripted “reality”
by Tom Sullivan

Ambassador William B. Taylor’s opening statement in closed-door testimony before the House impeachment inquiry shed light on one element of President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine that had escaped me. Attorney and former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa tweeted that Trump was pursuing “a covert propaganda op on the American public.” That’s illegal, she emphasized in all caps.

Bill Taylor confirmed today that the release of aid to Ukraine was contingent on a *public announcement* that Ukraine was investigating the Bidens. As I wrote here, this was an attempt to push a covert propaganda op on the American public, which is ILLEGAL https://t.co/Tur8pw2X6G— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) October 22, 2019

In her October 7 article in Medium, Rangappa explained, “This is explicitly against the law. The 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act prohibits the U.S. government from using covert actions — which include propaganda — to ‘influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies, or media.’”

That language now resides under Title 50 of U.S. Code, Section 3093 under “Presidential approval and reporting of covert actions.” Specifically, it prohibits the president from approving such actions aimed at the U.S. Formal findings are required to authorize other actions.

The summary of Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky indicated the president wanted Ukraine to open a corruption investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, as a condition for Ukraine receiving military aid appropriated and authorized by Congress. But text messages released Oct. 3 by the House Intelligence Committee indicate Trump wanted more. The White House wanted a public statement announcing the investigation as a precondition for a White House meeting.

Taylor’s opening statement added from a Sept. 8 conversation he had with then-Ambassador Gordon Sondland that if Zelensky did not “clear things up and do it in public,” then “everything” (including release of authorized military aid) would be at a “stalemate.” Zelensky agreed to make that statement in an interview on CNN. It is not clear who suggested that choice of venue.

“… nothing about the proposed statement … indicated that the U.S. precipitated or participated in its creation in any way.”

The Trump administration clearly was “interested in shaping public perception,” Rangappa wrote three weeks ago:

The most important feature of the back and forth between the State Department and Ukraine is their insistence that the public announcement comes from Ukraine alone. It’s not unusual for U.S. officials to be involved in crafting a statement with a foreign country, but typically they are publicly issued as joint statements. Here, however, nothing about the proposed statement, which was drafted and proposed by the State Department in coordination with Giuliani, indicated that the U.S. precipitated or participated in its creation in any way. In intelligence terms, this is called black propaganda.

Black propaganda attempts to conceal the true source of information so that the target (in this case, the American public) cannot accurately assess the credibility of the message or the motives of the source behind it. By having the information emanate from a separate and more credible outlet, the target audience is more likely to believe it.

A unilateral statement from Zelensky would manipulate the American public into believing that Ukraine had independently reached the conclusion that there was a basis to investigate the Bidens and the origins of the 2016 U.S. election interference. By cloaking his own role and motives behind the statement of a foreign country, Trump could corroborate his own claims and have “proof” that his views were not politically motivated, but instead grounded in real facts.

This echoes the George W. Bush White House feeding information to the New York Times’ Judith Miller in support of the Iraq invasion. Bob Simon of “60 Minutes” described it this way, “You leak a story to the New York Times and the New York Times prints it, and then you go on the Sunday shows quoting the New York Times and corroborating your own information. You’ve got to hand it to them. That takes, as we say here in New York, chutzpah.”

Or someone from New York named John Barron.

In the Iraq case, the “source” was someone close to the White House. Rangappa argues that Donald Trump’s attempt to covertly “influence United States political processes, public opinion,” etc., using a foreign source is expressly illegal.

Using one of Trump’s favorite media antagonists, CNN, as the vehicle for torpedoing Joe Biden instead of Fox News, the White House propaganda arm, must have been too sweet for “John Barron” to pass up.

Friday Night Soother

by digby

It’s time for some red panda cubs. We have never needed them more.

The Virginia Zoo announced the birth of triplet Red Panda cubs to Masu, a three-year-old female, and four-year-old dad Timur. The three cubs, two males and one female, were born off-exhibit at the Zoo’s Animal Wellness Campus on June 18, 2019. Red Panda cubs weigh approximately five ounces at birth, and by two months of age, the cubs each weighed just over one pound. The zoo announced the births in late August.

“Having Red Panda triplets is a unique situation,” said Dr. Colleen Clabbers, the Zoo’s Veterinarian. “It’s a lot of work for mom to care for three newborns, but Masu is doing a great job caring for the triplets and all three have been thriving.”

Masu, who had her first litter of cubs last year, gave birth in an indoor, climate-controlled den where she has been nursing and bonding with her cubs in this quiet environment. The den is not viewable by zoo guests and is monitored by Zoo Keepers and Animal Care Staff. Red Panda cubs typically remain in the nest with mom for about three months, even in the wild.

Masu and the cubs will move back to the Red Panda exhibit later this fall when Keepers feel the little ones can confidently navigate the trees and other exhibit features.

“Our Animal Care team had a great strategy last year in moving Masu to the Animal Wellness Campus while she was still pregnant, providing privacy for her first birth experience. She took great care of her cubs last year, which is why we opted to do the same thing again this time around,” said Greg Bockheim, Executive Director of the Virginia Zoo.

The zoo auctioned naming rights for the cubs, but they have not yet announced the names.

Red Pandas are tree-dwelling animals found in forested mountain habitat in Myanmar, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Tibet and China. While they share the same name as Giant Pandas, the two species are not closely related. Red Pandas are the only living member of their taxonomic family. Slightly larger than a domestic Cat and with markings similar to a Raccoon, Red Pandas have soft, dense reddish-brown and white fur. They feed mainly on bamboo, but also eat plant shoots, leaves, fruit and insects. Red Pandas are shy and solitary except when mating or raising offspring.

Red Pandas are listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and inbreeding due to isolated populations contribute to the decline. There are fewer than 10,000 mature individuals estimated to remain in the wild.

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Rudy needs to get one of those grandpa belt holsters for his cell phone

by digby

Or some 8 year old needs to show him how to use the password, fingerprint or face recognition functions:

Late in the evening on Oct. 16, Rudy Giuliani made a phone call to this reporter.

The fact that Giuliani was reaching out wasn’t remarkable. He and the reporter had spoken earlier that night for a story about his ties to a fringe Iranian opposition group.

But this call, it would soon become clear, wasn’t a typical case of a source following up with a reporter.

The call came in at 11:07 p.m. and went to voicemail; the reporter was asleep.

The next morning, a message exactly three minutes long was sitting in his voicemail. In the recording, the words tumbling out of Giuliani’s mouth were not directed at the reporter. He was speaking to someone else, someone in the same room.

Giuliani can be heard discussing overseas dealings and lamenting the need for cash, though it’s difficult to discern the full context of the conversation.

The call appeared to be one of the most unfortunate of faux pas: what is known, in casual parlance, as a butt dial.

And it wasn’t the first time it had happened.

“You know,” Giuliani says at the start of the recording. “Charles would have a hard time with a fraud case ‘cause he didn’t do any due diligence.”

It wasn’t clear who Charles is, or who may have been implicated in a fraud. In fact, much of the message’s first minute is difficult to comprehend, in part because the voice of the other man in the conversation is muffled and barely intelligible.

But then Giuliani says something that’s crystal clear.

“Let’s get back to business.”

He goes on.

“I gotta get you to get on Bahrain.”

Giuliani is well-connected in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Last December, he visited the Persian Gulf nation and had a one-on-one meeting with King Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa in the royal palace. “King receives high-level U.S. delegation,” read the headline of the state-run Bahrain News Agency blurb about the visit.

Giuliani runs a security consulting company, but it’s not clear why he would have a meeting with Bahrain’s king. Was he acting in his capacity as a consultant? As Trump’s lawyer? Or as an international fixer running a shadow foreign policy for the president?

In May, Giuliani told the Daily Beast his firm had signed a deal with Bahrain to advise its police force on counter-terrorism measures. But the Bahrain News Agency account of the meeting suggested Giuliani was viewed more like an ambassador than a security consultant. “HM the King praised the longstanding Bahraini-U.S. relations, noting keenness of the two countries to constantly develop them,” it said.

The voicemail yielded no details about the meeting. But Giuliani can be heard telling the man that he’s “got to call Robert again tomorrow.”

“Is Robert around?” Giuliani asks.

“He’s in Turkey,” the man responds.

Giuliani replies instantly. “The problem is we need some money.”

The two men then go silent. Nine seconds pass. No word is spoken. Then Giuliani chimes in again.

“We need a few hundred thousand,” he says.

It’s unclear what the two men were talking about. But Giuliani is known to have worked closely with a Robert who has ties to Turkey.

His name is Robert Mangas, and he’s a lawyer at the firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, as well as a registered agent of the Turkish government.

Giuliani himself was employed by Greenberg Traurig until about May 2018.

Mangas’s name appears in court documents related to the case of Reza Zarrab, a Turkish gold trader charged in the U.S. with laundering Iranian money in a scheme to evade American sanctions.

Giuliani was brought on to assist Zarrab in 2017. He traveled to Turkey with his former law partner Michael Mukasey and attempted to strike a deal with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to secure the release of their jailed client, alarming the federal prosecutor leading the case.

Giuliani and Mangas were both employed by Greenberg Traurig at the time. The firm and Mangas had registered with the Justice Department to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of Turkey, according to an affidavit from Mangas.

Mangas did not return a request for comment.

Giuliani’s conversation partner can be heard responding to the “few hundred thousand” comment. But it’s possible to make out only the beginning of his answer, and even that is somewhat garbled.

“I’d say even if Bahrain could get, I’m not sure how good [unintelligible words] with his people,” the man says.

“Yeah, okay,” Giuliani says.

“You want options? I got options,” the man says.

“Yeah give me options,” Giuliani replies.

The exchange took place at the 2:20 mark in the voicemail message. The other man does most of the talking in the remaining 40 seconds, and it’s difficult to piece together what he says.

Not the first time 

By the time of that call, it was already clear that Giuliani butt dials don’t only happen after 11 p.m.

The late-night Giuliani butt dial came 18 days after a mid-afternoon Giuliani butt dial.

The first one happened when the NBC News reporter was at a fifth-birthday party for an extended family member in central New Jersey.

It was 3:37 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28, and a pink unicorn piñata had just been strung up around a tree in the backyard.

Amid his 3-year-old daughter’s excitement, the reporter decided to let Giuliani’s call go to his voicemail.

The previous day, the reporter interviewed Giuliani for an article quoting several of his former Justice Department colleagues who said they believed he committed crimes in his effort to push the Ukrainians to launch an investigation of Joe Biden.

After the pink unicorn piñata came the bouncy castle and then cake. It wasn’t until at least an hour after the call that the reporter realized it led to a three-minute voicemail, the maximum his phone allows.

In the message, Giuliani is heard talking to at least one other person. The conversation appears to pick up almost exactly where Giuliani’s phone call with the reporter left off the day before, with Giuliani insisting he was the target of attacks because he was making public accusations about a powerful Democratic politician.

“I expected it would happen,” Giuliani says at the start of the recording. “The minute you touch on one of the protected people, they go crazy. They come after you.”

“You got the truth on your side,” an unidentified man says.

“It’s very powerful,” Giuliani replies.

Giuliani spends the entire three minutes railing against the Bidens. He can be heard recycling many of the unfounded allegations he has been making on cable news and in interviews with print reporters.

Among the claims: that then-Vice President Biden intervened to stop an investigation of a Ukrainian gas company because Hunter sat on the board, and that Hunter traded on his father’s position as vice president to earn $1.5 billion from Chinese investors.

“There’s plenty more to come out,” Giuliani says. “He did the same thing in China. And he tried to do it in Kazakhstan and in Russia.”

“It’s a sad situation,” he adds. “You know how they get? Biden has been been trading in on his public office since he was a senator.”

Shortly after, Giuliani turns to Hunter Biden. “When he became vice president, the kid decided to go around the world and say, ‘Hire me because I’m Joe Biden’s son.’ And most people wouldn’t hire him because he had a drug problem.”

Giuliani’s effort to spur a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry underway in the House. And on Wednesday, two of Rudy’s associates pleaded not guilty to making illegal campaign contributions in part to advance the interests of foreign nationals, including a former Ukrainian prosecutor who was involved in the effort to oust the country’s former U.S. ambassador.

In the recording, Giuliani doesn’t mention anything about his own activities in Ukraine and elsewhere. But he does make unfounded claims about Hunter Biden’s overseas work.

“His son altogether made somewhere between 5 and 8 million,” Giuliani says. “A 3 million transaction was laundered, which is illegal.”

Last week, Hunter Biden said in an ABC News interview that he will step down from the board of the Chinese investment company that he joined in October 2017.

One of Hunter’s early business partners was Christopher Heinz, stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry. But Heinz objected to Hunter Biden’s decision to work for the Ukrainian gas company and ultimately cut ties with him. Heinz had nothing to do with the Chinese investment fund.

But in the voicemail message, Giuliani is heard telling his friend that Kerry’s stepson was working for the same foreign entities that employed Hunter Biden.

“His partner was John Kerry’s stepson,” Giuliani said. “Secretary of State and the vice president for the price of one.”

The recording ends the same way it began. “They don’t want to investigate because he’s protected, so we gotta force them to do it,” Giuliani says, before apparently turning to the president’s now-infamous call with the Ukrainian president.

“And the Ukraine, they’re investigating him and they blocked it twice. So what the president was [unintelligible word], ‘You can’t keep doing this. You have to investigate this.’ And they say it will affect the 2020 election.”

“No it….” Giuliani adds, but the recording cuts off before he can finish the thought.

Over the last 10 days, Giuliani has given few media interviews.

Calls to his phone on Thursday led to a recorded message saying his mailbox was full. The call has not been returned — at least not yet.

The most recent call happened last week — after his Ukrainian accomplices were arrested. WTF?

We are living in Idiocracy.

Trump Again Defends Rudy Giuliani https://t.co/uk8xWLcozw pic.twitter.com/9T48PaMj2t

— oneDaily (@1dailynewsnet) October 25, 2019

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When presidents weren’t imbeciles

by digby

They used to be able to deliver a speech without lying or whining even once.

Here are Barack Obama and Bill Clinton as Elijah Cummings’ funeral today:

Oh, and here’s another one, although a conman managed to edge her out in the electoral college under extremely dubious circumstances.

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“People are objecting to us making so much money on the hotel, and therefore we may be willing to sell.”

by digby

That’s Eric Trump admitting they have been making a killing on all the emoluments violations:

President Trump’s company is considering selling the lease of its D.C. hotel, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans they were not permitted to make public, said the Trump Organization had hired the firm JLL to market the project.

Trump’s D.C. hotel has been a center of controversy since he entered office because Trump continues to own his business, which runs properties including the hotel, leading to charges of conflict of interest. Several lawsuits have alleged that Trump is violating the Constitution’s ban on “emoluments,” or payments by foreign governments, due to visits by foreign government officials to the hotel.

The company leases the building, the Old Post Office Pavilion, from the federal government’s General Services Administration, but the terms allow for the sale of the lease under certain conditions.

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Wall Street Journal first reported the possible sale. Eric Trump told the newspaper that, “People are objecting to us making so much money on the hotel, and therefore we may be willing to sell.”

I’m sorry. 3 years into the presidency is a little bit late to start thinking about this.

They gave the finger to every single ethical consideration despite being told by everyone but their most corrupt sycophants that it was a problem and that it would present them with crippling conflicts of interest. They didn’t care. They wanted the money.

Donald Trump and his spawn hate to leave a penny on the sidewalk so they must be concerned about the emoluments clause lawsuits. Simply giving up the DC hotel won’t solve that problem for them. Their entire family criminal enterprise is on the hot seat.

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