Least surprising headline of the day, but am I the only one enjoying every single one of these leaks that Trump created with his threat to fire Mueller? In addition to this story, Kenneth Starr weighs in with a op-ed in support of Mueller, and that’s just the Post.
After you’re done with the post-reading afterglow of the Kushner story, be sure to call Congress to tell them you don’t want them killing Americans with mean old Trumpcare.
Morzer
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/06/masha_gessen_on_the_scariest_thing_about_trump_s_presidency.html
Jeffro
Speaking of SLATE…
Mueller is coming for Trump
Thanks for properly vetting your candidate, GOP! It took a lot of courage to face your own voters and take a stand for principles last year – NOT
eric
two things: (1) from last night’s post — “tip of the spear” is an allusion to Christ and (2) they are setting up “leaking” as the “for cause”
Jeffro
Btw just want to throw this out there, it would not surprise me one bit to see Trumpov float a trial balloon in the next week: “how about if I reinstate Comey, will that satisfy you w/ this “obstruction” nonsense? ‘Cause that’s the only thing that I did wrong, even though it wasn’t and I could if I wanted to.”
And then when that ‘balloon’ doesn’t fly, he tries to fire Mueller…is told that only Rosenstein can do that…and subsequently fires Rosenstein.
jonas
@Jeffro: When this is all said and done I think Mueller’s story will be that he started out looking at evidence of collusion with Russia to hack the election, but ended up discovering that the Trump Org was a massive international money laundering operation for the Russian mob. (Keeping in mind the venn diagrams for “Russian mob” and “people close to Vladimir Putin” overlap virtually 100%)
JPL
@Jeffro: After last night’s statement, I think Rosenstein fires Mueller. Once you join the team, it’s only a matter of time, before you destroy your own reputation. In fact it only took McMasters a few days.
jonas
@eric: Tip of the spear as some kind of Christian symbolism? That’s new to me. I thought it was a pretty conventional military expression. I also think Rosenstein isn’t going to fire Mueller because of “leaks.” Talking to reporters on background isn’t leaking and leaking isn’t a crime if it’s not classified information.
Morzer
@jonas:
I think it’s an over-reading to say that the reference is to the spear supposedly poked into Jesus by the Roman soldiers. I suspect it’s just a melodramatic military metaphor of the sort that obese chairbound fantasists like Gingrich love to use to make themselves feel manly.
gene108
The sad thing is, whenever a Republican President fails – Bush, Sr not getting re-elected and Budh, Jr destroying the world – Republicans go further to the Right.
I have no idea how crazy the new wave of Republicans post-Trump will be, but it will happen.
Too many powerful outside interests pulling Republicans’ strings for them to self-reflect and moderate.
Another Scott
@JPL: I would be very, very surprised by that. I think Rosenstein sees how Comey went too far in his July and October press events (as outlined in his famous memo that was used (by Trump) to try to cover firing Comey over Russia). I think he knows that everyone is watching everything he says and does.
If he were under Trump’s thumb, he wouldn’t have appointed Mueller in the first place – he would have appointed Trump’s real estate attorney or something (if he appointed anyone at all)…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@Morzer:
Does this idiot not realize that there is a whole political party dedicated to that exact goal?
Baud
@Another Scott: That would also surprise me.
eric
@Morzer: This is how you dog whistle to the base. i thought it was very obvious.
Morzer
@OzarkHillbilly:
Masha Gessen is nobody’s idiot. She’s offering a different diagnosis of what the impact of Trump will be – but she’s well aware of who and what the GOP are. She’s said elsewhere that the GOP want to keep the government at least minimally functional if only to extract money from its operation for their donors. Trump/Bannon want to cripple government entirely to enable autocracy. Very different propositions, although both contrary to the liberty and happiness of Americans.
Hal
I’m not a conspiracy theorist at all, but I wouldn’t be surprised if every action Trump has taken has been about Jared. That Trump thought he could bring Jared under some type of protective umbrella of the White House and that he as President could steer any potential investigations into Jared’s business dealings right into a ditch. Let Jared stay in NY and you’ve got Preet Bharara on his tail. Take him to DC and make him an adviser, and maybe people will leave him alone. In the very least, you control the tools of the investigation.
And it’s not because Trump loves Jared. It’s all because of Ivanka. What he’s really trying to do is shield his wife, uh, I mean daughter, from having to visit her husband in federal prison.
Trabb's Boy
Rosenstein thinks he can stay on the right side of the integrity line. Last night’s tweet was undoubtedly his attempt to remain ethical and still comply with his boss’s order to tell the world that everything about Russia is “fake news”. I don’t know if he has it in him to draw a line in the sand or if he will find a way to make himself feel virtuous, like refusing to fire Mueller but require that he limit his investigation to within the confines of a narrow interpretation of his mandate — no obstruction, no business dealings. Just Russia’s actions and whether anyone in the campaign assisted.
eric
@Another Scott: It is trump that will fire him by finding someone will do it, and the fig leaf will be the leaking. They can sell that to the GOP base that the Obama deep state hirings are taking aim at Trump and Mueller did nothing to prevent it. I am not saying it is the right thing to do, but it would be the least stupid way to fire Mueller. (that of course may rule it out by definition)
Morzer
@eric:
I think you are making too much out of a typical piece of grandiosity by Gingrich. Besides, your would-be allusion doesn’t fit with what Gingrich says that the spear is intended to do – crippling or destroying Trump. The spear in the crucifixion was used to make sure Jesus was dead, not to destroy or cripple him.
Frank Wilhoit
@OzarkHillbilly: does he not realize that those things have already been destroyed?
Patricia Kayden
On of the biggest racists in the GOP claims that President Barack Obama is to blame for the shooting which occurred two days ago. I kid you not.
LurkerNoLonger
Is the title of this post an illusion to the rumors from the last thread that The Pee Tape could be released today?
kindness
What is going to be delicious is all the Republicans that will suddenly become not Real Republicans and traitors to cause Trump. Not enough quick enough, like last November 9th would have been but such is life.
But watching the knives come out as they shiv each other will be worthy of popcorn.
sdhays
@JPL: If you think Rosenstein is fully a team player, then why did he appoint Mueller in the first place? Democrats were impotently threatening to send strongly worded letters about his support for firing Comey; if he was truly a team player, he would have weathered it. Instead, he appointed Mueller, knowing full well where it would likely lead. And he appointed him in a way such that only Rosenstein can fire him; if Trumpov wants to fire Mueller, he has to first fire Rosenstein, then keep on firing his replacements until he finds someone willing to fire Mueller.
Nixon was a powerful figure in the Republican Party, with very deep connections – he promised Robert Bork a Supreme Court seat and a decade later, another Republican President tried to keep his promise for him. Trumpov is a stupid manbaby who can’t even get good lawyers to work for him; his promises are worth somewhat less than Nixon’s. Finding someone willing to compromise themselves for Trumpov will be challenging (though, presumably not impossible), all while Washington explodes in outrage and the leaks intensify.
efgoldman
@Jeffro:
Why “at long last”? Amber Asswipe and his crime family were just as crooked before. Money laundering is money laundering, fraud is fraud.
Of course they could have privately settled all kinds of claims with the IRS before criminal charges were filed, but federal, state, somebody you’d think would have gone after them before.
raven
@LurkerNoLonger:
As I walk this land with broken dreams
I have visions of many things
But happiness is just an illusion
Filled with sadness and confusion
What becomes of the broken-hearted
Who had love that’s now departed?
sdhays
@Hal:
No. Trumpov doesn’t care about his daughter in that way. He only wants her to glorify Daddy’s name and have sex with him (who knows if he has had wish #2 fulfilled). He would not be concerned about her feeling sad about Jared going to prison. He and Jared are business partners, so I think it’s much more likely that if Jared is going down, they’ll find Trumpov’s involvement as well. And that has him worried.
efgoldman
@Hal:
You should be [surprised]. Coral Cankersore doesn’t plan ahead, he has no strategery, and when he “thinks” at all, it is only of himself and only in the moment.
The only way he could be made to care about Kushkie is if he perceived there was danger there to himself.
He doesn’t yet see himself in any trouble, as you can see from his words and actions.
Aleta
@raven: great song
efgoldman
@Patricia Kayden:
Yesterday, Nancy SMASH! got up at the podium and ripped them all a new one (and a half) over both sideserism and false equivalence. She was spitting nails. It was wonderful too see. I hope that everybody carried the key parts.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: To be fair, blaming black people is kind of what racists do.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
In other words, “Cut, can we try this again, I don’t like the way this is going. How about we bring in a couple of hot broads to sit next to him while I say you’re fired? Do you think that’ll work better?”
While we can all see that firing Comey added gas to the smoldering review of his campaign, I think that the investigation would have eventually gotten there, he’s a sleazy crook, in order to regret firing Comey he’d need to acknowledge that he made a mistake, and I don’t think he can do that. Remember nothing is ever his fault, people fail the Shitgibbon, the Shitgibbon itself never fails.
raven
@Aleta: Ever heard the Patrick Stump (Fall Out Boy) and Daryl Hall version<
debit
@efgoldman: Yep. He really thinks that he can control this somehow, or shut it down, or skate away free. After all, he’s done that all his life as a private citizen. And everyone knows being the president is just like being a king, right? Every attempt to educate him otherwise has failed. I would pity his staffers if they hadn’t accepted their jobs knowing exactly who and what he is.
OzarkHillbilly
@Morzer: Disagree.
amk
I know it’s a pipe-dream, but what if one or two top level twitler’s ‘reputable’ cabinet members quit citing his corruption? Will that give the cowardly gopee the backbone to start the impeachment?
Morzer
@OzarkHillbilly:
That’s your prerogative – but Masha Gessen actually lived under Putin’s regime and saw autocracy up close and personal. I’d suggest her take on it is worth listening to.
Morzer
@amk:
Which reputable top-level cabinet members are those? Mattis? Maybe? And then?
hueyplong
Rosenstein’s actions seem consistent with a desire by a member of reasonable government (our term)/deep state (their term) to keep himself in a position to resist firing Mueller.
In other words, it is Comey-like. They see themselves in the position of saving America from both Trump and followers of History’s Greatest Monster (Hilz) and we are in the sad position of having to root for them.
manyakitty
@Another Scott: That’s what I keep telling myself, too.
GregB
@Patricia Kayden:
Nearing half a year into the white guy’s presidency and it is still the black guy’s fault.
Quinerly
@Another Scott:
I guess you saw a few days back how this personal atty of Trump’s was bragging how Trump offered him the job of AG before he offered it to Sessions? I guess that’s better than offering it to his event planner.?
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
Well who can blame poor little Steve King for coming and saying what the true source of anxiety is for so many “Real Americans”, if Obama hadn’t come out of Kenya via Hawaii, they could have gone their entire lives able to pretend to think that all men were equal and that anyone really could grow up to be president, but then Obama had to run and win no less, forcing them to shown their true colors. So you see it definitely is Obama’s fault he exposed them, and that wasn’t fair of him.
amk
@Morzer: mcmaster. I said it’s a pd.
Morzer
@amk:
McMaster’s been lying his ass off for Trump for weeks now.
MattF
OT. Speaking of Wonder Woman, the ‘sword down the back of your gown’ has become a thing.
GregB
Looks like David Clarke may get the AG post after Trumpov shit cans Rosenstein.
His tweet: I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt
Betty Cracker
Twitler’s latest:
Is he saying Mueller told him to fire Comey? Or is this a backhanded swipe at Rosenstein? I’m so confused!
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
Agree completely…that’s why I added the “…’Cause that’s the only thing that I did wrong, even though it wasn’t and I could if I wanted to.” part. =)
Even attempting to bargain his way out of this, Trumpov’ll still be an obnoxious dick about it, unable to admit he did anything wrong.
Morzer
@Betty Cracker:
I believe Trump is hinting that he is now investigating himself. Either that or Putin is now part of the team investigating his own collaboration with Trump.
After further review, perhaps Trump is the anonymous source Rosenstein mysteriously warned us against?
Or maybe they are all drunk on Russian lighter fluid and this is day three of the party.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: Who knows what’s going on in that pseudoephedrine-addled brain of his? I think it’s a swipe at Rosenstein, who by now Trumpov surely knows he’ll have to fire first, before he can get someone else to fire Bob Mueller.
amk
@GregB:
David FrumVerified
Anti-anti-Trumpers sigh, “Mr President, we’d find it a lot easier to rationalize your lying if you could just stick to one consistent lie”
The lying pos was on fucking teevee boasting about how firing comey was my, my, my decision.
Patricia Kayden
@Jeffro: Go Mueller, go!!!! Yes you can!!
Mike in DC
@Betty Cracker:
He seems so stable and calm and rational. Rosenstein was told by Trump to write a memo justifying Trump’s own decision to fire Comey.
He is coming unglued. If the investigation doesn’t get him, the 25th Amendment might instead.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: LOL!! That made me laugh. He is so ridiculous.
Morzer
@amk:
Chalk up another point for Donald Trump: Self-investigator.
rikyrah
Just a reminder from low-tech cyclist about how we should talk to our DEM Senators WHEN we call them about the Legislative Evil known as Trumpcare:
Patricia Kayden
@MattF: At least they’re not jumping from tall buildings.
P.S. We had the chance to elect our own Wonder Woman but alas. Sigh.
OzarkHillbilly
@Morzer: I’m sure she is worth reading, but when she says,
She is ignoring the fact that trump sits at the head of that party and that that party is doing absolutely nothing to restrain him, are in fact running interference for him as they do in secret what they can not do in public, which is to create an oligarchy here. You say “autocracy” i say “oligarchy”… It’s a distinction without a difference for the rest of us.
All that said, I am not in the mood for an argument, just saying where I am coming from.
scav
@Betty Cracker: I suspect something communicated by smootchies. That’s exactly the inability of separating distinct issues exhibited by John McCain during the Comey questioning. It’s spreading!
Betty Cracker
@Mike in DC: Seriously, this is some fucked up shit. He has to mean Rosenstein, right? But he went on TV and said Rosenstein’s memo wasn’t the basis for firing Comey! Does he think we’ve forgotten that?
Amir Khalid
@hovercraft:
Besides, reinstating Comey will do absolutely nothing to stop the investigation, which Mueller is running from outside the FBI.
@Betty Cracker:
Trump is going at the man who appointed Mueller — Rosenstein, whose memo Trump used to justify firing Comey.
@Betty Cracker:
Trump doesn’t even try to keep any of his stories straight from one sentence to the next, let alone from one day to the next.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
There’s a poster at another blog that just writes everyday…
Mueller coming…Mueller Coming….
(anyone who has watched The Wire, substitute in Omar, and begin to laugh at the image, but use the White House)…..
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
TPM’s take, I mean expression of confusion:
Someone needs to get the man a drink, he could definitely use one.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Trying to figure out how that’s connected to Rosenstein’s weird memo last night. Dr. Bloor speculated that Trump was dissatisfied with the quality of Rosenstein’s warning about leaks. Could be. Trump sounds really deranged this morning — more than usual even! :)
Cheryl Rofer
For whatever this may be worth.
scav
OT AMZN buying out Whole Foods is going to make things interesting too (at least for a while and certainly so among my personal bubble of peoples). news reports in churn mode now, so I won’t link to any one.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
I suspect Rosenstein is the designated Next Scapegoat, after Comey.
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft:
He’s already had a few too many. No, I don’t believe all that “I don’t drink” crap that comes out of the pathological liar’s mouth. Why do you ask?
Mike in DC
@scav:
More work for document reviewers like me. Big antitrust review for that. I expect other grocery chains to go all out to block it.
hovercraft
@Amir Khalid:
Of course it makes sense, we’ve all been paying too much attention to the MSM, liars each and every one of them.
If you just use the key word COVFEFE, it will all make sense. Keep up people!
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Maybe he’s pressuring Rosenstein to fire Mueller, and Rosenstein won’t, and this is a very clumsy pretext to fire Rosenstein. That would be insane, of course. But Trump is nuttier than a squirrel turd!
Corner Stone
@scav: If that actually goes through that’s not just Whole Foods that is going to be hollowed out and disappear. That’s going to ripple through every large grocery chain. Kroger’s is already in a price war for some its staple items.
Corner Stone
Think about all the jobs associated with the grocery business. A large percentage of them are going to just disappear over the next 24 months or so if AMZN gets what it wants.
Happen eventually anyway, but this is going to get really nasty.
hovercraft
@OzarkHillbilly:
And here I was imagining what Absinthe would do for him ; (
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s not a lie if you’re deranged when you say it.
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft: I’m thinking meth might straighten him out.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
Has anyone told Trump what happened to the last POTUS who tried that stunt, 40-odd years ago?
MattF
@scav: Hmmph. There are… (counting)… five or six Whole Foods stores in my over-retailed neck of the DC suburbs. At least half of them need to be shut down.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: Using the truth to promote a falsehood is still lying. But that’s just my honest opinion.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
While I agree with the action item of asking Dem senators to withhold consent, the author’s comment is not true for my hometown newspaper today, which has a frontpage article (from the FTFNYT) headed “Secrecy surrrounding Senate health bill raises alarms in both parties.”
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
See, there’s your mistake right there.
Jack the Second
@rikyrah: Does unanimous consent actually stop anything? My understanding is that you can just require a vote on some procedures which are usually carried out by unanimous consent, but those votes are simple majorities. So Democrats can gum up the works but if the Republicans got the votes, they got the votes.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Morzer: We were already heading towards autocracy before El Presidente was appointed by Putin. Exhibit A: Any GOP politician.
I don’t believe the US is that far gone yet or that Trump could irrevocably change the political culture. He’s only one man. If all of us refuse to see things his way, then he can’t truly change it
Jack the Second
@GregB: Obama is personally responsible for everything that happened a year before and after his Presidency.
MattF
@Jack the Second: Well, someone is responsible, and Obama has that special, um, color of responsibility.
WaterGirl
@Jack the Second:
Fixed that for you.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Jack the Second: If positive, obviously it was because of Trump’s genius business acumen. If bad, it was that socialist darkie’s fault
debit
@Jack the Second: Actually, according to my dad, Bill Clinton was responsible for shit going down in W’s administration 6 years into his (W’s) term.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jack the Second: Oh, more than just one year before his Presidency. Remember when he invaded Iraq? And don’t forget the colossal failure that was his response to Katrina.
catclub
@efgoldman:
link?
I am going looking
rikyrah
Real talk: we are LOSING on TrumpCare right now. Seriously. McConnell’s strategy of keeping the public in the dark is working. 1/ pic.twitter.com/7tHO0ifZ0z
— Ezra Levin (@ezralevin) June 16, 2017
rikyrah
The GOP wanted to purge voter rolls. If Russia helped them, that’s a state-sponsored coup d’etat.
— Francis L. Holland (@ColorArousal) June 16, 2017
rikyrah
TODAY’S MUST READ: A very disturbing account of their absolute lack of knowledge, of what the @SenateGOP is doing to our healthcare system. https://t.co/p7yPOtMtEj
— meta (@metaquest) June 16, 2017
rikyrah
The ‘clueless, not criminal’ Trump defense comes up far short
06/16/17 08:42 AM—UPDATED 06/16/17 08:56 AM
By Steve Benen
Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) talked to NPR’s Steve Inskeep yesterday, and the conservative lawmaker expressed support for the ongoing investigation into Donald Trump’s Russia scandal, saying it’d be “healthy” to separate facts from fiction.
But note what happened when the discussion turned to the investigation into whether the president obstructed justice. From the NPR transcript:
This brings us back to the line of argument known in some circles as the “clueless, not criminal” defense. Trump may have obstructed justice, the defense goes, but he didn’t really mean to: the president simply doesn’t know enough about politics or the law to know where the boundaries are. We should hold Trump to a lower standard, the argument implicitly suggests, because he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.
Or as Schweikert put it, the president is new to “the political class,” which means he lacks “the disciplined use of language.”
If this sounds familiar, it’s because Schweikert isn’t the only one making the argument. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), among others, argued earlier this week, “The president is new at this, he is new to government, and so he probably wasn’t steeped in the long running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI, and White Houses. He is just new to this.”
This is a very bad argument, which does not improve with repetition.
gbear
@WaterGirl:
Yep. Lots of conservatives think Obama dropped the ball when Katrina hit New Orleans.
Captain C
@OzarkHillbilly: I can believe it; if he said he didn’t do blow, however…
rikyrah
Republicans struggle to find the purpose of their health care plan
06/16/17 09:35 AM—UPDATED 06/16/17 10:03 AM
By Steve Benen
Consider policymaking in a republic at its most basic level. Voters elect policymakers who identify problems and then try to come up with solutions to those problems.
To be sure, this is rarely easy. Sometimes officials misidentify problems, come up with misguided remedies, or struggle to reach a necessary consensus on solutions, but the underlying governing model is straightforward and sound.
In the case of Republican policymakers working on a health care overhaul, this model is being ignored.
When Democrats were crafting the Affordable Care Act, there was no question as to why they were acting. Democrats identified some key systemic problems – too many Americans lacked basic health coverage, and even those with insurance faced security risks – and then worked on a solution. There’s ample room for debate about the merits of the Democrats’ reform law, but there’s no confusion about the purpose of their work.
With Republicans this year, no one has the foggiest idea what they’re doing – GOP leaders are operating in complete secrecy – but just as importantly, we don’t know what question they’re trying to answer. The solution is being kept hidden, but so too is the purpose of the endeavor.
Vox published a great report on this today after speaking to eight Senate Republicans, each of whom struggled to explain what their party is even trying to do.
rikyrah
Trump’s second-term curse starts surprisingly early
06/16/17 10:14 AM
By Steve Benen
Political observers have talked for years about American presidents and the frequency with which they run into the “second-term curse.” It hasn’t affected every president – Barack Obama, for example, avoided the “curse” – but in many modern administrations, presidents have confronted serious crises and scandals in the latter half of their two terms.
In fact, going into this year, only two American presidents have ever been the subject of federal criminal inquiries – Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton – and both ran into trouble in their second terms.
…………………………………………
This small club, however, now has a new member, with Donald Trump facing his own criminal investigation. Time will tell what becomes of the ongoing federal probe, but MSNBC’s Ari Melber raised an interesting numerical point yesterday: when Nixon first faced a criminal inquiry into his misconduct in office, he’d been president for 1,580 days. For Clinton, it was 1,835 days.
For Trump, it was 145 days. His second-term curse arrived in his first term – before he’d even reached his first 4th of July in the White House. I made the above chart to help drive the point home.
I can appreciate why it feels like Trump has been in office for a very long time, but the fact remains that his presidency hasn’t yet reached the five-month mark.
Just One More Canuck
@raven: Jimmy Ruffin or Joan Osborne version?
Jeffro
@rikyrah:
It’s an act of war by Russia, aided by treasonous Americans. It should go to SCOTUS, which should then either order a new election or DQ the GOP ticket and declare that HRC is the 45th president.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@rikyrah:
How hard is it to say they want to give Trump and themselves a “win”?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Patricia Kayden: The loss to our country in not electing Hillary is sometimes enough to paralyze me with despair. But then I think just how many amazing women we have at the national level. Off the top of my head: Elizabeth Warren, Claire McCaskill, Kamala Harris, Tammy Duckworth, and of course Nancy Pelosi. And I’ll bet countless others coming up at the state level.
Our bench is solid. Our Wonder Woman President is coming, in my lifetime. I believe that. I have to, to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Actually, it was Warren who first showed me how to stop gibbering in the corner and get on with the fight. It may have even been back in November. She was on Rachel Maddow’s show and in response to a question about 2018, she talked about screw that, we have all these fights coming and how we have to engage on all of them NOW, and I thought, “she has to face these people every day, and she’s still got the spine and the will to do it. Can I do less?”
Jeffro
@rikyrah: I have no doubt they’re struggling…they’re trying to pull off the impossible. They want “their” money back (the taxes that help pay for Obamacare) without taking the blame for what that funding cut will do to actual fellow Americans.
Captain C
@Jack the Second: At this point, I think one of the main goals is to gum up the works enough so that enough people become aware of what’s in this travesty of a giant tax cut for the 1% disguised as a poorly-thought-out joke of a health care bill, in the hope that just enough Rethug senators vote no after massive encouragement by their constituents.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Jeffro: There really should be a mechanism for calling a new elections for just such this occasion. Nationwide recall election? Standards would have to be stringent like those in parliamentary democracies
Captain C
@Jeffro: After which the new administration should find and freeze as many as possible of Putin’s assets, which he no doubt acquired honestly on a public servant’s salary.
Also, FIFA should pull the World Cup from Russia (I bet England would love to have it, and they could definitely pull it off with a year’s lead time).
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@rikyrah:
I doubt many people don’t know that. The question is of course: “how can we cut taxes on the 1% and get that revenue from the poor and middle class?”
The mystery is how do they come up with a cover story that anybody but the 27% will believe.
Jeffro
Newt is telling folks at a DC press event today: “The president of the United States cannot obstruct justice.”
Newt, I think Nixon said it first and better: “When the president does it, that means it’s legal”
Newt, please have large amounts of something deep-fried today and then have some more…
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Hopefully they won’t be able to
@Jeffro:
What’s his bullshit reasoning for that? That the president is above the law?
I don’t care if the president is a Democrat or a GOP pol; They’re still accountable to us and are held to the same laws
D58826
I’m just so happy that based on this tweet from Der Fuhrer
we have elected our first Jewish POTUS since it was the president who fired Comey.. May I be only the first of many to congratulate POTUS Rod Rosenstein.
Jeffro
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
I dunno…I just know that even I, armchair lawyer that I am, feel pretty confident that 66M Americans were denied their franchise this past November due to an attack by a hostile foreign power, aided by American citizens committing treason against their country. I’ve just about beaten this example to death, but hey once more won’t hurt: if the Japanese had bombed the Pearl Harbor offices of the Hawaii Democratic Party, aided by the Hawaii Republican Party, then there’s no way those Republicans can legitimately claim their offices.
Jeffro
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: Yes, exactly – he thinks the president is above the law. Or rather, the president IS the law.
I probably won’t have to do much digging to find that he felt differently when Obama was president…or when Hillary was about to be…
randy khan
@Betty Cracker:
First, I love you for that last sentence.
I’m not sure Trump is ready to fire Rosenstein yet, but I think this is a threat to fire him, made in public, if he doesn’t rein in Mueller. I’d be pretty confident Rosenstein will ignore it.
eric
@Mike in DC: wrong administration for opposition.
catclub
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
This is not likely for a nation that has had the anti-democratic loaded weapon of the electoral college lying around for over 200 years.
Nothing in elections got fixed after the 2000 elections. The ‘solutions’ (electronic voting without paper records) are arguably worse than what we had before. It is just depressing. And those solutions of 2003 are now 15 years old and have aged very badly, but there is no money to update or improve them.
D58826
@rikyrah: same take different writer from VOX
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/16/15810524/senate-ahca-explain-please
MattF
@randy khan: The dialog that’s envisioned here:
Rosenstein: If you order me to fire Mueller, I’ll quit.
Trump: You can’t quit, you’re fired.
No pressure necessary.
Captain C
@ Goku (aka Junior G-Man) : What’s h
Given that he definitely wasn’t singing that tune in the Clinton years, I’m going with “The President (and pretty much everyone around him, including me) is guilty as fuck, but we have to ignore that so that my fap-fantasy of screwing the poor and minorities while turning America into an autocracy can happen.”
chopper
@Jeffro:
wait, what?? newt led the impeachment of bill clinton over, among other things, obstruction of justice.
hovercraft
@gbear:
The worst is that according to this, it includes the people who were most affected by it.
More Louisiana Republicans Blame President Obama For Hurricane Katrina Response Than Bush
According to a Public Policy Polling survey, 29 percent of Louisiana Republicans say President Obama is more to blame for the botched executive branch response to Hurricane Katrina while just 28 percent blamed George W. Bush. A plurality of 44 percent said they were unsure who was more responsible, even though Hurricane Katrina occurred over three years before Obama entered the presidency when he was still a freshman Senator.
I’d say dumdasses, but I don’t think they truly believe it, unless they do actually believe that he
s got a time machine.
Jeffro
@chopper: that was then, this is now. Mistakes were made. It’s not illegal if the president does it. Obama bungled the Katrina response. Jimmy Carter got us into both Iraq Wars and let 9/11 happen. The root of all evil is progressive taxation. It’s argle-de-blargle, all the way down…
Maybe Nancy Smash! can call a presser soon and ask half of this country to wake. the fuck. UP. and use a brain cell once in a while.
Mike in DC
Sessions and Rosenstein are recused or will be. That leaves Brand and Boente as the only two people confirmed at the DOJ who could fire Mueller. Boente has been working on the Russia investigation and I suspect he’d refuse. That leaves Brand. Does she want to be Robert Bork?
Captain C
@hovercraft: Their brains (to the extent they have one) are composed entirely of cognitive dissonance.
randy khan
@MattF:
I forget where I saw this, but someone said recently that Trump is used to people knuckling under to him because he can fire them (or humiliate them, or punish them in some other way), and that makes perfect sense to me. He doesn’t get that threats don’t work on some people, and that sometimes it’s stupid to threaten them.
I actually kind of expect that he will fire Rosenstein for refusing to fire Mueller at some point, then discover that he doesn’t really have a Robert Bork to do the dirty work because the Administration has filled almost none of the open slots at Justice. (And since he can’t fire civil servants, the senior civil servants can ignore him if he tells them to fire Mueller.)
D58826
@Jeffro: And don’t forget that after Bill’s last stand at the Little Big Horn he ran the Titanic into the ice berg. Somebody told him that there were horny penguins lived on icebergs
D58826
@randy khan:
Yep. that is his problem with the French PM Macron. Macron had a stronger handshake than Der Fuhrer. Bigly sad
D58826
Didn’t really follow the details but the Mass judge has found a young woman guilty of involuntary man slaughter in the texting suicide of her b/f. Social media just got a whole lot more dangerous.
hovercraft
@randy khan:
The woman who’s next in line at he DOJ after Rosenstein was confirmed on a party line vote, the democrats said she was a partisan hack or something so she might be willing to be this eras Bork.
Just saying she might be willing to go there, senate dems were suspicious enough to vote against her en masse.
D58826
OUch the plot and the scope ofthe investigation just got a bit thicker if this is true
https://twitter.com/PuestoLoco/status/875384165763600384
jimmiraybob
A lot of high end people are being considered for “what they knew and when they knew it” and what their testimony will do. But, don’t you think, given crazy uncle Donny’s temper, that a lot of the household staff heard the rants and raves and could help fill in some blanks?
DT (loudly at 4AM as he reaches for his tweet phone): “I’m gonna fire that GD Rosenstein if he doesn’t fire that MF Mueller and get this Russia thing done in once and for all!”
Janitor: Uh oh.
randy khan
@hovercraft:
She might, but then again she’s an ABA type, so she probably still wants to be invited to the right parties. (Sort of a joke, but sort of not.)
randy khan
@D58826:
Well, that *would* explain Newt’s distaste for the investigation.
Another Scott
SmartyPants at WaMo – Will Rosenstein recuse himself or be fired?
That’s an interesting angle – if he gets called as a witness over the Comey firing, Rosenstein might have to recuse himself as being Mueller’s supervisor…
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in DC
@D58826:
NOT a reliable source. Louise Mensch, Claude Taylor, Broadsword six and Puesto loco are basically frauds putting one over, in my opinion and based upon observation over time.
John schindler, Malcolm nance, Andrea chalupa, Clint watts and Seth abramson are better to follow.
O. Felix Culpa
@Jeffro:
Presumes brain cell not in evidence.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mike in DC:
Two words: Horse. Shit. (& I mean that in the nicest possible way…)
(Note: ETA to add numerous corrections & cleanups.)
All of you are cordially invited to read the text of the Amendment, with particular attention to Section 4.
The Amendment was designed to handle a breakdown in Executive functions in a situation when everyone (including the President) agrees that the President is incapacitated.* When POTUS disputes this judgement, the Amendment turns into a dumpster fire, to wit:
IOW, at whatever point a sitting POTUS chooses to contest in writing the original action to sideline him/her, Congress must act swiftly & decisively, otherwise POTUS resumes her/his elected position as if nothing had happened. In fact it would take fewer votes to impeach & remove POTUS & probably do less damage to Federal governance. (Among other things, there is no provision for seating an “Acting Vice-President”, so the Speaker of the House would remain next in line.)
Impeach & remove, or get him to resign via the threat to do so. The 25th Amendment isn’t going to help.
—
* Not always physical. Recall The West Wing when the kidnapping of Zoe Bartlet “incapacitates” POTUS by making him vulnerable to blackmail.
sigyn
@D58826: You might want to look into the details before you waste any sympathy on that one.
ETA: This is *good* news.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
Five rightwing SC justices are gonna sneer and wipe their asses with the complaint.
Uncle Cosmo
@hovercraft: Absinthe makes the horrid go founder. (Or so one hopes.)
catclub
@Mike in DC:
I just learned that Nixon promised Bork a Supreme Court seat if he would fire Archibald Cox. Given that Bork was nominated for SC, I would guess there was some weight in that promise. So, Would brand like a SC seat, too? She is already a big-wig in the Federalist Society.
Captain C
@TenguPhule: Unless someone can convince legacy-obsessed John Roberts that if he does so his legacy will come down to being known as “Russian Roberts.”
Peale
@D58826: LOL. Next up. Let’s see if Ann Coulter is involved. Seriously, everyone who said last week “Since you can’t prove collusion with Trump HIMSELF, everyone else is innocent so let’s cancel this investigation” is probably selling access to the President with Russians. Newt and Coulter were quite loud about this line. Let Callista enjoy her time as Vatican Ambassador while Newt gets 18 months for failing to register as a foreign lobbyist. Seriously, does no one in the GOP follow any rules at all?