Paranoia, Thy Names Are…

Persecution complexes infused with paranoia are making the rounds. We’ll start with Liz “Red Shoes” Crokin:

“I did not post the weird video!!! The Deep State is trying to kill me!!!” (In all caps).

I have no idea. Source. Moving on…

Last night Steve Bannon hosted a special edition of “Breitbart News Tonight.” Sean Hannity joined Bannon and Fox News political analyst Pat Goodell to discuss, among other things, the federal investigation into suspected Russian ties to Trump campaign officials during the 2016 election. It wasn’t long before the panel began to speculate about a secret plan orchestrated by “deep state” officials to remove Trump from the White House.

“I think they’re coming after Trump because they understand they have to destroy Trump, because to destroy Trump is not to destroy Trump, it’s to destroy this movement. They want to take that voice away from the forgotten man,” Bannon said.

Sigh. The “voice of the forgotten man.” That voice is awfully damn loud if you ask me. All of you fucking nazis and fascists, you never shut up. Every single day, there are stories of all you hateful bigots spewing your hateful rhetoric all over innocent people who are just going about their business. Kind of hard to ‘forget’ you flaming doucheweasels. And y’know, if you assholes got all the things you wanted, your first order of business would be finding something to ceaselessly complain about.

…“The ultimate goal—Andy McCarthy had a great piece. This is about the impeachment of the president. This is not about Trump-Russia collusion,” Hannity said.

It can be about both. Amazing that didn’t occur to you geniuses.

Goodell brought up the idea that the government is carrying out a “slow-motion, steady effort to basically have a coup d’etat.” He said that he believes America is experiencing a “post-constitutional society” and that secret government forces are “willing to destroy this country to keep control.”

There are people willing to destroy this country to keep control. Look in the mirror, Mr. Goodell. As for being ‘post-constitutional’, no, we are not there yet. First, you have to get people to acknowledge that the constitution is seriously outdated and needs a rewrite, desperately so. The fact that it makes provision for slave owners should be a smack in the face, but no, you have to keep insisting on constitution worship.

…“By the way, people like us may end up in jail. Let me tell you. They will stop at nothing. This is what I’m trying to get across to people. This is serious. This is the rule of law in this country now,” Hannity said.

“Amen, Amen,” Bannon said.

Christ, the persecution complex conservachristians have is out of control. The projection is in your face, too. They are so desperate for the power to oppress that they think any opposition is looking to imprison them, and that the rule of law has changed, so that they are fair game. I wish they actually believed that crap, just so they’d run off and go into hiding. Obviously, they aren’t terribly concerned.

Via RWW.

The End Times Shopping Network. Yep.

You all knew this was Jim Bakker, didn’t you? Who else would it be? It’s actually ‘PTL Shopping’.  Jim’s desperation for money, money, money is ridiculous, and it should be ridiculed at every opportunity. For someone who preaches end times nonsense, Jim doesn’t seem to believe in it much. His ‘shopping network’ is hawking all manner of crap, most of which has nothing to do with religion at all, like garden sprayers and camp showers. It all seems to be stuff which couldn’t be sold in the first place, and Bakker is trying to sell it all a cut rate. Mostly. Ol’ Jim is also selling crap like this:

With this special offer you will receive one (1) 16 oz. Activz™ Silver Solution Liquid, one (1) 4 oz. Activz™ Silver Solution Gel, one (1) 3.4 oz. Activz™ Silver Facial Cream, one (1) 3.4 oz. Activz™ Silver Hand Lotion, one (1) set of applicator bottles, one (1) Activz™ Silver Lozenges, one (1) 4 oz. Activz™ Silver Toothpaste Gel and one (1) Silver: Nature’s Natural Healer book along with Unlocking the Keys to an Ageless Body Seminar with Dr. Sherrill Sellman DVD, Patented Nano Silver: Nature’s Healer Seminar with Dr. Sherrill Sellman DVD and The Healing Miracle of Silver DVD.

for $90.00 – anyone who buys this crap will turn a not so lovely, permanent shade of blue gray. To say selling this crap is irresponsible is an understatement. I’d definitely place this in the highly unethical category, but Jim doesn’t care about ethics. Or morals. There’s money at stake, dammit! I doubt he’s stupid enough to take it himself, but at least he’d be more entertaining if he turned blue gray. He’s also selling crap ‘detox’ packages for 60 dollars. Perhaps that’s for people who buy his yuck inna bucket. Someone needs to flood him with this song. Damn near tailor made.

ETA: I went back to grab the descriptor of all the silver, and the video started playing (have I mentioned how much I hate autoplay?), and there was Jim, claiming all the silver shit was a daily staple in their house.

PTL Shop / Faith Based Shopping Network.

A Russian Art Connection.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Salvator Mundi” (c.1500), oil on panel, 25 7/8 x 18 in.(65.7 x 45.7 cm) (image courtesy Christie’s).

There was an astonishing sale at Christie’s, the last privately held da Vinci, supposedly, for an unprecedented amount of money: over $450 million dollars. The Russian connection is of interest, as is the doubtful provenance of the painting. There’s also the problem of such a painting, if it’s a true da Vinci, going into private hands. No museum could possibly have coughed up over 400 million for it.

Last night, Christie’s auction house sold “Salvator Mundi,” which it claims is the last painting by Leonardo da Vinci in private hands, for an astounding, record-setting $400M (the final price was over $450M with fees). The sale was controversial for a couple of reasons: that mind-numbing number itself, but also the fact that there are a lot of questions — and serious doubts — about the painting’s authenticity, restoration, and provenance.

One can therefore be forgiven for initially overlooking another elephant in the room — the identity of the seller. When there’s this much money involved, though, it usually pays to follow it, and here the money leads directly back to the Russian billionaire Dmitry E. Rybolovlev. Rybolovlev’s family trust sold the painting, through Christie’s, to an undisclosed buyer, but if his name sounds familiar for other reasons, that might be because in 2008 he paid (through a company he controlled) $95M to buy a Palm Beach mansion from Donald Trump.

You can read more about this at Hyperallergic, and there’s an earlier article too. The earlier article is disheartening, to say the least, as half of all the world’s wealth is in a very small circle of people, while little money ever goes to all those things which make for a healthy society. Once again, I’m reminded of A Perfect Circle’s new beatitude…

AppSame: Fakery.

Sarah Wasko / Media Matters.

Something else I had never heard of at all, and I don’t spend much time on Twitter, certainly not enough to be aware of AppSame, which has an influential twitter account (1.1 million followers). Of course, this leads to the same old question: why is Twitter ignoring this? They certainly have a way of turning their heads to obviously fake bullshit and abuse when it’s convenient for them.

Despite what its wildly misleading name might suggest, AppSame is not an application. Based on the biographical details its social media accounts provide, AppSame is “a conservative political marketing firm helping America back to its greatness.” While publicly available information does not clarify what exactly, if anything, this firm does to help MAGA, its impressive Twitter presence (1.1 million followers as of this writing) invites some questions — about its tactics, its actual impact, its role in the spread of fake news purveyor-generated misinformation into influential right-wing Twitter networks, and whether its influence could become a case study in the way Twitter enables unknown entities to have a disproportionate impact in politics.

Both its massive following and its clout among right-wing Twitter hubs like #TCOT (an acronym that stands for “top conservatives on Twitter”) earned AppSame the top spot in Brandwatch’s 10 most influential Republicans on Twitter rankings in 2016. AppSame’s Twitter behavior is practically indistinguishable from that of hard-core supporters of President Donald Trump: The account frequently retweets the president and his family (once earning a magnanimous mention from Trump) as well as memes featuring right-wing narratives, churning out more than a hundred tweets or retweets per day. But despite its impressive following, AppSame’s original tweets barely register any viral attention, which might be evidence of a heavy fake account presence among its followers. A Twitter audit report confirmed as much in 2015, finding that 45 percent of @AppSame’s followers are suspected fake accounts.

@AppSame’s social media habits also include disseminating fake news and conspiracy theories into right-wing Twitter networks. On Twitter, @AppSame has shared links to fake news purveyors like TruthFeed and True Pundit, and its tweets have on occasion been featured in items written by fake news purveyors. Inmultipletweets, AppSame either suggested or explicitly claimed that Hillary Clinton was responsible for the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.

Cristina López & Natalie Martinez at Media Matters have the full investigative story.

Is that supposed to be comforting?

“Tillerson says Trump wants diplomacy in North Korea: “Diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops””

Uh…is that supposed to be comforting? Reassuring? Because I’m not finding that warm and fuzzy in any way. Fuuuuuuck.

The Politician’s Pharmacy.

Politicians, like the rich, are different. In some respects, dangerously so. Those on Capitol Hill have their own on staff physicians, and whatever drugs they want, at any time, all for the very low cost of around $600.00 a year. There’s a nice deal for you.

Nearly every day for at least two decades pharmaceutical drugs have been brought by the carload to the Capitol – an arrangement so under the radar that even pharmacy lobbyists who regularly pitch Congress on their industry aren’t aware of it.

The deliveries arrive at the secretive Office of the Attending Physician, an elaborate medical clinic where Navy doctors triage medical emergencies and provide basic health care for lawmakers who pay an annual fee of just over $600. Every one comes from Washington’s oldest community pharmacy, Grubb’s.

Mike Kim, the reserved pharmacist-turned-owner of the pharmacy, said he has gotten used to knowing the most sensitive details about some of the most famous people in Washington.

“At first it’s cool, and then you realize, I’m filling some drugs that are for some pretty serious health problems as well. And these are the people that are running the country,” Kim said, listing treatments for conditions like diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

“It makes you kind of sit back and say, ‘Wow, they’re making the highest laws of the land and they might not even remember what happened yesterday.'”

Having already dealt with the fallout from having a sitting president who had Alzheimer’s disease in office (Reagan), it would probably be right good idea if a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s barred one from the political workforce. Most diseases are manageable, but leaving those who have Alzheimer’s disease in place while making extremely serious decisions about policy…uh, no.

The handy dandy pharmaceutical stock was news to me, however, I can’t say I’m surprised or shocked. There are a whole lot of reasons that people won’t give up such a cushy job, and this would be one of them. There’s much more to the story, you can read about it here.

White Supremacy: Just Background Noise.

Tucker Viemeister.

It’s a forlorn hope, that republicans might stumble over a conscience, discover their humanity and embrace that of others. It really does not seem to matter what the Tiny Tyrant does, there are those who will squink all over, in an attempt to cover over the massive piles of shit left in the wake of the Tiny Tyrant. As we have all been witness to, Trump gets worse, week by week, day by day.

As CNN noted on Friday, in the last four weeks alone, President Trump has fired chief strategist Steve Bannon, fired Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, hired and fired communications director Anthony Scaramucci, publicly shamed his own attorney general and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, banned transgender troops via twitter, made up two phone calls, thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for expelling American diplomats from the country, threatened nuclear war with North Korea, and defended attendees of a white supremacy rally.

And that’s not even half of it.

But Steve Cortes, a member of Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Council, said on Fox News Sunday morning that if Republicans just cut taxes, all of that will be background noise.

“Clearly, he had a tough week. There’s no way around that,” Cortes said.

“All presidents have tough weeks,” Cortes said Sunday. “I believe that will become background noise once we get taxes done, and once this economy starts growing the way it’s capable of.”

Yes, a tough week, brought on by the defense of fucking nazis being “fine people”. You opened your mouth, and Trump obligingly shit in it, and you decided to swallow it. Nice.

[…]

“The economy’s already accelerating. There’s a lot of optimism out there in the country,” Cortes said. “If we can throw tax cuts into the mix, I think this economy can absolutely take off, and then I think we’d see those poll numbers rebound very, very quickly for the president.”

There’s a lot of optimism out and about? Where? Oh, yes, in the crowds of nazis, sure. Everywhere else, not so much. Perhaps you should get outside once in a while. People are not optimistic about an idiotic, ignorant, maniacal bigot being in control of things, for a given value of control. People are not optimistic about not being nuked. People are not optimistic about not getting into yet another fucking war. People are not optimistic about bigotry being elevated to “great america” status. People are not optimistic about the blatant slaughter of all things which could help us avoid the worst disasters of climate change. People are not optimistic about the economy. The list goes on and on.

Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) made similar comments last week, telling Bloomberg that Trump’s comments about white supremacists were “frustrating” because he wanted to start focusing on tax reform.

“[It’s] very frustrating for those of us who want to start focusing on the issues ahead—tax reform, infrastructure, the debt ceiling,” Ross said. “I wished we would start focusing on those issues, and we need to start healing and bringing people together—instead of peeling back the scabs.”

Right. Your idea of tax reform is handing tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, and you’ve made sure there are zero safety nets for everyone else. That will cheer everyone up for sure. You don’t start healing and bringing people together by announcing that nazis are “fine people” and everything was really the fault of those filthy liberals. The reason those scabs peel back so easily is that there is a massive wound underneath, still oozing blood, covered over, but certainly not healed. Healing does not take place by ignoring a wound. Now the Tiny Tyrant and his henchidiots, like you, Rep. Ross, have dumped toxic wasted in the wound, and you want to talk healing. Isolation, genocide, and subjugation are not things which heal. They do not unite. And those things are what you stand for, handwaving reality, because those people, they don’t actually matter to you.

Think Progress has the full story.

The Tiny Tyrant: Sucking Marrow from Bones.

The Secret Service has a problem – they can’t pay their employees. The Tiny Tyrant’s profligate habits, and those of his family have sucked the bones dry. While there is an obligation on the part of the service to protect key people, the sheer amount of money wasted by the Tiny Tyrant is overwhelming. Three million dollars for every weekend jaunt. Millions more for every vacation the Kushners take, and they seem to take a lot of vacations every year. Millions more for overseas coverage. Millions more for Ms. Trump and the kid to stay in NYC for months on end. Then there are the little things, like $60,000 in golf cart rentals. This from the idiot who could not stop talking about President Obama golfing now and then. Sixty Fucking Thousand Dollars. And since the Chief Idiot won’t golf anywhere except his properties, guess where the money is going? Quite the fucking racket.

WASHINGTON — The Secret Service can no longer pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission – in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump’s family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast.

Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles, in an interview with USA TODAY, said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year.

The agency has faced a crushing workload since the height of the contentious election season, and it has not relented in the first seven months of the administration. Agents must protect Trump – who has traveled almost every weekend to his properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia – and his adult children whose business trips and vacations have taken them across the country and overseas.

“The president has a large family, and our responsibility is required in law,” Alles said. “I can’t change that. I have no flexibility.”

Alles said the service is grappling with an unprecedented number of White House protectees. Under Trump, 42 people have protection, a number that includes 18 members of his family. That’s up from 31 during the Obama administration.

Overwork and constant travel have also been driving a recent exodus from the Secret Service ranks, yet without congressional intervention to provide additional funding, Alles will not even be able to pay agents for the work they have already done.

The compensation crunch is so serious that the director has begun discussions with key lawmakers to raise the combined salary and overtime cap for agents, from $160,000 per year to $187,000 for at least the duration of Trump’s first term.

But even if such a proposal was approved, about 130 veteran agents would not be fully compensated for hundreds of hours already amassed, according to the agency.

“I don’t see this changing in the near term,” Alles said.

USA Today has the full story.

The Hounds of Heaven.

Lance Wallnau is getting worse, in every respect. He’s now into becoming a parody of himself territory. Or perhaps he now considers himself a comedian for Jehovah or something, I don’t know.

Citing a prophecy from the book of 2 Kings that Jezebel would be devoured by dogs, Wallnau railed against “the Jezebel spirit” that is “working through the media to bring depravity and perversion” to America and prayed that “the hounds of heaven” would be let loose to destroy the “coup” being led against Trump by Robert Mueller.

With “Who Let The Dogs Out?” playing, Wallnau prophesied against the late night television hosts Bill Maher, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert, though he did not seem to actually know their names.

“We’re going to see a season of dismantling of Jezebel in media,” he proclaimed. “Bill Maher, coming down! Steve Oliver, coming down! Carvell, coming down! God is going to release his comedic armies against you and you are going to be absolutely confused because you are thin-skinned and incapable of taking it the way you dish it out.”

So, Jehovah has comedic armies now? If you’re the lead, Lance, you all leave a great deal to be desired. I wonder, does this answer for Jehovah’s notoriously bad aim when it comes to those big punishments?  There seems to have been a big backfire here, because it seems it is you, Lance, who is absolutely confused, and you lot are among the most thin-skinned of all. You can’t take it, and you can’t dish it out.

“The dogs are being loosed, heaven’s canines are coming out,” Wallnau declared, as he began to pray in tongues for Trump and his family. “We loose the dogs on Jezebel’s lies, on all the media lies; chase ’em down. May the favor of this president go up.”

Perhaps you should have gone with Shakespeare: “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war”. (Julius Caesar). Would have added a slight touch of class to your clown show.

Via RWW, where there’s video, if you can cope with seeing Lance with his tongue hanging out.

In the “oh fuck” terrifying department, we have Robert Jeffress, who has the Tiny Tyrant’s ear, approving of nuclear war:

Robert Jeffress, a Texas megachurch pastor and a top evangelical ally to President Trump, responded to Trump’s threat to rain down “fire and fury” on North Korea yesterday by issuing a statement declaring that “God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un.”

These fucking idiots talk as though a nuclear missile would launch, land conveniently on their target, all nice and clean, no fallout. It’s been more than obvious, from the campaign days (those seem so long ago) that Donny has been itching to use nuclear weapons, and now he has “reason”. I grew up under the threat of nuclear war, and I hated it. That is a horrible sword to be hanging over heads, especially those of children. Tends to fuck up your viewpoint a lot. Now, in old age, I get to live with that clear and present threat once again. I really don’t want to die just yet. I really don’t want millions upon millions of other people to die just yet. Fuck, I hate this. If “god” wants to “take out” Kim Jong Un, fine, let him do it without the nukes.

RWW watch has the full story, and the rundown on Jeffress and his hold on the Tiny Tyrant.

Unnecessary Swearing.

Jim Bakker, the disgraced former televangelist who reinvented himself as an End Times prepper pitchman following his time in prison, was among the dozens of evangelical leaders who were brought to the White House recently to meet with members of President Trump’s administration.

Bakker revealed on his program today that he and his wife Lori were in the White House on the day that Anthony Scaramucci was fired from his short stint as White House communications director, noting that it was not a coincidence that Scaramucci was let go at the moment when George O. Wood, who heads the General Council of the Assemblies of God, spoke out against “unnecessary swearing” during a meeting with White House staff.

Not a coincidence. Right. In any other facet of life, magical thinking is a symptom which notes that your mental health may be in decline. But not in religion, oh no. That gets a free pass. I’m damn tired of it, too. There isn’t one small thing these assholes won’t manage to hook up to their mythical psychopath.

According to the Bakkers, Trump is eager to hear from right-wing Christian leaders and hopes to use them to spread his message to their audiences.

“The president has asked for the pastors, the leaders of Christianity, to come and advise them,” Baker said, as Lori explained that “the reason for the meeting was so that he can get the group of Christian leaders that have a platform to share the truth of what’s really going on that you don’t get to hear in the media.”

Media doesn’t need to report this fucking nonsense, you all never shut the fuck up.

Lori noted that the members of the meeting they attended were able to write a letter to Trump that was hand delivered to him by his primary spiritual adviser, Paula White, and they were told by White House staff how much receiving letters means to the president.

“People think that their letters aren’t going to get to the president,” she said. “Well, guess what? They get to this president … so leaders need to say thank you.”

Actually, the letters got to Minister Money Grubber. I have no doubt they did make it to Donny, though, where he could pore over the praise and use it as a balm for that massive ego.

Bakker said that pastors and Christian leaders must send letters of support to Trump, who “will read every word of it because he’s looking for the pulse of what God is doing in our country.”

Well, no, that’s not what the Tiny Tyrant is looking for, Jim. He’s looking for food for that endless black hole of an ego. Food which you relentless assholes never tire of shoveling into the maw.

Via RWW.

ME, ME, ME!

Screengrab.

The Washington Post got ahold of some transcripts, and what screams out is the Tiny Tyrant’s focus on himself, and little else. Even in the midst of this whinging over his ego and appearance, it’s stunningly superficial. Given the seriousness of the various subjects, it’s a head-shaking reminder of black hole of idiocy supposedly in charge of a fucking country. It would seem that the latest move in taking charge is a 17 day golf vacation. FFS.

Just bits here and there:

I did not want to have a meeting. I did not want to meet with anybody.

We cannot say that anymore because if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that.

But you cannot say that to the press. The press is going to go with that and I cannot live with that.

And I am saying, boy that will make us look awfully bad. Here I am calling for a ban where I am not letting anybody in and we take 2,000 people. Really it looks like 2,000 people that Australia does not want and I do not blame you by the way, but the United States has become like a dumping ground.

This is going to kill me. I am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country.

I hate taking these people. I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.

This is a stupid deal. This deal will make me look terrible.

Okay, this shows me to be a dope. I am not like this but, if I have to do it, I will do it but I do not like this at all.

I look so foolish doing this.

They were from wherever they were.

It is important to you and it is embarrassing to me. It is an embarrassment to me.

You can read the whole mess at The Washington Post.

The Prophetic Order of the United States.

Right Wing Watch has an in-depth breakdown of the Religious Reich which now has a great deal of control over uStates government. It’s in sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. Who Are These People?
  3. Trump and the Prophets: Made For The Era of Social Media?
  4. Overlapping Networks
  5. God’s Own Party?
  6. POTUS Trump and the Prophetic Order of the United States

I’m just going to have a few bits here…

Brody and Lamb’s book, “The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography” is scheduled for publication in January 2018, but it won’t be the first. It will face competition from “God and Trump” by Stephen Strang, who heads the Pentecostal media empire Charisma. During the campaign, Strang gave a media megaphone to Trump-boosting prophets like Wallnau. Strang’s book, which promises to explore “what is God doing, now not only in Donald Trump’s life, but also in the life of the nation,” is scheduled for release in November.

Meanwhile, POTUS Shield leaders continue to personally assure Trump that God Himself put Trump in power, something Amedia told attendees at the March POTUS Shield gathering that Trump understands:

I said to the man’s own face, ‘If you didn’t see God got you elected, with all the mistakes you made, and how you should have lost this election 50 times, then you will never see God.’ And he said, ‘I know it was God.’

[…]

For many Religious Right leaders, support for Trump is transactional: Trump promised them the Supreme Court, attacks on legal abortion and Planned Parenthood, and legal changes to make conservative Christians more politically powerful. But POTUS Shield members believe that something even greater than the Supreme Court is at stake: the future of the church and the reign of God on earth. They give Trump assurance that he’s on a divine path, and they give their followers a sense of playing an important role on the world stage, warring with the devil to take political and culture power away from liberals and secularists and establish the kingdom of God in the United States and around the world.

If you’re inclined to laugh, or shrug, don’t. Instead, think. This is terror. This is terrorism. This is a regime of sweeping oppression waiting in the wings, trying to take the main stage. This has been at work for many a year now, and this is the one and only chance they have, and they know it. I see in my own referrers here, how many people search for things like “Trump tackles elite satanic pedophiles” and the “prophecies” of this, that, and the other self-styled prophets. The Religious Reich has the perfect puppet, and Donny does not dare dismiss them, or spurn their desires, they are about the only thing keeping his arse firmly in the white house.

If there should be a face to atheism, to humanism, to the benefits of a secular society, it should be centered here, in direct and open opposition to these people who, in their pettiness and need to subjugate others, are climbing to ultimate power.

You can read the whole thing at Right Wing Watch, recommended.

The Worm Turns.

Sean Spicer.

It seems that yet one more thing the Tiny Tyrant has never learned is that when you shove people about, run them down, then kick them out the door, they don’t have much motivation when it comes to staying quiet. A new lawsuit is tarnishing the Tiny Tyrant, and Sean Spicer has spilled the truth all over NPR, in spite of earlier denials, when he was still employed by the regime.

A defamation lawsuit filed by longtime Fox News contributor Rod Wheeler against the network alleges that President Trump was directly involved in concocting a fake story intended to undercut the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian hackers waged cyberattacks against Democratic targets to help him get elected.

[…]

The lawsuit claims that Butowsky and Zimmerman hoped the story “would debunk reports the Russian were responsible for the DNC hacks” and “undermine reports of collusion between Russia and the Trump Administration.” It claims that in the weeks ahead of the article’s publication, Butowsky was in touch with then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer, White House strategist Steve Bannon, and Department of Justice spokesperson Sarah Flores “regarding his efforts related to Seth Rich.” Wheeler says he and Butowsky met with Spicer “and provided him with a copy of [Wheeler’s] investigative notes.”

But the day the story was published, Spicer denied having foreknowledge of the Fox News report, saying during the White House press briefing that “I’m not aware of that… it would be highly inappropriate to do that.”

Spicer has now changed his story. He confirmed to NPR that he met with Butowsky after all.

Tsk. How you treat people matters, and there are always consequences to how you treat them. Yet another basic life lesson unlearned by the yawning void of ego sitting in the white house.

Think Progress has the full story.