Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

White supremacy is terrorism.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

People are weird.

Second rate reporter says what?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

How stupid are these people?

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Mr. Comey, In Some Difficulty

Mr. Comey, In Some Difficulty

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He digged a pit, and hollowed it out, and is fallen into the hole that he made…

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250Comments

  3. 3.

    randy khan

    This, of course, is a problem entirely of Comey’s own making, so I feel no sympathy. And, you know, he doesn’t serve at the pleasure of the President, so there’s really nothing stopping him from making a public statement other than a new-found respect for DoJ guidelines on commenting during an investigation.

    Granted, the leak probably is nearly as effective as a public statement, but he’s definitely no profile in courage here.

  4. 4.

    lollipopguild

    KARMA, in spades. You would think that someone at the FBI might have figured out last summer that helping trump become president might cause problems for the FBI and the whole country. But no.

  5. 5.

    randy khan

    @Yarrow:

    [sarcasm]I thought they weren’t going to comment on this until the investigation was complete.[/sarcasm]

  6. 6.

    Mickee

    Requests that the DoJ clear this up? He must have forgotten who is in charge of the DoJ at the moment.

  7. 7.

    kindness

    I don’t appreciate the awkward feeling I get with the notion I need to be defending Comey.

  10. 10.

    JMG

    Comey is a bumbler. He sent out the Clinton email letter because he was afraid of leaks from his New York office. An efficient secret policeman would’ve had the potential leakers transferred to the Wilkes-Barre and Coeur d’Alene offices or set to work compiling auto theft stats in the basement of the Hoover building. I took his leak to be a plea to Trump “don’t make me say more.” He really just wants to shuffle paper in peace.
    PS: Comey does serve at the pleasure of the President. He has a 10-year term of office, but he can be fired.

  12. 12.

    The Moar You Know

    If you cover yourself in shit just to get someone to like you don’t be surprised when, for the rest of your life, people call you Shitboy.

    Have fun with the guy who you put in office, Shitboy. I hear he’s not a nice guy to work for.

  13. 13.

    XTPD

    @randy khan: [code] [/code] tags actually make sarcastic statements show up as a different font; just replace the brackets with those sideways-caret whatevers.

  14. 14.

    Yarrow

    @JMG:

    Comey does serve at the pleasure of the President. He has a 10-year term of office, but he can be fired.

    Indeed. We may be hating Comey but I don’t really want to think about who might replace him.

  15. 15.

    NorthLeft12

    Mr. Comey could care less how Deadbeat Donald’s hysterical charges reflects on Dems [like BMO] or the Attorney General(s), but heaven forbid that there might be some insinuation that Director Douchebag Comey and his precious band of acolytes somehow broke the law or used their powers for political purposes.
    Please pass the smelling salts!

  17. 17.

    lollipopguild

    Dealing with Hillary as President might have been hard for some in the FBI but at least they would have been dealing with a professional who would have hired competent professional people to work for her. Reality bites!

  18. 18.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    Kellyanne Conway:

    “He’s the president of the United States,” she said. “He has information and intelligence that the rest of us do not, and that’s the way it should be.”

    Right… information and intelligence the rest of us do not have… like the voices in his head telling him he’s right about this…

    Perhaps Trump’s security people did find bugs in Trump Tower… put there by the Russians… just trying to keep track of what their money was buying…

  19. 19.

    maryQ

    I think he is doing the right thing now. He’s reeling in a big fish, and he doesn’t want to give the appearance of any bias or personal motive. It would have been SO nice if he had shown this kind of professional restraint before.

    I suspect that Mr. Comey, like every one else, thought that HRC had this thing in the bag, and he thought “YOLO, man. I’m gonna let the world know what I think of this uppity be-yotch, so that they don’t accuse me of excessive deference when she is the President.”

    Kinda like all the protest voters who counted on us to keep this from happening, so that they could “make their statement” without real risk.

    Kinda like anti-vaxxers who don’t vaccinate their kids because they know that 90% o the kids in their class have been vaccinated so herd immunity.

  20. 20.

    Yarrow

    @Thru the Looking Glass…: I watched the opening segment of the Today Show today and saw the Huckabee spawn saying the same kind of thing. Must be today’s talking point–the president knows things we don’t know.

  21. 21.

    zmulls

    Anyone at DOJ who makes such a statement will be defenestrated, and they all know that.

  22. 22.

    Aleta

    Ca’n’t stop believing that this is still coming out of his self-interest. To prevent some testimony or keep ahead of something.

  23. 23.

    amk

    Yet another proof that everything twitler touches turns into shit.

    Having burnt his bridges with both the parties, I expect him to be gone soonish.

  24. 24.

    zach

    This is the dumbest story ever… someone obviously read the dumbly speculative article Foer wrote at Slate and thought they could make click bait by complimenting it with an invented story of an official investigation, FISA courts, etc… Trump read this and had a public freakout because he’s a conspiracy theorist who freaks out in public.

    Trump could easily say as much and move on by saying that by “Obama” he meant “Obama’s government” … not that it should be that easy, but it would be.

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    Every single thing Trump touches turns to shit. Comey was never very highly regarded, IMO, but he now has the full on shit mark all over him.
    Another person to line up beside Romney and Christie in the long line of victims of the Dignity Wraith.

  27. 27.

    randy khan

    @XTPD:

    I actually wrote the sarcasm tags with angle brackets and they disappeared, so I edited to square brackets so people would see them.

    I know that at LGM they’re using Courier as sarcasm, but it was too much trouble to figure out how to do it.

  28. 28.

    BCHS Class of 1980

    @JMG: True, but I think that the so-called “burden of proof” kinda shifts with the FBI Director. All other appointees are expected to offer their resignations at any sign of their boss’s displeasure. At least so far, the FBI Director has to be flat-out fired.

  29. 29.

    germy

    @Yarrow:

    I watched the opening segment of the Today Show today and saw the Huckabee spawn saying the same kind of thing.

    Ahh, the meritocracy!

  30. 30.

    ?eric

    Comey can be fired, but there is NOTHING that would extend this drama more than Trump actually firing Comey. So, i think we can all guess what is going to happen next….

  31. 31.

    Corner Stone

    @Yarrow:

    and saw the Huckabee spawn saying the same kind of thing

    I can’t stand to listen or watch her talk because her mouth moves just like her daddy’s. It’s creepy how their lips form the same weird shape when pronouncing any long O sounds. Almost like a circus game where you have to shoot water into and open mouth.

  32. 32.

    Corner Stone

    @kindness:

    I don’t appreciate the awkward feeling I get with the notion I need to be defending Comey.

    Never. I can imagine no scenario where I would feel the need to defend Comey.

  34. 34.

    Major Major Major Major

    Every so often, I run into some very egregiously bad code, and I just want to grab whoever wrote it and shake them by their shoulders and yell WE HAVE STANDARDS FOR A REASON!

    That “breaking protocol” tweet made me think of that, though Comey of course deserves to be grabbed and shaken by a different body part.

  35. 35.

    JMG

    @BCHS Class of 1980: The expectation was that firing an FBI director would be such a political own-goal it would never be done. And it would be, too, which would certainly not stop Trump.

  36. 36.

    germy

    @Corner Stone:

    It’s creepy how their lips form the same weird shape when pronouncing any long O sounds.

    Have you ever seen Dick Morris on the talk shows? He has a weird thing going with his speech, also. I think it’s because he’s crooked.

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    They keep saying that this is how Trump likes to run his business. With competing factions giving different viewpoints and the best ideas rising to the top.
    That seems like utter shit to me and so demonstrable false I don’t know why people keep trying to hold on to it as a contrast to how the WH is being (non)-run.

  38. 38.

    Bruce K

    Y’know what? I’ve still got too much fury in my heart to feel any schadenfreude at Comey’s self-inflicted misery here.

  39. 39.

    tobie

    I’m still trying to figure out Comey’s motivations for asking the White House to retract claims that Trump Tower was bugged. Here are some possibilities:
    (a) He doesn’t want the FBI implicated in illegal activity.
    (b) He knows a President can’t order a wiretap at all on a US person so he feels compelled to correct the record.
    (c) He doesn’t want to add fuel to speculation about any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
    My money goes on option c. It’s consistent with the reports we heard about Priebus asking FBI Deputy Director McGann and then Director Comey to knock down rumors that members of the Trump campaign were in touch with Russian government officials and associates. According to John Conyer’s letter to the White House Counsel, Comey told Priebus he could say that “senior intelligence officials” disputed the charge.

  40. 40.

    amk

    If comey does get shitcanned, will there be any sympathetic cabinet resignations? Like those ‘military leaders’ who are supposed to be the adults in charge? … Who am I kidding?

  41. 41.

    LAO

    If I weren’t so pissed at Comey for the Hillary letter, I’d find a certain satisfaction that he now finds himself between a rock and a shit stain. He has made his bed but we, the nation, are lying in it. What a sorry excuse for a director of the FBI.

  42. 42.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Forgive my ignorance, but what does it mean that the DOJ has not done as Comey requested? Is it because no one works there on Sunday, or because no one of authority could do so (Sessions Gump having recused himself)? Did Comey know DOJ would say nothing, thereby bolstering Trump’s claim?

    Me no gets it.

  43. 43.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Yarrow: Comey is bad so whoever replaces him will be just as bad. I don’t see how replacing a horrible person with another horrible person makes any difference. What he did against Secretary Clinton was unprecedented and outrageous.

  44. 44.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Yarrow:

    Must be today’s talking point–the president knows things we don’t know.

    And hears voices we don’t hear…

    Scary… scarier… scariest…

  46. 46.

    LAO

    @Yarrow:

    Must be today’s talking point–the president knows things we don’t know.

    Which of course, is a total joke. Because if he knew anything, we wouldn’t be relying on RWNJ like Breitbart. I will never forgive the 11% of trump regretters, who stuck us with this total joke of a President.

  50. 50.

    Mike R

    @Patricia Kayden: The fairly large corporation that I worked for moved managers around frequently. It was a refrain that it couldn’t get worse. This proved to be false in almost every case, it seemed a complete downhill spiral.

  51. 51.

    Gemina13

    Hoocoodanode that Trump would treat Comey like a frat boy’s gym sock?

    As enraged as this situation makes me, I’m also enjoying Comey’s discomfort and public embarrassment. May it cling to him like the mark of Cain.

  52. 52.

    germy

    Susan Sarandon was asked why her political statements make people so mad:

    Well, I think those people are just at a loss of really examining what happened. And it’s easy to blame me. But I mean, seriously, there’s me and Viggo Mortensen against all the people that supported Hillary. That would mean that we outweighed Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Beyoncé, Jay Z, Katy Perry, Julia Roberts. I mean every single person. Does that make sense to you? You know what I’m saying? I don’t think it’s rational, it’s not based in anything rational. It’s just a way to not deal with reality.

    I don’t understand it. And honestly, I think the point is we can’t afford to be divisive at this point and we have to move on. I have a lot of things I could complain about in the primaries, but right now we can’t be in third grade and playing a blame game. We have to be dealing with very, very serious things that are going on, and we play into Trump’s hands by wallowing in this blaming thing instead of actually unifying and doing something about it.

    I just saw, today, that he signed something that would put transgender kids at risk in schools. So are we really going to spend the time going after me and not go after the people that we really should? I hope that all these disgruntled Hillary people, and I haven’t heard much from her, are paying attention to DAPL. I didn’t hear anything from Hillary when that was going on. Now all these people that march and have found themselves to be political, that’s so great, and it’s what they have to do now. She should be mobilizing her people to deal with all of these affronts to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, all the Democrats that are voting with the Republicans, paying attention to the specifics of what’s happening, and stop wasting our energy on this kind of empty blaming. It wasn’t about winning. It’s supposed to be about the issues. And now we have real issues and things that need to be addressed, environmentally and with civil rights. We can’t afford to be wasting our time and energy and taking on a few people and saying, “They were the reason.” I mean, that’s just absurd.

  53. 53.

    lgerard

    I’m surprised trump hasn’t publicly called upon the Russians to provide proof of his claims

  56. 56.

    Chris

    @LAO:

    What a sorry excuse for a director of the FBI.

    Unfortunately, he seems to fit very well with the pattern of directors established by J. Edgar.

  57. 57.

    ?eric

    for those people that think that there is no one worse than Comey, I think Guliani would be FAR FAR FAR worse as the head of the FBI. I want Comey as a wounded and tainted appointee, the same as I want Sessions and all the others.

  58. 58.

    randy khan

    @germy:

    Well, there’s a fine bit of self-justification.

    She’s never going to get it, so on a certain level I’m fine with moving on, much though I want to shake her for her stupidity in 2016.

  60. 60.

    Yarrow

    @randy khan: Why not just use // after something to indicate sarcasm? A lot of people here seem to do that. Or you could just do /sarcasm at the end if you want it to be more obvious.

  63. 63.

    Brachiator

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    “He’s the president of the United States,” she said. “He has information and intelligence that the rest of us do not, and that’s the way it should be.”

    @Yarrow:

    I watched the opening segment of the Today Show today and saw the Huckabee spawn saying the same kind of thing. Must be today’s talking point–the president knows things we don’t know.

    I guess I expect Conway to back Trump’s play (does she and other Trump staffers have any line that can’t be crossed?). Will Congressional Republicans also back Trump, even if it means jumping into the abyss? Right now, a shift into an authoritarian regime requires the collusion of at least the Republican majority Congress.

    Who, besides Sessions, could authorize this obviously phony investigation into wiretapping?

  64. 64.

    tobie

    @Yarrow: I’m assuming the FBI is running investigations into Russian involvement in the 2016 election. I don’t know if/how much that investigation extends to the Trump campaign. I still find the following paragraph in the Times story puzzling and wonder if anyone has better insight into what it means than I do:

    In addition to being concerned about potential attacks on the bureau’s credibility, senior F.B.I. officials are said to be worried that the notion of a court-approved wiretap will raise the public’s expectations that the federal authorities have significant evidence implicating the Trump campaign in colluding with Russia’s efforts to disrupt the presidential election.

  65. 65.

    germy

    ‘Nothing supports what the president said’: Jason Chaffetz questions Trump’s wiretapping charges

    Appearing on CBS This Morning, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said he had no interest in opening up an investigation of President Donald Trump’s claims that his Trump Tower offices had been bugged by former President Barack Obama prior to the election.

    “I learned a long time ago, I’m going to keep my eyes wide open,” Chaffetz said when asked about Trump’s explosive Saturday morning tweets. “You never know when you turn a corner what you may or may not see. But thus far I have not seen anything directly that would support what the president has said.”

  66. 66.

    lgerard

    “He’s the president of the United States,” she said. “He has information and intelligence that the rest of us do not, and that’s the way it should be.”

    well, unless we read Infowars and Breitbart

  67. 67.

    amk

    @germy: I could see why she said she would prefer twitler over Hillary. Like him, she doesn’t take any responsibility for her cynical actions. Screw her.

  69. 69.

    JPL

    This was on twitter

    All of today’s events on Trump’s public schedule are closed press. And the Spicer briefing is off-camera

    On Saturday Politico had an article that some of the home land security people were told to work at home today.

    There’s no reason to think that the two things are linked, but it’s odd.

  70. 70.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Well, if the DOJ says nothing, Trumplings will cry, “See! Obama did bug our fearless leader!”

    Now, we know that IF such surveillance took place, it was because due cause had been shown. But do Trump and his supporters understand that? Unless he is punished in a meaningful way for colluding with Russia, he will be seen as a victim by his supporters. He will not be diminished.

  72. 72.

    piratedan

    well so far, I’m very impressed that the GOP has been managing everything so effectively and think that the media has been very generous in allowing them to get their act together and run the country. While they deserve each other, the millions of folks in the majority that didn’t vote for this crapfest get to watch the safety nets burn and common sense take a back seat to government by pettiness.

    Just waiting for blogs to be outlawed soon because these guys really don’t believe in dissent, much less religious tolerance or equal rights for people other than white males of the proper political persuasion.

  74. 74.

    hovercraft

    This is what happens when you believe your own press. All that talk about how nobel and honest he was in the face of the Bush administration, he thought put him above politics, and the most honest man ever. Like the villagers who think that being criticized from both sides means you’re doing it right. Comey deserves this shit, he brought it onto himself, payback is a bitch, he violated DOJ principles and guidelines to feed his ego, no sympathy.
    History will not be kind to James Comey, he’ll be listed right next to Putin as the two biggest causes of this debacle we are all living through.

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @XTPD:

    Please remind me how to do that. I think I knew once, but I didn’t make a note and now I’ve forgotten

    Thanks!

  76. 76.

    Martha

    @Yarrow: Bingo. Given his history of changing religions, parties, etc, he’s a prime candidate for engaging in behavior that’s not consistent with what he says at any given time.

  77. 77.

    cain

    @Corner Stone:

    They keep saying that this is how Trump likes to run his business. With competing factions giving different viewpoints and the best ideas rising to the top.

    Sadly there are corporations that run like that and it is idiotic. My former company ran like that, with business units competing against each other.. What usually happens is that sociopaths tend to rise to the top because they get off on all that competition and stress. It is literally their life. Just a shitty way to live IMHO even if you are wealthy. What’s the point?

  78. 78.

    Debbie1

    @Yarrow: Oh, so if the -friday. Obama ordered electronic surveillance on The*mp, could it be, KellyAnne, because “He’s the president and he knows stuff no one else knows?”

  79. 79.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @tobie:

    the notion of a court-approved wiretap will raise the public’s expectations that the federal authorities have significant evidence implicating the Trump campaign…

    I would take it to mean that if people starting believing there was a wiretap approved by FISC then there must have been compelling evidence for the court to approve it… which leads to the conclusion the Trump campaign was colluding w/ the Russians…

    There’s already so much smoke here you can barely breathe in the room…

    Take a closer look at Wilbur Ross and the Bank of Cyprus…

  81. 81.

    aimai

    @maryQ: Yup, there was an extreme “take this bitch and the dems down a peg” air about the whole thing. Reminds me of the expulsion of Elizabeth warren from the Senate for an offense that they allowed male senators to do with impunity. The unselfconscious misgyny and contempt of these people for women/democrats is just astounding to me. Well, not really. I’m not so naive.

  82. 82.

    hovercraft

    @randy khan:
    Nah, they just mean they won’t answer any awkward questions about little things like poof, but they are totally going to make statements that perpetuate their lies.

  83. 83.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Martha:

    he’s a prime candidate for engaging in behavior that’s not consistent with what he says at any given time

    True… and he’s alway a prime candidate for covering his own ass when the need arises… Chaffetz sounds kind of scared here…

  84. 84.

    cmorenc

    @JMG:

    PS: Comey does serve at the pleasure of the President. He has a 10-year term of office, but he can be fired.

    In so openly challenging Trump on Trump’s wiretap claims, Comey is daring Trump to be petulantly stupid enough to try to fire him, betting that Trump’s inner circle will restrain him from impulsively making a move that would be far more likely to bring Trump down than Comey in the end – since Comey comes out at worst a martyr-for-truth in that scenario, overshadowing his dirty role in the election campaign.

  87. 87.

    Yarrow

    @cmorenc: Comey may come out as a “martyr for truth,” which would be okay for Comey’s reputation. But Trump could install someone really awful–Giuliani, for instance–as FBI director and shut down the entire investigation.

  88. 88.

    ? Martin

    @Yarrow: Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.

  92. 92.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Yarrow:

    But Trump could install someone really awful–Giuliani, for instance–as FBI director and shut down the entire investigation.

    True… and then a shitty situation would get even shittier… I’ve never seen so many people so angry all the time as I’m seeing right now…

    Honestly, I give kudos to the country for not degenerating into violence in the streets already…

  93. 93.

    JMG

    @Yarrow: Just as there was an anti-Clinton faction in the FBI, there would be a very pro-Comey faction if agents perceived Comey was fired for standing up for independence (power) and reputation of the agency. And those guys would start leaking like crazy. Remember, Deep Throat was a disaffected senior FBI official.

  94. 94.

    PPCLI

    @tobie: @?eric:

    Also I must say that this is some pathetically weak sourcing:

    senior F.B.I. officials are said to be worried that

    Who exactly is doing this “saying”?

  95. 95.

    martha

    @Thru the Looking Glass…: Similar to the McConnell body language from a few months ago. They know they’ve been hacked, and what was taken would be, at a minimum, spun negatively if it became public. If it’s something actually icky–either personal or financial–then they know they’re in big trouble and must cover up at all costs. Yes, I’m using the word “icky” to cover a broad range of possibilities.

  98. 98.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    The idea that BHO illegally had Trump Tower bugged is ludicrous. Obama always observed the rules.
    If actionable intelligence was gained, then Trumpling heads must roll; otherwise, for conservative voters the message will be that maybe Trump bent the rules a tiny little bit. (“Hey, who doesn’t, amirite?” they will chortle.)

    If he is not taken down completely, the conservatives will view him as a victim, they will continue to spin and buy into their absurd narrative that the media is liberal, that Democrats play dirty.

  99. 99.

    Yarrow

    @martha: I can’t remember where I read it, but I think Chaffetz has some Russian ties as well. Hell, all the senior GOP leadership seem to have Russian connections. They’re all suspect. It’s why they’re dragging their feet in calling for any sort of independent investigation. They know they’re all guilty.

  100. 100.

    tobie

    @PPCLI: “Senior FBI officials” and “senior intelligence officials” seems to be Comey’s term d’art when giving info to the media. As I posted here @tobie: he reportedly told Reince Priebus he could dispute claims that the Trump campaign was in contact with the Russian gov’t and/or associates based on the statements of “senior intelligence officials.”

    All this is speculation. As Thru the Looking Glass said, there’s so much smoke it’s hard to breathe.

  101. 101.

    Betty Cracker

    The minute he’s no longer needed as a backstop against Giuliani or some other ghoul taking the FBI Director spot, Comey can go with all possible haste to die in the nearest fucking fire. Is he a partisan hack who deliberately sleazed Trump into office? Or an inept and vain jackass who accidentally put an unstable demagogue in the Oval Office because he couldn’t control his own staff? I don’t know. But history won’t be kind.

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    @Corner Stone:

    They keep saying that this is how Trump likes to run his business. With competing factions giving different viewpoints and the best ideas rising to the top.

    That seems like utter shit to me..

    Yep. What Trump has displayed so far is the total opposite of leadership. His vaunted reputation was a fantasy.

  105. 105.

    Anonymous At Work

    Comey just got a reminder that Satan, spray-tan colored or not, *buys* souls; he doesn’t sell them back.

  106. 106.

    scav

    @germy: So the parricide is now not only asking for orphans benefits but warm and unstinted emotional support? “Why, officer, yes I drove into those innocent bystanders, but shouldn’t it all be about them? Why are you taking down my particulars?”

  107. 107.

    Betty Cracker

    @danielx: Clarke is nuttier than a squirrel turd, but I’ve never seen such a comprehensive social media campaign to suck up to a prospective boss. He finds time to kiss Trump’s ass on Twitter several times a day.

  108. 108.

    Yarrow

    @danielx: David Clarke was in Russia at the time of that RT dinner that Flynn and Jill Stein attended, December 2015. Why was a Milwaukee County Sheriff in Russia and meeting with officials there?

  109. 109.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Betty Cracker:

    Is he a partisan hack who deliberately sleazed Trump into office? Or an inept and vain jackass who accidentally put an unstable demagogue in the Oval Office because he couldn’t control his own staff?

    Silverman says the latter, but I have no idea which is worse.

  110. 110.

    J R in WV

    @Yarrow:

    Comey does serve at the pleasure of the President. He has a 10-year term of office, but he can be fired.

    Indeed. We may be hating Comey but I don’t really want to think about who might replace him.

    Testing [code] I'm sure Trump will only nominate the most responsible and competent leadership for the FBI that is possible in the whole world!

    ETA: Test complete, total success!! The Sarcasm [code] html command does work on Balloon-Juice after all… wow!! WOW !!!

  112. 112.

    Kryptik

    @germy:

    Unfortunately, watching the entire thing in context, Chaffetz is being a fucking weasel. He’s not ‘opening’ an investigation, but he vowed that the Oversight committee would “act in support” of the House Intel Cmtte (which HAS vowed to investigate), and basically stated ‘we haven’t seen anything yet, but who knows?!’ On top of that, he said the same thing on Fox & Friends and insinuated that this is somehow a larger pattern of Obama silencing his enemies or some shit.

    So Chaffetz hasn’t changed his stripes. He’s still a toad amongst toads.

  115. 115.

    Brachiator

    @J R in WV: Rock? Meet the hard place.

    I don’t know which would be worse. Comey or a Trump replacement.

    ETA: Thinking about it, I believe the Trump replacement for Comey would be worse.

  121. 121.

    Tazj

    @germy: One way to unite people and not be seen as an insufferable self-righteous asshole, might be to not continue to berate your detractors and Hillary Clinton. Maybe she should just stick to the issues herself.
    Things aren’t better now that 45 is the president, no matter how many more people are politically involved. That shouldn’t have been the point either.
    I do have respect for her involvement in various human rights issues and she’s not the reason 45 won, but her statements in regard to this past election were terrible.

  122. 122.

    JPL

    Curious. New Trump order requires US govt to compile and make public the number of “honor killings” in the US.
    Oliver Knox tweet

    We already have a list of immigrant crime, and now this.
    Welcome to the early forties, in Germany

  126. 126.

    PPCLI

    @tobie: True, but what I was pointing to was in part that the claim is not attributed to “a senior FBI official/ senior FBI officials”. It states that [undescribed people] are saying this about such officials.

  127. 127.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Yeah, the sarcasm thing looks a bit like someone editing a Word document. Oh, well… first world problem at best.

  128. 128.

    NobodySpecial

    @Yarrow: Reports indicate he was there for some Russian gun nut group’s meeting. Tab of the trip was paid for by Israel and Russia.

  129. 129.

    Yarrow

    @Yarrow: He even posted a picture of himself and some Russian official on his Twitter account. I mean, WTF? What was a Milwaukee County Sheriff doing in Russia? And that was December 2015, so before the primaries had officially started, but well after the campaigns were going.

    I haven’t followed all that closely enough but was he in with Trump’s campaign at that time? Wouldn’t surprise me given the Russian connections. He’s likely a Russian asset like the rest of them.

  130. 130.

    scuffletuffle

    Can one of our russian scholars tell me how to write “fuck trump” in Russian? Got a march coming up…

  137. 137.

    hovercraft

    @maryQ:
    “I think he is doing the right thing now. He’s reeling in a big fish, and he doesn’t want to give the appearance of any bias or personal motive. It would have been SO nice if he had shown this kind of professional restraint before.”

    I think you are being far too generous. He created the entire Hillary mess on his own, he had no business making that statement last summer, if there was no indictment, simply say that, if anything at all. Publicly scolding her and being all self righteous is not the job of the FBI director, period. He had a history with the Clinton’s and allowed it to remove any impartiality he should have had.

  138. 138.

    TenguPhule

    @cmorenc:

    since Comey comes out at worst a martyr-for-truth in that scenario

    And then suddenly drops dead from Polonium poisoning in keeping with the theme.

    It can still get a lot worse for Comey, Putin doesn’t like loose ends.

  139. 139.

    grandpa john

    @lgerard: Hell, the vast majority of people have information and intelligence that Kelly doesn’t possess and never will.

  140. 140.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Yarrow:

    Be interesting to see how many other county sheriffs and municipal police chiefs attended the RT event.

  142. 142.

    Spanky

    @JPL:

    Curious. New Trump order requires US govt to compile and make public the number of “honor killings” in the US.

    So this’ll include all the husbands who kill their estranged wives, of course.

  143. 143.

    Origuy

    PZ Myers has his blog, Pharyngula, set up to use Comic Sans whenever he wants to quote a creationist. I think it’s with <p class=”creationist” >. Alain could define something in the CSS to do the same thing.

  145. 145.

    amk

    via bbc

    New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman – the state’s highest ranking law enforcement officer – issued this statement moments ago, condemning the revised travel ban…

    “Courts across the country have made clear: President Trump is not above the Constitution.

    “While the White House may have made changes to the ban, the intent to discriminate against Muslims remains clear. This doesn’t just harm the families caught in the chaos of President Trump’s draconian policies – it’s diametrically opposed to our values, and makes us less safe.

    “My office is closely reviewing the new executive order, and I stand ready to litigate – again – in order to protect New York’s families, institutions, and economy.”

  147. 147.

    PPCLI

    @Stephen: [Repeating a post I made on an earlier thread]: A note of caution — I’m not sure about that article. I didn’t find it in either of the mainstream Australian papers I checked (The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald), and you would think it would be a massive national story. It would be outrageous if true. Also, the tone is weird and there is a jarring racist expression at the end. I’ll wait to read it somewhere else before I believe it just yet.

  149. 149.

    hovercraft

    @Betty Cracker:
    Bite your tongue, fingers or whatever, Ghouliani as FBI director would be the worst and most dangerous appointment Twitler could make, and considering all the others he’s made, that really saying something. Between him and Sessions, POC and especially Muslims would really be in trouble.

  154. 154.

    Yarrow

    @Stephen: @PPCLI: Agreed. I looked as well and this opinion type column is the only mention of it. It could be true and perhaps the Australians want to keep it under wraps for some reason. But given that the children’s author was treated poorly and it made international headlines, I’d be surprised if this one was kept quiet. The former Norwegian Prime Minister, traveling with a diplomatic passport as well, was also treated poorly by CBP. That one made news, however. This one hasn’t made any news except this one report.

  155. 155.

    Origuy

    @hovercraft: ебать is the infinitive ‘to fuck’. You want the imperative, ебай (familiar) or ебайте (formal). Pronounced ye-bye and ye-bye-tye.

  156. 156.

    The Moar You Know

    So this’ll include all the husbands who kill their estranged wives, of course.

    @Spanky: I was just going to say, bring that shit on. The Nazis aren’t going to like the results of that one bit.

  157. 157.

    liberal

    @cain: Sears apparently has an actual Randian in charge, and he introduced a model of the business units actually competing with each other. Hasn’t worked out so well.

    Maybe some of these idiots should read Coase’s “The Theory of the Firm.”

  158. 158.

    different-church-lady

    @liberal: That he was somewhere between a top 15 and 25 percentile president. But you just keep being you.

  159. 159.

    TenguPhule

    @Spanky: I suspect strokes are going to be the new fashion statement with “former” Trump officials this year.

  160. 160.

    liberal

    @hovercraft: Emptywheel had an off-the-cuff remark on her blog or twitter about how Comey’s role in the John Ashcroft hospital bed thing was really exaggerated in a way that made him look much better than he is. Couldn’t find the substance though after a short Google search.

  162. 162.

    liberal

    @different-church-lady: Yeah…he was such a genius, he lay the seeds of his own legacy’s undoing. Brilliant!

    Not to mention you’d have to have been otherworldly smart to understand that the Republicans have been snakes since at least as far back as 1994 and “reaching across the aisle” was moronic.

    How’s that kool-aide tasting these days?

  165. 165.

    The Moar You Know

    Sears apparently has an actual Randian in charge, and he introduced a model of the business units actually competing with each other. Hasn’t worked out so well.

    @liberal: Microsoft did this until about two years ago if I’m remembering correctly. Results were horrific.

  166. 166.

    different-church-lady

    @The Moar You Know: [code] just look at all the football coaches who won championships by creating fake conflict between the linebackers and the defensive ends![/code]

  167. 167.

    Corner Stone

    @different-church-lady: There was never any reason for Obama appointing Comey to that position. None. I pushed back on that here in real time and got the counter argument of, “but Obama”. And that was fucking it. “Oh, but what about that one time when he refused to sign that one thing?” Yeah. Real courageous to cover your ass. He’s been a simpering ratfuck his whole career.
    Fuck James Comey. Fuck him up his stupid ass.

  168. 168.

    different-church-lady

    @Corner Stone: Perhaps I should have said “a top 15 to 25 percentile president who also pulled some boneheads.”

    Any one know which font is the subtlety font? Oh, wait, we’d never need that here…

  169. 169.

    Stephen

    @PPCLI: The Australian Financial Review is respected in Oz. More aimed at the business sorts, kind of like the WSJ without the looney editorials. The offending expression doesn’t have quite the same resonance in Australia as it does in the US.

  173. 173.

    ? Martin

    I think the Russian thing is much simpler than people seem to be steering toward. By all accounts so far, and the timeline is really important here, Russia found a campaign that was open to being lobbied. Russia lobbied for relief of the sanctions against them, and a quid pro quo was set up. The GOP platform would soften its language on Russia/Ukraine (perhaps as a good faith move) and the Russians would drop their hacked intel on Clinton to help Trump win. There seem to have been various interaction along these lines with the Russians lobbying various members of the Trump campaign. I don’t think the plot needs to go beyond that point to be important. The GOP accepted interference in the election by Russia in exchange for a promise to lift sanctions. This is no different than what past campaigns have done – Nixon and Reagan (they just didn’t get caught so red-handed). That’s all the incentive Russia needed, and to the GOP it’s just another tactic along with voter suppression and gerrymandering and Citizens United to address a national demographic map that is almost impossible for them to reconcile with their own policies and attitudes.

    I think anything beyond that gets into theories that cannot be supported, that if dismissed would lead the public to assume everything involving Russia should be dismissed. The only reason rank and file Republicans are going along with this is that it worked and because it implicates the GOP broadly, not because they have some sinister connection with Russia.

  175. 175.

    sukabi

    @Thru the Looking Glass…: authoritarian ‘justice’ 101 – got a problem, divert attention. He’s trying to emulate his bff Putin…hasn’t quite gotten to the part where his ‘enemies’ end up deceased under extraordinarily sketchy circumstances.

  176. 176.

    Aleta

    Long ago wasn’t there a mention that Ben Donald relies on his own intelligence people? (Or is that just the guys who set up his video security systems.)

  177. 177.

    Corner Stone

    @? Martin: Russia clearly wanted several outcomes, or at least openings, in exchange for their active measures and involvement. The GOP just wanted electoral power which leads to money and everyone in the Trump campaign just wanted access to grift off future deals. Trump is a tiny, demented and horrible person who thought being king bully would be fun and he could make a lot of money at the same time.

  179. 179.

    lgerard

    I recall reading somewhere that Clarke’s Russia trip was paid for by the NRA, which makes even less sense then Russia paying for it.

  180. 180.

    different-church-lady

    @sukabi: At this point I think it’s far more likely they find Trump strangled himself while tying his shoes.

  181. 181.

    Yarrow

    @? Martin: I think that’s the narrow view that is easy to explain with regards to how it impacted the campaign. Trump himself has clear Russian ties, many of them apparently very dodgy, going back decades. A serious look into his finances will likely show just how much Russian money is involved in his businesses. And that money likely isn’t clean money. And many of his close associates have serious Russian ties as well.

  183. 183.

    joel hanes

    @Ridnik Chrome:

    There’s an official sarcasm font now?

    Now it’s known, but it must have been in existence for a very long time, because as nearly as I can tell from court rulings, the Fourth Amendment is written in the earlier, secret version of sarcasm font.

  184. 184.

    catclub

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    then there must have been compelling evidence for the [FISC] court to approve it

    ha ha

    The approximately public record for FISC approvals is: every wiretapping is approved EXCEPT for the one that named Trump campaign officials.
    Wiretapping every cell phone in the US for surveillance purposes was ok in the Bush admin. (with zero evidence for any particular cell phone user.

  185. 185.

    Ella in New Mexico

    If you have hundreds of free hours in which to do nothing else, follow all of Adam Khan’s posts and summaries on Twitter. 90% of Trump Cabinet members, close staffers and most of his and his family’s business partners are so jammed up the asses of Russian mobsters, oligarchs and spies that they smell like borscht when you pass by them. And it’s been going on for decades (no one thought someone in the FBI or intelligence community might have been paying attention?). They and TrumpCo have made so much money thanks to them that there’s no way they’re gonna take cutting off the pipeline of off the books loans and sweet realestate deals without a fight.

    My biggest fear right now is based on new talking points being floated by Trump/Bannon surrogates about “Obama loyalists” out to get Trump and a need for “cleansing” the intel departments and Justice. Steve King and Newt Gingrich most recently. Then there’s this creepy statement at Axios that seems to me to be a precursor to justify a purge of “traitors” from a “Trump insider”:

    “The president just has a great nose for these things,” the official said. “It’s the bureaucratic leaks — the deep state — that bother him most. Even if it turns out not to be true that they surveilled Trump Tower, he will have a very good point to make about the level of sabotage coming from Obama holdovers.”https://www.axios.com/towergate-tests-trumps-great-gamble-2302523160.html

    People are leaking just how angry he is that Obama got so much done in his first 100 days and it’s making him look bad. Others are quoted as saying that Trump’s psyche revolves around him having ” an enemy to fight”. He can’t let go of Obama and Clinton or he’s got nothing to rally the troops with while he conducts his REAL business with Russia behind the scenes. This could explain the Twitter accusations this weekend as not just those of raging manic nut-job who reads too much Breitbart, but a clever, calculated way to divert to “Obama the enemy”as trying to undermine him and thereby justifying a political purge of our intelligence and Justice department agencies.

    So, digging into national security civil service employees’ political histories, party affiliation and firing them for other causes could start to become the new story we start to hear. And it will be justified by the “We just need his right hand” Congress.

    Of course it’s illegal and unconstitutional to do this in the first place. But these people have already demonstrated they’ll take illegal action first and deal with the consequences–or lawsuits-later. From how they’re implementing the ICE raids to Sean Spicers little “drop your phones here for examination” stunt, they just don’t care.

    That’s more scary to me than almost anything right now.

  186. 186.

    PPCLI

    @Stephen: Well, if it is true that a high-ranking Australian official traveling on a diplomatic passport was subjected to a body-cavity search,….

    Really, I can’t find the words.

    And I have the best words, believe me!

  187. 187.

    Ruckus

    @cain:

    What’s the point?

    The point is that it defines who drumpf really is. He treats everyone who he knows and most he doesn’t like shit, thinking he can use them get ahead, to feel better about how big of a shit he really is. He needs to feel and “be” better than everyone else, but he isn’t as good as any one else and he proves it every day. And has been doing so for decades.
    Shorter, he’s a major fucking asshole. He’d have either faded into the shadows or never even come out of them if his father hadn’t made a fair amount of money being such a shit. But he did start out on third base, while most of us are lucky to get an at bat in the first place. And the apple fell directly from the rotten tree.

  188. 188.

    aimai

    @Ella in New Mexico: This is a time honored tradition–blame the guy before you for everything. Since Obama left the country in great shape Trump has no choice but to blame Obama for events souring after Trump became president. They are not going to let go of this line of argument. It perfectly suits their voters and the notion that black people/muslims/liberals are all a permanent enemy within society.

  190. 190.

    Old Dan and Little Anne

    Not only do I love the sarcasm font, but I totally know how to use it.

  193. 193.

    catclub

    @amk:

    “While the White House may have made changes to the ban, the intent to discriminate against Muslims remains clear. This doesn’t just harm the families caught in the chaos of President Trump’s draconian policies – it’s diametrically opposed to our values, and makes us less safe.

    I find this amusing in the light of Anti-Chinese immigration laws and other laws in our history. Religious discrimination is RIGHT UP OUR ALLEY,
    here in the US. We may like to think we are better, but I bet those laws were not struck down, but superceded by later immigration laws.

  195. 195.

    sukabi

    @JPL: honor killings? If viewed from a certain perspective those could / would include any murder of a person who was told to ‘go back where you came from’ prior to being killed.

    Could also apply to perpetrators of domestic violence..

    In both cases the perpetrators generally claim that their ‘honor’, or what passes for it, has been sullied by the victim.

  197. 197.

    different-church-lady

    @TenguPhule: Put it on the mantle with the others.

    ETA: Wait… sorry, there’s been a mistake: Moonlight has won the thread.

  198. 198.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @aimai: It also perfectly suits the mind-fuck he’s perpetrating on supporters to justify a political purge of government that would be pretty unprecedented.

  200. 200.

    Peale

    @JPL: It goes without saying on islamaphobic sites that Muslims kill their daughters as a matter of course and that no one will report the crime, or that police have been held back from arresting and investigating these murders because of PC liberals in state houses. Even if Trump finds 3 it will be a miracle. But if he doesn’t find 3, its just a sign that those Muslims are covering up for each other again.

  201. 201.

    Tim C.

    At this point, I think Comey along with a huge number of people made a classic “Tragedy of the Commons” style mistake I call “Weak Clinton” theory. Him, most of the professional GOP, and even a non-trivial number of voters really hated Clinton. Hated hated, they know Trump would be a disaster, but he wasn’t going to win, so the best move would be to kneecap HRC so that despite her general level of competence, she would have a troubled 4 years marred with pseudo-scandal after pseudo-scandal. This meant she wouldn’t get much of an agenda, they would keep the House and Senate and all would be ripe for a GOP resurgence at all levels in 2020.

    Then Trump won.

    Now the whole country is ****ed because just enough a-holes in just enough places decided they could safely vote against Hillary without having to suffer through Trump.

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    @scuffletuffle:
    I’d bet that “Fuck Trump” would be understood just fine in most of the world.
    My translation page says fuck in Russian is В прошлом месяце.
    But the same page says that in most common languages in the world fuck is directly translated.

  205. 205.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Ella in New Mexico: Get a grip, panic about things that haven’t yet happened is not helpful. They are not 10 feet tall and they are making a lot of mistakes too. Their agenda may be malign but that does not mean that everything they want is going to happen and without any unintended consequences.

    BTW has the Senator from Vt made any statement about T’s Russian connections, just curious.

  206. 206.

    Yarrow

    @p.a.: This font is hard for me to read and I find I’m skipping right over comments that are using it.

  207. 207.

    zhena gogolia

    @Ruckus:

    В прошлом месяце means “last month.”

    You really can’t translate one-for-one. Russian doesn’t use the word that way. There are a lot of equivalents, you’d have to get into what your desired semantic spin was. I’d go with just transliterating it — Фак Трампа! Everyone will understand.

  208. 208.

    Chris

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    Even if it turns out not to be true that they surveilled Trump Tower, he will have a very good point to make about the level of sabotage coming from Obama holdovers.

    Gotta love the characterization of, increasingly, the entire intelligence and security community as “Obama holdovers.” This after eight years of right wingers sobbing about how Obama was being so very mean to these people and not letting them Do What Must Be Done to Defend America.

  209. 209.

    tobie

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    People are leaking just how angry he is that Obama got so much done in his first 100 days and it’s making him look bad.

    I gather he and the House Republicans plan to repeal Obamacare this week. It’s going to be an ugly week and we’ll need to follow multiple issues simultaneously: involvement of Trump family, staff and cabinet with the Russians–check; fighting new immigration ban–check; fighting VOICE and honor killing registry–check; fighting Obamacare repeal–check. God knows what other catastrophes will need to be added to the list. It’s only Monday, by gosh.

  213. 213.

    AlbertZ

    @Tim C.: Include also the Russians. A similar theory expressed on Fresh Air interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick and staff writer Evan Osnos:

    Meaning that there’s an element to this that – as David mentioned, nobody expected, frankly, that Donald Trump was going to win. And the best assessment on the American side is that the Russians didn’t expect that either. And so they are now confronting what’s known in the business as blowback and the possibility that this operation may have generated more antibodies in American politics, things that will eventually cause them more problems than it may have solved.

  215. 215.

    JPL

    This can’t be true, at least I hope not, because Mr. Khan is a citizen..

    JUST IN: Gold Star father Khizr Khan cancels scheduled speech in Toronto after being told his “travel privileges are being reviewed.”

    CTV reporter link

    I’m hoping it is fake news

  216. 216.

    Yarrow

    @schrodingers_cat:

    BTW has the Senator from Vt made any statement about T’s Russian connections, just curious.

    He tweeted on Feb 15:

    Today I will be asking the Senate Intelligence Committee to thoroughly investigate if Russia coordinated with Trump and his campaign.

    Before that, not much. And this is a fairly narrow request.

  217. 217.

    MomSense

    @germy:

    OH MY FUCKING GOD. We can’t afford to be divisive now?

    The whole fucking point is that we couldn’t afford to be divisive before the election, or about the election. When orange hitler is on the ballot you have to vote for the viable alternative.

  219. 219.

    trollhattan

    @Ruckus:
    IMO having it in Russian is much mo better 1. because Trump should be batted around by all things Russian at all times and 2. you stand a decent chance of being on the local news, with a select few viewers either enraged or howling with glee. What’s not to like?

  220. 220.

    Yarrow

    @p.a.: Assuming you are using some tag to indicate sarcasm, you have other options that have been working here fine. You can use // or /s or /sarcasm after your statement.

  221. 221.

    Tenar Arha

    @Ella in New Mexico: I know logic & evidence don’t matter to the faux news set. However it’s interesting how he/they can’t see that the people who are are actually leaking his moods and commenting that he’s angry have got to be those closest to him, & therefore his staff and appointees. (Or perhaps *feigned gasp* the serving staff!)

  222. 222.

    Ruckus

    @zhena gogolia:
    First, thank you for correcting a crappy translation.
    I have no knowledge of any actual translation, and as fuck is pretty much a street word in every language and the ones where it does translate directly would probably know the way we use it as well, that I’d just go with it directly. The concept of using Russian in this context is fine but how many people would know what the sign meant or that it was even Russian?
    BTW when I worked in professional sports, I met people from many countries, including Russia and most if not all of those people knew the word fuck and how to properly use it, even when english was not their first language.

  224. 224.

    gex

    @TenguPhule: The article I read on it just stated that he asked them if they beat their wives. To which I wondered if that was a hard question for them to answer. It’s hard to say which answer an Oklahoma Republican views as the correct answer with respect to wife beatings.

  225. 225.

    different-church-lady

    @MomSense:

    When orange hitler is on the ballot you have to vote for the viable alternative.

    I’m so old I can remember when actresses thought there was no practical difference between a sane, competent, experienced woman and a patently insane misogynist, racist, lifelong bullshit artist fuckup.

  227. 227.

    different-church-lady

    @Tim C.:

    Now the whole country is ****ed because just enough a-holes in just enough places decided they could safely vote against Hillary without having to suffer through Trump.

    It’s like an entire fuckin’ country said, “Hey, I’m going to the voting booth, hold my beer…”

  230. 230.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:
    Oh I get the concept here. But as in many things the concepts may translate but the words don’t. And care is needed to get the words right if you are going to play with them properly. How many people have responded that do speak Russian and have made it rather obvious that this is not a cut and dried translation, that the language has subtleties in it’s use that english pretty much doesn’t?

  231. 231.

    hovercraft

    @maryQ:
    Yes, but even if he thought it was a freebee, he still chose to do it knowing that nothing in life is guaranteed, there is no such thing as a sure thing. He made a choice based on his personal feelings and he fucked us all. I do not give him any credit for his hubris, or any benefit of ant doubt, that he thought he was just laying down a marker.

  234. 234.

    Chris

    @tobie:

    Oh. That, I’d heard.

    Ugh. I still say the odds are better that they repeal it than not, because they’re just that fanaticized and ideological, and really, really, really emotionally need the victory of an ACA repeal just to stick it to Obama.

  235. 235.

    hovercraft

    @? Martin:

    “The GOP accepted interference in the election by Russia in exchange for a promise to lift sanctions. This is no different than what past campaigns have done – Nixon and Reagan (they just didn’t get caught so red-handed). ”

    Funny how they’re all republicans, and the one’s who claim to be the most patriotic.

  236. 236.

    catclub

    @Chris:

    They’re repealing the ACA this week?

    I think the link had the House repealing it. Senate will be a tougher cookie.

  237. 237.

    YellowDog

    No sympathy for Comey here. He threw his lot in with this crowd. He got his air kiss, and now he’ll get the kiss-off. Comey will find his moral center if it benefits his legacy.

    As for the media, why are they always chasing the latest shiny thing? Oh look, Trump tweeted; 24 hour coverage to follow. The real question is why he tweeted. The WaPo makes the case that this is right out of the Roy Cohn playbook (look it up yourself). Always be attacking, and let them take you to court.

  239. 239.

    cmorenc

    @Yarrow:

    @cmorenc: Comey may come out as a “martyr for truth,” which would be okay for Comey’s reputation. But Trump could install someone really awful–Giuliani, for instance–as FBI director and shut down the entire investigation.

    The reason Giuliani isn’t already in the Administration in a key post – either as a formal adviser in the White House, or as Attorney General etc. is in significant part because Giuliani is involved in such an entangled web of business interest that he was reluctant to give that up, and also in part because the incoming Trump Administration realized they already had such a surplus of messy business entanglements by POTUS and others to deal with that they didn’t need the big political headache of Giuliani’s own international entanglements to deal with. The potential post Giuliani might be willing to give it all up for is more frightening than AG – and one Trump might be willing to oblige him on but/for political considerations is a seat on SCOTUS. Most likely, his advisors would steer him away from that shitstorm into instead picking another Scalia-clone off of his infamous “list” he published to mollify hard-core conservatives during the campaign, but not because in Trump’s mind, Giuliani wouldn’t be an ideal SCOTUS pick, but-for political debts and calculations.

  242. 242.

    J R in WV

    @different-church-lady:

    That’s the kind of thing Alain might work on.

    Testing:

    but I can copy in the code that might work on the other site. Here’s hoping I don’t break the blog!

    Nope. I was shocked that [code] worked really, [/code] without a lot of code introduced by Alain. Maybe the Balloon-Juice blog code base is inherited from the same code base Lawyers, Guns and Money uses?

  243. 243.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @schrodingers_cat:

    BTW has the Senator from Vt made any statement about T’s Russian connections, just curious.

    @aimai:

    Mwahhha ha ha ha.

    ROTHFLMFAO!! Aren’t you two just the most adorable couple of zany wisecrackers. Literal Bozos right there.

    Meanwhile, back in the real world where 2016 is over….

  244. 244.

    Another Scott

    @J R in WV: The code tag is just standard HTML. FYWP shouldn’t mess with it.

    Does the Teletype tag work? Is it any different from the code tag? Let’s see…

    [ Nope. [tt][/tt] doesn’t work here. ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who doesn’t think just changing the font to courier is sufficient to indicate sarcasm, himself.)

  245. 245.

    Another Scott

    @J R in WV: FYWP probably doesn’t allow color text either, but maybe it’ll surprise us…

    [ Nope, it won’t let me post red text using a [font][/font] tag set either. ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  246. 246.

    Jeffro

    Charles Blow has a good piece up today in the NYT: Pause this Presidency!

    shorter version: until we know Trumpov & Co aren’t Russian stooges, nothing of lasting consequence should be passed (nor judges confirmed). Gives Dems yet another reason to uniformly oppose everything Orangemandias puts forth (especially Gorsuch).

  247. 247.

    Sanjeevs

    No one else on this administration cares about conflict of interest.
    Giuliani announced he would not be joining the new admin on December 9. Same day Obama ordered intelligence.agencies to investigate the election.

  249. 249.

    AxelFoley

    @liberal:

    @different-church-lady: Yeah…he was such a genius, he lay the seeds of his own legacy’s undoing. Brilliant!

    Not to mention you’d have to have been otherworldly smart to understand that the Republicans have been snakes since at least as far back as 1994 and “reaching across the aisle” was moronic.

    How’s that kool-aide tasting these days?

    Says the asshole absolving Bernie from his role in undermining Hillary.

    Again, fuck you and Sanders.

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