Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

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

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

So very ready.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

People are weird.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Be a wild strawberry.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

Everybody saw this coming.

Let there be snark.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: Boobs & Explosions in Every Scene!

Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: Boobs & Explosions in Every Scene!

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249Comments

  3. 3.

    Jeffro

    Ok, I watched the Borger video…I feel like I might be high now. Am I high?

    Man, this is going to be one wacky spring…

  4. 4.

    TenguPhule

    COHEN HANDLED THE BOOKS AT RNC! Motherfucker knows all the dirty deals, the slush funds, the laundered Russian money.

    One fool to ruin them all.

    In the dark lands where Donald lies.

  6. 6.

    maya

    If he had only released his tax returns back in ’16 all of this could have been avoided.

  7. 7.

    cmorenc

    They are going nuts (I mean, more far more nuts than usual) over on right-wing sites such as Red State over this search of Cohen’s office. This turn of events is sinking into them that the vice really is closing in on Trump, unless he fires Mueller AND Sessions, even though they are still in complete denial that Trump might have done anything criminally or treasonously wrong or that there is even any evidence supporting that notion, and fuming that the DOJ should be focused on Hillary’s grave treasonous crimes instead.

  11. 11.

    catclub

    I repeat: COHEN HANDLED THE BOOKS AT RNC! Motherfucker knows all the dirty deals, the slush funds, the laundered Russian money.

    wow, I did not know Cohen was in finance at RNC.

  12. 12.

    pat

    I’m having a great deal of schadenfreuede thinking about what the Trump kids and everyone involved with this lowlife is saying now…

    Jaezus you just had to run for president…..!

  14. 14.

    Corner Stone

    @Jeffro: You may or may not be high. But that Borger clip made zero sense whatsoever. It makes me think there was a long stick with a hook on the end that yanked her off screen, or Tapper started anointing her with Holy Water and screaming, “The power of Christ compels you!”

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    @? Martin: My RWNJ dad is crowing that Cruz just laid into Zuckerberg – something about conservative news or posts being deleted?? SUCK IT LIBTARDS THE TRUTH WILL PREVAIL!!, is, I guess the theme there.

    Meanwhile, no response to my forwarding him that Yglesias tweet. I guess as long as there’s some conservative, SOMEwhere, willing to take on librul mediaz oppression, no conservative ANYwhere has to own their support of Trumpov. I guess.

  17. 17.

    Redshift

    @cmorenc:

    and fuming that the DOJ should be focused on Hillary’s grave treasonous crimes instead.

    They never seen to be able to grasp the concept that someone else being (allegedly) guilty doesn’t make your guy any less guilty. But then logic has never been their strong suit.

  18. 18.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    April D Ryan is my new hero. About time the press started asking about resignation. Too bad there is no constitutional mechanism allowing Trump to turn in the crown and let the first runner up serve out the rest of the term.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    The Borger video attached to Marshall’s tweet is a GREAT example of a wingnut relative shutdown technique that commenter Mnemosyne introduced me to some years back. You ask them to explain whatever nutty conspiracy they subscribe to and then sit back and watch them dig the hole deeper. It may make sense in their heads, but even THEY know it sounds stupid as shit said aloud (without Rush’s authoritative tone).

  21. 21.

    Jager

    Cohen looking at all that RNC money, rubs his hands, picks up the phone, “Donald all this cash is just sitting here doing nothing, any ideas?”

  23. 23.

    The Dangerman

    Harding: Teapot Dome

    Trump: Honeypot Domes (plural in honor of Stormy’s significant, um, attributes)

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    Would link to a series of videos of derelict hotels being imploded but that would be redundant.

    :)

  25. 25.

    Jeffro

    @? Martin: @Corner Stone: I should probably go with “disoriented” rather than “high”, for it is not a pleasant disorientation I’m feeling…

    Borger: “The Trumpov people say that Rosenstein is key/compromised/The Gatekeeper and therefore Mueller has, like, a ‘prosecute at will’ card because as long as Mueller never asks Rosenstein to testify, Mueller can never discover the truth of what Rosenstein would say, which is that he’s compromised.” Something like that?

    The Trumpistas are going to hang their whole defense on “Rod Rosenstein, Evil Criminal Genius”??

    And so you see why I am “disoriented”…

  26. 26.

    cmorenc

    @Baud:

    @cmorenc: So just another Tuesday.

    No, I mean they are notably more nuts than usual over there in RedState land etc. over this. It’s a clear sign it’s sinking in that shit’s about to get very serious – even though they think this is a liberal witch hunt, they are beginning to genuinely fear it might succeed.

  29. 29.

    Fair Economist

    @cmorenc: They all know it’s *NOT* a witch hunt. They know Republican are corrupt, better than we do, because they are Republicans and many of them have actually participated. That’s why they make so much noise. If they thought there was nothing there they wouldn’t be so upset.

  31. 31.

    Corner Stone

    @Jeffro: I got something like, “Mueller is really Rosenstein’s boss. He owns him. So as long as he keeps telling Rosenstein what to do then Mueller can do whatever he wants.”
    So we both tuned in pretty close to the center of the cray.

  32. 32.

    kindness

    Rightwingers seem to be acting like they are drowning. They are grabbing anything they can and holding on to it for dear life.

    We need more Acme anvils.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    @Fair Economist: I agree with you, but the one thing they believe with all their hearts is that we are worse, so they genuinely feel like they are being treated unfairly.

  35. 35.

    ? Martin

    @Jeffro: Yes, I would agree with that. It’s a bit like being punch-drunk. Disorienting, but with all the unpleasantness of just having been punched.

  36. 36.

    ? Martin

    @Baud: Yeah, pathological victimhood isn’t a great basis for a political party, but that’s where we are. Ted Cruz went into the Facebook hearing and wanted to know why conservatives are being picked on. Yeah, dude, that’s the real problem here.

  37. 37.

    randy khan

    There are many downsides to the tradition that a winning Presidential candidate gets to install his people at the national party committee, but I have to say that I doubt too many people included “could lead to indictments” on that list.

  39. 39.

    Rommie

    @cmorenc: I can only hope we get Trump’s “I’m not a witch!” moment ASAP.

    And I salute you for scouting the Mirror Universes like RS for the rest of us. It’s like seeing Cthulhu, and I roll poorly on Sanity Checks.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    Trump is like the Michael Bay remake of BEING THERE

    Sure wish I’d have thought of that. Finally, a Michael Bay flick for the whole family!

  41. 41.

    Fair Economist

    @Baud: Yes, it’s always projection with Republicans. They know they are crooks, therefore Clinton is one too. They know they aren’t loyal Americans, therefore Obama isn’t either.

  42. 42.

    rikyrah

    Except for the president’s campaign chairman, national security advisor, personal lawyer, and his son-in-law (plus some secondary figures) nobody did anything wrong. It’s a total witch hunt.

    — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 9, 2018

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA

  44. 44.

    bystander

    I’m enjoying the stories about twitler on the verge of blowing a gasket after he heard about the FBI raids. Is there any way Sessions didn’t know it was going to happen? I’m praying for a myocardial infarction and chortling like Scooby Doo.

  45. 45.

    rikyrah

    @cmorenc:

    No, I mean they are notably more nuts than usual over there in RedState land etc. over this. It’s a clear sign it’s sinking in that shit’s about to get very serious – even though they think this is a liberal witch hunt, they are beginning to genuinely fear it might succeed.

    They know it’s not a witch hunt. They know it’s valid.

    TRAITORS, ALL.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    The difference from movies is that in this case what is revealed after an explosion is ruble.

  48. 48.

    ruemara

    @Jeffro: Cruz asked some ridiculous conspiracy question related to Diamond & Silk, the female Step’n Fetchit duo in bad lacefront wigs as part of the RNC Black Friend For Pay witness protection program. That Mica & Sackcloth are brought up in a hearing is proof that the universe is drunk.

    Christ. No wonder this is terrible. I detest Michael Bay movies. They’re loud, stupid, shiny and lack coherence.

    At least they end with the villain being destroyed.

  50. 50.

    Redshift

    @Baud:

    I agree with you, but the one thing they believe with all their hearts is that we are worse, so they genuinely feel like they are being treated unfairly.

    It’s the common thread of all conservative self-justification: “sure, we cheated, but we had to, because we *know* the Democrats are cheating even though we have no evidence, so if we didn’t they’d have an unfair advantage!”

    And it’s completely circular, because the reason they’re sure the other side is cheating is because that’s what *they’d* do…

  51. 51.

    Citizen Alan

    @Fair Economist:

    As I see it, the pathology is as follows: They start with the assumption that the Democrats are utterly corrupt but haven’t been caught yet. This allows them to justify being as corrupt as they can possibly be and still think themselves morally superior because they’re better than the utterly corrupt Democrats who only exist in their paranoid fantasies.

    Edit: or what Baud said in fewer words.

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    @White & Gold Purgatorian:

    April D Ryan is my new hero. About time the press started asking about resignation. Too bad there is no constitutional mechanism allowing Trump to turn in the crown and let the first runner up serve out the rest of the term.

    Since we are also doing the Watergate stroll down memory lane, Ryan reminds me of that great exchange between Nixon and Dan Rather,

    (Tuesday, March 19, 1974, evening; during the Watergate scandal) — At a news conference at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Houston this evening, U.S. President Richard Nixon fielded a question from CBS White House correspondent Dan Rather, who said, “Thank you, Mr. President. Dan Rather, of CBS News.”

    The room filled with jeers and applause, prompting Nixon to joke, “Are you running for something?”

    Rather replied, “No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?”

  53. 53.

    germy

    Someone who spent hours attacking my FB page last night because I said I think Assad has used chemical weapons before ended up leaving this, so let me be clear: I am 100% opposed to intervention, but when anti-interventionism morphs into support for dictators, I get off the train pic.twitter.com/nGTrmvOu83— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 10, 2018

  54. 54.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Jeffro: I got something like “Rosenstein knows he’s in it up to his eyeballs, and Mueller knows it too, so Rosenstein can’t try to boss around Mueller or he’ll go down, so Mueller is running amok while blackmailing Rosenstein because” and then there’s a blank space they don’t explain. It’s a conspiracy theory where the government doesn’t want to divulge the existence of aliens because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Like what the fuck do they think Mueller is trying to _do_ with his run-amok-ness? Jerk around poor innocent Donald Trump because of something something deep state?

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @germy:

    but when anti-interventionism morphs into support for dictators Trump, I get off the train  play choo-choo

    Fixed

  59. 59.

    efgoldman

    @Brachiator:

    Ryan reminds me of that great exchange between Nixon and Dan Rather,

    Who elicited the “I am not a crook” response from Tricksie?

  61. 61.

    TenguPhule

    @Rommie:

    It’s like seeing Cthulhu, and I roll poorly on Sanity Checks.

    2d6 investigators are devoured every turn.

  64. 64.

    trollhattan

    O/T A public service reminder: guns keep us safe.

    An Oklahoma man killed his 13-year-old son after chasing his other son’s truck and firing a rifle at it, Oklahoma’s KOAM reports.

    Tony Rutherford was called by neighbors who saw “suspicious activity,” near his older son’s house, which was supposed to be empty. Rutherford showed up and saw someone driving his older son’s truck. He gave chase, firing several shots from his rifle. Rutherford killed the person driving the truck—who turned out to be his 13-year-old son.

    Rutherford’s lawyer says his client did nothing wrong.

    “Tony and his family are very sorry for the loss of their child, and time will reveal the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate incident which does not constitute a crime,” he told the Tulsa World.

    He “did nothing wrong.”

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    The difference from movies is that in this case what is revealed after an explosion is ruble.

    Oooooooooooooooooooh……..

  67. 67.

    James E. Powell

    @maya:

    If he had only released his tax returns back in ’16 all of this could have been avoided.

    If the press/media had acted like it was important, it might have been a factor. He either would have released them or voters would have considered it almost as important as a private email server. But they all let it slide for reasons that have never been explained.

  69. 69.

    TenguPhule

    @trollhattan:

    Tony and his family are very sorry for the loss of their child, and time will reveal the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate incident which does not constitute a crime

    When did being a lawyer require him to stop being a human being?

    SMH, even evil should have standards.

  71. 71.

    rikyrah

    Every criticism of the Republican tax plan is proving true
    04/10/18 10:43 AM
    By Steve Benen

    During the abbreviated debate over the Republican tax plan, Democrats said the corporate beneficiaries of the tax breaks would use their windfalls on priorities such as stock buybacks. We now know, of course, that this prediction turned out to be true.

    Critics of the GOP plan also said it included all kinds of sloppy and consequential errors that would need fixes, which is also happening.

    Dems also warned that Republican leaders would use the impact of the tax cuts as a pretext to go after social-insurance programs – sometimes called “entitlements” – such as Social Security. That, too, is coming true.

    And, of course, progressive opponents of the GOP tax breaks said the proposal would do real harm to the nation’s finances, and wouldn’t come close to paying for themselves. We can now add this to the list of things Dems got right and Republicans got wrong. Jon Chait had a good summary of the latest findings from the Congressional Budget Office.

    The new projections by the Congressional Budget Office, the first federal budget analysis to be released since the Trump tax cuts were passed into law, shows how fully the Republican government has operationalized its theory. CBO now estimates the 2018 deficit will be $242 billion higher than it had estimated last June, before the tax cuts. And the tax cut is the major reason: “Accounting for most of that difference is a $194 billion reduction in projected revenues, mainly because the 2017 tax act is expected to reduce collections of individual and corporate income taxes.”

    The deficit is expected to grow to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. That would make sense if the country was spending to counteract a serious but temporary emergency, like a recession or perhaps a major war. There is no such emergency, though.

  72. 72.

    Betty Cracker

    @ruemara: I didn’t see the Cruz clip, but apparently Rock and Burlap posted a video of “evidence” of the conspiracy against them. It showed someone trying to set a FB app to bring Boulder and Gunnysack posts up first in the timeline, but the app wouldn’t let them! Foul conspiracy against conservatives? Not so much, as it turns out: FB limits the number of “prioritized” friends, so all Pebble and Fibrous’ fans had to do was make them one of prioritized feeds. So much dumb!

  73. 73.

    different-church-lady

    @TenguPhule: I’m so old I can remember a time when everyone was freaking out about the NSA and I was saying, “And yet everyone just gives all this stuff away to Facebook…”

  75. 75.

    trollhattan

    @Gin & Tonic: @TenguPhule:
    Are you “standing your ground” if running down the street squeezing rifle rounds at a departing truck that belongs to somebody else? I’m not up on the nuance of Oklahoma law.

  80. 80.

    TenguPhule

    @trollhattan:

    Are you “standing your ground” if running down the street squeezing rifle rounds at a departing truck that belongs to somebody else?

    I suppose it depends how light the skin of the shooter is.

  81. 81.

    different-church-lady

    @Betty Cracker: And that’s another thing I can’t fathom about FB: why is it so effin’ inscrutable? I’ve never had a Facebook session where I wasn’t monumentally confused by what was called what and how it was different from the other thing and how the hell do I control any of this. I think it’s really built by and for the 5-Hour Energy chugging types.

  83. 83.

    TenguPhule

    And of course the Congressional Republicans still have no intentions of voting on a bill to protect the Mueller investigation.

    Never mind that today SHS has announced “Trump believes he can fire Mueller.”

    I don’t see a happy ending here.

  85. 85.

    lollipopguild

    @efgoldman: I don’t know, but a little Ann Hathaway underboob would be a nice change from watching our country being flushed down the Donald J. Trump Memorial toilet.

  90. 90.

    r€nato

    @Betty Cracker: that’s a great technique for all sorts of life situations when faced with dumbfuckery. Be calm, play dumb, and ask a lot of questions of the cretin and their hypothesis. In most situations, the cretin quickly get flustered and angry that you’re not playing along. Works great with manipulative family members and all sorts of conspiracy nutjobs. I successfully used this more than once with my idiot stepfather, who watches a shit-ton of Fox News Channel. Once I had him explain how he “knew” Obama was a Muslim because of some ring. It took far less than sixty seconds to call me an idiot and walk away. Hard to get angry with someone who knows they got pwned and hates you for it.

  91. 91.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Betty Cracker: Earlier they were saying that got a letter saying that Someone Important had deemed them harmful to the community and that this determination was “not appeal-able.” Then they said they didn’t have a letter. Now there’s some video of something, and this is terrible censorship? What the fuck is wrong with millions of motherfucking idiots who dose themselves to the point of brainwashing with the products of even bigger motherfucking idiots?

  93. 93.

    randy khan

    @Brachiator:

    Can you imagine Trump holding a press conference at the National Association of Broadcasters convention? (Which, by the way, is happening right now in Las Vegas.)

  94. 94.

    Jeffro

    @White & Gold Purgatorian: not kidding – my dad is trying to make the case that both April Ryan and Donald Trump have “questionable ethics“

    Which makes sense if one’s worldview is that being a reporter automatically makes you a lefty and being a lefty makes you a criminal

  96. 96.

    Brachiator

    @efgoldman:

    Who elicited the “I am not a crook” response from Tricksie?

    I think it was a spontaneous utterance during a speech to reporters.

    And on Nov. 17, 1973, Nixon went the to the Contemporary Resort in Walt Disney World to participate in an hour-long televised question and answer session with the 400 attend In an hour-long televised question-and-answer session at an Associated Press Managing Editor event. It was here, he gave the famous “I’m not a crook” speech.

    A video clip

    I think Zuckerberg is working through his version of this speech in his remarks to Congress.

    .

  97. 97.

    MisterForkbeard

    @FlipYrWhig: “Something something Deep State” is a pretty accurate description of the Republican thought process on this.

    Though it could probably be amended to “Something something Deep State something Crooked Hillary”.

  98. 98.

    ruemara

    @Jeffro: I’m glad you have the strength to still talk to him because my mom knew I wasn’t going to have any nonsense when she started a slide towards Republicanism and that was back in 2006. She turned off Joel Osteen and is now a very irate liberal again.

  100. 100.

    TenguPhule

    @FlipYrWhig:

    What the fuck is wrong with millions of motherfucking idiots who dose themselves to the point of brainwashing with the products of even bigger motherfucking idiots?

    Cat videos. /s

  101. 101.

    Betty Cracker

    @FlipYrWhig:

    What the fuck is wrong with millions of motherfucking idiots who dose themselves to the point of brainwashing with the products of even bigger motherfucking idiots?

    That’s THE question of our present epoch, Flip.

  102. 102.

    Fair Economist

    @germy:

    I am 100% opposed to intervention, but when anti-interventionism morphs into support for dictators, I get off the train

    Am I the only one that reads this as Greenwald trying to be on both sides of the intervention vs. Assad debate so he can freely criticize anybody for not having supported the “right side” in the future?

  103. 103.

    Gin & Tonic

    @FlipYrWhig: My (failed) attempt at humor was that the BBC clip referenced by trollhattan was Dick Durbin questioning Zuckerberg, but because of nameplate positions and camera angle, he appeared to be sitting behind a nameplate that said “Mr. Blumenthal.” Thus trolhattan said “Blumenthal” because s/he doesn’t know how either of them look, apparently.

    When you have to explain the joke….

  104. 104.

    Corner Stone

    @Jeffro:

    I’m going to take another shot at it just to soon as I finish this tallboy

    Is that a codeword for a rather large bong? Or did you mean “carboy” ?

  106. 106.

    TenguPhule

    @Fair Economist:

    Am I the only one that reads this as Greenwald trying to be on both sides of the intervention vs. Assad debate so he can freely criticize anybody for not having supported the “right side” in the future?

    No.

    GG’s only concern is that he himself not be on the train to a concentration camp. Everyone else can burn.

  107. 107.

    Jeffro

    @ruemara: I wouldn’t say that I am tolerating him so much as gently mocking him every time he throws that kind of bullshit out there

    I will say this: I warned him in March 2016 that if he ended up getting behind this clown there was going to be no end to the things he would find himself defending, with each new low being, well, a new low. And every few months since, I make sure to remind him of not only what he is defending at that point in time, but how far he and the GOP have come in such a relatively short period of time … always taking care to conclude , “what will you be defending three months from now ?”

    ( that’s what I’m not asking him to point to something, anything, that leans toward these being the actions of an innocent man )

  108. 108.

    Yarrow

    @rikyrah: Yep. They’re all traitors. TRAITORS.

    @Betty Cracker: I love that technique. I like to play kind of uninformed with wingnuts. “Huh. I didn’t know about that. Tell me about it.” to get them going and then start asking questions. “What does that mean? How does that work?” They get so angry because they can’t explain their dumbass conspiracies. Hilarious.

  113. 113.

    Gelfling 545

    @Redshift: Wow. I used to have to drill that into my middle schoolers. Somebody else’s guilt doesn’t make you innocent. If 2 guys rob a bank & they only catch one, that one still goes to jail. I think they mastered the idea before they left for high school, though. Trump OTOH…

  114. 114.

    SFAW

    @FlipYrWhig:

    What the fuck is wrong with millions of motherfucking idiots like that

    Um … they’re motherfucking idiots? A/k/a “the common clay of the New West”?

  116. 116.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    When you accidentally kill a family member with a gun, it’s not a crime, it’s just a terrible tragedy that is no one’s fault, really. Hadn’t this man suffered enough when he realized he shot his son? //

  118. 118.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Baud:

    I agree with you, but the one thing they believe with all their hearts is that we are worse, so they genuinely feel like they are being treated unfairly.

    I think you’re all giving them a little too much credit. Trump is the conservative movement. Most of them aren’t as bad as him, but the same processes apply. Everything is always someone else’s fault. They are right, and we are wrong. Those are the starting principles, bedrock things they know like they look at the sky and know that color is blue. Everything else is putting words over top of it.

    @Betty Cracker:
    You know the answer. Racism. Minorities keep creeping closer to equality, people who are bothered by that get more and more freaked out, then a black man becomes president and all Hell breaks loose in their brains.

  121. 121.

    Brachiator

    @Yarrow:

    I love that technique. I like to play kind of uninformed with wingnuts. “Huh. I didn’t know about that. Tell me about it.” to get them going and then start asking questions. “What does that mean? How does that work?” They get so angry because they can’t explain their dumbass conspiracies. Hilarious.

    Thing is though, that these people never give up their conspiracy theories. They stop, press a reset button and go back to their original beliefs. While this questioning technique may bring a little moment of mirth, it does not not change anyone’s mind about anything.

  122. 122.

    patrick II

    When I saw Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, on MSNBC say that he was playing chess while Michael Cohen was playing tic tac toe, I thought Avenatti might be a little full of himself. Now I say, welcome to the game Bobby Fischer.

  124. 124.

    FlipYrWhig

    @SFAW: Yeah, but I think idiots used to feel guilty about their idiocy, instead of this current enthusiasm for deepening it.

  126. 126.

    Mnemosyne

    @Brachiator:

    While this questioning technique may bring a little moment of mirth, it does not not change anyone’s mind about anything.

    I of course can’t find the link from my phone, but you have it exactly backwards — current science shows that the best way to get someone to change their mind is by asking them to explain their position and letting them realize as they talk that their “evidence” doesn’t make sense.

    It doesn’t work with people who have psychosis or a similar mental health issue, but it does work on normal people.

  129. 129.

    trollhattan

    @efgoldman:
    And what of the poor rifle? Is anybody looking out for the freedom stick?

    In my burg just shooting the thing is a crime–aiming it at somebody at the time would lead to additional charges. But again, Oklahoma.

  130. 130.

    John Fremont

    @rikyrah: My accountant says that many other clients may be donating less to nonprofits in the next few years because they can’t itemize as much now. They are feeling the bite in their budgets.

  131. 131.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Mnemosyne:

    It doesn’t work with people who have psychosis or a similar mental health issue, but it does work on normal people.

    As someone who recently had this conversation with a psychotic person, I can agree with this.

  134. 134.

    StringOnAStick

    I got an email blast from my asshole wingnut father today, some forwarded crap supposedly from “a friend’s son” that was also supposedly an editorial by Krauthammer. The gist of it is that OFA is a criminal, unAmerican enterprise that is out to destroy the country and an illegal group at that. I swear these assholes are trying to get the mouth breathers to shine up their AR-15’s and start shooting. I have many reasons to dislike and avoid my parents, and his reactionary politics are a pretty big one.

  135. 135.

    Mnemosyne

    @MomSense:

    I know your Twitter avatar is a photo of your dog’s face, but a quick glance made it look like a person’s naked chest. ?

  139. 139.

    Mandalay

    Borger’s so called “reporting” is nothing more than disgracefully regurgitating unsourced talking points fed to her by someone in the Administration, my guess being Kellyanne Conway.

    Unfortunately for the White House, since Borger is dumber than pig shit, she is incapable of making any coherent argument at all.

    I suspect that the female lawyer to Borger’s left would be a good poker player. She had to be thinking that Borger was the biggest moron she had ever met, yet she hid it beautifully.

  140. 140.

    rp

    @Fair Economist: That’s exactly what he’s doing. He rarely offers actual opinions or policy options. It’s always “this is bad” or “so and so is a huge hypocrite.” But ultimately those are fairly worthless statements, as his comment about Syria demonstrates.

  142. 142.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    I of course can’t find the link from my phone, but you have it exactly backwards — current science shows that the best way to get someone to change their mind is by asking them to explain their position and letting them realize as they talk that their “evidence” doesn’t make sense.

    It doesn’t work with people who have psychosis or a similar mental health issue, but it does work on normal people.

    I would be happy to see the link, and I bet that I can find an easy refutation. At best, interested onlookers will see through the hooey, but a true conspiracy nut rarely talks out his or her commitment to hooey.

    If conspiracy nuts were seeing the light when challenged, there would be, for example, thousands of YouTube videos documenting these moments.

    Instead, the persistence of stupidity is more like this Neil Tyson conversation with a couple of disk jockeys and their conspiracy nut friend. The first half is the prime stuff.

  143. 143.

    MomSense

    @Mnemosyne:

    O/T but I just dropped all my projects like everyone else and decided to #bangoutacarbeth

    Not sure how this craze started, but it seems to have captured a lot of the designers as well.

  144. 144.

    lgerard

    @Brachiator:

    Thing is though, that these people never give up their conspiracy theories. They stop, press a reset button and go back to their original beliefs. While this questioning technique may bring a little moment of mirth, it does not not change anyone’s mind about anything.

    Perhaps not, but you can get them to shut up for a bit. I have a loud, loud coworker who likes to toss around terms like “Australian economics” and “The Saul Alinsky playbook”. When I ask him to explain them, he just implodes because he has no clue as to what they supposedly mean.

    Another favorite strategy is to ask “where did you learn that?” If you press hard enough sometimes you get an answer like Brietbart, WND or the Gateway Pundit. Then you can burst out laughing

  146. 146.

    NotMax

    FYI (source).

    SCOOP: ABC News has learned Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is recused from the Michael Cohen investigation. He had no role in raid of Cohen’s office. Another recusal that will make @realDonaldTrump unhappy.

    — Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) April 10, 2018

    Robert S. Khuzami, who led the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission for four years during the Obama administration, was named on Friday as the deputy United States attorney in Manhattan…

    The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan has traditionally been one of the most aggressive pursuers of cases involving white-collar and Wall Street crime, and Mr. Khuzami’s background means he could become one of the country’s top financial watchdogs.

    But don’t let that reference to the Obama administration fool you.

    Mr. Khuzami spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention, in defense of the Patriot Act and in support of President George W. Bush’s re-election.

  147. 147.

    Corner Stone

    Man, Ari Melber just insulted the F right out of Mike Lupica. Told him he could go first because he worked for a less significant paper.

  149. 149.

    Fair Economist

    @lgerard:

    I have a loud, loud coworker who likes to toss around terms like “Australian economics” and “The Saul Alinsky playbook”.

    Does he actually say “Australian” (not “Austrian”) economics? That would be especially hilarious.

  151. 151.

    lgerard

    @Fair Economist:

    Does he actually say “Australian” (not “Austrian”) economics? That would be especially hilarious.

    I wish!

    Instead it is a combination of my bad spelling and spellcheck

    Meanwhile

  154. 154.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @James E. Powell:

    Whenever people mention Snowden it always takes me a few seconds to realize they’re not talking about Catch-22.

    Whenever people mention Snowden, it always takes me a few seconds to realize they’re not talking about the late Princess Margaret’s late ex-husband.

  155. 155.

    B.B.A.

    @NotMax: Bush has been retroactively declared a RINO, so wingnuts can continue denouncing this as a partisan witch hunt. As they would anyway.

  156. 156.

    zhena gogolia

    @Fair Economist:

    I used to carpool with an Australian woman. She stopped in to get her dry cleaning and came out laughing. The clerk had asked where she was from because of her accent. She said Australia. He said, “Oh, like Arnold Schwarzenegger?” Same accent, of course.

  157. 157.

    Tokyokie

    @efgoldman: As I recall, Nixon’s “I’m not a crook” statement was from a nationally televised address to the nation in the spring of 1974. Going on national TV and feigning grave indignation worked for him with the Checkers speech, so he tried it again, only the second time played as farce.

  161. 161.

    StringOnAStick

    @Baud: Funny, that’s exactly what I wrote back! Also that OFA is a political action group just like the NRA (sans the Russian money of course) or any other political action group and is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution they claim to love so much.

  163. 163.

    Fair Economist

    @lgerard: The fixation with Austrian economics is interesting, because it’s basically dead. Real Austrian economists rejected the homo economicus idea of everybody being superhumanly rational, which is pretty reasonable in itself, but modern “Austrian” economists reject the real science of how people estimate values and reach decisions, because it leads to non-libertarian places. Which leaves them flapping around with opinion puffery and the same nonsense models the original Austrians rejected.

  164. 164.

    Steppy

    I will give April D. Ryan 20 American dollars if her next question is, “Has the president* considered fleeing the country?”

  166. 166.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mandalay:

    Has Borger declined, or have my own critical thinking skills somehow improved in the last quarter century? I used to watch her when she was a regular panelist on the old Washington Week in Review and used to like her — certainly never found much to complain about. But whenever I stumble across her these days (thankfully, rarely) she seems to be spouting a near-Trumpian level of incoherent wingnutty babbleguff.

  167. 167.

    StringOnAStick

    @The Pale Scot: Organizing For America, an Obama-linked group. Though based on the email, OFA is apparently the scariest, most diabolical group ever, especially because “after Obama nearly ruined this country in his 8 years, he’s still at it with this group.” You know, Saul Alinsky and all that I suppose. The depths they will go to to gin up hatred against any non-Republican is frightening, and it’s going to get more innocent people killed.

  168. 168.

    Brachiator

    @lgerard:

    Perhaps not, but you can get them to shut up for a bit. I have a loud, loud coworker who likes to toss around terms like “Australian economics” and “The Saul Alinsky playbook”. When I ask him to explain them, he just implodes because he has no clue as to what they supposedly mean.

    Hell, I don”t even know what “Australian economics” is supposed to mean. Are kangaroos involved?

    Another favorite strategy is to ask “where did you learn that?” If you press hard enough sometimes you get an answer like Brietbart, WND or the Gateway Pundit. Then you can burst out laughing

    I mentioned once before that I had a heated conversation with some anti-abortion dopes who were bothering people outside a shopping mall. When I asked them to prove that the Bible clearly prohibited abortion, they could not do it. When I pointed out that there was no verse that specifically banned abortion, they started mumbling about how the devil gave me knowledge of the Bible to confound the truth, or something. Yeah, I got a cheap laugh, but it didn’t change their minds. They just moved to another place to justify their position.

  169. 169.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @B.B.A.:
    Really? I thought Bush was retroactively declared “Who? Do you mean Bill Clinton, whose weakness allowed 9/11 to happen, or Barack Hussein Obama, who destroyed the economy and lost the war in Iraq?”

  170. 170.

    trollhattan

    @Brachiator:
    Isn’t there Old Testament language to the effect of requiring abortion when an expectant mother’s life is in danger? That would be a handy one to whip out.

    John Oliver’s Sunday piece on the fraudulent women’s health clinics is a must-see.

  171. 171.

    Fair Economist

    @trollhattan: Not sure if the Old Testament requires abortion when a woman’s life is in danger, but it *does* require it for adultery. Numbers 5:11-31

  172. 172.

    lgerard

    @Fair Economist:

    My wingnut would not be able to follow that argument. All he knows is that he has seen a few conservative intellectuals using the term, so he is for it!

    He also claimed to be a big Ayn Rand fan until a little questioning revealed that he had never read any of her books. Even I slogged through two of them. When I asked him how he justified the philosophy of objectivism he obviously had never heard of it.

  174. 174.

    lgerard

    @Brachiator:

    Hell, I don”t even know what “Australian economics” is supposed to mean. Are kangaroos involved?

    I knew I should have fixed that typo!

  176. 176.

    Fair Economist

    @lgerard:

    He also claimed to be a big Ayn Rand fan until a little questioning revealed that he had never read any of her books.

    That is – seriously bizarre. Even many Objectivists find the non-book aspects of Rand like her culty following and her hypocritical personal life disappointing. And it’s not like he’d impress any Randroids – they’d sniff him out in a trice.

  177. 177.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: somebody needs to mock up that picture of trump yelling at the kid with the lawmaker into trump yelling at portraits of Nixon and Andrew Johnson Johnson

  178. 178.

    lgerard

    @Fair Economist:

    yeah it’s just tokenism, like wearing a Packers Jersey.

    A great Rand related moment was when Paul Ryan found out that the book he was handing out to all his staffers and making them read was written by a ardent atheist. He obviously never read any of them either.

  180. 180.

    bemused

    Love April Ryan. I forgot she was writing another book and she wasn’t going to hold back on her experiences in press corps. “Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Line of the Trump White House” is coming out Sept.1st.

  181. 181.

    Corner Stone

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    somebody needs to mock up that picture of trump yelling at the kid with the lawmaker

    Dennis Hastert is back in Congress?

    into trump yelling at portraits of Nixon and Andrew Johnson Johnson

    Trump is yelling at Johnson’s johnson?

  182. 182.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @ CNNPolitics
    Michael Cohen says FBI were “professional, courteous, respectful” in raids, counter to Trump’s depiction of events

    ohh Barro @ jbarro
    This tone feels like a warning from Cohen to Trump

    Interesting if true….

  183. 183.

    Jay

    @Fair Economist:

    It’s not really bazaar, it’s just boilerplate RWNJ BS and fakery.

    “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”

    [Kung Fu Monkey — Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]

  184. 184.

    Mandalay

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Has Borger declined

    Her problem is she is primarily a political pundit, and (I’m guessing) that there are a hundred times as many on TV now as there were 25 years ago. So her shtick to make her stand out from the competition is to provide “scoops” from her “sources”, since she has presumably built up a list contacts over her long and bland career.

    But those “scoops” she “reports” these days aren’t news; they’re just talking points from “sources” with a vested interest in using dumb marks like Borger as a megaphone.

    And she is no better as a pundit than she is as a reporter; 99% of her tweets are retweets of someone else’s thoughts. How original!

    She is just phoning it in until someone upstairs at CNN realizes that she is vapid and worthless, and would be missed even less than Mark Halperin (which is setting the bar really low).

  185. 185.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    John Oliver’s Sunday piece on the fraudulent women’s health clinics is a must-see.

    Thanks for the reminder. I will check that out.

  188. 188.

    Fair Economist

    @lgerard:

    A great Rand related moment was when Paul Ryan found out that the book he was handing out to all his staffers and making them read was written by a ardent atheist. He obviously never read any of them either.

    Well, if he’d read either of the famous fiction works, only skimming Galt’s speech, but even though he was really impressed by her thinking had never read any of her nonfiction works nor any significant analyses or interviews, and had never thought much about her reasoning, he *might* have been able to miss her atheism.

    That does sound like about Paul Ryan’s level of intellectual functioning. “Magic asterisk man” strikes again!

  190. 190.

    MisterForkbeard

    Bret Baier is reporting that Trump is spending the evening deciding whether to fire Comey. Though he omits that Trump can’t really do this in the way he means.

    Or, more technically Baier may be reporting that Trump SHOULD spend the evening deciding that. It’s not clear.

  191. 191.

    TenguPhule

    @MisterForkbeard:

    Bret Baier is reporting that Trump is spending the evening deciding whether to fire Comey. Though he omits that Trump can’t really do this in the way he means.

    Trump: “Who will rid me of this meddlesome attorney?”

  193. 193.

    Mandalay

    @Fair Economist:

    he *might* have been able to miss her atheism

    Even trickier for Ryan would be defending Rand’s views on abortion:

    Abortion is a moral right; an embryo has no rights…
    The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn)…
    No one has right to dictate disposition of a woman’s body…
    A human potentiality is not the equivalent of an actuality…
    A piece of protoplasm has no human rights…
    Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals.

    Those are quotes from Rand to make Evangelicals’ heads explode, but how about this?….

    Parenthood is an enormous responsibility; it is an impossible responsibility for young people who are ambitious and struggling, but poor; particularly if they are intelligent and conscientious enough not to abandon their child on a doorstep nor to surrender it to adoption.

    I’m no fan of Rand, but she knocked it out of the park right there.

  195. 195.

    Ohio Mom

    @trollhattan: The place where the Jewish belief that the mother’s life has precedent over the fetus is spelled out is the Talmud.

    The Talmud is commentary and explanations of Jewish law — it is a whole separate volume from the Jewish version of the Bible so no Christian is going to find this topic addressed in his/her “Old Testament.”

  196. 196.

    Cheryl Rofer

    I do not follow Avenetti, but he gets retweeted into my timeline. I could be wrong, but I think I saw something earlier about Daniels working with a forensic sketch artist.

  198. 198.

    Ruviana

    @MisterForkbeard: @Brachiator: I got an alert from CNN on my phone earlier that Trump’s trying to decide if he should fire Rosenstein which might make a wee bit more sense. He does seem to really want to fire someone right now.

  199. 199.

    Mnemosyne

    @MomSense:

    It happens. Remember Traveling Woman?

    I’m considering knitting a spencer (short jacket) for a Regency event I’m going to at the RWA conference. We’ll see if my carpal tunnels will cooperate. ?

  200. 200.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Brachiator:

    Hell, I don”t even know what “Australian economics” is supposed to mean. Are kangaroos involved?

    With the current Australian government they are the same as Republican economics. Tax cuts for corporations and the rich paid for with debt, trickle down for everybody else.

  201. 201.

    dmsilev

    @MisterForkbeard: Mueller, I assume, unless the story is that Trump is weighing hiring Comey just so he can fire him a second time.

    Which doesn’t seem all that implausible, considering just how far down the rabbit hole we’ve gone.

  202. 202.

    dmsilev

    @Ruviana:

    He does seem to really want to fire someone right now.

    Jared’s available. Scott Pruitt. He could always fire himself; it’d probably be the most popular action of his entire Presidency.

  203. 203.

    MomSense

    @Mnemosyne:

    Oh god I think I made three or four of them.

    ETA Kate Davies got some mean comments about her appearance. Then she shared how she had a stroke at a young age and how knitting had helped her recover. That’s when everyone sort of rushed in to support her. She is an extraordinary designer- one of the few who truly does original work. Her fair isle is amazing.

  206. 206.

    Sloane Ranger

    @SiubhanDuinne: To be fair she was trying to explain Trumpian thinking and to me, she seemed as confused and embarrassed by its lack of internal logic as I was.

  209. 209.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MisterForkbeard: Bret Baier is reporting that Trump is spending the evening deciding whether to fire Comey.

    You mean Meuller? Or Rosenstein? Or Sessions? Or Melania? Or Eric?

  212. 212.

    Bess

    @trollhattan:

    Isn’t there Old Testament language to the effect of requiring abortion when an expectant mother’s life is in danger? That would be a handy one to whip out.

    There’s Old Testament telling husbands that they can take their pregnant wife to the priest for an abortion if he suspects someone else might be the father.

    Numbers 5:11-29

    “24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the LORD and bring it to the altar. 26The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[c]offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse.”

  213. 213.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: From what I remember, the quote was along the lines of “Trump will spend the night working on his most difficult personnel decision ever.” Followed by “This is whether to end the Russia Probe”.

    Now, that COULD mean Mueller. Or Rosenstein, as a path to Mueller. Or Sessions, as a path to Mueller. Definitely not Comey, that one was me mistyping.

  214. 214.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Robert Costa @ costareports
    House Intel Chair Devin Nunes privately told several colleagues today that it’s time for House GOP to hold Rosenstein and Wray in contempt of Congress, should they refuse to hand over requested docs, according to two people familiar with the discussions…

  216. 216.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Mike in NC: Oh! Even better.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: What’s the official response on this – just that the FBI can’t deliver these fast enough, or that the FBI is refusing? For that matter, what docs is Nunes trying to get (and take out of context) THIS time?

  217. 217.

    MomSense

    I’ve spent way too much time watching and reading news this afternoon. Just going to have chocolate ice cream for dinner.

  220. 220.

    TenguPhule

    @MomSense:

    Just going to have chocolate ice cream for dinner.

    Don’t forget the chocolate syrup and triple fudge brownies.

  222. 222.

    TenguPhule

    @Steppy:

    Hmm. Yeah. The last time I saw this picture, it ended with the president drinking gin out of pint glasses. How does this remake end?

    Trump drinking piss out of pint glasses?

  226. 226.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Steppy: Nixon drank gin? Don’t know why, but I figured him for a brown liquor man, bourbon or rye. Not scotch. Don’t know why.

  227. 227.

    TenguPhule

    I can’t help but think Trump is going to do something incredibly flashy and stupid in regards to Syria to overcompensate for the very no good terrible horrible week he’s having.

  229. 229.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Corner Stone:

    Sideboob is even socially acceptable now, I believe, although I am a bit out of touch on street fashion these days. Sadly.

  230. 230.

    efgoldman

    @MisterForkbeard:

    What’s the official response on this

    Nunes keeps sticking his pecker where it doesn’t belong, in any effort to derail the investigation. Hopefully Mueller is going to chop it right off

  231. 231.

    Roger Moore

    @Ruviana:

    He does seem to really want to fire someone right now.

    Maybe he should fire the real source of his problems: Donald J. Trump, Sr.

  232. 232.

    Immanentize

    Sometimes the front page posts fly at me as fast as dive bombing mockingbirds. Sometimes, four plus hours without a new bird in sight.

  233. 233.

    efgoldman

    @Immanentize:

    Sometimes, four plus hours without a new bird in sight.

    Usually our mocker is back by now, but I think he’s shivering somewhere

  234. 234.

    Jay

    @MisterForkbeard:

    Just the ususal morons.

    I get the feeling that Nunes et al, really think that when all this is over, bygones will be bygones with the FBI and Intel Agencies.

  240. 240.

    Woodrowfan

    This is clearly Obama’s doing. eleventy dimension chess.
    1. Make fun of Trump at Press Club Dinner
    2. Trump decides to run for President to get even
    3. repubs nominate trump
    4. trump’s man gets to run RNC finances
    5. trump’s gang of criminal incompetents draws attention of FBI and DOJ
    6. Investigation of trump’s people leads law enforcement to republican corruption
    7. republican party gutted in long series of criminal investigations
    8 Obama gets last laugh..

  241. 241.

    Jay

    @Woodrowfan:

    You need to dirty it up a little, add more obscura, then using a “nym”, and vague references to being buried deep in the Deep State, as part of the Trump Resistence, start dribbling it out on Red State, etc.

  242. 242.

    sdhays

    Everyone’s focusing on SHS’s quote that Preznit Spanky believes he has the power to fire Mueller, but the more chilling quote to me was that he’s “growing weary of the Russia investigation”. That just sounds so “wannabe-royal” – “His Majesty grows weary of entertaining the prosecutor’s tedious fancy that He, Spanky, is not above the law”.

    Here’s a question – does this new investigation against Cohen actually spawn a second hydra for Spanky? Even if Mueller gets “fired” (and we wait for the federal courts to decide whether or not the firing was lawful), that doesn’t stop the new federal investigation in NY, and they will have the same ability to investigate crimes they come across, which could lead them right back to Spanky. Is the cat potentially already out of the bag?

  243. 243.

    J R in WV

    @Brachiator:

    My Dad was an AP Managing Editor, and loved those conventions. Went every year, including to hear Tricksie Nixon claim he was Not a Crook. Dad believed it until Nixon resigned and flew away in Marine 1. I had forgotten about Dad attending that meeting, thanks for reminding me about it!

    We never talked about it, agreed not to, just caused trouble. He was what he was, Rockefeller Republican all his life, at least he was socially liberal, believed in gay rights, integration, etc.

  246. 246.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @efgoldman: BREAKING CUTTING: Bobby 3Styx adds Lorena Bobbit to enforcement team…

    @J R in WV: You know who else was a “Rockefeller Republican”? Spiro T. Agnew. The Governor of MD was the Governor of NY’s biggest fanboi – the former repeatedly hounded him to throw his hat in the ring in 1968 – until he (the former) blew his stack at Baltimore’s black leadership in the wake of the post-MLK riots – which brought him to the attention of the Trickiest Dick.

  249. 249.

    Mnemosyne

    @afanasia:

    But I was assured by all of the dudebros that it wasn’t that big a deal if every corporation on the planet had all of my information because only the government could directly affect me by throwing me in jail! Do you mean to tell me that the dudebros were wrong?

    Quickly, my fainting couch!

    (/sarcasm, in case I wasn’t obvious enough. ?)

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