Team Trump is so incompetent that it’s impossible to tell if they’re truly blindsided by events or just acting as a group of stupid people would in response to circumstances for which they’ve had time to prepare. But man, Huckabee-Sanders looked even more pole-axed than usual at today’s briefing.
I’ve not allowed allowed myself to hope that the Mueller investigation could take Trump down. Pessimism still seems the wisest policy. But it does sorta feel like the whole rotten edifice is tottering.
Open thread!
Corner Stone
I just kept singing to myself, “I am the Huckabeast! Bow down before me!” to a nondescript tune.
Corner Stone
“Never seen that guy, those guys or dem boys. That guy never worked for us. Those guys have nothing to do with us. Dem boys wasn’t around us.”
Chris
I still think the voters are likelier to oust Trump than anyone in power – if enough of them turn out that even the usual vote suppression efforts aren’t enough. But you’re right that there is a small ray of hope here, perhaps.
ruemara
I’m just going to enjoy the slow motion trainwreck. If it lands on an orange turdpile, then even more good news.
quakerinabasement
+1 for “pole-axed”!
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
“The accelerating deterioration of the Wall Street Journal editorial board came to a head this Sunday when its entire staff, starting with Messrs. Rivkin and Casey, spontaneously self-administered Prince Albert piercings with the monocles they had just recently been wearing. Beyond their states of mind, the staff’s personal doctors also raised concerns about their contracting massive sepsis from e.g., influenza, clostridium, etc., as when last seen the naked men were running en route to Manhattan’s La Granja Live Poultry Corporation.”
Corner Stone
“DO SOMETHING!” “NO COLLUSION!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You all see a different Jethrene than I do. To me she has unshakeable confidence of the perfectly amoral. Though I did notice that she seemed to cut today’s propaganda short.
Kay
Ankle monitors, please. Tastefully concealed by those fancy suit pants.
rikyrah
10 million bail for Manafort and 5 million bail for Gates!!
Corner Stone
Russia played Trump like the perfect fish he is. They knew he was so insecure and venal that if they could dangle “dirt” on HRC he would have no choice but to lunge all over it.
Frankensteinbeck
It will not take Trump down. It will humiliate his supporters, and spread a sense that Trump’s presidency is illegitimate among the disconnected and the squishy middle. For some reason, the GOP congress is terrified of losing that claim of legitimacy. The shame may affect midterms.
Post-presidency, Trump could be up shit creek without a paddle.
Corner Stone
@Kay:
wormtown
I’ve been wondering if Daddy Huckabee would start to worry about her potential implication in some of this, and want to get her out of there………
Lee
I’m pretty sure that is what is going on.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Naaaaaaaaaaaah. If Trump makes it all the way through his one (or God forbid two) term(s) without this bringing him down, the next president, even if he’s a liberal, will be all about putting this behind us and “look forward not back.”
Mike J
rikyrah
@Kay:
LOL
Kay, you are so funny
Brachiator
These are crazy times. The House and the Senate are frantically writing tax bills, and have excluded rank-and-file Congress critters from knowing much about what is going on. The super crazy thing: even the White House is out of the loop. So, the crazy god emperor who knows all is not even being consulted about the tax bill.
But the Republicans are desperate to give the Orange Shitgibbon a legislative victory. This will also be used to try to prop him up as the great and glorious legitimate leader of the US, and to try to push the Mueller perp parade off the front pages. And of course, Fox News will continue to follow the course of the cheeseburger emoji crisis.
Juju
I’ve been unable to check things until now, what with work and all that, but I find it ironic that these charges came about a year to the day of that stupid Comey letter that screwed us all and Hillary.
Lee
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Can you paste the text in here? My google-fu is letting me down getting past their paywall.
Kay
Because he never stops talking
That incessant bragging will be the death of him.
schrodingers_cat
Eye candy alert:
I am doing twirls like Deepika’s Padmavati in Ghoomar** from SLB’s* upcoming movie by the same name (Padmavati).
Ghoomna == twirl, Ghoomar is a Rajasthani folk dance
SLB== Sanjay Leela Bhansali, he has made visually opulent movies like Devdas, Ramleela and Bajirao Mastani.
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
It won’t have anything to do with the next president. It will be financial crimes, probably in New York State, maybe jailing him or maybe just taking his money. It is possible he’ll get impeached and then really be in trouble legally, but this won’t cause the impeachment or interrupt his presidency legally. I’m not sure of anything in regards to impeachment, except that if it happens, everyone will be floored because the previous day Republican congressmen will have been unanimously declaring they support Trump.
NotMax
@Kay
Do they make scrotum monitors?
Asking for a tovarich.
;)
The Moar You Know
@Kay: I’m sure at least Manafort is aware that if he steps outside at this point he is going to die. They probably asked for those conditions as part of the deal.
Gin & Tonic
How long will food in my freezer stay frozen if I have no electricity and don’t open the door? Both upstairs and downstairs refrigerator/freezers are less than 6 years old.
JPL
https://twitter.com/FormerBu aka Comey
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
I wonder if he CAN talk to prosecutors at this point. He’s really damned either way.
gene108
@Mike J:
Considering Trump and Fox News are stirring up controversy to retroactively incriminate the Obama Administration, I sure hope not.
I can understand Obama not going after the Bush, Jr. administration, because that’s never been done. The successor President doesn’t try and bust his predecessor for crimes. It sort of defeats the purpose of peaceful transfer of power.
But Trump’s sort of making noises in that direction with regards to Obama and definitely with regards to Hillary, therefore once a norm has been broken, I hope all bets are off.
Brachiator
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
“Came to a head.” Heh…
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: It depends on how fool, but a sure way to find out whether or not melting has occurred is from your ice maker. Can you go out and buy bags of ice? .
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Lee: Here’s a snippet of one of the most insane parts (paywall’s fucking me over too).
JPL
@JPL: If @Gin&Tonic, it is full, it should last close to a day.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Depends on how full the freezer is. Half full, up to 24 hours. Refrigerator section will lose its temp much faster than the freezer, average about 4 hours.
TenguPhule
I uploaded puppy and travel pics to BJ over the weekend.
Good stuff started happening immediately afterwards.
Coincidence?
martian
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Off topic – thanks for cluing me in to the Taibbi rot. Wandering the vast wastes of twitter following trails and falling down rabbit holes has been enlightening, though also maddening.
Elizabelle
That was a surreal press conference. First one I ever watched with Possum Queen.
I wonder if Hillary and Bill have a drinking game. Anybody who had “volunteer” is blotto about now.
George Spiggott
Behind the scenes at the White House:
https://youtu.be/GSTGMwywBtc?t=1m18s
Kay
This isn’t just Trump:
How long until this reaches a GOP member of Congress? Recall that Russia targeted congressional campaigns too and all against Democrats.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: And that worked so well for ACA repeal and replace.
Mike J
@Gin & Tonic:
FDA says:
https://www.fda.gov/food/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm076881.htm
Adam L Silverman
TenguPhule
Trials, Convictions and Sentencings to go.
A long road ahead.
But at least we finally seem to be going up instead of down.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: Looking like it’s going to be well over 24 hours at this point.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic: 24-48 hours depending upon how full it is. The fuller it is, the longer the food will stay frozen. Fridge is 4-6 hours. My sympathies, was without power for four days in May.
Waynski
They should have had Frances McDormond arrest Manafort (sorry if I made this comment/posted video already, I’ve been basking in schadenfraude all day):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmoYpJIUWhY
Corner Stone
@JPL:
Sounds like he may be in some trouble.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
Presuming said fridges are housed at McMurdo, quite a while.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Ah, good point. I sit corrected.
@JPL:
This from a guy who epically subverted it in the last election in order to side with the same people bleating things like “we’re a republic not a democracy” and that he had to know were very likely linked with what’s currently the world’s number one enemy of liberal democracy.
I am no Niebuhr nerd, but I’m beginning to suspect Comey’s love for the guy is your basic case of fundamentalism. I.E. totemic unthinking reverence for the moral/religious philosopher that you claim inspiration from while completely failing to understand anything he stood for.
Gin & Tonic
@Mike J: Thanks.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
That would depend on how many of them are compromised.
If, as I fear, all of them are, it does leave Mueller in a quandary.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
They are absolutely desperate for those tax cuts. They’d sell their mothers to Lucifer for them. They can sense that it’s about to completely blow up around them.
rikyrah
@gene108:
Nope. Not even close. Uh uh.
This is not that time.
trollhattan
@Waynski:
And Holly Hunter taking the mugshots.
“Turn to your RIGHT.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The way they’ve been acting makes me wonder if they are just so stupid and arrogant they really think they are above the rules and the establishment would protect them as a kind of white privilege thing no matter what they did. It’s really hard to believe anyone with any sense and not doing a General Kelly would be in the Trump Administration (yes, Kelly is a true believer, wingnut reactionary, but he’s clearly not a fool)
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
@Chris:
If Trump wins re-election, I would seriously fear for the future of democracy. The voters, with some assistance form cheating and other irregularities, chose a person who was manifestly unfit for the office, and a good chunk of them back him to the hilt. They were also hot to throw off all reasonable checks and balances that might have otherwise prevent the goofball-in-chief from even winning a primary.
It will be interesting to see what the mood of the electorate is in the future. I don’t know. Maybe even the midterms might show a swing. But it is not just about liberal v conservative anymore, it’s about basic competence vs chaotic stupidity.
Amaranthine RBG
Frankly, I don’t care much about collusion at this point. I think it would be much easier to prove a whole stack of financial felonies and tax evasion charges against Trump. (Also, presumably State tax laws were also violated.)
That shit has documentation.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Is it bad that I hear this in that squeaky teenager’s voice from Tremors?
If Adam would care to youtube link the appropriate scene?
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic:
https://www.amazon.com/YETI-Tundra-Cooler-Desert-Tan/dp/B001COUOYK/ref=sr_1_6?s=outdoor-recreation&ie=UTF8&qid=1509390826&sr=1-6&keywords=yeti+coolers&dpID=41rA%252Bqmue8L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
George Spiggott
I love that the shit is hitting the fan for the GOP right before the Virginia elections.
Keep humpin’ tRump, Gillespie!
cmorenc
@Chris:
It’s harder to know what to hope for here than at first appears. If the fallout from Mueller’s investigation would up taking Trump out within the next few months – and his replacement winds up being someone relatively undamaged by the scandal – we may wind up with someone politically competent enough to put enough of a smiley face on the same old GOP policy shit, and enough time for Trump to recede in public memory, that we wind up with a more firmly entrenched, durable hard-right federal government and the GOP with an edge to hold the White House and Congress in 2020. OTOH, if Trump isn’t taken down, he has three years to wreak ever more and more severe permanent damage on our country.
Think of one of 10year old boy’s favorite thought games when they’re in a humorously perverse mood, which goes along the lines of: would you rather slide down a bannister made of razor blades, or have to swim across a lake of bloody snot? I sure hope in our current political situation there is a viable option #3 where we make it home chastened, but unscathed.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes, they are that stupid and arrogant.
JPL
@Corner Stone: hahaha The day gets crazier.
different-church-lady
Enjoy the tottering. It always totters the most before it goes completely black.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Priceless. Hannity today: “Man-a-who?!?”
Chris
@rikyrah:
*I* agree that it shouldn’t happen. But I’m pretty sure that’s how it’ll play out. In the name of “national unity” or some shit.
@TenguPhule:
I hear it in the voice of President Skroob, Dark Helmet, and Colonel Sanders from Spaceballs.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Never saw Tremors, so not sure what I’m looking for.
Amaranthine RBG
@Adam L Silverman: Nah, man, get a Pelican. You can get American made and latches are much better than those crappy rubber things on Yetis and Orcas.
hitchhiker
I can’t keep up.
Have y’all already discussed that Jared Kushner deleted his entire timeline on the twitter this morning?
I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw that.
eclare
@Waynski: Very appropriate video, perfect for today!
Elizabelle
@Chris: I cannot take people talking about a second Trump term. We haven’t even gotten through a full year of this one, and look how we all feel.
It’s not funny, it’s not intelligent, it’s not snarky.
I don’t know if you realize how much despair this whole thing causes so many of us.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: How’s this instead?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah:
Yes, Nixon was merely corruption. This is out right treason. It can’t be brushed off.
James E. Powell
@Chris:
My take on Comey and why he worked so hard to harm Hillary Clinton is that early in his career, back in the 90s, he was convinced or he convinced himself that Hillary Clinton was evil. Not wrong, not different, not unqualified, not too liberal, but evil. Like Satan is evil. And he was determined that if the opportunity presented itself, he’d do what he could to harm her. He did it with his completely uncalled for and way out of bounds press conference in the summer. And he sank her election chances with the letter. As far as I know, he has never expressed any regret for doing those things.
Roger Moore
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. When a bunch of people are acting like it’s amateur hour, the best guess is it’s because it’s amateur hour, not because they’re a bunch of great actors putting on a fake amateur hour. This is especially true in this case because so much of the information that’s come out surrounding Trump/Russia indicates they’re a bunch of amateurs.
Adam L Silverman
@Amaranthine RBG: I did not know that Pelican made coolers.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
How is that possible?!
You’re really missing out.
eclare
@trollhattan: Also perfect!
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Only the Coen Bros. could do justice to this farce.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Don’t raise flags please.
James E. Powell
Trump & Co are not acting like stupid people. They’re acting like people who are accustomed to being deferred to, obeyed. Their lying and bullying and obstinacy got them where they are and they don’t understand why those things are not working now. The truth is, they might very well work for them. We have to wait and see. I refuse to be optimistic.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
But in the case of Trump, its always both.
Amaranthine RBG
@Adam L Silverman: Along with many other fine products that you presumably know about.
I got one of the wheeled versions and it’s made life so much easier.
Elizabelle
@George Spiggott: The Richmond Times Disgrace endorsed every single one of the Republican candidates.
Haven’t read their editorials yet, but that’s low, even for them. (They endorsed Gary Johnson in 2016 and were falling all over themselves about how brave and daring they were.) They always go with the Republican. Fuckers.
(From the sleaze ass lobbyist/former RNC chair/Bush family hanger on who’s dog whistling turned up to 11, to the lt. governor rabid woman candidate, an oil heiress who lives on an estate, who wanted to mandate transvaginal ultrasounds before women could obtain abortions, to the glibertarian attorney general candidate who is conveniently named John Adams.)
JMG
@Kay: There’s no question in my mind Ryan was at least a passive participant in receiving aid from Russia, more likely an active one. Wonder if anyone will squeal on him?
TenguPhule
Manafort is pleadlng not guilty to charges.
So he didn’t make a deal after all?
MisterForkbeard
@rikyrah: I think we’re going to see a lot of “both sides”ing related to this when the next Democratic President shows up. If there’s any effort at all to investigate the previous administration for its obvious malfeasance, the media and Republicans will start snidely yelling about “How is this different from ‘Lock Her Up’, which was totally justified but Democrats said was awful? When did you decide to be a hypocrite?”
MoxieM
@Chris: In the best case, I am thinking that he feels guilty for what he did, now that he sees the damage of it. Hence the turn to the Big Dude theologian. (I’m no Niebuhr nerd either).
But, I’ll note that it takes some sense of ego to name yourself on Twitter after such a big name. Like Twittering as John Rawls, or as Maya Angelou. Imeanreally?
but I think your explanation is more rational.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
I’m very aware – most of this year has been one slowly-drawn-out horror movie about whether I’d still have health insurance when I woke up the following day. At this point I still think the odds are better than not that he doesn’t make it past 2020, but listed the other possibility simply because I knew it’s still a possibility. Will avoid bringing it up unless it’s the actual topic of the post in the future, but yeah, I know exactly how bad the last year has been.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
They sold their mothers a long time ago. It’s scary to consider what these goobers gave up for their precious tax cuts.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: You should be good for at least 3 days. I have been.
Amaranthine RBG
@TenguPhule:
My understanding is that some of these charges were filed against him today because the Statute of Limitations was about to run.
May be wishful thinking on my part, but I imagine there are more charges on the way and this was to get his attention.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
First born children unto the seventh generation.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Corner Stone:
I so appreciate your putting dirt in quotation marks because the news people all talk as if damaging dirt existed. If it did, nobody used it.
? Martin
@Roger Moore: This is the problem with how we treat those in power. When you have power over others, incompetence *is* malice. We seem to have gotten into some kind of TV court drama where you have to prove intent in order to hold someone culpable, but if you accept responsibility knowing that you aren’t qualified for that responsibility, then that should be considered wrongdoing. Nobody forced any of these jackholes to take these jobs – they did it because they wanted the power that came with it.
Elizabelle
@JMG: I am hoping Mueller’s team will follow the money and make a big case out of foreign contributions being funneled into US election campaigns. It would explain McConnell and Ryan and their absolute incuriosity about anything Mueller.
Could help take down Citizens United too. Maybe the audience would be the Supreme Court as much as voters.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That’s definitely a dot that needs connecting. We have the operative of one congressman (Brian Mast, R-FL) admitting to the WSJ that he obtained stolen data from Guccifer 2.0. It wasn’t just that one guy.
Chris
@James E. Powell:
My take on it basically agrees with yours, but is slightly less Comey-centric. I think the entire law enforcement community has a massive case of Liberal Derangement Syndrome, and as with most people the Clintons, due to the last 25 years, are pretty much the embodiment of everything they hate. Combine that with the FBI’s historic tendency to completely follow its own lights and use the resources it’s given to pursue their own political prejudices, and you get 2016.
Elizabelle
@Amaranthine RBG: I like that idea. Could very well be.
trollhattan
BBC has posted a very handy primer. Russia-Trump: Who’s who in the drama to end all dramas?
Every nation on earth thinks we’ve lost our minds. They’re not wrong.
MisterForkbeard
@James E. Powell: I really hope he DOESN’T publicly express regret for those things. That would convince Fox and the rightwing that the entire FBI/DOJ investigation into Benghazi was tainted and they need to do it again and immediately indict Hillary.
Granted, they’re already trying to to do that. But this would make it much more likely they’d succeed.
TenguPhule
Interesting.
This sounds….promising.
Mike in NC
Check your local PBS listings for Part 2 of “Putin’s Revenge” on Frontline this week. Should be very educational, to say the least.
PhoenixRising
@Elizabelle:
Don’t know if they do, but I just won $100 off my wife.
After the Comey hearings, we talked about what would happen once charging instruments began to fly around. I said, Based on the questions from GOP MoCs, they’re going to disavow any accountability for anything anyone did on the basis that they weren’t being paid. You can’t fire a volunteer too easily in a campaign, and they have confused ‘I’m not taking a salary’ with ‘I don’t even work here, man!’
She said it was impossible that a sitting administration would even float such a crazy explanation.
Elizabelle
@quakerinabasement: I love Betty’s “pole-axed.”
My dad used to use that description. Sparingly. And it’s perfect for Possum Queen today. And probably the Big Cheese ass too.
Brendan in NC
@NotMax: only if they need to be kicked while wearing to activate them…
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
My suspicion is that relatively few Republican legislators are directly compromised by the Russia business. Lots of them have benefited indirectly and quite likely unknowingly. Of course quite a bit of the “unknowingly” is a result of willful blindness, but it still leaves them in position to react very strongly when the blinders are removed.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I agree. We’re the only sleuths on this trail, Betty! What gives with that? :)
I feel like the congressional campaigns are hugely important. That’s why I don’t buy the “chaos” theory. They wanted a very specific result- Trump AND GOP majority.
debit
@James E. Powell: I’ve said before that Trump must have thought being president was like being a king, that he could just order things done and it would happen. Kind of like the “sovereign citizen” goofballs who go to court and think if they just say the right words the judge will drop the charges. Every time he has a temper tantrum it’s like watching him learn that it doesn’t work that way all over again.
Elizabelle
@PhoenixRising: Somebody’s taking the wife out to a very nice dinner. With wine.
rikyrah
The white hat
Kay
We should immediately end this “unpaid” bullshit. Those are real jobs. Normal people have to get paid to do them. This thing where well-off people feel they evade accountability by acting as “volunteers” is just bullshit. It devalues the work of all the federal employees who need a paycheck. It’s not a volunteer job and not everyone is qualified for it. Enough with this.
Roger Moore
@JMG:
I want them to get McConnell almost as much as I want them to get Trump. The Senatortoise is obviously in this up to the top of his shell, and I want to see him nailed to the wall.
debit
@rikyrah: I wish I still smoked. That would have been a million times better with a cigarette.
Kay
It’s not like it was “free” anyway. Manafort intended to get paid. He just didn’t intend to reveal how he was compensated or pay taxes on it.
It’s insulting to both real employees AND real volunteers. These people are neither.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
He hasn’t had time to cut a deal. You can bet his lawyer will be talking to Mueller’s people to see what kind of deal he can wrangle. If/when he changes his plea, all hell will break loose.
Suzanne
@Kay:
A girl can hope.
I was crossing my fingers that it would be lil’ Jared, but today’s news has definitely been happy-making!
Adam L Silverman
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Also too MSM’s favorite blued eyed boy.
Tim C.
@quakerinabasement: I haven’t had a +1 pole axe since I played D&D in the 80s
MisterForkbeard
@Suzanne: Jared’s definitely worried – the “Oops, better delete my entire twitter history” this morning is evidence of that.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
IRS is going to have a field day with his assets.
He’s looking at a minimum of 50% penalties on the taxes owed and the income base they can now use against him based on the evidence so far to assess that tax is very very big.
And if there are state income taxes as well, oh boy.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Kay: As someone said yesterday, if you’re not paying your campaign manager, you’re not the one he’s working for.
это курам на смех
@Adam L Silverman:I have the new Otterbox cooler, which has much better handles than the Yeti.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
ohboyohboyohboy.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Me 3. Putin wanted T and Rs, question is why?
tobie
@JMG: @Kay: It’s not just Paul Ryan. Reince Priebus was the head of the RNC when they gave money to one of Manafort’s LLC’s (Bade LLC) for strategic services and possibly others. Everything about the 2016 election was crooked. As far as I’m concerned Russia’s contributions to the Presidential and congressional races were not limited to targeted disinformation campaigns. We need to audit the voting tallying equipment in many districts.
I’m sure many BJers saw the report that Georgia wiped clean the machines used in the Ossoff/Handel race, even though a suit had been filed. Why the fear of having the machines inspected?
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: What part of that hasn’t produced chaos?
это курам на смех
@debit: Betty C. has it right. Like so many brainwashed old farts, Trump believes only what Fox tells him to believe.
Gravenstone
@rikyrah:
Inexcusable! Given how dirty Manafort is and how he’d already been informed following the ‘no-knock’ raid that an indictment was coming, I would think anyone even touched by him, right down to his fucking dog sitter would have lawyered up by now, And here is his business partner being caught “unawares”? That’s professional malpractice levels of stupid.
trollhattan
@MisterForkbeard:
Because of how the internet works, Jared’s in the clear now that he’s deleted all that Twitter evidence. Whew, that was a close one!
Here’s hoping John Oliver continues using Gilbert Gottfried for Jared voiceovers.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Chaos is the means to an end. What is the endgame?
Amaranthine RBG
@trollhattan:
I read elsewhere that Kushner only had a few tweets from years ago.
Not sure whether this is a real story …
Raoul
It does seem possible that the Papadopoulos unseal really did catch the WH off guard. But no matter what, she is a trainwreck of terrible.
Raoul
I don’t want to be optimistic just yet.
But this morning I did sort of wonder if “DO SOMETHING!” might, later, be realized as the pinnacle/nadir of Trump’s pathetic lifetime.
It sort of reminds me of one of Batman’s evil opponents yelling “Get Them!” to some hapless henchmen in goofy onesies.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule:
Kind of nice to be at the beginning of the end of this crap fest, finally!
Kraux Pas
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m guessing it was the Republicans’ clear disdain for their compatriots and general lack of moral fiber.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
A weakened West. Across the board.
Jeffro
@Kay: @schrodingers_cat: At several points, it appears that Putin was convinced there’s no way that the GOP, much less the broader American public, would put up with Trumpov’s obvious unfitness and erratic behavior. There was no downside for Putin to push the whole scheme as far as he could (since Rs would rather fights Ds than Russians) but…it’s like he (Putin) drew to an inside straight several dozen times. And he did…but only because the GOP’s okay with letting him use a stacked deck as long as they got to use it too.
gvg
My thought is we have this big bombshell that some small fish already flipped and wore a wire, and supposedly their are 4 other sealed indictments between Poppadapolous and Manafort’s. What if there are more active informants already? What if the Trump administration think’s of this even if their aren’t?
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
The GOP actually has more of a strategy in place here. The GOP outline of tax reform has been around for a long time. There was never a coherent ACA replacement. Even though there is a lot of secrecy involved, the House and the Senate have members and staffers with some background on board.
Yeah, they are still setting themselves up for opposition from people not in the loop. But the GOP has been working from a broad consensus of what they want.
Again, the sad thing is that the GOP has done with the pretense that Trump is anything other than an ignorant buffoon whose signature is needed on the final document. And they have told him, “Oh yeah, don’t worry, you will get plenty of tax cuts” and this clearly makes him happy and able to sleep tight at night.
TenguPhule
@Gravenstone:
According to the WP, his dog-sitter is probably the only one who didn’t help the Feds by turning in evidence against him. Everyone else who worked under or was hired by him did.
Chris
@Kraux Pas:
Least internationalist of the two parties, at least under Trump, meaning least commitment to the defense of NATO. Also, ideology broadly similar to the one Putin’s been running on.
@TenguPhule:
Ding ding ding!
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: @TenguPhule: He was allowed to turn himself in. He’s already cooperating. The not guilty plea is for show. It will last until his attorneys and Mueller’s team agree to exactly what he’ll turn over and exactly what that is worth. Manafort has done enough criminal stuff in and outside the US to keep the DOJ, as well as several other countries equivalents busy for decades trying to prosecute all of it.
Gin & Tonic
@Gravenstone: I read that his realtor was speaking to the grand jury recently.
Suzanne
@MisterForkbeard:
As I have previously noted, my irrational hatred of Jared borders on the sexual. The idea of him suffering is…..arousing.
It may be because he is my age, give or take a year, and he got into Harvard and I didn’t. Or it may be because he is an entitled and talentless piece of shit, the muskrat-dicked used-car-hocking fartweasel.
trollhattan
@Amaranthine RBG: Unlike his FIL Kush seems to keep a low profile WRT public speaking and social media, so a smattering of Twitters seems plausible.
This seems like fun speculation.
Repatriated
@Kay:
Achievabe objectives consistent with previous GOP policy:
– Lax financial regulation to enable money-laundering of ill-gotten domestic funds
– General degradation of US institutions
– catastrophic military overextension (c.f. USSR in Afghanistan); we’re disconcertingly close to that point already…
This excludes possible changes to historic GOP policy that may have become available due to compromise.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: As I’ve written here repeatedly:
1) Diminution of US power within the global system, thereby elevating Russia’s standing.
2) Removal of Crimea related sanctions and the Magnitsky Act. If not in actual legislation, then in practice.
3) Making liberal democracy in general, and liberal democracy as practiced in the US look bad, thereby further protecting Putin’s position at home and those of his clients in other states.
4) Weakening NATO and the EU, as well as the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance.
And several other related items.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yep, that ‘no salary” business absolutely devalues the work, dilutes accountability and suggests that the “pro bono” employee is taking compensation in some other way. The governor of Florida has supposedly worked “for free” since 2010. He certainly stole enough from Medicare as CEO of Columbia/HSA to fund a lavish lifestyle for himself and 10 generations of descendants, but I don’t believe for a second that crook isn’t funneling state money to his pockets one way or another. Ditto DeVos, the Trumps, etc.
MisterForkbeard
@Kraux Pas: It’s been obvious for years that Republicans as a party were hypocritical, inept and corrupt. This makes them ideal partners for Russian interests, and that ignores that even the R’s stated policy goals (isolationism, attacking liberals, less financial regulation and increased immunity for the rich) dovetail nicely with Russian Oligarchical concerns.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Ya know, if you really wanted into Haavaad that badly your dad could have built a library or something. Just sayin’. :-P
The Borowitz piece quoted earlier was spot on. I’ve hated him irrationally ever since the wearing-armor-over-blazer thing.
Kraux Pas
@Chris: Thinking a lot bigger than I am. I like that. Though I maintain that the Republicans are more prone to engage in sketchy schemes to advance their careers, in addition to their weak/non-existent support for international diplomatic efforts that don’t involve bombing deserts.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t see how diminution of US power elevates Russia’s standing.
What happens after Putin’s death?
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: It’s Jeb! Bush’s primary campaign tax plan with a few tweaks. The state and local deduction won’t play with the GOP representatives from NY, NJ, and CA. The rest of the plan won’t play with the Freedom Caucus nuts. Whatever the GOP majority in the Senate agrees to won’t be acceptable to the Freedom Caucus guys in the house. And possibly a few GOP senators too. The plan is not really a plan.
TenguPhule
@Suzanne:
But its not irrational. We all have perfectly good reasons to want to see him dead or suffering.
Calouste
@TenguPhule: Manafort is 68. He doesn’t want to spend a large chunk of what time he has remaining in the pokey for a very uncertain pay off.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: This CAN’T be serious. Can it? The worst thing is that I can actually picture them trying to make that claim.
Christ on a bouncy rubber crutch…it’s not even 5 o’clock here and I already feel like I need a drink…
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca: I made a similar comment as snark in the last thread.
MisterForkbeard
@Suzanne: Jared’s just slightly older than me, but he personifies the rich arrogant idiots I’ve met while doing networking in Silicon Valley. I ended up spending a dinner in Hawaii once (at a wedding for a mutual friend) with someone whose net worth was in the very high 8 figures, and he was simultaneously clever, incredibly dumb, sociopathic and also convinced of his own extreme intelligence and correctness. And your wealth and ‘who you knew’ was what made you worth listening to, in his view.
Jared screams that to me every time I hear about him, except that he’s less talented than this other guy.
Kraux Pas
@Miss Bianca: Poe’s Law in action.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Uh, because we have multiple sanctions on them? And have control over the banking networks they need to maintain their ill gotten gains?
Because we’re pretty much the only other major military power that can confront them?
Miss Bianca
@Raoul:
OK, that got me laughing.
Now I think I need to do a binge re-watch of “Batman”.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Putin has a hard limit on how influential Russia can be in terms of economic and military power. The only way for Putin and Russia to have more power is for the US to have less. For its standing to be lowered and its ability to work with allies and partners curtailed. For instance, by pulling the US out of TPP, the President has now surrendered the US’s ability to act as the senior/most powerful regional rule setter in Asia-Pacific. The PRC has stepped into this void and is negotiating it’s own version, which will lock the US out. The real point of TPP was to constrain the PRC’s rise as a regional rule setter and power, thereby constraining its rise as a global one.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@TenguPhule<
Go read the history of partition Poland. Selling out because it gave the dude bro an an advantage at that moment was how it happened.
Doug R
@Kay:
From the Washington Post interview
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Its supposed to be a joke. But I wouldn’t put it past them either.
Shana
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thread below was probably dead by the time I posted, so I’ll repeat: Sander’s eyeshadow was so distracting I could barely pay attention to her lying. It made her look like she has a black eye. Perhaps an indication of how frazzled everyone is at the White House today.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
The problem is that the numbers needed to pass this abomination are much worse for sanity this time.
A lot of them will either hold their noses or just take bribes for their states to get this done.
Unlike healthcare, they’re familiar with fucking the government with tax cuts. Bush the Failure taught them well.
Aleta
Finding comfort that a few more things are on the record, accessible in another dimension than the undermined press . And that the termites are for the moment out in the open scuttling for shelter.
martian
@cmorenc:
Puerto Rico is burning it’s dead. “Unscathed” is maybe an option in some alternate timeline where the skies are bluer than here.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: I’m telling you, reality and snark are blurring so thoroughly for me now that I can’t even keep up. I mean, I have a fairly well-tuned snark meter under most circumstances, but I’m also a gol-danged gullible fool when I get flummoxed enough. And ever since about this time last year I’ve been living in a constant state of flummox.
Shana
@Gin & Tonic: Depends on how hot it is outside and how full the freezer is.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman: The way I think of it is that destructive trolling is now what Russia has in place of cultural “soft power”. They can’t make themselves attractive (which is in itself sad, considering how much Russian culture has to offer) but they can tear you down, or make you destroy yourself.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Betty Cracker: Working for free makes it seem like you’re now in the volunteer’s debt because s/he did something nice for you. That’s corrupting.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I was referring to the trope.
Saying something can’t happen is one of those flags I’d just as soon not trigger at this point.
Adam L Silverman
@Doug R: Walid isn’t a counterterrorism expert. Walid’s research specialty and doctorate is in conflict resolution. He has admitted in court he knows very little about Islam and has had no formal instruction in it. And he’s alleged to have been one of the primary planners for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
Damn. I was hoping we could skip straight to the executions.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: To an extent it is a weaponized, culturally contextualized use of information power.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat:
Is a problem.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, you need to correct that. Tremors is a great fun film.
Elizabelle
@Shana: It was an unusual presser, wasn’t it? From the ridiculous story she speed-read at the outset, to the lies, to the brevity, to her demeanor.
That woman is from a circle of hell.
Did not notice the eyeshadow. Pay as little attention to Possum Queen as possible.
Cermet
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Did you know just before Nixon resigned, both houses of congress had passed a universal guaranteed income and Nixon was going to sign it, too? But of course, an amendment was added and it was delayed preventing Nixon from signing it in time. Ford, of course, refused to sign it so it failed (2/3rd’s and all that. A history/policy wonk explained that today.). Nixon was a crook but not a monster – strange to say that now consider that bush the cheney sock puppet (who committed mass murder) and this petty small handed wanta kill thousands, dolt 45 are monsters..
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman:
This assumes that are only two players on the global stage and that A*+B*=constant. That may be Comrade P’s calculation but it may not work out that neatly in practice.
A= Power the United States wields and
B = Power that Russia wields.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
I keep on saying this, and will continue to do so.
The number of GOP Reps from those top 10 tax states numbers around 50.
Their constituents are founding members of the IGMFY club.
They will NOT be thrown off course with shiny object like the little Baby Jesus, or abortion, or guns.
They are GOP BECAUSE OF TAXES.
Phuck with their money and they will come for you. The fingerprints of THEIR GOP rep voting to INCREASE THEIR TAXES?
Career suicide.
Doug R
@Gin & Tonic: Stores like Fred Meyer sell Dry Ice (frozen CO2). Anything below it will stay frozen, anything above will stay refrigerated.
Dry Ice is cold enough to freeze burn skin, wear gloves.
Make sure space is not too enclosed, as Carbon Dioxide is released.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: @Gin & Tonic:
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
China is Russia’s ally for now and nobody else comes remotely close in terms of firepower or economic pull.
And Russia has meddling fingers in almost all of them anyway, trying to make sure it stays that way.
Chris
@Cermet:
Nixon was constrained by a system shaped by seventy years of politics trending in a more liberal direction under Progressive Era, New Deal, and Great Society politicians.
If he’d been born a half-century later, I suspect he’d have been every bit as nasty as the people we’re seeing in the GOP today.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: So I’ve heard. I pretty much only watch movies if they’re a cartoon or based on a comic book. With a few exceptions, such as Hidden Figures.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Yes Russia has a lot of soft power. Russian grad students could run rings around everyone in their math and physics preparation. I love the mathematical rigor of some of Russian textbooks I have used (Landau and Lifshitz (sp?) series for physics)
Doug R
@Adam L Silverman: Whaaaat? Peak Fred Ward AND Kevin Bacon, what’s not to love? You must watch.
Spanky
@Jeffro: It’s not the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning.
(h/t to Winnie!)
Stephen Westfall
Another example of Ms. Cracker’s gifted art work.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Gin & Tonic:
Russia collapses?
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: True for now. Comrade P’s thinking is all very short term kinda like his American R buddies.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: This is also why he wants to weaken NATO and the EU, which was point 4.
lamh36
Adam….have you seen this?
If true, oooh…wee…
An excerpt from HotAir article from Josh Barro
danielx
Given their performance to date, I’d have to go with Door #2.
schrodingers_cat
@Spanky: I have heard that one before, sounds like word salad. British word salad is the best word salad.
*because the accent* **swoons**
Miss Bianca
@Doug R: I concur. Fred Ward was awesome. Plus, Reba McIntire as a prepper! What’s not to love?
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
Silly me, thought maybe academic achievement and hard work would do it.
I still hold a grudge against Chelsea Clinton for getting into Stanford when I didn’t, even though she was a National Merit semifinalist and I actually won the damn thing.
I just should have picked different parents, I guess.
Adam L Silverman
1:
2:
And 2 is either going to be Sessions or Flynn given there roles in the campaign at the time.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: Putin doesn’t care what happens after he’s dead. He’s IGMFY personified.
lamh36
The question before the break from Nicole Wallace, “did Putin get what he more than he bargained for w/Trump campaign…or is this mission accomplished” for Putin thanks to just haven sown the seed that took down the democratic process that the US has been known for.
Easy…it’s mission accomplished for Putin…even if no charges for Chump…the Russian goal of causing chaos worked and the US and it’s elections are now complete embarrasments all over the world
Just One More Canuck
@TenguPhule: A friend of mine and I love going to movies like Tank Girl, Earth Girls are Easy and CHUD. Tremors was too stupid even for us, and I enjoyed Young Einstein, with the incomparable Yahoo Serious
Elizabelle
@lamh36: That’s funny. One tweeter suggests the “pee” tapes are P for Papadopolos tapes.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh, please, oh, please…
dr. bloor
@Corner Stone: You just go up to ’em and grab by the ego. It’s easy, they let you do anything.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: I have. I referenced the tweet that inspired the Hot Air article in the comments to my post earlier today. This is why the WH messaging has been so messed up all afternoon. The Papadopolous news completely blindsided them. And now they’re trying to spin while figuring out who talked to Papadopolous when and about what after July 27th.
This is also likely freaking them out:
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Even if P succeeds in destroying post war institutions what then? Destruction is easier than getting others do what you want. I don’t think Russia can take the place of the United States. I don’t see the ruble become the de facto currency of the world. What does Putin have to offer other than nihilism, Communism with its egalitarian goals was at least on the face of it more attractive than this ethno ugliness that is P’s brand.
JustRuss
I love the “Papadopoulos wearing a wire” angle to this. These guys lie like fish swim, and now every time they want to toss out a bullshit answer they’ll have to parse the odds that they were recorded saying the exact opposite at some point. Except they’re not smart enough to process that far and they’ve gotten away with this crap forever, so get ready for lots of obstruction and perjury charges. I predict some very deep holes will get dug.
TenguPhule
@Just One More Canuck: The first Tremors is a great horror/comedy that let’s you stop thinking for awhile.
Now the sequels, from III on were terrible.
Amir Khalid
@schrodingers_cat:
If Putine can diminish America’s power and influence, Russia’s own power and influence will meet less resistance and thus count for more.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
What’s really occurred to me, which isn’t that much of a hot take to begin with, is how selfish and short-sighted Putin really is. People in general tend to be. I mean since at least the mid-century we as a civilization have had the potential to truly create a better world with science and technology. To create a more unified world where no one will ever have to fear poverty again. For all its worts, the US and the West have the greatest potential to lead humanity into a future that, while not perfect, will certainly be better than anything we’ve ever experienced in our history.
But Putin seems intent on throwing that potential away to line his pockets some more and satisfy his petty revenge. That’s why I really hate him. With climate change happening, AI technologies that can be used to manipulate us growing more complex, and superbugs on the rise, that window is rapidly dwindling.
I can’t say this for certain, not knowing the future, but post-ww2 may have been the closest to utopia we’re ever going to get.
(And yes, I know a lot of people didn’t share that equally)
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
He solidifies his hold on Russia as his own personal fiefdom. That’s pretty much what everything he does these days boils down to.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
My kid is eyeballing Stanford and Berkeley. When should I break it to her that she’s a commoner?
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: I’d also recommend this 9 tweet thread from Barton Gellman:
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: He does realize that he is not going to live forever, right?
clay
I was in class all day, so I missed most of the fun on these threads. But I just want to carve a little piece of Adam’s post from below, and toot my own horn a bit:
I’m just going to [*stretches*… *pats own back*] note that I said this very thing here a couple days ago. That all of this was because the Trump campaign was desperate for Clinton’s e-mails, and that they’d go to any length to find them. Which means they must’ve believed their own BS about how corrupt she was, and assumed that she’d be dumb enough to do her alleged dirty business through State Department e-mails.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Isn’t the life expectancy really low in the Russian Federation. IIRC it is losing population.
Amir Khalid
@schrodingers_cat:
Putin doesn’t want to lead the world or to govern it, he wants to be the boss of it..
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: The senior policy advisors for foreign/nat-sec policy were Sessions (who had no actual experience for this, but at the time they had no one else involved with the campaign to hang this on) and then Flynn. So its one or the other.
lgerard
According to Fox, the real crime here is the leaking of impending indictments
This from a guy who as a Federal prosecutor announced an investigation of a Senatorial candidate on the eve of an election. After the election, that investigation turned out to be nonexistent.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: When she has to settle for Arizona State.
***sob***
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, but probably not if you’re Putin. You’re the guy who reduces everyone else’s life expectancy.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
I wouldn’t presume that. He’s ex-KGB and he’s not dead yet.
Mnemosyne
A Facebook post from blog favorite Awesomely Luvvie:
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: Denial is not just a river in Egypt. Folks like Putin just like to amass more and more and more (and more) wealth and power without reference to diminishing marginal utility to them or to their inevitable demise. See also: the Koch brothers.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I know I’ve written at least one front page post about this. I’m not going to rewrite it here.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
The average is. Mostly due to drinking and malnutrition.
But some animals are more fortunate then others.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: He may be able to destroy the world but I doubt that he can become its boss.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Why not both?
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: (From what I can tell, there was a sag in life expectancy post-1991 that they’ve largely recovered from. But they’ve lost ground vs. China and the US. We could yet drop to match them, though.)
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: here’s hoping those are for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Would not surprise me one bit.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: I will go and look for it. Thanks.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Plenty of commoners get into Stanford and Berkeley.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Did anyone else know that black grandmas and Jewish grandmas apparently by the same butterscotch lined purses?
Coincidence takes a lot of work…//
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Indicting Sessions would be something beyond through the map and off the looking glass…I know Sessions is not Mueller’s boss, but still…the mind reels. There’d be an instant drumbeat for him to resign, I guess?
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Could be, but I think that’s slim or it would have said advisors, not advisor.
Doug R
@MisterForkbeard: Flak vest over dark blazer in Iraqi summer does not scream brilliant to me.
Chris
@O. Felix Culpa:
Back when the Arab Spring was still knocking off dictators, I remember thinking how objectively weird it was that hardly any dictator ever has a retirement plan. At the very least, you should have an exit strategy planned out for the eventuality that the shit hits the fan. But more basically than that, why cling to power your whole life? Just give yourself a good ten or twenty years to pillage as much from the country as you can, but then pack your bags and retire with your family to Switzerland or Panama or Saudi Arabia (or Maryland: worked out for the Shah’s family) and live the rest of your life in comfortable decadent opulence. Let some other schmuck take the wheel and worry about what comes next.
Of course, that would require a lot more self-awareness than just about any dictator has ever possessed: if nothing else, it requires being honest enough with yourself to recognize that you are fundamentally nothing but a racketeer with a palace, and not the Savior of the Nation that your propaganda says you are. And it requires a lot more self-discipline than just about any dictator has ever possessed: you need to be able to recognize when enough is enough and that you don’t need to stick around and keep hoarding, hoarding, hoarding all that money and power when you and the next five generations of your family can live perfectly luxurious lives with what you’ve already stolen.
ericblair
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Yes. This is underappreciated. He’s an opportunist, and he’s petty. There is no grand vision, besides lining his overflowing pockets with money he can’t possibly use and stay in power only because not being in power is fatal for him now. There’s no endgame. Putin has made sure that there will be chaos after he leaves power, because if he had a designated successor then that designated successor might get impatient.
The Russian domestic propaganda is confused: they don’t seem to understand why Trump just can’t be a dictator like Putin is, and they go in bouts of ridiculing him and praising him. Kneecapping America doesn’t seem to be helping Russia much, because Russia’s main problem is the Russian government. The economy is still fucked and the imperial high from foreign adventurism is wearing off.
So don’t spend too much time worrying about what Putin wants or doesn’t want, because he doesn’t seem to know either.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: He has a lot of exposure with the Kislyak meetings, forgetting about the Kislyak meetings, blurting out about his meetings with Kislyak that he’d forgotten when asked questions that have nothing to do with Kislyak and the Comey firing.
MoxieM
@Suzanne: Harvard sucks, and it’s full of Jareds, undergraduate-ly speaking. Suzanne, you didn’t miss anything, and it was their loss to not admit you. (Thank the good Maude I didn’t go there, but I can count on dozens of octopi the number of people I know who have “gone to school in Cambridge” and they don’t mean MIT, wink wink.)
But yes, JKush pretty well defines smarmy, entitled young slumlord doesn’t he? Ick.
Doug R
@Miss Bianca: Ya broke into the wrong guldurned Basement!
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
Not quite. As I note, this plan has been in a drawer for a long time. Even some Democrats had signed on to some of it in principle. They have already backed away from the SALT deduction (state and local tax deduction) not just because of internal dissent, but because the real estate lobby rattled their chains. Previously they were playing with restoring it as a tax credit as a sop to non-wealthy taxpayers. What is happening is still messy, but they are paying attention to details, much more than the ACA debacle.
The wild card is the Freedom Caucus, who have more power since the GOP has decided to freeze out the Democrats. But deals could be made later, especially if some bones could be tossed to the Democrats and a chunk of the provisions have expiration dates.
And again, they have to try to do something. The pressure from the money men on the GOP to prove they can do something is tremendous. They will also be tempted to try to make things retroactive to 2017 for maximum impact, even though this might actually hurt some taxpayers.
Gerald Parks
@Corner Stone:
I know nuthing …we know nuthing …what you say his name is? …who dat? … huuummmm …errrahhh you talking to me? …what you mean?
Dotard 45’s playbook
trollhattan
@MoxieM:
Harvard mostly exists to be the target of MIT pranks, or so my MIT-grad bro claims. Luckily he’s all jackal and no Jared.
ericblair
@Brachiator:
They need to try to do something, but, again like Obamacare repeal, they have no agreement on the something they want to do. Any sort of tax reform is hard, and this is particularly hard because it’s a bunch of knee jerk bumper sticker slogans barfed out by stupid people. You can’t square this circle.
gwangung
@trollhattan: Being a Snodfart grad, I’d say either are good places to go (but don’t let the alumni office know…)/
MoxieM
@trollhattan: I believe that is true, and I have no allegiance to either place. (Well, my mom went to Radcliffe in the late 1930s, when it existed, and the Anthropology classes she took…. they made her sit in the fucking hall, because John Harvard forbid a woman should contaminate a class full of budding world-overlords.
Women’s Colleges: not schools for girls, but college without boys.
Miss Bianca
@Doug R: I *gotta* watch that one again!
Brachiator
@ericblair:
Again, this is not quite true. And we are dealing with my line of work here. A broad outline has been around for months. Not only did everyone in Congress know about this, so did the accounting and tax industry. As an aside, it always amazes me that lay people think this shit gets made up at the last minute.
Again, even some Democrats agreed to some of the broad outlines of this. Yes, the Freedom Caucus, among others, can gum up the works. But with Obamacare, the GOP had nothing apart from their hatred of and opposition to Obama. Tax reform is another matter altogether.
Also, because a few things were left on the table from the last 2015 tax law changes, the Republicans have to do something before the end of the year, even if they end up screwing taxpayers. In the past, both parties waited until December 15 or so, just before they left for their holiday break, to agree to compromises. They have given themselves some earlier deadlines on tax reform. We will see whether they can get something done by Thanksgiving.
Lastly, again, the money men have actually been pulling back on contributions. This concentrates attention. The GOP doesn’t care about taxpayers or citizens. But they care about themselves, and they have decided that they must protect Trump and try like hell to give him a victory of some kind.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: i’m thinking Wednesday… give everybody a day tomorrow by indicting someone a little goofier/less central to the whole thing like Roger Stone
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat:
Since the time of the Pharaohs, has there ever been an autocrat who looked to a future beyond his own death?
Dave
@schrodingers_cat: Yes but as I think it was you noted he’s basically a nihilist so why does he care what happens after he’s dead?
Waynski
@trollhattan: Good Raising Arizona reference. Frances McDormand is in that too!
gbbalto
@MoxieM: Ha! My mother was sent to Radcliffe in the late 40s with the understanding that she would land a Harvard man, presumably a future rich businessman. She did land one but he was a philosopher. Her parents were not best pleased…
terry chay
@schrodingers_cat: Really? In my graduate school (the largest one in the country in terms of physics grad students) only students from two countries failed the qualifying exam in physics: the United States and Russia. US makes sense since it is a US grad school and has a different bar to entry. Russia? It’s because the skill of their scientists is based on mystique, not actual. When that is actually tested (in this case with a literal test), they consistently perform among the worst.
Everyone thinks they’re all Landau or Lifshitz, but that’d be like saying every US one is Feynman. The reality is the Russian system is full of cronyism and corruption which breeds a lot of poor performers with no real way of signaling their actual skill level. Top grad students from other countries (take the tiny country of Portugal as an example who sent two to us that year, as did South Korea) are clearly signaled, end up being accepted to the program, and pass the Qual with ease.
The same was true with the visiting Russian physics professor (an actual student of Lifshitz). Came in with a bang and left in disgrace two years later. Contributed nothing.
Brachiator
@Chris:
It’s tongue in cheek, slightly wrong in some places, and out of date in others, but this site shows that a few dictators know how to get gone while the getting is good. A guide to the world’s dictators and their exile hot spots
An example:
Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier appeared to blow through an $800 million fortune while living in France.
OTOH, Robert Mugabe is still holding out in Zimbabwe. But he recently tried to get himself declared a UN Goodwill ambassador. Cheeky.
eclare
@Doug R: Hahaha! Fun, fun movie!
schrodingers_cat
@terry chay: Ok our ancedatas differ. I never claimed to speak for all of the Russian physics fraternity. I am sure there are plenty of not so great Ruskies at math too.
Brachiator
@terry chay:
Was that a Big Bang? ;)
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: If it goes longer than that, you could always pull a Soonergrunt and grill everything from your freezer and feed the neighborhood. Not ideal, of course, but definitely making lemonade out of lemons.
Jeffro
@Brachiator: lol @ Mugabe
Only slightly more brazen than Callista as ambassador to the Vatican
JR
@debit: worked so well for this guy after all
JAFD
@Chris: There may be some Juicers who haven’t played (or, ghodspare us, even know about) Junta
You have a treat coming!
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/242/junta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junta_(game)
https://www.amazon.com/AEG-5829AEG-Junta-Board-Game/dp/B0112YA02K
tybee
@Gin & Tonic: couple of days depending on how warm the house is.
Barry
@wormtown: “I’ve been wondering if Daddy Huckabee would start to worry about her potential implication in some of this, and want to get her out of there………”
Daddy Wormtongue is as deep in the cult as his daughter.
Barry
@James E. Powell: “My take on Comey and why he worked so hard to harm Hillary Clinton is that early in his career, back in the 90s, he was convinced or he convinced himself that Hillary Clinton was evil. Not wrong, not different, not unqualified, not too liberal, but evil. Like Satan is evil. And he was determined that if the opportunity presented itself, he’d do what he could to harm her. He did it with his completely uncalled for and way out of bounds press conference in the summer. And he sank her election chances with the letter. As far as I know, he has never expressed any regret for doing those things.”
A far simpler explanation is that he was and is a Republican.
Barry
@schrodingers_cat: “Even if P succeeds in destroying post war institutions what then? Destruction is easier than getting others do what you want. ”
Zero sum.
It means that there is less power (and concentrated power) to resist Russia. Think of a Europe with a Brexited (and f—d up) formerly great Britain, Ergodan’s Turkey, and Poland and Hungary either Russian pawns or just f–d up. Throw in a Trumped USA, and Russia is in a much better relative position.
Tehanu
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wish we had “like” buttons here. “Jethrene” for that pathetic liar is brilliant!
Chris
@Brachiator:
True, although as I recall, Ben Ali didn’t want to leave either. His hand was forced when his generals called him up and basically said he had twenty-four hours to leave the country, after which he might not like what came next. And then there’s Qaddafi, who stuck it out to the end.
But yeah, most of them do fuck off once the crisis has emerged. It just seems like it’d be so much smarter to do it before. (China arguably had something with this, with their dictators only lasting two terms, but Xi looks like he might be ending that).
@JAFD:
I have board-game-nerd friends that I may have to introduce to this.