MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 20
Kash Patel pretends: Back in September, it was reported that Tom Homan had once accepted a bag of $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents.
Homan went on he Ingraham Angle and issued a non-denial denial, saying only that he had done nothing illegal or criminal. But had he actually accepted the big bag of cash?
Homan failed to say. Inevitably, Ingraham failed to follow up.
Weeks later, on October 16, Homan issued a real denial, saying that he never took the money in question at all. For Politico's review of this strange episode, you can just click here.
Headline included, Politico's report started like this:
Border czar Tom Homan denies he took $50K from undercover agents
Border czar Tom Homan rejected reports that he took a $50,000 bribe from federal agents, his most forceful denial yet of his alleged involvement in an FBI corruption investigation.
“I didn’t take $50,000 from anybody,” Homan said in a Wednesday night appearance on NewsNation’s “Cuomo” town hall.
And so on from there. Homan had started with a non-denial denial, then switched to a real denial, insisting that the kerfuffle about his original faux denial had been a partisan "hit piece." These events have largely disappeared from the public discourse since he made the switch.
Over the weekend, the latest non-denial denial was issued, this time in hopelessly clumsy fashion by FBI head Kash Patel. The background goes like this:
In this original report, The Bulwark had reported that Patel had used his official FBI jet to travel to Penn State to watch his girlfriend, a singer, perform. According to the Bulwark report, he had then used the FBI jet to give her a lift back to Nashville.
You can read the original Bulwark report simply by clicking here. A few days later, Patel issued the latest non-denial denial, pretending that The Bulwark had been sliming his girlfriend in some way when it had actually been criticizing him.
By clicking this link, you can see the recent report by Mediaite about Patel's non-denial denial. You'll note that Patel never denies the accuracy of The Bulwark's original claims. He merely pretends that The Bulwark had been attacking her, not him.
Our public discourse is quite comfortable with ridiculous conduct like this—with conduct which takes us well beyond the boundaries of Insultingly Stupid.
We've never gotten back to the clownish way Pete Hegseth let Fort Bragg, whose name had been changed to Fort Liberty, be renamed "Fort Bragg" all over again. That second name change took us even beyond the transparent inanity of Patel's pseudo-denial.
How desperate (and nutty) must a person be to engage in a non-name change name change like the one Hegseth engineered? Man [sic] is the rational animal, Aristotle once falsely declared.
What kind of RINO doesn't blame Antifa?
ReplyDeleteBob once again tackling the greatest issues leading to the end of American democracy; Homan's bag money and Patel humping a cheerleader. Groundbreaking!
ReplyDeleteCorruption is intrinsic to democracy's demise, and Patel's corruption is not being manifested by his humping, but by his humping being facilitated with taxpayer dollars.
DeleteSomerby is not ever going to make a direct statement of support for any position important to Democrats (or Blue America either).
DeleteI’m over Somerby.
DeleteMeanwhile, the Speaker of the House is playing up to the ignorance of Republican voters, by claiming, he too, knows nothing.
ReplyDeleteCorruption is a victimless crime. Unlike having a poor opinion of Charlie Kirk.
ReplyDeleteBoth of p those crimes have victims.
DeleteWhat's the use making a denial of any type. Bob acknowledges that Homan made a real denial of the supposed bag of cash, but people talk about the accusation just as much.
ReplyDeleteDenials are necessary because guys like Patel and Hegseth are public officials, which means they owe accountability to both Congress and the American people. That is why we have a press that conducts interviews on these topics. To provide accountability.
DeleteSomerby said people are not talking about Homan's bag of cash since he made an actual denial. You are saying the opposite: "but people talk about the accusation just as much." This should be an empirical question -- just go to the various press sources and count how many times Homan has been asked about this since he made a denial denial (instead of a non-denial denial). Whether Homan is lying or not remains to be investigated, as it should be given that keeping a bag of cash offered as a bribe is against the law.
"Homan made a real denial of the supposed bag of cash, but people talk about the accusation just as much."
DeleteLet's think about why that is.
Homan's first several defensive statements didn't deny that he took the cash. They therefore tainted his actual denial when he finally made it because people figured: if this real denial is true, why didn't he make it from the get-go?
Homan said he didn't take $50,000. That eliminates only one of many possible large numbers.
DeleteIsn't it on tape? By now, everyone knows that Homan took money in a paper bag. Maybe it wasn't exactly $50K, as QiB is pointing out. It is also possible that he waited until Patel erases all evidence of Homan's bribery.
DeleteIlya - IIRC there is no official public statement that Homan took any money. The original story was an anonymous leak. I don't recall the original leak ever being officially confirmed.
DeleteIf they can protect the Epstein perps why not Homan?
Delete..IIRC there is no official public statement...
DeleteRight, only the fucking Attorney General of the USA confirmed in a Senate oversight hearing that there absolutely was an undercover investigation and she refused to answer questions about what happened to the $50,000.
The next honest and good faith comment posted by Dickhead in Cal will be his first.
"there is no official public statement that Homan took any money"
DeleteSo no one in the Trump Admin will admit Homan took the $. From that we should conclude.....?
"How desperate (and nutty) must a person be to engage in a non-name change name change like the one Hegseth engineered? Man [sic] is the rational animal, Aristotle once falsely declared."
ReplyDeleteSomerby was doing fine until he brought Aristotle into it, generalizing from Hegseth to all of humanity. We do not all behave like Hegseth.
As for humanity's rationality, Hegseth, Patel and others engaging in these non-denial denials are not "reasoning" but engaging in self-defense to get themselves off the hook for wrongdoing. Self-defense is found not only in all humans but also in animals and it has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with survival. The purpose of these non-denial denials is to deflect an attack. Irrationality is often more useful for doing that than rationality is. Calling someone incapable of rationality because they do not apply it all the time, or in a specific instance, makes no sense.
Somerby has long been prone to accusing humanity of being non-rational, calling Aristotle a jerk, without using good examples to support his case. Here is another instance of Somerby's failure to support his thesis that Aristotle himself was less than rational when he claimed that humanity (or mankind, since he wouldn't have extended rationality to women) was rational. Why does Somerby dislike Aristotle so much that he returns to this topic over and over? I suspect he resents some grade he got on his paper about Aristotle at Harvard. With these arguments, Somerby demonstrates that he deserved that grade.
I don’t recall Somerby calling Aristotle a jerk.
DeleteAristotle spoke a form of ancient Greek. Anyone thinking Somerby was alive back then, much less calling Aristotle anything, is being way too literal.
Delete“Why does Somerby dislike Aristotle so much that he returns to this topic over and over? I suspect he resents some grade he got on his paper about Aristotle at Harvard. With these arguments, Somerby demonstrates that he deserved that grade.”
DeleteWay to prove Bob’s point!…
Somerby and Aristotle are close personal friends. They call each other buddy.
DeleteVery platonic.
DeleteThe musings from this man pretending to be a woman, are hilarious!
Delete"I suspect he resents some grade he got on his paper about Aristotle at Harvard."
ReplyDeleteSomerby has never called Aristotle a jerk; he reverts to Aristotle's thesis that man is a rational animal so often because Somerby finds men's actions so irrational, the latest examples are those of Patel and Hegseth.
So his criticism of Aristotle is drenched in the kind of irony to which you are tone deaf.
It is Somerby's application of rationality that is the problem. There is nothing irrational about an accused person trying to defend himself.
DeleteAristotle is not to blame for Somerby's inability to think. One person does not prove a case against humanity -- yet Somerby overgeneralizes like this all the time.
Somerby is the jerk, not Aristotle. Once I patiently explained that the way people reason is not according to the rules of formal logic. In that sense, Aristotle was wrong about humans, but Somerby is also wrong to call people irrational because of this. Studies of human cognition show that people tend to reason probabilistically, based on experience in a context, not according to abstract laws. That makes sense because reason has evolved to enable people to survive.
But Somerby is not interested in thinking about how people reason. He is only using Artistotle to call names, attacking both specific people from day to day but also humanity in general when he says people are not rational -- a serious misunderstanding of the science of human cognition. It is OK for Somerby to stay as ignorant as he chooses. It seemed to me that readers in comments might prefer to be less ignorant.
You can keep defending Somerby or you can understand more about how people think, but you cannot do both. Somerby is being an asshole and that too is part of being human. Aristotle is not responsible for Somerby's flaws. Somerby owns them.
Aristotle didn’t know about evolution.
DeleteSomerby is not a rational animal.
Delete6:36 - You wrote that Somerby called Aristotle a "jerk." Commenters challenged the truth of what you wrote. Instead of backing up what you wrote, you deflected by blathering on about "Somerby's application of rationality" and ""the way people reason."
DeleteThe way I reason: When someone challenges the truth of what I say, I provide supporting evidence. You, on the other hand, appear to reason differently.
Or, if someone points out that I made a mistake, I admit the mistake and correct it. You should try it, it's not that hard, and it enhances your credibility. Instead of giving us several paragraphs of gorilla dust, just admit, for example, that Somerby never called Aristotle a "jerk."
Delete6:36,
Deleteyou're hopelessly confused but it would take too long to untangle your illogic. I can see that you're trying to reason; maybe re-read each post one more time before you post it.
That “blathering on” is called science.
Delete6:36
DeleteTry a search on the world wide web.
take your own advice
Delete“That ‘blathering on’ is called science.”
DeleteClassic!
That was me.
DeleteAristiotle's blog where he repeats Right-wing grievances, is where Somerby got the idea for TDH.
DeleteDogface you are taking the jerk comment excessively literal, probably willfully so.
Delete6:36 provided the context that clarifies, to even those with only two brain cells, what was obviously intended.
Some advice: when you engage in bad faith arguments like you do, you lose all credibility, rendering your comments irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteIt was reported that Bob Somerby had once sucked a donkey, and loved it.
Alas, no denial (not even a non-denial denial!) from Bob Somerby followed. Nether from Bob Somerby nor from anyone else. Not even from FBI head Kash Patel.
Sadly.
I don't get it.
DeleteVote Dem today - Republicans are incapable of governing: Day 35
ReplyDeleteIt's fascinating how well chosen words can hide more than they disclose. The most recent non-denial denial in today's political climate feels like a master class in ambiguity, where the truth twirls around perception, allowing viewers to wonder about the intention while appreciating the fine art of expressing everything without saying anything at all.
ReplyDeleteHoman was recorded taking a bride.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans have no shame, and they are damn proud of it.