President Obama’s spokesman, Kevin Lewis, issued the following response to Trump’s accusation (via Buzzfeed):
A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.
Anyone catch the shade there? It blots out the sun.
ETA: Not that I’m saying this will happen, but it would be sweet karmic justice if an article by some drooling loon at Breitbart goaded Trump into rage-tweets that set events in motion that ultimately unravel his administration. I’ll wear a colander on my head for a week in homage to the Flying Spaghetti Monster should this occur.
JMG
Also note it doesn’t say Trump WASN’T under surveillance, just that Obama and the White House had nothing to do with it if there was any.
Baud
I need a spokesman.
Mwangangi
That’s beyond shade. It’s educational darkness.
Betty Cracker
@JMG: Yep — that’s a key point.
MattF
I.e., Trump must have tried. Wonder what happened next? Certainly, no one in the White House (or Mar-A-Lago) would have said “Sorry DJ, you can’t do that.”
Thoroughly Pizzled
Class vs. Ass.
Emerald
I’m betting there was a FISA warrant. If so, Benedict Donald is toast.
Baud
@Emerald: Yep. Thanks for making this news, Donald.
fuckwit
@Emerald: The statement almost deliberately leaves that as the implication.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
From what I’m gather by half watching the MSNBC coverage, if there was a FISA warrant requested and issued, SOP would be that the President wouldn’t know about it at the investigation stage, would eventually be told of the results, which I suppose may or may not have been in the briefing to BHO and the gang of (?) twelve?
PsiFighter37
@Emerald: Almost certainly. This guy just outed himself…what a fucking idiot.
Bet Pence is practicing taking the oath…
Maye
FISA warrant was reported a while ago. Reports said it was initially denied for being too broad. Later came back asking to look into two Russian banks. Story has been out there. Trump just now hearing about it from Brietbart.
debbie
Kevin, nicely put!
dm
Do we know that this is what the FISA warrant was about (i.e., there’s trustworthy reporting to that effect), or are we just speculating?
Though I do tend to think that the (reportedly) unusual initial refusal of the FISA court to grant a warrant, when they are usually accused of being a rubber stamp for that sort of thing, argues that the focus of the warrant was unusual.
ETA: like, unusual in the way that a presidential campaign is implicated.
(When I first read Trump’s tweet I thought, “Oh, I guess we now know the target of that FISA warrant….”)
germy
Interesting LGM comment:
Emerald
@Maye:
Hmmm. I remember that. Yeah, that’s old news. If that’s all this is about, then it seems fairly innocuous.
As I recall they didn’t say they found nothing—they wouldn’t say what the conclusions were, but I might be misremembering.
Gotta love the Obama shade, though!
debbie
Even better:
Emerald
@debbie:
Brilliant, Mr. Rhodes. Brilliant!
max
@Mwangangi: That’s beyond shade. It’s educational darkness.
Meh. Obama doesn’t respect Trump enough to throw real shade – that’s just swatting a noisy fly.
@PsiFighter37: Almost certainly. This guy just outed himself…what a fucking idiot.
He outed himself because he rather obviously figured he was already outed (which is more or less true) and decided to get in front and summon his minions.
I’m fine with that. He should keep it up – if we can get a serious war going with Trump, responding to the PR needs of the moment, attacking the FBI over wiretapping and Patriot Act/USA Freedom Act bullshit, while the FBI and Comey engage in fightback with (truthful, proven) accusations that Trump is an agent of a foreign power, followed by the FBI metaphorically breaking down in tears over how they totally ventilated Hillary just to make Trump happy, that’ll be great.
Dude wants to play ball, so, let’s play ball!
max
[‘Please tweet some more about this subject, Meester President.’]
cmorenc
@PsiFighter37:
Could anyone on our side of the political spectrum have considered a year ago, in their wildest nightmare (or more like their worst bad acid trip, that Mike Pence might potentially be the savior of our country? OK, so none of us can bring ourselves around to thinking of Mike Pence as any kind of political savior, but the fact that he might be the best possibility among three really bad options available right now (Trump vs Pence vs Paul Ryan) until 2020 is where we realistically stand at the moment. Pence or Ryan would be horrible, for sure, but the country would at least survive without becoming an annex of the Russian oligarchy ruled by a mad authoritarian despot who aspires to be like Putin. Which is exactly where Trump is trying to take us.
divF
@max:
Se vuol ballare, signor contino,….
The Sellars production of The Marriage of Figaro was set in Trump Tower.
Gin & Tonic
@germy:
Then the poster is a moron who must think that this is like some cheesy TV show, where they attach alligator clips labeled “FBI” and forget to lock the room or something. Nobody would “notice” the NSA’s work, and the NSA would not even need to enter the building.
Corner Stone
As long as Trump is holding the nutsacks of ZEGS and Turtle in his tiny hands we will never see the light of day on this or anything else.
The IC can leak it all they want. Trump backers will shrug it off or double down in support of him. It’s going to take every single person eligible to vote to get a true investigation conducted and made public.
Maye
@cmorenc: Agree. Pence is awful, but I’d sleep better at night if he were in the Oval instead of Nut Job.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This tweet storm is going around a bit, I think the key insight is that trump doesn’t really understand what he did or why people are upset.
He is his own base. Nicole Wallace is apparently (I heard her on the Obama Bros podcast going around talking to Obama-to-trump voters in the once and future blue wall states, and she said they don’t care about the Russia stuff. Obviously, she’s not talking to all of them, but I can see it be like climate change to them, remote and not impacting their current situation
ETA: D’oh! Forgot the link
Jared Yates SextonVerified account @ JYSexton 4h4 hours ago
All signs point to him having done something wrong, but it’s obvious he doesn’t understand that he did. That’s…baffling. 4/
Adam L Silverman
@dm: FISA warrants are compartmented as a matter of national security. We know about the one issued in October because it leaked. We do not really know its scope. Nor do we know if it is the only one issued in regard to connections between the Trump Organization and/or the Trump Campaign with the Russian government, specifically intelligence, and/or other Russian interests.
Emerald
@max:
That is one thing we know will never happen. Neither the FBI nor the NYT nor the AP nor Andrea Mitchell nor Chris Cillizza nor any of our intrepid media ever will admit that they deliberately smeared Hillary. Certainly not on the emails, but also not on the Clinton Foundation.
As a result, plenty of our fellow ‘Murikans always will believe that they dodged a bullet when they defeated Hillary.
History will debunk it eventually. I hope she lives to see it. (I hope *I* do!)
Captain C
@PsiFighter37: and/or the Fifth.
(and maybe a fifth as well…)
pamelabrown53
@Betty Cracker: #4.
President Obama simply stated (through his spokesperson-he’s the epitome of dignity) that he followed both the constitution and law. This is something that’s beyond Trump’s ken: the stiletto is poised. Trump really should rethink dragging President Obama’s name into this. Obama’s intelligence, decency and self-discipline will only hasten and add to the hurt coming Trump’s way.
Emerald
@Captain C:
Yeah, I’m betting Pence was out of the loop. tRump didn’t really want him and almost revoked his choice on the same day Pence was announced as VP.
However, if Pence involves himself in the coverup, that might come back to bite him.
Oatler.
” You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded –with what caution –with what foresight –with what dissimulation I went to work!”
JMG
I don’t know where Obama is today, but if I were him, I’d make a point of going to the movies tonight and being photographed entering and/or leaving a showing of Get Out!
Goku
@Corner Stone: If I were completely amoral I would seriously suggest that maybe the “Trump backers” need to be taken care of. However, I’m smart enough to know that way madness (and genocidal civil war) lies. I don’the see any easy way out of this.
Too many Republicans are utterly too brainwashed/corrupt to put a stop to this the right way. Most of T’s voters will never leave him and are brainwashed as well. They would rather reject our entire system of government in favor of installing Trump as a dictator than see him for the likely traitor he is. The kicker is they think THEY’RE the real patriots.
pamelabrown53
@Maye: #12.
Read Adam Silverman at @about #91 in last thread. Which BTW, I hope won’t be abandoned because there was still some lively activity.
Thanks, Betty for informing us of President’s Obama’s response.
Lapassionara
@Baud: I’ll volunteer, if you will write my lines. Always wanted to be a “spox.”
Peale
@Emerald: he was Chosen by manafort. There’s probably more to that story than meets the eye as well. These men seem to be wicked to the core. I doubt pence was favored for possessing a much needed moral center.
mai naem mobile
Can I haz my NoDrama Obama back? I’ll go to temple weekly. I’ll do some fasting. Whatever it will take.
Adam L Silverman
@Emerald: As I’ve pointed out repeatedly: 1) It has been reported that the Vice President was briefed on LTG Flynn’s communications with Ambassador Kislyak in early January – his statement that he didn’t know is a lie. 2) The transition made a big deal out of the fact that the then Vice President-elect was receiving the PDB 6 days a week to reassure everyone that it was perfectly fine that the then President-elect was not. There is no way that the Vice President did not know. What he has done and is doing is what he always does when he gets in trouble, hence the ongoing litigation in Indiana, he puts the pained, pious look on his face and then he lies. It has so far worked for him at every stage of his career. This is not a criminal investigation, it is a counterintelligence investigation. Pretending to be pious will not work.
fuckwit
@germy: FISA for FIFA?
Betty Cracker
@pamelabrown53: Agree that Trump should have kept President Obama’s name out of his mouth, but he’s a compulsive idiot, so here we are. The only mystery that remains is if his foolishness will blow up on him in a large way or if it’ll be shrugged off as yet another example of his usual overheated bloviating.
A year ago, if you’d told me a sitting president could accuse his predecessor of tapping his phones and the media, congress, American people, etc., would shrug and go on about their business, I’d have said you’re nuts. But a year ago, I didn’t believe this country was capable of elevating a corrupt, narcissistic demagogue to the presidency, so what do I know?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
interesting point, in light of the story that Trump is set up to eavesdrop on phone calls at Mar-a-Tacky
JMG
@Betty Cracker: In 1981, the WaPo reported or alleged in a column or something that Carter had had Reagan wiretapped and Carter threatened a libel suit. Then the whole thing died out due to the usual loss of interest by both parties.
pamelabrown53
@Corner Stone: #23.
“Time will tell. If it looks as though the republican led congress shuts this down then I fully expect the foreign intelligence services will spill their beans and provide unremitting pressure on them to the point that they have to do the right thing.
Brachiator
@JMG:
It was the Russians!
There was a news clip of maybe Lindsay Graham being told about Trump’s wiretapping claim. You could hear the derisive laughter in the background.
The sad thing is that Trump supporters probably believe this and are ramping up their Obama hate.
mai naem mobile
I’d be willing to make a amall bet that 45 gets caught 9N tape calling Obama the N word by the end of the year.
hovercraft
@Mwangangi:
Stiletto , sharp and to the point, and you come away with your hands clean.
Yo KAC, or Spicey, this is how you insult people while remaining presidential, he just gave the facts, he didn’t lie, and the focus is still where it belongs, on the infantile ranting of our toddler in chief and his contacts with Russia.
This tutorial has been brought to you by, adults who know what they are doing, democrats.
dr. bloor
@debbie: Kevin, with some help from Barack and Michelle sitting around the kitchen table laughing their asses off as they put it together.
Captain C
@Emerald: If Kasich had been Veep, I would have bet he was smart enough to keep himself out of the loop. Pence, I’m just not sure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as somebody said on twitter, can’t find it now, trump has no understanding of government or institutions, so “Obama” just means government, or “government before me”
also, too
Captain C
@Peale: More like possessing a much-needed lack of intelligence and curiosity. Plus ‘vice-presidential’ looks, I bet.
MattF
@Captain C: Pence is pretty dumb, but he will realize at some point that he can’t be fired.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Everything is projection, he does it, so everyone else must do it. He is normal dammit!
schrodingers_cat
@mai naem mobile: You have to go daily. And no onion and garlic for you.
Adam L Silverman
Something very important that has to be recognized right now: we are in the middle of the Jewish sabbath. So Ivanka and Jared are offline until after sundown. And that includes if they went to Mar a Lago on this trip. The historical pattern is that the tweeting is worse, more unhinged, etc during the Jewish sabbath, during Jewish holidays, and other times (very late at night, very early in the morning) when they’re not around.
Brachiator
@cmorenc:
I far more fear the Republicans. There is no chance that the US will be annexed by Russia. Trump would at most disrupt alliances between the US and its global allies. And of course Trump and his cronies look to make beneficial financial pacts with Putin.
But Trump, Ryan, and Pence all seek to return the US to some kind of religious based free-market conservative paradise. The undoing of every humane and progressive program enacted since the post Reconstruction era would result in more damage than someone like Putin could ever inflict on the country.
Yarrow
Barack Obama is the best at shade. Love it.
Captain C
@Captain C: Or what Adam said at 2:07.
Baud
@Brachiator: I don’t know why you think Trump won’t do just about everything Pence would do.
pamelabrown53
@Betty Cracker: #40.
Exactly, so “what do I know”? From my vantage point, I see Trump digging in deeper by the day. What’s scary is his narcissism might precipitate a second civil war before someone or some institution manages to stop him. In fact, I would venture that because he’s now “president”, he thinks he’s unstoppable..
I don’t share his belief..
Baud
I’m looking forward to when Trump goes after Michelle.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I think Pence would be weaker cause he’d blunder into Social Security and Medicare, which is the key to trump’s win(s) that the Beltway can’t see, because everybody Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd know knows that we have to Reform Entitlements
Adam L Silverman
@Goku: Not appropriate. I’m yanking the comment.
randy khan
@dr. bloor:
The thing is that I doubt they’re laughing at any of this. They love the country, and just were in the White House for 8 years, so they know better than anyone what the job entails and what it means. They undoubtedly are appalled by Trump and everything he does.
(Okay, maybe the occasional rueful laugh, but that’s it.)
mai naem mobile
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t even go weekly so going weekly would be a big step up. I do the altar at home daily. I’ll give up the garlic and onions I guess. That’s a huge sacrifice for me.
Tracy Ratcliff
@Gin & Tonic: Sirrah! You have impugned the honor of rpg.net, I demand satisfaction in a pike-guisarme duel at dawn!
Having read the original post, the commenter meant, “when the FISA warrant was leaked.”
And what is rpg.net? It’s a website for discussing role-playing games like D&D and other general geekery. The discussion forums are benevolently but ruthlessly monitored by volunteer moderators, so they are blissfully free of Gamergaters and the like, and are a safe place for LGBT geeks and others. Since the inauguration, “No hate. No fear. Everyone is welcome here.” has been the byline on the boards.
randy khan
@Gin & Tonic:
I think the more likely explanation is that it showed up on a report or something like that, not that there is any physical evidence at TT that someone found. (Although you might be surprised how much wiretapping still involves tapping actual wires.) That would be consistent with DT’s unhinged tweeting and the reports of his going ballistic at the White House last night.
Goku
@Adam L Silverman:
Sorry, I am worried that it might come to that though. Hoping it won’t.
3Jane Tessier-Ashpool (a/k/a Lorinda Pike)
I know this is from two threads back, and this thread is serious discussion, but I want to commend you, Ms. Cracker, for finally giving me a fittingly derisive name for that rococo piece of crap in which the Yam resides (at taxpayer expense) on the weekends – Disgraceland.
I had tried Mar-A-Sewer, but Disgraceland just trips off the tongue (and the keys) so much more easily.
(I also disliked Elvis, even though I grew up in early 60s Mississippi. I found him to be a fraud like the Yam, but not nearly as dangerous, no matter what the bible-thumpers maintained. However, now both positions are considered blasphemy if spoken aloud in this state…)
Neldob
Wow. Obama is better than we deserve. I thank his mother too. Maybe the ethics chicken will come home to roost. I need a strong drink with a name, something catchy with Republicans and Russians in it. Trump is just the olive or something.
efgoldman
@Corner Stone:
This is the guy who’s going to be running the investigation. He’s such a straight arrow that Obama’s DOJ held him over for the whole eight years even though W appointed him.
It will be a very slow and frustrating slog, but we’ll get there.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku: No worries, I figured that’s how you meant it, but that’s not how it read.
As I’ve written before, on both the front page and in comments, I fully expect, as things get worse, that the violence will get worse. Most of what appears to be organized violence is against property right now – and when no one is around. The more spontaneous violence against persons, the Quebec terrorist attack by mass shooting last month as the exception, has been much more sporadic and limited. I do not think it will stay that way. Unfortunately because we are in a situation unlike any we’ve experienced in the US, trying to do a proper risk assessment is useless. There are too many unknown explanatory variables right now that can’t be accounted for.
cmorenc
@Brachiator:
…which is exactly why Paul Ryan is the scariest option among the three – because he’s the one among the three with the most knowledge and skill to effectively go about dismantling every Progressive accomplishment from the New Deal forward, in favor of constructing a dream Randian glibertarian paradise, with enough key concessions to the religious right to keep them happily on-board. Plus, Ryan has charmed far too many in the MSM beyond Fox realm that he’s a deep-thinking conservative intellectual, instead of a fraud who uses magical asterisks, misdirection, and fictional assertions to make his ideological fantasies seem like plausible policy goals.
With Trump, the gamble is that he will wreck and alienate the country just enough to be beatable in 2020 and break the GOP’s grip on congressional majorities over the 2018 and 2020 elections, without wrecking it irretrievably. Of course, even if his ambitions succeed, Trump won’t literally transform the country into an annex of Russia, but it’s easily possible he could so entangle the US in a web of business and policy ties with Russia that the US becomes little more than a Russia-like oligarchy headed by a volatile, vengeful autocrat, and that is how the rest of the world comes to see us.
TriassicSands
@JMG:
Alternatively, they may have asked for surveillance but not on an American citizen — just the foreign agents the American was talking to.
Emerald
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh, sure, after the inauguration. But during the campaign when all the shit supposedly went down, I strongly doubt Pence had much to do with it. Manafort probably chose him for his stupidity and loyalty to the Cause of repealing the 20th Century and destroying the State.
However, if he indeed is in on the coverup then he might be toast too. Thing is, I’d rather have Pence in there than Ryan. The media just lurves ’em some Paul Ryan, the Intellectual Leader and Conscience and Soul of the Republican Party.
Even in Indiana, they hate Pence. Pence would become hated quite quickly if he were to become President. But the media is going to cover up for Ryan till the sun rises in the west.
Ergo, Ryan can do much more damage.
hovercraft
Chants, shouts, scuffles as pro-Trump Capitol rally draws counterprotesters in Minnesota
The pro-Trump group outnumbered counterprotesters at the Minnesota Capitol rally. Police separated the groups, but taunts continued to fly from both sides.
Minor scuffles broke out Saturday in the rotunda of the Minnesota State Capitol at a pro-Trump rally that drew several hundred supporters of the president and a smaller group of counterprotesters………..
Organizers of the pro-Trump event have said they want to provide a counterpoint to the anti-Trump rallies that have drawn thousands of people nationwide since the inauguration.
They um showed us? I mean a few hundred is so much more significant than thousands, hundreds of thousands, right?
But don’t lose heart all you “patriots”, Hot Air, ( refuse to link) explains it for you, and is surprisingly almost honest, apart from the paid protester bit, and the media bias bs.
I really wish George would send out my check, I could really use the money.
D58826
Hypothetical question. It seems well established that the FBI has been investigating the Russian interference in the election. So they develop sufficient evidence to request a FISA warrant as part of the investigation of say Paul Manafort. Since Manafort has ties to Trump and may well be meeting/talking with Trump would the FISA warrant cover Trump Tower, not because Trump was the target (at least not yet), but Manafort was?
Paul
@PsiFighter37: Pence was part of the campaign, and may be collateral damage. Welcome Pres. Paul Ryan!
Johnnybuck
@Emerald: Manafort probably chose him for his stupidity and loyalty to the Cause of repealing the 20th Century and destroying the State.
hovercraft
@Baud:
She baited him enough times on the campaign trail, and he refused to take the bait, bullies always know who not to attack, their sense of self preservation is finely honed.
aimai
@Baud: Man, I”m not. The ugly here is truly scary to me. I am also waiting for him to redirect fire to Hillary and to threaten to jail her again.
Brachiator
@cmorenc:
I don’t see that Ryan is all that knowledgeable or skillful. And the dismantling of the US is already happening, with Trump’s first fitful executive orders, his placement of incompetents or ideologues as the heads of targeted agencies, and his plan to severely cut the budgets of these agencies so that they become ineffective or irrelevant. Assaults on the rights of women, gays, and nonwhites are beginning. Either Pence or Ryan can continue this.
The larger question may be how much damage to the country is done by 2020, and whether we can recover from it, as much as it may be a question about who can win an election.
Again, I don’t see any entanglement with Russia as anything to worry about, compared to the direct challenges to democracy and to the Constitution. As always, your mileage may vary.
Central Planning
@Neldob: Moscow Mule doesn’t work?
Gin & Tonic
@D58826: Manafort also owns an apartment in TT. He maintains an office in Kyiv too. So almost anything could make him eligible, but dollars to donuts Ukraine is recording his every word.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator:
The danger isn’t entanglement with Russia. The danger is becoming Russia. Putin is Trump’s role model.
germy
@fuckwit: FISA for FIFA?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-18/fifa-s-marin-swaps-jail-for-trump-tower-as-legal-strategy-shifts
Paula
The advantage of Pence — looking for silver linings — is that he ISN’T Trump. Trump has a cachet for his followers not shared by any other Republicans. Pence is establishment. Repubs fall into roughly 4 groups: deplorables, christianists, libertarians, whatever’s left. During the primaries none of the Repubs could get a strong majority — even Trump’s majority wasn’t that large.
Pence is a christianist. Ryan is a Libertarian. McConnell — well, I don’t know. But the point is, Trump’s appeal was all about personality: dominance, hatred, resentment. The others traffic in those things but they can’t carry them off like Trump does. If Trump goes down all eyes will be on the rest of the GOP and all the horrible things they are doing that will negatively impact the lives of Americans. The rest of the GOP lack that Trump-teflon.
Emerald
@Johnnybuck:
Ha ha. Rather, stupid enough to take the job.
zhena gogolia
@Paula:
I agree completely.
aimai
@Paula: Absolutely. I could not agree more. There is little general voter enthusiasm for Pence/chistianist/corporatist wing of the party (the other three legs of the stool. In fact, the Trumpistas definitively voted against them in rejecting all the other republican candidates. So if Trump is replaced by Pence then Ryan/McConnel lose all Trump’s populist cred, plus look like they martyred the guy to get Pence in. They’d love the democrats to remove Trump, so their hands aren’t on it and they could get Pence in and try to placate the base. But the demsaren’t in a position to do it.
dm
@D58826: Manafort lives in Trump Tower, doesn’t he?
ETA: Beaten to the punch (and the vodka it is spiked with) by G&T.
Suffragete City elftx
When he was elected I told my hubby that his authoritarian impulse would be to go after Clinton and or Obama.
I’ve been seeing reports this past week how in right wing talk radio, media the “Obama pushing a silent coup” story is circling.
The funny part about his tweets is him not having a clue to begin with regarding the prior reports of a FISA warrant.
How willing are his supporters in congress to push these conspiracy theories? Right now congress seems to prefer ignoring him while they hunt for the elusive ACA repeal.
But his base otoh are as unhinged as he is and I have mentioned to a few fb friends the day will come when he demands his supporters defend him.
germy
@Paula:
Opportunist.
SFBayAreaGal
As I said in a previous post, every single one of them needs to have their heads cut off, a stake driven through their hearts, their bodies burnt, and the ground they lay in covered with salt so they never can come back. (Credit to Supernatural)
Central Planning
@Baud: I’d like to apply for that job. I have many qualifications: 1- I’m stupid enough to want it, 2- I like to argue pointlessly, 3- I can make shit up, 4- I can keep my mouth shut.
How much does it pay, and what benefits do you offer?
Gelfling 545
@cmorenc: i feel I’d rather have Trump remain in place as long as possible and drag such reputation as the GOP now possesses down into the sewer with him. Pence or Ryan could actually do much more damage, though less colorfully.
cokane
shade is made by the sun, betty
Shalimar
@Paula: McConnell is the kind of technocrat who cares about winning and keeping power at all costs, knows all the rules and can manipulate them as necessary, but has never bothered to learn the point of playing the game.
mai naem mobile
I don’t think Paul Ryan is that smart. Boehner was smarter than Ryan. Mitch McConnell is smarter than Boehner and Ryan. Trump is kinda sorta ‘people’ smart but he’s not knowledgeable smart and he’s too vengeful. I used to watch my dad do deals with people who treated him badult IMO and it used to piss me off but my dad just looked at what he was getting out of it and forget how the other person was treating him. 45 can’t do that.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@MattF: The ghost of Spiro Agnew is on line 2.
Betty Cracker
@cokane: Really?!? I thought it emanated directly from trees! ?
Sandia Blanca
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, that has been the pattern so far, right? They go “dark” for Shabbat, and he starts spewing even more nonsense. I loved the NPR report on this today, that the White House did not reply to numerous requests for comment on the tweets! They couldn’t get in touch with Ivanka to calm him down.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman: Summer weekends (if he makes it that far) are going to be a real riot…
schrodingers_cat
@mai naem mobile: I was just teasing. Like my mother says, God is everywhere, there is no need to go to a temple to find him/her. When I lived in MD, we used to live pretty close to a Hindu Temple and a Sikh Temple, best Indian food evah and cheap.
Temple for south Indian and Gurudwara for north Indian.
Timurid
@mai naem mobile:
My bet is “multiple N-bombs on Twitter after mixing cocaine and percocet.”
gene108
@mai naem mobile:
If the rumors about what was on The Apprentice out-takes is true – the ones Burnett refuses to release – he probably already has.
Timurid
@gene108: It’s really amazing that Trump’s picket line of NDA’s has held rock solid all through the campaign and the post election scandals…
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: This Friday/Sabbath/irresponsible tweets thing has been going on for awhile. Also notable is that Bannon and Priebus didn’t go to Mar-a-Lago this time. The usual handlers aren’t around. No wonder we got the crazy tweets.
FlipYrWhig
Someone will at some point explain to him that Obama’s DOJ/FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton, right? And that it’s pretty much what made him president? And that if anyone has a right to complain about how Obama’s government investigated things and all that went down, it’s not him?
germy
@GrandJury: Aren’t you the fucking idiot who used to call everyone here pants wetters when they were skeptical HRC would win in a landslide?
vhh
@Gelfling 545: best option may be to have an emasculated Trump tweeting at the moon, a paralyzed Congress, and govt by CR as the investigations proceed to rope in more and more Trumpkins over the next 18 months, with indictment headlines mounting before the 2018 elections. With luck, the Dems take the House and maybe the Senate, and impeach Trump and Pence, and we get Pelosi or her successor as Prez. But external events could complicate things: N Korea, Ukraine, Baltics for ex.
catclub
@Maye:
But no warrant necessary – or easy to get – if you want to tap EVERYBODY’S phone. Only when named person s are involved does it become hard. This is the wacked out world of FISA.
catclub
@vhh:
it is Fitzmas all over again when Dick Cheney was …THIS close to being indicted.
Captain C
@GrandJury: Are you the person who bursts into a campaign office, yells at the volunteers incoherently for half an hour about how they’re doing everything wrong, and then flounces out without giving any actual help?
germy
@Captain C: Grandjury used to post under a different nym. Loved to insult people. Was obsessed with bodily fluids. One day he made the same comment under two aliases, and then hastily deleted one. In other words, a moron.
germy
@GrandJury: How many aliases have you got? Do you act as your own press agent?
Baud
@FlipYrWhig:
Done. Earlier thread.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
@Paula:
McConnell is firmly planted in the. corporatist wing. But his real sweet spot is power. He will kiss up to whoever can help him in that quest as long as they are useful, idiot or otherwise.
hedgehog mobile
@Central Planning: Black Russians.
Central Planning
@hedgehog mobile: White Russian fits the racist wing.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@hovercraft:
The segment I watched earlier today appeared to be a gaggle of old white folks – it closely resembled the uniformity of a crowd at a Lutheran potluck.
hedgehog mobile
@Central Planning: True…
divF
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Were they all carrying covered dishes ?
Betty Cracker
@divF: With lutefisk!
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Adam L Silverman:
Well…coming from you, those are scary words…
I’m kinda surprised affairs haven’t already gotten more violent… a testament to the overall stability of the country, no? In some 3rd world countries, I suspect we’d already be at the stage of horrific civil war in the streets by now…
I find it worrisome that DeVos’ brother is Erik Prince of Blackwater fame…
Suzanne
@Paul:
Don’t say it. Not even in jest.
Ryan may be the most terrifying of them all, specifically because he is the most competent.
MCA1
Couple random thoughts:
1. Imagine a POTUS standing behind a podium with the Seal of the President of The United States and actually speaking this shit that Hair Furor crapped out overnight. Audible gasps. People would be AGHAST. Twitter is both the symbol of, and now that it’s in the hands of the shitgibbon, will be the agent of, the death of America.
2. Totally not his style, but I wish the note Obama left in a sealed envelope in a drawer of the Oval Office desk for his successor read: “I know what you did last summer. So do the FBI and NSA. You’re fucked. Toodles, – The Kenyan”
dm
Mostly for Adam to tuck into his bag of tricks, if he doesn’t already know all this stuff: So, your honor, how do I get that FISA warrant?
Suzanne
@MCA1:
Sometimes the fact that the Obamas ALWAYS take the high road is mildly disappointing to me.
ThresherK
@Thru the Looking Glass…: In a third-world country the illegitimate, foreign-based usurpation of a functioning, representative government would require capturing all the media outlets and debasing them.
I guess that can already be checked off the to-do list.
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
Nope. The US will not become Russia, even if Putin sat in the Oval office.
Trump is a little boy who has a fascination with perceived strong men. Maybe it’s a father thing that he never got over. Putin is the caretaker of an unstable, 2nd rate country. Hell, Angela Merkel is more powerful than Putin, but Trump could never acknowledge that a woman was a strong world leader.
Trump may need a deal with Russian oligarchs and sees Putin as a means to that end. But there is less here than meets the eye if you want to see Trump as some kind of Manchurian Candidate giving the US over to the Russians.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@ThresherK: True…
I suspect all of what we’re learning so quickly now is why Trump went out of his way to bash the media so repeatedly… he and his inner circle knew this would happen and they decided they better get in the first blows…
When a reporter gets murdered or a news room gets firebombed, THEN the shit gets thicker…
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Brachiator:
And Trump is Putin’s finger puppet…
Right now, the decided big winner in this mess is Putin… and no matter what the outcome, short of a miracle, he will continue to be the big winner…
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
This seems to me to be incredibly naive. How do you think Putin became Putin?
The US does not have to become “Russia” for the Putin effect to become real for this nation.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Ryan is overrated. The pundits declared him to be competent in the same way that they crowned McCain as a military expert.
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Nope. Putin is another version of Trump’s father, a stern, supposedly commanding power figure.
It will be interesting to see what they find if investigators dig deeper. In addition to an attempt to influence elections, might they find a sordid trail of bribes, kickbacks and promises to prop up Trump’s business empire?
amk
@debbie: oh, slap.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
What is this supposed “Putin effect?” How would it manifest itself here?
A good summary of how Putin became Putin can be found here: The Real Power of Putin
I take him seriously, but I also understand his limitations. And many of this country’s enemies are the home grown plutocrats backing the GOP and installed in the Trump Administration.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator: It has already started to manifest itself. All of the norms, conventions and institutions we have understood for the last 4+ decades have failed. Our free press is being hemmed in or made to be irrelevant because there is no enforcement mechanism in place to make this information stick.
Let me guess, there’s a “horseshit” somewhere in your reply comment.
Bill Arnold
@Suzanne:
Well, yeah, but the wingnuts have already caught on to B. Obama’s long-game play, The Project; the destruction of the Destroy America party by totally deniable high-road manipulations, now fully revealed by the Daily Mail piece linked in the previous thread.
Bill Arnold
@Brachiator:
I would not be surprised even slightly. At the very least, The Dossier suggested a few similar things. Also, DT has denied any such relationships, and the Russians have also said that such talk is unsubstantiated propaganda-talk.
(Link from Defense Against the Dark Arts: Networked Propaganda and Counter-Propaganda from I forget where (was widely linked), maybe from here.)