#ResistanceNuts: Dem Senate candidate Richard Painter demands investigation into Justice Kennedy’s retirement, because Trump
Just when you thought they couldn’t get any more anti-Trump deranged.
There’s crazy, and then there’s #TheResistance crazy, which is a whole other level.
The latest evidence comes from Twitter/cable news star and conspiracy theorist Richard Painter, who is a Democrat candidate for Senate in Minnesota.
Painter is the poster child for how Twitter rewards the most insane anti-Trump rhetoric from people who, at one point in their lives, were legitimate. You can count many law professors among those who have made names for themselves with the general public by being the person who will outdo everyone else in their Trump derangement. (Think, Laurence Tribe.) It generates thousands (and sometimes tens of thousands) of retweets and followers, and the inevitable guest appearances on MSNBC and CNN.
And if you are a “Republican” who says outrageous things about Trump and Trump supporters, then you will be promoted endlessly on TV (think, Ana Navarro).
Painter has been screaming “treason” since Trump was in office, which we covered in Stop taking Richard Painter seriously given history of outlandish statements and treason accusations:
Richard Painter is the Vice Chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a left-wing activist group.
In December 2016, Painter replaced in the position of Vice Chair … wait for it … David Brock. Yes, that David Brock, the consummate Democratic oppo-research attack dog, leader of Media Matters, and now American Bridge. That David Brock was Vice Chair of CREW tells you everything you need to know about the group.
But you will almost never hear this part of Painter’s resume when he appears on TV, which he does quite often. You might hear that he’s a professor at U. Minnesota Law School. But most of all, you will hear that he is a former George W. Bush administration Chief Ethics Lawyer (2005-2007).
But in the age of Trump, his entree to TV commentary has been relentless Trump bashing — there is nothing the media loves more than someone who served in an Republican administration but now attacks Trump.
And Painter’s main TV role is to attack Trump in outlandish terms. I never heard of Painter — and I bet you never did either — until he started fulfilling the TV role of attacking Trump.
Painter called on Electors not to vote for Trump when the Electoral College met because of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution due to Trump’s ownership of hotels in which foreign government officials stay…
Painter has said he’s worried about “KGB agents running around the West Wing” in the White House and National Security Council….
One of Painter’s themes is to toss in the word “treason,” as in this MSNBC appearance in March 2017 …
Painter, because he plays the card of being a former Bush administration official, can drive headlines:
Painter is a central figure in #TheResistance, as we explored in Richard Painter and the David Brock-engineered partisan “non-partisan” CREW. He may be a Twitter nutter, but he’s an influential Twitter nutter.
He’s now running for Senate, Anti-Trump Activist Richard Painter’s First Ad is a Dumpster Fire – Literally:
Painter’s latest conspiracy theory, which is burning through #TheResistance ranks, is that Donald Trump may have engineered Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in some improper way, and there needs to be an investigation.
Painter didn’t invent this conspiracy theory, that *credit* goes to The New Republic article he retweeted, as well as Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden:
The entire conspiracy theory — that Trump somehow induced Kennedy to retire because Kennedy’s son, in his role as an investment banker, funded Trump in the past — makes zero sense. As many others have pointed out, for there to be influence, wouldn’t the money have to flow to, not from, a Kennedy family member?
More important, the story isn’t even true (tweets via Twitchy):
I worked at deutsche bank for 8yrs
I worked with Justin Kennedy
I read the stories – reached out to some former colleagues for their reaction
Here’s some broader context/perspective- Neither of which fit in 240 characters
(Part 1/2) pic.twitter.com/Ug8UQxhVlW— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) June 29, 2018
Part 2/2 pic.twitter.com/gV6lXxgSeD
— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) June 29, 2018
This is so nuts. #ResistanceNuts
https://twitter.com/michi83/status/1013234876756131841
The lunacy is only getting worse—just imagine if Trump gets to replace a liberal justice, toohttps://t.co/6ApQi7ICHL
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) July 1, 2018
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Comments
It would be great if Kennedy himself told Painter to just shut up.
We’ll see how normal Justin Kennedy’s Dad is, because any normal dad would not permit his child’s name to be drug through the mud by a lunatic for no good reason.
To address this nonsense would only give it life. Kennedy is 81 years old, he is allowed to retire. Trump is the President, he gets to pick the next SC judge. If his pick is qualified he or she should be confirmed.
A reason for free, socialized medicine, especially lobotomy…
And free streaming music from the wizard of oz.. Too bad he’s not from Kansas..
Any doubts that Bush wasn’t left leaning with a number of this ideas, this guy Painter should convince you.
Kennedy has been rumored to be wanting to retire for a few years now. While he is center most times, he was a swing vote because he could lean either way, making him a target for the leftist activist judges to work on swaying him, no matter how inane their stance using international and other countries laws to decide on the Constitutionality of decisions. He might have held on longer than expected, but no one really thought Hillary wouldn’t be crowned, so he would probably have retired no matter who was in office. Trump would have had some notice of his plans, but that is about it.
Painter is a nut. He fits right in with the Democrats these days. I hope the people of Minnesota, though they have a habit of electing truly deranged and mentally ill people into office, see him as just too far off the deep end.
I question his ethics, given that he is throwing around treason despite there being no evidence of that going on. Other than from maybe some of the nuts on the left.
I don’t know how a man as crazy and off the wall stupid could be an ethics lawyer, or any kind of lawyer. It must be that whatever illness he suffered to give him paralysis in his face, (and given his motions) his arm, it damaged his brain as well.
It is characters like him which make me question how stupid the people who would vote for him must be.
I don’t tie this to Bush or to McCain. But plenty of past staffers and associates of both are showing their true colors.
It’s not that they were really Dems but just GOP pretenders. I think it is more about power and protecting the old order. They are so desperate to do that, they chose to support a party that is going even further and harder to the left.
It just proves that the political class really doesn’t have that much honor or character. They are just like any other power hungry private sector person. Like any other unethical business executive, etc.
An 81 year old man decides to retire from his job out of the blue?
This must be Trump’s doing!
Actually it may be Trump’s doing. Kennedy wanted to retire when a Republican could pick his successor. Would he have retired if Hillary was elected? We will never know.
To hear Painter speak I have a difficult time believing he either just a sincere politician or essentially “all there.” My gut is telling me is more like McMullen (was that is name) – someone who has been funded that gives the left and the media another person to point to as a resister who has some present or past affiliation with the right. Even if there is something bogus about it all, including the affiliation.
Not a conspiracy person. But I wouldn’t be shocked to read that there was some big donors behind a number of these candidates, like a Soros, etc.
Yes. AKA: Egg McMuffin
He’s so wooden, he makes Al Gore seem like Gumby.
Painter is just desperate for attention.
He’s a *challenger* in the Democratic Party Primary next month to try to unseat the incumbent Democrat. He’s never held a public office in his life, and his only major endorsement is from an organization “linked to” Bernie Sanders. He’s raised almost $15,000 — compared to Senator Smith’s $2,000,000.
He’s probably always been more in the Bernie camp than in the center or anywhere else. He did work in the Ninth Circuit after all. And he’s been a legal academic for a lot of his career.
It’s a mystery how he ended up in Bush’s WH as an “ethics” adviser. Perhaps they wanted some advice from the other side?
But it still feels like a guy who is being funded to make the right look bad – a turncoat of sorts like Steve Schmidt or the many others. Even thought he probably never agreed with much conservative policy.
Scalia was found dead in bed with a pillow over his face but lets investigate the retirement of an 81 year old man who has been on the court for 30 years. Makes perfect sense.
Fercryinoutloud, Scalia did not have a pillow over his face. He had one over his head, which is perfectly normal and not even slightly suspicious.
And the difference between over his head and over his face is???
A pillow over the head rather than between the head and mattress really doesn’t make sense. Which is probably why the pillows location was noted at all.
The difference is that it is perfectly normal and common to sleep with a pillow over the head, but not with one over the face. and of course there is nothing even slightly sinister about the sight of a pillow over the head.
Which was precisely the point of the witness who reported it; the scene was completely peaceful and gave no reason for concern. That the barking moonbats of the right (including our current president) turned it into something sinister is bizarre and disgusting. To hear the lie repeated not in the heat of the moment but with years for the moonbats to have calmed down is very disturbing.
For some people, the face is part of their head, many have it up their a*s.
Yes, the face is part of the head. What point are you dishonestly pretending to make this time, you fraud?
Fraud
What precisely is fraudulent? Since you understand the English language quite well…
No autopsy was done. While Scalia likely died of natural causes, a public figure of this magnitude should have an autopsy done. That is one of the reasons that people who never wake up with a pillow over their head (and face) wonder if there is truth in an investigation of his death. Particularly when the investigation was so short.
Do I find the pillow over the head indicative of a murder? No, simple enough to reposition the pillow.
“Fercryinoutloud, Scalia did not have a pillow over his face.”
Yes, stupid, he did. What it doesn’t mean is that he was murdered.
I am calling you a fraud. You consistently make obvious and uncontroversial but irrelevant statements as if they were arguments for your case, when you know very well that they are not. Such as here where you state, as if it were either controversial or relevant, that the face is part of the head. Of course it is, and rain is wet and the moon rises in the east, but so what? Scalia’s pillow was not found on his face and anyone who claims it is, such as you, is lying.
No, liar, he did not, and you know it very well. You repeat your claim because you want to, not because you have any reason to suppose it to be true.
Now, who would think of retiring at 82 ?
All this has to happen for this to come to a head. These resisters believe the country is behind them. They may be in for a surprise. If they take the House they will be further exposed. People will increasingly see they are empty and destructive, despite their noble claims. Their world is surreal. They act like it’s Iran.
Re: OldSchoolTwentySix:
Re: they think we’re in Iran.
The truth is, the better things get for all the “minorities” the left “supports,” the more they scream bloody murder.
If they were really afraid, they wouldn’t be behaving this way. Notice they never insult muslims. Real courageous bunch, eh?
This dim bulb needs an investigation to figure why a man, 80 years old, is retiring? Pay me $10,000, I’ll tell you.
Yes there needs to be an investigation by the Judicial Committee! Not about 80 something justice retiring. But about the Chief Justice flipping his vote on ObozoCare.
Yes, that is on the same level of insanity as Painter’s suggestion.
Painter is literally a lunatic, and has been for a long time.
Well, sure, of course it doesn’t give him that power. Why would it have to? The important thing is that nowhere does it forbid him from doing so. In the absence of such a provision he is entitled to use any lawful means he likes, including “underhanded” ones, to induce anyone to resign from any position. Politics is rife with “underhanded means”, whatever that really means; it’s business as usual and has been since there were politics. So long as he broke no law (and there’s no foundation for suspecting that) there’s nothing to investigate.
The appropriate response to this clown is “sod off swampy”! And heckfire he is one of the more rational members of the “resistance”.
No, he isn’t. Though it’s hard to measure relative insanity at that level.
You haven’t listened to hardly anything he is saying in public I guess.
Well I hope Trump is not as stupid as Bush and pull a Harriet Miers. People want Trump to push Jeanine Pirro. She has so much baggage that it would consume 3 months of news cycle.
As for CREW, I consider them scum of the earth and hope all their bad karma gets them back.
If anyone has a chance to bet CREW, SLPC and other 2000 sleaze bags, Trump is about the only one I know that can get them before they get him.
Who’s “people”? I thought that was a dumb joke — another anonymously sourced data point in the fictional story of Evil Drumpf the Incompetent Dictator.
Time for the Republicans to start making “Unhinged Left in 2018: The Sequel” https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=rW-I3CDma14 .
This guy is as deranged and corrupt as John Brennan.
I’m not seeing the alleged “inducement” here. Retire now or I won’t let your son loan me more money? I won’t pay back my loans? The money is going the wrong direction for it to be a bribe.
That must have been a very heavy pillow.
That is what press gangs are for.
I couldn’t get the gif/video to play so I went to her twitter account. I still couldn’t get it to play. But I did read the comments. Apparently only #resisters comment there. And they are unhinged. They can’t make a rational case for why this is improper, but since they live in an echo chamber they don’t know they’re completely loony tunes.
I’ve never worked at an investment bank and I’ve never had one give me a million dollar loan. Does only one person have the authority to cut the check or are there other people involved in approving the loan application? Every loan I’ve ever had, from cars to mortgages, was never a one person process. And did the Trumps make the payments or are these lunatics arguing that it was somehow a “gift” that Justice Kennedy’s son bestowed on Trump? Because if they paid it back with interest it wasn’t a gift. It was a valid loan.
But since the Democrats (and they’re all part of the unhinged Socialist “resistance” now even if some of them don’t know it yet) now believe a campaign of intimidation and actual violence against Republicans in general and Trump administration officials and Trump supporters in particular is justified we shouldn’t be surprised when the lose their s*** over someone who was involved in a legitimate business deal with the Trumps.
What are they going to do; what’s the plan here? Tell Kennedy he can’t retire as long as Trump is President? Force Kennedy to remain on the SCOTUS bench? That would be equally bats*** crazy since in their twisted mind Trump has somehow compromised Kennedy.
Typo. I meant to say billion, not million. Hey the letters are only separated by the “N” key.
Richard Painter, you mean “Two Face” LOL? What’s wrong with the man’s FACE???? Creepy as hell.
I think he literally has brain damage which explains lots.
The best use of Painter as an advisor would be to do the exact opposite of whatever he recommends.
anyone who thinks Scalia was murdered has no business complaining at Painter’s insanity.
The problem with the handling of Scalia’s death is that it did not follow normal procedures. His body was never examined, following his death. He apparently did not exhibit any distress prior to his death [there was no witnesses that he appeared ill or complained about how he felt at the time. The cause of death was simply accepted by a justice of the peace based upon statements made by acquaintances. And, that same JOP released the body immediately and it was cremated shorty there after.
Now, none of this establishes any real suspicion of foul play. How ever it does not dispel any suspicion of foul play. And, that is the problem deaths under unusual circdumstances involving high profile people.
Yes, it did. Where there is no reason to suspect foul play it is normal to sign the certificate without delay, and very unusual to demand an autopsy, especially over the family’s objections.
“Yes, it did. Where there is no reason to suspect foul play it is normal to sign the certificate without delay, and very unusual to demand an autopsy, especially over the family’s objections.”
Wrong. This was an unattended death of a high profile government official. There was no reported complaints of any kind of distress, of the deceased, immediately before his demise. His body was not examined by the coroner, either at the scene or at the morgue. The death certificate was signed by a justice of the peace who never responded to the scene. And, the body was cremated quickly. Now, as political assassinations do occur, that possibility could have, and should have, been ruled out. However, it was not. So, that possibility still exists and as long as it exists there will always be questions concerning the cause of death of Antonin Scalia, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United states of America. And, when a person accepts positions such as this, that person surrenders certain rights, such as the right to avoid an autopsy if the victim of an unattended death.
So what? The deceased’s profile makes absolutely no difference. The law is the same for everyone, and I defy you to point to the statute that mentions someone’s profile in this context. In the absence of any grounds for suspicion it is normal to issue the certificate and completely abnormal to demand an autopsy, especially over family objections.
BS. There is no such principle known to the law. You just made it up.
I don’t think Scalia was murdered. 79 year olds die of natural causes all the time. But if somebody came up with evidence that he may have been I’d consider it. Consequently I’m open to the possibility. I’m willing to change my mind on that point but again if there were evidence.
On the other hand I have all the evidence I need to know Painter should be committed. No amount of purported evidence can make me change my mind.
So I don’t see how your analogy is remotely exact.
Huh? You seem to be confused. Reread my comment before responding again, because you seem to think I wrote something very different from what I did.
Painter’s assertion is just as insane as the assertion that Scalia was murdered. Anyone who believes the latter has no business challenging the former.
How about if I just suspect it?
Then you have no business challenging Painter’s “suspicion” that there’s something sinister about Kennedy’s resignation. Though even if he were right his tweet would still be bizarre, because so long as the constitution doesn’t specifically forbid the president from using “underhanded means” to secure a resignation he’s entitled to do so. Whereas if Scalia was murdered, that would be illegal.
No. What I’m telling you is that one thing might possibly be sane. And the other isn’t conceivably possible. Ergo the analogy falls apart.
It’s close, I give you that. But not exact.
It is conceivably possible for Trump to use “underhanded means” (whatever that means) to induce Kennedy to resign, just as it’s conceivably possible for Scalia to have been murdered. There just isn’t any reason to suppose either thing happened.