Any doubts about Congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar’s moral code should have been resolved on Tuesday, as the 29-year-old Democrat shook Duncan Hunter, Sr.’s hand after listening to the old man lie to the assembled news media in the shadow of the USS Midway on San Diego’s waterfront.
If Campa-Najjar was the terrorist threat the retired Congressman made him out to be, he should have punched the old son of a bitch in the face right then and there. Hell, that’s what I would have been at least tempted to do if I’d been anywhere nearby. (I guess that’s why nobody’s clamoring for me to run for office.)
Instead, Duncan Hunter Jr’s challenger has issued what he says is his final statement on what the Washington Post called “the most vile political ad of this year’s midterm elections.”
“The FBI throughly vetted me, my family history and connections. After doing so, they determined my allegiances to the United States were unquestionable and I was given security clearance to serve in the federal government as recent as 2016. I am not a security threat, Duncan Hunter is, however.
Due to his criminal indictment, excessive drinking, infidelity and financial instability, Duncan Hunter would not be eligible for a security clearance. That is why Republican speaker of the House Paul Ryan called on Hunter’s removal from the Armed Services Committee; he is compromised and no longer fit to access classified materials.
I’m confident voters will see past the deception and hypocrisy on Election Day. It’s time to put country over party and give this seat back to the people of CA50.”
I did ask Hunter Sr. about the campaign’s recent ads and approach to attack Campa-Najjar’s heritage. He said: “Very simple. This has nothing to do with race. It has to do with terrorism. This is terrorism.”https://t.co/1H5i1O2Iq2
— Jonathan Horn (@10NewsHorn) October 17, 2018
***
The Hunter family’s behavior shouldn’t be seen in a vacuum, as I’ll show with examples of the overall sleaziness rampant on the right these days.
Democrat Gary Hart was set up… James Fallows has written an amazing story for the Atlantic, revealing for the first time a deathbed confession of GOP operative Lee Atwater. He was, along with modern day targets of the Mueller investigation Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, the designer of the low road tactics favored by bad boys in politics in recent decades.
Smears about Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, fake reporters planting stories about a candidate’s health problems, rumors about a Democratic congressional leader being gay, and the first anti-Clinton whispering campaigns–that’s all Atwater.
In the last year of his life, Atwater publicly apologized for tactics like these. He told Tom Turnipseed, the object of his “jumper cables” attack, that he viewed the episode as “one of the low points” of his career. He apologized to Dukakis for the “naked cruelty” of the Willie Horton ad.
And in a private act of repentance that has remained private for nearly three decades, he told Raymond Strother that he was sorry for how he had torpedoed Gary Hart’s chances of becoming president.
That’s right folks, the downfall of Senator Gary Hart, complete with salacious pictures and manufactured mistress was a set-up. Read the article and think about how history might have been different.
***
Dancing with the Despicables, Republican style. A GOP candidate for the Nevada state assembly is dead. His name will remain on the ballot, and in the likely event the corpse is elected, the Governor will be obligated to appoint a Republican in its place.
From the Nevada Independent:
Nevada brothel owner and Assembly candidate Dennis Hof, a larger-than-life personality who was unapologetic about selling sex even amid rising criticism of the industry and who proclaimed himself the “Trump of Pahrump” as his political star ascended this year, has died just two days after his 72nd birthday….
Just hours earlier, Hof celebrated his birthday along with longtime friend and pornographic actor Ron Jeremy, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist.
Norquist said in an email to The Nevada Independent that Hof seemed in high spirits on Monday as he held court at the party, which was scheduled to come on the heels of four days of celebration that included a cathouse crawl.
“He MC’ed the event last night for 3 hours. He had the crowd in stitches, regaling us all with stories from his work and campaign. He liked people and that crowd loved him back. Amazing to watch,” Norquist wrote. “He was full of life and energy last night and it is a very difficult to realize we lost him.”
But wait! There’s more, via Jen Hayden at Daily Kos:
And he apparently couldn’t make it in person, but there was another special guest at Hof’s final rally, Fox News host Tucker Carlson called in to deliver a message to Hof and his rally crowd.
Folks, this is the modern-day Republican party. Can you believe it was only 10 years ago they were running around pretending to be the party of morality and Christianity? The same people who refused to accept gay marriage in 2004 are apparently the same people happily embracing pimps and racists today.
***
I guess I should mention in passing that the newest GOP talking point for the midterm elections, via Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell: the increasing national deficits are not being caused by the Trump Tax Cut. You know, the one that would at least be revenue neutral.
Nope. Cutting the national income so rich guys could inflate their wealth with stock buy-backs isn’t the problem. It’s those bottom feeders bleeding the country dry with Social Security and Medicare, according to the latest GOP mythology.
***
The latest Really Big Lies making the rounds are coming from the defenders of the Saudi Royal family, led by the President of the United States.
“Here we go again with you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Trump said, drawing comparisons to the murder to accusations made against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who staved off allegations of sexual assault during his confirmation process.
Meanwhile, the story about Jamal Khashoggi’s final moments continues to unfold.
American-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by a Saudi “hit team,” which tortured him by cutting off his fingers and decapitating his body while he was still alive, according to a Turkish newspaper.
The publication Yeni Safak, a pro-Turkish government newspaper, said it obtained recordings of Khashoggi’s brutal killing, which occurred earlier this month. The publication did not explain how it had obtained the recordings of Khashoggi’s death, which occurred at the consulate offices of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul.
The newspaper goes into detail on what can be heard on the recordings, according to reporting from the New York Post. Saudi Consul Mohammed al-Otaibi can be heard, for example, telling Khashoggi’s torturers and assailants to move themselves.
It’s clear from photos released by the Turkish government the 15 men the Saudis initially dismissed as overnight tourists were connected to the government.
From the French edition of the Middle East Eye:
Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy, who has been identified as the head of forensic evidence in the Saudi general security department, was one of the 15-member squad who arrived in Ankara earlier that day on a private jet.
Tubaigy began to cut Khashoggi’s body up on a table in the study while he was still alive, the Turkish source said.
The killing took seven minutes, the source said.
As he started to dismember the body, Tubaigy put on earphones and listened to music. He advised other members of the squad to do the same.
“When I do this job, I listen to music. You should do [that] too,” Tubaigy was recorded as saying, the source told MEE.
Trump has proven to be a willing megaphone for the Saudi regime’s rapidly changing narrative, mindlessly repeating it on Twitter and to reporters as it has changed on a day-to-day basis as numerous critics have pointed out.
You probably should read the next couple of sentences out loud.
The President’s reaction, as I heard on NPR this morning from Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, has to do with his commitment to making the Saudis the lynchpin of a US push against Iran.
This push was/is reportedly the administration’s “October surprise” in response to failing Republican candidacies nationwide, the thinking being a ‘patriotic fervor’ would alter the national discourse.
The Saudis role in all this, in addition to their strategic location for any military action, was to keep oil prices stabilized and tamp down negative responses in the region to US intervention.
Now the monarchy of Saudi Arabia has a crisis on its hands, one with the potential to disrupt the lines of communication and strategy so carefully built up with the US in recent months.
***
Have you voted yet? I’m mailing my ballot in today, and have no patience for the neo-nihilists of the internet whose arguments ultimately amount to “we can afford to wait while things get worse.” The course of history doesn’t turn on a dime, and no Captain Perfect is going to swoop down and save us all.
The next real battle for the soul of our nation needs to begin on November 7th, regardless of the results in the general election.
The old boy network, its Lincoln Clubs, purveyors of dark money, lie factories posing as PR firms, along with the other institutions of patriarchy and racism need to feel the scorn they’ve earned by enabling evil. Name and shame will be the aim of the game.
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bob dorn says
Readers who were sentient during the Nixon years will remember that the dirty tricksters — from Haldeman on down to burglary specialists — were the black ops politicians who preceded even Atwater. Republicans for decades have relied on these liars who profess their Christianity while they’re fucking the help. They did illegal wiretaps, and burglarized Demo Headquarters. They planned to sanitize Nixon’s convention here by having a secret police force hijack demonstrators to Mexico so they could be tortured during what became his cancelled convention here. The Republicans have been a minority party for a long time, so dirty tricks and unlimited campaign money freed by the Supreme’s Citizens United decision are the only reason their hypocrisy has survived. We can’t wait for Mueller’s investigation to bail the boat out; we’re all going to have to regain our memories and get real people to vote.