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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

He really is that stupid.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Russiagate Open Thread: “Perjury Trap”

Russiagate Open Thread: “Perjury Trap”

by Anne Laurie|  February 26, 20188:17 am| 173 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Dolt 45, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Russiagate, Assholes

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Trump’s lawyers are still considering ways for him to testify before Mueller, provided the questions are limited and don’t focus on specifics where the president might perjure himself. https://t.co/tgUJzaP3VU

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) February 25, 2018

Swear to Murphy the Trickster God, Trump’s defenders sound like they have no idea what the concept of “ethics” involves; they seem to think it’s a synonym for “tactics”.

Trump’s lawyers keep talking about Trump being interviewed by Mueller as a “perjury trap.” But that’s not an actual thing. It’s like calling a barn filled with hay “an arson trap.” It’s only a “trap” if you’re an arsonist. https://t.co/z3it5fTAud

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) February 25, 2018

(The legal use of ‘perjury trap’ is specific to a form of prosecutorial misconduct that amounts to entrapment—and it’s definitely not the same thing as the very real risk that a known serial liar will, well, lie under oath). https://t.co/X1T0pBzc46

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) February 25, 2018

Randall D. Eliason, in the Washington Post:

… The word “trap” connotes a snare set by investigators for the innocent and unwary. Should the president end up charged with perjury or false statements, you can expect to hear arguments that the charges are illegitimate because Mueller unfairly caught the president in a trap. Or perhaps the president and his lawyers will use the perjury-trap claim to justify refusing to be interviewed altogether.

But “perjury trap” is a specific legal defense, related to entrapment. A claim of a perjury trap is really a claim of prosecutorial misconduct. It refers to an abuse of the legal process, whereby a prosecutor subpoenas a witness to testify not for a legitimate investigative purpose but to try to catch him in an inconsistency or falsehood — even a relatively minor one — that can then trigger a perjury charge…

Being called to testify and therefore having the opportunity to commit perjury does not make that testimony a perjury trap. If that were the case, every witness could make the same argument. Claiming that Trump’s testimony would be a perjury trap is like saying driving a car is a “speeding trap” because being behind the wheel gives you the opportunity to exceed the speed limit.

Characterizing the president’s interview as a potential perjury trap is simply wrong. But it is of a piece with the broader effort by the president and his political allies to discredit Mueller’s investigation. It suggests — wrongly — that Mueller is treating the president unfairly. If the president commits perjury or false statements, it will be because he chose to lie — not because he was caught in a “trap.”…

Of course, Ken Starr’s freewheeling ‘Whitewater’ investigation hinged on exactly this kind of ‘perjury trap’ — the Repubs couldn’t prove Clinton had committed any of the crimes they were sure he was responsible for, but by GOP Jeebus they could indict him for lying about what he did with Monica Lewinsky. I guess they must still consider that incident a great success, and can’t understand why Democrats wouldn’t pull the same sort of two-bit theatrical shystering, given a chance…

I suspect they are at least equally concerned that he will be truthful about things they’d prefer he not discuss. Some of his biggest problems have occurred by telling the truth (Holt interview, blabbing to Putin, incrimitweet, etc) https://t.co/4KEtOIgzMR

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) February 26, 2018


Look at all the incriminating stuff he says ON TV. His lawyers aren't afraid he'll lie. They're terrified he'll tell the truth. https://t.co/20DCQSA1O3

— Zeddy (@Zeddary) February 25, 2018

As a lawyer, what it tells me is that they know he will lie or make something up that isn't true bc he cannot remember his friends' names on any given day. They just do not have a way to just say "Look, he has early stages of dementia so that this perjury thing shouldn't apply."

— Tina Tee (@TinaPB17) February 25, 2018

Coda:

President Trump and his aides say they are not worried, since none of the charges implicate the president. Yet the Mueller probe seems to be leading to a larger, as yet undefined, goal. https://t.co/Im7I8guAdI pic.twitter.com/u2PqFOwuvj

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) February 26, 2018

“[A] larger, as yet undefined, goal.” Not *that* large, comes the protest tweet — 239 as defined, maybe 245 after a long week of no golfing and two scoops of ice cream at every lunch…

Read this, thought “omg, what bullshit, this _has_ to be Peter Baker.”

It’s by Peter Baker. https://t.co/j43lIHBIWP

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) February 26, 2018

With the assistance of Maggie Habermann, of course!

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Reader Interactions

173Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    February 26, 2018 at 8:22 am

    “…a larger, as yet undefined, goal.” Ya think? Maybe something along the lines of “doing the work reporters SHOULD have been doing during the campaign?”

  2. 2.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    February 26, 2018 at 8:25 am

    If he’s so innocent of treason, why would he lie.

  3. 3.

    Jeffro

    February 26, 2018 at 8:26 am

    Btw since this is an OT, here’s a link for those so inclined: Left to Louisiana’s Tides, a Village Fights For Time. Great interactive feature from, um, that paper.

    The coast these days is awash in ambitious engineering projects. Near Jean Lafitte, for instance, more than 1,000 acres of marsh have been created in and around Bayou Dupont in an $82 million state-managed project that pumped sand from the Mississippi up to 13 miles away. Where open water stood in 2009, there is now walkable land, thick with saplings and shrubs.

    But before money could be appropriated for the Lafitte levees, the master plan’s authors adopted far more pessimistic forecasts of the impact of climate change. They effectively doubled their previous 50-year projections for likely sea level rise to more than two feet, the highest rate in the country, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    That made the worst-case scenario in the 2012 master plan the best case for 2017 and led to a startling reversal: Louisiana could slow the submergence of the coast, but not arrest it. Even if the plan was somehow fully funded, and the state succeeded in adding or maintaining 800 square miles of wetlands over 50 years, there would still be a net loss of at least 400 square miles and possibly as many as 3,300.

    That recalibration necessarily shifted the state’s approach. “Once you accept the diagnosis that much of south Louisiana is going to disappear, you still have to have a strategic retreat,” said David Muth, director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Gulf Restoration Program. “How do you plan this shrinking of the footprint, which is complicated by socioeconomics and by real questions about how fast sea level will rise and how fast you can build wetlands?”

    Torbjörn E. Törnqvist, a Tulane geologist who is an authority on subsidence, warned that decisions about places like Lafitte would be “a piece of cake compared to what’s coming — because a little down the line we’re going to be talking about communities not of 2,000 people but of much bigger things.”

    And then there’s the matter of where to find the master plan’s aspirational $50 billion — twice the entire state budget.

    Denial is a powerful force. Climate change is a stronger one.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    February 26, 2018 at 8:26 am

    The bigger problem for Trump is that he got caught in a treason trap.

  5. 5.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 26, 2018 at 8:32 am

    Trump’s lawyers are still considering ways for him to testify before Mueller, provided the questions are limited and don’t focus on specifics where the president might perjure himself.

    Who do they think they’re dealing with, a Republican Congress? That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

  6. 6.

    Jonny Scrum-half

    February 26, 2018 at 8:33 am

    My only issue with this post is the suggestion that it’s the Democrats that are investigating Trump. Mueller was appointed by a Trump appointee.

  7. 7.

    Cermet

    February 26, 2018 at 8:38 am

    @Jeffro: The rising ocean due to corporate global warming is NOT the issue that will impact the most people within 40 years. Rather, much of the equatorial regions of the Earth will become uninhabitable! Billions of people will have to flee causing untold disasters, hardships, war, deaths and economic destruction on a scale few can imagine. Yet, it is rarely discussed like the far slower and less serious rise in ocean levels. This will be due to peak temperatures in summer never going low enough at night to allow any human to cool off enough to survive the heat. These super hot nights will start to become a major issue within twenty years for some limited locations (Mississippi valley (!), parts of China due to humidity factors combined with rising temps.) Then following the next twenty or so years, vast regions will have weeks upon weeks of temps no human can endure without AC. Exactly how will we react as billions are forced into vast migrations, causing massive dislocations/hunger and certainly wars. This far faster slow motion disaster in the making is THE elephant in the room far too few people are bothering to take note of or prepare.

  8. 8.

    bystander

    February 26, 2018 at 8:40 am

    Moanin’ Joe is pre-eulogizing McCain by way of backhanding twitler. While I enjoy watching Joe kicking him in the groin, I think everyone in the media should be ignoring twitler’s attacks on McCain.

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    February 26, 2018 at 8:44 am

    @Jeffro:

    Denial is a powerful force. Climate change is a stronger one.

    I wish somebody could convince North Carolina.

  10. 10.

    Chyron HR

    February 26, 2018 at 8:44 am

    @Cermet:

    Yes, but we saved the world from the “neoliberal status quo”.

  11. 11.

    jonas

    February 26, 2018 at 8:49 am

    Mueller’s definitely going to be interested in getting Trump under oath in two areas: 1. What did Trump know about the extent and nature of his staff’s contacts with Russians, particularly Flynn and Manafort, and the Russians’ offer to help him by providing the campaign with stolen emails from Hillary/DNC. 2. The firing of James Comey and other attempts to obstruct the investigation into nr. 1.

    He’s pretty much copped to these things in various interviews/off-the-cuff comments (e.g. asking Russians to release Hillary’s emails). If he’s asked about it under oath, he WILL lie and his lawyers know this. Trump has none of Reagan’s avuncular charm and can’t just get up on the stand and do an emoji shrug (¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and claim he can’t recall anything.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    February 26, 2018 at 8:49 am

    I think Trump will inevitably lie to Mueller’s people — not so much strategically because he doesn’t think ahead, but more as his idea of a power move; and of course they will know when he’s lying. He will also volunteer, or confirm to them, facts that he doesn’t realise will incriminate him and/or others in his circle. Normally a lawyer would be able to keep a client clear of either hazard, but Trump is pigheaded and probably more devoid of feck than the typical criminal suspect. I pity the lawyer who has to sit with him for the questioning.

  13. 13.

    Kay

    February 26, 2018 at 8:51 am

    Weren’t we assured last week by the Trump Whisperers at the NYTimes that General Kelly was gonna rein in the Trumps on their abuse of the security clearance process?

    When does that happen? Seems pretty clear to me Kelly was just blowing smoke up their ass so they’d drop it. Again. Drop it again.

    How many times do they buy his bullshit? Fifty? One hundred?

  14. 14.

    SRW1

    February 26, 2018 at 8:54 am

    … provided the questions are limited and don’t focus on specifics where the president might perjure himself.

    So questions about his golf scores and his glove size are verboten.

  15. 15.

    chopper

    February 26, 2018 at 8:55 am

    i like the barn-full-of-hay analogy but I would have said it’s like roy moore calling a fifteen year old girl a “molestation trap”

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    February 26, 2018 at 8:58 am

    Balloon Juice is a snark trap.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    :)

    @Amir Khalid

    He will lie because that’s what he does. No forethought, no weighing of words, blurting whatever spatters out of the brain pan and deluding himself that if he says it, it is true.

  17. 17.

    VOR

    February 26, 2018 at 8:58 am

    @Jonny Scrum-half: Mueller is also a registered Republican, originally appointed to the FBI by a Republican president.

  18. 18.

    Adrift

    February 26, 2018 at 8:59 am

    @Cermet:

    Rather, much of the equatorial regions of the Earth will become uninhabitable!

    But of course it isn’t discussed as it affects countries full of brown and black people.

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    February 26, 2018 at 9:01 am

    Wait, is McCain at death’s door? Do the tire swingers think he’s about to leave this mortal coil?

    I saw a magazine dedicated to John McCain in a grocery store recently. Ready to cash in on an impending death, hmmm?

  20. 20.

    JPL

    February 26, 2018 at 9:04 am

    @Elizabelle: I just streamed the end of Morning Joe, and it appears that way. The second thing Trump will do is ask them to repeal ACA again. Of course the first will be an attempt at empathy.

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    February 26, 2018 at 9:06 am

    @Kay:
    As long as Donald Trump is the boss of him, Kelly can never rein in die Trumpenkinder. That’s obvious now to anyone who’s been paying attention. Haberman and her colleagues must know it too, but they have the burden of keeping their beat sweet. I would ask, what is the point of maintaining access to people who lie to you and bullshit you. But I never worked for a really big, internationally prestigious newspaper like The NYT, so what do I know?

  22. 22.

    low-tech cyclist

    February 26, 2018 at 9:06 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Wait, is McCain at death’s door? Do the tire swingers think he’s about to leave this mortal coil?

    The message board where I do most of my hanging out online has a Death Pool*. A fair number of the players have McCain on their lists.

    *You pick 13 celebrity names before the year begins, and if that person dies during the year, you get (100 – age) points. No prize for winning, just bragging rights.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    February 26, 2018 at 9:07 am

    Jesus. They get worse every day.

    President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign used a photo of a survivor of the Parkland, Florida, shooting in an email Saturday that asks its recipients to donate money to the campaign.
    The email contains a photo of 17-year-old Madeleine Wilford in a hospital bed surrounded by her family, Trump and the first lady. The President visited Wilford on February 16, two days after the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which left 17 dead.

    The Trump Administration are bottom of the barrel people, never mind “the President”. They don’t even meet minimum standards as average human beings.

    And the Trump Family hire every one of these scumbags. Because it starts at the top.

  24. 24.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 9:07 am

    @Kay:

    Weren’t we assured last week by the Trump Whisperers at the NYTimes that General Kelly was gonna rein in the Trumps on their abuse of the security clearance process?

    they are desperate for Kelly to be ‘ the Adult in the Room.’

    desperate.

  25. 25.

    eric

    February 26, 2018 at 9:08 am

    If i was a betting man, i would bet that the $64,000 question that Mueller wants to prove and wants to ask Trump: Did you attend the meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian lawyer? I think the answer is yes and I think Mueller needs Manafort to lock it in (with a statement made to Manafort by Trump, as a statement against interest/party opponent).

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    February 26, 2018 at 9:08 am

    @JPL: Hmmm. I broke my rule of “no MSNBC or cable news” for 90 seconds and caught that. Morning Joke auditioning for a eulogy. Or signalling to others that he is “in the know.”

    Back to TCM with the sound off.

    I cannot stand news programs. They talk the problem to death, and you get too much of the rightwing hysteria, either addressed or purveyed.

  27. 27.

    japa21

    February 26, 2018 at 9:08 am

    I guess they must still consider that incident a great success, and can’t understand why Democrats wouldn’t pull the same sort of two-bit theatrical shystering, given a chance

    This is SOP for Republicans. They always accuse Dems of doing what they do naturally. They just assume everybody is as corrupt as they are.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    February 26, 2018 at 9:08 am

    @Cermet:
    This resident of the tropics appreciates your optimism.

  29. 29.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 9:11 am

    @Kay:

    President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign used a photo of a survivor of the Parkland, Florida, shooting in an email Saturday that asks its recipients to donate money to the campaign.
    The email contains a photo of 17-year-old Madeleine Wilford in a hospital bed surrounded by her family, Trump and the first lady. The President visited Wilford on February 16, two days after the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which left 17 dead.

    Simply vile and disgusting.

  30. 30.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 26, 2018 at 9:12 am

    Hey if there are any Aussies on this thread, if I send someone there a US Postal Service international money order, is that an instrument they can cash without incurring a (significant) fee?

  31. 31.

    Betty Cracker

    February 26, 2018 at 9:12 am

    Jesus, this fucking entitled twit:

    “Do you believe your father’s [sexual misconduct] accusers?” –@PeterAlexander

    “I think it’s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he’s affirmatively stated there’s no truth to it.” –@IvankaTrump pic.twitter.com/23AVPgcOdE

    — TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 26, 2018

    She works for the goddamned White House, where she’s allegedly assigned the “women’s portfolio.” Her gross father, who has a long and documented history of lechery, brought Bill Clinton’s accusers to a fucking debate with Hillary Clinton. But it’s “inappropriate” to ask Ivanka, White House Defender of the Womens, this question.

  32. 32.

    JPL

    February 26, 2018 at 9:12 am

    @rikyrah: Sick

  33. 33.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 26, 2018 at 9:13 am

    @Elizabelle: John McCain has glioblastoma. That is a death sentence, the only question is how quickly it progresses.

  34. 34.

    R-Jud

    February 26, 2018 at 9:15 am

    You could trap Trump into perjuring himself if you asked how many daughters he has. What’s left? “Is Diet Coke refreshing, Mr. President?”

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    February 26, 2018 at 9:15 am

    @Gin & Tonic: True. But Morning Joke was almost hysterical in his pre-eulogizing.

    From Arizona paper: Cindy and Meghan McCain have been posting some recent pics on Instagram. McCain looks still with us in the Friday pic with the football player.

    Would not doubt he’s severely time-limited. And cancer can take you out very quickly in the end.

    ETA: McCains are at their “cabin” in Cornville, AZ, near Sedona.

  36. 36.

    Betty Cracker

    February 26, 2018 at 9:15 am

    @Elizabelle: I saw that magazine in the checkout line yesterday and thought it was pretty weird to publish such a thing now.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 9:15 am

    In Russia probes, Republicans draw red line at Trump’s finances
    CNN Digital Expansion DC Manu RajuJeremy Herb
    By Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb, CNN

    Updated 8:36 AM ET, Mon February 26, 2018

    Top Republicans on Capitol Hill have made a concerted decision in their Russia inquiries: They are staying away from digging into the finances of President Donald Trump and his family.

    Six Republican leaders of key committees told CNN they see little reason to pursue those lines of inquiry or made no commitments to do so — even as Democrats say determining whether there was a financial link between Trump, his family, his business and Russians is essential to understanding whether there was any collusion in the 2016 elections.

    Republicans have resisted calls to issue subpoenas for bank records, seeking Trump’s tax returns or sending letters to witnesses to determine whether there were any Trump financial links to Russian actors — calling the push nothing more than a Democratic fishing expedition.

    …snip…

    “I think the allegations on money laundering are credible enough that we ought to, in the exercise of due diligence, see if this was one of the other vectors of the Russian active measures campaign,” California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, said earlier this month. “To me, that is far more potentially compromising than any salacious video would be.”

  38. 38.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 9:17 am

    Kamala Harris positions herself for White House run

    Source: The HILL

    Sen. Kamala Harris is increasingly positioning herself for a what is expected to be a crowded Democratic primary for the White House in 2020.

    The former California attorney general, who is just at the beginning of her second year in the Senate, is taking positions that could endear herself with the Democratic base while allowing her to stand out from a group of Democrats who might seek the progressive mantle.

    Harris has also sought to highlight her positions on gun control while carving out an identity as a hard-core critic of the National Rifle Association.

    What Harris and other would-be presidential candidates must be careful about is positioning themselves so far to the left that it backfires in a general election against Trump.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    February 26, 2018 at 9:18 am

    @rikyrah:

    My head would explode were I the parent of that child. I think I would have to spend the rest of my life working to politically and financially destroy the Trump Family.

    The cynicism and pure scumbaggery has no limits. They will do anything. Nothing is too low. There is no bottom.

  40. 40.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 9:20 am

    Private-sector exodus away from NRA picks up steam
    02/26/18 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    About a week ago, ThinkProgress published an interesting item about the National Rifle Association and its corporate partnerships

    After paying the gun lobby’s $40 annual fee, members are offered access to a range of discounts and “five-star savings.”

    Much like AARP or AAA, the organization promotes its discounts for members as a selling point for why people should join. The “valuable 5-star benefits” promised include not just a subscription to an NRA magazine and a gun-owner liability protection policy but also savings on insurance, identity theft protection, hearing aids, car rentals, moving vans, shipping, and even wine.

    ThinkProgress’ list featured 27 of the NRA’s corporate partners, including several brand names that most of the country would immediately recognize, such as some of the nation’s largest rental-car companies.

    ……………………..

    The point, however, is to extend the public backlash, fueled by the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., and push the National Rifle Association closer to pariah status. As we discussed last week, the more the NRA’s brand, such as it is, reaches a toxic level, the more the group finds itself isolated.

    And while the changes won’t happen overnight, the more an advocacy group is pushed to the fringe, the harder it will have to work to maintain political influence.

  41. 41.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 9:21 am

    Long-awaited Democratic document lowers the boom on GOP stunt
    02/26/18 08:33 AM—UPDATED 02/26/18 08:46 AM
    By Steve Benen
    It wasn’t long ago that some of the rabid voices in Republican politics had exceedingly high hopes for the so-called “Nunes memo.” The document, prepared by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and his staff, was one of the most hyped reports in recent memory, which proved to be rather embarrassing when it proved to be utterly pointless.

    The problem was painfully obvious: the memo set out to prove a handful of partisan points, intended to help Donald Trump, and it failed spectacularly. In fact, instead of advancing the White House’s interests, Nunes created a setback for his presidential ally, leaving the GOP worse off than it was before the previously classified materials were released to the public.

    It quickly became clear that the memo had effectively discredited itself. What we didn’t know was that the Democratic rebuttal to Nunes’ document, would make Republicans look even worse.

    Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released a long-awaited and freshly declassified rebuttal Saturday to Republican claims that federal officials abused the process for obtaining warrants to eavesdrop on Carter Page, a former campaign aide to President Donald Trump who had Russian contacts.

    The 10-page memo offers insight into one of the most secretive processes in government, directly quoting from the text of a secret surveillance warrant application to show that the Justice Department had disclosed that some evidence sprang from political opposition research intended to discredit a political campaign, contradicting a key GOP claim.

  42. 42.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 9:22 am

    Public attitudes on gun policy shift quickly following Parkland
    02/26/18 09:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    ……………………

    Support for stricter gun laws has spiked to the highest level since 1993, and almost two-thirds say government and society can take action to prevent future mass shootings, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

    The findings suggest the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, has shifted public opinion on gun laws in a way other recent mass shootings have not.

    Overall, 70% now say they back stricter gun laws, up from 52% who said so in an October poll not long after a mass shooting in Las Vegas killed 58 people. Just 27% oppose stricter laws.

  43. 43.

    sherparick

    February 26, 2018 at 9:28 am

    @Jeffro: Or as as a now disgraced comedian quoted God to Noah, “How long can you tread water?”

    This might be the overly pessimistic take, but from reading in Scientific American and other publications, the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and much of the Antarctica over the next couple hundred years was probably baked into the cake by the end of the 1980s, when we were just getting conscious of Global warming from human burning of fossil fuels because so much of the extra warmth generated in the 19th and 20th centuries was captured by the ocean, and the oceans warming, much more then the atmospheric warming attacks and destabilizes the great ice sheets, causing them both to melt along their edges and to flow into the sea faster. https://www.geek.com/science/science-confirms-that-antarctica-is-screwed-and-so-are-we-1732031/

    Of course the Koch brothers and their Evangelical enablers like Scott Pruitt are busy pouring gasoline on this burning fire, almost literally and not just metaphorically.

    I have heard coal mining called many things, but beautiful? I think not.

  44. 44.

    danielx

    February 26, 2018 at 9:29 am

    Totally OT but brag-worthy, especially to the cat oriented: mah nephew is an artistic genius.

    I asked him to do a drawing for my radiologist sister in law with the general theme of ‘Cat Scan’, giving him the general idea of what I wanted.

    He delivered, in style.

  45. 45.

    sdhays

    February 26, 2018 at 9:29 am

    @Gin & Tonic: McCain is better than most of his Republican colleagues, but that’s such a low bar, it’s essentially meaningless. I’m sure his family will miss him. Anyway, we could have two Senate pick-up opportunities in Arizona this year.

  46. 46.

    laura

    February 26, 2018 at 9:31 am

    @Betty Cracker: She’s giving cover to every white woman who voted for her idiot father.
    She thinks she’s entitled to her own presidency and she’s happy to get her stupid face on camera in a place rightfully belonging to the Olympians.
    Where’s that Delenda Est fella when you need him.

  47. 47.

    rp

    February 26, 2018 at 9:32 am

    Adam or Cheryl (or anyone else) — have you seen Adrian Chen and Masha Gessen’s recent comments that the Russia story is somewhat overblown? Would love to get your thoughts. Thanks much

  48. 48.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 26, 2018 at 9:32 am

    @Kay:

    How many times do they buy his bullshit?

    All of them, Kay Katie.

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    February 26, 2018 at 9:33 am

    @danielx: That is very good. The cat looks vaguely Asian.

  50. 50.

    JPL

    February 26, 2018 at 9:33 am

    @Elizabelle: If I remember I’ll put on the View at eleven and see if Meghan McCain is there.
    It did sound imminent.

  51. 51.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 9:34 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    “Do you believe your father’s [sexual misconduct] accusers?” –@PeterAlexander

    “I think it’s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he’s affirmatively stated there’s no truth to it.” –@IvankaTrump pic.twitter.com/23AVPgcOdE

    — TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 26, 2018

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

    Can’t wait for her to be arrested.

  52. 52.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 26, 2018 at 9:35 am

    @rp: So Chen says to R[ightwing]C[rappy]Politics that in “his personal opinion,” the Russian bot campaign wasn’t effective because English wasn’t their first language? GTFO

  53. 53.

    JPL

    February 26, 2018 at 9:35 am

    @danielx: I love that!

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    February 26, 2018 at 9:36 am

    @JPL: You’re made of stronger stuff than me.

    Also: WRT Ivanka: she’s had work done, no?

    She is looking a lot more like Marla Maples in that shot from Today. Maybe it’s just the angle.

  55. 55.

    Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog

    February 26, 2018 at 9:38 am

    @rikyrah:

    And we’re back to the 27% again.

    What I don’t quite get is how it came to be that the insane minority gets to run and ruin the country.

  56. 56.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 26, 2018 at 9:38 am

    @rp: and same thing from Gessen – just amounts to “those ads were stupid and therefore they couldn’t have mattered.” Umm, Donald Trump was his own best negative ad and he still got votes. The target audience was dumber than shit.

  57. 57.

    JPL

    February 26, 2018 at 9:39 am

    The Supreme Court declined to hear the DACA challenge, and the March 5th date is null and void.

  58. 58.

    matt

    February 26, 2018 at 9:40 am

    Our laws are just lagging behind ‘our’ decision to allow Republicans to lie about everything without any penalties.

  59. 59.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 26, 2018 at 9:41 am

    @rikyrah: WaPo is trying to credit Trump’s tweets for the shift in public opinion on guns. I know what you’re thinking, but they’re claiming he’s supportive.

  60. 60.

    Amir Khalid

    February 26, 2018 at 9:42 am

    @Elizabelle:
    She happens to be of a physical type with her former stepmother. Donald Trump fancies blondes who look like that.

  61. 61.

    matt

    February 26, 2018 at 9:43 am

    @Betty Cracker: I’d have followed up with – so you think it’s the duty of a daughter to believe her father?

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 26, 2018 at 9:44 am

    @rikyrah:

    President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign used a photo of a survivor of the Parkland, Florida, shooting in an email Saturday that asks its recipients to donate money to the campaign.

    Simply vile and disgusting.

    These are the same people who scold “Don’t politicize this tragedy!” every time someone brings up gun control after a mass shooting.

  63. 63.

    Jeffro

    February 26, 2018 at 9:45 am

    @Betty Cracker: @rikyrah: Hey Ivanka, just lie and say “no, I don’t believe them”. Don’t lecture us on what’s inappropriate. You and your traitor-tot brothers and scumbag dad are going to stand for all time* as examples of what not to put into power.

    *or rather, stand until the end of Americans’ pathetically short attention spans…but I’ll still take it…

  64. 64.

    Aimai

    February 26, 2018 at 9:48 am

    @Elizabelle: I am honestly, sincerely, sorry for them. Wish he had chosen to do good with his last years. “Teach us, oh Lord, to number our days.”

  65. 65.

    Betty Cracker

    February 26, 2018 at 9:52 am

    Just got a news alert on my phone saying SCOTUS declined to review the lower court injunction on Trump’s DACA program termination. Can anyone lawsplain?

  66. 66.

    Another Scott

    February 26, 2018 at 9:53 am

    Trump will lie. Film at 11.

    In other news, I saw some small black and white signs on the side of the road on the way to work this morning. Said “#WeAreBijan”.

    https://twitter.com/hashtag/wearebijan?lang=en

    Scott Surovell @ssurovell 18 hours ago

    Today, I ran into Bijan Ghaisar’s parents who were putting up a memorial to their son, 100 days and still no answer as to why he was shot 4 times in the head [ by US Park Police ] while unarmed #WeAreBijan

    WTF?!?

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  67. 67.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 9:56 am

    @rp: Who is Adrian Chen? Should I know him/her. This is the first time I have heard of this person. What makes this person an expert on this issue.

  68. 68.

    satby

    February 26, 2018 at 9:57 am

    @danielx: well done nephew!

  69. 69.

    rp

    February 26, 2018 at 9:59 am

    @schrodingers_cat: Technology writer for the New Yorker.

  70. 70.

    Cheryl Rofer

    February 26, 2018 at 10:02 am

    @rp:

    Adam or Cheryl (or anyone else) — have you seen Adrian Chen and Masha Gessen’s recent comments that the Russia story is somewhat overblown? Would love to get your thoughts. Thanks much

    I greatly admire much of what Masha Gessen says. I don’t know Adrian Chen as well, but he’s had at least one very good scoop. But I think they’re both wrong. One caveat: I don’t watch cable tv, so I could be wrong on some of this. I just don’t see the story being overblown in some of the ways Gessen seems to think it is. I don’t think the Democrats are putting all their hopes on Mueller, as she tends to claim. They’re running lots of candidates in the fall and working on voter registration. It’s a multiprong thing, and the Democrats seem to be able to do more than one thing at a time.

    There has never (never!) been a presidential administration with so many ties to an adversarial nation. Nor a president who will not call out things like Russia’s interference in the election but says only nice things about Vladimir Putin. We need a better relationship with Russia, but their occupation of Crimea and spreading of their corruption need to be addressed.

    It’s possible that some of the cable people get overheated. But I don’t see a demonization in the major newspapers or from the experts I follow on Twitter, just a realization that Russia is not our friend and that the administration has been awfully friendly to them. I’m excluding the breathless 100-tweet-plus threaders, who are not experts.

    ETA: Putting down the Mueller investigation is getting to be a Thing among the Villagers. Blake Hounshell wrote a vapid piece in Politico last week to be in the in-group. I think they are following Gessen, but I also think that she’s getting it wrong. Blake was a better blogger, sad to see him decline this way.

  71. 71.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 10:02 am

    @rp: Thanks. How does that make him an expert on the R efforts to influence the elections?
    Besides do we know for sure that the Russian troll factories had no American help at all?

  72. 72.

    satby

    February 26, 2018 at 10:03 am

    @Betty Cracker: NPR just reported it as a setback for the Trump admin, who appealed the fed court decision against Trump ending DACA.

  73. 73.

    geg6

    February 26, 2018 at 10:05 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    I believe that means that the lower court injunction stands. Meaning no March 5 deadline. But IANAL.

  74. 74.

    Kristine

    February 26, 2018 at 10:05 am

    Do Trumps lawyers not realize that Mueller likely reads articles like this and is noting their concerns?

    They really are a bunch of idiots.

  75. 75.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 10:05 am

    @Betty Cracker: That means that the DACA renewals can continue for now. Here is an immigration attorney’s take

  76. 76.

    PJ

    February 26, 2018 at 10:06 am

    @rp: people clearly were influenced by those ads, because they were repeated by Breitbart and Fox. How much does any ad or news item influence a voter? Hard to say, but the margin in the four states that tipped it for Trump was so slim. I mean, a day before the election, I met a guy who told me some crazy story that he’d read and believed about how Democrats had already been caught hundreds of times trying to vote illegally, and that was one more reason not to vote for Hilary.

    Gessen is no fan of Putin, but she has consistently stated from the beginning that she thinks nothing is to be gained from the criminal investigation of Trump, that it’s just a sideshow that will not amount to anything, and that the real problem with American democracy is American voters. Trump voters are a problem, to be sure, but her unwillingness to put any faith in the current judicial and eventually political process to protect voting and democratic institutions is worrisome.

  77. 77.

    Jeffro

    February 26, 2018 at 10:06 am

    @satby: That was my layman’s take, too – SCOTUS is letting the injunction stand, which means Trumpov can’t proceed with ending DACA. Aw, poor baby!

  78. 78.

    Yarrow

    February 26, 2018 at 10:07 am

    His lawyers aren’t afraid he’ll lie. They’re terrified he’ll tell the truth.

    Tick tock, motherfucker.

  79. 79.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 10:09 am

    @PJ: I have a similar problem with Sister Sarah our lady of relentless negativity, who is too good to be a Democrat.

  80. 80.

    lollipopguild

    February 26, 2018 at 10:10 am

    @NotMax: Yes, when I come to Balloon Juice I am hunting for snark. Big snark, little snark, in between snark. The Snarking of the President.

  81. 81.

    Amir Khalid

    February 26, 2018 at 10:11 am

    @Kristine:
    The smart lawyers won’t work for him. They all know from experience that he doesn’t listen and doesn’t pay. That’s why he can only hire idiots.

  82. 82.

    LAO

    February 26, 2018 at 10:12 am

    Speaking of legal battles and Trump Administration losses, this seems big:

    BREAKING: 2nd Circuit appeals court just ruled in favor of a gay worker, saying anti-gay discrimination is prohibited under 1964 civil rights law. It’s a loss for the Justice Dept, which injected itself into the case to argue against gay rights. https://t.co/FsqqjyW4Of— Dominic Holden (@dominicholden) February 26, 2018

    ETA: It was an en banc decision (heard by all 13 Judges of the Court of Appeals) a very rare thing in the Second Circuit.

  83. 83.

    ET

    February 26, 2018 at 10:12 am

    I always assume that tRump’s lawyers were using perjury trap as shorthand for our client can keep his yap shut and is a perpetual liar who can’t tell the truth even if someone threatened him with fire so he will get caught in a lie and will only make it worse coming up with more lies while trying to explain the lies and he won’t listen to us in any case. I have no sympathy for his lawyers but it can’t be easy to try save tRump from his own worst enemy, himself.

  84. 84.

    PJ

    February 26, 2018 at 10:13 am

    @schrodingers_cat: who is Sister Sarah?

  85. 85.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 10:13 am

    @JPL:

    The Supreme Court declined to hear the DACA challenge, and the March 5th date is null and void.

    YEAH

  86. 86.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 10:14 am

    @PJ: Sarah Kendzior

  87. 87.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 10:14 am

    @Bobby Thomson:

    @rikyrah: WaPo is trying to credit Trump’s tweets for the shift in public opinion on guns. I know what you’re thinking, but they’re claiming he’s supportive

    The curve for Unqualified White men is REAL.

  88. 88.

    japa21

    February 26, 2018 at 10:14 am

    @Jeffro: But he will continue to deport DACA recipients on technical legalities, such as speeding tickets or whatever. He just can’t remove the legal protections from all of them right away.

    As much as he talks about Andrew Jackson, he is too much a coward to follow Jackson’s approach, which was to defy the courts.

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 10:16 am

    @Yarrow:

    Tick tock, motherfucker.

    Thanks….

  90. 90.

    BellyCat

    February 26, 2018 at 10:16 am

    @Cermet:

    The rising ocean due to corporate global warming is NOT the issue that will impact the most people within 40 years. Rather, much of the equatorial regions of the Earth will become uninhabitable! Billions of people will have to flee causing untold disasters, hardships, war, deaths and economic destruction on a scale few can imagine.

    Truth…

  91. 91.

    JPL

    February 26, 2018 at 10:16 am

    @LAO: Good! GA is considering discrimination against adoptions, and also discussing religious liberty again. Even though the governor has vetoed similar bills in the past, I assume Amazon crossed Atlanta off their list for HQ2.

  92. 92.

    Sloane Ranger

    February 26, 2018 at 10:17 am

    @Kay: Do we know anything about the Wilfords’ political affiliation? I ask because we know that at least one parent of a survivor is a gun lover and Trump supporter. And for me the issue would be whether or not he got the girl and parents permission.

    If he did, I don’t think it’s objectionable. OTOH if he didn’t, then it’s gross, exploitive and would be illegal in the UK.

  93. 93.

    Barbara

    February 26, 2018 at 10:17 am

    @Betty Cracker: If Peter Alexander were braver, the follow on question would be, “Would it be inappropriate if the answer were no? Aren’t you just trying to avoid lying about whether it’s true or not?” Because that’s God’s honest truth. If it were clear the answer were no he wouldn’t ask, and if he did, she wouldn’t try to hide behind the equivalent of her mother’s apron strings. It should be dawning on all of us that Ivanka just isn’t very smart.

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    February 26, 2018 at 10:18 am

    @schrodingers_cat: Gessen and Kendzior are using the post-Soviet world as their model for the US under Trump. I think that as a result, they get the personalities absolutely right but the overall political situation wrong. If you’re thinking in terms of Russia or post-Soviet Central Asia you’re not going to believe that anything can really be made better by an election campaign.

  95. 95.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    February 26, 2018 at 10:18 am

    In West Virginia, Don Blankenship’s Senate campaign has legs.

    This is why nice things elude America.

  96. 96.

    LAO

    February 26, 2018 at 10:18 am

    @ET: As was noted in the original article, calling a interview with investigators a “perjury trap” is just a means of working the refs and establishing your defense to a perjury charge. Trump’s lawyers understand, as we all do, that he simply cannot tell the truth about anything.

  97. 97.

    rp

    February 26, 2018 at 10:20 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: Thanks, and I agree. But Gessen and Chen aren’t idiots or hacks, so I wondered if I was missing something.

    @schrodingers_cat: I don’t know if he’s an expert. But I don’t think he’s a Greenwald-level hack, so his comments made me curious.

  98. 98.

    Kristine

    February 26, 2018 at 10:21 am

    @schrodingers_cat: I’ve been wondering about her for a while. Is she as credible as some folks make her out to be?

  99. 99.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 10:22 am

    @Matt McIrvin: We are not the Soviet Union or Russia for that matter. Russia has no tradition of democracy.

  100. 100.

    PJ

    February 26, 2018 at 10:23 am

    @schrodingers_cat: ah, thanks

  101. 101.

    Yarrow

    February 26, 2018 at 10:25 am

    @Cermet:

    The rising ocean due to corporate global warming is NOT the issue that will impact the most people within 40 years. Rather, much of the equatorial regions of the Earth will become uninhabitable! Billions of people will have to flee causing untold disasters, hardships, war, deaths and economic destruction on a scale few can imagine.

    Climate change was already a factor in the problems in Syria. Prolonged drought, lack of food, uprisings, war. It’s a glimpse into the future as people are unable to live in certain areas and must flee to survive.

  102. 102.

    Another Scott

    February 26, 2018 at 10:25 am

    @Jeffro:

    And then there’s the matter of where to find the master plan’s aspirational $50 billion — twice the entire state budget.

    As Dean Baker says in not so many words, that framing is yet another example of the monster that is going to kill us all in our beds if we don’t stop it. It’s annoying and wrong and makes it very difficult for people to act.

    The story talks about the problem happening over 50 years. Ignoring inflation (as the $50B estimate would be affected by inflation too) $25B/yr x 50 years = $1250B total. $50B/$1250B = 0.04. 4% of the state budget over 50 years.

    It’s not a huge amount of money.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  103. 103.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 26, 2018 at 10:25 am

    @Kristine: I don’t know how “some folks” make her out to be, but I find her intelligent and well-informed.

  104. 104.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 10:28 am

    @Kristine: I have no idea. I find her relentless negativity, off putting. Plus there is that completely blank expression she sports. I am sure she is good when it comes to her area of expertise but I have some problems with her extrapolation to our current situation.

    FWIW, Russian scholar, our very own Gogol’s wife shares some of my misgivings regarding SK.

  105. 105.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 26, 2018 at 10:28 am

    @rp:

    I don’t know if he’s an expert. But I don’t think he’s a Greenwald-level hack

    There are several billion people that will fit in that gap.

  106. 106.

    germy

    February 26, 2018 at 10:28 am

    OT, but Marjory Stoneman Douglas was an activist for the environment, civil rights and women’s suffrage. I know she’d be proud of the students.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas

  107. 107.

    LAO

    February 26, 2018 at 10:30 am

    O/T? It is an open thread: Chipper Jones!. As a Mets fan, I’m conflicted. I really hated the guy as a player but, maybe I need to reconsider the man.

  108. 108.

    But her emails!!!

    February 26, 2018 at 10:35 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    “I think it’s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he’s affirmatively stated there’s no truth to it.”

    That answer is a yes.

  109. 109.

    rp

    February 26, 2018 at 10:36 am

    @Gin & Tonic: Touche

  110. 110.

    JPL

    February 26, 2018 at 10:39 am

    @LAO: That surprised me, because he normally doesn’t comment on issues that appear to be political.

  111. 111.

    Betty Cracker

    February 26, 2018 at 10:40 am

    @Barbara: One excuse I’ve seen deployed in Ivanka’s defense in comments (not here) is that she doesn’t draw a salary, so leave her alooooooooone. That’s an excuse that needs to be clubbed to death whenever it raises its head. I don’t want people who refuse a salary working for me! Trump and our crappy governor here in FL also ostentatiously claim they don’t draw a salary, implying that we should be grateful that they work for us “for free.” It’s bullshit! They’re seeking a payoff elsewhere through massive corruption AND they use it as an excuse not to do their damned jobs. Same goes for Ivanka.

  112. 112.

    Amir Khalid

    February 26, 2018 at 10:41 am

    The other day I mentioned that Wayne LaPierre is the same age as Bruce Springsteen. Today I learned from a Buzzfeed listicle that Ted Cruz is a year younger than Gwen Stefani.

  113. 113.

    gvg

    February 26, 2018 at 10:42 am

    one thing to keep in mind, and I apologize for being negative, is that global warming is going to displace a lot of people and many will try to come to America, legal or not. this is going to cause more Americans to become anti immigrant, based on past surges both here and everywhere else. People always trend against outsiders when lots of people who are different start arriving. Add in there will probably be economic disruptions both from climate change and the fact we have let the rich soak up to large a share of our wealth which is keeping the velocity of our money down, and I think a lot of people will simplistically blame the immigrants.
    If there is any way we can plan to reduce this back lash, now would be a good time to plan.

  114. 114.

    But her emails!!!

    February 26, 2018 at 10:43 am

    McCain is better than most of his Republican colleagues, but that’s such a low bar, it’s essentially meaningless.

    The bar is at least high enough to trip over if you don’t watch your step and for things like worms, centipedes and small snakes to squeeze under. For most Republican politicians, you need a metal detector to find the bar and at best a shovel if you want to get under it.

  115. 115.

    LAO

    February 26, 2018 at 10:45 am

    @JPL: I can’t help but think that Chipper Jones taking a pro-gun control/safety stance is a really big thing. These Parkland kids have given reasonable gun owners the space to criticize the NRA and/or the current gun reality. I’m amazed. And, so so very hopeful.

  116. 116.

    Amir Khalid

    February 26, 2018 at 10:45 am

    @Betty Cracker:
    I don’t believe that Trump refuses his presidential paycheque. He’s too much of a moneygrubber to do such a thing.

  117. 117.

    Cheryl Rofer

    February 26, 2018 at 10:45 am

    @rp: I think Matt McIrvin is correct that Gessen is using her experience in Russia, which is pretty horrible, as a baseline. But she gets the politics wrong. That said, I read her and Sarah Kendzior to see their interpretations. I agree with the discussion above that Kendzior is too negative, but she is right that a country slides into this stuff, so we need to be alert. It’s hard to interpret things when you’re in the middle of them.

  118. 118.

    Betty Cracker

    February 26, 2018 at 10:46 am

    @Amir Khalid: That was an interesting listicle. I wasn’t surprised by the news that chickens are the closest living relatives of the T-rex, of course. But I had failed to fully appreciate how ancient the Great Pyramids are.

  119. 119.

    Roger Moore

    February 26, 2018 at 10:46 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    She works for the goddamned White House, where she’s allegedly assigned the “women’s portfolio.” Her gross father, who has a long and documented history of lechery, brought Bill Clinton’s accusers to a fucking debate with Hillary Clinton. But it’s “inappropriate” to ask Ivanka, White House Defender of the Womens, this question.

    It’s a bullshit response, too. If she genuinely had confidence in her father’s assurances, it would be easy enough to say so. Acting offended is just a non-admission admission that he’s a serial abuser.

  120. 120.

    Betty Cracker

    February 26, 2018 at 10:47 am

    @Amir Khalid: He claims to donate it.

  121. 121.

    tobie

    February 26, 2018 at 10:47 am

    @Barbara: @Betty Cracker: I agree that Peter Alexander should have responded to Ivanka’s transparent deflection with follow-up questions. He could have reminded her that she works in the White House and is speaking on behalf of the White House, and in that capacity can and should answer questions about the White House. As the saying goes, if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

  122. 122.

    Another Scott

    February 26, 2018 at 10:49 am

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t like the “doesn’t take a salary” framing for those reasons, and one more.

    We don’t want our elected representatives to only be people who are independently wealthy. In Virginia, the legislature gets paid all of $18,000/year in the Senate; $17,640/year in the HoD. Though the bodies are only in session a few months a year, it’s a full-time job and only those who have significant outside income can serve. It is bad for Virginia because it limits they range of experiences and viewpoints that have effective representation.

    We need to pay our representatives more so that they’re not so beholden to those who can contribute to their campaigns and rain favors and perqs down on them. “Working for free” is a horrible bargain.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  123. 123.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 26, 2018 at 10:49 am

    @Sloane Ranger:

    And for me the issue would be whether or not he got the girl and parents permission.

    If he did, I don’t think it’s objectionable.

    Even with permission, I find it thoroughly distasteful to use this young woman’s image alongside a grinning Trump as a campaign fundraiser. To illustrate a news story? Fine. To accompany a bragging Trump tweet? Okay, I guess. But to send it out as a way to raise money for a reëlection campaign just turns my stomach.

  124. 124.

    germy

    February 26, 2018 at 10:50 am

    @Amir Khalid: Ted Cruz was 14 when Prince released Purple Rain.

  125. 125.

    tobie

    February 26, 2018 at 10:54 am

    @gvg: The Syrian refugee crisis will likely seem minuscule compared to the tidal wave of displaced people that will come when climate change really sets in. (Yes, I know that he drought in Syria that precipitated the political crisis was likely caused by climate change.)

  126. 126.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 10:57 am

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I greatly admire much of what Masha Gessen says. I don’t know Adrian Chen as well, but he’s had at least one very good scoop. But I think they’re both wrong. One caveat: I don’t watch cable tv, so I could be wrong on some of this. I just don’t see the story being overblown in some of the ways Gessen seems to think it is

    Really?
    seriously?

    Well, I don’t know who is this person, but this automatically discounts them.

  127. 127.

    Amir Khalid

    February 26, 2018 at 10:58 am

    @Betty Cracker:
    Given his recent history of claiming donations to charity, I doubt that too.

  128. 128.

    rikyrah

    February 26, 2018 at 11:00 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    In West Virginia, Don Blankenship’s Senate campaign has legs.

    He only killed…what…29 people?

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

  129. 129.

    Tenar Arha

    February 26, 2018 at 11:01 am

    @rikyrah:

    What Harris and other would-be presidential candidates must be careful about is positioning themselves so far to the left that it backfires in a general election against Trump.

    ??? These GOP lite writers should really stop trying to tell any Democratic candidates what to do.

  130. 130.

    Randy Legault

    February 26, 2018 at 11:01 am

    @sherparick: Also, and ironically, Europe is going to freeze. The fresh water from Greenland melt floats on the denser salt water. This icy layer will block the thermal conveyor system whereby warm currents (Gulf Stream) carries equatorial water north warming of the air in the north Atlantic. The warm water will still circulate, but under an insulating layer of ice water.

  131. 131.

    Cheryl Rofer

    February 26, 2018 at 11:02 am

    @rikyrah: People can be wrong in one area and right in another. And keeping track of what they’re thinking is useful. If Gessen begins to change, that’s a data point. So I may disagree with people, but I don’t exclude them. Unless they’re Trump-humpers.

  132. 132.

    Immanentize

    February 26, 2018 at 11:02 am

    @Betty Cracker:
    The next question should have been: “So you don’t believe his accusers?”

  133. 133.

    Kristine

    February 26, 2018 at 11:02 am

    @schrodingers_catHer use of Central Asian autocracies as a template for what will happen here bother me. Different histories. Not doubting that some overlap will occur, and fsm knows I’m no historian, but still. Every time my tweet stream settles down I can count on a gloom and doom post of hers showing up. She needs to keep stirring a pot that’s already quite agitated. But it has to be with her spoon.

  134. 134.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 11:04 am

    @rikyrah: Masha thinks that Putin is too stupid and inept to pull this elaborate stunt. BTW this was the same defense David Brooks invoked on the Snooze Hour to defend T.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    February 26, 2018 at 11:04 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Because she wants it both ways. She wants to be taken seriously as an employee but then when that’s inconvenient she pulls out “daughter”

    Ivanka Trump is the best example of privilege ever. She really personifies it.

    Trump is vain and vulnerable to flattery but it isn’t just him. His children are too. Trump flatters them to gain their affection. This fucked up family dynamic they have imposed on the public works two ways. They’re as messed up as he is.

  136. 136.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 26, 2018 at 11:05 am

    @germy: I was 14 when The Mothers released We’re Only In It For The Money.

  137. 137.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 11:09 am

    @Kristine: Excellent description of Sister Sarah’s MO.

  138. 138.

    Kay

    February 26, 2018 at 11:11 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Trump flatters them because they’re not real people to him. They’re extensions of himself. His property.

    The only time I was really upset with Hillary Clinton was when she validated this fucked up, insane view of parenting by complimenting Trump on his kids. It’s like complimenting him on his gross, tacky hotel lobbies. Same thing.

  139. 139.

    Barbara

    February 26, 2018 at 11:16 am

    @Betty Cracker: Shorter response to that boneheaded response: “You mean since she is paid nothing it’s okay for her to be a blithering idiot who is totally incompetent?” It’s amusing to listen to the efforts to coddle her, because there are so many of us who have had the infuriating experience of working for the unqualified daughter or son or spouse of the owner or boss, and looked for another job as soon as possible so as to avoid that toxic situation. Look, at this point, I think that Ivanka and her traitorous spouse have set some kind of goal for how long they have to remain in DC without looking like they have surrendered to the howling masses. OTOH, the Post reports that they are looking for new digs because the current location is too easy for protesters to stake out. So who really knows.

  140. 140.

    Kay

    February 26, 2018 at 11:16 am

    The Trump tax law has made a hash out of child support in Ohio. It’s a mess.

    So far it looks like the people harmed will be obligors- people who pay child support.

    I am grimly amused that Donald Trump managed to screw people who pay child support and they don’t know it yet, because this year they had the old rules.

    They shouldn’t have been so greedy and anxious to get their hands on those piles of cash. They did a bad, rush job.

  141. 141.

    Tenar Arha

    February 26, 2018 at 11:18 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: I don’t quite understand the way the coopting works, how they all become this way? Who are they hanging out with that they all seem to toe a particular company line? Are their acquaintances so intertwined they start thinking & talking the same way? Is the DC cocktail party circuit some form of real world Stepford?

  142. 142.

    tobie

    February 26, 2018 at 11:23 am

    Did anyone see Kasie Hunt’s interview with Rashida Tlaib last night? Tlaib is running for John Conyer’s old House seat and when pressed said she likely would not vote for Nancy Pelosi as Dem House leader. There are quite a number of Dems running for office who buy into the right-wing’s framing of Pelosi (e.g., Conor Lamb) or the left-wing’s framing of Pelosi (Tlaib). I heart Nancy, so this is becoming a litmus-test for me, but I am worried about divisions among Dems. I wish Hunt had followed up by asking Tlaib which of Pelosi’s policy positions she opposed. It would be nice to expose that the opposition is never actually about substance.

  143. 143.

    Tenar Arha

    February 26, 2018 at 11:30 am

    @Betty Cracker: I’m not clicking on the thing because I don’t need the agita, but was she even making it clear whether she was on tv in her capacity as an advisor or as his daughter? It infuriates me how they’ve blurred the two, and as far as I’m concerned all adult presidential children from now until eternity need to be legally enjoined from more than silently (no public statements whatsoever) campaigning or working in the WH or the Administration with their parent. Maybe the military okay, agency bureaucrat okay, anything else GTFO.

  144. 144.

    japa21

    February 26, 2018 at 11:33 am

    @tobie: I think one of the reasons some of these Dems say they won’t vote for Pelosi is they think the GOP uses Pelosi as a weapon against other Dems in advertising, etc. If she isn’t Speaker or Minority Leader, then she wouldn’t be able to be used as a cudgel against other Dems.

    Which shows how stupid they are. It doesn’t matter if the head Dem is Pelosi or the most conservative Dem representative. The GOP will still paint that person as a commie pinko liberal against all other Dems running. So instead of having a very, nay, extremely effective leader in Pelosi, they would probably end up when some schmo who would be led around by the GOP.

  145. 145.

    Cheryl Rofer

    February 26, 2018 at 11:34 am

    @Tenar Arha: You mean the Villagers and their Things? They all talk to each other, and to some extent they’re performing for each other. It’s felt to be a good thing to question the received wisdom, so you get stuff like that. What’s dangerous is when it ignores the actual evidence that’s out there.

  146. 146.

    Just One More Canuck

    February 26, 2018 at 11:37 am

    @Gin & Tonic: I turned 14 in 1974 – not a bad year for album releases:

    https://www.albumoftheyear.org/1974/releases/?genre=7

  147. 147.

    jc

    February 26, 2018 at 11:48 am

    It isn’t just the Trumpster lawyers who wouldn’t recognize an ethical course of action if their life depended on it.

  148. 148.

    tobie

    February 26, 2018 at 11:48 am

    @japa21: I think you’re right that some Dems mistakenly believe that if Pelosi is no longer leader of the Dem caucus, the Republicans will have one less hammer with which to bludgeon the Democrats. It’s an argument fitting for people suffering from Stockholm syndrome, i.e., a pretty lousy political strategy. Tlaib’s point or shtick was a little different. She kept on saying she’s a new kind of politician who stands with the people and fights for them. The implication was she’s ant-establishment figure not beholden to donors or party bosses like your ‘usual neo-liberal shill.’ It was a classic straw man argument. Let me create a mythical monster-opponent to tear it down.

  149. 149.

    Tenar Arha

    February 26, 2018 at 11:48 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: The breathlessly reported what ifs and maybes that were applied to Clinton come to mind.

    So, what’s holding so many of them all back now, with piles of evidence in front of them, from drawing some conclusions? Exception to this rule seems to be Maddow & a few more in the evening block of MSNBC who’ve made it clear how bad 45 is. But not even they have started speculating that this may not be treason but it’s likely treasonous.

    What’s holding this pack of inveterate opinionators back? (If it was me it’d be guilt & the fear of the reality of what we all collectively enabled). Whoever is first will go down in history, but I guess they’re thinking if they’re too far in front they’ll be fired too?

    ETA typo

  150. 150.

    japa21

    February 26, 2018 at 12:00 pm

    Further comment from Ivanka:

    “I believe my father, I know my father,” the first daughter and senior adviser to President Trump told NBC News in an interview that aired Monday. “I think I have that right as a daughter to believe my father.”

    Nobody questioned her right to believe her father. She also has the right to not believe her father. I think she is confusing the right to believe with what is, in her mind, the obligation to believe”. Also I think she is lying through her teeth.

  151. 151.

    The Simp in the Suit

    February 26, 2018 at 12:00 pm

    @Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog: The insane minority gets to run the country because they are more easily influenced by rich people. It really is that simple.

  152. 152.

    J R in WV

    February 26, 2018 at 12:13 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    In West Virginia, Don Blankenship’s Senate campaign has legs.

    This is why nice things elude America.

    You should notice this is a New York Times piece, and I can guarantee they do not have a reporter from coal country to dig into this story*. The Despicable Donald Blankenship was convicted of, in effect, killing 29 miners and served time in prison. Money can buy a lot of things, but not forgiveness for mass murder. Perhaps a reporter who grew up in WV would have a different perspective.

    No one who has ever been underground or had family or friends who worked underground will vote for this murderer. That isn’t the majority of the state’s voting population any more, but still.

    I will enjoy watching evil Donald throw his money away.

    I can be wrong. If I am I will confess my error – I have been wrong before. But still. I never worked as a miner, but I have gone underground escorted to do my work. So I know a little bit about what going underground feels like in a totally professional and well run mine.

    Donald’s mines are what are called Dog Holes, poorly maintained, unsafe, dirty with piles of explosive coal dust lying around waiting for a disturbance to raise the dust into the air, where it can explode violently. They are death traps which miners will go into because they are desperate for work to keep their families in their home-place. He, Donald Blankenship, is one of the most despicable people walking around free.

    *Trip Gabriel, who wrote the piece, joined the Times to work for their Style Section. Before that he wrote for Rolling Stone, Outdoors, and GQ. Not from coal country.

  153. 153.

    catclub

    February 26, 2018 at 12:14 pm

    @Jeffro:

    And then there’s the matter of where to find the master plan’s aspirational $50 billion — twice the entire state budget.

    The ‘aspirational’ budget was more like $50B over 50 years, so not really twice the state budget. And even with Federal help, they still cannot come up with that much money to help poor Louisiana.

  154. 154.

    Cheryl Rofer

    February 26, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    @Tenar Arha: I had a short conversation with a historian on Twitter the other day. As I’ve been thinking out the possibilities for L’Affaire Russe, one that fits much of the evidence is that Trump is somehow in bed with the Russians, whether through kompromat, admiration, or the expectation of making more money. That’s a pretty heavy conclusion to come to. For extraordinary conclusions, extraordinary evidence is necessary, and we don’t have that level of evidence available. What we were talking about, though, is that every indictment, every revelation, comes a little closer to this conclusion. And Trump’s reactions continue to be consistent with it. So both of us found the Mueller indictments to be something of a sanity check, but frightening in what they point to.

    I wrote a post six months or so ago warning that we need to be thinking about what happens if much of our government is found to be compromised. Paul Krugman was musing the other day about what happens if both Pence and Trump are removed. If it’s after January 2019, that could mean Nancy Pelosi would become President.

  155. 155.

    Citizen Alan

    February 26, 2018 at 12:17 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    If Blankenship wins, I will never again express the slightest sympathy for miners who die from jobs. Let ’em all get black lung.

  156. 156.

    Elizabelle

    February 26, 2018 at 12:20 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Nancy Pelosi as president is my dream. And it gives the wingers a woman to demonize. Let it happen!

  157. 157.

    Humdog

    February 26, 2018 at 12:26 pm

    @Citizen Alan: The miners will not be the ones electing Blankenship. The people who agree that folks with money need not follow any rules of society or decency will. Republicans,in other words.

  158. 158.

    PJ

    February 26, 2018 at 12:34 pm

    @Elizabelle: it would be the sweetest irony, and a great joy to me, that after all the Republicans’ efforts to deny Americans their voting rights and to subvert democracy by working with the Russians, they had to answer to President Pelosi for their crimes.

  159. 159.

    ericblair

    February 26, 2018 at 12:53 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Masha thinks that Putin is too stupid and inept to pull this elaborate stunt. BTW this was the same defense David Brooks invoked on the Snooze Hour to defend T.

    I agree that many people make Putin into this evil supergenius, which he’s not, and the top levels of the Russian government are pretty dysfunctional and disorganized. However, this doesn’t mean that the lower levels are that way, and the intelligence services can pull off a lot of complex tasks. So very competent tactically and fucking stupid strategically.

    I respect Masha Gessen, but she is an LGBT activist and has no background in defense, intelligence, or foreign relations. I gather she doesn’t want America to let all the bigots and crazies off the hook because of Putin, but she goes way too far in minimizing what was done.

  160. 160.

    sukabi

    February 26, 2018 at 1:15 pm

    @Baud: the thing about “traps” of that sort is that if you weren’t intent on doing the illegal thing (perjury , treason, ECT.) you wouldn’t get caught…

  161. 161.

    TenguPhule

    February 26, 2018 at 1:22 pm

    @Baud:

    The bigger problem for Trump is that he got caught in a treason trap.

    Its not a trap when he’s willing.

  162. 162.

    TenguPhule

    February 26, 2018 at 1:24 pm

    @Kay:

    How many times do they buy his bullshit? Fifty? One hundred?

    All of em, Katie.

    The FYNYT are paid not to learn.

  163. 163.

    burnspbesq

    February 26, 2018 at 1:27 pm

    @LAO:

    I think the reasoning is a little strained, but this is the best we can do until we get Democrats in the political branches.

  164. 164.

    TenguPhule

    February 26, 2018 at 1:33 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Just got a news alert on my phone saying SCOTUS declined to review the lower court injunction on Trump’s DACA program termination. Can anyone lawsplain?

    Appeal was out of order.

    They tried to jump the gun from district court straight to the SC, normally you have to go through the Court of Appeals first.

    Just a small retention of how the court system is supposed to work.

  165. 165.

    Hoodie

    February 26, 2018 at 1:33 pm

    @LAO: @JPL: Not sure why you hated him as a player except if you’re a Mets fan and he beat you like a rented mule. His personal life isn’t much to write home about, but his position on guns is about the same as what Cole laid down the other day. Guess when you’re a hall of famer, banged your share of Hooter’s waitresses and centerfolds, and are a real hunter, you don’t need a substitute member.

  166. 166.

    LAO

    February 26, 2018 at 1:37 pm

    @Hoodie:
    if you’re a Mets fan

    I copped to being a Mets fan in my comment.

    @burnspbesq: Haven’t read it yet, but was really surprised it was an en banc decision.

  167. 167.

    LAO

    February 26, 2018 at 1:38 pm

    Not sure what the heck happened in #166.

  168. 168.

    Miss Bianca

    February 26, 2018 at 1:56 pm

    @rikyrah: Gotta *wonder* why Republicans are so reluctant to dig into the Trump-Russian financial conections.

  169. 169.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 26, 2018 at 2:10 pm

    @ericblair: Couldn’t it be both, that our bigots fell for the R con.

  170. 170.

    Miss Bianca

    February 26, 2018 at 2:13 pm

    @germy: That’s so weird…I would have sworn he was older than I am, and I was…what…20 or 21 when “Purple Rain” came out.

    I wonder if being puckered up tighter than a rooster’s asshole, both intellectually and spiritually, just makes someone look and act more aged than they really are.

  171. 171.

    Miss Bianca

    February 26, 2018 at 2:16 pm

    @rikyrah: Yeah, but that was all the federal gubmint’s fault. He was framed, FRAMED, I tells ya – or, rather, *he* tells ya. That report that found mine management responsible for mine conditions? Gubmint conspiracy!

  172. 172.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    February 26, 2018 at 2:18 pm

    he’s affirmatively stated there’s no truth to it.

    An “affirmative denial”? OFFS. This is the sort of gibberish you hear from someone who’s memorised a lot of weasel words to avoid answering questions, only for them to start fighting inside her head and come out in a tangle.

  173. 173.

    J R in WV

    February 26, 2018 at 2:28 pm

    I think the stress of knowing 150,000,000 people think you’re an evil piece of floating scum wears on you and you age faster. Obviously not a blanket syndrome, look at Strom Thurman and Jesse Helms, but still, it works on some people.

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