The New York Times (yes, I know) has received and had described to reporters EMAILS from the Trump campaign. They are releasing them as they work through them and presumably verifying the material, unlike Wikileaks. Also, with Mike Flynn’s plea deal, the Tweeter-in-Chief is being more productive than usual.
In May 2016, the Russians wanted to make friendly contact with the NRA, who had a convention coming up.
The emailed outreach from the conservative operative to Mr. Dearborn came far earlier, around the same time that Russians were trying to make other connections to the Trump campaign. Another contact came through an American advocate for Christian and veterans causes, and together, the outreach shows how, as Mr. Trump closed in on the nomination, Russians were using three foundational pillars of the Republican Party — guns, veterans and Christian conservatives — to try to make contact with his unorthodox campaign.
This may be how all those wholesome flyover country folks like Jeff Sessions and Sam Clovis got involved with the Russians. Or not. They don’t seem to figure very prominently in the NRA stories yet. To be continued.
Meanwhile, the President is tweeting. I don’t link directly to his emails because I don’t want to give him the stats. My very few links don’t count for much in his numbers. It’s a matter of principle.
Here’s the tweet from yesterday that people are saying admits obstruction of justice. I’ll wait to see what Robert Mueller does with it.
“Acid washed”
And a couple from this morning.
And open thread so that the home improvers can concentrate on that!
Baud
I believe a Tick Tock, motherfucker is called for here.
Amir Khalid
Herr Präsident Scheißgibbon seems bound and determined to deliver his own head on a platter to Bobby Three Sticks.
Cheryl Rofer
He’s still going.
JPL
The orange one is tweeting a lot this morning, and it is apparent that he doesn’t like Comey. He doesn’t like Comey, just sayin.
Baud
@JPL: Comey is scum and only looks good when compared to Trump.
Waldo
Mueller can have the NRA’s email when he pries it from Wayne LaPierre’s cold dead fingers. I hope.
Princess
You would almost think Twitter went up to 280 just to entrap Donald.
Baud
And unlike their reporting before election day that the FBI was not investigating Trump.
Ken
We’ll know it’s all over when the Fox chyron reads “President Trump (D)”.
Dave
@Baud: Comey is a self-righteous prig that is blind to his own flaws and biases or at least was maybe he’s learned a bit l. I’m willing to grant that he’s an honest actor within those limits but they are pretty damning limits. Mueller appears to be much closer to what Comey believes himself to be.
Cheryl Rofer
Latest:
Fear not? Is that really Trump? I find it impossible to deconstruct the authors from the text, except for the pro forma presidential tweets like “I lit the national Christmas tree today.”
BTW, the Trumpies are claiming that yesterday’s obstruction of justice tweet was written by the President’s lawyer, John Dowd.
Lapassionara
@Princess: That’s a thought.
I think I need a Twitter vacay. I get irritable every time a poster uses the word “conservative” to describe Republicans. They are dangerous radicals.
Orrin Hatch’s comments on CHIP are just vile.
Ken
@Cheryl Rofer:
I still don’t see how that helps. They’re going to have to come out with some damn fine parsing to clarify that Dowd is his lawyer, but wasn't making the statement as his lawyer.
GregB
Donnie Two Scoops seems to be melting before our eyes.
debbie
What is he even talking about in that last tweet?
Cheryl Rofer
Still going –
debbie
@JPL:
I bet it was that Bible quote. Everyone should start tweeting Bible quotes at him.
OzarkHillbilly
@GregB: What? Did somebody dump a bucket of water over his head?
Cheryl Rofer
@debbie: This, I think.
Okay, y’all, I’m gonna go make some cranberry muffins for breakfast.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
Nine tweets in two hours has to be a new record.
Lapassionara
@Ken: My thought too. Lawyers are generally viewed as authorized to speak for client.
Gin & Tonic
@Cheryl Rofer: What’s with the random capitalization?
JPL
@debbie: He’s still tweeting so I’m not sure what the last one is?
Someone is going to have to contain him, because you know he wants to fire someone.
Ken
@Gin & Tonic: Setting up an insanity defense? Assuming senility counts.
JMG
If Dowd wrote the tweet, he’s an idiot. But he didn’t. These are people lying to protect their boss. If Dowd has any concern for his professional reputation at all, he will resign as counsel for Trump. But I’ll bet his fee is enormous and is being paid by the likes of the Mercers, not his grifting client.
Patricia Kayden
@Waldo: I would assume that Mueller is in a position to get any emails he wants as long as they are related to his investigation. The NRA is not more powerful than he is.
@debbie: You would think Trump would be tweeting celebratory statements about the Senate’s tax bill vote but looks like he knows that the jig is up for him so he’s focusing on Flynn. So sad.
OzarkHillbilly
@Lapassionara: The flaw in that theory is lawyers never use the word ‘pled’ when they mean ‘pleaded’. I wonder who in the admin thought it would be a good idea to throw the man responsible for trump’s defense under the bus?
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
Nope, not in the least. Let him be as unhappy as he’s made other people.
JPL
It’s sunny in DC, so maybe someone will take him to go play golf.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Cheryl Rofer:
It’s an effort to validate all of those crazy chain emails your crazy right wing uncle forwarded to you, whether true or not. “Many people” are those that author the original piece of shit.
Ramalama
@Gin & Tonic: Random Germanization?
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic:
I thought he was just capitalizing the nouns. Like German.
RSA
@debbie:
The extra Big Mac last night must have given him more time to sit and think.
sixthdoctor
@Lapassionara: I saw those Hatch comments and they read like a Michael Moore parody of conservatives. Fricking James Bond villians are more subtle…
JPL
@debbie: SNL read Comey’s bible verse and said that the ever flowing stream, means he saw the pee tape.
“But justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” Amos 5:24
Spanky
@JPL: It’s raining here in the suburbs at the moment.
Cheryl Rofer
JPL
@Spanky: ugh
Patricia Kayden
@debbie: My “So sad” was meant to mock Trump’s “SAD!” comments. I’m not in the least bit sad for him and am sending warm thoughts Mueller’s way. Anyone associated with this regime needs to be taken down — HARD.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
He seems to be using the initial cap for Emphasis.
Cheryl Rofer
@Gin & Tonic: The random capitalization is one way that people think they can distinguish genuine Trump tweets. It looks to me like he does it to emphasize words. Seems to be mostly nouns and adjectives so far.
ETA: Looks like Amir Khalid beat me to it.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Makes me smile every time I see it ?
rikyrah
@Dave:
Comey is trying to do penance.
Lapassionara
@sixthdoctor: I want Hatch to suffer. I just don’t have the kind of imagination to envision a punishment fitting his meanness.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
Like Dowd is gonna take the fall for that shyt ?
debit
Trump’s desperate tweets remind me so much of the tax clients we get who call or come in and put forth a bad scenario (lied, claimed a child they shouldn’t have, didn’t report income, etc) and plead their case to me. Me: “Dude, it doesn’t matter what I think or say, I’m not the IRS. You’re going to get caught eventually. No, it doesn’t matter what extenuating circumstances you might have had, you’re going to get caught. You better amend it now and take your lumps.” Except they don’t want that. They just want somebody to tell them it’ll be okay, totally fine, don’t worry baby, hush hush now, hush, you’ll be fine.
Trump just wants someone to rock him to sleep and gently stroke his brow and tell him it’s all going to be okay.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
Sounds delicious ??
chrome agnomen
@Lapassionara: acid washing?
Kay
Boy, as much as the rest of the country had paid with actual lives for gun nuts, gun nuts themselves have paid with shitty economic policy.
I hope the 41 assault rifles they’re collecting make up for losing Social Security and Medicare when they’re too old to lift an assault rifle. It’s like a half a million dollars they’ll pay over their lifetimes. Shame we all have to go down with them because of their personal obsession. Guns are expensive!
rikyrah
@JMG:
Professional reputation?
This could be cause for disbarment.
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
Understood. I wish I knew how to use that sarcasm font.
Dave
@rikyrah: That’s why I think he may have learned some. Been forced to acknowledge his own biases and blind spots.
Patricia Kayden
@Cheryl Rofer: And so what if it was written by Dowd? It’s from Trump’s twitter account and sent under his name. He’s responsible for whatever is on that account. Trump supporters must think we all were born yesterday morning.
Tom
@Baud: Agreed
Yarrow
@Baud:
Why, yes. Yes, it is! Tick tock, motherfuckers. It’s not just Donald Trump himself, but his traitorous three eldest children and most of their spouses if not all, many members of his administration, Vice President Pence, and top GOP leadership. Tick fucking tock.
@Cheryl Rofer: I expect that ultimately we’ll learn that Brian Ross’s report wasn’t wrong, it was just a bit too early.
debbie
Andy Borowitz: “Mueller may take Sundays off, but not Trump – he’s still busy giving more evidence against himself to Mueller.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Cheryl Rofer: Because any FBI agent who had any kind of anti trump leanings obviously skews the investigation. However, the apparent anti Clinton bias of the NY FBI office had no bearing whatsoever on the investigation.
Quinerly
@Princess: my morning lol. I even startled a sleeping Poco. You win the internets. Have a great day. Your work is done.
Frankensteinbeck
These tweets are even more interesting in the context that reports from the White House suggest he believes these cockamamie conspiracy theories. He’s been asserting his wildest lies in private, when there is no one who needs lying to. Either his insecurities have reached insanity, he’s gotten too senile to remember the truth, or most likely both.
Amir Khalid
@chrome agnomen:
That went out of style 30 years ago.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
My iPhone has been doing that on Twitter after the last couple of iOS updates. I think it’s a quirk.
He’s just too lazy to make the corrections.
Cheryl Rofer
@Yarrow: I think that’s true in substance, but apparently Ross misinterpreted what his source told him. He’s done that kind of thing before.
OzarkHillbilly
@Lapassionara: Being locked in a shipping container out in the middle of the Chihauhuan desert in July with just enough water to keep him alive and a 5 gallon bucket to shit and piss in that never gets emptied.
rikyrah
Ok ,
Who is leaking the emails?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
From your lips to God’s ears.
Kay
I think Comey was way out of line with his grandstanding and opinionating on the Clinton investigation and he made a bad situation worse for immediately prior to the election but the idea that Trump is honest and Comey is the liar is laughable. We don’t need any insider information to know that the president is a liar. He lies blatantly and publicly every day. He’s not credible. Comey made huge errors but “lying” was not one of them. Comey cares too much about his reputation to lie. Caring too much about his reputation tripped him up- it’s just another variety of excessive ego. He wasn’t thinking about the merit of that investigation. He was thinking about it how it looked– how people on the Right would say he was biased. That was his error, not dishonesty. Comey had a duty to clear her once he didn’t find enough to charge. He was unwilling to do that because he thought the accusations from the Right would reflect poorly on HIM. That’s not public service. It’s ego.
Just One More Canuck
@Waldo: “Your proposal is acceptable”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=QiwmeEENx4A
Quinerly
@rikyrah: that was my question early this AM. Has anyone seen any speculation?
Kathleen
@Cheryl Rofer: I think there’s truth in what he said also. He came to close for MSM comfort. Clinton Foundation abuses, though, that’s another story. Or using material from “Clinton Cash”.
Kathleen
@Baud: Have a safe, enjoyable, relaxing journey, Baud! In the meantime, on behalf of all of the Baudettes, I leave you with this (“When Will I See You Again”) by the Three Degrees:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6fVDAjs9f0
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: It’s ironic that Comey was worried about the Right when he screwed up Clinton’s election chances a few weeks before the election. Now look at his standing with Righwingers. It’s in the tank.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: Yes, both are probably right. Ross got it wrong (misinterpreted what his source said), but ultimately we’ll find out that Flynn will give up Trump.
Kay
Unfortunately I think Trump HAS immunized himself to a certain extent from huge lies on Russia coordination because of his lying habit and how his lying habit was and is accepted. What people feared about “normalizing” has come to pass. I don’t know how it could have gone differently- if anyone could have avoided Trump’s lower standard becoming THE standard.
How are the lies about Russia any different than the lies Trump tells every day? They’re different in Flynn’s case because there’s a statute and he was corrupt and arrogant enough to lie to the FBI. Trump has to lie to the FBI or under oath or it’s just part and parcel of his constant lying. There can’t BE a smoking gun on Trump lies. Misleading the public is his daily practice.
It’s spread to the GOP Congress too. They’re all lying publicly about that tax bill in a way that is in my view unprecedented. It’s getting worse. It’s normalized. We have to accept that and find some way to manage it.
No Drought No More
Any congressional democrat that calls a republican “my friend” or “the honorable” will be attacking the rank and file from here on out. Or so I would hope. That’s what I’m most interested in hearing at this point. Just how will democratic party officials respond? I expect them to attack the GOP unmercifully with plain speaking, such as calling them “un-American”. They really have no choice if they want to keep their seats. At this point, democrats don’t require a declaration of war to understand it has been declared on the American people. Elected democrats too timid to call a spade a spade have no business asking for anyone’s vote when their country has been attacked and raped.
The Clintons must be pleased this weekend. Although the era of big government isn’t quite over, their triangulating stupid asses went a long way to empower the republican party and run this country into its current ditch. And any democrat who refuses to recognize that fact out of some perverse notion of affection for their persons is a goddamn fool.
Yarrow
@Kay: Trump isn’t immunizing himself from the law. He can tweet all he wants and it will all be acceptable to use in court.
Lapassionara
@OzarkHillbilly: ?
Lapassionara
@chrome agnomen: ?
Emma
@No Drought No More: And so, again, it’s the Clintons’ fault. How republican.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
That’s what always happens when you try to please everyone. Comey got lost. It’s easy for investigators to do. The point isn’t how the investigation looks. Once you make that the goal you’re lost. He wasn’t willing to take the hit to his own idea of himself that the job required. The job required clearing her and then taking the attacks. He wasn’t willing to do that, not to benefit the accused or the country, but to benefit HIM- his supposed reputation.
The investigation had to end one of two ways- he has enough to charge or he does not have enough to charge. No matter which way it ended up someone was going to say it was unfair, no matter what happened James Comey was going to be blamed and accused.
He can’t worry about that, and he did worry about that. That’s where he got lost. But, he’s not a liar and Trump is a liar. I think most people know Trump is a liar.
debbie
I like this response to this tweet from Trump.
How long until he’s ALL CAPS?
Doug R
@No Drought No More: Clinton triangulated to get Democrats in power. The demographics weren’t in favor back then. Now Democrats don’t need to triangulate, as long as everyone can vote. This is why Eric Holder spent so much of the Justice Department’s resources on fighting voter suppression. This is what he and Barack Obama are concentrating on, so that D+11 can translate into solid majorities.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
We have a magistrate who used to work for the “big” law firm here. She worked as a lawyer for 25 years so she has a lot of conflicts. I’m comfortable telling people to waive a conflict and let her hear their case because she is very good at her job. But I wasn’t when she was first seated. I wasn’t worried that she would favor litigants she knows or has been on the same side with- I was worried she would go the other way- bend over backward to appear “honorable” and lose what I need from her, which is predictability and a fair hearing. She didn’t do that, so I trust her. Comey put himself above the job in an excessive effort to APPEAR “fair”. You can’t do that. It’s as bad as bias. It IS bias.
Quinerly
Flynn wore a wire? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/03/michael-flynn-plea-agreement-mueller-russia
SiubhanDuinne
@Cheryl Rofer:
I don’t see how that makes it better.
GregB
Turns put NRA stands for Not Reliably American.
CarolDuhart2
@Doug R: Also Clinton’s triangulations saved us from a DOMA Amendment, the complete elimination of the safety net, got us two Justices that have been crucial in saving us.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
True dat.
Quinerly
Pompeo says Trump’s tweets help the CIA: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/362966-pompeo-trump-tweets-actually-help-cia
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
I think Comey primarily does not like the Clintons, and concerns about looking biased were the excuse that made him feel okay about torpedoing her election.
@Kay:
It’s not like blatant lying about laws is in any way new. Death panels, anyone? They do this on almost every piece of legislation. Trump’s difference is that he lies about petty, obvious things like the weather.
Yarrow
@Quinerly: If you’re one of the traitors in the White House or Congress, you have to be terrified at this point. Papadopoulos was also cooperating for months before his deal was made public.
Matt McIrvin
@No Drought No More: Republicans have made you so mad this time that you found two different ways to blame it on Democrats!
What’s the left’s problem? This is.
Cheryl Rofer
Dale has been doing an outstanding job of covering Trump through the campaign and presidency. He deserves a medal when this is all over.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Does the 1st Idiot even understand he’s president and if their was a criminal case against Hilary Clinton he just screwed? He learned nothing from that court martial of that deserter.
Sounds like 1st Idiot is in the middle of a full born tantrum. No wonder he loves twitter – it’s a way for him to yell at people and not risk being yelled back at.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
I dunno. But, the emails from KT McFarland have to be an inside job.
JPL
@Emma: I blame Obama
snark
Quinerly
@rikyrah: no doubt there.
SFAW
@GregB:
or Not Really American
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
If he wore a wire????
JMG
Trump is going to order Sessions to fire Mueller before Christmas and Sessions will do it. Then he will fire the head of the FBI he appointed six months ago and nominate Rudy or that crackpot judge on Fox to as director. We have reached the “all underwear must be worn on the outside” stage of Trump’s presidency.
PS: Paul Ryan will be the first to wear his underwear on the outside.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@OzarkHillbilly:
Go read the Washington Post article from yesterday – what they think doesn’t matter. When you work for Trump it’s just bend over and take it, no matter your gender.
nycmt
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I think you put your finger on an important facet of Trump: his narcissistic cowardice.
Patricia Kayden
@No Drought No More: I agree with your first paragraph because politeness hasn’t worked for Democrats. Your second paragraph however is nonsense. The Clintons are no more to blame for Trump and Republicans than the Obamas or the Carters. Ridiculous claim.
randy khan
@No Drought No More:
I don’t use the pie filter on principle and because I want to see what the trolls and crazies are saying, but I’m almost tempted to make an exception in your case.
SFAW
@No Drought No More:
If only St. Bernard had been there to save America. His purity and non-triangulation, combined with his long history of legislative accomplishments, would have caused the Republicans to hesitate, and not oppose every fucking (non-right-wing) thing a
DemocratIndependentDemocrat President tried to accomplish.Steeplejack
@Kay:
Great summation, Kay.
The Moar You Know
These aren’t being written by Trump. They’re either a product of Hope Hicks or that goon that’s also got privileges on his Twit account.
They’re complete sentences with a grasp of the English language, properly spelled words, and decent phrasing. All of which are things that Trump can’t do. Never has.
Manyakitty
@Cheryl Rofer: Either he got a new phone (iPhones meant staff tweets) or someone is up very early with him.
Quinerly
Love me some Paul Butler!
rikyrah
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
This could be cause for disbarment. Dowd is not risking his livelihood for Dolt45, especially because we know that he told him not to tweet in the first place. Any lawyer with sense would have told him that.
Patricia Kayden
@JMG: At that point, we won’t be living in a democracy. You are describing straight up authoritarianism which is no different from what you see in Third World dictatorships.
Mary G
Some really big shoe must be about to drop to cause the blizzard of deranged tweets.
@Baud: Have a great trip. I will miss you.
Mike J
@Kay: What you describe is the reason we don’t have news media in the US and more.
eric
(1) If the lawyer wrote the text, then Trump had to authorize the tweet in his name. (2) If Trump is saying that he did not authorize the tweet, the either (a) the lawyer did not run it past Trump or (b) Trump said no. (2)(b) is an ethical violation of the highest order and this could be the Trump defense. But the offense is so egregious that I cannot imagine any sentient lawyer doing it. Trump could be saying (2)(1), which is not truly an ethical violation, but it would qualify as one of the dumbest things a lawyer ever did. So dumb, in fact, that it is not believable. In short, bullshit.
Steeplejack
Girding my loins for A.M. Joy. Might be itchy on the trigger finger with the remote after a painful segment yesterday featuring a wingnut member of some “Women for Roy Moore” group. Joy Reid gave her a beatdown, but her sheer intransigence about everything was maddening.
rikyrah
@Steeplejack:
I saw that segment. Absolutely ridiculous ?
Ken
@eric:
Well, this is Trump’s lawyer. However that makes it even more unlikely, what with the whole lips-attached-firmly-to-ass thing.
JMG
@Patricia Kayden: You’re right. At that point mass civil unrest is the only recourse.
Cheryl Rofer
@Manyakitty: He switched to an iPhone some time back. The Secret Service managed to impose a minimum of security on him.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah:
I fully expect that’s the case. But again, go read that WP interview – basically Trump screams and whines if the people working for him tell him no and eventually it’s not worth the bother.
Frankensteinbeck
@JMG:
Trump already ordered Sessions to fire Mueller, and Sessions would not do it. Sessions also refused to resign when Trump went all passive-aggressive about it. Trump is too big a coward to fire Sessions himself, and whatever Sessions’ reasoning, it must be pretty strong. Personally, I think he was the first to cut a deal with Mueller, and Trump is fucked.
Cheryl Rofer
Shalimar
@Frankensteinbeck: As I am sure you know, for a narcissist, everyone must be lied to. Life is a heroic story about them, and they get angry if any of the characters aren’t supportive of whatever the hero says or doubt the hero in any way.
Edit: by engaging in conspiracy theories, Trump is testing a rewrite of the story, and challenging his closest advisors to agree that the new version is an improvement.
Manyakitty
@Cheryl Rofer: Ah, thank you. I missed that.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Steeplejack: I’m watching yesterday’s show right now and Bruce Bartlett just compared the tax bill to rape. I find this tax bill unbelievably evil, but I object to the rape comparison. Rape is rape.
Ken
@Cheryl Rofer: That could become an entire series.
Timurid
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Mugging would be a better metaphor…
Yarrow
@JMG:
No he won’t. Sessions has recused himself from the Russian investigation and won’t fire Mueller. Also, Sessions is a traitor and if he fires Mueller his future will be worse than it is already. Sessions is smart enough to know that.
Rudy Giuliani is a traitor and is keeping very, very quiet on advice of counsel. His future does not include heading the FBI, but does include the potential for perp walking and wearing an orange jumpsuit.
Judge Jeanine Pirro (sp?) is a crackpot. She would never get past the first step.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Yeah, I winced at that too. I especially don’t think men should throw rape metaphors around. It was in bad taste.
SFAW
@Yarrow:
Ya know, I normally appreciate your comments, but this one is ascribing sanity and honor to persons spectacularly lacking in either.
Or did the Senate suddenly do a 180 yesterday, and I missed it?
Scotian
@Dave:
Repeated immediately for endorsement, agreement, and mutually arrived at opinions where Comey is concerned in this way, and that Mueller represents much more the reality Comey never actually managed to be yet clearly yearned to be known to all as. As witnessed by his many prior public statements casting himself as the one honest man in the den of thieves known as Washington.
Uncle Ebeneezer
Dear Santa,
I know the list of monogramed orange jumpsuits I wished for is lengthy and it’s very late in the year but…can you please add “David A. Clarke Jr.”, to said list as well?
Thanks in advance,
Uncle Ebeneezer
Steeplejack
@Yarrow:
God, Judge Jeanine. Her ball-busting harpy voice is like a mutant superpower that kept her out of the X-Men because she couldn’t control it well enough not to harm the guys on her side. Well, that and plus she’s evil.
On a related note, one of my (hopefully less plausible) nightmare scenarios is the surfacing of a phone-sex tape between her and Richard Painter.
bemused
@Lapassionara:
Hatch said we are spending billions that we don’t have but he has no problem adding $1.5 trillion to debt. It’s a core Republican belief that most Americans on CHIPS, food stamps and any other government program that helps the poor and middle class are people who won’t help themselves even though the eligibility requirements are not easy to meet. My guess is the percentage of people on these programs who could take care of their needs without government help is small but not Republicans. They’d probably estimate at least 75% or higher are just looking for free rides. Just from listening to Republicans I know for years, they really believe the programs are rife with moochers and lazy people. It just kills me when they attack CHIPS and food stamps which help children. They want to punish children for what they imagine their parents are getting away with.
Amaranthine RBG
Hey look, it’s the New York Times doing real journalism again
It’s sad and sickening that so many dumbasses on the left want to see the NYT destroyed.
Yarrow
@SFAW: No, what I’m saying is there is a ton of dirt on her and her criminal husband. There would be some quiet talks and she would turn down the offer. Or they’d release it and tie her up in court so she couldn’t do the job.
Villago Delenda Est
@bemused: And this is precisely why I have no problem with these assholes paying with their lives for their crimes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amaranthine RBG: It’s sad and sickening that you are still posting here.
Chyron HR
PUBLIC SERVICE REMINDER: ARBG literally believes that God send a bird to mark the junior senator from Vermont as the Messiah.
We now return you to his regularly scheduled Trump-lite rant about the “dumbasses on the left”.
rikyrah
@Frankensteinbeck:
Attorney General White Citizens Council is living out his White Supremacist fantasies.
He will NEVER resign.
He is also up to his eyeballs in all the Russia mess, and Dolt45 knows it.
Cheryl Rofer
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Did you see Lewis Black on Colbert on Friday night? He explains “trickle down” in pretty accurate terms.
J R in WV
@Ken:
This!! Faux noise always “mistakes” a guilty Republican (R) in their on screen information as a (D) with such exactitude that everyone not a Faux Noise believer can tell it is part of their standard policy.
No (R) ever commits even a gauche mistake, much less a violations of Rules or the Law!! Just watch!! I never watch Faux by choice nor do I fly professionally, yet in airports and places of business I see long-time Republicans identified with a (D)after their once they have violated standards, rules or the Law.
Teddys Person
I want all of these incompetent, malignant motherfuckers in jail.
WaterGirl
@Kay: I believe that you shouldn’t be a manager if you’re unwilling or unable to fire people, and by the same token, Comey wasn’t fit for the job he held. The job is not about you or your feelings.
bemused
@Villago Delenda Est:
Just no. I’d like to see all of them get lengthy terms behind bars in a general population prison. The odds of that are miniscule so my dream is that trump and GOP are reviled and marginalized to the point that media and Americans barely mention them except in utter contempt and only as shameful examples of treasonous Americans.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I was mostly away from BJ after Friday evening, but it sounds like you must be leaving on your trip very soon. I’ll miss you.
Who knows, maybe there will be a special thread waiting for you when you get back, where we all get to say how much we miss your wit and humor and steadiness.Oh wait, I figured i had better strike that sentence or you will be afraid to come back to BJ! Safe travels, Baud.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: I may be slow on the uptake this morning, but I don’t see how Trump’s tweets admit to obstruction of justice. What am I missing?
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: @Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Someone needs to link to the Cole classic thread on this topic. Something like “You know what’s like rape? Rape.” Only he said it way better than that.
edit: and I see that I’m talking to myself again on a dead thread. sigh.
J R in WV
@debbie:
“I wish I knew how to use that sarcasm font.”
Initial left pointy bracket (usually a caps comma) enclosing the word “code” followed by right pointy bracket (usually a caps period) to start the sarcasm font.
To end the sarcasm font, add a forward slash ‘/’ usually a lowercase question mark between the initial left pointy bracket and the word “code”.
I don’t know how to include left and right pointy brackets aka larger than and smaller than math symbols into text interpreted as HTML, so you can’t see those LT and GT symbols, but just try it
Leto
@WaterGirl: Here you go: Did Trump’s tweet about Michael Flynn’s guilty plea just admit something it shouldn’t have?
J R in WV
@Kay:
I have chatted with this sort of compulsive gun buyer at the local rod and gun shop and the big box Cabella’s gun counter while waiting for a clerk to help me, and found that they regard their spending on guns as an investment in fine collector goods, that can be liquidated as needed during their retirement.
“I’m buying these for my wife, when I’m gone she can have [fill in a numeric you like] $1,400 if she needs it by selling this weapon I’m buying today!” Now that number isn’t wild fantasy, many weapons cost much more than that, and in “New in Box, unfired” condition these weapons TODAY do sell for around their purchase price. However that sale price can vary with demand, the cost of new guns, and regulations regarding weapons.
If a semi-automatic long gun similar in appearance to an AR-15 become banned, it also loses most of its after market value except on the black market, where most “wives” would be unable to make a sale.
WaterGirl
@Leto: thank you!
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Lapassionara:
Is terminal flatulence a thing?
VOR
An article in The Guardian about dealing with Trump, based on an interview with former New York Post gossip columnist Susan Mulcahy. Some quotes:
“He’s a pathological liar. I’ve said that repeatedly and I’ve been saying it since the 80s. He has two sports, golf and lying, and that’s it. He just lies about everything.”
“Most people have an alibi or a backup plan; Trump doesn’t do that,” she told the Guardian. “He just says the exact opposite of what he did five minutes ago.”
Cheryl Rofer
@WaterGirl: I’m not totally convinced either, but IANAL and many people, including lawyers, are saying it is.
JR
@Cheryl Rofer: Apropos.
Also apropros.
Cheryl Rofer
@JR: Love that second one!
chopper
@debbie:
this is like the trump version of “but jimmy down the street failed math too!”
Barbara
@J R in WV: Unless there is something “special,” e.g., special edition, special features, etc. about those guns they will not retain their new sale value let alone increase with age. Above all, they aren’t rare, and from everything I have read there is a significant premium paid for new guns. And gun manufacturers, not being idiots, will continue to churn out new models with new features or a new look because they don’t benefit from the after market. When Stickley began manufacturing mission style furniture to take advantage of its popularity, the collector’s market collapsed for everything but signed original pieces. Magical thinking drives me insane.
Barbara
@WaterGirl: “I fired him because he lied” is saying, “I fired him because I know he lied.” “I know he lied” means, “I know he committed a crime,” and asking Comey to forego any action means asking Comey to stop pursuing what Trump knew to be a criminal action. Not inevitably obstruction of justice, but an admission of knowledge that Flynn was dirty followed by articulation of a specific desire not to pursue it, then followed by an action (firing Comey) to make sure that it would not be followed up. But IMO there is no way this particular wrongdoing will be his downfall.
Neldob
@Amaranthine RBG: I’m with you. Otherwise it’s only Fox infotainment. They do still have some mea culpa type articles to write. Or hair shirts to wear, which should be fashionable these days.
mai naem mobile
@Cheryl Rofer: Okay,but he didn’t ask any professor from Regents Law Sokol so it doesn’t count. Harvard Schmavard, Yale Bale all east coast elitist achools!
WaterGirl
@Barbara: That makes perfect sense when you lay it out like that! Pretty compelling.
edit: Lies in a pool of lies, crimes in a flood of crimes. Yet he’s still president and that hateful, damaging bill passed the senate. I only hope we can stop it.
Vidya Pradhan
@Ken: FTW
Matt
A good reminder of why conservatives were so eager to go with “they hate us for our freedoms” – it’s the one trait they share with folks like ISIS and the Taliban.
They’ve opposed literally every attempt this country has made to live up to its ideals, always with violent rhetoric, frequently with terrorism.
john b.
@OzarkHillbilly:
@greg_doucette:
“Me, admittedly. No sense saying “pleaded” when “pled” means the same thing and is fewer letters”
SgrAstar
@Lapassionara: Orrin Hatch is cognitively far, far beyond his sell-by date. At his best he was never more than a malicious, malingering moocher.
Amaranthine RBG
@Neldob:
The narcissism of small differences in action.
I am astounded that any progressive or moderate in America in 2017 would not subscribe to the NYT and the WaPo. Ate the perfect, of course not. But they are the best papers in existence.
Bill Arnold
@No Drought No More:
I tend to tentatively categorize a person who say nonsense like this as (1) a Russian troll or (b) a stealth Republican troll or (c) a America must be destroyed to save it radical troll or (d) a America must be destroyed because it is bad radical troll or (e) a troll with some other agenda. Just saying; it doesn’t look good and is not helpful. Republicans have agency.
Do you blame Newt Gingrich et al on the Clintons too?
James E. Powell
@CarolDuhart2:
The two justices are the most overlooked accomplishments of the Clinton administration.
Bill Arnold
@Quinerly:
When deliberate and very calculated, this sort of thing is sometimes called “flushing game”. When it’s random and unthinking, … well, he’s right, information can be gathered from the echoes of random pings.
SWMBO
@Neldob: I wonder if Ivanka will have a line of hair shirts and orange jumpsuits in the spring collection?