Jeff Sessions doesn't recall… a lot. Watch. pic.twitter.com/9f54aCbqB5
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 14, 2017
John Mitchell obit: only AG to be imprisoned, serving 19 mos. for conspiracy, obstructn of justice &lying under oath https://t.co/jF1nfV85Wn
— Michiko Kakutani (@michikokakutani) June 13, 2017
Jefferson Sessions will take the crown from him. Longer prison time and quicker indictment. https://t.co/dOp4ZJSFEb
— dengre (@denngree) June 15, 2017
This poor, degraded, copycat generation… How long before we get to H.R. Haldeman’s “modified limited hang-out“ option?
Trump lawyer response to WAPO report doesn't push back on the claim that POTUS is under investigation. pic.twitter.com/xAQfcHcuH9
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) June 14, 2017
I'm guessing this is because Trump's attorney knows it's accurate https://t.co/1NYp9UjRXf
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) June 14, 2017
Trump aiming beyond Beltway. For non-lawyers, 'They found nothing, now accuse me of covering up what never happened' is powerful argument.
— Byron York (@ByronYork) June 15, 2017
It's a more potent argument if you can resist the temptation to pre-emptively fire the guy doing the investigation:https://t.co/zbp84exhGv
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) June 15, 2017
And at the end of it there may not be plain as day 'quid pro quo' but a murky, endless abyss of influence, corruption and subterfuge.
— Salacious Materiel (@ZeddRebel) June 15, 2017
Aleta
amk
it’s more like #russiafloodgates.
Aleta
@amk: wow
amk
@Aleta: yup. at this point, this has become united states of russia. how could they afford so many lawyers, lobbyists, shills beats me.
RepubAnon
Who needs leaks as long as Trump can log into Twitter?
Trump is every lawyer’s worst nightmare: a client who keeps doing really stupid things to undermine his case, then blames the lawyer when things go wrong.
randy khan
The Byron York comment might be accurate, but it assumes that, in fact, there won’t be anything to find.
I mean, what they’re trying to do is shut down the investigation before it gets going, and that’s no doubt the best tactic they have, but anybody with a brain can see that’s what they’re doing, and even the reporters in the Village would be upset to miss out on a nice juicy criminal investigation. (They all wish they were Woodward and Bernstein, well, maybe just Woodward, and this is their best chance.)
Mike J
If your firm has 1,000 lawyers, you’re going to have a lot of overseas clients, including a lot of Russians.
burnspbesq
Any lawyer who has ever seen Bill Gates’ videotaped deposition probably thought that was the worst day any lawyer could ever possibly have. Trump is going to go so far beyond that in terms of self-immolation that I can’t even.
burnspbesq
I wonder which multi-gazillionaire Republican is going to secretly pay Pence’s fees, thereby creating a huge ethical problem for McGuireWoods when it leaks, as it inevitably will. Pence doesn’t have that kind of money.
randal sexton
How to know when you should lawyer up:
1. Your Big Big Boss(BBB) hires a Super Shady Lawyer (SSL)
2. The Lying Fake News Media reports that the FBI is investigating your boss, and everyone who has ever come into contact with him, and his dog, but he hates dogs.
3. Your BBB’s SSL lawyer tells YOU and all your co-workers that they do not need a Lawyer
4. Your BBB’s SSL asks you if you like the underside of a BUS
Note: 4. Won’t actually happen. You have to figure it out by 3. Good Luck.
Also , if the BBB’s Number Two, whose elevator may go a scant few floors higher than the BBB hires a more competent Lawyer, that is also a rather LARGE clue.
Face
@burnspbesq: What did Gates do that was so bad? Admit to offing Clippy with a wirecutter?
West of the Rockies (been a while)
I despise Sessions. Sure are a damn lotta southern white dudes taking turns at the mic to represent the GOP.
jeffreyw
I’m afraid the investigations will suffer from lack of manpower. A lot of juicy stuff will get passed over for the want of resources. Maybe they could do a GoFundMe?
?BillinGlendaleCA
Clippy, RIP.
burnspbesq
@Face:
It was classic CEO behavior on steroids. He was underprepared, contemptuous of the process, thought he was the smartest guy in the room, and refused to give his lawyers any opportunity to shape the record. He said whatever he wanted instead of answering the question that was actually asked.
He did all the things you spend hours telling people not to do.
Omnes Omnibus
@jeffreyw:
Why?
burnspbesq
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Clippy got what he/she/it deserved.
Adam L Silverman
Looks like the President is stress eating again:
efgoldman
@jeffreyw:
Mueller is staffing up like crazy, and getting lots of financial crime experts to follow the money.
Meanwhile the NY AG has his own grand jury going, very quietly. As the financial center for most of the world, NY has very strict financial crimes laws of their own.
Might take a while, but it’s all coming out, like draining an infection but more fun (for the rest of us).
Mary G
@burnspbesq: I remember good old Windows 3.1 or whatever it was. Every time you typed “dear” Clippy would pop up and say “It looks like you’re writing a letter, how can I help?”
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire
@burnspbesq: This is the type of violent rhetoric against computer animation that needs to be toned down.
#JeSuisClippy
jeffreyw
@Omnes Omnibus:
I guess I’m just a worry wart, but I do wonder about the logistics – office space, the IT demands, paralegals, just the basic nuts and bolts of what is proving to be an enormous enterprise.
Mai.naem.mobile
I just want to screech in Joan Cusack’s voice(a la In & Out where she says “Is anybody here not gay?”)
“Is there anybody in this administration who is not connected to the Russians?”
Kent
@randy khan:
Based on what we have seen of Trump and his circle over the past 6 months, do we honestly think he is clever enough to have hidden or disguised every single thread of corruption in the hundreds or thousands of entities with which he has ownership or financial ties? I suspect not.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: You get some pus, and you get some pus, and you get some pus!
MomSense
@Aleta:
Sorry to go off topic but were you saying you have a brother in Maine who might be interested in a black cat with green eyes?
Here is the link to Aslan. His eyes are a much more vibrant green in person and he is a total sweetheart– a gentle giant. My dog wanting to hunt him all the time would be too stressful. Otherwise he would be mine. Wonderful cat.
Aslan
Ok, fuck fucking trump, sessions, pence et al. I hope they all go down.
burnspbesq
@jeffreyw:
If the Republicans want to cut Mueller off at the knees on October 1, they can. Just slip a provision into the fiscal 18 appropriations bill for DOJ prohibiting the spending of appropriated funds on special counsel investigations.The same stunt they pulled to keep Obama from closing Guantanamo.
Do they have the balls to do something that outrageous? Merrick Garland may have an opinion on that subject.
Adam L Silverman
@Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire: #ClippyLivesMatter!
Kent
Honestly I think the best case scenario from a Dem perspective is to bleed Trump dry with scandal for the next 3 years until we are 6 months out from the next election and then wash it all away.
Worst case scenario is he resigns and the we get the Pence honeymoon with some young fresh smiling face as the new VP and future leading presidential candidate. And then they roll into a new honeymoon period, the main stream media starts getting woodies, and then they start cranking through really horrific legislation.
efgoldman
Per Wiki, his successor as AG, Richard Kleindienst
He was sentenced to a month in jail, although the charges were not directly related to Watergate.
efgoldman
@jeffreyw:
DC is absolutely drowning in all of that stuff.
frosty
@Mary G:
Lots of jokes flew around about Clippy. My favorite was:
“It looks like you’re writing a suicide note. Would you like help with that?”
Adam L Silverman
Meanwhile in Florida…
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Bet they keep ’em VERY will fed! All the chicken and ribs they can eat, and then some.
Do they have ‘gator seating at Waffle House (Gainesville doesn’t count!)
sigaba
Byron York’s argument sounds a lot like “Trump’s doing great with people who aren’t informed or paying attention, or are actively looking for pretexts to ignore what’s going on.”
That’s what “beyond the beltway” means — it’s code for “people who don’t care about the country.”
Mary G
Homeland Security has suspended DAPA (not deporting parents of minors who are US citizens.) Fuckers.
Davebo
@Adam L Silverman:
Growing up around a lot of gators I can tell you the old myth is a myth. Rolling them over and rubbing their belly’s does not make them docile, it just freaks them out.
They do however seem to enjoy Pink Floyd mmagumma.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Not that I’m aware of.
Aleta
@MomSense: (ETA I don’t see a link in your comment.).
A cousin. A really good home, just two adults and one gentle dog, quiet street with trees, birds and squirrels out the windows.
The dog can only access 1/2 the house, whereas their previous cat (he died a year ago, my cousin D. was heartbroken) had access everywhere and slept with D. Grandchildren, all gentle girls, come over a lot, but the cat has a lot of room to retreat to. Big house and big treed yard.
He wants another big black cat. Thanks, I’ll let him know. He is special with cats. And I’ll let you know…
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: And they dropped that directive about 9:30 PM or so.
Morzer
@Kent:
Given that the average age of the Young Republicans is somewhere north of 70, young, fresh and smiling might not be on the menu.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Kelly may have been a general, but he’s also a sick, fascist thug.
Aleta
I ran across this thread and don’t know enough to know what the argument against it might be. But here it is:
Ezra Levin @ezralevin 13h13 hours ago
Reconciliation gives Republicans a HUGE benefit – they only need 50 votes to pass TrumpCare instead of the normal 60. 3/
But it comes with a little talked about cost: vote-a-rama. Basically vote-a-rama means an unlimited number of amendments must be allowed. 4/
So, in short: reconciliation means you only need 50 votes, but you have to accept votes on a ton of amendments. 5/
Vote-a-rama is an annoyance for the party using reconciliation, but it’s accepted in order to lower the vote threshold to 50. 6/
But “unlimited votes” means EXACTLY what it sounds like. There is no limit to the number of amendments. 7/
Any senator can introduce dozens, hundreds, THOUSANDS. They just have to be on Senate Floor to introduce. 8/
And here’s the thing about these amendments. They have to be introduced by a speech and voted on. AND THAT TAKES TIME. 9/
Let’s say it takes about 10 minutes to introduce and then vote on an amendment, a conservative estimate. 10/
If @SenateDems introduce 1,000 amendments, that’s 10,000 minutes. 10,000 minutes = 167 hours = 7 days. So 1,000 amendments = 1 week. 11/
If @SenateDems introduce 40,000 amendments, that’s 40 weeks worth of amendments. That would take us through the 2018 midterms. 12/
SO HERE’S THE TACTIC: Next week, @SenateDems should hold a press conference with a big ol stack of papers. 40,000 pages to be exact. 13/
And @SenateDems should make a simple promise: If Republicans insist on this secretive undemocratic process for TrumpCare… 14/
Then @SenateDems should promise to filibuster-by-amendment through the 2018 mid-terms. 15/
Senate Rs want to pass this bill in darkness thru speed+secrecy. We can drag it into the daylight. We can defeat it. We can win this. 16/
No public hearings? Then we bury TrumpCare in amendments. Don’t like it? Too bad. That’s the price for subverting the democratic process.17/
But @SenateDems aren’t doing this. Instead, they introduced a bill calling for no vote until public hearings. “No Hearing, No Vote” Act 18/
ARE YOU KIDDING ME, @SenateDems? What a joke. This has no teeth. This is not legislation. It’s basically just a whiny press release. 19/
McConnell is destroying Senate procedure to negotiate TrumpCare in secret, and @SenateDems are issuing strongly worded letters 20/
GET IN THE GAME @SenateDems. If you want to stop TrumpCare, stop being wimps and fight back. NOW is the time for hardball 21/
GregB
Pence is prudent to get his own lawyer because this cigarette stained hairhead if Trump’s is going to end up like Bruce Cutler.
Deep shit.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: There’s always Ted Cruz.
efgoldman
@Morzer:
They can buy the smiles at any of the Cheap Mall Franchise Dentist LLC places owned by RWNJs.
They mostly are, right?
They can even get an Easy Payment Plan, doubling the cost or so.
Aleta
@MomSense: never mind- found the link was down below my screen
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Aleta: Can they do that? If so that would be some major league trolling. Along with preventing a horrible law from getting past
And the worst part of all this Trumpcare bs? McConnell and a number of Rs will either be retired or dead by the time phase out of Medicaid begins to happen. So he’ll face no real consequences for this more than likely.
I promised no more eliminationist rhetoric, so I’d settle for Mitch and Blue Eyes getting beaten around a bit with a tire iron with a waterboarding bath afterwards. Gotta wash away that blood from that Armani suit
Timurid
I’m just waiting for the inevitable “we gotta pass this thing for Steve” spew…
Morzer
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
The violent rhetoric doesn’t suit you any better. I understand the feelings behind it, but it looks really ugly on you.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Also, too:
When it starts getting hot immigrants trying to enter die in the desert and all my life my church and others have set up rescue stations both in AZ and eastern SoCal. Friends who still volunteer tell me they have been followed by LaMigra ever since inauguration day, including with a helicopter. If the volunteers object they are threatened with arrest.
Mary G
In happier news, AP poll has Twitler’s approval rating crumbling even among Republicans, according to Yahoo:
35/64 is going to generate some awesome whiny tweets in six hours or so.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Morzer: I never said I wanted them dead. I wouldn’t shed a tear for them if they got roughed up a little so they face some consequences for this. It’s unlikely they’ll be voted out.
This is like “fuck them with a rusty pitchfork”
Gian
@efgoldman:
it’ll fire up the “build the wall” trump base, and really that’s all they have now, consequences to people other than Trump are beside the point
Mary G
One last thing. The City of LA projected the bat signal onto City Hall tonight in tribute to Adam West and hordes of people are gathering.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: Saw that, almost headed down to take some pics.
joel hanes
@Aleta:
I’m no expert on Senate rules, but it’s my impression that today’s Republicans are not about to allow mere rules, customs, ethics, or laws to stand between them and their goals.
So I’d expect the Rs to react to that obstruction strategy by changing the rules for reconciliation, and the parliamentarian to rule than they can do so, and if he doesn’t, they’ll get a different parliamentarian.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
They should probably set up a GoFundMe for their legal fees and then dare the Border Patrol to arrest them.
NotMax
Adam, any cogent thoughts about what’s transpiring (including U.S. troops) in the Marawi City area in the Philippines?
In other news,
joel hanes
@Aleta:
Went next to LGM, and found this :
westyny
@Mary G: What special kind of a-hole signs up to be an ICE or Border Agent, the way these guys behave?
Morzer
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
Your explanation doesn’t make it look any better. Everyone knows that the rusty pitchfork remark is a joke. Your remarks sound like a fantasy you’d be willing to put into practice.
Central Planning
@?BillinGlendaleCA: that made me LOL. Thanks!
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Morzer: I would never personally put something like that into practice. I just meant I wouldn’t care that much if it did happen to them.
But if it bothers you that much I won’t do it again