Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Books are my comfort food!

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

The lights are all blinking red.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

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

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Let me file that under fuck it.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: “Wag the Prague” — Early Reviews

Open Thread: “Wag the Prague” — Early Reviews

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118Comments

  1. 1.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Buzzfeed is reporting that Russia is claiming that the Syrians shot most of the cruise missiles down using a 1950s Russian missile defence system. Probably more dick swinging by Putin Who knows

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Been awake since 12:30, up since 1:30. I’ve got a piece of glass in my foot, gonna have to wait for it to fester and come out. Big thunderboomers last night, one tornado sighted in Leasburg but missed us. One lonely little spring peeper down in the holler, otherwise quiet.

    Everything is just peachy here in Ozarkistan.

  3. 3.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m relieved it appears this was a routine courtesy bombing* rather than a sustained attack operation. In his snuffling, incoherent address last night, Twitler implied it would be the latter.

    *No disrespect intended toward people in actual harm’s way.

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: Good to hear you weathered the storm. It’s supposed to blow through here late in the day Sunday with fierce winds and rain but no tornadoes, as far as I know. Saw this tweet from a dude in Arkansas who was close to a twister:

  6. 6.

    oatler.

    I thought we were gonna get a military parade. Talk about wrong turns, I can’t even remember what Cohen was up to!

  7. 7.

    Joyce H

    @oatler.:

    I can’t even remember what Cohen was up to!

    Speaking of Cohen, that WEIRD scene yesterday of him wandering around out of doors in NYC, wearing a conspicuously loud jacket and smoking a cigar, drawing a crowd taking photos and videos. The thought popped into my head – ‘he’s establishing an alibi!’ Did someone get whacked yesterday?

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: Tornadoes are amazing creatures. Was coming back from one of my Arkie trips when I came across a week old tornado path. I followed it for miles (it went more or less in the same direction I was traveling) the path was anywhere from a few hundred yards wide up to 1/4 mile by the time we hit Melbourne. A path mowed through a mature hardwood forest like a giant lawn mower in tall grass and just 20 or 30 yards away a house would be standing untouched. Mobile homes (otherwise known as tornado magnets) just exploded leaving nothing but the detritus of a family’s life behind. The most confounding to me was a pasture with a 1/4 mile wide path shorn clean of grass, nothing but bald dirt as far as the eye could see.

  9. 9.

    Arclite

    Given that Trump telegraphed this strike a few days ago, the Syrians had plenty of time to secure their equipment in a secure location. For example, I read that most of the Syrian air Force moved aircraft to the Russian base at Latakia to ensure they wouldn’t be destroyed.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: They are amazingly random. Whenever we get hail, I’m always on the look out for a tornado. I’ve been near a few but luckily never directly in the path. (Knock wood.)

  11. 11.

    sukabi

    @OzarkHillbilly: you know he’s going to ignore the letter and not comply with their request for documents. He’s another one that needs to spend some time wearing orange in a secure facility.

  12. 12.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker: they’re random and can be stronger than hurricanes, though a much narrower path. They hit near or in Chicago frequently enough that I’ve been in several that have caused fatalities. The worst one was this one: 1967 Oak Lawn
    Of course, you live in the double whammy zone, since tornados spin off from hurricanes. At least I never had to worry about storm surge.

  13. 13.

    raven

    @satby:

    On Palm Sunday, 1965 A tornado touched down at Crystal Lake, Illinois, where it destroyed several subdivisions and a golf course. It grazed a junior high school before destroying several homes in a small community (Colby’s Home Estates). There, 110 homes were damaged and 45 others were destroyed, as well as a shopping center: Crystal Lake Plaza on Route 14. Five people were killed, with three of the fatalities occurring when a truck was thrown into an exposed basement, where several people were taking shelter.[2] The tornado then crested a hill and destroyed the small community of Island Lake, killing one person before ascending back into the clouds at 3:42 p.m. This was one of the many F4 tornadoes that occurred during this outbreak.

    My dad and I went up to help with the cleanup.

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    @satby: I was in one when I was 18 months old; Grandma and I were in the basement when the tornado took away the chicken coop. And probably some chickens… sorry Betty!

    But I did not know this until my first novel, which opens with a nightmare of my main character trapped in a tornado. “Oh, yeah, you were in one,” my mother said… seems like it would have been a more popular topic :)

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: I have only seen one actual honest to Dog tornado and it was miles away so my reaction was one of awe, not fear. I have seen several proto-tornadoes, a couple of which systems did in fact end up generating a tornado or 2.

    (bangs fist on head) Knock on wood.

  16. 16.

    satby

    @satby: at that link, it talks about all the reported tornados that day, the F4 in Cook County was the one that went through my neighborhood and the nearby suburbs. It was bad.

  19. 19.

    satby

    @WereBear: my youngest memory of one was on the South Side (again near 79th St.) where a tornado had busted out the windows of the department store, Franks, on the corner of 79 & Halsted, and we came out after the storm to toys strewn all over the lawn, still in their packaging. I mostly remember how disappointed we kids were when our moms said we were bringing the toys back to Franks, we couldn’t keep them. I had to have been under 5 years old, because I was that old when we moved to Beverly.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: In the Corruption Competition, Pruitt is in the lead by miles and the guaranteed gold medal winner. When trump’s former body man has moral objections to what Pruitt wants, you know we have reached the stratosphere.

  23. 23.

    WereBear

    @satby: That was the closest I got in the MidWest.

    However, it did explain how certain casts of light (that yellow-tornado light shift) and massing dark clouds would twinge my nerves. Now I know why.

  30. 30.

    TS

    The attack on Syria and related speeches is reminding me of Mussolini strutting around a stage making speeches, sending in the troops and achieving absolutely nothing.

    Why was it done at this point in time? Proving you are a strong leader by throwing around a few missiles didn’t used to be the way democracies operated. Was it really to take pressure off the internal news and give the pundits another reason to say “trump just became presidential”.

    There is something terribly disturbing about this administration – with a couple of sane people maybe hanging in there – but for how long.

  32. 32.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    That trump asked Comey to investigate it says it all. I love that he didn’t want the tape to upset Melanie. Yeah that seems totally believable.

  33. 33.

    mainmata

    I’m sitting in Jakarta so it was an all-day affair for me. Not that I spent the whole day following it. I’m actually supposed to be working even on the weekends but the news got really repetitive, especially CNNI but also the Beeb but since the whole event didn’t last very long all they were left with was repetition.

    So I’m watching an old “Iron Chef America” episode instead. Much more interesting to me.

  34. 34.

    Lapassionara

    My head is spinning. Scooter Libby pardoned. Michael Cohen in Prague in 2016 and invited to chat with Judge Wood next Monday. Syria bombed. And that was only one day. I don’t think I will live through this administration.

    Good morning.

  37. 37.

    JohnO

    My niece’s ~100 year old big rented farmhouse in Washington, IL was F4’d into Lake Michigan a few years back. I was there the next day and it was something else. Everything just…gone. She got her 3 kids and dogs out just in time, couldn’t rescue the cats, who were found in the rubble next day! We were VERY happy…it was the only bright spot on the day other than the few (1?) lives actually lost. (Link is to Weather Channel footage of one kitty’s emergence.)

    Still curious to hear from Adam and/or Cheryl and/or the BJ legal community about the Cohen news of yesterday. IF he was in Prague and IF he was in the meeting alleged in the Steele dossier, are we in genuine treason territory?

  39. 39.

    Barbara

    @JohnO: We’ve been in genuine treason territory for a while. I suppose this would be harder for Trump to try to pass off as the actions of a rogue or low level staffer.

  41. 41.

    Gin & Tonic

    @JohnO:

    are we in genuine treason territory?

    No.

    Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

    It may be perjury, it may be indicative of a criminal conspiracy, but treason is very specific.

  42. 42.

    JohnO

    @Barbara:

    Yes, I didn’t phrase it right…I too have felt we were in treason territory just from stuff in the public record, like The Boy King inviting Russia to hack away on live TV.

    I meant could we actually see a genuine political and legal fight over treason?

  43. 43.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JohnO:

    IF he was in Prague and IF he was in the meeting alleged in the Steele dossier, are we in genuine treason territory?

    I would say it all depends about why he lied about it. It’s possible he was only there to exchange borscht recipes but he had to lie so that his wife wouldn’t know it was her family’s super secret recipe handed down thru the generations from mother to daughter along with her great great grandmother’s garnet necklace.

  44. 44.

    JohnO

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Hmmm…could it be argued that tipping an election to a hostile foreign government is in fact giving “aid and comfort?” Because I feel I could make a case for that off the top of my head and IANAL.

    Thanks.

  45. 45.

    mainmata

    @OzarkHillbilly: OMG, I’ve been following this as much as I can, especially this is my field but this sewer rat makes the “Dragon Lady” of Reagan’s EPA (that would be Gorsuch’s mother) seem like a total amateur. But, in the Trump Era, he won’t either be fired or charged with the many crimes he has committed and, of course, he knows that. If the Dems take over in January, he should spend all his time in Congressional hearings being grilled to within an inch of his life.

  47. 47.

    Gin & Tonic

    @JohnO: Russia may be an adversary, it may have hostile interests, but since we have not declared war against them (nor they against us) they are not an “Enemy.”

    Please stop using the word. It has a specific meaning; it is very well-defined, and nothing anyone in or near the Trump organization has done or can do rises to that.

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    @Gin & Tonic: You don’t think that the Trumpov campaign gave aid and comfort to one of America’s biggest enemies? Aren’t he and his minions still doing that to this very day?

    Ah well…

    In other news, the WaPo magazine’s feature article this weekend is on the magnificent prescience of…Dennis Kucinich. A man ahead of his time. A man in the (not making this up) “sweet spot where Sandersism meets Trumpism”. GAG ME. Hey Post, maybe next time you could run a profile on someone who actually matters, like one of the likely 2020 D contenders? Or all of them? There have been any number of absolutely great #Resistance Dems in the House and Senate who could use some more airtime. Just sayin’…

  49. 49.

    donnah

    I was in high school in 1974 when an F-5 tornado hit Xenia, Ohio, ten miles from where I lived. It was part of a Super Outbreak, and it killed 33 people and injured more than a thousand. A week or so after, my dad took us by what was left of the area and we were stunned to see the massive destruction. It pulled sidewalks out of the ground and wrapped siding around trees like bowties. I can’t imagine the terror.

    Of course, there were no camera phones back then, but there are archived photos. There is also a sound recording online from a tape recorder someone left running. It recorded the sounds of the approaching funnel, the clatter of debris, and that awful locomotive roar when it hits. Shudder.

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @mainmata: I wonder… Having the power of the purse, can a DEM congress write the EPAs budget such that Pruitt is forbidden from collecting any salary at all?

    @zhena gogolia: Because we were never all that high to begin with? There was a time when the GOP actually cared about the environment but that all went out the window with Reagan. The GOP usually gets about 47% of the vote no matter what, which means app half the population really doesn’t care all that much.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    Marcus Green
    ‏Verified account
    @MarcusGreenWDRB
    12h12 hours ago
    More
    Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin on the teacher rallies today. “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”

    Kentucky’s governor says children were physically harmed, poisoned, sexually assaulted, and tried drugs due to having the day off Friday.

    FRANKFORT, Ky. – Republican majorities in the Kentucky House and Senate on Friday ignored the complaints and overrode the vetoes of Republican Gov. Matt Bevin of the state budget bill and a tax bill that helps to fund it.

    In other words, the teachers beat the governor.

  55. 55.

    MomSense

    @Barbara:

    Prenups are notoriously difficult to enforce. Melania’s friend and associate started an agency in December of 2016 and was paid 26 million in inaugural committee funds. This agency spent 5 million for staffing and things that were supposedly for the inauguration and then sat on the rest. My wild speculation is that money was going to get diverted back to Melania.

    I think she is the smartest of the bunch and this has always been a business arrangement for her. Right now she has all the power. He needs her and they both know it.

  58. 58.

    JohnO

    @TS:

    :-) Lots of people cried, and it was just as cool though not on film when #2 poked his head out from some debris about an hour later.

    At that point there was just a small army of people scrounging for 3 kids’ worth of memories, and any “stuff” that could be salvaged. The thing was, there just wasn’t much to be found and it led to a discouraging scene overall…so yeah, it was a Hallmark moment in real life.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    Oh, look. GOP voters are still angry!

    New poll shows Richard Cordray up in primary, Mike DeWine winning but GOP voters angry

    I don’t know what they’re angry about now. They got Trump and this entire state and the whole federal government is run by Republicans. The GOP primary is really nasty, so they’ll get to choose between two assholes. Mary Taylor narrowly edges out DeWine on mean-spiritedness, but he’s more dishonest so it’ll be a tough choice.

  61. 61.

    Amir Khalid

    @JohnO:
    You did say “treason”, which per the statutory definition quoted by Gin & Tonic is a crime that an American can commit only by fighting for or otherwise aiding an enemy state formally at war against the US. An unfriendly foreign country not in a declared war with America doesn’t count, and for that matter neither does a non-state group.

    Now, if you want to expand the definition of treason to include the latter two, you could certainly make a strong case for that.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Arizona is going next. This is just wild, the red state teachers revolt. I’ve never seen anything like it. It isn’t really even labor union led. In some of these states they cannot strike legally and the teachers unions are just “associations” with no real power, yet it’s happening anyway.

  63. 63.

    JR

    I recall driving through Kansas one April and was shocked to see multiple tornados off in the distance from I70. I figured maybe I’d see one. I know the horizon is like 100 miles in Kansas but how the hell do people live there?

  64. 64.

    beef

    Treason is a perfectly good English word, regardless of the peculiarly precise meaning it carries in American law. (Raise your hands. How many of you are actually lawyers, and how many of you just play one on the internet?) And the English word “treason” is highly applicable to what Trump and his crew of wiseguys did. They collaborated with a hostile state to tilt the election odds in their favor. That’s as bad as stealing military secrets, and functionally equivalent.

  67. 67.

    JohnO

    @Amir Khalid:

    10-4. LOL I never denied using the word treason. It’s all right, I have a better understanding now.

    As long as there’s some serious punishment meat on the bone for “conspiracy with a hostile government” or whatever it could be called I’m fine with that.

    I still see the the real problems coming when The Boy King starts issuing blanket pardons, up to and including himself. Or doing something profoundly unsettling as the noose tightens. He is a child.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Bevin is mad that he lost and lashing out. They’re such godammned babies. OMG, grow up. He can’t go out and just make a normal statement that he’s grateful kids are back in school? He has to indulge in this insane tirade?

    Conservatives coddled their people into thinking that every dumb thought they have has to be expressed, or they are being “silenced”. Also- I have legit questions about why these people immediately turn to child sexual abuse in each and every instance. Normal people don’t assume children are all sexually abused the moment they leave school. These kids are at home, right? In his hypothetical? Who is abusing them?

  71. 71.

    Nelle

    @Gin & Tonic: A real question…when was the last time we had a declared war? So Nixon did not commit treason when he interfered with peace talks in 1968? What word do you prefer for behavior that is essentially treasonous but for Congress not declaring war? Because Congress doesn’t declare war these days and it doesn’t mean the country is not being betrayed.

  72. 72.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Have you seen the DeWine ad narrated by his wife? He’s shown with various people in various occupations and situations, but they’re all significantly taller than he is, and he’s always looking up at them. I myself am equally height challenged, but I don’t think it’s a good look to have your candidate looking like a small, wizened gnome.

  73. 73.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Also- I have legit questions about why these people immediately turn to child sexual abuse in each and every instance. 

    Hastert Rule.

  76. 76.

    WereBear

    @Kay: I have legit questions about why these people immediately turn to child sexual abuse in each and every instance. Normal people don’t assume children are all sexually abused the moment they leave school. These kids are at home, right? In his hypothetical? Who is abusing them?

    Evidence is increasing that their Fundamentalist/Republican/BatshitCrazy branch of Christianity is rife with abuse of all kinds; combine god-given patriarchy with women and children as servants, all with their twisted and hypocritical views of human sexuality; disaster in the making.

    The Josh Duggar and Institute in Basic Life Principles scandals are merely the tip of this iceberg.

  78. 78.

    Nelle

    @JR: I manage to live in Kansas, but won’t live in a trailer or a house without a basement. I’ve seen several in my life (though I grew up here, I haven’t always lived here but am back for a few years. I’m married to a nomad – former military, still restless). The most in one day was eight but some just flipped around in the sky and didn’t make ground contact.

    You get some sense of when conditions are right. In high school, we had a bad afternoon of weather with sirens screaming warning. 2,800 kids sitting on the floor, laughing and crawling around until the light shifted and ut got very still outside. We all got very still and furtively took protective posture, as we had been taught all our lives (cross-legged, head down in lap, hands clasped over the back of the neck).

    Earthquakes, on the other hand, can come any season. We used to be grateful that at least we didn’t have those. But thanks to fracking, we get those too!

  80. 80.

    zhena gogolia

    @Nelle:

    That’s it exactly. The country is being betrayed. It comes from the same root, for “handing over.” The word is perfectly applicable to what is happening and has happened.

  81. 81.

    Another Scott

    @satby: Not storm surges, exactly, but you folks on the Great Lakes need to worry about seiche events.

    ChiTrib: The Seiche of 1954 (from 1994):

    As the line of windy squalls passed out over Lake Michigan that hot June morning 40 years ago, Joseph Pecararo assumed the worst of the day’s weather was over.

    The sky was clear and the lake was still by the time the 24-year-old lifeguard captain arrived for work at North Avenue beach.

    With temperatures expected to climb to nearly 100, he expected a big Saturday crowd.

    But so far the beach was deserted, except for a pair of fishermen out on the hook-shaped pier and a line of rowboats stored in front of the beachhouse, ready for use in an emergency.

    They turned out to be of no use at all against the silent killer racing toward the beach from the southeast that morning: a freakish, 10-foot-high inland tidal wave that would sweep eight anglers to death and pound the Lake Michigan shoreline all the way from the Chicago River to Wilmette on its way into the history books.

    “The water came up suddenly and our boats began to float,” remembers Pecararo, now general superintendent of beaches for the Chicago Park District.

    “We ran out and went to pull the boats up and when we did, there was a wave.”

    The wall of water crashed over the lifeguards without warning, knocking them from their feet. When they surfaced, “we laughed, we thought it was kind of funny,” he remembers.

    “But seconds later a person came running over and said there was a fisherman swept off the pier,” Pecararo said. John Jaworski, fishing with his 18-year-old son Joseph, had disappeared.

    Jaworski was just the first of the victims of one of Lake Michigan’s most unusual phenomena: the seiche.

    Such potentially deadly waves, the worst of which hit Chicago on June 26, 1954, are formed when a squall line with high winds drives water across the lake, in the same way that blowing on a hot cup of coffee pushes the liquid toward the far rim. The winds then pass off the lake, but the water sloshes back across, producing damaging waves with no storm to warn of their impending arrival.

    […]

    Scary stuff.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    HeleninEire

    OMG SO EXCITING. My niece Annie (not the niece that was here for St Paddy’s Day) just sent me a text that said “Aunt Helen, got a great deal on airfare for the 21st. [that’s next week guys] Can I come visit?”

    Can you come visit? OMG OMG OMG. Of course you can. The big work project will be over. I can get time off. YAY.

    Very excited. Stay tuned for updates. OMFG!!!!

  86. 86.

    Nicole

    Speaking of tornados- we shot a short video for my son’s school’s Science Expo (the kids were encouraged to do kitchen science videos to play on a loop in the school lobby). My kid picked Tornado in a Bottle (scientific principle demonstrated: centripetal force). It worked fine when the kid shook the bottle, but my husband was the best at getting a really good “tornado” going. My son, in awe, asked him how he did it, and his dad replied, “I’m from Oklahoma; we know tornados.” Kiddo laughed, and then said, “Oh! I get that one!”

    Now I’m insecure that he’s been politely laughing at our jokes for years, without having the heart to tell us they don’t make sense.

  87. 87.

    But her emails!!

    @Kay: 75% of Republicans polled support Trump compared to 44% for Kasich. That explains their anger. They’re Trumpists. Anger and inflicting more pain on the “other” is all they really stand for any more.

  88. 88.

    Another Scott

    @OzarkHillbilly: You inspired me to see what The Dossier actually says about that:

    pages 2-3 (from the text tab – horrible OCR follows)

    However, there were other aspects to TRUMP’s engagement with the Russian authorities. One which had borne fruit for them was to exploit personal obsesslons and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable ‘kompromat’ [compromising material] on him. According to Source D, where s/he had been present, (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite ofthe Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and OBAMA {whom he hated] had stayed on one ottherr orhcial trips to Russia, and deriling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSE control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.

    The Moscow Ritz Carlt involvin TRUMP re orted above was confirmed by ____ who said that s/he and several ofthe Staffwere aware ofit att time and subsequently. S/he believed it had happened in 2013. Source ___ provided an introduction for a company ethnic Russian operative to Source F, a female staffer at the hotel when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story. Speaking separately in lune 2016, Source [the former top level Russian intelligence officer) asserted that unorthodox behavior in Russia over the years had provided the authorities there with enough embarrassing material on the now
    Republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished

    Asked about the Kremlin’s reported intelligence feed to TRUMP over recent years and rumours about a Russian dossier of’kornpromat’ on Hillary CLINTON (being circulated), Source confirmed the file’s
    existence. S/he confided in a trusted compatriot that it had been collated by Department ofthe FSB for many years, dating back to her husband Bill?s presidency, and comprised mainly eavesdropped conversations of various sorts rather than details/evidence of unorthodox or embarrassing behavior. Some ofthe conversations were from bugged comments CLINTON had made on her various trips to Russia and focused ‘tion on various on things she had said which contradicted her current p051
    issues. Others were most probably from phone intercepts. or Kremlin official, confided

    It seems clear that he didn’t make it up out of whole cloth. Based on everything else we know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the events happened. I’m not willing to dismiss it out of hand the way Adam has here.

    But honestly, it’s a side show on its own. What matters is how Donnie is being blackmailed by Vlad over it (and over the white whale Trump Tower in Moscow, etc., etc.).

    It would be interesting to hear if Mueller found the claimed FSB file on Hillary (and who on Donnie’s team had it (if it exists))…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  90. 90.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    @MomSense:

    That trump asked Comey to investigate it says it all. I love that he didn’t want the tape to upset Melanie. Yeah that seems totally believable.

    While I am positive that wasn’t the reason, I’m also sure that he’s stupid enough to think that Comey would believe it.

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    @WereBear: Also, Republicans only know how to appeal to lizard brain responses in people now. They have to make people respond viscerally, to make people afraid, so that they turn off their prefrontal cortex and just respond via more animalistic (“fight or flight”) mechanisms.

    People don’t think when they’re afraid.

    That’s why they say things like 3 Skittles will kill us all in our beds, or that Child Molesters are going to snatch all the children, or The Debt will kill us all and our children and grandchildren when Democrats are in power, or that Assad is an existential threat to the USA, or that Kim will kill us all unless we attack him Now Now Now, or whatever.

    It’s not a rational argument they’re presenting. They don’t want people to think about policy and solving problems, they want them to be afraid. It’s the only way they can hold on to power.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    Another Scott

    @Peale: It’s bad OCR (optical character recognition). If you click on the Document tab (the first tab), you see the original image of the document. It’s actually in English, unlike the OCR. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  93. 93.

    Peale

    @Kay: well…it would be their parents most likely. Based on this logic, though, we should just take kids from their homes and put them in school 24/7. Maybe that’s how he plans to punish teachers for their raise. Make them work 24/7.

  97. 97.

    catclub

    @Nelle:

    A real question…when was the last time we had a declared war?

    nineteen and Forty one, by my reckoning. – having a war – up through 1945. Maybe that is why I heard 72 years on the radio this am.

  99. 99.

    VincentN

    When people use the word treason they’re usually using it in the ordinary usage of the word way and not the precise, legalistic meaning.

    The pedants can relax. We’re not writing legal briefs here or filing charges.

  100. 100.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @WereBear:
    There’s an additional element. The myth that an army of pedophile strangers are just waiting to grab your daughters is a key weapon in the highly successful evangelical war to convince the rest of the US that abusive levels of parental control are morally correct. By now, it’s a buzzword waiting to be thrown out. Then, as you noted, you add projection.

  101. 101.

    Gelfling 545

    @Kay: Because those kids live at the school? Weren’t ever going back to their- obviously in his opionon – dangerous homes? Maybe then he’d do well to beef up CPS too? Nah.

  102. 102.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    I recommend everyone look up the video of Matt Bevins saying these horrible things. He’s worse looking by far than Paul Ryan, big close set eyes, very tall forehead, no one can help the way their face is built, but you can avoid making yourself a parody of evil.

    What a despicable piece of trash!

  104. 104.

    sdhays

    @Peale: That was my thought when I saw that quote. He’s accusing Kentucky families of not being able to stop themselves from sexually assaulting their children if they’re not in school. It really makes you wonder about Bevin that he would go there so quickly. What has he done or what was done to him?

  105. 105.

    Miss Bianca

    @OzarkHillbilly: feeling your pain – had a car wreck couple weeks ago, and not only did the side windows shatter (thanks, Jeep after-market parts!), but also had the glass bottle recycling in the car because OF COURSE I DID. Still waiting for some of the glass shards to emerge from both hands.

  107. 107.

    J R in WV

    @Miss Bianca:

    Ouch! When wife rolled our F-350 on I-25 north of Las Vegas, NM back in 2013 all the glass shattered, and the only bloody injury was my forearms which had multiple little cuts from flying glass. EMTs were on site in about 90 seconds, had been heading to ski resort, but fully equipped, so I was wiped clean and bandaged before the police showed up.

    NM State Police were very helpful and polite, at the end officer drove me and the dogs to a vet back in town to get them checked out. He was also very helpful. Very small town, sorry we didn’t have a chance to do the tourist thing.

    No glass embedded, tho, just sliced as it passed by. But I know your pain! Best of luck dealing with your event!

  108. 108.

    pinacacci

    @donnah: I saw that tornado; my parents stuffed us in the fireplace with a mattress just in case…l remember seeing it from the back patio and my mom saying “Why are we watching this, get inside.” Never forgotten it, Xenia was levelled

  110. 110.

    Citizen Alan

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I find this nitpicking suggestion that nothing can be treason US unless were actually at war with another country to be ridiculous. Carried to its logical conclusion, shitgibbon could have simply turned over the nuclear codes to Putin on his first day in office, and it wouldn’t have been a treasonous offense.

  111. 111.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Litlebritdifrnt: On another blog I noticed that the article on this had a couple of immediate comments from posters with Russian names crowing about how all the missiles had been shot down.

  112. 112.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:

    shall consist only in levying War against them

    I’ve always noticed that it doesn’t say it has to be a declared war, only in levying War.
    I wonder if it could be construed that anyone who worked against the US with some country levying war against the US, say what russia is doing now. It is not traditional warfare with bullets and bombs but it is warfare, interfering in the internal politics, getting a totally unqualified person in deep debt to them elected to grand poobah and quite possibly monetary well being of a foreign country.

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:

    but I don’t think it’s a good look to have your candidate looking like a small, wizened gnome

    What if he is a small, wizened gnome?

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    They don’t want people to think about policy and solving problems, they want them to be afraid. It’s the only way they can hold on to power.

    QFT
    This is worth repeating often. Look over conservatives of the last 70 yrs (or maybe much longer) and that is their entire concept of power. Control through fear. It is in everything they do or say.

  115. 115.

    Barbara

    @Gin & Tonic: There is such a thing as treason with a little “t” that doesn’t need to conform to the elements of a crime. Coordinating with a foreign country with interests adverse to the U.S. to undermine U.S. elections most likely with a component of actual financial self-dealing or self-interest on the side is treason. I don’t care if it’s “TREASON.”

  116. 116.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Kay:

    Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin on the teacher rallies today. “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”

    So schools are not to provide education, but are simply child-care facilities so that parents are all available as Industry Units? I don’t think you’re supposed to say that part out loud.

  117. 117.

    Chris T.

    I think someone should ask Bevin exactly how he personally guaranteed this event: did he do it himself, or did he pay someone else to do it?

  118. 118.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: Constitution at Findlaw:

    Levying War

    Early judicial interpretation of the meaning of treason in terms of levying war was conditioned by the partisan struggles of the early nineteenth century, in which were involved the treason trials of Aaron Burr and his associates. In Ex parte Bollman, 1291 which involved two of Burr’s confederates, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for himself and three other Justices, confined the meaning of levying war to the actual waging of war. ”However flagitious may be the crime of conspiring to subvert by force the government of our country, such conspiracy is not treason. To conspire to levy war, and actually to levy war, are distinct offences. The first must be brought into open action by the assemblage of men for a purpose treasonable in itself, or the fact of levying war cannot have been committed. So far has this principle been carried, that . . . it has been determined that the actual enlistment of men to serve against the government does not amount to levying of war.” Chief Justice Marshall was careful, however, to state that the Court did not mean that no person could be guilty of this crime who had not appeared in arms against the country. ”On the contrary, if it be actually levied, that is, if a body of men be actually assembled for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable purpose, all those who perform any part, however minute, or however remote from the scene of action, and who are actually leagued in the general conspiracy, are to be considered as traitors. But there must be an actual assembling of men, for the treasonable purpose, to constitute a levying of war.”

    […]

    There are very good reasons why the Constitution is written the way it is, and “treason” is restricted the way it is.

    More at Wikipedia:

    Burr was charged with treason for assembling an armed force to take New Orleans and separate the Western from the Atlantic states. He was also charged with high misdemeanor for sending a military expedition against territories belonging to Spain. George Hay, the prosecuting U.S. Attorney, compiled a list of over 140 witnesses, one of whom was Andrew Jackson. To encourage witnesses to cooperate with the prosecution, Thomas Jefferson gave Hay blank pardons containing Jefferson’s signature and the discretion to issue them to all but “the grossest offenders”; Jefferson later amended these instructions to include even those the prosecution believed to be most culpable, if that meant the difference in convicting Burr.[10]

    The case was controversial from the beginning. The high misdemeanor charge was dropped when the government was unable to prove that the expedition had been military in nature or directed toward Spanish territory.

    Burr’s trial brought into question the ideas of executive privilege, state secrets privilege, and the independence of the executive. Burr’s lawyers, including John Wickham, asked Chief Justice John Marshall to subpoena Jefferson, claiming that they needed documents from Jefferson to present their case accurately. Jefferson proclaimed that as President, he was “…Reserving the necessary right of the President of the U S to decide, independently of all other authority, what papers, coming to him as President, the public interests permit to be communicated, & to whom…”[11] He insisted that all relevant papers had been made available, and that he was not subject to this writ because he held executive privilege. He also argued that he should not be subject to the commands of the judiciary, because the constitution guaranteed the executive branch’s independence from the judicial branch. Marshall decided that the subpoena could be issued despite Jefferson’s position of presidency. Though Marshall vowed to consider Jefferson’s office and avoid “vexatious and unnecessary subpoenas,” his ruling was significant because it suggested that, like all citizens, the President was subject to the law.[12]

    Marshall had to consider the definition of treason and whether intent was sufficient for conviction, rather than action. Marshall ruled that because Burr had not committed an act of war, he could not be found guilty (see Ex parte Bollman); the First Amendment guaranteed Burr the right to voice opposition to the government. To merely suggest war or to engage in a conspiracy was not enough.[13] To be convicted of treason, Marshall ruled, an overt act of participation must be proven with evidence. Intention to divide the union was not an overt act: “There must be an actual assembling of men for the treasonable purpose, to constitute a levying of war.” [14] Marshall further supported his decision by indicating that the Constitution stated that two witnesses must see the same overt act against the country. Marshall narrowly construed the definition of treason provided in Article III of the Constitution; he noted that the prosecution had failed to prove that Burr had committed an “overt act,” as the Constitution required. As a result, the jury acquitted the defendant.[15]

    There are lots and lots of laws that seemingly obviously have been violated by Trump’s minions. We don’t need a charge of “treason” – which is exceedingly difficult to prove. Even when a private citizen raises an army and advances toward an American city…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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