SCOOP: @mike_pence using taxpayer-funded @VP's residence to host series of private dinners with GOP mega-donors. https://t.co/V8sKLdA2hz
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) July 9, 2017
This should ease a lot of economic anxiety in The Heartland. https://t.co/C50Nx79oVM
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 9, 2017
Maybe Mike Dense really is as dumb as he’s famously supposed to be! Maybe he’s just a loyal GOP footsoldier willing to repeat whatever pieties he’s fed… so long as he’s free to commit Bad Touches on innocent NASA equipment and any social legislation postdating the 1860s…
If it’s for fundraising it’s eleventy-three kinds of illegal, unless, possibly, there are provisions for reimbursing the gov’t. https://t.co/0jlYYwzeGR
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) July 9, 2017
FLASHBACK: Mike Pence January 2017.
Q: Did any Trump campaign member have contact with the Russians?
Pence: "Of course not." pic.twitter.com/uSgQMkpydv
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 9, 2017
Just his national security advisor, foreign policy advisor, campaign manager, attorney general, son-in-law and son. That's all.
— ModerationInExcess (@ModerationInXS) July 9, 2017
You could fill a court docket with what Mike Pence claims he doesn't know about.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) July 10, 2017
Amazing how many on-the-record, on-camera total falsehoods have come out of Pence's mouth. https://t.co/PeJmuJSupR
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 9, 2017
dmsilev
Drip Drip Drip:
Sherparick
It’s all IOKIYR ?
BGinCHI
Whenever I see the media roll out the “Poor Mike Pence” narrative, I mentally reach for this quote from Inglourious Basterds:
mai naem mobile
These people are the lyingest lying liars evah! Nobody can match them.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: just saw it posted … The article works best if you watch a sequence of clips of people like Trumpov, Manafort, Pence, and Conway all denying that the campaign ever had any contact with Russia whatsoever.
Jeffro
So since the walls are closing in how long until Loretta Lynch is subpoenaed?
TenguPhule
Every single Republican in the chain of succession is a fucking traitor.
Every Single One.
The Republican party is a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world, where the hell are our Joes?
Feebog
Maddox is all over this. Right now interviewing Adam Schaffer. This is a BFD.
geg6
@dmsilev:
That’s not a drip. That’s a fucking gusher.
Feebog
Maddow, damn it.
dmsilev
@Jeffro: Don Jr. has given something like four or five mutually contradictory stories about that meeting by this point, and I have to believe there will be a few more coming. Apparently, according to something I read earlier today (can’t find the link), even people inside the Trump organization refer to him as ‘Fredo’.
TenguPhule
@dmsilev: Trump: “I could commit treason on Fifth Avenue and none of you pu$$ies would dare to stop me!”
Gravenstone
@Feebog: Maddow interviewing Schiff, perhaps?
dmsilev
@geg6: Here’s a fun game to play: Who might those “three people with knowledge of the email” be and why are they knifing Jr.?
rikyrah
I’ll say it again..
If Pence believes that Dolt45 is going down WITHOUT TAKING HIM WITH HIM..
He’s delusional.
Gravenstone
@dmsilev: Apparently Uday finally got around to lawyering up. If the lawyer us smart, Uday is about to go on a very long vacation, far from the public eye – and inquisitive reporters.
jl
@dmsilev: I don’t see in the link who those three people are. There was a group of three informants from the WH behind the previous story (which was backed up by another 2). So, are they trying to hide now?
At this point, probably might as well watch Emin’s music videos for clues. This stuff makes no sense. So I assume it’s cover story under cover story all the way down.
What did the email look like?
Hi Donnie Jr,
I read your online profile and found it intriguing. Like you I want to stamp out US Liberalism which is known worldwide to be mental disease. I and Russian Government can help you, if you can treat this matter with utmost discretion. There is little matter of violation of pesky Deep State federal law, but we must all take risk in good cause. The cat is on the mat. Please meet by lampost near Starbucks in Time Square.
I am obscure Russian Lawyer, nothing to do with money laundering or high profile Russian corruption cases and deaths of persons related to them while in custody or moving furniture at all.
Natalia
Edit: got Don Jr and Eric mixed up.
Iowa Old Lady
@dmsilev: All right. I give up. I don’t have enough imagination to conceive of how ridiculous or crooked or incompetent these people can be. And it’s the combination that’s truly staggering.
rikyrah
Washington PostVerified account @washingtonpost
Trump administration cancels plan to build new FBI headquarters to replace agency’s crumbling building downtown D.C.
meta @metaquest
Trump was going to hand the $2B contract for FBI building to Trump/Kushner partner, Steven Roth. So, what’s up?
…………………….
They were told that they couldn’t just give the contract to Kushner’s friend. So, here comes the spite. See Qatar for a reference to what happens when you don’t do things for Kushner.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Here’s the context:
1) On June 2016 there was a meeting of the Trump campaign finance folks at Trump Tower. News reporting documented Reince Priebus, among others, as being in Trump Tower that day.
2) Where exactly in Trump Tower did the meeting with the Russian lawyer take place?
3) At what time?
4) Who else did she have access to? The finance folks?
5) That afternoon, just after 4 PM, the (now) President issued his first tweet about Secretary Clinton’s emails.
These are the outstanding questions pertaining to what occurred in regard to the Trump campaign in Trump Tower on 9 June 2017.
geg6
@dmsilev:
I vote Kushner. You just know he thinks he’s Michael to Jr.’s Fredo.
Ruckus
When you elect professional bullshitters, you get professional grade bullshit.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: i’m just excited about the dynamics of the son betraying the father betraying the son-in-law of betraying the angry general betraying the psycho behind the scenes manipulator.
It’s possible this will take longer to settle than Watergate did. As long as the perpetrators end up in jail or facing the ultimate justice for their treason I’m good with that
Adam L Silverman
@BGinCHI: He was also handpicked to be VP by Paul Manafort.
Mike R
@Gravenstone: Well if Uday is anything like his father he believes that he is the smartest man in any room he enters. Hopefully that will lead to this entire regime crashing down around the ears of this entire clan of miscreants.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: The lawyer has represented four of the five major mafia families in NY City.
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: They probably are nursing a grudge against the FBI about the whole Russia investigation thing, too.
Jeffro
Adam Schiff saying that the Trump Jr meeting was basically the go signal for the Russians and WikiLeaks to begin leaking the damaging emails on Hillary and the Dems
rikyrah
What Do the Russians ‘Have’ on the Trump Family?
Fear.
Some thoughts on Junior’s changing story.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
JUL 10, 2017
…
Let us pause for a moment and consider the Magnitsky Act. Sergei Magnitsky was an auditor from a Russian law firm who uncovered the biggest case of tax fraud in the history of Russian kleptocratic corruption, which is something. In response, Magnitsky was arrested and put on trial for tax evasion in front of a bunch of crooks in lovely kangaroo suits. He died in prison of untreated medical problems and (probably) from being beaten to death by the good people from the Interior Ministry. In 2012, the Congress passed a law that froze the assets and effectively rendered non-persons 18 Russian officials who were tied in some way to the persecution and murder of Sergei Magnitsky. This got up the nose of Vladimir Putin, who responded by suspending the adoption of Russian children by American families. He also launched a PR blitz headed by a well-connected hack lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya. Which is where Junior comes in.
Veselnitskaya was the person with whom Junior—along with Paul Manafort and the inevitable Jared Kushner—took the meeting. Let’s let Junior’s most recent explanation speak for itself, because it’s just the funniest thing ever.
In a statement on Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. said he had met with the Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.” He said she then turned the conversation to adoption of Russian children and the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers. The law so enraged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that he retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian children. “It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,” Mr. Trump said.
This, then, is Junior’s official explanation: I thought we were colluding to ratfck the Democratic candidate, and the presidential election in general, but then she started talking about getting the mobsters’ money back. Bitch set me up.
…
To get the full picture, the redoubtable Booman suggests that we examine the criminal complaint that Preet Bharara filed against one Denis Katsyv, another one of Veselnitskaya’s clients, and the alleged mastermind of the massive fraud that got Sergei Magnitsky killed. He’s right. The breadth and depth of the corruption is almost impossible to believe. There’s identity theft … of corporations. (I guess they really are people, too.) There’s the entire world as their laundromat, including “Manhattan real estate.” Russian security forces raided corporate offices and then used what they took to set up front companies to clean the cash. Essentially, they looted this hedge fund of about $230 million. Magnitsky looked into it. He got busted by the same people he was investigating, and it got him killed. Of course, Bharara got fired, and the case was quietly settled for $6 million and no admission of guilt by anybody.
What I believe I see here is an incredibly corrupt American family doing business with criminal gangs that are way, way out of their league, and that are in league with the institutions of government, and the formidable security apparatus, of an authoritarian state. Talk about punching out of your weight class. This isn’t cheating some poor subcontractor. These people throw you out windows. And the Trumps have being doing business in this financial abattoir for years. This doesn’t make them sharp. This makes them compliant minnows in a shark tank.
…
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a56218/trump-junior-russian-meeting/
dmsilev
@Jeffro: We”ll need to dig up and reanimate Shakespeare to properly describe the dynamics. It’s like King Lear, except that the King is being played by some distorted mirror-universe version of Falstaff.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: in all fairness Pence does have the sincere “gentle headshake of denial while lying” down pat. It’s useful in an underling.
Ahem.
Or so I hear.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, which I found entirely hilarious when I first heard that detail.
Eric S.
@TenguPhule:
Right down to the Assistant Dog Catcher in Training in Eastern Podunk.
TenguPhule
@Ruckus:
This isn’t even professional, its playdough!
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
They probably were planning to build the new building on the old site. Of course the old building would have to be torn down first. And if there were no offices for the FBI, then it would cease to exist for however long it took to build the replacement. drumpf’s FBI problem – gone.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: an orange and highly stupid version of the king
Major Major Major Major
God, they aren’t even trying.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
CIA Janitors sent to deal with Wikileaks please. Extra Credit if they use actual plumbing tools of the trade.
Adam L Silverman
@Eric S.: We’ve always been at war with EastPodunk…
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
No, they were trying. That’s what’s so fucking terrifying.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: What I can’t help but notice, is that all these drips if info paint a picture of people acting like complete idiots in absurd scenarios. Like a fever dream cooked up by Groucho Marx, Mel Brooks and Steve Martin at their most incoherent.
I have to conclude that we are seeing absurd cover stories cooked up at the last minute, and/or bizarre efforts to smear others in attempts to distract attention or offer sacrifices. Almost as if somebody didn’t get a plea deal and is madly pushing out as much dirt on someone else in order so look a little better when their time comes.
Are any of these tales believable? I can’t believe any scenario consistent with the cover stories or the leaked dirt on others, except as something complete idiot characters would pull in a farce for cheap laughs.
Am I missing something? If I am, please explain.
Edit: see my speculative email above for an example. I have a hard time expressing the absurdity of this stuff.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Bannon, Barron, & Melania?
Kushner, Ivanka, & Ewic?
Moe, Larry, and Curly? (Or Shemp. Or Joe Besser)
p.a.
Coming soon to Fox and Friends: Doesn’t count: he’s not from the current wife!
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: That’s just the result of Mother putting too much fiber in his diet.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: Eez a puzzlement!
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: They are very trying.
lamh36
Has he never watched The Wire!
rikyrah
what I love…is that they let him twist in the wind… change his story…and, then find one where everyone is on board, trying to find excuses for him..
THEN, the NYT drops..
Oh, by the way, muthaphucka. ..we HAVE THE EMAIL THAT YOU GOT TELLING YOU WHAT THE MEETING WAS ABOUT.
BOOM.
All those pundits, who were twisting themselves today, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt that he never earned..
they look like the fools that they are.
FlipYrWhig
@dmsilev: I have thought for a long time that Flynn is a source for tons of this stuff…
lumpkin
figgered Pence for a lying sack of rodent feces for sure since the Flynn debacle. And, really what does it say about anyone’s honesty that they would be a part of the Trump admin anyway, and especially to be such a craven suck ass. No doubt that Pence is as dirty as the rest of them.
p.a.
@TenguPhule: I think the only button the Defense pros will let tRump near says ‘easy’ on it.
Ruckus
@TenguPhule:
Naw they’ve just never played on this bright of stage before. They are professional, as in they made a living at it. And I’ve met a few bullshitters in my years, believe me these folks are professionals. It’s all they know. drumpf bullshitted people for decades that he was worth 10 billion. That’s pro level bullshit.
lamh36
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I don’t think you’re necessarily missing something. I’m in agreement with Josh Marshall and several others, (Rick Wilson, Charlie Pierce, John Schindler, etc) who have all asserted one way or another that this screams like an attempt to get ahead of and put a preemptive spin on something very big, bad, and harmful that is expected to be reported sooner rather than later. Basically preemptive cover up by pushing out something bad to hopefully distract from something worse. Hence my list of questions.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: True story. I grew up a couple of miles outside a town formerly called – Podunk. Until it was leveled by a tornado in the 1800s.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: remember Trump’s Razor: ascertain the stupidest possible scenario that can be reconciled with the available evidence.
jl
Otto West could do better than any of these people.
lamh36
jl
@Adam L Silverman: But if even your cover stories for yourself, or the dirt you dish on others makes everyone involved look like a malicious crooked moron, I’m not sure how much it helps anything.
Edit: people have imagined the Trumps caving the Russian blackmail or financial threats, or stuffing wired funds into obscure bank accounts for months. And these cover stories and smears, or dirt, or whatever they are, make it look worse.
Well, as a commenter above noted, there is always Trump’s Razor.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: Nothing like local color.
Adam L Silverman
Anyone heard from efgoldman this evening?
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
I thought Trump’s Razor stopped at ascertain the stupidest possible scenario
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: headline like that I’m surprised it wasn’t your state, Adam.
TriassicSands
Eventually, people who lie a lot, forget how to tell the truth.
Then, they forget what the truth is.
Finally, they forget that there is any such thing as the truth.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m neither Fredo, Mr Ivanka or his then-campaign manager ever told trump about the Russian gov’t commitment to his campaign
Ladyraxterinok
Didn’t GOP have major fit over their claim that Clinton and Gore used phones in the WH for 1996 campaign stuff – money raising, organizing events, etc?? At that time I was just beginning to realize that for the GOP the mere fact that a democratic politician exists is a major crime against the God-given order of things.
Anne Laurie
@jl:
Rob Goldstone seems to be what entertainment people call a “fixer” — the guy who always knows a guy who might be able to help you out with your latest project. He earned his “in” with the Trump crime cartel back when they were both hustling corrupt Russian developers (up to / including Putin) during that Miss Universe pageant.
Donny Junior’s role during the campaign seems to have been “the junior vice-president assigned to taking meetings with potential clients who are probably more noise than money.” But when his old man’s good buddy Goldstone asked him to take a meeting with this Russian lawyer chick, Rob’s description was so flattering that Donny went running to (that snobby wannabe Trump-son) Jared and Paul “Never Ask What’s in the Briefcase” Manafort, boasting that this time he’d hooked the big fish. Paul Manafort sure as hell recognized Ms. Veselnitskaya’s name, and he wouldn’t have risked leaving Fredo alone in a meeting with her (always assuming he didn’t back-channel arrange the meeting himself); Jared, using his only real gift, would’ve sniffed out that if Manafort thought it was that important then Young Prince Jared needed to insert himself into the event (just as he’s inserted himself into every event of note during the current Trump mis-administration). More Damon Runyon or Jimmy Breslin than John le Carre, so far…
Who are the “three leakers” inside the current WH cabal? There are lots of guesses being made — Steve Bannon ranks high on most lists — but their actual identity probably isn’t that important. Remember, “Deep Throat” turned out to be a midrank FBI bureaucrat angered that he wasn’t getting the respect from Nixon’s CREEPsters that he thought he deserved. Felt’s identity was more-or-less accidentally uncovered during the Watergate trials, but he was such an insignificant little fella in a pageant of loud egos and low motives that the Very Serious People just couldn’t be bothered following the trail, because there were so many more important stories!
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s not efg. The man’s hair has color. The man has hair.
Now I’ve not met efg in person, but he’s older than dirt and as I can attest to, being very, very close to being older than dirt myself, that’s not normal.
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
We’ll find out if that’s true, if we ever elected professional bullshitters. These klowns aren’t even grade 3 amateurs.
jl
@Ruckus: It’s looking like bottomless recursive ‘stupidest’ now. Some kind of paradox.
Maybe this is how Goedel’s Theorem, quantum theory paradoxes, and dark energy emerge to rip the fabric of space time and logic apart and we all disappear, or come out the other end of the wormhole into Trumpworld.
Gvg
@Adam L Silverman: ohhh…so that implies the Russian lawyer was not evasive and just talking about orphans that day because the campaign expected results on emails AND Trump was told that day, which means they lied again.
p.a.
Remember the James Burke tv show (pbs here in U S) Connections? He would follow seemingly unrelated strands of history, especially technological change, and show how they led to a major historical event.
If Miss Universe was not in Russia, are we at this point today?
Adam L Silverman
@jl: The idea is to protect the President. For this crowd everyone else is expendable. That includes family.
Keith P.
Heh, NYT is reporting that Dong Jr. did know about the Moscow connection before the meeting. I honestly expected that to break 4 hours ago. Otherwise, no surprise at all…of *course* he knew what the meeting is about.
Felonius Monk
@Adam L Silverman:
I think I saw him somewhere in an earlier thread, but if efg is into Insane Clown Posse, he is truly a well rounded gentleman and doesn’t need to resort to axes and knives.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Nope, no firearms.
Anonymous Coward
Don Jr’s multiple stories and opposing leaks proving each of them wrong had me thinking back on Austin Power’s EnisPay enlarging pump.
But, going anonymous because I just need to vent and people here know where I work. Boss wants dude to get job title that better reflects the work he is doing (and the peers he’s working with). I have coffee with someone from HR, they point out that you can’t just change a job title, besides the suggested title is about five jumps up, which won’t fly – he’s looking at a different career path from his co-workers that he wants to have the same title as. So, I point out to Boss that he doesn’t have the needed degree, and hasn’t shown the leadership Title requires, but we can try to do something for him. So I write a carefully crafted email to HR, pointing out that his job description did not reflect the level of work he is doing, could we have some guidance or could he have some training to move onto the career path she had suggested for him?
So what does Boss do? She forwards the email I wrote to Dude, who I had carefully left off the email & cc-s HR on it. In this email she apologizes to Dude that the title change is taking so long, she’s dropped the ball, asks HR if he really needs the degree that the job requires AND pastes in a job description from another department I had previously brought up as possibly being a sample of what Dude should be aiming for. Boss appears to have never noticed the snitty email from HR saying that job descriptions in other departments are completely irrelevant to Dude’s situation and his current title and salary are based solely on the duties in his current job description.
So….. SMDH!!! Boss frequently goes on about how happy she is to have somebody who cares in the position, who takes an interest in the group… But… I don’t know if I can keep that up if this is how I’m rewarded for it. Previous people have totally burned out. I like Boss and the people, but “taking care of her people” needs to include me!
p.a.
@Ruckus: Also pretty sure efg would be attacking the ICP requester.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It was well reported, repeatedly, that the President is actually a micro manager and nothing happened during the campaign without his blessing off on it. So…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Adam L Silverman
@Ladyraxterinok: Yes, yes they did.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: Goldstone works for Agalorov. The Agalarov’s are friends and contacts of the President, not Jr’s.
Adam L Silverman
@Gvg: Your guess is as good as mine at this point.
Mr Stagger Lee
DJT Jnr: I’m your older brother, Ivanka, and I was stepped over!
Ivanka: That’s the way Pop wanted it
DJT Jnr: It ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like Eric whose\ dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman:
Grounds for the insanity plea right there.
Mr Stagger Lee
DJT Jnr: I’m your older brother, Ivanka, and I was stepped over!
Ivanka: That’s the way Pop wanted it
DJT Jnr: It ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like Eric whose\ dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: or alligators, good point.
Central Planning
OT – Some AI-designed horrible cell phone cases
Saw it on Facebook.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: Agalorov Jr is the would-be Russian pop-star? our only current president, as Molly Ivins used to say, appeared in one of his videos, in apprentice character, recorded a birthday video for him just about a year ago. While running for president. Seems kind of trivial at this point, but they’re gross and corrupt all up and down the scale of grossness and corruption.’
ETA: Chris Hayes played the videos, if one is curious
Viva BisVegas
@Jeffro:
The claim doing the rounds at the moment is that the FBI are just about to reopen the case against Hillary Clinton.
The only reason I would give that any credence is that Trump is President.
Major Major Major Major
@Anonymous Coward: yikes, that sucks!
Millard Filmore
@Adam L Silverman: Now I can see why detectives on TV paste all the evidence notes on a giant tack board, with strings between the important ones.
Anne Laurie
@Iowa Old Lady:
You’re handicapped by your current occupation: Written fiction has to be plausible.
Actual history, not so much.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
I haven’t. I think I’m probably asleep.
I can’t keep track of all the format changes in Boston radio any more. But KISS108 deserves it if anyone does.
jl
@efgoldman: So, looks like you made bail pretty quick. Should BJ get up a defense fund for you?
Villago Delenda Est
@TenguPhule: This.
They’re all traitors. Every last one.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yep.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Damn, and I am licensed in neither MA not RI. Sorry, efg, I can’t help.*
*So much more polite than, “Fuck you, mate, you’re on your own.”
Shana
@Ruckus: As I recall, both Maryland and Virginia were vying for the location of the new building.
Major Major Major Major
@Central Planning: I really wish they would stop describing these kinds of things as by “an AI”.
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: Network analysis is important. Both to visualize what the network is and to understand it. Including what happens if you disturb any of the links and nodes.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Just checking.
efgoldman
@jl:
Nah. First time offender. OR.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
” But KISS108 deserves it if anyone does. ”
He spilled his motive right there in his own comment. What is happening is that the Trumpsters are setting a bad example for all of us.
We need to all be on guard.
@efgoldman: Good, then. Let this be a lesson for you, young man. Take the straight path from now on.
piratedan
so now that we’ve got a link that puts the Russians in bed with the Trump campaign (as if we didn’t know) how much of a stretch is it to find out if the room was a suite with the GOP leadership (Preibus, McConnell, Ryan) sleeping in an adjoining room?
The Dangerman
I’m thinking of a number that Donald The Older would skip a meeting with a fairly hot Eastern European woman that was claiming to dish dirt on HRC; that number is pretty close to zero.
Major Major Major Major
So are these more IC leaks or are these insiders now?
MomSense
My kids have been pushing this hope/scenario that on the way out Barack Obama enacted some kind of super secret Cold War era fail safe plan that sets up a shadow government within the government to prosecute the elected traitors while safeguarding our national security and nukes. Their hypothesis is that the Cold War planners were such a paranoid lot that they surely imagined such a scenario and prepared contingency plans.
I’m sort of hoping they are correct. When Dolt45 gave incorrect information about the location of his naval vessels and when they read that the cyber counter measures Obama authorized didn’t require Dolt’s approval they took these as good signs that their crazy hope isn’t so crazy.
I would like for this to be true.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a rip-off of about half a dozen Sopranos characters, from Big Pussy to Bobby Bacala, but a good fit for the narrative.
Gin & Tonic
@dmsilev:
I may be an outlier here, but the contents of almost all my e-mails are known by two people: the sender and me.
different-church-lady
@Adam L Silverman: Fuckin’ request lines: how do they work?
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: The request for an ICP song just screams what we in the profession call “I am balls out, bug fuck nuts.” Trust me, it’s a term of art.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: And the NSA makes three!
Adam L Silverman
@piratedan: It was reported at the time that Preibus was in Trump Tower, as well as a number of other GOP party officials and funding folks, for a campaign finance meeting on 9 June. See my follow on questions in comment 20.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
As I explained above they are pros. It’s just that while people think that all politicians are bullshitters, most of them, aren’t. Not to this level. OK the majority of the current national ones are. But still, they make their living being politicians. These guys make their living, such as it is, purely out of bullshitting. Doesn’t mean they are good at it, doesn’t mean they aren’t dumb as a pile of rocks, doesn’t mean they aren’t assholes as well but this is their profession, bullshitting.
jl
@piratedan: IIRC, there was a story about a regular establishment GOP political operative in FL getting info from hackers, who had some connection to Russia. This was a younger guy, not the 80+ year old, late Smith who was at one point, very confusedly, soliciting Russians for HRC’s ‘lost’ emails.
I wonder what happened to that story?
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
A snowbird perhaps?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gin & Tonic: but do you have a half-sister who’s been plotting her revenge since kindergarten, and is your password “password”? Or maybe “DonIsCool!”
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: Uhhh…. which profession is that?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Test123!.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Switch to Vegetarian Food on Air India Causes an Uproar
By NIDA NAJAR
JULY 10, 2017
NEW DELHI — Coming from some other debt-ridden airline, it might have been shrugged off as just another service cutback. But not this time: When Air India announced on Monday that coach passengers on its domestic flights would now be offered only vegetarian meals, the move provoked an uproar on social media.
G. P. Rao, a spokesman for the government-owned airline, said the change was made a week ago strictly to reduce waste and cut costs. But what people eat can be a sectarian flash point in India, especially since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party took power.
Many members of the Hindu majority are vegetarians, while the country’s Muslims and some other minorities eat meat. So the airline’s action was seen by many as discriminatory and part of a wave of religious nationalism sweeping the country.
“Only veg food on Air India,” Madhu Menon, a Bangalore-based chef and food writer, wrote on Twitter. “Next, flight attendants to speak only Hindi. After that, stand for national anthem before flight take-off.”
Others, though, came to Air India’s defense, saying they could not understand all the public indignation.
“Simple business sense suggests that any loss making entity should attempt to optimise and cut costs & more food options = more cost,” Krish Ashok, who describes himself as a techie in Chennai, wrote on Twitter. He compared the move to other airlines’ serving sandwiches in place of a hot meal.
In India, diet is an important signifier of group identity. At the heart of the outrage over the airline’s policy is a widespread sense that India’s Hindu nationalist ruling party is trying to limit the freedom of the county’s minorities.
The government of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, which is led by a new firebrand chief minister, has been cracking down on buffalo slaughterhouses this year, even though buffaloes are not considered sacred by Hindus the way cows are. And the lynching of a Muslim teenager on a train from Delhi last month, in which his assailants called him a “beefeater,” has further inflamed tensions.
The government approved plans last month to privatize the airline, which has more than $8 billion in debt.
Mr. Rao did not say on Monday how much the change in meals would save the company. But in an interview with The Hindu, a major newspaper, an official for the airline put the figure at 80 million rupees, or about $1.2 million, a year.
Critics derided that as a drop in the bucket. Omar Abdullah, a former chief minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, wrote on Twitter that the move would “restore Air India to full health in … oh heck 5000 years.”
The step on Monday was not the airline’s first away from serving meat. In January 2016, the airline replaced sandwiches with hot vegetarian meals for economy passengers on flights between an hour and 90 minutes long, The Press Trust of India reported, a change that the airline presented as an upgrade.
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: You don’t need to know.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: My understanding from the reporting is that these are from inside the administration/from sources close to/advising the administration. It appears that the original information regarding the meeting in question is a result of Kushner amending/revising his SF 86 to accurately reflect his foreign contacts.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: Ah, you’re a building contractor.
jl
@MomSense: GOP and Fox News fantasies may be having subtle effects on all of us. Maybe some TV shrink should investigate it and write a book on it, invent some remedy and do a long infomercial for late Sunday afternoons.
This will be tough, and you’ll have to be there for them through these tough and scary times. First, sit them down and explain that, no, Obama doesn’t really have a time machine, and he cannot shape shift himself into various spirits and forces and creatures to make things all OK. Obama is just a human being. And then try to explain to them that there is no such things as eleven dimensional chess.
dogwood
@Anne Laurie:
Actually Felt had become #2 at the FBI, so he was a bit more than a mid-level bureaucrat. He was pissed that he didn’t get the directorship though.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: It has been followed up on. From what I remember there is an ongoing investigation because of the identity theft/stolen information component to what he did.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I suspect that deep down,well, not very deep down because he’s a trump, Donnie is loving this because for once he’s the star. No one’s talking about Ivanka Ivanka Ivanka! tonight!
Alain the site fixer
@Central Planning: thank you, needed a laugh!
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: Jebus no. I’d rather be an assistant crack whore.
Major Major Major Major
So it sure seems like somebody is burning down new housing construction in Oakland, which is… not entirely surprising given the political climate.
@Adam L Silverman: danke.
randy khan
@dmsilev:
The Times pretty clearly has been baiting him, and he’s stupid enough to take the bait every.single.time.
GregB
Any word on where the cruise missiles of mass distraction will be landing before the week is up? Somalia? Qatar? Canada?
piratedan
i guess the biggest question… can a country survive a scandal that shows that one political party is so consumed with the desire for power that its willing to commit treason in order to win?
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I use two-factor authentication for my e-mail, which is stored in a non-US jurisdiction. But then I’m a little old-fashioned.
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: Of course it can. If we want it to and work at it.
jl
@Major Major Major Major: I heard on a news report that the residential part of this development was all luxury apartments. That type of project has a history of mysterious fires in Oakland, usually just before the wood framing is ready to wrap up inside fireproofing. I think four of five in recent years.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: You’re welcome. There is speculation that it may, in fact, be Kushner who is trying to throw Jr under the bus in order to get heat off of himself.
Break
As to the Oakland thing, they had a similar thing in Tampa back in the late 80s into the 90s. Clearly arson. Developments, both commercial and residential, would burn down prior to completion. As far as I know they never caught anyone. Most people figured it was an insurance fraud type of thing.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s annoying. I want all these douchebags to be stabbing each other in the back on live TV. I want to be entertained by this shitshow, dammit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: I’d put nothing past Jared or his wife, or any of them, but I once again /sigh/ agree with David Frum
jl
@piratedan:
” can a country survive a scandal that shows that one political party is so consumed with the desire for power that its willing to commit treason in order to win? ”
We survived the High Federalists.
Essex Junto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_Junto
GregB
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hopefully there will be no Vito Spatafore type night club scenes.
randy khan
@dmsilev:
I’ll take Kellyanne Conway in the pool. Remember her husband turned down a big deal Justice Department job. There had to be a reason for that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Once the stabbing gets serious, the MSM will jump on it.
Montysano
So, eventually someone is going to flip, and in doing so, receive their Get Out Of Jail Free card. History will look kindly upon that person, so the temptation has to be overwhelming.
Any guesses as to who it might be? I’m thinking Kellyanne, since she’s just a paid mouthpiece anyway.
ETA: Or do they really still believe We Can Beat This Thing? ‘Cause that’s extra scary.
efgoldman
@Viva BisVegas:
Isn’t Rosenstein still the acting director? Or was the flunky nominee confirmed by the senate when nobody was paying attention? Because I can’t imagine Rosenstein approving such bullshit.
Sounds like those wonderful guys in the NYC office are hoping to push something forward.
Omnes Omnibus
@randy khan: Weapon?
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have no idea who the inside the administration sources on this are. I was just referencing what is being speculated on in some of the reporting. I still think this is an attempt to throw something tantalizing out to proactively spin and cover for something even worse. Of which this is likely just one part.
sm*t cl*de
@Millard Filmore:
The TVTropes people have a description of this String Theory trope… which they relate to the Room Full of Crazy theme.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Or it could be someone trying for misdirection and using the FBI for it.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@rikyrah:
Good. Why give a slimy asshole like Don Jr the benefit of the doubt? Everything this family touches turns to shit
Lizzy L
@efgoldman: Rosenstein is the Deputy Attorney General — Justice Dept. The acting FBI Director is Andrew McCabe.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: my money would be on someone in the Pence/Prieubus orbit, people who know Pence will be just as malleable about signing legislation and maybe even declaring war, but probably doesn’t watch Morning Joe because Mother thinks Mika dresses like a harlot.
Maybe Kellyanne Conway has convinced Rebekah Mercer that she can be the Talleyrand of Republican Restoration…
Ruckus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
That’s why they are sticking with their strengths. They want an unblemished record.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ruckus: I have a pet theory that Rudi Giuliani is Putin’s useful and completely unwitting idiot in connection with the NY FBI office and that guy who runs the Agents Benevolent Association or whatever it is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My lost youth is hoping that McMaster is a part of it.
trollhattan
@Feebog:
I’d be fine with Rachel interviewing while wielding an axe handle.
MomSense
@jl:
We all know it’s not real but it certainly is a comforting fantasy.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Ruckus: What, for themselves? A person who won’t admit when they’re wrong is worthless in my eyes.
Was in a Sheetz today and glanced at USA Today: the article did not treat Trump asn if he was being ostracized by other countries at G20, but rather like he was attempting some bold new strategies by meeting individually with leaders on the sidelines. Stopped reading after that, so I might be being unfair
RandomMonster
I’m loving how every time Donald Jr comes up with a new explanation, another report comes out refuting it. It’s like Austin Powers collecting his belongings from the Ministry of Defence.
Don Jr: This kind of thing isn’t my bag, baby!
NYT: One book, “Swedish-Made Penis Enlargement Pumps and Me: This Kind of Thing Is My Bag, Baby”
Don Jr: Let’s just get this moving along…
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I had to lawl at this line. What kind of freak refers to his wife as Mother in front on other grown adults, no children present?
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Kallstrom.
It is simpler than that. The NY Field Office, specifically the senior folks who came up when Kallstrom was the SSAC and Field Office Director and tied at the hip with Giuliani, are completely intertwined with the Russian mob in NY City. They think they’ve got their hooks into the Russian mob, but the reality is the Russian mob has its hooks into them. Imagine the Boston Field Office Whitey Bulger mess on steroids and human growth hormone after being hit with a gamma bomb trying to save Rick Jones.
randy khan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Cutting sarcasm.
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sounds about right.
Laura
@TenguPhule: in a just universe, this is how we would come to have Madame President Nancy Smash.
Instead, we have a wholly owned and operated for profit republican congress and a Roberts, Gorsuch Court.
Ruckus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
What do you call a person incapable of even understanding the concept that they might be wrong?
randy khan
@Ruckus:
The plan was for the FBI to move to a new site and to redevelop the old site. Win for the new site and win for D.C., which would get tax revenues for two city blocks that are now tax-free. Now that’s been put off for probably another 4 years.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: The pundits who did this should all hang from the same gallows as Uday. And Qusay. And Jared. And Lolita. And Donald. And Dense.
Ruckus
@randy khan:
I really was saying that as sort of a joke. That drumpf might figure that if the FBI didn’t have a headquarters, they couldn’t exist and his problems would melt away. The real punch line is that drumpf isn’t capable of that level of strategic thinking.
patrick II
@Adam L Silverman:
Adam, if you are still here. Last night you commented that Kushner added over 100 meetings with foreigners to correct his form 86. Is this meeting one of them (I have read he was there), or did he forget again?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Ruckus: Not even wrong? An imbecile?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Villago Delenda Est: Hey idiots the pundits may be, but if stupidity were a capital crime, we’d all be dead
Adam L Silverman
@patrick II: Yes, this meeting is one of them. Though Brandon Moss, one of the preeminent attorneys dealing with clearances isn’t sure that Kushner actually needed to include this one as the Russian attorney is not an official of a foreign government.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m really starting to feel my Sicilian heritage kicking in as I often wonder about late April, 1945 in Milan.
Ruckus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
No, not imbecile. Total narcissist. Describe any one you can think of?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Ruckus: I’d rather Trump and the rest get Gaddafied
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Ruckus: Like father like son
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman:
I see your humor is operating at a high level tonight.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week. Try whatever recipe TaMara posts later this week.
Barbara
@Adam L Silverman: That would be my guess as well. Throw Trump Junior out there and then insist that he was freelancing. Even if he was doing so with the full participation of Kushner and Manafort. Just the fact those two were present suggests that the meeting was for them and Junior was just the guy who set it up.
Barbara
@Shana: Idea was to move it to the Fort Belvoir area that has been vacated, or another location somewhere in Montgomery County. The GSA wanted a single bidder to develop the new property while also buying and doing whatever with the old property. No bidders agreed to deal with the current building, which would be difficult to renovate or to demolish. So I am not sure where things stood at this point, other than there is a movement afoot to save the exterior of the building as an example of brutalist architecture, while renovating the interior somehow.
trnc
What is it with the fucking fox news crowd screaming “But where is the EVIDENCE?” every time a new story is published that undermines previous statements by the crime family? Does the Lil’ Debbie Investigator Badge in their CrackerJack boxes come with something that says investigators routinely disclose every piece of evidence to the public as soon as they get it?
Ruckus
@trnc:
You could explain it’s right in front of their eyes, but then they’d have to open them, look, and understand. And the sum total of their knowledge of evidence is “But her emails!”