Schiff on Don Jr.: Looks like "the defense is going to be yes we had an intent to collude with Russia", were disappointed in not getting it. pic.twitter.com/OtJ2wkRkcA
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 12, 2017
We've read tens of thousands of Hillary's emails; FBI spent a year investigating too. Not a single speck as troubling as Don Jr's one email.
— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) July 11, 2017
While the Repubs are busy with ‘a little light treason,’ what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Asked if he'd take meeting with foreign source offering campaign info, @SpeakerRyan says "I'm not going to go into hypotheticals." pic.twitter.com/ONemfDJsYJ
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 12, 2017
One week ago, would any politician have hesitated to say "no" to this? https://t.co/wZcAE4zD1O
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) July 12, 2017
No leaks! We’re like family! #YesLikeTheGambinoFamily https://t.co/UbuTESSOnI
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) July 12, 2017
GOP now so singularly focused on legal versus illegal they have lost all moorings on right versus wrong.
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) July 11, 2017
Maybe everyone's been lying about the Russia stuff because they were covering up a major crime.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 11, 2017
When the pre-emptive pardons start coming and the GOP sticks by him, that's when it gets really ugly.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 11, 2017
Major Major Major Major
“I’m presently incarcerated. Convicted of a crime I didn’t even commit. Hah! ‘Attempted murder’? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?”
-Sideshow Bob
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
It was at the G20’s Hamburg summit when Trump truly became ohwhatinthe actual fuck
Villago Delenda Est
Ryan is implicated in this shit. He’s a traitor too.
All of them need to go to prison, at a minimum.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major</a>: Ha!
SiubhanDuinne
Seen just now on FB, guy wearing a t-shirt that read:
Baud
I blame Democratic hubris.
pat
A couple of questions that just occurred to me:
If this lawyer had been denied a visa. HOW did she get in and manage to make it to the Trump tower so quickly?
If they DIDN’T have any bad info on Hillary, why would they set up the meeting anyway (the russkies, I mean). Could this actually be an elaborate set-up?
different-church-lady
Third time in 24 hours this applies:
* WINTER: “We had NO CONTACT with any Russians.”
* SPRING: “OK, we had a LITTLE contact with some Russians. Here and there. I mean, who doesn’t?”
* LAST WEEK: “Fine, so we had a lot of contact with the Russians. But we didn’t want it and it was all TOTALLY INNOCENT!”
* TODAY: OK. FINE, we WANTED to have contact with the Russians. But they refused to give us the dirt we asked for, so NO FOUL!!!
* TOMORROW: ?
Chyron HR
@Baud:
Hillary should have gone to Vladivostok.
pat
More questions: It seems that Trump was expecting something big from this meeting and he would reveal it all at his speech on Monday. Why wasn’t there anything to reveal after all?
Baud
@different-church-lady:
RUSSIA is BARRON’s real FATHER.
Yarrow
Holy shit.
pat
Just thought of another one: Why would the messages be about Hillary’s dealings with Russia? Were there any such? Why wasn’t anything revealed in that meeting??
dmsilev
I see a lucrative future for the Trump family in licensing their name out to Nigerian-prince scammers. Only problem is that nobody, not even someone gullible enough to believe a Nigerian spam email, would believe that a Trump would be willing to take only a share of ill-gotten gains.
Mary G
@Baud: You funny. “As the Trumpworld Turns.” Tune in tomorrow!
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
What the actual FUCK?!?!?!
Boussinesque
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): So apparently accommodating Russia so as to prevent a “new Cold War” is so important that we can’t take issue with Russia’s cyber attacks and collusion (which didn’t even actually happen, I mean, where’s the actual proof?), andWhatTheFuckICan’tEvenWithThisBullshit.
Seriously, what the fuck went wrong at the Nation that this has become accepted journalistic practice?
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
I just posted this in the last thread.
Is.this.true???
Anyone seen the Reuters report?
Yarrow
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s so obvious he is. If he weren’t involved he would be moving forward to get Trump and Pence out of office. He’s third in line. He could be President. But he knows if he says what he knows about them, then they tell what they know about him. He’s just as guilty. Just as much of a traitor. There’s a reason Ryan and McConnell are making no moves or even noises about getting Trump out of there. They can’t. They’ll be doing the perp walk too.
NR
Don Jr.’s defense is like someone saying that the drugs they tried to buy from the undercover cop were fake.
dmsilev
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): The Nation has gone nuts over the whole Russia thing. Not really sure why. They’re arguably worse than Glenn Greenwald in terms of deep denial, and that’s really impressive in its own way.
Anne Laurie
@pat:
Ya think?
“Let’s see if our (prospective) puppet’s most important campaign managers / family members are dumb enough to fall for an obvious honey trap! Maybe these are just not very bright people!”
When the Kremlin gremlins saw that Donny Lesser was actually willing to put his half-witted hopes of corrupt collusion down in writing, on the cloud…
rikyrah
@Boussinesque:
He and his wife are up to their necks in RUSSIAN MONEY
sm*t cl*de
@Boussinesque:
Cohen @ Nation:
Conflict in the Baltic region? Really?
Perhaps he meant the Sudetenland.
Roger Moore
They lost that mooring a long time ago. They’ve been stuck on winning vs losing for as long as I can remember. Their problem now is that they’re not sure what the winning and losing moves are for the investigation.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: I have not, but did a quick search and it could be this, posted an hour ago.
Major Major Major Major
Samwise kitteh in repose this morning.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Here’s the article. Does not have that quote. I’m trying to find the transcript.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-interview-idUSKBN19X2XF
Baud
@Boussinesque: Ok, a couple of pennies of tribute.
Major Major Major Major
@NR:
You know, I guess I never really thought about it. Interesting.
bystander
Have I mentioned lately I love Adam Schiff? He is the ginchiest.
pat
@Anne Laurie:
So why isn’t this mentioned more often in all the reports? I can’t be the only one that finds it a bit fishy.
Hey, maybe it was Obama after all, giving orders that the woman should be allowed in without a visa…//// Is this the accepted snark symbol?
Baud
As odius as Trump is, beware of any media paraphrasing of anyone. They used that tactic against Hillary too.
@Major Major Major Major:
He’s very photogenic.
Anne Laurie
@dmsilev:
The Nation‘s proudest hours were during the 1950s McCarthy witch-hunts. Just as the NYTimes is perpetually biased against those low-rent Clintons who stole Howell Raines’ social placement, the Nation is forever suspicious that a new anti-Russia narrative is being dreamed up to put their subscriber base in jail.
schrodingers_cat
Is it a labor of love or is Putin paying Steve and Katrina handsomely for this garbage that Nation prints?
Ladyraxterinok
On youtube there is someone claiming Schiff is the left’s Joseph McCarthy: claiming that everything goes back to Russia/Russia is behind everything. (I think the video comes from Ring of Fire.)
Interesting in light of this claim–A Trump supporter told me recently that after the fall of tne Soviet Union documents were released that showed most of McCarthy’s charges were true: communist agents were everwhere, in government, Hollywood, education, military, etc.
,
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: Oddly, the non-pie version of the comment actually made sense for a change.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Villago Delenda Est: Kill them all and let nature sort them out
Major Major Major Major
@Ladyraxterinok:
I’ve seen lefties say this too, although they call him the liberal Joseph McCarthy instead, since ‘liberal’ is a dirty word for fucking everybody.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Boussinesque: Blame Stephen Cohen and his wife/editor KvH. Although James Carden said the same thing last week.
@dmsilev: It’s had quite a few periods of WTF-ery on foreign affairs, though (excepting Cockburn & Hitchens) I don’t recall it being this consistently awful.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Yeah, I think that’s exactly what Frum did here. Happy to be corrected if Reuters puts up the full transcript, but that hasn’t happened yet.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Ladyraxterinok: Comparing this to what McCarthy did is absurd. There’s too many coincidences and unnecessary (assuming innocence) lying for there to be nothing amiss. I use to watch David Pakman (founder of Ring of Fire) a lot along with Secular Talk until the 2016 campaign started. It was their reaction feminist criticism that turned me off them
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: I just can’t even with the purity left. Has a group so asinine ever existed?
bystander
@pat:
I would think that the russkies played the Trumps, yes. They’ve compromised them in an incriminating meeting. What will we find out when details of Jared’s meeting with the sanctioned Russian bank that he forgot to list on his security clearance application become public?
Vlad’s way of reminding Trump he needs to deliver per the agreement?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I might be a mean curmudgeon, but I always thought it illegal to access a digital account I don’t own.
John Fremont
@different-church-lady: So around ten years ago the scandals the GOP was defending
BEGINNING – the reports about US soldiers torturing Iraqis is the Left trying to tear down our fighting men by spreading rumors started by Al Queda
LATER- well it was a few bad apples
A LITTLE LATER- well the President said they’re “detainees ” , so the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply
EVEN LATER- waterboarding isn’t torture, define torture libtard!!
FURTHER- we have to do whatever it takes, we could lose a city!!! Who’s side are you on?!!!
LAST YEAR – the GOP nominates Trump who vows to carpetbomb and torture pretty much the entire Middle East
The GOP will sink to any level to defend their power. They’ve had a lot of practice in the last ten years.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat:
David Brooks readers? javascript evangelists?
pat
Found this over at TPM. Hope this pastes that link it came from.
http://www.potusstaff.com/don-jr-meeting-birth-of-collusion.html#1
japa21
@pat: Two things. We have been told they had nothing, which is different from there being nothing. Secondly, it could have been a test run to see how they would handle it. Since the reaction was positive they then had something to hang over their heads.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It is. That’s what that got Aaron Swartz.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Isn’t that most of Balloon Juice? (Not me.)
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major:That is some tough competition.
Baud
@japa21: We know what they had. They released the emails. They had nothing, except the ability to help manufacture outrage based on nothing.
Manyakitty
@Major Major Major Major: So handsome!
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: No, like, people Doug! would call totebaggers. The TED crowd.
bystander
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It strikes me weird in all of this that no one mentions that what the Russians had to offer wasn’t just dirt on HRC. It was stolen dirt on HRC. It was the fruit of a criminal activity, just like a stolen Vermeer.
Original Lee
A neighbor who voted for Trump may have seen the light. Comment during a recent conversation, “You know, Trump is reminding me a lot of Marcos [past President of the Philippines]. A lot of people around him are corrupt.”
I think I should get a prize for not snorting my beer through my nose while gasping, “Ya THINK?”
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: But they aren’t acting against their purported self-interest.
@bystander: Who would call that out? The media was completely complicit in using that information against HRC.
debbie
Can anyone explain what it is Hannity is babbling about Ukraine colluding with Hillary during the campaign? I’m sure it’s bullshit, but Google only returns PJMedia et al., so I’m not clicking.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: I only read him to mock him. Because it’s so damn easy.
Ladyraxterinok
@Major Major Major Major: I first heard the omnipresent negative view of ‘liberal’ in the 60s while I was in grad school in CA. It was coming from tne New Left.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I was just naming more asinine groups.
@Ladyraxterinok: These are the same folks who use ‘neoliberal’ incorrectly and say ‘late capitalism’ sincerely, it’s handy to know the buzzwords so I can ignore them.
jimmiraybob
I have amended the top 11 articles of THE TRUMP DEFENSE DOCTRINE* to reflect the “Yes we had an intent to collude with Russia but” gambit:
I cannot be guilty because:
1) First off, Fake News.
2) I’m a Trump and you’re not.
3) I’m new to this particular crime and have not yet worked out an effective strategy for committing said crime or evading responsibility.
4) My BFF and greatest President ever of the greatest country ever, Vlad, told me that I’m innocent. I can prove it. I wrote a transcript.
5) Yes we had an intent to collude with Russia but were disappointed in not getting it, thus voiding the intent.
6) Have you checked your mailbox for a large bag of money?
7) I have people that say that I’m anointed by God.
8) The press is the enemy of the people! Fake News!
9) Voter fraud! I won it all. I won in a landslide.
10) Have you checked your gym locker for a large bag of money?
11) Here, I am handing you a large bag of money.
Lord it’s a good time to be studying law!
*whereby, America is left dangling, as if a spider dangling over the flames of hell, while Trump pimps his personal defense.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Not me either. I totally do not miss empty platitudes dished out as wisdom by the likes of Tom Friedman, David Brooks and other assorted idiots Vichy Times has hired.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Original Lee: From Wiki ( A preview of our future?):
schrodingers_cat
@jimmiraybob: If T is AIDS, R party is the HIV.
Baud
@Original Lee: This is a very delicate time. Try not to frighten him.
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
Back when it first started, a friend defined youtube as the clearinghouse for human stupidity. He’s still right.
SatanicPanic
@debbie: Apparently some Ukrainian person connected to the HRC campaign talked to someone in the Ukrainian government about Paul Manafort.
Major Major Major Major
@debbie: Eh, I’m pretty much in favor of anything that makes it cheaper to publish content. A lot of it ends up being garbage, but then, a lot of people are garbage. There are still gems.
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t disagree with you, but still, some of these clowns…
Wapiti
@NR:
Or the wannabe terrorist insisting that the FBI-provided “bomb” didn’t work when he pressed the button.
debbie
@SatanicPanic:
From your link:
Two public service wins in one!
? Martin
Nothing to see here…
More and more it simply seems that Trump got disillusioned with how business is conducted in the US and enamored with the way the Russians do it, and has decided to implement their approach here in the US. I mean, if Putin could siphon off $200B from Russia, an economy half the size of California’s, imagine what the Trump crime family could get here.
Jeffro
@Villago Delenda Est:
I know Ryan is dirty and have known for a long time. And yet…that was indeed the sound of my jaw hitting the floor when Paulie Blue Eyes said, “let’s not go into hypotheticals”(!!!)
Speaker Ryan, American politicians and their campaigns are not allowed to accept aid from foreign countries, full stop. MUCH. LESS. accept it from a hostile foreign power that is actively working to destroy us.
Holee-holee-cow.
Villago Delenda Est
@debbie: Not even Hannity knows what he’s babbling about. Which is far from surprising.
Yarrow
@debbie:
You asked about the Ukraine and Hillary thing. You might find this interesting:
As far as Hannity goes, he’s so all-in for Trump, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s got some connection to Russia as well. There are hints that a lot of Fox News is compromised by Russia and the Kremlin is sending down talking points. We’ll see.
Major Major Major Major
@debbie: Whatcha gonna do. A hundred years ago Americans got their news from propaganda organizations run by two oligarchs having a slap-fight, and church.
Villago Delenda Est
@debbie: Twitter libelz!
Original Lee
@Baud: I was very kind. I said, “I’m worried about Trump, too.” I’ve been gently steering our conversations towards Trump’s inner circle rather than Trump because they think Trump is like the version on The Apprentice and defend him against fake news if I don’t present it right.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: Even when you know they’re traitors, it’s kind of shocking to see them basically admit it. Paulie Blue Eyes won’t disavow treason. Okay then….
Jeffro
@Baud:
Hey whoa…I only read Brooksie for the guilty, easy pleasure of smacking his nonsense around a bit twice a week. Pointless but so is most exercise.
Jeffro
@bystander:
That, and that we aren’t hearing more about what the Russians might have on the Republicans, since they were hacked as well. That’ll come before too much longer, I’m sure of it.
Yarrow
@Original Lee: If you think it might work, try implicating the Republican party via the “concern” approach – “You know, I’m kind of surprised and concerned that the Republicans aren’t speaking out about this more. You don’t think some of them could be involved with Russia, do you?” Plant doubt. Get your neighbor looking at the Republican party as the Party of Treason.
debbie
@Yarrow:
Even Glenn Beck thinks Hannity has lost his mind over Trump.
Jeffro
@Yarrow: I thought I was ahead of the game for ‘knowing’ what Trumpov and his gang were about for the past 18 months or so (okay, 15). It is still shocking to think that Putin owns the Speaker and the Majority Leader, too.
Is there a way to invest in Congressional/Senate special election futures? Because I think I’m going to go long on those tomorrow if I can…
,mary b todd
@jimmiraybob I’m glad I did law school a while back so I can scan the laws and the professorial opinings …did I ever mention to y’all, in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Justice Clarence Thomas said he had no opinion on Roe v. Wade, he’d never thought about it – a 1973 decision handed down WHILE he was studying law at Yale (J.D ’74). So, riiiiight, he never thought about the most controversial decision of the last several years …
But that’s Clarence for ya – a Bad Fking Lawyer/Liar.
Original Lee
@Yarrow: Unlikely for that to work. Even though they vote Republican all the time, they don’t consider themselves “party people.” They allegedly look at each individual and judge him or her on their merits. They don’t care about the party platform, core party principles, or any of that stuff. Going after individuals seems to work better. Prior to this, I’ve been able to use some of Lindsay Graham’s tweets to good effect.
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro:
This is… untrue?
Baud
@Original Lee: I was like that when I was young, but it didn’t take me long to realize I was always voting for Dems and would likely always do so.
Patricia Kayden
@Yarrow: Why would anyone be surprised at this? Trump won the election because of Russian interference so of course he thinks it’s fabulous.
I love how Donny Jr. is claiming that it is perfectly okay to conduct “opposition research” by meeting with Russians who expressed interest in helping his father’s campaign. I mean that is so normal, right?
I hope Trump is met by angry protesters while he is in France. He needs to understand that he’s not loved in the beloved West he spoke about saving last week in Poland.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@debbie: Too bad Beck has become persona non-grata on the right these days. Hannity is Goebbels reincarnated
Stacy
@different-church-lady: Fine. We worked with Russia to win the election and
MAGA.
Patricia Kayden
@Villago Delenda Est: If we are blessed enough to have a wave election next year and Democrats take control of Congress, I really hope they drop their politeness and go hard against Republicans who helped to prop up the Trump regime in the face of all of these scandals and treason. No mercy.
Yarrow
@Jeffro:
I don’t know if you remember, but I’ve been pretty consistent about saying the Trump administration and all GOP senior leadership is compromised by the Russians, that they’re all traitors. I’ve been saying it since December or maybe January at the latest. It has just been so clear to me. Their behavior doesn’t add up otherwise. Then little details would come out and support it. They’re all guilty as hell.
I’m still not sure what they have on McConnell but as I’ve said here many times, they have something big. He telegraphed it in a very loud and clear way in December. They own him. He’s terrified he’ll be exposed. And no, it’s not just the alleged stuff with his military discharge. It’s more than that.
Gin & Tonic
@SatanicPanic: They didn’t have to talk to the government – Paul Manafort’s connections have been known for quite some time. Many overseas Ukrainians are strongly pro-Western and thereby anti-Yanukovych, so Manafort’s work for him is poison. But it was due to sources in Ukraine that the story about Manafort’s $12 million cash payment came to light, forcing his departure from the Trump campaign.
Otherwise, President Poroshenko’s support of HRC wasn’t much of a secret.
All of this, of course, is a long way from collusion, except in the fever swamp inside Hannity’s skull.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Baud: that’s next.
currently – today:- they’re blaming:
Just yesterday David Ignatius was signaling the CIA has Veselnitskaya’s communications with the Drumpfs. The Drumpfs must believe that as they’re now trying to preemptively brand the eventual release of information as a set up.
Shana
@pat: I think I saw yesterday that she was initially denied a visa but then later was given one so that she could appear in court to defend her client. I may have a detail wrong, but that’s what I saw.
We don’t actually know that they didn’t pass along any info, we just have their word for it. The info they may or may not have passed along could have been doctored; faked donations from foreign nationals made to look real. Remember, accepting money from foreigners for a campaign is illegal. Also, wasn’t there a big kerfuffle when Trump was soliciting people overseas for campaign contributions?
The real reason may have been to pass along money, or detail the means of getting money to Trump, possibly through the Alfa Bank server, which we hear a little bit about once in a while, but which I suspect is going to turn out to be a big Biden deal at some point.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Ooops
Kay
It’s been 12 hours. I’m starved for a new Trump scandal. I’ll check back later.
Anne Laurie
@Jeffro:
Hell, the Russians didn’t have to have any dirt on the Repubs — they just had to convince the Repubs that they did. And the fact that EVERY GODSDAMNED MEMBER of the Republican “leadership” has been protecting Trump’s Russians puppeteers so fiercely is a pretty clear indication that there is dirt, and not just the standard-since-Nixon GOP endless peculation and aversion to honesty, either.
Remember the Twain quote about how you could send a telegram that said Flee — all is discovered, and spot the secret criminals by watching who immediately packed up and skipped town?
Or the even older Bible quote: The guilty flee where no man pursueth?
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Maybe Jr will preemptively tweet out the recording. Transparency!
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
NR is currently in its 10% ‘Establish my liberal bonafides before returning to doing nothing but attacking Dems’ part of the cycle.
@Jeffro:
Why does that answer surprise anyone? It’s a standard GOP attempt to not get caught endorsing a crime, while wanting to reap the benefits of that crime.
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: come back! It looks like there’s one right above you!
Gin & Tonic
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: The McFaul connection is amusing. I mentioned earlier today that there was a picture going around the Twitters yesterday of Ambassador McFaul testifying before Congress a few years ago. He’s seated at a table, like you see all the time, with notes and an open Macbook in front of him. Seated in the first spectator row, about a foot behind McFaul, in a perfect position to see his materials, with her smartphone in her hand, is Natalia Veselnitskaya.
Yarrow
@Original Lee: If they vote Republican all the time then they are Republicans, even if they won’t admit it. You don’t even have to mention Republicans to begin with. Just point out how Ryan is refusing to disavow treason (use calmer wording, of course). Choose a few other high profile Republicans you’re “concerned about.” Then at some point you can mention that it’s “concerning” that so many Republicans seem caught up in this. “Is there something going on with that party?”
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
They’ll have to go very, very hard because Trump’s base certainly won’t take any loss lying down.
Lyrebird
@Anne Laurie: All your points hold, of course, but they clearly did have or obtain that giant haul of hacked emails, some altered, to give to CreepyLeaks etc.
Frankensteinbeck
@Anne Laurie:
I don’t get this line of reasoning. Maybe Russia has dirt on GOP leadership, but Ryan and McConnell would do this either way. They DON’T see anything wrong with conspiring with Russia if that’s what it takes to hold off the liberal wave that got 2.8 million more votes. They would probably personally prefer Pence, but give Democrats a major victory in impeachment? THAT is treason to their mind.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Gin & Tonic: is that a real photo or another fake Amelia Earhart type photo?
I mean, even the liberal
HitlerHistory Channel can be duped by photos.Lyrebird
@Villago Delenda Est: From your lips to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s ears! Maybe by way of Mueller’s desk.
Tim C.
@Yarrow: I think there’s a few possibilities. All three of the following fit the available evidence. Which to sum up, Trump and his team are incompetent witless traitors who have committed crimes and will never likely rise about 40% popularity. And that Ryan and McConnell are both scared and not morons on the level of Trump and his team. I rank these in what I see as most to least likely
Scenario A: Ryan and McConnell are shit scared of the base. The base still loves Trump, the base hasn’t been personally hurt the way they were under Bush yet and until that happens they will watching Fox and parroting the party line. If they move against Trump, the party splits. Badly. Remember that the whole reason Trump destroyed the establishment candidates is the base *HATES* their own establishment. Dumping trump causes a minimum of a quarter of the party to bolt, maybe more. Part of this is also the memory of the 74 mid-terms where the GOPers in congress got destroyed, even though they forced out Nixion.
Scenario B: The Russian hack of the RNC (Which ,yes, absolutely happened) turned up significant, but non-treasonous dirt. If released it would explicitly show wrong doing or criminal activity by powerful people. This rolls into scenario A where if the Russians want to apply more leverage, they have it on the GOP. But such leverage wouldn’t be rising to the level of what Trump and team have done.
Scenario C: (What I see you advocating) All of the above, plus active collusion by the party and leadership as a whole.
I’m not on board with scenario C just yet, simply because I haven’t seen any actual stories with any real sources yet. But I think it’s certainly possible.
Shana
@Patricia Kayden: I’m sure President Pelosi will get right on it. (Not snark, wishful thinking)
Yarrow
@Frankensteinbeck: No way Ryan could resist being the knight in shining armor here to save the day after the evil traitorous not-really-Republican Trump administration is swept out of town. The Republicans would rally around him. The media would fawn. Paulie Blue Eyes as the savior. No way he could resist if he thought it possible. It’s not possible, so he’s not pushing for it. I can just see his more-in-sorry-than-in-anger way of saying Trump had to go to save the country, all while gutting the safety net and cutting taxes for rich people. He’d be all over it if he could be. He can’t.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
Even with a nice, lavishly-illustrated, brightly-coloured chart, I’m not sure I could keep track of all the connections in this thing. And i expect more people/corporations/agencies to come to light in the next weeks and months that none of us* has even heard of today.
But one odd thing that does bob up occasionally in my memory is that only a couple of weeks after the conventions last summer, Jared and Ivanka were vacationing at a resort in Croatia with their close personal friend Wendi Deng, ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch and one-time (rumoured) lover of Putin. At some point in this whole saga, that holiday getaway may prove to be retrospectively significant.
*(Except Adam Silverman, of course)
Gin & Tonic
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Anyone can. I own a copy of this book, published 25(!) years ago.
Frankensteinbeck
@Yarrow:
Republicans would not rally around him, for the same reason he would not leap to do it and @Tim C. Should factor in:
“Fuck you liberals.”
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Quashing a major money laundry case involving Cypress (Wilbur Ross) and Russian operative providing foreign intelligence to Trump (Veselnitskaya).
These coincidences sure keep piling up.
SiubhanDuinne
@Shana:
If I could live long enough to see Nancy SMASH!! take the Oath of Office, I would die a happy woman.
different-church-lady
@Original Lee:
And then when they find none, they vote for that Republican.
Gin & Tonic
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: The only reason the case was dismissed is that Preet Bharara was fired.
Yarrow
@Tim C.: I think you replied to one of my comments a few months ago and didn’t thing Scenario C was possible, so…progress?
I do think that A and B fit into this as well. None of those scenarios exist in a bubble. Sure, they’re afraid of their base. Sure, the RNC was hacked and the Russians have dirt. It’s “and” not “or.” I still maintain that if Ryan thought he could jump in to save the day he’d be all over that. He shows no sign of that. I also remember that leaked recording of Ryan saying to a group of Republicans that saying nothing is how they show their loyalty, they’re “family.” Just like a crime family. Rumor has it, that was only part of the tape. The rest is worse.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Gin & Tonic: yup – otherwise known as obstruction of justice.
different-church-lady
@Frankensteinbeck: Even a blind pig finds a squirrel every once in a while…
Roger Moore
@Ladyraxterinok:
McCarthy was right that the Soviets were trying to infiltrate just about every organization in the US, and they did manage to get people into many of them. Unfortunately, McCarthy didn’t find any of them. He was just using fear of Soviet infiltration as a cudgel to further his political goals without any worries about whether the people he accused were actually guilty.
Jeffro
Ryan-surprise aside, this shocked me not one bit: We’re About To Enter A Whole New Phase of “Fake News” craziness
Smearing reporters, distracting the public with nonsense, and outright lying to their own supporters:
Jeffro
@Major Major Major Major: It was a bad joke, sorry.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffro:
First Amendment, Schmirst Amendment, so long as you’re free.
Jeffro
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Some months ago I noted (completely joking) that in the end, Flynn would say he was actually a triple agent or some other nonsense like that, working to undermine both the Russians and the Turks by pretending to take bribes and sell out his country while secretly doing all KINDS of patriotic secret agent shit.
So…sometimes jokes aren’t that far off the mark? Just. Weirder. and Weirder.
SiubhanDuinne
@different-church-lady:
…and an acorn is right twice a day.
Jeffro
@Frankensteinbeck: Thanks – I’m aware of what they do. I was trying to express that, even for someone who’s been on to the Russian collusion (and worse) for over a year, like most of us here, it still shocked me to see what looks like actual guilt on the part of the Speaker of the (mf-ing) House of Representatives in this. Not just enabling, but actual guilt, collusion, abetting, whatever you want to call it.
And then on another level, kind of like you’re expressing, I’m shocked that I’m shocked. It’s alternating levels of rage and stunned silence, all the way down…
different-church-lady
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Yes. It was all a set-up. And once they took the bait, Clinton kept the violation COMPLETELY SECRET for the duration of the campaign.
It amazes me these people can put their pants on without suffocating themselves.
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne: No, no, if you stare at the acorn, it won’t boil.
clay
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: All the bricks coming down on their heads, and the Trumpers still think they can take on the CIA? Sheesh, they’re dumb.
SiubhanDuinne
@different-church-lady:
Shit or cut bait.
Jeffro
@Frankensteinbeck:
You’re absolutely right…which is yet ANOTHER thing: this kind of craziness didn’t even have to happen. They’re supposed to be representing their constituents, NOT their big-money Koch/Mercer donors and that wackaloon agenda. Just represent their people and move on – it’s not all that hard. Society moving in a little less stingy, Darwinian capitalist direction? Oh well. It’s still nowhere close to Western Europe, which itself is nowhere near to being some sort of soshulist hellhole. Find an efficient way to make sure that the citizens of the richest country on earth have health care and move on. Find an incentive-based system for reducing, then eliminating, carbon emissions and move on. But every damn issue is a struggle to the death, an existential crisis for them. It’s pathetic.
Nora
@,mary b todd: Thank you for remembering that! I remember it, too, and I believed and still believe he perjured himself then and disqualified himself from the seat he presently holds on the Supreme Court before Anita Hill ever took the stand. Never had an opinion about Roe v. Wade! Sure, and I’m the Queen of all the Russias!
TenguPhule
So which Russian agent did Ryan meet with that he’s hesitating in stating what would normally be the obvious?
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Tomorrow: Communications with Russia was not a crime.
Day After Tomorrow: We have always been friends with Russia and at war with the EU.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Someone tell me again how this does not lead to something really bad happening to either Trump and his followers or our country.
TS
old thread
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
Why was Preet Bharara fired, then?
M31
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hey — you baked your cake, now lie in it.
randy khan
@pat:
I have said this before, but I think the way the meeting went may have been like this:
Natasha*: We have really bad information on Hillary. Bad. Really bad.
DJT, Jr.: Tell me!
Natasha: Information not free, Donald Donaldski. Need you to promise to fix “adoption”** issue if your father is elected.
DJT, Jr.: Tell me more!
Natasha: Also, you must turn over moose and squirrel to us . . .
*Yes, I know it’s Natalia, but I like this dialogue better if I imagine her as a character from Rocky and Bullwinkle and, let’s face it, DJT, Jr. is a bad cartoon character.
**Meaning sanctions against people responsible for killing a whistleblower, of course.
*************************
So, in other words, it’s not so much that she didn’t have anything as that she may have been starting a negotiation.
I’ve had a friend say to me that it doesn’t seem like the ask was big enough, and I have two thoughts on that. One is that the ask may have been intentionally small because the real purpose was to get blackmail material on the campaign. The other is that we don’t know that “adoption” was the only ask.
randy khan
I’ve tried posting a comment three times and it keeps disappearing. Am I in moderation?
Steeplejack
@randy khan:
If your comment goes into moderation, you get a message saying so. If it just disappears, that means something else is going on, possibly that something in your message replicates the nym of someone who was previously banned. Also, sometimes innocuous YouTube URLs cause messages to disappear.
randy khan
@Ladyraxterinok:
This apparently is one of the newer things on the right (although Coulter was spouting it a while back). It’s wrong. Somebody who looked into it found that 9 of the 150+ people identified by McCarthy on his infamous list actually were communists.
randy khan
@Nora:
I remember the statement that he’d never discussed Roe v. Wade as one of the most stunning moments of the hearings. Either he was lying or he was such a schlub in law school that he was utterly unqualified for the job. Or, you know, both.
randy khan
@Steeplejack:
That’s what I thought, but now the missing comment has appeared, so all is well.
Anne Laurie
@randy khan:
I can remember it being an article of faith in the Reagan Era. IIRC, responsible researchers were saying that there were Russians, American Communists, and Russiaphiliac American Communists attempting to infiltrate the government… but very few of them got very far into ‘the system’, and those few were almost never among the people Tailgunner Joe so publicly tagged.
Anne Laurie
@randy khan: I found your thrice-repeated comment in the Trash file, which I check on a regular basis, because FYWP has taken to diverting stuff there without warning.
The main thing such ‘diversions’ have in common, to my eyes, is that they run longer than about five paragraphs. (It may just be that the longer the comment, the more likely you’ll trip one of FYWP’s many landmines.) When I said that earlier, Steeplejack tried an experiment and got a much longer ‘lorum ipsum’ comment posted successfully, but… if you don’t want to wait on a front-pager to go through the backstage stuff, best to use no more than a few paragraphs plus a link to the source. If people are curious, they can go looking for themselves!
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Sorry, I don’t think it’s the length thing, or at least not only that. I think it’s more likely that the messages get tagged as spam because they contain some part of phrases that are in the spam database.
I seem to remember a previous problem where some banned troll’s nym was something like Just a Jersey Guy (example only, not intended to be a true statement!) and messages were getting trashed if they had “Jersey” in them. Or—I just remembered this—we had the long-running problem where the innocuous word “Watson” would trigger the spam ban.
I think it would be useful for Alain or somebody to take a look at the spam database and clean it up, but that doesn’t seem to be a priority.
GregB
In Trump Bizarro World the truth us the exact opposite of what they say.
So they are saying the meeting was useless and went nowhere means that it was the most important meeting of all.
NorthLeft12
You don’t get anything past little Paulie! He probably was thinking to himself, “Thankfully I have not needed that kind of help…………yet.”
Captain C
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: That sounds like “you can’t bust me for willingly selling 100 keys of blow, of my own initiative, to people who turned out to be narcs. That’s entrapment!”
And rhat’s their best-case scenario here.
Duane
Hannity has been carrying Russian water since wikileaks. He’s up to his neck in it.