Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater. (the previous edition can be found here if you are super behind).
House-keeping:

1. How to read: the headings will guide you through this piece. The Main Course covers the “big” stories and The Sides covers the “smaller” stories. IF YOU FOLLOW THE NEWS CLOSELY: you likely know about the stories in the Main Course section, so you will be best served by scrolling down to The Sides portion.
   
2. How to support: If you enjoy my work, please consider becoming a patron. I do this to keep track and will never hide behind a paywall, but these projects take a lot of time and effort to create. Even a couple of dollars a month helps. Since someone asked a few weeks ago (thank you!), here's a PayPal option
   
3. How to get notifications: If you’d like to be added to my newsletter, use this SIGNUP FORM and you’ll get these recaps in your inbox!
   

Let’s dig in!

MAIN COURSE

Trump’s war on the intelligence community: 10 days under an authoritarian administration

I wrote a stand-alone piece covering the biggest news from last week: Over the past 10 days, we've seen Trump fully indulge his authoritarian impulses in an attempt to stamp out any inkling of facts that he dislikes - whether that be for personal, egocentric reasons or to shore up political strength. This began with a briefing given to the House Intelligence Committee that Russia is seeking to re-elect Trump. In response, Trump purged the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of officials he perceived to be disloyal, installing loyalists in their place.
Also covered: how Trump gets away with a cabinet full of acting officials, Richard Grenell’s numerous dis-qualifications, a pardon offered to Julian Assange, and the hunt for “Never Trumpers” in the administration.

Sunday night update

On Sunday, Trump made a veiled threat toward House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff while claiming without evidence that the Democrat had leaked information from the Russia briefing on Feb. 13: “Somebody please tell incompetent (thanks for my high poll numbers) & corrupt politician Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff to stop leaking Classified information or, even worse, made up information, to the Fake News Media. Someday he will be caught, & that will be a very unpleasant experience!” tweet
Later, while speaking to reporters, Trump called for an investigation into the leak - more concerned about the public learning of the briefing than he is about Russia’s repeated interference in U.S. elections. “They leaked it, Adam Schiff and his group. They leaked it to the papers and - as usual - they ought to investigate Adam Schiff for leaking that information,” Trump said.
Schiff responded: “Nice deflection, Mr. President. But your false claims fool no one. You welcomed Russian help in 2016, tried to coerce Ukraine’s help in 2019, and won’t protect our elections in 2020.”

Pardon-palooza

Authoritarians also dispense largesse, but they do it by their own whims, rather than pursuant to any system or legal rule. The point of authoritarianism is to concentrate power in the ruler, so the world knows that all actions, good and bad, harsh and generous, come from a single source. (The New Yorker)

Last week, Trump granted pardons and commutations to 11 people with one thing in common: connections. Trump bypassed the process of formal procedures typically used to determine who is given a pardon, instead relying on connections to his wealthy friends and political allies.

• Former governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted of soliciting bribes from candidates to replace Barack Obama in the Senate after Obama was elected president, knew Trump personally from his appearance on The Celebrity Apprentice. Trump falsely claimed that former FBI Director James Comey was involved in Blagojevich's prosecution; Comey did not take over at the FBI until years after the Blagojevich case.
  
  • Illinois' entire GOP congressional delegation—Darin LaHood, John Shimkus, Adam Kinzinger, Rodney Davis, and Mike Bost: "Blagojevich is the face of public corruption in Illinois, and not once has he shown any remorse for his clear and documented record of egregious crimes that undermined the trust placed in him by voters...Blagojevich is the face of public corruption in Illinois, and not once has he shown any remorse for his clear and documented record of egregious crimes that undermined the trust placed in him by voters." (source)
• Former San Francisco 49ers team owner Eddie DeBartolo, who was convicted of “failing to report a felony” in 1998 after he paid a $400,000 bribe for a casino license, was pardoned as a result of the lobbying of New England Patriots owner and frequent Mar-a-Lago guest Robert Kraft.
  
• Michael Milken, the so-called junk bond king who was convicted in 1990 of securities and tax fraud, knew Trump personally and frequently spent time with him at Mar-a-Lago. In his first memoir, Trump called Milken “a brilliant guy.” Many of Trump’s inner circle also lobbied for a pardon for Milken, including Rudy Giuliani, Jared Kushner, Steven Mnuchin, and developer friends Howard Lorber and Richard LeFrak. In fact, last year Mnuchin “flew on Mr. Milken’s private jet from Washington to Los Angeles and helped secure a real estate tax break that could benefit Mr. Milken.” A key backer of Milken’s pardon, hedge fund manager (and executive of Wendy’s) Nelson Peltz, held a record-breaking fundraiser for Trump’s re-election campaign at his home just 3 days before Milken was pardoned.
  
  • John K. Carroll: “As one of the lead prosecutors on the Milken case, I am outraged — not at the specific result here but at what the pardon process says about the way justice is served in our country...What outrages me, and what I think should outrage others, is the process that brought about the pardon. In as guileless an admission as I have ever seen of rich man’s justice, the White House bolstered its decision by listing a murderer’s row of Republican donors and billionaires who provided “widespread and long-standing” support for Milken’s pardon. Sheldon Adelson, Tom Barrack, my old boss Giuliani and others are listed as supporters of the pardon. If I had to prove that the scales of justice tilt toward the rich, I would offer that list and then sit down and wait for the jury to convict.”
• Former New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik, who was convicted in 2009 of lying to federal investigators and committing tax fraud, knew Trump personally and had Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera sign a letter on his behalf requesting a pardon from the president. In 2004, Trump called Kerik “a friend of mine” and “a great guy.” Rudy Giuliani also supported the request, as Kerik once served as a senior vice president at Giuliani Partners.
  
  • "The pardon cancels out $103,300 in restitution that Kerik still owed the Internal Revenue Service as part of his sentence, according to a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan." (source)
• Paul Pogue, a construction company owner who pleaded guilty to underpaying his taxes by $473,000, did not know Trump and did not have any Fox News personalities lobby on his behalf. Instead, Pogue’s family appears to have purchased a presidential pardon. Pogue’s son and daughter-in-law made over $200,000 in contributions to the Trump Victory Committee last year. The couple also made several large donations to the Republican National Committee and each donated $5,600 to Donald Trump for President Inc.,” according to FEC filings.
  

Roger Stone going to prison

Perhaps not coincidentally, Trump’s pardoning of corrupt public officials like Blagojevich occurred just two days before Roger Stone’s sentencing for lying to investigators, obstructing a congressional investigation, and witness tampering. Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Stone to 40 months - or 3.3 years - in prison, much lighter than the original 7-9 year sentencing recommendation made by career prosecutors who withdrew from the case in protest of AG Barr’s intervention.
Lawfare has a great line-by-line breakdown of the sentencing hearing, if you’d like the nitty-gritty details. But if you only have time to read one excerpt from the hearing, I suggest the following:

Judge Jackson: “The truth still exists. The truth still matters. Roger Stone's insistence that it doesn't, his belligerence, his pride in his own lies are a threat to our most fundamental institutions, to the very foundation of our democracy...The dismay and the disgust at the attempts by others to defend his actions as just business as usual in our polarized climate should transcend party. The dismay and the disgust with any attempts to interfere with the efforts of prosecutors and members of the judiciary to fulfill their duty should transcend party.
"Sure, the defense is free to say: So what? Who cares? But, I'll say this: Congress cared. The United States Department of Justice and the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia that prosecuted the case and is still prosecuting the case cared. The jurors who served with integrity under difficult circumstances cared. The American people cared. And I care."

Judge Jackson pushes back
During the hearing, Judge Jackson said that the jurors in the case "served with integrity." Stone’s lawyers took this statement and moved to disqualify the judge from the case, claiming that her remarks “rendered her unable to fairly rule on his bid for a new trial.”

"Stone’s Motion for New Trial is directly related to the integrity of a juror. It is alleged that a juror misled the Court regarding her ability to be unbiased and fair and the juror attempted to cover up evidence that would directly contradict her false claims of impartiality," his lawyers argued.
"The premature statement blessing the “integrity of the jury” undermines the appearance of impartiality and presents a strong bias for recusal," they added.

As expected, Jackson denied the motion to have her disqualified...
A pardon for Stone?
But the goal may be to reach the ears of the president instead. According to Politico, a former senior administration official who remains in contact with Trump and his senior advisers says about a pardon for Roger Stone: “It’s not a question of if; it’s when.” Following the sentencing, Trump argued that Stone’s jury was “tainted” and said that “Roger has a very good chance of exoneration.”
On Sunday, Trump was asked about the possibility of a pardon for Stone and instead took the opportunity to attack the jury forewoman, again:

"That juror is so biased and so tainted, that shouldn't happen in our criminal justice system… You have a juror that is obviously tainted. She was an activist against Trump. She said bad things about Trump and bad things about Stone," the President claimed without evidence. "She somehow weaseled her way onto the jury and if that's not a tainted jury then there is no such thing as a tainted jury."

More info on Stone’s lenient sentence

In the week since four prosecutors withdrew from Stone’s case in protest of AG Barr’s interference, we have gotten a slow drip-drip of new information. A piece by The New York Times Sunday summed it up nicely: Timothy Shea, appointed to replace Jessie Liu as head D.C. attorney, was sent to the office specifically to steer cases to the president’s benefit after previous efforts failed.

A new boss, Timothy Shea, had just arrived and had told them on his first day that he wanted a more lenient recommendation for Mr. Stone, and he pushed back hard when they objected, according to two people briefed on the dispute. They grew suspicious that Mr. Shea was helping his longtime friend and boss, Attorney General William P. Barr, soften the sentencing request to please the president.
...The tensions between the office, the Justice Department and the White House date back further than the tumult in the Stone case. They have been simmering since at least last summer, when the office’s investigation of Andrew G. McCabe, a former top F.B.I. official whom the president had long targeted, began to fall apart.
Mr. Shea’s predecessor, Jessie K. Liu, a lawyer whom Mr. Trump had appointed to lead the office in 2017, pressed the McCabe case even after one team of prosecutors concluded that they could not win a conviction. After a second team was brought in and also failed to deliver a grand jury indictment, Ms. Liu’s relationship with Mr. Barr grew strained, people close to them said. She left the position this year, though she and Mr. Barr have both stressed to associates that her departure was amicable.

Undoing Mueller’s work

Trump’s efforts to derail the sentencing of Stone can be seen as part of a larger campaign to rewrite history, and specifically, erase the findings of the Mueller investigation. Roger Stone’s indictment shows that Stone was acting on Trump's personal order to find Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails stolen by Russia. In order to cover-up his role in the Russia-Wikileaks-Trump network, Stone lied to investigators and threatened a witness. By claiming that Stone did not commit a crime, Trump is attempting to reverse the findings of the Mueller report and make himself the victim.
Last week, Trump embarked on a rambling Twitter thread calling for all cases stemming from Mueller’s probe to be “thrown out.” He continued, saying: “If I wasn’t President, I’d be suing everyone all over the place.......BUT MAYBE I STILL WILL. WITCH HUNT!”
Hours later, while discussing the spate of pardons he had issued that day, Trump made the astounding assertion that he is “the chief law enforcement officer of the country” and thus has the “legal right” to interfere in criminal cases. “I’m allowed to be totally involved,” the president added. While technically he is incorrect - the Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer - in practice Trump has been proven right. A lawless chief executive is in fact in charge of enforcing the law when the Attorney General acts as his personal fixer.

This is in the style of autocrats across the globe, who weaponize the law to help themselves and their friends and hurt their enemies. The nation’s legal system is now run by a man who has spent his life mocking it. (NYT Editorial Board)

Meanwhile, the president’s allies have reportedly been urging him to fire anyone who was involved in Mueller’s investigation:

The MAGA punditry’s outsized influence over the president means their campaign against the so-called Mueller “holdovers” is likely not falling on deaf ears, especially given Trump’s fixation with what his defenders and detractors are saying about his administration in their frequent appearances on his favorite TV programs.
“It's totally unclear to me why any members of the Mueller team need to remain in the Trump DOJ,” the pro-Trump conservative blogger Will Chamberlain wrote after news broke of the Stone sentencing recommendation.
...GOP operative Arthur Schwartz, a close friend of Donald Trump Jr. who has been described as the eldest son’s “fixer,” said of the career officials in question: “I think they should all be investigated.”
...John Dowd, a former Trump lawyer who remains in touch with the White House, characterized the line attorneys in the Stone case as “insubordinate,” and “the same crowd of prosecutors wedded to the Mueller agenda” who need to be “cleaned out” from DOJ. “And Bill Barr is doing that,” Dowd said.

What can be done about the politicization of the DOJ? In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School suggests that “Congress should transform the Justice Department into an independent agency, legally immunized from the president’s day-to-day control.”

Public charge rule takes effect

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the government to implement new “wealth test” rules making it easier to deny immigrants residency or admission to the United States if they might depend on public-assistance programs. Legal challenges will continue in lower courts in the meantime. Doug Rand, co-founder of Boundless Immigration who formerly worked on immigration policy in the Obama White House, estimates that as many as 400,000 people every year could be denied green cards or visas because of the new rules.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a written dissent that was sharply critical of both the federal government and her conservative colleagues, warning that they are “putting a thumb on the scale in favor of” the Trump administration. Read her full seven-page dissent here.

The justice wrote that granting emergency applications often upends "the normal appellate process" while "putting a thumb on the scale in favor of the party that won." Targeting her conservative colleagues, she said "most troublingly, the Court's recent behavior" has benefited "one litigant over all others."
"Claiming one emergency after another, the Government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases," Sotomayor said. "It is hard to say what is more troubling," she said, pointing to the case at hand, "that the Government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the Court would grant it." CNN

THE SIDES

Justice Department’s new rules benefit Giuliani

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, the DOJ indicated that the agency has implemented another layer of approval that would make it difficult for prosecutors to widen their probe into Rudy Giuliani:

The Justice Department revealed Tuesday that law enforcement officials running Ukraine-related investigations must seek approval before expanding their inquiries — a move that could have implications for Rudolph W. Giuliani, as President Trump’s personal attorney pushes for scrutiny of the president’s political foes while facing a federal probe into his own conduct.
Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd wrote to Nadler that the department had tapped two U.S. attorneys to assist in the process — Scott Brady in Pittsburgh to receive and assess new information, and Richard Donoghue in Brooklyn to help coordinate personnel throughout the Justice Department involved in Giuliani’s case and others with a focus on Ukraine. An accompanying internal memo, circulated by Rosen in January, says that he and Donoghue must approve expansions of any inquiries.

Related: The Hill admits John Solomon’s columns were misleading

The Hill’s review of Solomon’s work can be found here. I have found the review itself to be overly generous to the publication (no surprise), so I will quote from a WaPo summary of the review:

In effect, the Hill said Solomon amplified an inaccurate and one-sided narrative about the Bidens and Ukraine that was fed to him by Giuliani, “facilitated” by businessman Lev Parnas, who was working with Giuliani at the time, and reinforced by Solomon’s own attorneys, who also represented clients embroiled in U.S.-Ukraine politics.
But the Hill stopped short of retracting or apologizing for Solomon’s articles, nor did it say it shouldn’t have published them. It also didn’t characterize Solomon’s motives in presenting what appears to be a largely debunked conspiracy theory about Ukraine.
“In certain columns, Solomon failed to identify important details about key Ukrainian sources, including the fact that they had been indicted or were under investigation,” said the internal investigation, which was overseen by the newspaper’s editor, Bob Cusack. “In other cases, the sources were [Solomon’s] own attorneys” — Victoria Toensing and Joseph DiGenova, who have also represented President Trump and Giuliani, who was also a key source for Solomon’s columns.
Solomon didn’t disclose this connection in his columns nor did he disclose to his editors that he shared drafts of his stories with Toensing, DiGenova and Parnas, the review noted.

Trump tries to block Bolton book

The Washington Post reports that Trump is attempting to block the release of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book, instructing aides that it should not be released until after the November election.

Trump has told his lawyers that Bolton should not be allowed to publish any of his interactions with him about national security because they are privileged and classified, these people said. He has also repeatedly brought up the book with his team, asking whether Bolton is going to be able to publish it, they said.
Trump told national television anchors on Feb. 4 during an off-the-record lunch that material in the book was “highly classified,” according to notes from one participant in the luncheon. He then called him a “traitor.”
“We’re going to try and block the publication of the book,” Trump said, according to the notes. “After I leave office, he can do this. But not in the White House...I give the guy a break. I give him a job. And then he turns on me,” Trump added during the West Wing lunch. “He’s just making things up.”

Susan Rice tells Bolton the truth

During a panel discussion at Vanderbilt University on Wednesday, Bolton shared the stage with Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice. Bolton made excuses for his failure to testify in Trump’s impeachment trial, blaming the House for committing “impeachment malpractice.” Rice challenged Bolton repeatedly, denigrating his decision to promote his book instead of testify:

"I thought a lot about if I had been in that position how would I have approached it, and I'll be honest: It's inconceivable to me that if I had firsthand knowledge of gross abuse of presidential power that I would withhold my testimony from a constitutional accountability process.”
"I can't imagine withholding my testimony, with or without a subpoena," Rice said. "I also can't imagine, frankly, in the absence of being able to provide the information directly to Congress, not having exercised my First Amendment right to speak publicly at a time when my testimony or my experience would be relevant. And, frankly, when my subordinates ... were doing their duty and responding in a fashion consistent with their legal obligations to provide information."
"I would feel like I was shamefully violating the oath that I took to support and defend the Constitution."

Trump corruption update

President Donald Trump’s choice to stay at his own Las Vegas hotel each night during the western states swing that wraps up Friday likely cost taxpayers a million extra dollars as well as diverted thousands of them into his own cash registers.

Breaking with precedent, Trump flew back to Vegas to stay every night at his Trump International Hotel, despite his day activities taking place in California, Arizona, and Colorado.

Had Trump held the same events but done so in a geographically logical order ― starting in Beverly Hills and finishing in Colorado Springs, but overnighting each day in the city where he would begin the following morning ― Trump would have spent four fewer hours aboard Air Force One, thereby saving taxpayers about $1.1 million.
...Indeed, the repeated overnight trips to Las Vegas may have forced the Secret Service and other support personnel to keep a motorcade there for a full four days, rather than move it to the site of an upcoming presidential trip

This week, Trump has a whole new country to focus on: India, home to the largest portfolio of Trump real estate projects outside North America, according to the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. According to The Washington Post, since the elder Trump’s last trip to India in 2014, two of his business partners have encountered massive legal and financial trouble.
During Trump’s time as president, the Trump Organization has vigorously promoted their properties in India, earning millions of dollars in royalties:

In 2018, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. — who runs the Trump Organization with his brother, Eric Trump — spent several days in India promoting the family’s developments, attending a champagne dinner with condo buyers who plunked down $39,000 deposits and bringing in millions of dollars in new sales. While there, he also met with Modi behind closed doors. The next year, Trump’s Indian business partners flew 100 early buyers of his luxury condos near Delhi to visit Trump Tower and Trump Ferry Point golf course in New York City as a way to generate interest in the properties in India. One attendee gushed afterward about meeting the son of a U.S. president on the trip.

Trump 2020: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook

President Donald Trump’s campaign is bringing on an alum of the controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica...Matt Oczkowski, who served as head of product at Cambridge before it went bankrupt and shut down in 2018, is helping oversee the Trump campaign’s data program...Oczkowski, who also worked on Trump’s 2016 effort, joined the reelection campaign in January, and payments to his company, HuMn Behavior, are expected to show up on Trump’s next campaign finance disclosure later this month. (Politico)

An Axios report revealed where most of Trump’s re-election campaign is spending its advertising budget: on Facebook ads. “Last fall, the campaign urged Facebook to keep the same tools for political advertisers that they make available to companies...Facebook ultimately decided not to change its policies around microtargeting.” However, unlike in 2016, the campaign is also diversifying, “testing new strategies on several dozen platforms, including YouTube, Google, ad exchanges, publisher networks and conservative podcasts.”

• Side note: The IRS is suing Facebook for $9 million in back taxes, alleging the social media company undervalued intellectual properties when selling them to an Irish subsidiary in 2010. Ireland has lower corporate tax rates than the United States, so the move reduced the company’s tax bill.

Erik Prince investigations

There is apparently another investigation into Blackwater Founder - and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos - Erik Prince. The FBI is reportedly investigating Prince “for his 2015 attempt to modify two American-made crop-dusting planes into attack aircraft — a violation of arms trafficking regulations...The planes became part of private military services Prince proposed to sell or use in mercenary operations in Africa and Azerbaijan.”
This new investigation adds to Prince’s legal problems, though he insists that he is untouchable “under this guy,” referring to Trump. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Justice Department is “in the late stages of deciding whether to charge” Prince for allegedly lying to Congress in its Russia probe and violating U.S. export laws in his business dealings overseas.

Trump blocking prominent climate change warning

The United States is against mentioning climate change in the communique of the world’s financial leaders, G20 diplomats said, after a new draft of the joint statement showed the G20 are considering including it as a risk factor to growth...G20 sources said the United States was reluctant to accept language on climate change as a risk to the economy. Reuters

On Sunday, it was announced that the U.S. ultimately agreed to a less-prominent placement for the risks of climate change. It will now appear in language referencing the Financial Stability Board’s work examining the implications of climate change for financial stability.

One of the G20 sources said it was the first time a reference to climate change had been included in a G20 finance communique during Trump’s presidency, even though it was removed from the top of the joint statement. U.S. officials have resisted naming climate change as an economic risk since Trump took office in 2017. One of his first acts as president was to announce Washington’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.

Rightwing threats

Last week, two men were arrested in separate incidents involving threats to President Trump’s perceived opponents.
A Michigan man, Brittan J. Atkinson, was arrested on Thursday for sending death threats to Mark Zaid, an attorney for the Ukraine whistleblower. Atkinson sent the threats in November, on the day that Trump held up a photo of Zaid and read some of his tweets at a rally in Louisiana.

"All traitors must die miserable deaths," Atkinson's email read in part, the indictment says. "Those that represent traitors shall meet the same fate[.] We will hunt you down and bleed you out like the pigs you are. We have nothing but time, and you are running out of it, Keep looking over your shoulder[.] We know who you are, where you live, and who you associate with[.] We are all strangers in a crowd to you[.]"

On Wednesday, Salvatore Lippa of New York was arrested for threatening to assault and murder Rep. Adam Schiff and Sen. Chuck Schumer in voicemails last month.

Lippa started the threatening message by calling the congressman "Schiff, Shifty Schiff," invoking the nickname used by President Donald Trump for Schiff, the lead House manager during Trump's impeachment trial.
...When questioned by U.S Capitol Police, Lippa admitted to making the threatening calls to Schiff and Schumer because he said he was upset about the impeachment proceedings, prosecutors said.

State news

• Washington Post: A second court has temporarily blocked North Carolina’s new voter identification law on the argument that it discriminates against African Americans. The ruling reduces the likelihood that the rule will be in effect in a key swing state during November’s elections. A three-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that intent to discriminate was a “primary motivating factor” behind the voter ID law, which passed the Republican legislature in late 2018.
  
• CBS News: Florida cannot bar felons who served their time from registering to vote simply because they have failed to pay all fines and fees stemming from their cases, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
  
• CNN: Mississippi's law banning abortions at the detection of a fetal heartbeat -- as early as six weeks into pregnancy -- will remain blocked, a panel of circuit judges ruled on Thursday...The three-judge panel on the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's ruling that the Mississippi law unconstitutionally prohibited pre-viability abortions.
  
• Tampa Bay Times: A curious request arrived in the inboxes of Florida tax collectors last week from an employee of the Republican National Committee. He asked for “all email addresses that have been collected and are in the possession of the Tax Collector’s Office.” He also wanted any names, property addresses and phone numbers connected to those emails in their records. If the tax collectors had complied, the Republican Party would soon have a valuable trove of personal information for millions of Floridians as it gears up for the 2020 election: A detailed database of many taxpayers’ emails plus the name, address and phone number tied to that email.
  
• Associated Press: Most Republican lawmakers refused to attend a Tuesday night session of the Oregon House of Representatives amid a slowdown over anger at a sweeping bill on climate change. Earlier, Republican lawmakers, who are a minority in the House, insisted that bills coming to the floor be read in their entirety instead of being summarized, which slowed things down substantially. The 2020 session of the Legislature lasts only 35 days, being an even-year short session.
  
• Q13 Fox News: Efforts to expel a controversial state representative from the Washington Legislature are likely over after no Republicans would sign a letter calling for state Rep. Matt Shea’s expulsion. The Spokesman-Review reports that all 98 members of the state House of Representatives were asked Thursday to sign a letter calling for the expulsion of Spokane Valley Republican. All 56 Democrats signed the letter, but no Republicans did.
  

CONTINUED BELOW

A FISTFULL OF SLIME
Intro:
Jcole:
Here ye members of the court! A tale of legend I..Jcole, have come to report!
From fire and steel to gold and ice!
To drip to drown, with virtue or vice?
In our fair land of rhyme and rhythm
What is now whole shall fall to schism
The King Youngboy, the great lord Drake!
From Kanye to Uzi’s Eternal Atake!
Great powers come to move and shift
Lend ear to my tale
And let your mind drift.
38 Baby the Second
*Whole cast celebrating in the streets for youngboys album release*
Ensemble:
Oh its time its almost time! The Great rap day awaits!
Oh it's time to drip or drown
With Youngboy’s sacred Tape!
Kanye:
I had a twisted fantasy!
Chief Keef:
And I made Finally rich
Polo G:
But next to youngboy’s greatest work we all seem like his bitch
Quando:
You old heads are so dramatic.
Ensemble:
Oh its time it's time! Everyone get frantic!
Oh it's time to drip or drown
With Youngboy’s latest antic!
Drake:
Oh youngboy of greatest slime!
This work I can't await!
For when it falls upon my ears
I'm sure that I will faint!
Youngboy:
Yes I know my little slimes I know you want this flame
But before all the hype explodes just let me say its name!
Ensemble: Thirty Eight Baby Two!!
*Ddawg nudges Quando, whispers in ear *
Both in unison:
Attention crowd! let the man speak treat his words with respect watch your attention peak.
*Quando looks at youngboy and winks, youngboy bows head slightly*
Youngboy:
ok ok, I’d like to thank you all who came to hear my proclamation.
From all corners of the nation
we build up a foundation
with hard work-determination and no incantation.
and no nothing was built on the back of 38 so I’d appreciate if y’all could wait
just a little while longer. But my what an honour to rule this fine fief or rap lords and trap queens alike and despite
the wars ending our economy’s not!
And we’ve made a play onto the global stage and stole the spot!
*Kanye points at watch*
Light, right. In conclusion our peace is might tight. But 38 2 is not ripe; believe me I’m trying to write fast and I’ll have it ready in a right flash.
Drake:
thank you for your attentive ears loyal subjects, now disperse.
Scene 1:
*The party fades and most leave, except Drake Kanye and YB*
Drake:
Ha Ha, what a show Your Slimeness!
The populace can't wait!
this album will change the game
right from under our feet all over again.
Youngboy:
Yes...Yes they did seem excited didn't they?
I just hope I can live up to it.
Kanye:
How could the first king to win his throne on one one album alone possibly disappoint.
Youngboy:
You miss the point
Drake:
let alone your ascension to the throne was spectacular now you’ve got that tone plus your vernacular *hand kiss food thingy* you're magic is here. you’ve got the people eating from the palm of your hand. True power my boy there is no equal and be most careful, for there is not always a sequel.
Youngboy:
thank you Lord Drake, Lord Kanye.
*Enter Quando Rondo and Ddawg*
Quando:
YooooOOOO! You know it’s Quando and Ddwag about to tear it up and you know I feel my talent flarein, my boy YB bout to drop the heat. But then why his company looking older than 1st street?
Ddawg:
Word.
Kanye:
I can’t believe they made it past my guards again.
*Youngboy shoots Kanye a dirty look and Kanye recomposes*
Youngboy:
I’m glad you guys are here I’ve-
Quando:
wait wa wait wat, it can wait. I’ve just received an invitation from a trio of lucky maidens to accompany them to the tavern
Ddawg:
it’d be dope to hang out as a group again.
Youngboy :
it would be
*smiles at Ddawg*
but knowing you, we’d probably end in a drunken brawl over somebody’s honour.
Quando:
like you don’t love it.
Youngboy:
that may be so, but I’ve just got a lot going on right now and with 38 2 so close, dont worry about it. As soon as 38 baby 2 drops We’ll all go out drinking fine henny until we burst.
Ddawg:
let’s make it Molly water , can’t Stand the scent of Hennesey after last time.
Youngboy:
alright
*Both look at Quando who is playing hard to get*
Quando:
ok but you’re buying.
Youngboy:
when didn’t I
*Mockingly curtsy*
both: my lord
*Youngboy laughs until he realized Kanye is glaring at him the same way he was earlier and recomposes*
Kanye:
that’s enough
*Q&D exit *
Kanye:
you know my liege, you didn’t have to bring them to the capital with you.
Youngboy:
what’s the point of being king if I forget where I came from?
Drake:
besides the boy is young, let him have his fun while he can
*pats YB on the back*
Kanye:
You know I always loved this part of the Castle.
The Hall of Kings.
From Pac to Pump
All our fabled leaders represented in carti’s glory.
One day you can be up there Youngboy.
Along with the Greats.
Youngboy:
Would you two leave me for the night?
I wish to do some thinking.
Drake:
But of course.
*Drake and Ye exit*
The Pressures of Clout
Youngboy:
Kings of Old Instruct me! Tell me what to do!
How can I make a new album, that can live up to all of you?
They all want another Untouchable, they all want another Dream
But they don't think about what it takes
To achieve that kind of Gleam
I just need more time but release day is coming
I just need the drip and the top to keep coming
I just wish that something would take their mind off it!
I just wish that I had time to enjoy my profit
I need more time
All the days that spent writing, was all for not if they don’t like it?
Even when I hear it, I know that it’s not perfect (and they deserve perfect)
The past is wall I can’t break through, the future an abyss, that holds true
I just wish that something would take their mind off it!
Just long enough to a polish all its gleam to shine!
I need more time.
If Im to do it right
the people want it done right,
tight. I’ll sit and type and every day and every night ill write
the lyrics out and print em out I’ll use my mind to the peak of it's design.
Cuz that’s part of the slimelight!
I’ll write until I lose sight I’ll write until the albums right.
And yeah I might just write until I drop dead but you have no idea how much I’ve bled! The streets discuss my album and I’m all bed if I die in the pursuits of slime then at least I’m all red.
But alas I ramble and rave in my spot
Savage asked how much I cried
A lot
I must seek council in these dark times.
I should speak with the Oracles.
*Exit Youngboy*
Scene 2:
*Enter Jcole*
Jcole:
And so Youngboy seems to lack the flame
That once had empowered him to change the game
The Council of three, he will now approach
The Migos almighty do now encroach
*Exit Jcole*
*Youngboy into Chamber of the Oracles*
Youngboy:
Oh wise Migos, oracles of trap
How can there be a who’s king afraid to rap
I made my first album with time as my leisure
And now that I've won I just can't stop the pressure! How do I tell the kingdom it’s just not ready?
Quavo:
King Young Boy that ain't why you came (Nah!) so let’s not play that game
Offset:
You're looking for a way to delay and sing more time
Quavo:
King slime you will soon encounter an immovable wall
(mama)
Offset:
and an endless abyss
(on sight)
Quavo:
to counter this you must accept the wall and jump willingly to your death
(takeoff)
Youngboy:
I needn't tell you I’ve no clue of what you speak.
Quavo:
heed our warning king!
Three migos:
a dark cloud broods over the king and thus the kingdom
Offset:
a time of strife and then some approaches
Three Migos:
even now it encroaches!
Quavo:
it toils alone and alone it is in anguish, soon to be released it's dreaded verbal ambush
Takeoff:
hiding with roaches it dwells in scwaller, yet it thinks itself a grand baller. It hides it's content and harms those it holds dearest! it do!
Youngboy:
hides it's content, verbal ambush? surely you don’t mean to say I am this cloud?
Quavo:
we tell you what we see, a simple prophecy
Takeoff:
we would not dare to tell the king what he thinks it means
Youngboy:
you mean to confuse me further? It is an irony most harsh that you can see the future yet deliver it in ways no less cryptic than the present! I came here to seek council not reproach and yet I leave further in shambles than when I came! I doubt not your words though sting me they do, perhaps I was hasty in accepting the Kings throne. I bid farewell for I wish to be alone.
Scene 3:
Youngboy:
It’s getting late, perhaps you’d best go to you chambers no?
Takeoff:
indeed king you are right
(right)
Offset and Takeoff:
Carti be with Ye king
Quavo:
you’ll need him
*Exit YB and migos*
*Enter Drake, revealed to have been listening*
Drake:
Get in here you fools,
While we are alone!
*Nav and Tory Lanez stumble in from their hiding places*
Drake:
You heard what just happened.
Not only is the king losing his will and unsure about his album, but the oracles have predicted doom to his reign!
Nav:
Is this where we come in big slime?
Drake:
It is exactly what we have been waiting for.
The boy is no tyrant or fool, but he is no one
to rule the kingdom. He lacks wisdom, and experience.
Tory Lanez:
Which is why he needs to be replaced.
For the good of the kingdom of course.
Drake:
Yes but how to challenge him?
His power from his rise still lingers,
And he has the love of the people!
Nav:
how could they not sir, his album was a certified hood classic
and it did bring about an era of unprecedented peace and econom-
Drake:
Silence fool! or have you forgotten your loyalty? If you’ve no ideas on how to de throne that brat then shut it.
Tory Lanez:
If I may sir,there is a man I have dealt with in the past who can grant what we seek.
I could have him for an audience within the hour.
Drake:
Very well, Nav Summon him.Let's hear what this Mr-
Tory Lanez:
Tecca Sir
Drake:
Right, what this Mr Tecca has to say
Twin Glocks
Knock on door at beat drop of song
Drake:
Proceed!
*Tory takes a knee at door*
Tory: allow me, to present the honorable scoundrel with no moral compass
*In strolls Tecca (skull topped cane) and the music changes to a 1930’s grimy Cajun swing*
Tecca:
you did fine my old accomplice
Now let’s get to the subject you want a certain child with a shiny chain to disappear don’t you? And I can tell from your lack of fear, I haven't told you? I have been here before. Many times in fact and each time it’s amazes me what an archetype I find with that gripe in mind of a dirty rotten king that left you behind. Now you don’t have to tell me but let’s roll the dice if you’ve still got the nerve, let’s discuss my price.
Drake:
you think you know me? Hah I’ve taken more lives than a OG I’ve told more lies than we’re told to me and I’ve dwelt with snakes for years. And Don’t talk about my fears. But if your fares are fair and the affair in order let’s start there.
Tecca:
I want land
Drake:
land? Done. I know better than to ask what for.
Tecca:
no need I’ll tell you, I’m opening up a casino. I’m not much of a gambler but I play a hell of a house.
Drake:
HA not so dull for an assassin
Tecca:
Oh I'm much worse than that my friend.
Drake: let’s hope
Tecca:
now tell me what you want 😉
Drake:
Im plotting on his down fall!
Nav and Tory:
ooooooh yeah!!
Drake:
I'm breaking out my flows
Nav and Tory:
O V O
Drake:
But I need something to take from king NBA
Something to get him away!
Tecca: that’s where I come in
Drake:
What's that nowww!
Tecca:
what’s happenin?
Goons:
Oh wow wow!
Tecca:
what’s up what’s up
Tecca:
Mr Graham my esteemed regards
You're an astute man but you're a grand mirage
We'll i've got something to turn his ice to shards
You can't beat his flow and you can't match his drip, but what if youngboy were to take a trip?! Ahhh
Drake:
Watch it
Tecca:
you want it easy? A clear path to the throne room? Well when I’m done the kingdom will owe you!
Drake and Nav:
damn right!
Tecca:
You take these twin glocks
Drake and Goonies:
Damn right!
Tecca:
and then you wait and see!
Goonies:
Oooh yeah!
Tecca:
and if you’ll follow me you’ll take him far from see
Drake:
taking youngboy for Ransom!?? I cant pull that one!
Goons: nooo no no
Tecca:
That's why you take The youngest one, and watch that youngboy run!
*music stops*
Drake: Ddawg
Where are you Ddawg
*Enter Main Kingdom cast*
Kanye:
Where could he be!
Chief Keef and Polo G:
Where we cant see!
Ensemble:
Oh ddawg you have left us! Oh ddawg don't forsake us
!!
Youngboy:
Tell me you saw him, oh somebody saw him, they just must have seen him I can't believe it!
Drake:
I searched all his favorite taverns and his home!!
Ensemble:
I heard him say it was because of the album
Youngboy:
Noooo this can't be
Ddawg would not leave like this!
Was this part of migo’s prophecy?
Nooo that can't be!
Ensemble:
it wouldn’t have happened if you dropped the album!
Chief:
What will you do oh big slime!
Ensemble:
Oh What can you do oh big slime!
Nav and Tory:
38 baby can't come in this state!
Drake:
Be quiet buffoons let the boy take the bait!
My King I can't help but realize
That your album has not materialized
Maybe if it was finished
Ddawg would not have vanished
Youngboy:
Yes. That's right. This is all my fault!
I am no man fit to be king
I don't belong here, in the palace of bling!
Youngboy:
I must take leave to bring ddawg back
the only explanation is he’s been kidnapped!
And the album...must wait for my searching spree.
I won’t release 38 baby 2 till Ddawg free!
*youngboy darts around the stage getting ready to leave*
*Entire ensemble musical gasp*
Ensemble:
till he’s free!
Kanye:
what a mess
Ensamble:
till he’s free!?
Drake:
too perfect, I must confess
Ensamble:
Till he’s free, free, freeeeeee!
*End song*
Scene 4:
Quando: I assure you folks my friend, uh, our king, will have 38 2 released on schedule.
Kanye:
for once the boy is right my liege we must prevent a panic. I give you my word as your general and friend that I will send the best men at my disposal and personally control them until Ddawg is found.
Drake:
the boy’s distress is profound let him take leave now or he’ll not drip well and drown!
Youngboy:
enough!
*long pause*
*looking at Kanye*
Youngboy:
You promise you’ll do everything you can, use every means at your disposal?
Drake:
surely my liege you mean reject this proposal!
*Youngboy raises a hand to silence drake(pissed off)*
Kanye:
yes sir, every means at my disposal.
Youngboy:
dismissed.
Kanye:
as you wish.
*Nav to tory*
The boss will be pissed!
Drake:
as you wish your highness.
*Lights dim as kanye and drake back away, crowd disperses, quando is left standing looking at Youngboy with worry*
*Low key piano*
Quando:
I’ve known you how many years?
Youngboy:
so many it’s not a matter of years
Quando:
im not a man of many fears but Ddawg is naive, and truthful to a fault. He’s like a younger brother to me.
Youngboy:
to us both.
Quando:
you see what I mean? let me go looking. You’d do the same.
Youngboy:
no!
Quando:
why not!?
Youngboy:
we’re not kids on 38th street anymore Quando, you are known as the kings best fiend, if you travel into the wastes you’ll be taken for ransom!
Quando:
you don’t know that!
Youngboy:
I won’t lose another friend because I can’t drop an album
Quando:
Well then we wait for Ye’s men.
Youngboy:
You know I can't do that.
Ddawg is my responsibility, and I will find him myself
Quando:
You can't be seri-
Youngboy:
You have always known better than to try and change my mind,
even before I was king
I’ll find him and I’ll bring him back, .
Quando:
Just promise that whether you find him or not, you will return to us
And Here take these clothes, they should disguise you on your journey..
Youngboy:
I promise Quando. And thank you.
*Exit Quando, Enter Drake*
Drake:
Sire, you should see this. A letter, seemingly left by ddwag.
Youngboy:
Open it.
Ddawg:
Yo Youngboy I hope this finds you well
Last night Quando drank until he fell.
He’d’ve broken his neck but a stranger caught him, told me it was his duty to serve the king and his army.
Like it or not we’re your best friends and like it or not we’re with you to the end but I’m not a kingsmen.
I want a life where I’m not best friend to the king or living meal to meal, is this life’s only deal for me? I wander through the streets so frequently and almost as commonly I’m asked “when’s 38 bay 2 coming, how long”
I don’t know!
It’s all too much. I hope you guys understand, I know Quando will.
Look, I’m going to the wastelands, I know I know they’re dangerous but I’ll wear a disguise and I’ll be careful who I
Talk to. I’m going to find out who I am apart from all this 38 2 hype. It’s like 38 street right? Watch your back, stay on track and be the first to attack.
See ya later home boy
You know the name with the most game, Ddawg.
Youngboy
Prepare the foriegn, I depart within the hour. I will have to see if I can bring that poor boy back,It's the least I can do.
Drake:
Do you think you can return youngboy?
Pardon me for speaking out of turn, but it seems like
If you can't produce and album, than there are those who would say you are unfit to rule.
I of course will support whatever your choice is your slimeness.
But consider the kingdom, the people.
Youngboy:
What they say is correct lord Drake.
I am no king, Im but a young boy.
I'm sorry I won't keep that promise Quando.
*Exit Youngboy*
*Enter Nav*
Nav:
What shall we do with the prisoner sire?
Drake:
Spill him. Discreetly. We have no need for ddawg to ever surface again.
*Exit Drake*
Scene: 5
*Enter Drake and Kanye*
Kanye:
Where is the king drake.
Drake:
Gone. To where I do not know.
Kanye:
When will he return?!
Drake:
I doubt he ever will.
I think he understands now, why he was unfit to rule.
One good album doesn't make a king.
Kanye:
What did you say to him Drake.
Drake:
Nothing he wasn't thinking himself.
We should not be grieving over the loss of a boy who played king.
You and I need to focus on the future of this kingdom.
About getting back what was signed away in the peace treaties, what is rightfully ours.
Do you forget our sacrifice? Do you forget the wars of the east and west, or the Altantan invasions?
Kanye:
I could never allow myself to forget.
But I do not boil in anger over wars of the past.
Wars that saw thousands die? And for what?
Spots on the billboard?
Drake:
Exactly, the wars became pointless once that king forced us to compromise.
We could have used his album to dominate the other kingdoms!
Luke Bryan would be hanged, Weezer exiled!
How many of our brothers died to rid the world of enemies that youngboy decided were our friends! I didn't get a say. The Dead didn't get a say!
Kanye:
And what would you have us do?
Lead the world into war again, because us old men cant escape our own failure?
Because it took what you call a boy to make the mature decision and end the bloodshed! I don't always understand the King, but I do understand when I see a good man, and youngboy is a good man! Better than you or I could hope to be after what we have done!
Drake:
If you won't rule with me.
Than I will rule without you.
*Drake and Kanye begin to battle, violently clashing as old men past their prime.
Kanye:
Give up drake, I was always the better fighter.
Drake:
You were. And that's why I needed help.
*Nav and Tory come from behind and knock kanye down*
*Quando enters the room*
Quando:
My Lords Im afraid the king-
Kanye:
Quando...The Guards now!
*Tory knocks out kanye*
Drake:
Quando. Oh Quando my boy Im so sorry.
But Kanye..
He-he poisoned the king before he could leave.
He tried to take the throne for himself. And he nearly succeeded.
No matter how far he is, youngboy im afraid has but mere hours to live.
Quando:
No...That can't be.
That simply...Can't Be!
Kanye was a friend he would never!
He could never!
Drake:
Believe me Quando.
I've known the man my whole career.
And not even I was wise enough to stop it.
I must go. A high lord who cant save the king from a man he has known for life is a lord who cannot rule.
Quando:
….No
Drake you must stay.
You almost died trying to save him.
Plus you are the only high lord we have left.
We need you to lead the kingdom.
If you will do it. Its what..
Its what youngboy would have wanted.
Drake:
What you ask is a lot Quando.
But for youngboy. For you.
I will try.
*Exit Quando*
Tory:
What do we do with the traitor my lor-King
Drake:
Let Baby and Gunna have him.
Im sure some time on ice in the eternal drip
will sort out kanye’s attitude
Drifting Slime
*Enter youngboy*
Youngboy:
Alone!
Roaming through the landscape!
A new kind of closeness with Vlone!
A mixture of fear and excitement!
Away from the pressures of home!
But then I remember poor ddawg
The one who I caused to be lost
I just should have listened to Quavo
And my closest friends paid the cost!
I deserve to wander alone!
I don't belong ruling a kingdom!
My arrogance would destroy the throne!
My Ignorance has beaten my wisdom!
So now I will walk
Looking for him
Hoping to set things right
And then we'll talk
I will send him back home
And I will still wander the night…
Youngboy:
Really Ddawg, couldn’t you have ran off to the kingdom of Indie instead?
*singing in distance*
Youngboy:
at last a tavern! Surely they know what way Ddawg went!
*youngboy enters tavern*
*Fantasy drinking song melody, pirate like*
Macklemore:
We drink to the health of our King!
Chorus:
we drink to the health of our king!
Macklemore
That he be wise in his rule!
Chorus:
that he be wise in his rule!
*youngboy smiles*
Macklemore:
But if he ventured here!
Chorus:
for his life he should fear!
Macklemore:
Well there’s a place and time for royalty but I’ve no time for royalty
They take and make the laws to boot
Then turn around and
Everyone: take our loot!
*youngboy shuffles over to the bar and tries to blend in*
Russ:
Well my names Russ and I made a livin!
*cheers*
Feeding the troops and on their misgivings
*cheers*
Then Barbarians went and took my field. And the crown did nothing, but expects me to yield?
*jeers*
G-Eazy:
My names gerald and most of you know me
*cheers*
And if you don’t pray you don’t owe me!
*cheers*
I was a banker of sorts, putting hearts in bags of course
*jeers*
But my deposits where good till my deposits where stole and the kingdom took my bank!
Chorus:
who do we have to thank!
Macklemore:
Well we drink to the health of king
Chorus:
and pray that he never comes!
Macklemore:
Well he’d be wise to follow that rule
Chorus:
no matter, he’s a royal tool!
Lil Xan:
*obviously drunk*
My name is uh.. Xan I think
*cheers*
Hey Russ, go and fetch me a drink!
*to the point!*
I ran a trap house of hoes with no blouse then the government took it away!
*Xan falls of stool and young boy catches him*
Youngboy:
It’s fair to think what you want young Xan, maybe the king doesn't care. But surely the peace and prosperity can bring pride for us all to bear?
*dead quiet, music stops*
G-eazy:
who are you?
Russ:
who are you?
Xanl:
who are you?
*The guys brandish weapons*
Bartender(Kendrick):
what do you intend to do?
*Macklemore walks over smiling nervously, and ushers the men to calm down*
Macklemore:
Nothing, nothing, it's just rare to see newcomers in this part of the waste.
Especially ones with such...exotic opinions.
*The Men walk away with Macklemore and Youngboy sits at the bar*
Scene 6:
Youngboy:
I’d offer you a drink in the way of thanks but…
Kendrick:
Not much of a drinker actually, providing a haven for these outcasts just keeps me busy in my old age. Now what brings a man like you here?
Youngboy:
what makes you think I’m any different from the rest of the riff raff?
*Youngboy buys drink*
Kendrick:
Despite what you see, I was once more than a humble barman, and I can tell someone from the capital when I see one. Not to mention that you don't seethe with the same hatred of the royal line as the drifters in here.
Youngboy:
May I have your name good sir?
You have done me service, and I like to remember folk that have.
Kendrick:
Most just call me Barman these days, but once I was known as Kendrick.
Those were different times altogether.
Youngboy:
If my memory serves me correctly, than I seem to recall that the man known as kendrick was a man of some renown. In fact he had produced some of the kingdoms most powerful albums during the great wars. So why leave to come bartend out here?
Kendrick:
The short answer, I was conflicted, misusing my influence, Im sure sometimes you have done the same. Abusing your power full of resentment? I couldn't keep living in that political world, so I took what I had and made this place, as a haven for those in the kingdom down on their luck, or struggling, the little slimes who need to eat.
Youngboy:
If you don’t mind me asking, what’s with the hatred of the crown here?
Kendrick:
Didn’t you hear em, we all lost something, whether by war or by peace someone always gets the short end of the stick.
Youngboy:
I thought the kings last album brought prosperity to the whole kingdom.
Kendrick:
38 baby? That album brought prosperity alright, as long as you're one of the sods lucky enough to live in a city or Carti forbid, the capital.
Youngboy:
so none of you are anticipating the sequel?
Kendrick:
Hah! You’re either the funniest bloke to come in here or the stupidest!
*both laugh youngboy takes a nervous drink*
Youngboy:
listen, to tell you the truth I’m in search of a friend of mine, he went missing from the capital and I’ve been searching for a few days trying every place I can find. *shows a picture of Ddawg* do you remember seeing him pass through here?
Kendrick:
Not at all mate, sorry.
Youngboy:
It’s no problem, thanks for the drink.
Bartender:
Before you go, let me tell you something.
These wastes, are strange places, the space between the genre kingdoms, between worlds. Some say that if you wander long enough, spirits of the past can show you what you seek. Of course it's only a legend.
Youngboy:
I suppose wandering is all I can do at this point.
*Lights fade to black*
Scene 7:
*Enter Main Cast, Drake speaking to the kingdom*
Drake:
As we all grieve of Youngboys loss
I will regrettably hold the throne as the only loyal high lord left
After the disgusting betrayal by Lord Kanye.
I swear to you citizens, that this kingdom shall regain the respect and strength it once commanded. No longer shall we fraternize with kingdoms that should pay us tribute.
Once again in this terrible time, we will bond together, and we will become stronger.
And for that to occur, the power of the crown must become stronger.
Chief Keef:
I know the Council has it's issues but it has always served the Kings well.
*Councillors agree*
Drake:
I don't intend to dissolve it councillor Chief Keef I only ask that it be handed less power. At times like these we must unite as one clear voice to reassure the people all is well, you surely wouldn’t want riots in the streets would you councillor?
Chief Keef:
Of course not m'lord
Drake:
Then I see no further topic of discussion, today's meeting is dismissed.
Polo G:
There is one other thing, my...King
There are reports of unrest in the outer territories, Lord blueface of criponia wishes to request that he be allowed more autonomy for his domain, they don't like that we are using their resources for your new projects, especially if these projects take us to war again. They are quite firm in their demands, and other local Lords in the outer lands are requesting the same. They also seem to call into question your legitimacy as king sire.
Drake:
Tell this “Blueface”, that the days where the king could be pushed around by minor lords are over. I will do with his kingdom what I see fit, and I will use their wealth as I wish.
The Resources of the kingdom, and it’s outer territories are to be funneled towards the creation of the album.
Chief Keef:
Will we be attempting to finish 38 baby two sire?
Drake:
Haha, no Councillor Keef, I'm afraid not.
The new Album will be my Magnum Opus.
More Life 2.
*Most exit, except Drake and Quando*
Drake:
You see my boy politicians are ravenous beasts, one must keep their wits about them to survive such a hunt.
Quando:
Surely then this castle is a jungle and I, a tasty meal.
Drake: How so?
Quando:
Well the way I see it, I am all that remains of Youngboys living legacy, to win the trust of the people one must display me above their mantle.
Drake:
Your thoughts are too morbid for a man of such youth, but perfect for a beast of the stone jungle!
*both laugh*
Quando:
He is really gone huh?
Ddawg and Youngboy both in one day!
I just can't accept it.
Drake:
I understand how you feel Quando.
I have been in the game for a long time now
And losing friends is a feeling I know too well.
Please if there is anything you need, just ask.
Quando:
Yes of course
Thank you, uh My King
Drake:
Call me Drizzy Quando
You are a friend of the Royal line
And you deserve a position as such.
How would you like to be hand of the king?
Quando:
It would be an honour my ki-uh drizzy!
Thankyou!
I won't let you down!
Drake:
We will do great things together Quando.
Great things.
Scene 8:
*Enter Jcole*
Jcole:
Youngboy is Lost
And Drake thinks he’s found
Both of them have yet to cover much ground
Our story continues with Drake at his keep
Meeting his council
While Youngboy does weep
*Exit Jcole, Enter Youngboy*
Youngboy:
I'm never going to find Ddawg.
I have to face it. I ignored the migos, and I drove him away.
Just further proof Im not strong enough to drop my album,
Let alone be king of anything.
*Youngboy wandering around a barren waste, goes to drink water but is out then he spots a withered tree, collapses against it and starts humming a tune.*
Youngboy:
perhaps I will rest here a moment
*closes eyes and begins to die*
Ethereal voice:
Youngboy
Ethereal voice:
youngboy awaken, it is not yet your time
Youngboy:
B-Bobby Shmurda? The King of the Past?
But how?
Bobby S:
It is true, I have passed on, and by carti’s grace I linger a spirit.
I have been waiting a long time for you to come to me Youngboy.
It is time you learned what every king must learn.
How to be who they need you to be.
Youngboy:
how do I know your not just a mirage?
BobbyShmurda:
I’m afraid you don’t but I know that you are real and so are the troubles that befall your kingdom.
Youngboy:
Yes, 38 baby 2 isn’t nearly ready and now Ddawg is missing because if it .
BobbyShmurda:
That is beside the point.
Youngboy:
what?
Bobby S:
You worry about your album, is it because you doubt your ability or do you doubt your ability because you worry about the album?
*youngboy visibly confused*
Youngboy: both?
Bobby S:
Your friend is gone,And I'm afraid it is worse than you thought.
Youngboy:
Whatever do you mean spirit? If ddawg is in trouble I must go to him at once!
Bobby S:
Not until you can answer my question.
Youngboy:
This is no time for games!
Tell me Bobby where is he?
Bobby S:
I believe I made myself clear, did I not?
Youngboy:
Very well. I will answer your question.
BS:
What caused the fall of Prince Juice Wrld?
Youngboy:
How am I supposed to- *sigh* okay uh well after his EP flopped his province went into a period of extreme poverty and ruin so perhaps, making a wack album?
Bobby S:
No
Youngboy:
I’ve no time for games Sir Shmurda and my patience is wearing thin. If you know where Dda-
Bobby S:
you will die
Youngboy:
What? Well Who doesn’t I suppose. But what’s that got to do with-
Bobby S:
Listen young king, if I tell you where Ddawg is you will die for you are not yet ready to face those who have taken him.
*youngboy thinks*
Youngboy:
Then teach me. Show me how to beat them.
Bobby S:
Iit will be a difficult journey and even after my training I can’t guarantee that you will succeed.
*Youngboy who was looking down as BS talked brandishes a smile*
Youngboy:
I’ve never had a guarantees my entire life. Give me your best shot.
Bobby S:
You remind me of the great king PAC at your age. He was also stubborn to a fault.
*Youngboy chuckles*
Bobby Shmurda:
and brave.
*Exit All*
Scene: 9
*Enter Drake, Quando, Chief keef, and Polo G*
Chief:
Well Drake,If you refuse to ride and meet with this “Blueface” What are we to do? He and other lords of the outer lands gain support with each passing day. Soon if nothing is done it shall come to civil war!
Drake:
These “Separatists” whether it’s Blueface, Tekashi or any others
Are just a mild annoyance. My Hittas are more than sufficient to repel any invasion from this Blueface in the West or 6ix9ine in the east! Right now the kingdom needs to focus on the development of my new album, More Life 2. And my plans for conquest of the other kingdoms.
Polo G:
The other kingdoms should be our allies, we can ask Weezer for help with these Border Rebels! Chief Keef is right Drake, W\with threats to the kingdom growing on the inside,
We need external allies or els-
Quando:
Show some respect!
Polo, Chief!
You question your new king!
You call him by name?
The King is right, we need to secure the homefront.
Without 38 baby 2 we need an album to sustain the kingdom.
Chief:
And you think that album is More life 2?!
Drake:
This meeting is over
Don't make any decisions you will regret councillors.
Quando with me.
*Drake and Quando leave*
Chief:
Hey Polo
Send ambassador stitches to the Duchy of Weezer,
Maybe he can get an assessment from them of how the outer lands are looking.
If the king doesn't care about keeping the kingdom whole then we have to do it ourselves.
Polo G:
Agreed. I just don't get it, Ddawg running away?
Kanye Killing the king?
And the only ones to see it were Drake and his cronies?
None of this makes sense.
Chief:
Drake and his toronto Goons
Are hiding something.
Ovo is up to something
Chief:
I don't like this new direction, I don't like this kind of flow
The situation reeks of mischief, how does no one seem to know
Polo G:
Drake is king, and ye is gone, having to hear new nav songs!
They're scheming with their evil drip, no ye no youngboy this is it!
Chief:
Ovo is up to something
Polo:
Nav and Tory good for nothing
Chief:
Mandatory Drip inspection
Polo:
lets teach drizzy drake his lesson!
Chief:
We need a plan, we need something to spill them
Polo:
Well there was something I think I heard them mention!
Some twin glocks that drake bought lowkey! They got ddawg for their evil scheme.
Chief:
It's just you and me we gotta make do, we save the game and maybe 38 baby 2
*Exit Chief Keef and Polo G, Enter Drake and Migos*

So, you wanna go to SHOT show? You think it's all fun and games? Get to play with guns? See Jesse James and R. Lee Ermey? SHOT show is the annual pilgrimage of the unwashed masses to Las Vegas to rub elbows with youtube celebrities, bloggers and overseas businessmen copying US made equipment and share infectious disease.
If you love guns, gambling and gonorrhea - SHOT show is for you! It is not my typical idea of a good time. I am not a big fan of Las Vegas.
However: I do attend for a few reasons. First, I do enjoy travel and I'm platinum on AA so I can usually score an upgrade. Second, industry people are in there that I do hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars with business with so it's nice to put a face with the name and see what deals are out there. SHOT for me has been a bust for the past few years. Being a value guy, I want to buy at $1000 and sell at $3000 and as of recently the gun business is more like buy for $1 and sell for $1.10 if you get what I mean.
We used to do business at SHOT and now it's just checking in on foursquare, instagram and rubbing elbows with bloggers and the like. I want to make money, not spend money so this is very annoying to me.
Anyways, onto the play by play.
Monday, January 22nd. One day before SHOT show.
The TSA line is a shitshow thanks to, well TSA. I have pre check and breeze right through.
I slog my way to the lounge, as shitty as it is to wait for my winged chariot to DFW. I have gone from being in an abusive relationship with Delta to being in an abusive relationship with AA. Although if you really want to experience the battered spouse feeling, UA is a few gates over.
I board my flight to Dallas/FW and my Renton assembled chariot is having a problem with one of the ring laser gyros, the hate agent tells us we are delayed for an indeterminate amount of time. Even as an AA Plat, I have no cleared upgrades. I am number 4 on the list with one seat open to Dallas/FW. I am 39/61 for Dallas/FW to LAX.
Fuck my life.
I gate check my bags to make life easier for me and the rest of the folks slumming it. If I don't have to worry about being short on time, I like to gate check to free up bins for those who are not as fortunate. Eventually I board and ask the FA to say hi to the captain and get a ride report. Light chop all over north texas today and we're going to take the long way around the field due to wind.
Me: I guess it's true. Dallas always does seem to blow a little harder in the postseason...
CA: Hahhahaha
FO: You got that right! Go eagles!
Having brightened the day of the flight crew, I head back to my MCE seat in Y and kick back and relax by listening to my Rumours, my favorite fleetwood mac album on my ipod.
We land at Dallas an hour and a half late eating into my 4 hour spa layover I had planned. I hightail it to the Centurion lounge in terminal D, my home away from home. Thankfully I don't need a massage since I brought my friend Laura some homemade chocolate rice crispy squares and she gave me a one hour massage and gave me a happy ending.
I grab a plate and help myself to some of the excellent chicken and some mashed red potatoes and bacon It is cheesy and DELICIOUS. Between that and the poblano rice, I can feel it going straight to my thighs. No, I do not care. NOM NOM NOM
https://imgur.com/a/WBcyd
The lounge is packed. The bar is full and I grab a quick single malt as I have my meal since American's not going to feed me. They begin boarding to LAX as I walk out of the lounge. I make it to the gate and the entire plane has boarded because the screens say they are boarding group 9.
Giving the FA a friendly nod, I ask to say hi to the captain and I stride through J and say hello to the two gentlemen flying today. Aviation nerd protip: CHECK YOUR ROUTING!
I didn't, but I had a hunch since arriving from the east we'd get the ANJLL 1 or the HLYWD 1 arrival. I got a 50/50 shot. Let's see how good I am.
Drop my bags at the threshold, poke my head in.
Me: Howdy guys, we still looking good for the Hollywood 1 tonight?
CA: Man, you did your homework yes we are! GABBL transition as a matter of fact!
Damn I'm good.
FC: Nice! I know you guys take a rash of crap from drunk Parker so I like to say hello to the folks who do the heavy lifting and I'm a total airplane dork so it's cool to check the place out.
CA: I'm an airplane dork too! I'm Jeff Rowland, nice to meet ya!
SUPER nice guy. He gave me a tour of the airplane, even took a picture of me in the left seat.
https://imgur.com/a/xVIy6
Here he is showing me some stuff around the airplane. He gives me the grand tour of the 787-9 including this neat feature that actually measures how many G's they have on landing so they know whether or not they need an overweight landing inspection or not. AMAZING airplane. I'm shown all the bells and whistles and they tell me how fun the plane is to fly. Jeff takes a few pics of me in the best seat of the house. I tell the guys I'll see them at the in and out burger on Sepuldeva and I hike back to my seat in W.
The FA's were wondering where I was, and they gave away my assigned seat. I take an empty center aisle seat and make life easier for everyone. W in the 787-9 is a solid hard product. The BE Aerospace MI-Q seat is a good ride whether in it for 3 hours to LAX or 13 to CDG like I was in a few months ago. https://imgur.com/a/iPHVh
The boarding door closes for an on time departure and I watch another airplane movie - American Made with Tom Cruise. He's so dreamy. Jeff's PA's were really lame and had a whole bunch of people laughing in the back on the way to LA. The flight was not long enough. The landing is a perfect grease job on 24L and we await a tug to get towed into gate 41 at LAX. I say thanks again to the flight crew - worthy of note, http://andystravelblog.boardingarea.com/2018/01/29/pilots-lette
My next hop via a 737 to LAS is uneventful. I stop at the Centurion lounge for some freshly squeezed OJ. It is DELICIOUS as AA's app tells me my bags are being unloaded.
I grab my things and hop in the last car Hertz has in the gold section - a 2016 Toyota Corolla. Times are rough. I'm at Circus Circus again. I check in and tell the lady about the last time I was there with the neighbors and the extremely loud sex. Full story: tail end of this - https://www.reddit.com/guns/comments/5podeq/shot_2017my_tales_of_adventure_in_las_vegas/
She damn near busts a gut laughing and upgrades me to a skyrise room and gives me a line pass and complimentary buffet.
I arrive to my room where housekeeping has not cleaned it to my exacting specifications. Specifically, there are like three hairballs from a cat in the chair next to the desk. I ask for another room and they set it up for me. It's now 1AM. In and out burger is closed.
Fuck.
Tuesday, January 23rd SHOT Show Day One
You gotta get into the palazzo garage before 8AM or you are not getting a spot. I get in at 8:01 and miraculously find a spot. They are doing so much construction at the resort that I don't recognize it. I grab my pass and check in with some other industry associates. My first day is semi-eventful as I check out the sig 365, a very promising concealed carry product as well as a few other really neat things and many many useless items.
I run into u/chugbleach in the basement and we trade stories. He shows me some neat stuff he's been working on. We plan to dine later in the week and I continue walking the show when I see the most amazing booth ever.
Backstory: https://www.reddit.com/guns/comments/7ag6oj/gsg_stg_44/dp9u9hw/
I let fluff buy the hook, he posts $120 to win $100 if he gets his HMG gun by the end of Q1. If gun arrives on time, he gets $100 from me. If no, I get $120 from him.
I walk back to chug.
FC: DUDE DUDE DUDE YOU GOTTA SEE THIS COME QUICK
CB: Okay lets go
We walk briskly not 100 feet. I stop quickly. Chug looks confused.
I gesticulate wildly to our right.
This is what we see.
I crack up laughing and can barely contain myself. This is the greatest thing I have seen in weeks.
On that note it is time to take a break for lunch. I head up to one of my vendors who has a hospitality suite for the show and they are serving jambalaya for lunch every day. As a Louisiana boy, we do love jambalaya. There's a reason I spend lots of money with them. I eat and have a coke as I trade gun jokes with other gun dealers. I wander around the show and nothing else jumps at me.
I walk the footbridge over to the Wynn to see how the house is doing. The poker room is full. I draw $2500 from my credit line and head down to the craps table to throw some dice. I have some mixed success as it's getting late and I want to hit the in and out burger so as I'm getting ready to leave, Laura sends me a bunch of filthy text messages about what she wants to do to me when I get back. My chips and raging boner leave the tables quickly as I duck into the bathroom to tell her that if she wants to treat me like a prisoner on a conjugal visit - I went to 8 years of catholic school, she's entering a world of pain. She says game on.
After a quick trip to the cage to cash out, I'm up or down something like $100. I swing by in and out burger for a double double. It is delicious. Sleepy time.
Wednesday, January 24th. Day 2 of SHOT show.
Alarm goes off at 7:45 AM. I wash up, eat and get breakfast. In the garage by 8:15. Still manage to find a spot! Attendance is down this year. I get in line at Larue. They run out of dillo dust at 8:39. This is the line at 8:35 https://imgur.com/a/KLHrg
The show opens at 8:30. Fuck my life. I grab a dillo and some stickers for some friends and a few HK calendars. I wander around and talk to the guys over at Franklin Armory and their new SBR that isn't an SBR, SBS that isn't an SBS and rifle that isn't really a rifle BUT IS STILL A FIREARM. The projectiles they want to sell have fin stabilization and it's like a 55 grain flying Lombardi trophy. It's an interesting idea but I'm not 100% certain I would buy one personally. I trade war stories with a few other friends I meet up with at the show. I head down to the basement and I'm looking at a few accessories from Tactical Walls.
Just as I'm ready to leave - Joe Mantegna shows up and says hi to the reps.
FC: Mr Mantegna! I love your work! Can I get a picture?
JM: Sure.
Someone grabs my phone and snaps a pic
FC: You are great in the simpsons as Fat Tony. Just the best!
JM: (in fat tony voice) I don't get mad. I get stabby.
FC: That's awesome! Thanks! Enjoy the show!
I send the pics to some friends who enjoy snappy Mamet plays and they are all jealous. I head down to the basement. The ATF booth is vacant due to the government shutdown. So is the FBI booth. Oh well. I head upstairs to the manufacturer supplier section and I find out that Olympic Arms is still in business making things. I do a lap and get some business cards from some precision machine companies that can make some elaborate parts. Jambalaya again for lunch. Nom nom nom.
I head down to FN to talk shop with the guys down there and give them shit. FN's new innovation is a two tone FDE/Black gun. So now 50% of the gun does not have to match. I trade barbs with Mike Hoffman and we debate the age old question, is it really gay if you can suck your own cock? Just as I mention this, Steve Bannon shows up at the booth. That's my stop. I say hello to the director of commercial sales on my way out and go to the Knights booth where I find they're making 6.5 Creed stuff now. Interesting how quickly that cartridge has caught on. I talk shop with a few of the KAC guys and then I steal some more HK Kalendars for friends back home.
I hit the Circus Circus buffet with my free pass for the unpleasantness and it is not that great at all. They ran out of roast beef. I mean, really? SHOT SHOW IS IN TOWN! We are beef eating gun owners, and you're gonna run out of roast beef? This would never happen at the Wynn, an amazing property. I make a mental note to sell my MGM Mirage stock and buy some Wynn in the morning. I head back to the craps table and lose a shitload of money. I witness a heater happen after I color up and watch people go nuts. My luck at MGM properties has not been good. Ugh. I don't feel like doing gunnit live and head to sleep early.
Thursday, January 25th. Day 3 of SHOT show.
I message Chug and let him know that it's gotta be tonight if we're gonna hang since I fly out Friday night for Boston. We plan to make plans for dinner. I head to the show and get there at 3 minutes to 8. One of my best customers calls me wanting an XM2010. I head over to Remington and through some finagling they manage to say YES WE CAN SELL IT EVEN THOUGH WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO SELL IT. I work up a quote and get the customer the info and tell him what's what. I visit the nighthawk custom booth where they have a new gun chambered in .45 APC.
https://imgur.com/a/9bNe7
I kid with a few FBI guys about their attention to detail. I saunter about the show. Leatherman Tool Group always has some nice things to play with. Tim Leatherman is engraving tools for people with his autograph. I'm happy with all of his products I own and I stop by to shake his hand and tell him that my wave has saved my ass on a hundred different occasions and I once resurrected a Ford off the side of the road. He says he loves hearing the stories and he's a pretty nice guy.
I wander about a little more and I find myself over at the Emerson Knife Company booth looking around.
For those not in the know, Emerson has a bunch of specwar types as customers. Damn good knives and operator customers. One of them is behind the table wearing a badge that says JOHN SMITH - JOHN SMITH INC. He's got arms that are as thick as my legs and he looks like a Navy Seal. He bolts upright from his seat and looks at my wrist.
"Is that a 1675?"
FC: Sure is! Damn good eye! My dad won it in an underground poker game in Hong Kong in 1968 from a couple of navy guys on shore leave that flew F4's off Dixie Station.
"Holy crap, that's fucking awesome!"
We talk watches and guns and killing people for a while. He says he's in the navy and the budweiser insignia necklace he is wearing tells me everything I need to know. Nice guy. I wonder what his real name is as the show closes down and as I walk out the magpul booth gives me a laugh. A paper sign on the door says "DOOR IS LOUD AF CLOSE GENTLY"
I'm not kidding - https://imgur.com/a/GgSkU
I head over to Chug's hotel and he gives me the grand tour. It's way nicer than my hotel. We go out and have dinner. I'm asked if I like Thai.
FC: Tie good, you like shirt?
Nobody gets my simpsons jokes. We go to dinner where a good time is had by all. Chug gets a call and needs to drop off a SHOT show pass to a co-worker of his flying in. As opposed to all the mechanics of a dead drop at the palazzo etc I tell him fuck it, just give it to me and I'll pick him up from the airport. In exchange, I tell him I want all the leftover chicken wings from the Thai place.
It's a deal. I grab the wings and head to McCarran. There's a guy in a BRZ hauling ass and I decide to see what this shitbox can do. I get the Corolla up to 115 MPH on the highway before backing down to a more sensible speed. After 5 minutes of MARCO / POLO I find the fellow and give him his shot show pass and a ride to his hotel. I find it funny that last year I ran an unapproved uber substitute and here we are again and the same thing is happening. I'm offered gas money or a beer after the show and I tell him hey, it's your first time at SHOT - enjoy the show, don't sweat it.
I hightail it up the strip to the Palazzo where I play a bit and eventually see a heater in progress. I split the 6/8 for $120 each and they hit. I press it and they hit again. Maybe this won't be a bad trip after all. Table craps out and I cash out still down a few bucks but better than when I started.
By the time I make it back to the room, it's 4AM. I eat the chicken wings. They're delicious.
Friday, January 26th. Day 4 of SHOT show.
I've gotten most of what I want to get done, done. I ordered some Firearm Instructor body armor from one of my guys since lots of people want me dead first thing in the AM and things were going good. I sleep in and debate what I want for breakfast when I realize things are going a little too good. Nothing really bad has happened this trip yet. I pack up and get ready to leave the hotel when I get a push notification.
MOTHERFUCKER
My flight to Boston has been canceled.
My confirmed first class seats on one of the hardest to upgrade legs in the entire AA route network - LAX to BOS, gone. AA proactively books me on the flight leaving LA a few hours later IN COACH. A middle seat, even. No, just no. I call American and they tell me the plane is broken. Damnit. I look on the app for acceptable reroutings and there is nothing available in first. I say fuck it, I'll deal with this shit later. I have the rental car until midnight, lots of time to make a new plan. I check out of the hotel, throw my bags in the car and head down to the show and it's a freaking ghost town. Parking spaces everywhere. I say bye to a few folks as my phone sends me a notification. WSJ: STEVE WYNN ACCUSED OF DECADES OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT
Oh FUCK MY LIFE. I bought the stock back on Wednesday. GODDAMNIT STEVE WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BULLSHIT
I skip lunch and walk across the street to the Wynn and their corporate office.
You see, I have a simple theory. If the allegations are false, they should have no problem sending someone out to listen to my concerns and say the allegations are false and here's everything we're doing to fight it. If the allegations are true, they'll send down hired goons to throw me out the door.
It's sorta like spousal infidelity. If A finds evidence of B cheating, credit card statements, sexts, racy pictures, etc - and A confronts B and B admits it and says I want a divorce, B is guilty. If B says A is cheating on them what the fuck are you doing looking at my credit card statements and phone you're the one that's wrong and invading my privacy get the fuck out of my house - B is really guilty.
That's the theory. If they go full retard and bounce me off the property, the stock is probably going to go down some more. If they address the concerns, things should not be as bad.
Since I walked through the property the last time I was in town, I knew where the corporate office was. The name on my broker statement says WYNN RESPORTS and so did the sign on the doors. I walk through the doors and to the end of the hallway where there's another electronically locked door that is unlocked.
There's a security guard who is nonplussed sitting at a desk wondering if I'm lost. I explain to him that I'm a shareholder and I want to know what this company is doing about this catastrophe. He says he can't say/do anything and I'm instructed to leave. I ask him if he can take a message. He says yes, and I'm like you just said you can't do anything. So what's that supposed to mean?
I argue with him about what he supposedly can and cannot do as I eat raspberry macrons that have been plated at the reception area of the corporate office. THESE BETTER BE THE BEST FUCKING MACARONS I HAVE EVER EATEN GODDAMNIT. They are. Fuck.
He tells me that my best bet is to talk to someone else at the resort, not him. Fine.
I leave and head to the concierge desk - because from one concierge to another, we can solve problems. I explain the situation and instead of routing me to the press office or investor relations - they give me a phone and tell me to speak to guest services. AKA the people that help you with your stay as a guest of the hotel. I give the lady taking the message about 15 minutes worth of comments and she's assured me that they'll be passed along to management.
Given the circumstances I think that's the best I'm going to do today. Now, there's the issue of me being stuck in vegas for another night. I look down at my phone and AA has offered three itineraries flying out of McCarran tomorrow IN FIRST CLASS that gets me to Boston in a timely fashion. I jump on the 625AM flight to Charlotte. This means I need to be at the car rental by 525AM and out the door around 0430. Fuck my life. And I have nowhere to sleep/showeshit/shave.
As I'm walking back to the esplanade to cross back over to the Palazzo where my car is, I notice the registration desk. I get in line and a lovely lady asks what she can do for me.
I tell her that I'm a shareholder and I'm pretty mad about the way the company is handling their sex offender in chief. And given the $18 haircut I took on the stock today, if there's an angry shareholder discount on a room tonight I think that would be more than fair given the circumstances. She agrees and gets me a bottle of water and the manager. The manager asks me if I've stayed at the hotel before, the answer is yes and asks to see my ID so she can see if she can plug me in at a repeat guest rate.
A few minutes go by and I wait patiently at the desk when I'm tapped on the shoulder.
There's two former NFL linebackers, one with his back towards me and the other introducing himself as the director of security.
Hmmm. Lets see. For those not in the know, there's only one exit in and out of the wynn registration desk.
If there's two bodies on me, there's gotta be at least two more at each side of the wall behind it that I can't see, I figure 4 sets of eyes running the eye in the sky all with their eyes glued to the monitors, the director of security is holding my ID which means he's already got my play, my comps, my markers, run me through central credit, my red card, he's got metro running me for wants/warrants and there's probably an unmarked metro ford next to a service exit with an open door and a seat reserved for me in the back.
I look down at my watch. The market is closed. I can't sell. Fuck. Because there is no way in hell this stock is holding $180 monday morning.
Quickly, I bang out a message to my brother letting him know I am about to be arrested at the Wynn and to start googling Las Vegas bail bonds.
The two security guys tell me to step away from the front desk and they want to know what the hell I'm doing. I tell them I want answers from the management of this company about how they're handling this disaster. They say I can't just walk into a casino corporate office and ask to speak to someone.
Well, I just did. Why can't I?
They said it represents a major security risk and a breach of their perimeter. After all, Mr. Wynn takes his security at the hotel very seriously.
Me: I suppose if I were a sex offender with hired goons, I'd take my security seriously too. And if you really didn't want people going back there - last time I checked, this is a casino. The doors have locks. Perhaps you should have oh I don't know, locked them?
Wynn Security: What makes you think you can just walk in here and talk to us like that?
Me: I'm a stockholder. Technically you work for me.
Wynn Security: You honestly expect that a big company like us is going to send someone out of the corporate office to talk to a guy like you about a thing like this? That never happens in corporate america.
Me: That's strange. Michael Moore did exactly that and that's what made him famous. What's your point?
We bantered in the registration area of the Wynn for something like an hour and 45 minutes as the director of security wandered back and forth. They never backed down with the questions and I never backed down from the answers. A lot of casino security is former law enforcement so they're looking for that time you change your story like on an episode of cops. For instance, if it was cops it would go like
Cop: who's drugs are these?
1: Never seen em before
fast forward 2 min
1: I mean my friend smokes pot, maybe it's his
Cop: I thought you said you never seen em before?
fast forward 2 min
1: So I smoke a little pot okay
Cop: I thought you said it might be your friends pot?
fast forward 2 min
1: yeah it's my pot
They were looking for a reason to throw me out and as far as I can tell, they probably still are. I'm sorta expecting a registered letter in the mail barring me from the property in a week. If I start yelling, it's disorderly conduct and they have a case. If start pushing someone around, same thing. But if I speak candidly and gesticulate wildly and raise cogent points about how every single hotel employee I've dealt with thus far owns a combined total of zero shares in the company - they have no skin in the game and I do. So, they can't really criticize my opinion as wrong because I'm the stockholder not them. At least, that's my opinion. I could be wrong.
Well, the goons disagreed with me and said I was wrong. They also said that this could have been accomplished with a phone call. I said no, because you wouldn't take a phone call seriously. And now you're taking this seriously. So, match point: FC.
They didn't like that. It would not surprise me in the least if Steve Wynn was in the security booth with a radio telling his guys to find some reason to arrest me and have me sent to Clark County booking. This guy just feels guilty as sin. I can't prove it but my gut has usually been right about this sort of thing.
As I'm waiting for my inevitable arrest and booking, I wonder if American Airlines will allow me another flight change due to temporary incarceration. Because there's no way I'll be able to leave the state with an ROR or a signature bond out. I look over at Mean Joe Greene Jr and tell him I was too angry to eat lunch and I'd like to have a seat before my blood sugar crashes and my head hits the floor and Steve sends me a bill for the shattered italian marble.
He gestures towards a chair in the reception area and I have a sit. He offers to bring me another water. I decline. He brings me a water anyways. I consume both the waters as compliments of the house as a sign of untoward cooperation.
Out of the corner of my eye I see the director of security talking to two metro PD guys with handcuffs out. I hear over the radio they're asking for a rover to take me down to the security office for fingerprinting and photographs. He is gesticulating wildly.
The director of security comes back over and he tries to get me to crack on my story. I tell him I'm here as a shareholder as a private citizen demanding accountability of the management. I will not apologize for walking through an unlocked door to the corporate office asking to speak to someone to hear out my concerns, I will not apologize for going to the concierge since the previous person was very unhelpful and I will not apologize for expecting the highest standards of a fortune 1000 company chairman and CEO. And until you pony up and buy some stock, I'm not about to take a lecture about what is and isn't acceptable behavior from people who don't have skin in the game protecting what should be by all accounts a registered sex offender.
He looks back at Metro PD.
They shrug.
They've got nothing chargeable on me.
Hell, I'm not even counting cards this time.
Next thing I know he quickly walks away and returns with a late 20's hispanic fellow who introduces himself as the hotel manager. He says that he's gotten a report from security and that Mr. Wynn's private life he cannot comment on but the concerns I have will be sent up towards management.
FC: So you're the hotel manager? So you report to Matt Maddox. You tell him that this is a mess. Nobody comes back from this sort of thing. Not Harvey Weinstein. Not Louis CK. Not Matt Lauer. Not Bill O'Reilly. Not Bill Cosby. Not Kevin Spacey. Not Charlie Rose. Not Al Franken. And the LAST time this happened at Mirage, a shareholder revolt wound up sending the company into the hands of MGM. What's to stop Sheldon from across the street from doing the same thing? You tell them that.
The manager nods and offers me a room at a rate, inclusive of resort fee and taxes of $335/night. I take out my phone, look at the Hotel Tonight app and realize that I'm being charged more money than if I were to book the room from a consolidator.
Now, I don't mind the lie about understanding where I'm coming from. I do mind the insult to my intelligence. I am handed back my ID and the hotel manager offers his business card. I take his business card and go over to the cage. I close my credit line and take my deposit out of the cage. I'm down for the trip. Fuck this shit, I'll deal with it later. I call my brother and tell him that I've been released. We look at some flights and to get back to Boston will require another night in Las Vegas. Everything leaving tonight is full due to the conventions closing up.
AA has some seats open in first via Charlotte and Philly, I take the Charlotte flight leaving at 6:30 AM from McCarran and they confirm me seats in first all the way to Logan. This is the only thing to go right today. I purchase some clean clothes since I will not have time to do laundry in Boston anymore due to the delay and head over to the palace station oyster bar. The wait is about 2 hours but I make some friends in line while I'm there. I am torn between the alaskan chowder and the bouillabaisse. I ask Steve behind the bar what he thinks is best. He says do the bouillabaisse. I tell him that sounds excellent, and to add extra lobster. I ask him how long, he says could be 30 minutes but check back in 20. I tell him I'm gonna go hit the tables and I'll be back in 20. The timer on my phone begins counting down.
I belly up to the nearest craps table and I drop my cash down. I tell them I want it in black and red and the croupier complies. I bet the 6/8 split with mixed success and the pass line with odds. The shooter misses the point. I look down at my dwindling stack of chips and there's 15 minutes left.
Fuck it. Go big or go home. Lets get this shit over with. The point comes off. I drop $100 on the pass line. New shooter gets the dice and the come out roll hits a 10.
I look at the gal with the whip. I throw her a stack of chips.
FC: Full odds on the ten, $200 hard way, give me all the numbers and a nickel c and e.
New shooter proceeds to hit every number on the board, midnight, yo and a speed limit. Pass line pays even money. Pass odds pays 2-1. I'm looking down at a big stack of chips. What the fuck just happened?
I drop $100 on the pass line again, the point comes out for an 8. I take full odds and all the numbers. New shooter hits every number on the board, midnight, yo, except the 8. The guy next to me has the all or nothing at all working so the only thing left to hit is the 8 and it's gonna pay 175:1. The 8 does not hit. Everyone is chasing the 8'er from Decatur.
I look down at my stack and the table limit and the boxman.
FC: hey Joe, what's the juice on laying the 8?
Joe: 5 points!
I take down my pass line odds.
FC: I want everything off and I'll lay the 8 for a dime.
Everyone at the table looks at me like I'm a lunatic. I slide over two purple chips and two green for the vig.
Time remaining until bouillabaisse: 8 minutes.
Lets see what happens. The dice bang around a bunch of more times. I'm ahead for this trip. Way ahead. Next thing I know, the gal with the whip calls no roll. One of the dies have left the table.
Time remaining until bouillabaisse: 4 minutes.
This is my stop.
FC: Take down my lay, and I'll color up.
The boxman colors me up, I leave a nice tip for the crew and start to walk over to the cage to cash in. I hear screaming and profanity, I turn around and I see the dealers stacking chips. The shooter has 7'd out.
Time remaining until bouillabaisse: 2 minutes.
There's a long line at the cage. I walk back to the oyster bar and I see a big bowl with a plate covering it. Steve behind the bar has thought of everything.
I turn the plate over and look down at my stack of chips. Maybe today won't be so bad after all.
https://imgur.com/a/bjK7R
The bouillabaisse is delicious. The win is even more delicious. I nom my way to the bottom of the bowl and settle up the bill. I leave Steve a nice tip as I head over to the Palazzo to say hi to some friends. I find myself at a craps table you can hang meat upon. This is not good. It's getting late and I head over to my room at the Mandalay Bay.
Now, here's the fucked up part. This girl I've been hooking up with didn't hook up with me before I left for SHOT. She's been messing with my brain for a whole week. I check in to the Mandalay Bay where there's a goddamn pornstar convention going on.
FML.
I find myself down at a craps table at 11PM and bringing a frontier flight attendant named Amber back to my room. The lucky streak continues. My flight leaves in a few hours. I kick her out of my room and pass out.
Flight leaves at 625 for CLT. Need to be at McCarran at 525. Out the door of the hotel by 5AM at the latest. I set my alarm.
*Saturday, January 27th. *
I wake up to see the sun shining through my hotel room. I look down at the alarm clock. 8:01AM.
My long standing joke is that I sleep like a dead prostitute. The evening of ravenous illegal in 48 states sex has taken its toll. Fuck. I grab the phone and press the button for guest services. I turn on the speaker as I open my bag wide and just stuff everything in as fast as I can. I throw my boots on as I tell them to check me out over the phone. I haul ass downstairs to the garage and I get to McCarran and board the shuttle to Terminal 1. I walk up to the AA desk knowing I am 11 different kinds of fucked. Nancy the gate agent starts working on my departure. AA's rule is 2 hours from departure on a flat tire. That's 8:25 AM. It's a few minutes before 9. Nancy the great agent cannot get anything to work. She has to put me in the special services line. By the time I get there, they tell me I'm flying standby and I'm on the flight to Philly leaving at 1PM in the afternoon. There is no way in hell they can get me on the 10AM to Phoenix.
My cousin is getting married in Boston and she is going to fucking kill me. I told her I'd be there around 6PM on the rebooking. And now I'm going to be leaving for Philly in 4 hours. Granted, the Amex Centurion Lounge has freshly squeezed OJ but that's not going to be enough today. I run to TSA and get cleared. I run past the Centurion to head straight for the Phoenix gate. Hopefully other folks have had an irish layover. The gate agent there starts working me and she says that they have two open seats and that they're gonna get me on. Just sit tight. I step to the side to let her help a few other folks gate check bags. The clock is ticking and her colleague closes the boarding door as I'm standing next to the gate looking fucked. I take a deep breath and try to keep it together.
A tap on the shoulder.
"Sir, your boarding pass. Exit row window. I've taken the liberty and called back to make sure there's space in the overhead for my bags so you don't have to gate check. You are good to go."
I look up at the three ladies working the podium.
FC: Can I hug any of you?
Gate Agent 1: No
Gate Agent 2: I'm sick
Gate Agent 3: Sure, why not?
I head behind the counter and give her a hug. She seems pleased.
I hightail it to the door. Gate agent 2 opens it up for me. I run down the jetway like a charging rhino, Chris Christie like. The flight attendants greet me by name and they realize that my nose is bleeding from the 8 ball I shared with Amber a few hours back. The FA points at my nose and asks me if I'd like to step into the lav. I realize it's probably pretty bad. I leave my bags in the galley and duck in and I stuff a bunch of paper in my nose as an ersatz tampon. I walk back out, grab my bags and I declare to the entire plane it's the dry air not a cocaine problem.
Nobody believes me.
I take my seat and there's an empty seat between me and an in uniform FA on the way home. We chat a bit and Cathy thinks my story is hilarious. She even gets on AA's PALL list for the flight to Boston and checks and says I'm number one on standby R4. A nice lady, I offer her one of my extra LaRue Dillo's. She thinks they're cute.
The working FA walks back and looks down at the traveling FA and says very discreetly there's a 40 minute ground hold due to PHX losing a runway. This is gonna be really really tight. My connecting flight to Boston is not looking good. We wait the 40 minutes for the hold and make it to PHX about 15 minutes behind schedule. I bolt to the Boston gate. I ask if they've cleared all the standby passengers. They say yes. I say I should be number one and they hand me a ticket in coach.
FC: Any way I can talk you into a seat in the front of the plane?
The hate agent just looks at me funny. He does not seem to think that's happening. He asks me if I have status on the airline. Sure do. He says no promises.
I tell him no sweat, I'm gonna go take a leak and come back around in 5.
I walk back up and he hands me my new boarding pass.
https://imgur.com/a/IJuPe
I call my cousin and tell her that I'm gonna be a few hours late. Great ride all the way into Boston. I sleep like a dead prostitute.
https://imgur.com/a/RKMSu
Just as we cruise past the city of big shoulders, the FA wakes me up.
"Mr Hayden, would you like some ice cream?"
I look at my neighbor who is a middle age female executive and she is plowing through hers like Sherman through Atlanta.
FC: You know what, Chuck? I've always wanted to say this. I'll have what she's having.
https://imgur.com/a/our5R
Ice cream on the ground, delicious.
Ice cream on a plane, FUCKING FANTASTIC.
FC out.