Someone seemed a tad nervous during this morning’s executive time:
Why so worked up?
Could it be because Trump’s human email interface, Hope Hicks, is supposed to testify in a closed-door session of the House Intelligence Committee today? She’ll stonewall like other members of der Scheißegibbon’s inner circle, and she’ll get away with it until Democrats have some power on the committees again. The GOP-led House committees are comically open about functioning as Trump’s personal obstruction of justice facilitators. Maybe Trump just doesn’t trust women for some reason…
If Mueller recalls Hicks (or got the goods during the first meeting?), then Trump should worry. At the very least, she had a ringside seat at the Trump-led obstruction meeting around Dim Son’s idiotically enthusiastic email effluvium on the Trump Tower meeting with Russians bearing “dirt” on Clinton.
Tick tock, mofos!
Open thread!
Mike in DC
Drudge is saying Trump will formally announce for 2020, and that Brad Parscale will be his campaign manager. Uh, if there was collusion, good job picking a guy most likely to face indictment as your campaign manager.
germy
Will he be texting her as she testifies, telling her which questions to ignore?
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
He does seem a little nervous.
germy
Janus.
He’s 65 years old?
All of a sudden he decided he hates paying his union dues?
Who is this asshole?
LAO
Open thread? Before I bitch about Trump I have to bitch about NYC cyclists. Some fucking guy ran me over this am, thank the FSM he didn’t hit my dog but still. My goddamn right foot is black and blue and you should see the shoes I had to wear today. I’m pissed! (My foots not broken, but damn, it still hurts)! OK, I feel better now.
FlipYrWhig
Jonathan Turley is such a fuckface.
d58826
Somewhat OT but the current right wing talking point is the FBI dropped the ball on the Parkland shooter and they had him on a silver platter. Now the FBI should figure out why the information it had did not get from DC to Fla, but if it had what could the FBI do? We don’t have preventative detention. The locals had long experience with the guy so what magic could the FBI have added. Other than it is part of the RW effort to discredit the FBI to protect Der Fuhrer.
rikyrah
This is potentially a very significant story.
The NRA is refusing to answer senator’s questions about funding from Russia https://t.co/rMLLCFzaJC
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 27, 2018
LAO
So Hicks is supposed to testify today, I was wondering what made Trump go off his meds this morning.
schrodingers_cat
Does Hicks wears such heavy makeup to hide the bruises her bf and documented wife beater Porter gives her? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
rikyrah
Where’s the money, Boo?
Where’s the money?
Melania Trump cuts ties with friend’s company amid questions: NYT
Ken Vogel, political reporter for The New York Times, talks with Rachel Maddow about breaking news that the first lady’s office has cut tie’s with Melania Trump’s friend’s newly created company after it was revealed that she was paid $26 million for unspecified inauguration planning services.
Frankensteinbeck
I think he’s irritated that all these people he finds completely credible are saying Hillary is the criminal, not Trump, and yet he still hasn’t been completely exonerated. It doesn’t matter what Trump did. The narcissist is always innocent because only his interpretation of events is the correct one, and it pisses him off when others disagree. For that same reason, the people saying he’s innocent and Hillary is a criminal are the obviously credible sources that it’s offensive not everyone listens to.
He’s such a coward, he might be scared, but I actually think he’s pretty insulated from information about any legal peril he might be in.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Mike in DC: Has there been another Presidential campaign that started having events right after the inauguration? Did I miss it somehow? Another norm shattered, I suspect. Though I could have forgotten that it happened before.
cope
I actually made a chuckling sound when I read “Dim Son”. Thank you for my first smile of the day.
SFAW
Hey! No fair doing that in the OP!
Or at least make it a tag.
schrodingers_cat
Alternative title: Hope floats.
LAO
@d58826: My favorite fucking thing about all the talking heads and the FBI’s “dropping of the ball” is exactly that. There are no laws in place to take away a person’s legally possessed guns based some complaint about what he might do in the future. This is ridiculous.
ETA:
Jeffro
He gets worked up because Faux Snooze cheers him on and tells him he’s awesome, super-manly, and yet somehow still a poor lil’ ol victim of the Dems’ “WITCH HUNT!” Truly, the wingnut mind is a wonder.
Btw this is a fairly awesome point-after-point, example-after-example takedown of preznit kung fu commando: Trumpov Overcompensates for His Cowardice
You don’t have to have a medical degree to notice his ocean of insecurity and his need to overcompensate.
Go for it, you flabby bowl of orange Jell-O!
Meanwhile, Trumpmaggedon Day creeps closer, and He-Man can’t seem to muster the guts to stop it:
Sure doesn’t seem like the actions of an innocent man, now does it?
Meanwhile, to wrap up, Rubin points out the obvious: we could have had a president who not only made us proud, but actually has faced down psychopaths bare-handed…
Le sigh…
Tokyokie
You know, Ken Starr’s always been my go-to guy to opine on the appropriateness of a special-counsel investigation.
rikyrah
@LAO:
Get better. I am not a fan of cyclists.
Frankensteinbeck
@d58826:
Conservatives being mean-spirited assholes, this is specifically something they want changed, if they are even aware of it. Preventative detention is not merely in line with their world view, it is self-evidently necessary. They have strong opinions about who is obviously guilty and needs to be locked up, too.
LAO
@rikyrah: Thanks, other than a bruised foot, I’m just steaming mad.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@LAO: it’s awful that I felt better as soon as I read he didn’t hit Maggie. I’m sorry he ran offer your for. Arnica gel is your friend.
germy
@Tokyokie: He’s been featured on the PBS News Hour, where he’s treated like an expert. And he says he sees no obstruction, while the hosts nod thoughtfully and then thank him for appearing.
LAO
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: No it’s not. I actually continued on to the dog park after he hit me, so yeah, I get it.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
This right here. The narcissist only pays attention to his internal feelings and perceptions, and anyone or anything that disagrees with those is not only wrong, but an enemy. Any contrary evidence is a conspiracy against the narcissist, because there is no such thing as objective truth.
FlipYrWhig
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m sure they’re fully in favor of the preventive arrest and disarmament of nutballs with grudges, free-floating anger, and personal arsenals. I know they aren’t exactly poster children for thinking things through but for Christ’s sake.
Ryan
@rikyrah: I’m sure some are good people.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jeffro:
No. He’s a stone racist who thinks brown people commit most crimes and that brutalizing them if they are even suspected is virtuous and necessary. Thus the pardon of Arpaio. And he thinks that’s the job of the police, so he usually approves strongly of them.
@Jeffro:
Alas, even if he’s convicted and serves his term in jail, I doubt his presidency will be ended. You never know, though. The GOP will stick with him like fanatics until suddenly they never liked him and he has to go.
Spanky
Those tweets were not by Donald Trump. Waaaay too coherent. And I ain’t snarkin’ this time.
Tony Jay
@Jeffro:
Such unPresidented bravery.
Did I spell that right?
d58826
@Frankensteinbeck: @Frankensteinbeck: Don’t the local/state authorities have the ability to force an involuntary commitment if some one is deemed a hazard to themselves or others? Probably would have only been for a short time and would have done nothing to prevent the shooting but the state/locals probably have more tools in a case like this than the feds.
NotMax
“I must decline to answer that as it falls under demigod-sycophant privilege.”
Tokyokie
@germy: Well Ken has plenty of time on his hands these days, given that he doesn’t have to cover up for rapists on the Baylor Bears football roster any longer.
Frankensteinbeck
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s a bit complicated, since they operate more on truthiness than consistency. Since they want someone to blame, it’s easy to use their already well developed love of preventative detention to claim that it’s the FBI’s fault because they should have stopped this person conservatives have been publicly shamed into disapproving of.
Villago Delenda Est
Someone weighs pretty much the same as a 300 pound duck.
Frankensteinbeck
@d58826:
No. I live with a psychiatrist. There is not a damn thing that the psychiatric profession could have done to stop him. It’s seriously hard to involuntarily commit someone, and being an asshole is not on the list. It shouldn’t be on the list, because it’s so easily abused. Only gun control would have stopped this.
oatler.
It’s like he’s already experiencing his own damnation pre-death.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: Hey, if you’re still here, since you commented on his sartorial choices, I thought you’d appreciate this commentary.
Gin & Tonic
Today is three years since the murder of Boris Nemtsov.
Waratah
@LAO: My daughter recently smashed her foot and thought she had broken a few toes. The only shoes she could put on to wear for work that did not hurt were my black Uggs. She complained about every day, they were ugly etc.
Peale
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m all in favor of changing the DMSRII so that anyone with more than one gun is immediately confined as insane with the recommended treatment chemical castration, non-sedated electroshock and a lobotomy. I actually would find that to be comforting.
eric
Hope Hicks wrote those tweets.
FlipYrWhig
@Frankensteinbeck: “I never dreamed stormtroopers would confiscate MY guns!” said man agitating for Stormtroopers Confiscating Guns policy.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: That’s funny. Where did they learn to snark like that. Is there a North Korean Betty C?
But you cover your head in a Gurudwara as a mark of respect (like in a mosque or the skullcap in synagogue). I won’t fault JT for that.
Death Panel Truck
So, is Needy Amin going to get his military parade? What’s the latest on that?
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: This is why you need Constitutional Carry in NY and a good Stand Your Ground Law. Also, you should be able to outfit your dog with a M47 Striker Automatic Grenade Launcher for appropriate response.
schrodingers_cat
@LAO: I broke my toe two years ago and it was ugly and flat foot wear for a year or more. Because I kept reinjuring it. So I feel your pain.
FlipYrWhig
@eric: @Spanky: The four-dot ellipsis doesn’t seem like Trump at all. Nor does accurately retyping a complexly ordered statement he’s just seen on TV.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: I hate to break it to you, but that’s not really the DPRK.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
A list that includes just about everyone with dark skin but notably does not include white guys who threaten mass murder.
Adam L Silverman
@d58826: The FBI tipline gets something like 1,500 or so tips a day. That’s where the call went into. Total number of FBI employees – special agents, analysts, administrative support, lab/technical forensic personnel, non–political appointment administrators – is about 37,000 personnel to cover the entire US, territories, as well as serve on US embassy staff as law enforcement liaison officers.
That’s why.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: I has a disappoint. Coming up with dotard for the orange one was genius, though.
Adam L Silverman
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: They filed for reelection during the inauguration. It was reported at the time that this was Bannon’s idea. That he thought it would allow them to leverage Federal election law to prevent politicians, interest groups, and even ordinary Americans from criticizing the President on what he was actually doing because he was already running for reelection.
These are not the smartest people.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: busy ‘Chasing Ghosts’, as it were…couldn’t John Mueller and Mark Stewart crank out a quick op-ed or something? It’d be helpful to get the word out about the magnitude of what federal law enforcement is dealing with here.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: Wasn’t there a Federal law that they might have been able to use if you squinted at it just right?
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, I stood my ground (which was the problem). And, keeping Maggie from eviscerating the cyclist managed to distract me from the pain.
No One of Consequence
So, can one safely assume that Mueller gets transcripts, or complete testimony copies from the House Intelligence Cmte. meetings with regards to testimony? Or is there a ‘wall’ there where he cannot avail himself of testimony (such as Hicks’) in that Cmte. meeting?
Thanks, for those of us trying to following the bouncing ball…
– NOoC
randy khan
@d58826:
My response to that has been that almost every single mass shooting results from a failure of some sort, and that’s because all of the systems to prevent these things are run by people who are imperfect. Trying to perfect the systems is a waste of time; it’s much more effective to eliminate or highly restrict the tools used to commit these crimes, just like we do with dynamite.
Adam L Silverman
@d58826: Florida has an involuntary 72 hour evaluatory hold. It is called the Baker Act.
http://www.cchrflorida.org/question-and-answers-about-the-florida-involuntary-commitment-law-the-baker-act/
http://www.myflfamilies.com/service-programs/mental-health/baker-act
https://ufhealth.org/baker-act
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@schrodingers_cat: Isn’t that the coolest Twitter account? I think Mrs. Cracker is among the authors, and while I follow is, I often forget to read it!
Good medal parody! It’s also great when people thi it’s really DPRK.
laura
@germy: Janus is the fucker who’s going to destroy my career, that’s who.
Him and the politicized Supreme Court including my own law school’s Anthony Kennedy. It’s a return to Lochner. And that bodes poorly for anyone who works for a living, unionized or not.
d58826
@randy khan:
To many links in the chain to fix. On the other hand the key link – the gun – should be easy to fix. Take out that link and the guy is reduced to using clubs or rocks.
Adam L Silverman
@eric: Or the caddy.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Tokyokie:
Rapists on the Baylor Bears? But that’s a fine Christian school!//
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: If it was, we’d be in far better shape in terms of regional concerns.
gratuitous
I totally believe that Donald Trump researched, assembled, and typed out those quotes in his tweets. I also believe I can fly to the moon just by flapping my arms.
catclub
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Obviously no. The reason/excuse/legal fig leaf Trump can fly around and have his pep rallys is that they are part of his 2020 campaign.
burnspbesq
Meanwhile, the Supremes hear argument this morning in U.S. v. Microsoft, which presents the mildly interesting question of whether the Stored Communications Act and the Fourth Amendment permit U.S. law enforcement to obtain data stored outside the United States by a U.S. person.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. For the first time since he croaked, I miss Scalia. He was good on this kind of stuff.
eric
@catclub: and he can rent out space in his properties to his campaign and pay people to work on the campaign as part of The Grift.
Fair Economist
@d58826:
Nothing. There were several messages asking authorities to take his guns away, but the NRA has gotten laws passed preventing both the FBI and Florida police from doing that. Thanks to the NRA, there was nothing the authorities could do.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Death Panel Truck:
Needy Amin–that’s funny!
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I don’t know who those two people are.
That said, the FBI is not a very large law enforcement organization given the size of the US. Some of this is what they have historically focused on. Some of this is that specialized Federal law enforcement concerns are spun off – BATF, ICE, CBP, Army CID, NCIS, CGIS, AFOSI, Secret Service, IRS Special Agents/Investigators, Postal Inspectors, etc. And the biggest reason is that the vast majority of law enforcement in the US is done at the state and local levels.
eric
comment deleted. not appropriate humor under the circumstances
trollhattan
@laura:
I can foresee the arc of this and the endpoint mess is not pretty. McConnell’s USSC ploy will have paid his investors in full with just this one case.
Bobby Thomson
@FlipYrWhig: True.
Adam L Silverman
@No One of Consequence: It isn’t automatic. If I recall the reporting correctly he’s gotten, on a voluntary basis, material from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. And I do know that a deconfliction protocol was put in place by memorandum between the Special Counsel/DOJ and Congress. Given separation of power issues, I’m not sure what would happen if Mueller dropped a subpoena on the committees for transcripts from closed sessions.
Betty Cracker
Regarding the authorship of the tweets, I assume someone else input content for all but the one at the top of the image since they are quotes that appear to be more or less accurate renderings of what was said, lack random capitalization, etc. But I suspect Trump directed a minion to put the tweets together based on what he found exculpatory while watching Fox & Friends or TiVO’d Fox programming from last night. I guess it’s possible someone else does Trump’s tweets without consulting with him, but I doubt it.
rikyrah
By the way, where is Sen. Mitch McConnell? Why hasn’t he had to answer serious questions about his response to President Obama’s 2016 plea for a bipartisan stand against Russian election interference? https://t.co/Ju0amDgAkq
— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) February 27, 2018
Gin & Tonic
@burnspbesq: But let’s say, completely hypothetically, that a US-resident Internet user stores his data in, say, Norway, with a company incorporated and domiciled in Norway, which tells US law enforcement to pound sand when they ask for said Internet user’s data. Does US law enforcement have any recourse?
Bobby Thomson
@LAO: Don’t know why he’s so worried. The Republicans on the Committee will protect her and him. And Russia.
VOR
@Adam L Silverman: My recollection from the CNN Town Hall last week is that the Broward Co. Sheriff specifically said they could not have used the Baker Act, that they needed expanded powers. I could easily be wrong since I had no idea what the Baker Act was at the time.
Bobby Thomson
OT, but people have been looking at Levi Sanders’ 2016 tweets and holy shit. Pro-NRA, pro-Confederate flag, pro-Trump.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: They’re the authors of ‘Chasing Ghosts’ – a book about all the time and effort and money we’re spending trying to keep up with the deluge of anti-terrorist tips?
Jeffro
I’m seeing reporting that Mueller has moved to dismiss charges against Rick Gates? Holy cow…he must have given up the GOOD stuff on Manafort/Trumpov…
HeleninEire
@LAO: We could have a club. I got hit by a cyclist right outside of Union Square Park. He hit me from behind. I was wearing a shirt with no stockings and I had the impression of a bike wheel tread on my calf for two weeks!
One of my few complaints about Dublin. Cycling is very popular here, much more than in NY. But they cyclists ride on the sidewalk all the time. I have had at least a half dozen near misses, and one guy clipped me. If I die in a traffic accident it’s not gonna be by car or truck. It’s gonna be by bicycle.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: Three people do tweets from his account: 1) the President, 2) the Caddy (Scavino), 3) Hicks. Anything done really late at night or really early in the morning when the President isn’t traveling is the President as Scavino and Hicks aren’t around. Anything with strange phrasing plus random capitalizations plus the grammar, punctuation, and syntax of a sugared up 7 year old in remedial English is by the President. Every other tweet are either Scavino and Hicks tweeting what he dictate to him or channeling him. The latter tend to be more Scavino as he has learned how to mimic the President’s tone and phrasing without the strange grammatical errors.
eric
@Jeffro: good boy!
Gin & Tonic
@Bobby Thomson: I’ve mentioned this before, but his father unseated an incumbent Republican when he first ran for the House due (in part) to help from Wayne LaPierre. Apple, tree.
Adam L Silverman
@VOR: I don’t know if they could or could not use it. I just know that it exists.
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby Thomson: Here’s the thread for you:
gvg
how would we design a law to keep guns away from the threatening?
Who? Convicted of Violent Crimes? Domestic violence accusations of only convictions? What other types correlate with gun violence (including suicide)? this is why CDC and other authorities not being able to study gun violence is bad, we need correct info.
Require licenses? Renewal tests? What rules? Cost?
Registration of all guns? Gun nuts are extremely primed to go nuts about this but I think it would be good. Insurance?
Taxes on guns and bullets?
Who does psych evals if required? We are actually short of enough to meet needs without new laws requiring more services.
Court for challenging decisions or petitioning based on something changing or inaccurate reasons? Who holds confiscated guns? Cost? Who pays?
who enforces?
? Martin
@d58826: Read this.
So, I’m not sure how much of this to believe, but as an education administrator, what he describes is entirely plausible and fits a pattern that I’ve seen in other areas. This is why universities handle sexual assault cases in-house rather than going through the police – it reduces their crime statistics because they’re never reported as crimes (the victims similarly never see justice done). Same for other on-campus offenses such as underage drinking or drug use.
My guess is that the FBI didn’t ignore this, but the Broward county police did. What’s more, the behaviors that the FBI were supposed to pick up on are behaviors that the NRA and the GOP are trying to make commonplace. Somehow we are supposed to see someone walking around with a gun and magically know if they are about to shoot up a school or are some kind of 2nd amendment patriot exercising their rights. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. When you flood the community with potential shooters, we’re going to start ignoring potential shooters as something that needs to be acted on, which is also going to apply to the FBI at some point. Since you don’t need a permit to own an AR-15 in Florida, what was there for the FBI to really act on?
Adam L Silverman
Someone was up late doing his Ubermensch cosplay:
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
OT again, but if you teach that class again… if you haven’t seen it already, a good book on military culture in South Asia during the Mughal and early colonial eras is Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy by Dirk Kolff.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: It’s also three years since the passing to Vulcan Heaven of Leonard Nimoy.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Okay.
Barbara
@? Martin: The kid had been expelled from school, he had been evaluated by the state department of family services, he “came to the attention” of the sheriff’s office literally dozens of times. And he was never, not once, arrested, much less was he charged or set down for involuntary commitment. The couple who allowed him to live with them after his mother died did not notice anything amiss. At most, the FBI would have referred him back to these same agencies for further evaluation. Maybe, maybe, the parents would have connected the dots and taken his guns away, except that they thought he didn’t actually have access to the guns because they thought they had the only key.
Manxome Bromide
@burnspbesq: It occurs to me that I’ve mostly heard about this case from Internet Libertarians and as such am wildly misinformed. Their version of this seemed to be that cyberpunk-style data havens ought to exist but were under attack here, while your description is talking about the Fourth Amendment.
It’s pretty clear from your description that no matter which way this goes, nobody in a lawsuit could actually hand a blank folder to the court and say “here are your discovery results because I’m only obliged to produce documents I store in the United States.” What’s actually at stake?
Adam L Silverman
@HeleninEire:
Your commitment to environmentally responsible ways to die is noted and appreciated by all those concerned with the safety of the planet.
Roger Moore
@Bobby Thomson:
This is my shocked face. There’s a lot less space between Sandersnistas and Trumpkins than most people are willing to admit.
? Martin
@Barbara:
They couldn’t take his guns away. He was an adult and hadn’t violated any conditions for gun ownership in Florida (because there effectively aren’t any).
JR
Time is running out, tick-tock like the grains of sand
Adam L Silverman
@? Martin: What Broward County and Broward County Schools did was change policy to try to break the school to juvenile detention/jail pipeline. They moved away from zero tolerance policies and actions and towards an interventionist approach to disrupt the activity and reorient the students. Whether what happened with Cruz shows that this approach is a failure or not is, I think, missing something. Given Florida law, Cruz would have likely been able to have done this in any of Florida’s school districts.
Chyron HR
@Adam L Silverman:
What in god’s name is that psychotic piece of shit even going on about? Chelsea Clinton curates Donald Trump’s PDB? Or do these deranged assholes live in a world where Hillary really is President and it’s actually HER daughter who hangs around all day pretending to be the vice president?
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: Thanks, I appreciate the recommendation.
WereBear
So that is what the kids are calling it these days.
Feathers
@rikyrah: My take on this is that it was Melania trying to squirrel away some get out of Dodge money, using her friend as a cutout.
She had to throw her friend under the bus to save her own ass.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
There’s nothing magic about it. White skin = patriot exercising 2nd Amendment rights; dark skin = criminal about to cause mass havoc. That’s why the NRA refuses to stand up for the rights of black people like Philando Castile even though they would have cried bloody murder had the exact same thing happened to a white person.
Miss Bianca
@Death Panel Truck: OK, I like “Needy Amin”.
The only – and I mean only – silver lining to the orange fart cloud’s regime is the scores of inventive nicknames people have come up with to describe him.
debbie
@d58826:
Today, Glenn Beck insisted Cruz had called the police and asked for help, but they ignored him.
Adam L Silverman
@Chyron HR: I have no idea. I didn’t even know there was a Levi Sanders till Bobby Thomson posted that comment. If anything I would have thought it was the strangest corporate brand merger in history: 501 herbs and spices button fly chicken tenders or something.
? Martin
Short version of this: Hicks will lie, because it’s now proven they all lie. The reason they lie is that the willingness to lie for the boss is a primary reason they got hired. Anyone think Trump is nominating his pilot to head the FAA for any reason other than Trump knows what the pilot is willing to cover up? You think the pilot doesn’t know about the affairs?
The White House is an organized crime syndicate. They were hired for their willingness to loot the country for the benefit of themselves and the bosses, and through their willingness to be participants in that act they can be trusted to lie since every single one of them would go to prison if anyone told the truth. Yes, Hicks will lie, she will be caught in that lie because in addition to them all being criminals, they are also all idiots, and Mueller will pin her up on his wall along with Gates and Flynn.
Miss Bianca
@burnspbesq: Yeah, privacy was kind of Scalia’s thing, and the absolute *only* times I ever agreed with either his or Thomas’s arguments were when they were dealing with 4th Amendment types of issues.
patrick II
Natalia Veselnitskaya is the Russian lawyer who attended the Trump Tower meeting. She is also the lawyer who was representing the entity trying to launder the $230 million taken in the Magnitsky heist, which eventually caused Magnitsky’s death. The New York Justice Department was ready to go to trial and felt confident about the case and a recovery of the full $230 million. Two weeks after the Trump Tower meeting, and just before the trial, the Justice Department lawyers on the money laundering case were told to settle for $6 million.
I have always considered that reduction to be part of a larger payoff for the Russian’s crippling of Hillary’s campaign, and I would love to see the chain of command the order to accept a $6 million settlement and its justification.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Does this mean I can’t continue making fun of Trump for that pointy yarmulke he wore to the Wailing Wall?
JPL
It’s time to mention again that only five states allow the police to remove guns from a household with a judge’s order. The states are California, Washington, Oregon, Indiana and Connecticut. Utah is now considering a similar bill.
@Barbara: The only key statement concerned me, because they made him buy the case. Any type of case comes with two keys.
Millard Filmore
@Jeffro:
I’m hoping that Mueller has enough on Trump already, and that he is using Gates to go after McConnell, Ryan, and other party leaders.
? Martin
@Adam L Silverman: No, I get that, and there are merits to that approach, but the issue is that it avoids the real problem and creates a pile of new ones. Police are incentivized to arrest, because that’s what they are rewarded for and schools are incentivized to not report, because that’s what they are rewarded for. So police tend to criminalize things that should be overlooked and schools tend to overlook things that should be criminalized. By separating the two, you aren’t really solving the problem, you’re just declaring the over-criminalization to be an unsolvable problem and removing the police from the equation. Well, guess what that leads to?
MattF
@burnspbesq: Maybe it all depends on what ‘stored’ means. What about information that goes through data channels ‘located’ in the US? Or elsewhere?
I corresponded via email a few times with an economist in Ghana, back in the days when email headers traced the whole path of any data flow from point A to point B, and one of the nodes in the email path was always ‘Earth’. Which… could be anywhere.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, he was sleeping until the talk turned to putting armed white male nutjobs in the schools. Then he perked right up.//
NotMax
Somewhat surprising that Sessions hasn’t come out and blamed the shooting on maryjane.
debbie
@burnspbesq:
In other words, F you and your Cloud.
Kay
I keep telling you guys, they are just better people
Just let them take over. It will be fine.
JPL
In order to continue making GA a laughing stock of the nation, current SOS and candidate for governor Brian Kemp wants to declare July 4th to be a sales tax holiday for guns and ammo.
Matt
@? Martin:
The worrying question: it’s looking increasingly likely that nontrivial parts of the GOP leadership & even some donors are involved in the mess – at what point does the conspiracy become Too Big To Jail?
MattF
@? Martin: Bear in mind that Trump hired Hicks and has kept her in the organization for many years. So, yeah, ‘GUILTY’. And I’m not being snarky.
NotMax
@JPL
After someone(s) convinced him that choosing MLK, Jr. Day would be bad form?
PaulWartenberg
So if trump weighs the same as a duck, he’s made of wood…
Barbara
@? Martin: They allowed him to live with them. They could have constructively prevented him from having access without permission, and indeed they thought they had done that. They made it a condition of his being able to live with them.
geg6
@germy:
Guess they don’t ask him about his views on the #MeToo movement being that he’s such an expert in covering up sexual assaults. Unless they are consentual, that is.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: T is in a league of his own, so make all the fun you want.
GxB
Re: The “Witch Hunt” twit.
Well, if we follow that analogy, the fact that the turmeric taint’s close associates have been getting 55 gallon drums with “Eye of Newt” in Cyrillic on their lids might be a bit of a give away.
BTW I looked up “eye of newt” out of curiosity – a old time name for mustard seeds, wheels within wheels man.
germy
@Miss Bianca:
I wonder what nickname George W would invent for him.
W was the king of nicknames. “Turd Blossom” for Karl Rove should have earned him a spot in the nickname-creating Hall of Fame.
I wonder what he calls 45?
Fair Economist
@Adam L Silverman:
If Cruz had *not* had access to guns it probably would have worked.
Joey Maloney
@Death Panel Truck:
Thanks for the chuckle.
GregB
@Jeffro:
I noticed he looked notably more relaxed on hus way in and out if court last week.
Carrying around the weight of a gangster globalist conspiracy must have been pretty crushing.
cain
@Barbara:
I read somewhere that the couple did know and told the police that he was a wacko.
Fair Economist
@Matt:
There are tens of thousands of African Americans in jail for marijuana possession. Release them and you’ve got enough room for every state and federal level elected Republican in the country. So: Never!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Peale:
You gonna put in exceptions to that for people who hunt? I’m not a hunter, so I take them at their words that they need a different gun for quail than for deer. My father had three, all bolt action long guns.
Shell
Ken Starr? Where the hell did he pop up from?
Villago Delenda Est
@germy: “Guy who makes even me look good”?
Brachiator
Trump is one delusional muthafvcker. He has begun setting up his re-election team. From BBC News and other sources.
Trump will still be shouting “Witch Hunt! No Collusion! and What About Hillary?” when he is impeached, convicted and removed from office.
burnspbesq
@Gin & Tonic:
Possibly. The U.S. has mutual legal assistance treaties with a number of countries, but the processes can be cumbersome.
FWIW, my archives from the days when I had my own law firm are in Hungary.
Mike J
@gvg:
Speaking of which, the two companies that handled NRA’s carry insurance announce they’re done.
A few years ago, Kansas passed a law allowing teachers to carry and the insurance company that covers 85% of the state’s schools said they don’t need the business that bad. Same in several other states that tried it.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Well, I would be, if I were King of the Forest. But I live in hunt country.
JPL
@Brachiator: Who is going to impeach him?
Aleta
@d58826: I keep thinking about how this is a reprieve to them.
donnah
@JPL:
Also, Georgia’s Lt Gov Casey Cagle threatened Delta airlines with denial of tax breaks if they don’t resume ties with the NRA. I read about it at Hullabaloo today
Georgia, State of Disaster
Chyron HR
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Explain, without using the words “second” or “amendment”, why anyone on the face of the earth should care whether or not a hunter has the proper gun for killing a quail.
rikyrah
@Fair Economist:
The local authorities had OVER THIRTY CONTACTS WITH THE SHOOTER.
OVER 30 AND HE’S ONLY 19 PHUCKING YEARS OLD.
Blame the FBI?
PHUCK OUTTA HERE!
Just One More Canuck
@PaulWartenberg: And therefore,…
Fair Economist
@Shell:
The media loves to troll us by bringing up Starr as an expert on sexual harassment and prosecutorial overreach. It’s like they are saying “look what we can get away with!”. Might as well interview the head of Daesh on antiterrorism techniques.
randy khan
@MattF:
There’s an alternative explanation: She’s an attractive 20-something.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@donnah:
Party of Personal Freedom and Business everybody! If you don’t support our death cult, then we’ll destroy your company.
rikyrah
Trump’s Plan to Slash Legal Immigration—By the Numbers
The president wants the biggest cut since the 1920s,
KANYAKRIT VONGKIATKAJORNFEB. 27, 2018 6:00 AM
Reducing illegal immigration is one of President Donald Trump’s best known policy goals. But President Donald Trump has also insisted that curbing legal immigration must be a part of an immigration deal. Efforts to pass a bipartisan immigration bill have repeatedly stalled in Congress, with Trump rejecting any deals that do not address restrictions on legal immigration and provide funding for a border wall.
The White House’s immigration plan would put significant limits on legal family-based migration. Under the plan, legal immigrants could only sponsor their spouses and their minor children for legal permanent residency, the first step toward gaining citizenship. Citizens would no longer be able to sponsor their parents, grown children, or siblings for legal residency. Current green card holders would no longer be able to sponsor their adult children. The proposal draws heavily from the RAISE Act, legislation proposed last February by Republican senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia. The changes would be applied “prospectively, not retroactively,” according to the White House, likely meaning that current applications would still be processed, but future applications would be blocked.
Trump’s proposal would be the largest policy cut to to legal immigration since the 1920s, and the largest immigration policy shift since 1965, according to the libertarian Cato Institute.
donnah
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?:
I emailed Delta this morning and expressed my support for their disconnect from the NRA, if only to stop offering discounts for their members. It may just be a small gesture to email them, but lots of small gestures add up. And I’ll choose Delta for my flights this year, if they stay away from the NRA.
Miss Bianca
@Chyron HR: “Explain, without using the words “second” or “amendment”, why anyone on the face of the earth should care whether or not a hunter has the proper gun for killing a quail.”
Because the proper gun for hunting birds is a shotgun. Which is different from a rifle, which would be more appropriate for larger game. As to why anyone on the face of the earth should care…well, dumbass, not all of us live in the city. Some of us live in the country, where some people not only hunt, but are also dependent to a not-insignificant degree on tourism from hunters and anglers to contribute to the local economy.
And these hunters and anglers are powerful allies not only to the human economy, but the non-human one as well – since they tend to be the only fucking people the right-wing nutjobs out here will listen to when it comes to arguments against trying to seize and sell off access to public lands.
So, *I* care about hunters having the proper tools. There.
Now, take the words “Second” and “Amendment” and cram them up your self-righteous ass.
Booger
@LAO: keeping Maggie from eviscerating the cyclist
Well there’s your problem right there.
TenguPhule
@Chyron HR:
They’re quite tasty and small buggers so you need to use a shotgun with bird shot in order to kill it and still have something to eat.
The Moar You Know
@germy: “the guy who saved my reputation”
Spanky
Belongs here, but this is kind of a dead thread. In any case, per CNN:
Brachiator
@JPL:
Wishful thinking on my part.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@JPL:
The new Dem majority sworn in next January.
germy
She warned us. There’s even video.
sukabi
@rikyrah: Pure speculation follows…..it would appear that the $26 million to Melania’s friend was a duplicate amount paid to another event planning organization. Melania has now cut ties with her “friend”. Either Drumpf is paying off another mistress, or he’s embezzeling inauguration funds, or both….
Of course he could be making payments on his vig as well…
TenguPhule
@germy:
I do not like this modern retelling of the Trojan War.
Cassandra was right.
TenguPhule
@sukabi:
Embezzelling. Count on it.
Doug R
@LAO: So Maggie “stood her ground”.
LAO
@Booger: Funny, my father had a similar reaction.
@Doug R: She was a very upset pit mix.
wenchacha
Can someone explain Jonathan Turley to me? There was a time I thought he was a sane, sensible person. Does he not see any behavior by 45, et al., that is suspicious as regards Russian interference and influence? I know I have a bias; I am not a legal scholar, never been a fan of the shitgibbon. Even so, if Obama had been lugging so much baggage, I would have had second and third thoughts. At least.
notoriousJRT
@FlipYrWhig:
You know, Jonathan Turley is not on the Mueller team. So, the evidence he has seen is, you know, limited. But BLOTUS tries to take shelter and comfort from wherever he can.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Well, that’s probably advisable, esp. if she and Melania have an agreement to split that money after she and The Russo-president Trump divorce. Breaking up for a year or so, and then Melania getting hired after becoming a single mother of Barron, to earn her share of the booty. Not the worst plan I’ve heard out of this admin.
drkrick
Isn’t one of the reasons they keep talking about “no collusion” that collusion isn’t a term with a legal definition? I seems like the legal toadies are generally less willing to say there’s no conspiracy.
Bobby Thomson
@wenchacha: Turley is a partisan hack. He backed the legally frivolous challenge to Obamacare that claimed Congress knowingly designed the exchanges to fail.
Bobby Thomson
@drkrick: he is colluding/conspiring every day by (1) refusing to implement the sanctions required by legislation, and (2) refusing to instruct the head of the NSA to do anything about Russian interference in the 2018 elections. Republicans don’t care. They are all traitors. That’s not name calling – they literally are doing nothing in the face of an open threat to our democracy.
Jay S
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not pithy enough. Maybe in is comment about the inauguration “Crazy shit” was the nickname and not a description of the event.
Bobby Thomson
@sukabi: Or CREEP II.
J R in WV
@LAO:
We have a friend, probably in his 60s now, who moved to NYC and became a bike messenger to get in shape, about 20 years ago. He got hit by a cab, who was in violation when the accident happened. When he got out of the hospital, he could afford a modest apartment in a gentrified part of Brooklyn. Though he doesn’t ride a bike anymore.
Another friend rides in Central Park every day to stay in shape, safer than the mean city streets. He was pumping down hill, probably between 40 and 50 mph, when a diving hawk, attempting to convert a Central Park Squirrel into dinner for the whole family hit his front wheel, stopping the rotation instantly. John was over the handlebars, broken ribs and collar bone, lucky to not break his neck. When he woke up from the concussion, he didn’t have any idea what happened.
Investigators told him they found the dead falcon mostly tangled in his front fork and wheel, and that obviously caused the accident. The falcon was probably moving about 70 mph, so no wonder John never saw it. He was really lucky, and wearing a helmet, which probably helped save his life.
? Martin
@germy:
Yes, but her emails.
VeniceRiley
What are we going to call carpet bagging Levi? Levi Wilmer?
rikyrah
@Bobby Thomson:
TRAITORS
Chyron HR
@Miss Bianca:
Sorry, please answer without using the words “second” or “amendment” OR throwing a psychotic shrieking fit because someone disrespected the glorious philosopher-kings of Real America who spend their days shooting small funny-looking birds. That better?
The Moar You Know
@wenchacha: Like you, I used to be a fan. He clearly lost his shit after Obama got elected and within a year, his blog was unreadable and worthless. And he has drunk ALL the Kool-Aid, he will go to the wall for the GOP and Trump and Trump’s right to sell out America democracy.
He never struck me as one, but it’s apparent that, like Pat Lang, he was a racist who never knew it until America put a black guy in charge. Like Lang, he still doesn’t know he’s a racist. Doesn’t change the facts.
gvg
@Chyron HR: I have never fired a gun in my life but I think it has something to do with the size of the different shot. People can’t eat parts of bullets. quail are small. hitting them with too big a shot blows big holes in the meat and/or leave bits of lead thoughout the food.
Hitting something too big with too small a shot just hurts the animal. Hunter ethics say don’t leave injured animals to die in pain. I picked this up from books.
I would prefer we got back to a culture where some people carefully hunted for food and people didn’t debate guns in the context of killing people over fantasies. in a lot of ways there are 2 separate gun communities and the violent toward human part is not the same as the real hunter part. The hunter group needs to be separated from the thugs so that we can defeat the thugs better. there is some overlap of course, but also the thugs are using the hunters to confuse the issues.
Another Scott
@germy: TheMarshallProject:
Nobody could have predicted…
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Chyron HR: “psychotic shrieking fit”?
It’s not a “psychotic shrieking fit” to say that hunters, and hunting guns, have a place in the rural economy, you smug little son of a bitch.
AND since you have now moved the goal posts, you have proven that had no intention of being satisfied by any, you know, actual argument that doesn’t genuflect to your preconceived notions and prejudices, so find some other fool to practice your trolling skills on.
The Moar You Know
@Chyron HR: They’re tools. Use the right tool for the job. I don’t use a chainsaw on pearl inlay work, I wouldn’t shoot birds with a deer rifle. I don’t use an inlay saw trying to reduce a walnut tree to usable sizes for a guitar’s back and sides, nor would I use birdshot to try and shoot an elk.
Anonymous patient
@gratuitous:
I flapped my arms and flew to the Moon once, just a few years ago. It was at a summer solstice festival, longest day of the year. The Fuel was odd little dried mushrooms, but they got me going OK and the rest was cake!!
There was a bubble blower creating bubbles a yard across, which got into the updraft from the bonfire, and off we went!!! The night sky colors were also great…
Another Scott
@burnspbesq: Meh.
Can someone explain to me why digital information should have greater protection than information on paper? If the police have a warrant they can take every scrap of paper related to their investigation. Why should the same information, that is on a hard drive somewhere, be treated differently?
I’m all for privacy. And I understand the issues with metadata and digital breadcrumbs and facial recognition and all the rest.
But information subject to subpoena and search warrants should not have different protections depending on whether it is on paper or on a hard drive. It’s the information that matters – not how it is stored.
If someone has a good argument to the contrary, I’d be interested in hearing it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@gvg: Don’t bother trying to argue. Fucker doesn’t want facts or argument – he just wants to demonstrate his alleged moral superiority. In other words…trolling.
Gravenstone
@Jeffro: He signed a cooperation agreement. And you can bet if he breaks that agreement in any fashion, the charges get slapped right the fuck back on, with multipliers.
J R in WV
@Matt:
Never. Put ALL OF THEM in the Houston AstroDome if necessary, under armed guard, with the parking lots surrounded by jail-type fences so as to have outdoor space for the one hour a day they’re allowed out of their cage/seat. All of them, every one. If there are children with no one left to care for them, foster care, or a children’s school in trailers outside the AstroDome nation’s largest prison building.
burnspbesq
@Another Scott:
False framing. It’s not about “more,” it’s about “the same.” If the cops serve a search warrant on me at my house in OC, I am not required to fly to Ireland and retrieve all the incriminating documents at my vacation house in Galway. As you correctly point out, bits and hard copy should be treated equivalently.
The words “particularly describing” are not surplusage. Not a single word in the Fourth Amendement is surplusage.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I would add this. They may be entitled to scraps of paper in my house – with a search warrant – but they are not entitled to everything in my digital footprint and they are certainly not entitled to it without a warrant.
Also, I don’t have any paper lying around that would let them see every single location – not just where but when – that I have been at in the past year because of GPS on my phone.
J R in WV
@Miss Bianca:
Yes, what you say. I have used high-powered pistols to dispatch several deer that were fatally injured around the farm, from a .38 revolver to a .45 (semi)automatic. One deer was a trophy-worthy buck, 9 or 10 point, that had been partly eviscerated by coyotes, the other was a fawn with a badly broken leg.
Both were sad, giving me no pleasure, but ending their suffering quickly. I used the farm tractor to bury both of them in the bottom, where the soil is deep enough to do the job right. That buck would have made a great trophy, if I collected such stuff.
My brother has several unusual trophies on his wall, Scimitar-horned Ibex is the most unusual, nearly extinct in the wilds of Arabia, they mostly occur on Texan game ranches where you can buy a hunt for one. Not my hobby. He also killed a 750 pound feral hog with a handgun, they broke the hoist putting it into the PU truck, actually, so more than 750 as that was the rating on the broken hoist. Not my hobby!
Adam L Silverman
@Chyron HR:
The other quail hunters make fun of you if you’re not outfitted properly. It’s a peer abuse and bullying type of situation.
gratuitous
@Anonymous patient: And I totally believe that, as well. Do you have a newsletter? I’d like to subscribe.
J R in WV
@sukabi:
Or it could be a painless way of enhancing Melenia’s ability to leave Trump without going through a formal divorce proceeding in order to access monies obligated by the pre-nup, monies Trump no longer has available to pay to Melania. Tres Embarrassing!!!
But if Melania and her friend are to split the $26,000,000 that would keep both of them comfortable going forward in the absence of an economic catastrophe. Is it even illegal? Sounds shady, but legal. A party administrator can charge whatever they want, if the buyer is willing to pay, after all. $1200 for a gay wedding cake, OK…
J R in WV
@gvg:
Well said, for sure. There are at least 3 groups of gun-using people, four if you count LEOs. There is obviously some overlap. Hunters, competitive (or not so competitive) target shooters, and sefl-defense enthusiasts. I expect many target shooters may also hunt, although I don’t.
Hunters and self-defense enthusiatists overlap a little too, but not as much as you might think. RWNJs are big into self-defense, not so much really hunting. There are guys who go to hunting camp to get away from the family and drink in the woods, some of those guys go hunting that way, drunk. The most dangerous LEO jobs are game wardens, almost all the violators they encounter are armed, except for guys fishing without a license.
Another Scott
@burnspbesq and WaterGirl: IANAL, but it seems clear to me that even treating bits and papers “the same” needs to involve careful thought. If I’m working at my PC and doing things with information that is subject to subpoena or a search warrant, whether that computer is displaying that information from a local floppy disk or hard drive or networked hard drive is immaterial. It shouldn’t matter if the server is in the same room or the basement or on Jupiter. If the law says that the information must be produced if it were on paper then the same necessity to produce the information applies no matter where it is if I can work with it as if it were local.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the law doesn’t say that, but the law often lags technology.
I don’t like the idea that people who are tech savvy and well-off enough to move their records off-shore can avoid the legal system in ways that people who keep paper records cannot. The rich already have enough advantages that normal people don’t.
Yes, digital breadcrumbs and the like are an issue. But effectively giving off-shore information that-can-be-manipulated-as-if-it-were-local more protections than paper records is a bad idea. If I can work on a GoogleDocs spreadsheet in my home, it should be treated as if it were local no matter where the file is actually stored. Treating it otherwise, or requiring separate warrants, invites abuse. (There’s no technical reason preventing Google or Microsoft or Vlad’sHouseofTrolls from breaking up a file across hundreds or thousands of jurisdictions as they store it – a Planetary RAID drive – to try to prevent an effective response to a subpoena or search warrant…)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Russ
@d58826: Red Flag law would allow FBI and other police to take a suspect’s guns if they suspect someone is intent on committing a shooting. Some states already have it. Even if they suspected the guy was about to go off they have no legal way……
WhatsMyNym
@Chyron HR: It’s not how many guns you have, it’s what they can used for. Big difference between being shot by bird shot once, or 15 rounds from a semi-automatic rifle.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Adam L Silverman:
And one of the rightwing school-massacre responses is that you need more anonymous denunciations of your neighbors. The problem, apparently, lies in the US not yet being enough of a Nation of Narks.
Captain C
@Adam L Silverman: Only a little excessive for a problem which could be solved with a rod through the front wheel spokes.
But having had to deal with NYC bikers as a pedestrian for over a decade, let me emphasize “only a little excessive.”
(Note: I am all for the expansion of cycling as a regular means of transport, but NYC bikers are insane road and sidewalk hogs.)
burnspbesq
@Captain C:
Been to Seattle lately?
Waynski
@LAO: You’re right about NYC cyclists (well, some). My BIL, a Doc, and I got spat upon by one while walking over the Brooklyn Bridge b/c he had one foot in the bike lane. Plus cyclist was going waaaay too fast for that space. Jerks.