Our government is running like a well-oiled Charlie Sheen.
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) February 17, 2017
Every day, the Republican Party acts less like a political organization and more like a cult…
The spotlight has finally been put on the low-life leakers! They will be caught!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 16, 2017
These aren’t leaks. They’re more like whistleblowing.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) February 16, 2017
This is going to be interesting, that is the internal investigation into who the "leakers" are…. https://t.co/B5m1m4gLzg
— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) February 16, 2017
@DanaHoule And maybe calling his voters yahoos or dimwits or rednecks etc.
— ((Robert Massing)) (@robmassing) February 16, 2017
Yeah, stuff that would ruin careers in Republican politics, & roil both Repub caucuses. https://t.co/v5V9FRODB6
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) February 16, 2017
FWIW, Republicans on the Hill were panicked behind the scenes by Trump's performance today.
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) February 16, 2017
2: And yet now, freely, they are agreeing to take ownership of it, become complicit after the fact. Do they even know what's in the box?
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 18, 2017
Thru the Looking Glass...
My money goes on a mile-high, steamin’, weapons-grade, shit sandwich…
So what happens when and if Putin gets tired of playing this game and decides he’s thru w/ Trump? And releases whatever compromising information he’s holding back?
It would be irresponsible to not ask…
Debbie(aussie)
All this shitgibbon stuff, even from here is fucking scary!
Villago Delenda Est
In a sane country, the GOP would be banned forever, for open treason.
But this country is not sane.
Jerzy Russian
I am waiting for Doug J to come clean and confess that this is all some elaborate hoax he pulled off. Sure, it may have been funny at first, but it has gone on way too long.
Jerzy Russian
@Villago Delenda Est: Also, stupidity would be physically painful.
sigaba
Ryan and McConnell aren’t implicated, they’ll just raise their hands and claim ignorance if and when the Trumperdummerung occurs, and the press and institutional DC will just roll with it. The fact that they’re benefiting and actively protecting him will simply be forgotten, or rationalized as “they had no other choice.” This excuse works for most Trump voters, it’ll work for them. Bankers are never fired for losing money in conventional ways.
Trump himself will just do what he always does, and pretend he doesn’t know how to read, and claim he didn’t understand anything that was going on around him, and 5/3 he skates.
jl
@sigaba: Ryan and McConnell really don’t care what’s in the box as long as they can hang on somehow and rake in more dough and more power for themselves and their paymasters.
amk
josh is being pretty naive if he thinks the entire rethugs establishment corrupt critters weren’t aware of the twitler’s russian connections for the past one year.
sigaba
@amk: They may have known or had their suspicions about Trump, but it’s doubtful they themselves worked with the Russians.
ETA- The issue is why would they go out of their way, and out on quite a limb, to help and protect Trump, knowing he’s in bed with the Russians, and not being in bed themselves. That’s why people are sorta hypothesizing about hacked RNC emails.
sukabi
@amk: that dossier was put together for ¡Jeb! and more than likely passed around thru the Republicans hands prior to the Clinton campaign further funding the info gathering. Very strange that none of the Rs used it during the primaries. Unless some of drumpfs dealings have been facilitated by directly or or within 6° of some prominent R or R paymaster…
Arclite
Republicans: party before country. Since the ends outweigh the means. As long as Liebrawls aren’t killing babies with IUDs, who cares how we get there, amirite?
Arclite
@Villago Delenda Est:
“In a sane country, the GOP would be banned forever, for open treason.
But this country is not sane.”
Middle Amerika: “I don’t like the Republicans, but we can’t have the blahs running Shariah law in our courts and feeding our kidz pot brownies!”
jl
@Arclite: Whole country on this jackass’s internally generated roid rage is better than threat of those DFHs. Hell, they might sell out the country to the commies!
Debbie(aussie)
There have been major home destroying bushfires near Canberra. Hope The Mighty Trowel and family are ok!
http://d37hmz7a04m9b0.cloudfront.net/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1800x/040ec09b1e35df139433887a97daa66f/5/0/507210003_02.jpg
NotMax
@jl
But, but, ACORN!
They had one more letter than ISIL so were ipso (alternative) facto much worse a threat!
Amir Khalid
Right now, there’s a headline on the front page of the CNN International website: “Is the White House prepared for a crisis?”
Crisis? Those incompetents are plainly not prepared for normal day-to-day operations, never mind a crisis.
Some Dude
When Trump leaves the White House (however that may be) I really think the last words he’ll say to the press is :”The Aristocrats!”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Some Dude: Nope, it’ll be “You won’t have Donald Trump to kick around anymore”; said with a scowl.
Aleta
@Amir Khalid: US Congress needs to try to take some powers of the presidency, those related to Stafford Act if possible and to war.
jhtrotter
@Amir Khalid:
Creating, or ending?
Frankensteinbeck
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It will be some variation of “Let go of me! I’m still president! I am!” He won’t ever accept an impeachment, probably won’t accept losing a reelection race, and the Secret Service won’t give a god damn what he accepts and will carry him struggling from the building if necessary.
Gvg
@Frankensteinbeck: which brings up the moral question of if the secret service still have to protect an impeached and removed President. I suppose they do. We can’t stand around and let people get murdered.
Can you imagine the years of stories he will put out to get attention. Tabloids will be in heaven but we will have to try to figure out the truth over and over till he dies. Every time he thinks our attention is on something else, he’ll make something up. It’s not like the world will stop turning and new events keep happening. Perfectly normal reasons people’s attention won’t be on him but he won’t care and he’ll make something up. This will happen even if he doesn’t get impeached.
enplaned
You don’t need to posit hacked GOP emails to understand why GOP Congresscritters are cowed. Most are in deep red gerrymandered districts or senators from deep red states. Such GOPers are tightly focused on GOP primaries. Trump will likely always retain a solid 30-40% of the GOP primary vote, come what may. No GOPer wants to stick his neck out and be the first to lose that 30-40% in the next primary.
So long as that dynamic governs, GOPers will stay on Trump’s side. In order for that dynamic to be overthrown will likely take something incredibly bad to hit the country that is unambiguously Trump’s fault. This is why I have a tough time believing anyone who says that Trump will be thrown out anytime soon.
Joejosh999
So late on a getaway Friday before recess, this happened –
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/17/politics/comey-russia-senate/
Which per some reporter’s tweets had Senators tight-lipped and even “ashen” afterwards. Would not even confirm that Comey had been there tho he was plainly seen leaving.
Some interesting Tweets
https://mobile.twitter.com/ericgeller/status/832790505452871680
Here’s hoping it was something big, and gets us real independent public hearings.
I’m starting to believe notions re there being Russian moles in the FBI NY field office. These would be the guys who misled the NYT and leaked to Rudy. But trying hard not to get on that scary slope. Oy. Louise Mensch had a long article about it.
Barry
@Thru the Looking Glass…: “So what happens when and if Putin gets tired of playing this game and decides he’s thru w/ Trump? And releases whatever compromising information he’s holding back?”
This is what is keeping the GOP leadership in Congress up at nights. They know that Vladimir ‘ex-KGB/Olympic Judoist/man who climbed to the top of the ex-USSR’ Putin kept all receipts, records, film and audio. At the press of a button, he can detonate the Presidency, in a manner which would make Watergate look trivial.