Another nothingburger on the Trump-Russia connection:
A top executive from Donald Trump’s real estate company emailed Vladimir Putin’s personal spokesman during the U.S. presidential campaign last year to ask for help advancing a stalled Trump Tower development project in Moscow, according to documents submitted to Congress Monday.
Michael Cohen, a Trump attorney and executive vice president for the Trump Organization, sent the email in January 2016 to Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s top press aide.
[….]The email shows the Trump business official directly seeking Kremlin assistance in advancing Trump’s business interests, in the same months when Trump was distinguishing himself on the campaign trail with his warm rhetoric about Putin.
If a Democratic president’s campaign was involved with this, the debate would now be which form of execution was appropriate. Liberals would be ridiculed for thinking that lethal injection was severe enough.
germy
Our boy did it!
MP
Unfortunately, these are most definitely not the days of miracle and wonder.
chopper
so many nothingburgers!
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
Crooks crooks crooks
EdTheRed
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry, don’t cry
Yutsano
@chopper: As noted on Twitter, this nothingburger comes with fries and a drink.
low-tech cyclist
Staccato signals of constant disinformation…
sukabi
@Yutsano: fries, drink, slice of cheesecake, hot fudge sundae, and 3 gallons of moonshine.
Edit to add… This connection wasn’t one that was turned away by the campaign…unlike the WV attempt
low-tech cyclist
And just think, the boy in the bubble now has the nuclear codes.
dr. bloor
@MP: I keep hoping that baby carriage next to me has a bomb in it.
rikyrah
@low-tech cyclist:
this this
a thousand times this
which is why Dolt45 voters should NEVER be able to live down their vote for him.
trollhattan
I’m getting the message that ICE isn’t very …neighborly.
EdTheRed
@low-tech cyclist: I think you’ve got the Boy in the Bubble confused with the Baby With The Baboon Hair…er, Heart.
rikyrah
Automatic voter registration keeps expanding, reaches 10th state
08/28/17 11:20 AM
By Steve Benen
As recently as early 2015, a grant total of zero states had automatic voter registration. As of this morning, however, AVR is now the law of the land in one-fifth of the states. The NBC affiliate in Chicago reports that Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner (R) signed his state’s measure this morning.
sukabi
@MP: I think that’s miracle whip and wonder bread…and judging by drumpfs diet that might be exactly where we are.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
He’s been in violation of the emoluments clause since day 1, and admitted to obstruction of justice on live TV to Lester Holt. Nothing matters. Republicans don’t care.
Trentrunner
Trump is scheduled do a presser at 4:20p ET today.
Let’s see if he gets any questions on this.
rikyrah
Texans: be sure to file for #Harvey relief before Sept 1. #TXlege passed a bill making it harder to dispute weather-related property claims.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) August 28, 2017
rikyrah
A *week* after Felix Sater sent this email to Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, Putin’s media mouthpiece published its endorsement of Trump. pic.twitter.com/NLSlMePf7E
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) August 28, 2017
rikyrah
Tragic news from @JRogalskiKHOU on #khou11 right now: 6 members of 1 family (incl kids) drown when van floods while trying to escape #harvey
— Jason Miles (@JMilesKHOU) August 28, 2017
rikyrah
Entire Texas National Guard activated in response to Harvey — the total number deployed will reach around 12,000 https://t.co/OUeiMbA4PJ pic.twitter.com/3Velly6h0k
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 28, 2017
germy
All righty then.
Ohio Mom
@trollhattan: Hadn’t heard the last part, that the women and children left at the bus station had been taken in by church groups. That’s a relief.
rikyrah
9:43a – Colorado River at La Grange now forecast to crest around 54 feet. This is the highest level since 1935. pic.twitter.com/sRa6TwZRjY
— NWS San Antonio (@NWSSanAntonio) August 28, 2017
gene108
There are benefits, when your supporters are willing to burn billions of dollars over forty-plus years, in order to dominate the media.
I mean the sad fact is no rich person believes in Democrats enough to run loss making magazines or newspapers, like American Spectator or The Washington Times, invest in think tanks, throw hundreds of millions into media buys for campaigns, set-up their own databases on voters, etc.
The fact that so many rich people have been willing to back Republicans for decades means there needs to be some pay-off and benefit for both rich people and Republicans or it would all be a waste.
The media willing to blast Obama for wearing a tan suit in summer to a news conference is one such benefit, while ignoring how poorly tailored Trump’s suits are.
sukabi
@Trentrunner: someone should ask him about his $17 Million claim for damage to mar a lago
rikyrah
Arpaio Pardon Reaffirms Trump’s Promotion of Police Brutality
by Nancy LeTourneau
August 28, 2017
When Trump announced his pardon of Joe Arpaio on Friday night, one of my immediate thoughts was to remember that it was only a month ago that he said this:
Marcy Wheeler points out that by pardoning Arpaio, Trump was sending an important signal to this part of his base.
MP
@sukabi: On the bright side, everything will be shelf stable.
gene108
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Why should they?
They have blind loyalty from enough voters to have a strangle hold on enough states that they can weather any sort of political backlash elsewhere.
sukabi
@MP: yep, sitting next to the Twinkies and spam. Yuck.
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
lowdown, rotten, nogood muthaphuckas.
LAO
trollhattan
NWS had to add colors to their rainfall total graphic to accommodate Harvey totals. Some of them would represent a new annual rainfall record for my metroplex.
Go away, Harvey.
LAO
@sukabi: A grifter’s gotta grift. I’m sure Trump would brag about it, cause in his world, stealing $17 million is a brilliant business move.
Heywood J.
@rikyrah: The first sentence of Sater’s email says it all: “I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putin’s private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin.” WTFF?
rikyrah
Trump Has Been Lying About Russia and Felix Sater All Along
by Martin Longman
August 28, 2017
I wrote most comprehensively about Felix Sater in a piece we published in February called Trump’s SoHo Project, the Mob, and Russian Intelligence and in an April piece entitled Trump, Felix Sater, and the FBI. I also mentioned him and his relationship with Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen in How Did Alex Oronov Die and Why Does It Matter?, a piece I wrote in March. You might also be interested in the Mobbed Up article that Mike Lofgren published with us in February. In any case, if you’ve been following along, the name Felix Sater should be somewhat familiar to you. If you haven’t been keeping up with Sater here, perhaps you’ve been following the coverage at Talking Points Memo where Josh Marshall has been on the case like white on rice.
…………………………
Trump has been telling a lot of lies, and maybe foremost among them has been the lie that he has had no business deals in Russia or anything to do with Russia at all. Felix Sater’s testimony and his documents will prove otherwise.
……………………………………….
There’s a tremendous amount of stuff to unpack here, and the intelligence committees in Congress will have to pore over Sater’s documents and question him carefully. Special Counsel Bob Mueller will be looking, too, although we won’t hear anything from him unless and until someone gets indicted or there is an impeachment referral.
For now, let’s just try to remember why Trump denied having business deals in Russia. He denied it because he demonstrated an abnormal tendency to praise Vladimir Putin that was hard to understand absent some financial incentive for doing so. That he either had Russian deals that were vulnerable or wished to pursue Russian deals and didn’t want to jeopardize them was such an obvious inference that it didn’t need to be explained to anyone. He was asked if these were the explanations for his behavior and he said the whole idea was made up and ludicrous.
But people’s suspicions were 100 percent accurate. He was lying the entire time.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
REALLY?
rikyrah
@Heywood J.:
I know..
I know…
The thing is….if someone had written this for a
1) Book
2) Screenplay
BOTH would be rejected for being to ‘ out there, and not rooted in reality’.
But, here we are….
Major Major Major Major
Lasers in the jungle!
Schlemazel
@MP:
It is a miracle if we survive and I wonder how much more the wing nuts will put up with. Mean time I’m gonna cry so don’t tell me not to baby
zhena gogolia
@germy:
I don’t see this in the linked article.
chopper
@Yutsano:
they need a mcdonald’s sign in front of the WH saying “millions of nothingburgers served”.
sukabi
@LAO: yeah, defrauding the government, fantastic business practices. Only the best.
Heywood J.
@rikyrah: Yup, the script would have been laughed out of the pitch meeting.
So this definitely undercuts the whole “Felix who?” nonsense Clownstick has tried to pull. But it’s so weird that a 35-year-old woman would arrange to sit in Vladimir Putin’s chair.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
It would be more perfecter if Ivanka sat in Putin’s chair and fiddled with “his” Superbowl ring.
Heywood J.
Lol, comment got marked as spam.
ruemara
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: All of this. The whole GOP from the Tang Terror on down to the lowliest intern, are treasonous motherfuckers.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@germy:
Did he really write that? Isn’t that the smoking gun right there?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@ruemara:
I try not to wallow in despair now, but how do we get our country back?
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Is this story possibly a Bannon leak? Would he find getting the Jewish Cohen in hot water?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@zhena gogolia:
Try here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/quote-of-the-day-i-will-get-putin-on-this-program-and-we-will-get-donald-elected/
Major Major Major Major
Wasn’t there a rumor going around that Sater had flipped?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
By getting more people registered to vote in places where it tipped the scales in the EC, turning them out, getting multiple DEMS elected everywhere. If that fails and the GOP try to go Apartheid South Africa x10 then we have to kill as many of them as possible.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
You’re assuming that voting machines haven’t been hacked, and that we’ll have legitimate elections in the future. I don’t see it.
Major Major Major Major
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: well then what are you doing commenting on a blog?? That ammo won’t stockpile itself!
Mike in DC
@Major Major Major Major:
Flipped further than already being a longstanding CI for the FBI?
zhena gogolia
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Thank you. This is making me sick to my stomach. No one who has any power to do anything is doing anything.
tobie
@gene108:I don’t think any of us can imagine how much the white working class identifies with Trump. It’s hard to fathom given how hideous he is but he really tapped into their grievance and they’d rather see the country go down than admit that they’re wrong.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: Thanks for the heads-up on this – have retweeted it in the hopes that many folks I follow/vice versa will see it and hurry!
Would be nice to see some of our national Dems weigh in as Castro has, about the need for the TX legislature to meet and extend the deadline for this crap legislation.
germy
why am I not surprised?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
People won’t accept permanent GOP control. People can be stupid but not stupid enough to not understand’s something’s wrong when toxic unpopular GOP pols keep getting relelected despite all of the grassroots actions against them. Or being prevented from having a voice in their government.
If the GOP go down that illiberal path they’re only inviting open rebellion. City-dwellers make up most of the population. The US will sooner collapse than prosper under toxic assholes like Trump forever and ever amen.
Amaranthine RBG
@germy:
Well, honestly though, ANYONE with that haircut should be stabbed.
Just so unattractive.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike in DC: yeah, as in “was told in no uncertain terms that his services were no longer needed but could have his choice of prison if he spilled on trump.”
Millard Filmore
@rikyrah:
“The deadline for filing claims related to next year’s hurricane damage was yesterday.”
trollhattan
@germy:
Good grief, what a maroon. Yeah, the Denver suburbs are renowned for being overrun with stabby black folks, so the story seemed so very plausible at first blush.
I’d love to see him get that year in jail.
ruemara
@germy: It’s like they said, “Yeah, we should collude with Russia to fix the election”, on tv. These people.
SatanicPanic
@germy: I somewhat admire his willingness to stab up for his beliefs.
Baud
@germy:
I pulled a calf muscle. I initially thought it was because I overexerted myself, but now I’m pretty sure it was a black guy that did it.
In fact, more likely than not, it was Obama.
Kay
Well, we’re all just depending on Mueller to prove any of this, because no one will admit any of it happened unless there’s actual indictments. It’s kind of shocking that it comes down to one person but it could be worse- Mueller wasn’t supposed to be there at all. There could be no one looking at it.
I’m betting it comes down to ordinary corruption- they don’t care about any “populist nationalist” agenda- they’re all just self-serving crooks looking for more and more money.
gene108
@tobie:
It’s not grievance, it’s stone cold fucking racism.
A grievance can be redressed and the afflicted party satisfied or reasoned with.
There isn’t one specific thing, which Democrats could do to win these voters over that did not involve screwing over minorities.
There’s a lot of implicit and explicit racism in this country. It’s baked into the country’s DNA. White people recoiled this was being challenged, along with with the assumptions about gays, transgender people, etc, by the end of the Obama administration.
Edit; If the grievance was loss of manufacturing jobs, for example, than the fact manufacturing employment grew under Obama’s tenure more than any President in 20-30 years should have addressed that grievance. But it sure as hell did not.
germy
@trollhattan:
A hundred years ago they would have found some black guy and lynched him over this lie.
JPL
@Baud: Obama can pull my calf muscle anytime he wants. I’ll take one for the team.
germy
@ruemara:
The Mother Jones article said something like “It’s not clear if he followed through with his boast” so I’m sure that will be their defense: “I was only kidding!”
Baud
@germy: Progress!
@JPL: You is kinky.
Major Major Major Major
@gene108:
Even if the dems were to, ah, ‘pivot’ towards screwing over minorities, the voters would never forgive them for the last half century of not doing so.
ruemara
@germy: Exactly. These people are doing shit that cost people their lives just 70-50 years ago. 100 years ago, it could’ve cost several people and their community. Hundreds died from shit like this.
@Major Major Major Major: Hang on, the “Our Revolution” unity commission members are here to craft their own version of this, so maybe we can find unity with some “economically insecure” white working class folks.
zhena gogolia
dnftt
germy
@Baud:
Did you see this clip of the fox news reporter holding up some people fleeing the storm to ask them inane questions about disaster preparedness?
Fox, of course, is trying to discredit the Democratic mayor, and doing it by harassing Black citizens (one of them on crutches)
opiejeanne
@MP: Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry, don’t cry.
Kay
It is just amazing to me how far the system has tilted against voting rights:
These people are citizens of this country. All they want to do is vote and they have to petition again and again and win again and again before this is taken seriously. I mean, Jesus. Voting is FOR THEM. It’s THEIR right. They should not be forced to defend it over and over against the actions of elected officials! This thing is backward. VOTERS are the last thing anyone thinks about. It’s the “rights” of the state of Texas, or the “rights” of the people Texas allows to vote, or the agenda of far Right lawmakers. Voters are like a distant, unimportant element.
We have truly lost the plot on the most basic exercise in democracy. We put the whole burden on ordinary people, like they’re all presumptive felons.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Huh. I have a sore right elbow. Thanks, Obama.
Baud
@germy: I heard about it but haven’t watched it.
gene108
@Baud:
What do you have against baby cows?
trollhattan
@Baud:
Obama wasn’t trying to run you down, he wanted to bask in the Baud Glow ™.
ruemara
@Kay: Maybe white folks could help us out by not voting these creeps back into office as they keep doing over and over. Look, this is working as intended as for the majority.
Mike in NC
@gene108: Some media types might go with ‘white grievance’ or ‘white anxiety’ to explain Trump. Better term is ‘white resentment’ about Those (non-white) People getting stuff they don’t deserve.
opiejeanne
@EdTheRed: That was Baby Fae. She received a heart transplant from a baboon at Loma Linda and did nothing wrong in her short life. Please don’t confuse her with the idiot in the White House.
Baud
@Kay: You’ve insulted the dignity of the states. You should apologize.
Kay
I saw the same attitude with the Russian interference. All this concern about “institutions” and Donald Trump’s feelings.
You know who has a right to know whether Russia interfered in an election? Voters! They have to know! These systems don’t belong to elected officials. They belong to voters.
trollhattan
@gene108:
If you were on a high-protein, all-veal, muscle-building diet, would you develop veal calves?
germy
drumpf is speaking right now.
he says Louisiana will be affected. He’s thanking first responders.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: Terrible.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Working as intended for the white majority. Given the final popular vote totals, they definitely don’t have the majority of the country behind them.
germy
This is subdued drumpf right now, speaking from prepared notes.
eclare
@Baud: Hahaha….
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: I sure hope Mark Lilla is going to weigh in! It’s not a contemporary think piece about how minorities ruin everything without him. And you know how much I love contemporary think pieces, almost as much as I love Twitter hot takes.
germy
“We’re one American family. We hurt together, we endure together…”
Baud
@gene108: Nothing really. I just sometimes get them confused with baby crows.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Kay:
You’re wrong Kay, you libtard! Don’t you get it? The Party of Perpetual White Grievance members are the only true Americans and therefore the only ones who should have the right to vote. Everything else has to just suck it and bend the knee. Oh and Hitler did nothing wrong, he was a true German patriot trying to save Germany from degenerate SJWs, just like Trump and Putin are today.
/s
gorram
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: The good news is that the Apartheid regime was 5-10% of the population brutally living atop the rest, whereas this would just be around 20%, so hypothetically it wouldn’t be quite as violent in its suppression.
That said, à la Citoyenne, there’s quieter means of occluding democracy they have be interested in for some time now…
Kay
@ruemara:
I agree about white women. I really could not be more disappointed in them. I feel it has affected my interactions with them here (70% Trump). I can’t help it- I want to ask “WTF? What is wrong with you?”
Kay
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
My whole thing as a pollworker was “get them voted”. This attitude is just crazy, where they’re on the defensive against the people they are paying. I simply don’t look at it that way- what is the point if it isn’t voters?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@gene108:
“Libruls want to hand blacks Obamaphones, Obamacare and EBT.”
Baud
@germy: Teleprompter Trump is what the country needs right now, frankly.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@gorram:
I have to believe they wouldn’t get away with it for long. Think people are pissed now? Just wait. A few more rigged elections and they’ll be looking at an insurgency that will only go away when most of the nation is either bombed out or the government and the economy at the national level has collapsed.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Kay: Say it, Kay!
trollhattan
Hurricane fun with numbers, Texas Water Dashboard edition.
Click on sites in and around Houston to see water levels and streamflows. The graphs are mindboggling–I see creeks that went from 10 cfs to 40,000 cfs in two days. Most everything I click on says “All Time High for This Day of Year”
ruemara
@Kay: My entire life is me in largely white space. I’m watching it from friends across the political spectrum. If they weren’t white women for trump, I’m dealing with bernie fans who are chiding me about identity politics and the voting suppression of being forced to register for the Dem party to vote in the primaries. I’m in the 99% eternally pissed at the stupidity of what had seemed to be sensible people. Which is why I’m focused on raising some plants and writing now.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Kay:
The point is power, acquired by any means possible. That’s what autocrats do. If the GOP could get it legitimately by winning elections that was fine with them. But that’s becoming increasingly impossible. For the last 20 years, they’ve been slowly turning from democratic means of ruling and are currently trying to rig the game forever. They want their tax cuts; they want to destroy the New Deal; they want to oppress the degenerate liberals, put us in our place; most of all they want to protect and fully reinstate the white supremacist system that has protected the white privlidged since settlers first arrived in “New England”.
That’s what you must understand. The GOP, not just the establishment, but their base too, sold their souls to the devil to hang on to power because they don’t like a world where they’re not on top. They don’t really care about abstract things like “voting rights”. If you’re a libtard, a non-aryan, a queer, or an it, then you have no rights as far as they’re concerned. Period.
d58826
Absolutely amazing. Trump is holding a presser with the leader of Finland. He was asked point blank if he considered Russia a major security threat. He said there are a lot of security threats around the world but we have great friends in the Baltics and we can handle all of the threats.
He will not say one bad thing about Putin.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Don’t worry, It’ll pass.
Jeffro
Oh good he is defending his pardon of Sheriff Joe with more Soviet style whatBoutism
Jeffro
Somebody hand me a bat
mouse tolliver
Now he’s talking about leaking to Wikileaks like it’s a bad thing. Because Obama! I thought he loved Wikileaks.
catclub
@Kay:
and all the adulatory articles saying that Mueller is the perfect person for this job make me worry. Remember when Trump was complaining that the election would be rigged, so everybody came out and said there is no way that a US election could be rigged. I feel the same thing here.
Mueller is the perfect person, so when he comes up with nothing, don’t be disappointed.
trollhattan
Needing a break I’m pleased with President Macron’s new first dog, Nemo. Nemo is already serving as Elysée official greeter his first day on the job. Good boy, Nemo.
Lapassionara
Does anyone else remember the NYTimes headline reporting that the FBI found no evidence of the Trump campaign having any connection to Russia? Maybe 10 days before the election. I want someone to explain this clearly inaccurate and misleading story.
d58826
First TX gets Harvey and now two visits from Der Fuhrer in a week.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
At my folks’ place, been off the grid for a bit. Stuck watching this joint US – Finland press conference. The Persimmon Pufferfish is excusing away his pardon of Sheriff Joe. Can someone explain to me WTF is the “Weathered Underground?”
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Which is exactly why the mayor was discouraging people from trying to evacuate. As I understand it, Houston has been trying to deal with the threat of their rivers being overwhelmed during floods by engineering major roadways as secondary flood channels. It actually makes some sense from the standpoint of flood control, but it makes evacuation by car nearly impossible once the waters have risen.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub: On the one hand, I remember “Fitzmas”, and between the lines of all those laudatory press I see that Meuller is, like Patrick Fitzgerald, one of those prosecutors who only brings charges if he’s confident of a conviction. On t’other, while IANAL I cannot fathom that trump’s firing of Comey and subsequent threats don’t look like obstruction of justice to anyone who doesn’t have a partisan vested interest in not seeing obstruction.
Baud
@Lapassionara: I don’t think Kay remembers.
d58826
@Lapassionara: My uninformed guess is it came from Rudy and the NY office of FBI.
Trump won’t answer whither the Fema budget will be increased. Oh God he just said that Finland would not sign a NAFTA like agreement with Russia. And we need the wall to stop the drugs coming in from Mexico. I guess he has never heard of a tunnel. And he continues to beat up on Mexico. And those evil Canadians and NAFTA
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@catclub:
Don’t be so damn pessimistic either. You’re verging on conspiracy theory. These things take time. Muller may be a Republican, but he’s a man of deep integrity and will do the right thing. He’s not hiring the best and brightest for nothing. There’s some meat to this scandal; it’s exposure will change the course of American history.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): It’s like Weather Underground, it’s just been left out for a bit.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: :-)
rikyrah
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
You tell no lies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Lapassionara: Matt Yglesias just tweeted out a screenshot of the headline asking that same question
Iowa Old Lady
Another proud moment for Americans.
Trump, in press conference with Finnish president, says he visited Finland during the ’90s: “I was famous in the ’90s, too.”
Chyron HR
@Lapassionara:
They needed to jump the gun in order to save the country from Hillary’s e-mails. Like Han Solo shooting first (before they retconned it into Greedo being shot from behind by a Genoharadan assassin).
Jeffro
Omg, fuck Lawrence O’Donnell
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
The Weather Underground? Did Trump mention it? He is really is stuck in the past. The WU hasn’t been a real org since the mid 70s and Antifa is nowhere near as violent.
The Moar You Know
@d58826: Do you say bad things about your boss, your employer, your owner, on TV? I think not.
Bought and paid for. Probably the first time he’s ever had a job.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Haha. Like the NYT is accountable to the little people. Their subscribership will probably go up.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Possibly Weather Underground, a weather website.
rikyrah
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
and, they aren’t leaving their 7 figure jobs for nothing.
The Moar You Know
@catclub: I fully expect this result.
eclare
@trollhattan: Who’s a good boy!
Baud
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Wait till he finds out about the new Black Panther movie.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: Using roads and other structures as flood control is how the Netherlands copes with too much water. I know that Norfolk has consulted closely with the city of Rotterdam and it would not surprise me if Houston has as well. Some of the things they do in Rotterdam would be questionable in the U.S., but other things can be adapted to suit U.S. conditions. The general approach is to give excess excess water a place to go when there is too much for it to be reabsorbed by the environment. It’s like creating an urban flood plain for storing the water. But yes, people need to understand what they means when floods start happening. This is really tragic.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: The New York Times is garbage.
Jeffro
OMFG Peggy Noonan “(Trump) didn’t make the Houston crisis work by saying crazy things ”
Actual quote
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Holy god, I’ve got MSNBC on mute: The Dolphin Lady, the Barnacle and notHalperin. What the fucking fuck
eclare
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Hahaha…
Jeffro
I want a bat more than ever
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: that’s what I’m watching too and frankly all five of them can go to hell
eclare
@rikyrah: Good point.
trollhattan
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Heh {like}
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: If only we could get the word out…
Jeffro
@Jeffro: “make the crisis worse”, my bad
Barbara
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): It’s wunderground.com. My usual source for weather news, and the site of commentary by Jeff Masters, a meteorologist who does a good job of explaining extreme weather events.
Amaranthine RBG
@trollhattan:
As someone who owns labs and griffons, I approve.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Going for the youth demographic!
Barbara
@Jeffro: And in this upside down world, “not making things worse” is considered to be some kind of grand achievement. Excuse me while I vomit.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jeffro: “work”? I guess it’s after noon there so she’s already finished her first vodka gimlet.
ETA: @Jeffro: OK, I’m sure my comment about drinking is still correct.
d58826
Oh save me. Peggy Noonan just said Trump didn’t make TX matters worse by being unhinged.
They are also comparing the Clinton pardons with the pardon of Apairo. The Clinton pardons were inexcusable and rotten to the core. But it was Clinton’s last day in office and the only long term damage was to Clinton’s reputation. The Apairo pardon sends a message to law enforcement that it’s ok to beat up POC and other marginalize communities. And it sends a message to all of the people that Mueller is looking at. Trump will pardon them so just keep you mouth shut. The damage ripples thru the system going forward.
Roger Moore
@Mike in NC:
And the best, simplest, most accurate term is “racism”. All those other terms are just euphemisms trotted out to avoid using the R word.
d58826
@Barbara: It won’t work here for two reasons:
1. Murkins are hearty individualists and won’t let no guberment flunky tell him what to do
2. No one will pay for it.
Jeffro
Also, fuck you Tom Davis “showboating presidents” after Sandy…
Felonius Monk
@trollhattan:
If I eat a lot of cantaloupe, will I have Steve King sized calves?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@?BillinGlendaleCA: BWAHAAHAA!
eclare
@Jeffro: That is the standard now? You don’t make something worse? The bar may as well be buried under a pile of shit at this point.
jl
@d58826: In the Virginia ratifying convention for the Constitution, Madison wrote that corrupt presidential pardons, used specifically to shelter ‘suspicious’ individuals were impeachable offenses that could merit removal from office. Other Founders and early Justices wrote that pardons designed to corruptly protect the president from investigation were also impeachable and merited removal. Maybe that is why an elaborate vetting process (and AFAIK not established by the Constitution or legislation) arose and presidents grant most pardons at the end of their terms in office.
So, I am very happy, indeed eager, to debate whether the Ford, and Clinton, and Trump, pardons might quality as corrupt pardons.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Yes, he pulled out all the classics. Mark Rich, a couple of others.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: he’s a raging asshole– Obama was “showboating” by going to the affected area and meeting with the governor? I seem to recall when Obama was feckless for not visiting flooded areas and meeting with local officials, because said officials had said the presidential entourage would get in the way of the on-going recovery
@d58826: of course the most scandalous pardon that I know of was Poppy Bush pardoning Cap Weinberger, whose testimony would have proven that Poppy had lied about his involvement in Iran-Contra. I’m sure Larry O, good Democrat, is bringing that one up (I’m just kidding– LO’D hates him some Clintons)
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): Nope, he was firing up the wayback machine.
Millard Filmore
@catclub:
On the bright side, he wouldn’t make all those high profile hires if he planned to do nothing, right? Would those hires be content to twiddle their thumbs or go in circles? SOME of them must have enough integrity to at least quit if they were convinced that they only got the job to take them off the market.
(small change to “wouldn’t)
Baud
Just remember what those liberals did to poor Patty Hearst.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Baud: Oh Lord, I can hear him now…
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agreed. The Bush pardons get lost in the discussion of hating all things Clinton.
Ladyraxterinok
@rikyrah: People registered this way better check later to see if they really got registered. If I can be automaticslly registered, how hard is it for someone (supply GOPer of choice) to automatically unregister me?
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And I’d be happy to debate HW Bush and Dub pardons too. Thanks for reminding me.
Edit: If investigation gets close to paydirt on Trump and his cronies, I wonder whether Trump will outdo all of the others combined. Preemptive pardoning will seem very easy compared to firing for a lazy ignorant slob like Trump.
Millard Filmore
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Would the “weathered underground” thing make any sense if it was replaced by https://www.wunderground.com/ ??? (aka Weather Underground)
eclare
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Glad I’m watching The Weather Channel.
mr_gravity
These are the days of miracle and wonder.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Barbara: I get that. I use it. That wasn’t what 45 was talking about. He was referencing the ancient terrorist group of the same name, apparently.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go adjust this onion on my belt real fast.
jl
Trump is accusing the ‘Weathered Underground’ of causing the trouble on Gulf Coast? I guess I’ll read about it later.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
Fix’d that for ya. Reagan and Bush’s manifestly corrupt Iran-Contra pardons get shoved down the memory hole while Marc Rich is repeatedly invoked.
d58826
@Baud: Might have been because they were reacting to the pardons that Der Fuhrer mentioned, (i.e. the Clinton pardons) not all scandalous pardons.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
I’m guessing it’s an indirect way to blame Obama, what with the guy from the Weather Underground ghostwriting Obama’s autobiography and all. ?
tobie
@d58826: Yes, but they should know better than to get caught in Republican “what about-ism,” the only debating strategy of Republicans. When in a tight spot, always try to change the topic and talk about what Bill or Hill or Obama did. And remember to cross yourself when speaking about St. Ronaldus.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@jl: He was comparing the Arpaio pardon to a whole host of Clinton pardons, including one of the Weather Underground terrorists.
jl
I didn’t know Finland and Russia/USSR have been BFF for last hundred years. The things I learn from Trump.
Man,I am done with all that fake news!
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Mnemosyne: It was a Clinton pardon, according to him. I didn’t get the name, just the association with the WU.
Baud
@d58826: The issue has come up before.
schrodingers_cat
Negative Nellies on Balloon Juice so far:
1. T is going to fire Mueller
2. T is going to pardon people indicted by Mueller
3. Mueller is not going to find any Russian connection
d58826
@tobie: True but I guess in a 30 second time slot you can’t go into a lot of detail. Maybe a longer segment is warranted on his show at 10pm
WaterGirl
@germy:
fixed that for you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t remember the case, but I suspect if Clinton granted clemency to a WU terrorist in the late 90s, it was a commutation, not a pardon. Laughable how many people who discuss politics on TeeVee, many with law degrees, are suddenly ignorant of the distinction
?BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodingers_cat: You left out: 4: WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!
ETA: Speak of…WaPo just alerted me that North Korea has launched another missile that flew over Japan. The Japanese were not amused.
Ladyraxterinok
@tobie: If I’m sure I don’t have the position, status I deserve I’ll go with someone who seems to at least get them for himself. And maybe he’ll do it for me. Or maybe by following and watching him I can learn how to do it for myself. If nothing else, I can enjoy his victories vicariously.
d58826
@Mnemosyne: The famous duo Bill Ayers and Bernedette Dorn.
mr_gravity
Maybe I should have read the comments.
Barbara
@d58826: They are adapting these practices in Norfolk. They’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to cope with sea level rise. Not every part of America has lost its mind when it comes to collective action.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@?BillinGlendaleCA: well, valor murghalis and whatnot (GoT reference is you do not consider yourself to be a nerd)
@mr_gravity: nobody reads the comments anymore
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve never watched GoT, though the kid was telling me how wonderful it is. I still won’t watch it.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: We’re all doomed!
efgoldman
@Kay:
I’ve thought that since Mueller was appointed.
schrodingers_cat
@?BillinGlendaleCA: @Omnes Omnibus: I was just compiling Mueller related predictions but yes WASF, no elections, rigged elections, we all fall down.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): So it’s a spin-off site dealing with weather history, covering the bigliest storms of years past?
JMG
Mueller is not going to end up empty handed. I’m sure, can’t prove it of course, that more than one GOP Congressperson has passed the word through the usual DC grapevines (fancy dinners, think tank meetings, etc.)) via mutual friends that they’d love to see him take Trump down, as they lack the guts to do it themselves without some hard and fast proof of a really bad crime by Trump that’d force their hands.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Ordinary corruption is dollar bills in the freezer, selling your country to its one time arch enemy and dismantling its institutions and attacking its people who don’t share the anti science, illiberal agenda, is nothing short of extraordinary.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): I didn’t realize the Weatherman did storms; I thought it all bank robberies and bombs. Damn baby boomers, still messing things up.
MisterForkbeard
What really bugs me is that I haven’t seen any coverage of this at all within the mainstream press – including the part where Sater literally proposes “engineering” Trump’s win with Putin.
It’s pretty damning. But apparently no one cares. >_<
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
At first I was thinking that there is not much point in trying to predict what Trump might do.
But he certainly teased the sheriff pardon, despite reports that he was not going to interfere. But soon after he was dropping hints at one of his ego boost rallies. There might be a predictable pattern here.
Apart from that I think that if there is something to the Russian connection, Mueller will find it.
Scamp Dog
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Valar doharis!