Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The lights are all blinking red.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Shut up, hissy kitty!

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Yet Another Russiagate Open Thread: These Crappy New Reboots Are Too Rushed

Yet Another Russiagate Open Thread: These Crappy New Reboots Are Too Rushed

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Love the graphic, tho…

Sure, we all remember the basic outlines, but it just makes the whole process feel sketchy!
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Meanwhile, in Would this face lie to you? developments…

… K. T. McFarland served on the presidential transition team before becoming the White House deputy national security adviser. In July, she was questioned in writing by Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, on whether she had ever spoken to Mr. Flynn about his contacts with Sergey I. Kislyak, who was then the Russian ambassador to Washington, before Mr. Trump took office.

“I am not aware of any of the issues or events described above,” Ms. McFarland wrote in response, sidestepping a direct answer to the question.

An email exchange obtained by The New York Times indicates that Ms. McFarland was aware at the time of a crucial Dec. 29 phone call between Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak that was intercepted by American intelligence. During that call, Mr. Flynn urged Moscow to respond cautiously to sanctions just imposed by the Obama administration for Russia’s interference in the presidential election.

If senators on the Foreign Relations Committee find that Ms. McFarland was evasive in her testimony, it could complicate her nomination to become ambassador to Singapore. Repeated attempts to reach Ms. McFarland, who left her post as deputy national security adviser in May, were unsuccessful…

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Reader Interactions

140Comments

  1. 1.

    Bobby Thomson

    I don’t know why Barro thinks McFarland won’t be confirmed. Republicans already crossed the pro-pedophilia bridge. There is literally nothing that goes too far for them in the service of sticking it to the browns, the poors, and the frails.

  2. 2.

    Barbara

    @Bobby Thomson: They don’t like her as it is. I agree that if they liked her they would find some reason to confirm her. On the other hand, they really don’t like being lied to, and this looks like truly like bald faced lying.

  3. 3.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    “Forget the myths the media created about the White House. The truth is, these aren’t very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”

    Should be a rotating tag on every blog and website. I keep coming back to this “the lawyer wrote the tweet crap”. If it’s well established that Scavino sometimes tweets as trump, why not just say he did it? The more I hear lawyers talk about it, the dumber Dowd’s taking the fall for this seems.

  4. 4.

    Mnemosyne

    I’m not sure echoing Nixon is the brilliant PR move they seem to think it is.

    As different-church-lady and Adam were saying below: first time as tragedy, second time as farce.

    ETA: And for those who feel compelled to get their doom-n-gloom on, Dr. Strangelove was a farce.

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought I heard Chris Hayes say Dowd originally said he emailed the text of the tweet to Scavino, then, when asked if he could produce the email, said he’d “dictated it orally.” Can they really be that goddamned stupid? (Rhetorical question!)

    Someone said over the weekend that Team Trump is so bumbling because Trump himself is such a dumpster fire that no reputable people will work for him. That thesis is proving true, I think.

  7. 7.

    burnspbesq

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    To an extent, that depends on your opinion of Dowd. I would have said that the guy has had a long and noteworthy career, and this seems way out of character. After listening to Preet Bharara throw shade on Dowd on NPR this morning, I’m no longer sure of that.

  8. 8.

    oatler.

    There is no limit to stupidity. – Space itself is said to be bounded by its own curvature, but stupidity continues beyond infinity.
    -Gene Wolfe

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @burnspbesq: I’ll have to look for that. I’ve been trying to remember if Dowd was the one screaming at reporters on the street after an IIRC insider trading (?) trial

    ETA: Among esquires, is Dershowitz generally considered to have gone ’round the bend?

  11. 11.

    Mike J

    Alex Parker ‏Verified account @AlexParker
    Trump’s lawyer: “The president cannot obstruct justice, even if he tried, which he hasn’t, but if he did, which he didn’t, he couldn’t.”

  14. 14.

    Mary G

    I still can’t believe we’re losing to these people. Obama was so smart and moral and the Republican government is a clown car.

  15. 15.

    jl

    One thing that looks kind of bad is that there weren’t tapes and a presidential records act back in the day. So, you can’t just go and find the Founders and Framers talking about destroying records, or audio and visual recordings, and computer files, for corrupt reasons, specifically, as being crimes if the president does it

    But, hoodoodanode, they knew about firing people and pardoning people back in the day. Those were Things, even back then. So, you actually can just go and find the Founders and Framers talking about firing and pardoning people for corrupt reasons specifically as being crimes. So, then it is a matter of whether to handle the problem in criminal court, or Congress through impeachment, conviction and removal from office.

    Edit: everything is so unfair to Trump, ain’t it?

  19. 19.

    jl

    I read the Slate interview with Dershowitz, and the way he explains his position, it seems plausible, but just for a couple of seconds. I guess because Dershowitz suddenly makes some distinctions that I hadn’t thought of before, I paused for a moment and wondered if he was on to something. But he wasn’t, it seems to me. He’s just wrong and nuts.

    The presidential pardon is a Constitutionally authorized power. The Framers (edit: Madison’s quote is the most famous, I think) said that if the president used it corruptly to protect himself, then that was a crime, and worthy of removal from office. IANAL, but it seems open and shut to me.

    Dershowitz is just saying dumb stuff to get on TV.

  20. 20.

    B.B.A.

    There is a difference between this and Watergate, which is that Congress was willing to act against Nixon. Replay it with a couple hundred Earl Landgrebes in the House and a few dozen in the Senate, and Nixon serves out his term with distinction. 40 years later, only paranoid hippies will have heard of that third-rate burglary attempt.

  21. 21.

    Barbara

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I had a discussion at lunch with a colleague about this and he just kept coming back to how anybody could have thought that tweeting this information was a good idea, forget about obstruction of justice. If Trump knew that Flynn had lied to the FBI why did he keep him on board for so long? How could anybody have thought that would be a helpful fact to highlight?

  22. 22.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    @jl:

    I don’t know what Deshowitz’s thing is, but about ten years ago, he went all in on torture, which was enough or me to write him off as anybody worth listening to. But, Lordy, do conservatives love throwing this guy up so they can point to him and tell us a real by-God liberal says Trump can’t be a criminal, so it must be true. I don’t know what made him sell out or whatever it is he’s done.

  24. 24.

    jl

    But Dershowitz wants us to know he is not being extreme at all. He is being moderate. He is sophisticated and making important distinctions that we have to keep in mind, is all.

    He is just making up arbitrary meaningless distinctions that have no legal or historical significance to get as much dust up in the air as possible in as short a time as possible. But, at least Dershowitz is reasonable. The president could obstruct justice by hiring a hit man to go out and get rid of trouble makers. And the law would be on that damn president and bring him to justice, and prevent dictatorship, at least, until he pardoned the hit man and himself.

    But, we can all feel proud of ourselves anyway, because we keep subtle distinctions in mind!

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bobby Thomson: They’re making a kidnapper and torturer (on behalf of covering up Nixon’s watergate crimes) the ambassador to the Czech Republic, so I doubt this is going to be an issue. Also, this Steve King is a form Deputy AG under Nixon, not the racist member of Congress.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/568255228/after-flynn-plea-what-comes-next-in-russia-investigation?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

    BHARARA: Look. He’s the president’s defense lawyer. And he has to say things in the press and in the media that defend the president. I have a lot of experience with John Dowd. He represented some high-profile people in cases before my office. And he said then as he’s saying now a lot of incorrect, mistaken and, on occasion, ludicrous things. So I don’t put a lot of stock in it.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Give this a read:
    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/12/an_interview_with_alan_dershowitz_on_trump_and_the_mueller_investigation.html

    Here’s a choice bit:

    Let’s take, for example, the very act that caused Flynn to lie. Flynn lied about whether or not he had asked Kislyak to either delay the vote at the Security Council or to vote against the Security Council resolution regarding Israel. President Obama changed years and years of American policy, as he was a lame duck, by telling his ambassador to the U.N. that she had to abstain rather than veto. What if I can prove to you, and I think I can, that President Obama was not motivated by what was good for America or what was good for world peace? He was motivated by anger, frustration, and pique at Benjamin Netanyahu.

    This was his attempt to get even with Netanyahu, and he was badly motivated. Let’s assume we find a memo that says that. We’re not going to go after the president for that. Politically we will. We’ll attack him, as I did, but we’re not going to go after him for a crime, for him using personal pique to hurt America. That’s political.

    But what’s the underlying crime in the Obama scenario?

    Well it would just by, you’d have to … obviously, it’s not like obstruction of justice, but you could argue that, for example, if a president took a bribe from the Arabs to do that, he’d be guilty of a crime. Here, he’s doing it for crasser reasons. Taking a bribe, he’s doing it for personal gain and benefit. Even if there were a crime, nobody would ever imagine doing that. We don’t psychoanalyze the motives of presidents, or of justices, or senators.

  39. 39.

    gene108

    @Mary G:

    If good decent people always win because of their goodness, we would have much less suffering on Earth.

    Fact is grabbing power seems to self-sort to some of the worst people on the planet.

  43. 43.

    gene108

    @B.B.A.:

    There is a difference between this and Watergate, which is that Congress was willing to act against Nixon.

    Democratic House and a Democratic Senate makes a biiiiiiiiiggggggg difference, in my opinion.

  45. 45.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Adam L Silverman: I don’t even know how to respond to this. I tried writing several versions of it to try and sound as smarmy and idiotic as he does here, and… I can’t do it.

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MisterForkbeard: I met him once. When I was a post-doc at UF one of the centers I was affiliated with, Jewish Studies, brought him in to give a talk. He did a smaller colloquium with select undergrad and grad students and faculty, followed by a luncheon. Very pleasant, personable guy at the luncheon (I was seated next to him). I really don’t remember much from either the big, open to campus/community talk or the colloquium, just that he was a pleasant person. I can’t speak to his legal scholarship or his capabilities in the courtroom, but his polemical work is full of shoddy reasoning, strawmen, and a litany of other problems.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @Peale:

    I’ll try to channel: Taking a bribe is a logical decision to prize money over one’s duty to the country. Trying to screw Bibi over because he’s screwed you over multiple times is just being emotional and petty.

    Nah, it doesn’t make any sense that way, either. I’m stumped.

  51. 51.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Mnemosyne: The nuclear community has a great penchant for dark humor. It’s the only way to stay sane. A week or two ago, an author (who I wasn’t aware of) with some hundreds of thousands of followers recommended following the nukes on Twitter, because we are so congenial with each other while educating others about stuff like North Korean missile tests. I love Dr. Strangelove, have memorized great swathes of it. And it’s as true today as it was when it came out.

    @NotMax: I haven’t followed that closely, but the sense of that Twitter nuke community seems to be yes, they targeted the nuclear complex, but the fuel was not loaded and the reactors had never operated. Retaliation by UAE is expected. Jeffrey Lewis (@armscontrolwonk) is looking pretty closely at it.

  52. 52.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: I saw Failsafe for the first time a year or so after first watching Strangelove. It was absolutely impossible to take the former seriously at that point.

  53. 53.

    eemom

    “Forget the myths the media created about the White House. The truth is, these aren’t very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”

    Glad you quoted this.

    FYI to the young’uns (including but not limited to those ignorant enough to diss Neil Young), it’s from Deep Throat in All the President’s Men — and as you can see it is even more a propos today than it was in 1974.

  54. 54.

    LurkerNoLonger

    @Mary G: I get the SNL reference, but I would argue that we’re not losing. Trump is historically unpopular, the tax bill that just barely passed is historically unpopular, Republicans in general are about as popular as the Mursa virus, and indictments of Trump officials will be dropping on the regular every Friday from here until the whole sorry bumbling scharade comes tumbling down. We are saying and doing the right things and I think it’s working.

  56. 56.

    patrick II

    I’m not sure echoing Nixon is the brilliant PR move they seem to think it is.

    I am not sure what choice they have. It’s clear of what at least Flynn did, and they know what he is saying about them — because they did it. So, to say it’s all fake news isn’t feasible anymore, which leaves them with — we did it, but it’s not illegal. Or as Nixon says, if a president does it it’s not illegal, or in Trump’s case if someone who is going to be president does it it’s not illegal. Or, in Trump’s mind, if Trump does it it’s never illegal.

  58. 58.

    dmsilev

    That photo in the first Tweet makes Donald look like a poofed up bird getting set to attack his own reflection. Which I could totally see happening.

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

  60. 60.

    The Dangerman

    I’m not sure echoing Nixon is the brilliant PR move they seem to think it is.

    They don’t give a shit about brilliant; they are in full-on flinging poo mode, brilliant or not, and hoping something sticks enough to give them pretense to fire Mueller.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @Mnemosyne

    May or may not concur with that, but that differs from what you posited above, which was what the response addressed.

    because there was no other way to approach the material

  63. 63.

    Amaranthine RBG

    Hey look, it’s Amy Fiscus linking to the New York Times breaking a story that will likely result in felony charges for yet another Trumpling.

    I think it is kind of nice having a newspaper doing that sort of reporting.

  64. 64.

    GregB

    Mohammed bin Salman swings and misses again. Days after Saleh turns on the Houthis, he gets the Ghaddafi treatment.

    We can assume that Iran us going to run circles around him and then humiliate him before he is driven to exile or worse.

  66. 66.

    Steve in the ATL

    Hello? Can anyone see this post? I was having dinner with Ruckus and I must have blacked out. I woke up in what appears to be a dungeon and my pants are missing. Help!

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    I see you’re feeling pedantic today, so I’ll let you vent that spleen a different way. If you were describing a bakery that specializes in food from Argentina, would you call it “an Argentinean bakery” or “an Argentine bakery”?

  72. 72.

    West of the Cascades

    @Mary G:

    I still can’t believe we’re losing to these people.

    The supposedly liberal NYT headlines this story as “McFarland’s Testimony About Russia Contacts is Questioned” instead of “McFarland Lied to Congress in Written Testimony.” These people are more ruthless, e.g. FoxNews or Breitbar would have headlined it “[Obama Administration Official] Should Be Boiled Alive After Lying to Congress.”

  73. 73.

    Steve in the ATL

    @eemom:

    “Forget the myths the media created about the White House. The truth is, these aren’t very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”

    Glad you quoted this.

    FYI to the young’uns (including but not limited to those ignorant enough to diss Neil Young), it’s from Deep Throat in All the President’s Men — and as you can see it is even more a propos today than it was in 1974.

    1. What eemom said.
    2. Neil Young is awesome.
    3. “All the President’s Men” is on HBO at this very moment.

  74. 74.

    Duane

    “And things got out of hand”… Im gonna remember that the next time my stupid plan blows up and threatens world stability.

  75. 75.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @West of the Cascades: I keep thinking the last few days that it was barely a month ago that it was announced that Fredo and the Princess were on the verge of indictment at the time of a coincidental campaign donation to the Manhattan DA. A story that would’ve launched a thousand hearings for a Dem president, or caused a shitload of trouble for a senator or governor, just kind of faded away after a couple of days

  76. 76.

    Adam L Silverman

    @GregB: He’s not. While he’s been very public about it being unprofessional for retired general officers/flag officers taking partisan political stands, he’s used the platforms he has, including his twitter account to basically subtweet the President and several others. He’s currently working on a book entitled “Radical Inclusion. He is highly educated, a consummate professional, and was considered to be one of the best general officers/flag officers of his generation.

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    @Mnemosyne:
    Kubrick began “Strangelove” as a drama then changed it to a farce after deducing it would have been far too grim otherwise. Of course without Sellers who can say what the heck they would have made.

  82. 82.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Mnemosyne:

    Dick is funnier. Will Ferrell and Bruce McCullough are the perfect Woodward and Bernstein.

    That was an unexpectedly fun movie

  83. 83.

    Ruckus

    @Mary G:
    It’s a clown car with the steering wheel turned hard right and tied there. Which is OK because none of the clowns know how to drive. Or tie their shoes, zip their pants, or even be human.

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    Does anyone know whether Hannity’s tick tock tweet from yesterday about today finished ticking and tocking or do we have one of these two scenarios?

  87. 87.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Adam L Silverman: Hannity was most likely assured that indictments for Hillary were happening any minute now because of that whole “guy who preferred Hillary and said so in a private text message also worked on the Hillary investigation.” thing.

    He’d believe it. The hair spray has leeched out what few brain cells he had left.

  91. 91.

    NotMax

    @Mnemosyne

    Not particularly pedantic. It seemed you wanted to stir up a debate about which is a better film, or the better film. Totally irrelevant to the original response, which was a flat statement of fact that at the same time period there was another film which approached the same subject matter from a different perspective.

  92. 92.

    Yarrow

    @Mnemosyne: @Steve in the ATL: Love that movie. Thought it was going to be dumb and it ended up being very funny. Lots of fun little touches throughout the whole thing. Great cast.

    @Adam L Silverman: I expect it was the FBI person who was let go over the summer. They’re losing their minds over it in wingnuttia.

  94. 94.

    Ruckus

    @Steve in the ATL:
    You must have climbed into that black van I was parked next to when you got out. That will teach you to climb into innocent looking things that can actually be spaceships. How was the anal probe?

  98. 98.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I knew some smartass would say that as soon as I hit “comment.”

    And, yes, the joke that two teenage girls are the real “Deep Throat” but Woodward and Bernstein are too embarrassed to admit it is, like, a quadruple entendre.

  101. 101.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Yarrow: I’d say this is all they need to decide Mueller is corrupt and Hillary should have been indicted, but… they were already doing that.

  111. 111.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I don’t think I’ve ever heard applause so smattered as when Billy Bush walked out on Colbert’s stage

  113. 113.

    Scotian

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I was just browsing as I was starting to drift off to sleep when I saw this wonderful Ivanova quote, which in itself is one of my faves from her in B5, but pairing it with Marvin just makes it ever the so much sweeter. Thanks for the laugh and the genuine smile, I’ve had few of those as of late.

    Thanks for you and those like you and Cheryl Rofer for being here, I really appreciate the POV you both in particular bring, especially in the current realities we are living with on the security and intelligence fronts.

  121. 121.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Ruckus:

    You must have climbed into that black van I was parked next to when you got out

    In my defense, it was full of stewardesses earlier.

  129. 129.

    mike in dc

    It’s a slippery slope from solid legal arguments to disingenuous legal arguments to pure sophistry. Dershowitz has slipped all the way down. To me it seems self evident that using the powers of the presidency for a corrupt purpose is an impeachable offense, and using said powers to protect himself and co-conspirators from discovery/consequences is clearly obstruction of justice. The idea that the president has the power to do this, and therefore it can never be a crime, is just pure sophistry.

  130. 130.

    AxelFoley

    @dmsilev:

    That photo in the first Tweet makes Donald look like a poofed up bird getting set to attack his own reflection. Which I could totally see happening.

    ROFOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

  132. 132.

    chopper

    @Betty Cracker:

    also the sort of people trump hires are not just buffoons, they’re also bro-types who don’t known how to work with anybody else. they’re all primadonnas who don’t check with anybody else in the shop before they talk.

  133. 133.

    chopper

    @AxelFoley:

    that photo is also another daily reminder of how ill the guy is. look at that fucking posture! he looks like fucking quasimodo.

  134. 134.

    Procopius

    She won’t like Singapore. It’s hot. All the people are Asian. They are smart. She will not do well there.

  135. 135.

    cat

    @dmsilev: Yeah, if TPTB are trying to dispel rumors that he’s going senile, maybe don’t post the picture where he’s trying to reach the other Trump hiding behind the mysterious force field.

  136. 136.

    Procopius

    @jl:

    And the law would be on that damn president and bring him to justice, …

    Assumes facts not in evidence. Who is this “the law” that you speak of? Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, by any chance? The first AG I’ve seen who is obviously more corrupt than Edwin Meese (Gonzales didn’t come close — he was too dumb).

  139. 139.

    J R in WV

    I looked at that photo, didn’t really take it all in, the reflection and all.

    It is an amazing photo, and that reflection, which reveals the man inside. Amazing.

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