Reply #4: K und R. Man, it's like the Jackpot of Crackpots this week.

[HughBeaumont]

The Batshit Insane Wing of the Groaning Old Prehistorics seems to be getting larger . . . and infinitely more batshit insane as the weeks pass.

Particularly the amazingly clueless and staunchly wingnut Maria Bartiromo. That same wiki entry touches upon another revelation of her (somewhat selective?) stupidity: Her Celebrity Jeopardy appearance.

Category: The Capital, for $100

A: In 1989 hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators were killed by the military at Tiananmen Square in this capital.

Q: Maria buzzes in and makes a face for five seconds. A five second face, to her dismay, is incorrect. Armed with a functioning buzzer, Maria prepares to actually verbalize a question next time.

Later on, the question about Beijing would certainly bring up MORE unneeded controversy for "The Money Honey":

On one business trip in November, for instance, Mr. Thomson flew with a group of Citigroup employees to China—and left them there to make their own flight arrangements home, at the company's expense, while he flew back on the corporate jet with Maria Bartiromo, a CNBC correspondent, one of these people said.

It's fair to assume that Thomson and Bartiromo flew back alone, even though the piece doesn't say so. It merely states that Thomson left behind the group with whom he flew to China. But by not overtly stating Thomson and Bartiromo's aloneness, the Journal has it both ways: It's not saying the two were romantically linked, and it's not saying they weren't.

The Journal followed its Citigroup story the next day, Jan. 24, reporting that Thomson "had used more than $5 million from his division's marketing budget to sponsor a new television program for the Sundance Channel." One of the program's hosts was to be Bartiromo.

Deeper into the story, the Journal offers these two paragraphs (emphasis added):

Inside the bank, Mr. Thomson's friendship with Ms. Bartiromo became an issue. When Mr. Druskin, then Citigroup's investment-banking chief, took his management team to a holiday dinner in 2005 at the ritzy Daniel restaurant, he spotted Mr. Thomson having dinner with the CNBC anchor , according to people familiar with the situation. Word of the sighting spread through Citigroup the next day. A Citigroup spokeswoman says Mr. Druskin has no comment.

In recent months, some Citigroup executives advised Mr. Thomson to reduce his contact with Ms. Bartiromo, a person familiar with the matter says. But he justified the outings as good for business because clients enjoyed access to the CNBC anchor, according to another person with knowledge of the matter. Mr. Thomson noted to associates that his unit was showing better growth than any other Citigroup businesses, this person says.

Wiki also says . .. well, that she's been married since 1999 to Johnathan Steinberg, a CEO of WisdomTree Investments (naturally).

:think: