Democrats vividly recall Mr. Trump on the campaign trail vowing to prosecute Mrs. Clinton if he won. “It was alarming enough to chant ‘lock her up’ at a campaign rally,” said Brian Fallon, who was Mrs. Clinton’s campaign spokesman. “It is another thing entirely to try to weaponize the Justice Department in order to actually carry it out.”
But conservatives said Mrs. Clinton should not be immune from scrutiny as a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, investigates Russia’s interference in last year’s election and any connections to Mr. Trump’s campaign. They argued, for example, that Mrs. Clinton was the one doing Russia’s bidding in the form of a uranium deal approved when she was secretary of state.
Archives for November 2017
Well Now That Is Interesting Isn’t It?
Hrmm:
On Aug. 3 of last year, just as the US presidential election was entering its final, heated phase, the Russian foreign ministry sent nearly $30,000 to its embassy in Washington. The wire transfer, which came from a Kremlin-backed Russian bank, landed in one of the embassy’s Citibank accounts and contained a remarkable memo line: “to finance election campaign of 2016.”
That wire transfer is one of more than 60 now being scrutinized by the FBI and other federal agencies investigating Russian involvement in the US election. The transactions, which moved through Citibank accounts and totaled more than $380,000, each came from the Russian foreign ministry and most contained a memo line referencing the financing of the 2016 election.
The money wound up at Russian embassies in almost 60 countries from Afghanistan to Nigeria between Aug. 3 and Sept. 20, 2016. It is not clear how the funds were used. At least one transaction that came into the US originated with VTB Bank, a financial institution that is majority-owned by the Kremlin.
I’ll let the smarts figure this all out but if any of that money got into the hands of people associated with the Trump campaign we get real close to the dreaded “c” word, and I don’t mean cuck.
He Has Reached Rock Bottom, And Has Started To Dig*
In case you had any question as to just how skeevy — more, how fundamentally grotesque — was and is Roy Moore, here’s his reasoning on why sodomizing a child does not constitute “forcible rape”:
The Alabama Supreme Court had the opportunity to hear the case of one Eric Lemont Higdon, a man accused and convicted of two sodomy charges due to sexual assault against a four-year-old at Mama’s Place Christian Academy in Clay, Alabama.
Higdon had been convicted of both sex with a child under twelve years old, statutory rape, and of “first-degree sodomy by forcible compulsion” which requires that the victim face a threat, overt or implied, of “serious physical injury.” That second forcible rape charge was overturned on appeal, and the question that Moore and his fellow state supreme court justices faced was whether that appellate decision was correct. Almost all of the court had no problem working that one out:
Eight of the nine justices on the panel found that the appeals court had erred. Their legal logic was such that a 17-year-old’s sexual assault of a four-year-old was enough to produce in the mind of the four-year-old, an “implied threat of serious physical injury.” The decision was reversed and remanded and Higdon’s conviction was reinstated.
Who dissented? That godly man Moore, of course:
“Because there was no evidence in this case of an implied threat of serious physical injury…or of an implied threat of death, Higdon cannot be convicted of sodomy in the first degree “by forcible compulsion.”
Four Years Old.
No implication of serious physical injury when a seventeen year old assaults a pre-schooler. I wanted to put that last more bluntly, but I can’t. My stomach turns itself into a Klein bottle when I try.
What kind of man do you have to be to conceive of the scene between that youth and that little child and see no threat?
Roy Moore is not who we thought he was. He’s much, much worse — and anyone who rises to his defense shares in his stain.
*From this time-honored list of British military fitness reports. My favorite has always been “I would not breed from this Officer” — which, according to my uncle, a career man in the Royal Artillery, was known to refer to a fellow from a Guards regiment. Posh don’t mean smart.
Image: Diego Velasquez, Las Meninas, 1656-7.
This picture is not, perhaps, precisely on point with this post, but it knows the chords and is, in any case, a simply magnificent painting.
He Has Reached Rock Bottom, And Has Started To Dig*Post + Comments (129)
Shep Smith Explains Uranium One
And he does a good job of it. For your rightwing relatives who want to “Lock Her Up.”
And the New York Times.
Fox's Shep Smith takes apart the Uranium One conspiracy his Fox News colleagues have been relentlessly hyping pic.twitter.com/HZBlBtFvo4
— Media Matters (@mmfa) November 14, 2017
Tuesday Afternoon Open Thread
I reckon Dave will be along later with a more comprehensive look at the latest attempt to kill the ACA, but this appears to be a decent summary:
? BREAKING: Tax bill will repeal the individual mandate:
– 13 million more uninsured
– $1,990 premium tax
– Insurer exodus from markets
ALL TO PAY FOR TAX CUTS FOR CORPORATIONS AND MILLIONAIRES— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) November 14, 2017
So does this:
▪️Child molester running for Senate
▪️Attorney General defending treason
▪️Mass shooting at a school
▪️Republicans trying to destroy health care for tax cuts.This is what passes for a NORMAL day since Donald Trump was elected president.
— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) November 14, 2017
Open thread.
Disappointment haunted all my dreams…
No, this is not a Doug! post, but I stole his song lyric-post title shtick because it fits my topic so perfectly. Ever since the unthinkable catastrophe of a Trump administration became our waking nightmare, I’ve dreamed of its end, preferably in disgrace and with the Republican Party in smoking ruins in its wake.
But I’ve tried to be a responsible dreamer. I avoid the high-fructose corn syrup confections some enemies of my enemy have been peddling for the last year in the form of promises that this next revelation will bring the entire Jenga treason tower down on the heads of the liars, cheaters, incompetents and thieves in this odious pigpen of an administration.
Well, despite it all, I’m becoming a believer. I understand what we’re up against. I remember the Ghost of Fitzmas past. But formidable obstacles aside, I’m becoming convinced Trump won’t serve out his first term.
The revelation that Don Jr. was colluding with WikiLeaks — and communicating with senior members of the campaign about it — is the latest straw. One of the people Junior emailed with WikiLeaks tidbits was Hope Hicks. I find that significant.
Beltway media types have long been mystified by Hicks’ role in the Trump organization, but I think it’s simple: She primarily functions as a human email interface for Trump. I’ve never believed Junior would take a crap without running it past the old man first, and the fact that Hicks was looped in proves it, as far as I’m concerned.
So, I am officially allowing myself to hope that indictments will roll in, people will flip, and Trump will react with such panic and madness that his presidency will end, one way or another, most likely with a huffy resignation. Sure, I could be wrong. But the staggering stupidity and amateurishness of nearly every actor in the Trump shit-show is an asset for justice.
Anyhoo, IF Trump goes down, that brings us to Mr. Pence, the Man Who Wasn’t There. I apologize for inflicting a Morning Joe clip on you, but this one does address Pence’s lying about the Russia scandal:
Steve Schmidt, from the clip:
“We don’t talk enough about Mike Pence… We don’t talk enough about the vice president’s nonstop lying… I think that over these months, the vice president has exposed himself as a titanic fraud… The truth of the matter is, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, 100% of the time, 100% of the people around this administration, when asked a question about Russia, the Russian involvement in this election, they lie about it. Not 99% of the time, not 99.9% of the time, 100% of the time.”
There’s no mystery about how Pence earned the nickname “Dense Pence” — he’s not a bright guy. But unless Mother rode around on Pence’s shoulders during the entire campaign and transition, with her thighs clamped over his ears, one hand covering his beady eyes and the other stopping his mouth, there’s just no way Pence didn’t know the Trump crew was ass-deep in Russians. He needs to go down too.
I’m guessing 15% or more of the responses to this post will be people telling me I’m an idiot for getting my hopes up. Maybe y’all are right, and feel free to piss on my parade. But I’m feeling more hopeful than I have in months.
AG Sessions’ House Judiciary Committee Testimony Live Stream
I want to thank Cheryl for putting up her congressional hearings post as I couldn’t get to it in time, but since she’s having trouble with the video embeds, I figured I’d put up a post to resolve that problem.
Here’s the live feed for AG Sessions’ appearance before the House Judiciary Committee.
And here’s the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the President’s authority to unilaterally order nuclear strikes:
Open thread!
AG Sessions’ House Judiciary Committee Testimony Live StreamPost + Comments (80)