Looks like our boy Nunberg is going to comply with his subpoena once he sobers up. Here’s a song in his honor.
Also, Stuart Rothenberg, the once and future Republican analyst, thinks gun control will help Democrats swing the suburbs.
Open Thread.
Reader Interactions
166Comments
Comments are closed.
dedc79
Every Balloon Juice post should be a Hold Steady lyric. They’ve got two new songs out by the way.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Nunberg, Miller & Jones’ personalized portraits all look like Zeus before Semele lol
Brutalist architecture looks like how Dutch Oven butthurt feels
Baud
I hope he’s drunk for the grand jury testimony. Looser lips.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Baud: Key & Peele play Page & Nunberg in the black version of Infrastructure Week
Libraryguy
Hi mistermix, is there somewhere I can pm you? I have a question. Thanks!
Baud
CNN is reporting this.
Jeffro
You know, I haven’t given “Boys and Girls In America” a spin some time…thanks for the prompt, mistermix! What a classic.
(Oh, and while I have some sympathy for Nunberg, anyone who regards Roger Freakin’ Stone as a father figure is clearly not all right in the head.)
foucault swing voter mistermix
@dedc79: This song was made for Nunberg:
foucault swing voter mistermix
@Libraryguy: My email is [email protected]
Jeffro
@Baud: The Rs will crawl off to lick their wounds and figure out some other way to put the screws to the teachers. 110% positive of that.
Jeffro
Right now on Fox: “New Special Counsel May Be Unavoidable Due to All DOJ FISA Abuses”
Say what now?
I don’t think they’re going to quit the lying/betraying our country, ever…they’re all in it too deep…
JGabriel
NBC News (via link from mistermix @ top):
Traitor Donald “went around trying to hide it when he shouldn’t have,” Sam, because meeting the Russians to get illegally obtained information from a hostile foreign government is against the law, whether or not they got something. Intent matters.
Major Major Major Major
I love that album.
schrodingers_cat
Since IANAL I don’t understand all of this but this sounds bad
/
Here is the rest of the thread
Adam L Silverman
Nunberg’s meltdown yesterday was a work. It was a complete act. He’s pulled stuff like this time and time again over his career. Normally it doesn’t get this much coverage. And the news media swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. So the questions are: What was he trying to distract from? And why did Roger Stone want him to do this?
Bruce K
Now that the Nunberg nonsense is (hopefully) dispensed with, is there any way to get traction on the allegation that Moscow exercised some sort of veto over the current administration’s first choice for nominee to the post of Secretary of State? Because from where I’m standing, if a government official offers that level of deference to a foreign nation that’s shown itself to be hostile to the United States, that’s it. That’s Article 3, Section 3, by the numbers, and if it can be proven, that’s Article 2, Section 4. It’s right there in black and white.
germy
Attempted conspiracy is also a crime....
@JGabriel: Conspiracy to attempt a criminal act is itself a criminal act.
Barbara
@Adam L Silverman: What does he think he won, exactly?
Immanentize
@JGabriel:
Conspiracy to attempt a criminal act is itself a criminal act.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: It means that the immigration judges can now decide cases on papers, and don’t have to conduct a courtroom hearing before deciding whether to grant the immigrant’s request.
Washburn
Okay since Nunberg isn’t really going my to defy Mieller, what story of greater significance got buried yesterday during Numbergs campaign?
That’s the real story.
And, yes, I keep my Occam’s razor tucked in my tinfoil hat.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: So Nunberg – acting on Stone’s instructions – was trying to make the whole Special Counsel’s investigation look like a circus? By going on multiple TV shows, acting like a complete loon, to the point of show hosts asking him if he was ‘ok’ (i.e., sane) or possibly drunk?
I’m not buying it. It sounds like an after-the-fact “yeah, I meant to do all that”. The simpler version is that he really did crack up after realizing that his emails with Stone were likely going to help bury Stone.
JGabriel
McKay Coppins via Adam L Silverman:
I think Nunberg spent too much time copying Trump’s mannerisms / speaking style and now he can’t stop.
Bruce K
@Washburn: Might have been the allegation of the Moscow veto over the cheeto’s pick for Secretary of State, if I read things right.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I gathered the gist of it but what I could not determine is whether it as bad as it sounds.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Nunes has latched on to more reporting by the execrable John Solomon at The Hill. Solomon is reporting that in 2006 the Australian government gave a large donation to the Clinton Foundation for AIDS prevention and treatment programs throughout Asia, which is what the money was used for. Nunes is touting this, because Solomon has slanted his reproting to make it easy to do, is part of an overarching conspiracy over a decade in the making because the now Australian High Commissioner to Great Britain, who instigated the Australian intelligence investigation and then sharing of intelligence with the US, over Papadapolous shooting his mouth of in a pub about Russia looking to supply the Trump campaign with dirt. Where’s the conspiracy? The current High Commissioner was the then Australian Foreign Ministry official that facilitated the donation on the Australian side. So he’s clearly a Clinton operative or dupe or both.
These people need professional help.
Jeffro
@Bruce K: that, and the $120M that Tillerson ISN’T spending to fight against the next Russian attack.
Major Major Major Major
@Major Major Major Major: but Separation Sunday is way better.
dedc79
@Adam L Silverman: I continue to think this was all about Nunberg wanting Mueller to raid his home/office and seize his documents, while at the same time appearing to be resisting.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Can we talk about his abysmal sartorial choices? My son messaged me some screen grab of him yesterday (but a file shot, not real-time) where he was wearing a striped grey suit, a white and purple striped shirt, some kind of paisley necktie, an improperly contrasting dotted pocket square and a flag pin. I said he should go to prison just for that outfit.
JGabriel
@Immanentize:
Yes, that’s exactly my point. That, and also that Nunberg’s assumption there is as ignorant as his assumption that he could get away with ignoring a subpoena.
Bruce K
@JGabriel: Reminiscent of something I once read: a trial lawyer’s worst nightmare is a client who gets on the witness stand, starts talking, keeps talking, and won’t shut up.
Doug R
@Jeffro:
So is their plan to have a parallel investigation to sandbag Mueller? Interviewing his witnesses to find out what he knows? Tying Mueller up by dragging his crew in front of Grand Juries?
Fox “news” has no shame.
Gin & Tonic
@Jeffro: The office that that $120M was supposed to help fund has, according to the NYT, 23 analysts. Zero of them speak Russian. That’s brilliant.
dedc79
@Major Major Major Major: I concur. Each album since has been worse than the one before it (but Boys and Girls is still pretty damn great and Stay Positive is still pretty good).
Bruce K
@Jeffro: Yeah, that’d be pretty much Article 3, Section 3 on Tillerson. But if Moscow had input on his appointment, that’s Article 3, Section 3 on the cheeto.
Adam L Silverman
@Barbara: Whatever it was he and Stone felt needed to be ignored by creating wall to wall coverage of Nunberg’s stunt.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Knowing more than one language is considered sinful by this administration.
JPL
@Bruce K: Paul Ryan will simple say that it’s not helpful.
Major Major Major Major
@dedc79: it’s very hard to beat an almost perfectly executed concept album.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t know. I’m not an immigration lawyer, so I don’t know how much difference the courtroom hearing makes in terms of the final outcome.
Immanentize
@Bruce K: In the real world, throughout history, the United States has consulted with friend and foe about who they might see as an unacceptable intermediary — particularly at the ambassador level. in fact, in diplomatic practice, getting the approval of the assigned state has long been a matter of manners, if not required exactly. Certainly the Secretary of State position is different, but is still in the diplomatic world. Sometimes we took the advice, and often did not. If there was a policy to change the direction of relations with Russia, it would not be unusual to feel them out on proposed appointments. The fact that Romney was a person Trump despised anyway, kinda leaves the treason stuff out, I think.
Turning around our usual refrain, I would certainly be defending Obama if he reached out to various countries before he appointed Hillary (which I am sure he did).
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: It was a very expensive and badly coordinated ensemble.
Baud
@Immanentize: Agree with this analysis.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: They’ve actually now kicked this back to DOD to put out for a contract solution.
catclub
@Jeffro:
The ONLY FISA abuses they bring up are those related to the Russia investigation. If they documented others not related to this case they might have a case.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
I have to admit that as Nunberg went on yesterday, I grew increasingly uneasy with the coverage. After the first three or four interviews, it began to feel exploitive. The guy was obviously losing it. Watching him felt more like poking an animal in a cage rather than reporting news.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: ok, so, the big scoop is that he’s a fucking nut job who wigged out because clicking the search button on his email client seemed like a hassle, and decided to go complain about it? All of which was readily evident?
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: Can you think of a news story yesterday that would be worth that?
catclub
@dedc79: No. You’re not the boss of me.
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): He deserves every bit of it. Ari really tried to help him and he was a total punk, fuck him.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: DOD?! WTF?
germy
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: on the other hand, Trump’s ambassador appointments show a clear lack of regard for the relevant country, sometimes even hostility—so why would he be deferent to only one?
Barbara
@JGabriel: I would just like to say that I find Coppins to be a less than authoritative source for insight on matters like this.
JGabriel
@Bruce K: Heh.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Right. Any information about a connection between Trump and Russia is important. But the general practice of considering other countries’ views for such a position does not strike me as problematic.
Barbara
@Adam L Silverman: That assumes that the real action relates to publicity associated with events rather than the events themselves. Maybe they think that, I have no idea, but color me extremely skeptical.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
I feel like I’m high after reading that paragraph…what in the??
The only way to deal with this kind of madness is to proactively get out there, loudly and often, and point out that a) this is just another version of whataboutism, a fave of Putin’s, and b) the standard is not and cannot be “as long as anyone vaguely connected to the Dems ever did something vaguely suspicious, no Republican can be investigated on anything”.
Jeffro
@Doug R:
Yes x 4 here. Both the facts and the law are against them, so they are ‘pounding the table’.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Having seen Adam’s comments, I am willing to consider we were being played. That doesn’t make me happier.
germy
Jeffro
@Gin & Tonic: @Adam L Silverman: and yet…it looked remarkably like Stone’s own choices, in pics I’ve seen of him. Hopefully Nunberg does not also have a large Nixon tattoo…
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@germy: I imagine Paris Hilton asked the same question.
germy
How is nunberg playing us when he admits trump probably did something. Or admits carter page conspired with the russians?
I mean, is trump chuckling to himself this morning and saying “Nice job, nunberg! You really played those fools…” ?
Jeffro
@Immanentize:
The difference being, the very same hostile foreign power that attacked our country and installed the current president* apparently exercised its veto power on it’s puppet’s choices for one of the very top cabinet posts. That is a world of difference than Obama asking for Britain’s or France’s thoughts on his SoS.
germy
@Adam L Silverman:
The trump administration is a very expensive and badly coordinated ensemble.
LAO
Did I miss any presidential tweeting about Nunberg?
rp
@Immanentize:
Really? I can’t imagine Obama did that. Ambassadors, sure. But I would be surprised if previous presidents had solicited input from foreign countries on SoS.
gene108
@Jeffro:
I wonder what kompromat Putin has on Rupert. Rupert’s ex-wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch, is a probable Chinese spy and has been known to hang around with the Moscow elite.
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: Which ambassadors? This is an interesting area to look at —
I assume you might include Hoekstra, but I am confident that the Nederland government had no objection to a local boy made good becoming their ambassador from the US. Now the State department was in complete disarray at the time, but I suspect the Dutch were invited to approve. We know the South Koreans were, I’m going to try and find out about the Dutch….
Who else has Trump appointed that seem antithetical to the government they are ambassador to?
JGabriel
@Barbara:
Any particular reason for that, or just a distrust of Buzzfeed? I don’t know much about Coppins reporting history, except that he’s gotten a few scoops in the past.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: This is a policy that a known hate group (according to SPLC’s classification) had espoused, so its probably unfavorable to the applicants would be my guess.
catclub
@Immanentize:
Callista Gingrich at the Vatican.
schrodingers_cat
USCIS is closing its offices on military bases. Yet another roadblock in the path of immigrant soldiers in getting their citizenship.
ETA: Its clear how this administration sees immigrants, at best rented mules, at worst moochers and criminals. But in either case not as fellow human beings.
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
Well, there’s always Scott Brown, who, shortly after taking up his New Zealand posting, had to be “counseled” for “undiplomatic behavior” and “cultural insensitivity.”
germy
Immanentize
@rp: Really? You can’yt imagine us asking E.U. leaders or the British Prime Minister or the head of NATO, etc., who they thought would make a good Secretary of State? You think Israel is not invited to share their position on t eposition? We are much wore interconnected, government to government, than people imagine. At the very least, we (OK, historically meaning before Trump) have not wanted to appoint someone who even a friend has significant dirt on and can embarrass as they choose. There is a consultation process for Secretary of State appointments which include our own ambassadors supplying information on how that person will be received in the country in which that ambassador serves. This is a hearsay version of: “Find out what the leader of ____ thinks of _____.” As I said, we don’t have to take the advice, but we certainly gather all the opinions (and reasons) that we can from every foreign government we can.
Elizabelle
@gene108: I hope Team Mueller turns its attention to Murdoch, Fox News and the wingnut wurlitzer. It is damaging our country badly; you would not have a Trump without those bastards priming the pump, through sheer repetition, for years upon years.
Barbara
@JGabriel: I enjoy reading Coppins, but he is really more of a stylist. I just don’t see why he would have any special insight into Nunberg’s motivation. People like Stone and Nunberg are maddening, and maybe they do have some grand agenda to hog news coverage to keep a particular item, like Jane Mayer’s New Yorker story, out of the limelight for a day, but, Occam’s razor, this might simply have been a stunt to communicate Mueller’s strategy far and wide to those who are likely targets of it. Or panic. Or taking advantage of publicity when it’s yours for the taking because it coincides with what news agencies are already covering.
Schlemazel
Nunberg was a distraction & it worked perfectly. DId you hear one word yesterday about Putin selecting Tillerson over Romney for Sec of State? No, you did not, all you heard about was that crazy drunk on TV
Steve in the SFO
@germy: how well loved is Shalala in the Miami area? There was a lot of dissatisfaction after she de-emphasized football at the U.
Cheryl Rofer
@Bruce K: That is one report of a report that comes from anonymous sources. Far from enough to impeach, especially with this congress. We can hope that the appropriate parties (Mueller, the media) are looking further into it.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: I don’t know. The question is what did we all miss starting around 4 or 5 PM because everyone was focused on Nunberg.
Major Major Major Major
The problem with the distraction theory is that it doesn’t work any more, because every single thing the administration does is a major scandal if not outright constitutional crisis/act of war. Deflecting from something bad with something bad has the result of something bad being covered. Also the media doesn’t really work this way any more, between partisan entrenchment and people just believing whatever the fuck they want nowadays, and the changes in the media in general over the last decade.
Maybe he thought he was doing a big distraction thingy, but he was wrong.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I just double checked. I misread the reporting. It will be a contract vehicle via State. The funding is coming from a $40 million transfer from DOD to fund the contract solution.
germy
@Steve in the SFO: Maybe Betty Cracker can answer that question.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major:Word. This distraction hypothesis is not very convincing to me. At this point how many people are there whose minds are not made up about the daily WH shitshow.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: and in this era, with good 24/7 in-depth blogs on any subject, everybody who wants to be informed will be informed. Pushing something off CNN for a day, or below the fold at the Times, doesn’t buy you anything anymore unless that one day is particularly precious, the thing you’re distracting from is particularly urgent.
ETA there are still people who fall into the “want to be informed but can’t for access/literacy reasons” group but CNN stunts have zero effect on them anyway
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Heres the link to the article:
http://thehill.com/376858-australian-diplomat-whose-tip-prompted-fbis-russia-probe-has-tie-to-clintons
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: It wasn’t even something vaguely suspicious. It was all above board. All done out in the open. All done through the normal processes. And all done a decade before the High Commissioner was made the High Commissioner, let alone bumped into a very chatty, inebriated Papadapolous in a London pub.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro:
Fixed it for you.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: True.
Cheryl Rofer
From Major Major Major Major
I agree and am getting tired of the distraction provided by those saying “X was a distraction.” It doesn’t matter if a Trumpie thought they’d throw out another (real) disaster to distract from an earlier disaster. We need to meet the disasters and deal with them.
It’s fair enough to ask “What did we miss while something overwhelming happened?” – essential, in fact. But stop with the “distraction” talk. It makes the clown car sound like geniuses and takes us down the garden path of trying to figure out a nonexistent strategy.
Just keep dealing with the shit they throw out, and figure out ways to prevent more.
Wapiti
@schrodingers_cat: Nor me. Yesterday’s circus advertised that Trump surrounded himself with clowns.
As for Tillerson vs. Romney, I thought it was already pretty well assumed that Tillerson’s only use in the position was to look after Russian oil interests.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: I’m waiting for the search and arrests warrants to be issued. I’m going to title the posts: Judgement at Nunberg.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I may need professional help just to make it thru’ that paragraph. I literally *can not* follow its ‘logic’ train.
germy
nunberg said he joined the campaign in 2011?
Doesn’t this contradict drumpf’s timeline?
Barbara
@Wapiti: It is often the case that ambassadors are proposed to home countries in order to avoid the embarrassing situation of being forced to withdraw a nominee. However, shopping a proposed secretary of state, a cabinet level position intended to reflect U.S. priorities, whether it was to Russia or really any other country, would be something very startling and troubling. So yes, that’s worth pursuing. I just don’t see a natural relationship between that story and Nunberg and Stone being in the crosshairs of the special prosecutor.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Good point. Amended to, “b) the standard is not and cannot be “as long as anyone vaguely connected to the Dems ever did anything, period, no Republican can be investigated on anything”.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
Gee, thanks. Hey hand me some of that brain bleach when you have a sec, willya…
PS how do I create a strikethrough?
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Cutting away due process?
Of course, it’s bad
Spanky
From CNN’s website:
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: See comment 91.
Robin Gittelman
@Immanentize: Newt Gingrich’s third wife/former mistress as Ambassador to the Vatican?
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
This is outrageous ??
Robin Gittelman
@catclub: Beat me to it
rikyrah
@Wapiti:
He wasn’t called The Secretary of EXXON for nothing.
Spanky
So for what it’s worth, here are the major points of this WaPo article, What on Earth was Sam Nunberg Doing?
EdTheRed
Roger Stone gave him four, but he said only take one
But then he got bored and he ended up taking all four
So now my man he ain’t that bored, anyways
The paramedics found him, he was shaking on the side of the stage
Everything was spinning and then I came to in the chillout tent
They gave me oranges and subpoenas
Schlemazel
@Adam L Silverman:
We missed that the new release of Steel information included the kremlin rejecting Romney for State & choosing Tillerson
germy
@Spanky: Sleeping it off.
Pittsburgh MIke
I honestly didn’t think there was anyone dumber than Carter Page. My bad.
What’s *wrong* with these people that they feel compelled to go on TV and destroy their own legal arguments? How did Trump come up with this many brain-damaged individuals?
Schlemazel
@Cheryl Rofer:
They are not geniuses but they are smart enough to know how the media chases shiny objects & floods the air with the odd and noisy. I asked it earlier and nobody responded, I asked it again just now & here is the rhitrd ask:
How many people heard about the new revelation from the Steel documents that Putin chose Tillerson over Romney for Sec of State?
Not geniuses just smarter than the media.
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman:
Most excellent!
Jeffro
@EdTheRed: inspired!
How about some lines from “You Can Make Him Like You”? I don’t know whether that would be Nunberg singing to Stone, or Trumpov singing to Fred Trump…
Jeffro
.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: You type one of these “<" followed by "strike", followed by one of these ">” before the word or phrase you want to strike. You then type one of these “<" followed by one of these "/" followed by "strike" followed by ">” after the word or phrase you want to strike through.
No Drought No More
The world wonders what Stu Rothenberg’s deep thoughts will be be concerning the democrats chances vis a vis the forthcoming exposure of republican party treason. Trump and his cronies being but the tip of the tip of the iceberg, and all.
Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel: I covered that here shortly after lunch yesterday.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, so that’s it…I was typing “strikethrough” instead of “strike”…
thanksmuchas gracias, Adam!Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel: Everyone at Balloon Juice!
https://balloon-juice.com/2018/03/05/just-a-quick-note-on-the-russia-investigation/
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I initially tried to type it out as an example and all it did was give me a comment with a strike through bar.
Major Major Major Major
@EdTheRed: well done.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you an “F” on this assignment, Dr. Silverman.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
The damage Trump is doing to immigrants is going to be one of the longest lasting wounds to heal. Once someone is deported or separated from family, there is just so much lost, some of whom are not going to ever recover.
What the media isn’t reporting is the attack on legal immigrants isn’t about keeping new people from entering the country, it is about kicking out all the non-permanent residents and naturalized citizens on temporary visas by making an already onerous process that much more difficult or not renewing some forms of temporary visas, like the hundreds of thousands of folks from Central America and Haiti, who had their temporary resettlement visas revoked after living hear for 10 to 20 years.
Gin & Tonic
@Jeffro: “Strike” as a tag still works, but it was deprecated nearly 20 years ago. The current standard is “del” or simply “s” – which also saves typing.
raven
Washington (CNN)The US Office of Special Counsel announced Tuesday that White House aide Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act on two occasions by “advocating for and against candidates” in last year’s Alabama Senate special election.
In a new report, the OSC special counsel, Henry Kerner, pointed to Conway’s TV interviews conducted in her “official capacity” in November and December of last year. The agency said Conway “impermissibly mixed official government business with political views about candidates in the Alabama special election.”
Spanky
The hell?
hueyplong
I will go out on a limb and guess the scoreboard on last night’s “stunt” did not go final when McKay Coppins hit SEND.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic:
Are you sure?Really?It appears that you are! :-)
Major Major Major Major
@Spanky: this would not be the first study suggesting a link between a tendency towards visceral disgust and authoritarianism.
@Gin & Tonic: oh, I didn’t know about s! Looking it up now, ‘s’ is a more correct application than ‘del’ here (text that is no longer correct vs. text that has been deleted).
Schlemazel
@Adam L Silverman:
And that is, what 0.00001% of the population? And none of them fall into the group who wonder if Dump is really doing OK. The great uninformed remain so.
They are not hiding from us they are hiding from the disinterested and ignorant
WaterGirl
@raven: Yeah, but then there’s this part:
Like that will ever happen!
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Since both ‘s’ and ‘del’ produce a result that looks the same to the reader, I will leave it to HTML pedants to debate which one is “more correct.” Good thing we have none of those here at B-J.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: I wonder how having a really good sense of smell factors in? My sense of smell is exceedingly acute – I wonder if how strong odor is to us affects the amount of disgust?
Of course, I am the opposite of someone who would be drawn to authoritarianism, so maybe not?
JPL
@raven: And nothing else will happen.
or what Water Girl said.
Corner Stone
@Schlemazel:
While an interesting insight, if true, it still isn’t very meaningful in the broader scope of the Russia investigation. There is a defensible position to be made if it ever came to that, which I doubt it will.
The Nunberg theater, IMO, is one of two things. One, it was a real crackup under immense stress and fear of what will be revealed. People afterward got to him and talked him off the roof. Two, it was an effort to get Mueller to force his hand so it didn’t look like he’s simply folding. I don’t think we’ve seen the last actions Mueller is prepared to take against Nunberg.
Nunberg’s problem is he doesn’t have anyone to give up that Mueller cares about. Mueller most likely has all the messages and intercepts with Stone and bad actors. Who else does Nunberg have?
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic:
Tut-tut. Maybe they do here, but the point of semantic markup is to say what something is and then let the publisher decide how it looks.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Has the lightning struck yet as your penalty for that unbelievably false statement at the end of your comment?
Schlemazel
@Schlemazel:
Correction: I just checked & the correct answer for BJ is that it appears to be 0.00024 of the population. We are growing by leaps and bounds!
JPL
@Corner Stone: Roger Stone is going to be on Todd’s show, so maybe he’ll have additional insight.
hahahahaha
Spanky
@WaterGirl: Well, there’s her usual spanking ….
Corner Stone
@Schlemazel: MSNBC is doing a whole block with Jane Mayer right now. I am sure she has also made the GMA and Today rounds and may make the Sunday shows. She will not be mentioned on Fox. So those who care to find out more know where to look. Her reporting was not for the Trumpers.
Schlemazel
@Corner Stone:
I think it is further proof that they are not geniuses. They have no long-term plan, no grand stratagy to get themselves out of the shitheap they have created. They have tactics . . . well, really just tactic unless you consider lying in which case they do have two.
They don’t know what they will do tomorrow but today they will lie and distract. It is all Dump knows how to do because it is all he has every had to do to get his way.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108:
You mean non-citizens right? Because once you are citizen, why would you need a visa.
Barbara
@Corner Stone: If he has anything it would likely relate to Trump’s operations in Russia going back to whenever it was Nunberg first began working for Trump, in 2011. However, the subpoena did not seem focused on that time period or those activities. I suspect that Mueller already had a lot of emails and issued the subpoena purely to make sure nothing had been missed, so that no one can insinuate that he did not have all there was to see. I would also hazard a guess that Nunberg is worried that his emails might undercut whatever it was that he has already told Mueller’s team. He cannot be so stupid as to think he would be asked questions with no follow up by Mueller of emails or other documents related to the same subject matter. But then again, maybe he can be that stupid. It’s an amazing fact of life you learn as a lawyer, how much people are disposed to lie if they think they can and if they are sufficiently worried about what the truth might reveal. Or they lie just to cover up that they don’t remember because they are senile or they think having no memory makes them look worse than lying.
WaterGirl
@Spanky: thanks a lot for that image, you bastard! :-)
Corner Stone
@Schlemazel: Personally, beyond all the nutty ass drama, I thought the best thing to come out of Nunberg’s stunt was when he repeatedly stated that Mueller may have something on Trump because Nunberg thinks he did something dirty during the campaign. That was my takeaway from the whole ordeal. Now, is that true? Is it just bait? Is it a ruse meant to tie into something else? All those things are possible but I think Nunberg just wants to stick it to Trump.
Schlemazel
@Corner Stone:
Well MSNBC’s numbers make B-J look pretty popular. We will see if it makes a splash. But that goes back to the point that they have no strategy only that one tactic.
Right now they are doing Benji whining about how he will not allow Iran to build bases in Syria. Maybe he shouldn’t have worked so hard at getting the US to destabilize the Middle East. I do not think it is working the way he assumed it would.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Maybe the long-term message is “we are watching” or “you have been warned”? And not just watching Conway, but everyone.
The real story for me is why it took them so long. I’m betting there have been a zillion violations of the Hatch act by this administration.
Schlemazel
@Corner Stone:
The only interesting thing in this torturous ordeal is seeing how it turns out. I have a dim view for our recovery as a nation but how this particular soap opera ends will be interesting at any rate.
JPL
@WaterGirl: The White house responded chiding the report.
https://twitter.com/finnygo/status/971080132218810368
Corner Stone
@Barbara:
I agree with this suggestion. IMO, Nunberg probably Nunberged himself when he talked with Mueller’s team. Some truths, some half-truths, a whole lot of bluster and braggadocio. He realizes now that with the emails revealed he has probably talked himself right into a felony. Or two. If you are emailing or texting one person 15 times a day you’re going to be your true self at times. And for Nunberg that’s going to mean slammer time.
Jeffro
On a bigger and better topic than Wackaloon Nunberg…I have been wondering how democracies get their mojo back after an experience like this one with Trumpov and his enablers Ryan & McConnell. I’m not encouraged by what I’m seeing in Italy, but then again, frankly, Italy was a mess before Berlusconi and probably will be for years to come.
I think the first step is for the pro-democracy party to get strong, stay strong, and never apologize for/back down on promoting democracy either here or abroad.
The second step is going to have to be some sort of national truth & reconciliation commission immediately after the first couple of waves of criminal prosecutions. It will (likely as a byproduct of those prosecutions) have a great deal of info about both our big-donor “Dark Money” campaign finance system as well as info about how Russia manipulated social media/public perception…I know quite a bit of that is already out there, but it needs to be put out more widely, and often, and in its simplest form so that it becomes common knowledge.
The third step is legislation that reforms campaign finance in favor of individuals and transparency (no more Donors Trust, etc), and some sort of regulations on the social media companies to force them to do more diligence on who is buying their ads, and then full, prominent disclose of that to the public (kind of like campaign ads do, but all the time, for all ads). I’d also like to see some national legislation to end gerrymandering and to broaden voting rights/access.
And then…as long as I’m pipe-dreaming here…a capstone to all of this, this setting-our-country-back-to-rights, would be for the T&RC to sit down and collectively draw up a ‘restoration of norms’ for the country, to be endorsed by both parties, etc etc. But that’s obviously a ways off. It all starts with us pro-democracy folks being strong this fall, and then never looking back or backing down afterwards.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: You want a ponicorn with that?
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
The Democratic Party and the Democratic Party?
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Haven’t watched many movies about WWII Germany?
TenguPhule
@Spanky: Germaphobes of the World revolt! You have nothing to lose but your morals!
Jeffro
@Corner Stone:
me
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: I saw that. But I figured as long as you were sharing a pipe with Nunberg you may as well try and shoot the moon.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: I’ve never been Nunberg-high*, not even on an airplane. Few have.
*reminds me of the old Sam Kinison bit, where he is talking about getting so high, he was higher than god, and god gets severely irritated at this…”HEY! Nobody’s higher than me!!1! AOH OHHHH!!!!”
Steve in the SFO
@Adam L Silverman:
This is why you are a front pager. Well played.
scott (the other one)
@Jeffro: I would love a special counsel to look into whether or not top Fox executives have been compromised by Russia.
(Okay, no, I wouldn’t, since I think that’s one of those rare slippery slope arguments that’s valid. But for fuck’s sake…)
Tim C.
@Adam L Silverman: damnit, I’ve been thinking that the last 24 hours myself.
Though tangential question, William Shatter would make a perfect Trump in the movie version of all this.