Trump marked his 500th day in office (yes, time is telescoping out to eternity) by claiming the divine right of kings:
As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong? In the meantime, the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2018
I don’t think Giuliani’s multiple, contradictory blatherings on the issue count as the rulings of “numerous legal scholars,” but I am not a lawyer. Also:
The appointment of the Special Councel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Despite that, we play the game because I, unlike the Democrats, have done nothing wrong!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2018
Trump’s cabinet is stocked with corrupt lackeys, and the GOP-led congress comprises spineless bag-men and Trump sycophants, so the bodies charged with holding a lawless president accountable won’t. Looks like it’ll be up to us voters, and there’s good news on that front.
The seniors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School graduated this weekend (minus four in the senior class who were killed in the massacre), and they’ve announced a nationwide bus tour and voter registration drive. Via Buzzfeed:
The March for Our Lives organizers are embarking on the next phase of their anti–gun violence movement: a 60-day bus tour across the US this summer to register young people to vote and to continue highlighting the NRA’s influence over politics.
“This tour is about exposing people who take money from the NRA and registering people to vote — those are the two main things we’re trying to push with this,” Jaclyn Corin, a student who survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in February, told BuzzFeed News on Sunday.
Current and former MSDHS students will also visit every state congressional district in Florida in a separate bus tour:
“Because Florida is like a microcosm of the United States,” said Corin, “in the way that there are so many different areas, with so many different views, which is important to target all of them — because preaching to the choir essentially doesn’t do much, but going to the places that disagree with us is really where we’re going to make the change.”
She’s absolutely right about Florida mirroring the divides in the US. These kids are smart and motivated. They’re too young to have absorbed the learned helplessness and cynicism that leads people to believe they can’t make a difference.
They emphasize that they want to talk to everyone, even people opposed to gun safety measures. I don’t think they’ll change any gun nuts’ minds, but if they — and the rest of us — can pull people off the sidelines to vote, that can change everything.
LAO
I am a lawyer — you are correct!
Readily
This won’t end with impeachment-conviction.
It will end by voting Trump out of office in 2020.
eric
@LAO: to be fair to trump, John Yoo would qualify as a legal scholar (thanks Berkeley)
Xenos
We really should not give them the honor of using their preferred name of “Republican“, as they are no longer recognizably republican in spirit or policy.
Rather, we should use the term correctly applied to reactionary monarchists: “Tory“.
trollhattan
@LAO:
The evaluation is in and “Giuliani’s multiple, contradictory blatherings” have been determined to be from precisely zero “legal scholars.”
Villago Delenda Est
So, fuckhead wants to go down in history with Charles I and Louis XVI.
So be it.
M4
God help us.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Readily: I still think President Tapeworm won’t be on the ballot in 2020, either because he resigns or because he declares that he’s won all the bigly fights there were to win and his work is done and skips the country to retire to a nice dacha on the Volga somewhere.
germy
@Xenos: Scott over at LGM makes the case that they still are recognizably republican:
“Day 500 of the republican party being what it was before”
rikyrah
” writhing Hydra of dishonesty”
Now, THAT is a phrase to describe Dolt45
https://twitter.com/NewDay/status/1003583571876089856?s=19
NotMax
Repeating from below.
re: those tweets.
No, Trelane.
LAO
Anyone else think, this whole I can pardon myself thing and the tweets about Manafort over the weekend mean, Manafort is going to plead guilty and cooperate? I think there’s a fifty-fifty chance that’s what’s going on.
And — good on those MSDHS kids, they are remarkable and I am beginning to believe that they can change this country.
Jerzy Russian
I am not an English teacher, but “Councel” does not look to be spelled correctly.
Also too, if such things are UNCONSTITUTIONAL, can we remove Bill Clinton’s impeachment from history?
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard thinks he’s above the law? I really want to see Trump and Ivanka meet their ends like Mussolini.
AnotherBruce
I kind of look at the “numerous legal scholars” in Trump’s head as the equivalence of Dick Nixon talking to the White House paintings. As in, like Nixon, Trump is talking to “people” who are not really there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
in this case, he’s talking to the tele screen, and the legal scholars are the firm of Doocey, notDoocey and GirlnotDoocey
also, “Judge” Jeanine, Andrew Napolitano and his own lawyers talking to them
NotMax
Translation:
A guy I know whose barber’s cousin’s mechanic once saw an episode of Night Court.
dmsilev
I thought Republican dogma on crime was that if you didn’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of. And Trump is coming off looking very afraid.
JPL
@LAO: The documents supposedly clearing Trump of wrong doing were apparently leaked by the Trump camp. A weekend of tweets about the investigation soon followed, so I agree something is up.
What did you think about this section of the lawyer’s letter.
The question might end up being, who will stand by the pres?
eric
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oddly, from what I have seen, Nap is not fully on board the Trump train, to the consternation of Fox viewers that go after him hard for his apostasy.
germy
JPL
@dmsilev: Trump is painting himself as a victim, and his supporters are following along. I wouldn’t mind if they followed him over the cliff.
Greg Gabrielse
Those meddling kids need to #GetOnMyLawn. I love them.
satby
I mock Republicans now by saying that I’m so old I remember when Republicans were against Russia, corruption, and the idea that the President wasn’t above the law.
Yarrow
@LAO:
Yep. Manafort’s options are not good. Flipping is his best option of the bad ones he’s got.
A Ghost To Most
Supremes rule for religious bigotry.
eric
@Yarrow: he cannot flip. I dont think that his family survives. I think he takes the hit and goes to jail and says nothing. He can still win a trial; he cannot beat a bullet.
The Moar You Know
@LAO: Nope. If Manafort rolls there is no way the US Govt could keep him and his family/kin safe (and under the direction of Preznit Orange, no motivation to, either). He knows this. He won’t flip. He may go to prison for a long time, but he won’t cooperate. Otherwise it’s a lifetime of never eating or drinking or touching anything or going out in public, not just for him, but for his entire family.
As eric directly above me notes so eloquently, he might could beat some charges…but he can’t beat a bullet.
NotMax
@satby
efgoldman (waves) is so old he can remember when Republicans were against slavery.
:)
Xenos
@germy: I would argue that the Bush II reign was well along the way to monarchism, what with the nonsense about the unitary executive or whatnot.
Under Trump. “free trade” is just code for government support for the businesses of cronies, and everybody else is free to scrape along or fail in a destabilized commercial environment. If Republicans are down with that, then they are not pro “free trade” in any meaningful fashion.
What I find strange is that I live in a monarchy now, and it is run on much more republican lines than the US.
germy
Here’s a photo of the legal scholars:
JPL
@A Ghost To Most: Although it is a narrow ruling, it is a slippery slope to allowing discrimination. Both candidates for the repub party in GA are running on religious liberty.
Yarrow
@eric: I guess we’ll see.
satby
@NotMax: speak of, any efg sightings lately? I worry.
LAO
@JPL: I hate to admit this — but I haven’t read the letter the White House leaked — and I have no doubts that the WH leaked it — I only skimmed it. Once I realized they mis-characterized the obstruction of justice statute and flat ignored the statute that actually applied, my eyes rolled so far back into my skull, I only recently regained my sight.
But seriously, the recent pardons are all about sending a message, which may or may not be persuasive to its targets. So it remains to be seen, as you suggest, who stays aboard the USS Trump and who abandons ship. (How’s that for a lawerly answer — commit to nothing!)
waspuppet
By October Trump will be claiming the right to bang any bride on her wedding night before her husband gets to.
Yarrow
@satby: One last week. He was in the hospital with crappy wifi and/or an old computer (can’t remember which). Said he was feeling better. That was all the info.
NotMax
@satby
He came by briefly just the other day to say he is (or possibly by now was) in the hospital, with limited connectivity, but was bouncing back smartly.
(waves again)
schrodingers_cat
Jesus is not going to forgive these bastards for what they are doing in his name.
Scott
Leave aside the accuracy of what is being claimed: I would like to see state charges brought against this President. With a little civil forfeiture thrown in for good measure. I think Trump Tower in New York would be great income for NYC law enforcement.
AnotherBruce
@germy: Good God, are there that many bleached blondes on Fox News? Or are they the same person?
Brachiator
Fuck the conservatives on the US Supreme Court
Fuck the idiots who could not bring themselves to vote for Clinton
Bruce K
I’m thinking that Charles I and Louis XVI got off easier than these monsters deserve. There are plenty of traffic lights overlooking Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and piano wire can be purchased in bulk.
Gin & Tonic
I don’t think Manafort gets whacked, no matter what he does. Taking him out, especially if he stays in the US, is (IMO) just too high-profile a move for Vladimir Vladimirovich. Ex-pat Russians seem to be fair game anywhere, but I really think a US citizen in the US is safe.
That said, I think Trump’s attempt to throw him under the bus is piss-poor strategy.
trollhattan
@AnotherBruce:
“Rebel” at Fox News=parting your blonde hair on the left side.
NotMax
@Scott
Would make a helluva homeless shelter.
;)
Sister Golden Bear
Annnnd the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of the anti-gay baker. Somehow I think the right to discriminate won’t end with wedding cakes….
Personally I plan on becoming ordained in the Church of Harvey Milk, and my strongly held religious beliefs will prevent me from providing services to Talibapists and other right-wing assholes.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
Manafort is 69, ripe for that “unexpected” first cardiac event.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
California, getting ready to fuck up their primaries.
New York hasn’t fixed Double Jeopardy law.
Bernie the only non-Democrat allowed on TV.
Yep, things are looking up.
PaulWartenberg
Legal arguments against a President’s ability to pardon himself: https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=facpubs
Go fuck yourself, trump
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: “Jesus is coming and boy is he pissed!”
eric
@Gin & Tonic: You assume it would be the Russians. Given for whom he has worked, it could be lots of folks, and the Russian angle gives them perfect cover. That guy knows too much.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Jesus saves but the Mongol hoards.
rimshotcmorenc
@eric:
IMHO what Manifort is afraid of is slippery bar of ivory soap on a 5th-floor balcony….
germy
@trollhattan:
Or wearing slacks. I mean, what’s the point of those low camera angles or transparent desks?
The Moar You Know
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I am EXTREMELY concerned about our primaries tomorrow. CA-49 is not an overwhelmingly Dem district, and I can see a lot of ways this “jungle primary” bullshit could go real bad here.
So there’s that. There’s also that jackhole from OC (Kerr) who’s running as for the seat as a Dem and has dumped millions into mailers – slamming other Dems. Not one of his mailers has said anything about Republicans or the Republican party at all.
germy
@AnotherBruce: Ailes was like Hitchcock. He had a definite “type”.
jimmiraybob
“Rex Est Lex Loquens” — the king is the law speaking.
It took 300+ years in the west to get beyond the arbitrary law of the king. Revolutions and wars have been fought. And here we are with the Republican Party in lockstep with Evangelical Christianity at the forefront of bringing back the God ordained King.
Modern conservatism is nothing more that a full blown assault on modernity and the Enlightenment ideals embodied in our Declaration of Independence, revolution, Constitution and 229 years of fighting to realize and defend those principles.
Who here doesn’t think that Ivanka isn’t the Princess in training and next in line of royal succession.
Whooda thought that I could ever write such a thing in 2018 America and it wouldn’t sound batshit crazy? OK, so it does sound batshit crazy. But, given the mounting evidence*, less crazy than a year ago and much less so than two years ago and so on and so forth and turtles all the way down.
*not persuasive to the faith-based Trumpcult followers.
Shell
Mayor McCheese.
Manyakitty
I’m almost scared to see what news is behind this latest garbage. Also, aside from voting, etc., what can we do? The republicans are too corrupt and cowardly to act. Will the UN help? Is there a process, short of all out war, for removing a severely damaged head of state?
NotMax
@jimmiraybob
Stormy Daniels.
;)
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Jesus saves but RAMIREZ SCORE ON THE REBOUND!!!!! (from a shithouse wall)
AnotherBruce
@germy: That’s true, He was very much like Hitchcock, but he was more creepy than Hitchcock
NotMax
@The Moar You Know
i think it will be an overwhelmingly large turnout and thus am not overly concerned.
Jager
One of my life long friends is a top flight lawyer, she’s won a bunch of cases, for and against the Feds over the years. She believes trump’s lawyers are ridiculous assholes.
OzarkHillbilly
@jimmiraybob:
But not entirely implausible.
Jager
@OzarkHillbilly: That was Esposito (Phil) not Ramirez, scores on the rebound.
The Other Chuck
@Manyakitty:
Call your congresscritter, demand they move to impeach. Even if they’re a Republican. *Especially* if they’re a republican. Once the first pebbles on that side of the isle start to roll, Trump will be powerless to stop the avalanche.
Manyakitty
@The Other Chuck: I’m all over it. Rob Portman DGAF. While I will maintain what I’m already doing, seems like we need some new ideas.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah. This kind of stuff is weird. I’m not sure what some of the political strategists on all sides are up to. I heard a couple of radio ads that kept slamming a candidate, mentioning him by name, and associating him with Trump. But his opponent was barely mentioned.
Also, I just recently listened to a podcast in which a political reporter claimed that gubernatorial nominee Gavin Newsom was aiding his GOP opponent Cox because he wants to demolish him and win big in November. But this may have the counter effect of energizing Republicans and getting them to come out strong for the mid terms.
And of course, there are too many Dems running for some of the GOP seats (Issa, Nunes, Rohrbacher, etc) and may end up taking their boot off the necks of the GOP.
California Democrats may be outsmarting themselves.
NotMax
@manyakitty
In theory, the 25th Amendment addresses that and creates a process.
(I know, I know, its authors never anticipated a pernicious taint spreading across both the executive and legislative branches simultaneously.)
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly:
An actual bumper sticker circa 1980s. One of my favs, along with “Use an accordion, go to jail”
OzarkHillbilly
@Jager: It was a Mexican shithouse wall where Football rules (the real football, not that fake shit we have up here).
Jager
@OzarkHillbilly: It was a hockey saying in Boston. The best graffiti in a shithouse I’ve ever seen: “I fucked your mother!” underneath, written with excellent penmanship, “Dad, go home, you’re drunk.”
OzarkHillbilly
@trollhattan: That’s where I stole it from. I also remember the accordion joke.
Manyakitty
Another thing : has anyone else noticed an uptick in stories about Putin’s ex-wife? Topics like what she’s doing, where she got all that money, who she’s married to now? Uncle Vlady won’t be happy with his boy in DC if the stink comes back to him.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jager: I almost responded to your Esposito line with “Only in Chicago” a testament to how long it’s been and the shortness of my memory.
Manyakitty
@NotMax: “pernicious taint” is right.
opiejeanne
@NotMax: It’s not safe enough for. a homeless shelter: no sprinklers.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
All-time favorite stall wall graffito:
Nietzsche is pietzsche.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Here I sit brokenhearted. Came to shit but only farted.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
So according to Rudy, Trump could shoot someone and then pardon himself and that’s that.
Sadly that SCOTUS ruling was 7-2.
The Other Chuck
@NotMax: “…but Camus candus.”
trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
The most prescient thing Donny said on the campaign trail was that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and they’d still vote for him. We should have realized he wasn’t speaking hypothetically.
Jager
@OzarkHillbilly: “Paid to…” I’m so old I remember pay toilets!
VOR
@jimmiraybob: We’re not re-fighting the American Civil War, we’re re-fighting the Enlightenment.
germy
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@germy: Ohh, that will fix it, a strongly worded tweet.
Tokyokie
@OzarkHillbilly: Hell, I think I first saw the Esposito version of the graffito written on a stall in a law school men’s room in Austin during the late 1970s.
lowtechcyclist
Every time I read a tweet like this, it sounds to me like a toddler having a temper tantrum. “WAAAAAH! People are being mean to me!!”
Don’t his supporters ever get embarrassed by this?
germy
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
If only he’d use his magic wand.
The Other Chuck
@lowtechcyclist: If they were capable of shame … yeah.
Betty Cracker
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I’m thousands of miles from his district, but Lieu seems like an active, engaged congressman who does a lot more than tweet.
hitchhiker
Does anybody else get exhausted by 9 am? I can’t stand all this reading of Russian tea leaves and cringing at the last 12 horrifying/stupid things that just happened and feeling afraid about the midterms and wanting to see the white evangelical church strangle on its own vomit.
I’ve left facebook and twitter. I get the WaPo online and check in with you all. I listen to Ezra Klein and Preet Bahara and the podcast of Rachel’s show — which for me is a very shrunken version of my media environment.
And it still feels like too much. I can’t bear the headlines about how CA might be about to fuck up the chance to get the midterms right, or how the Rs will hold the Senate forever if we don’t crush them this time, or how Bill Clinton isn’t sorry, or the SCOTUS feels obligated to force us all to respect the ugly thing that is current Christian passion.
I. Just. Can’t.
rikyrah
‘You don’t look like a legislator’: Security stops black, female lawmaker going to work in Ohio
Jessie Balmert
COLUMBUS – State Rep. Emilia Sykes was walking to work in the Ohio Statehouse last year with a fellow lawmaker when she was stopped by security. Officers needed to search her bag, she was told.
Sykes is serving her third year as a Democratic state representative from Akron. She is also a 32-year-old black woman. Her colleague, who was not searched, is a 65-year-old white man who has served in the Legislature for many years.
Sykes said she questioned why her bag needed to be searched when that wasn’t protocol. Lawmakers only need a badge to gain access to the Statehouse or the nearby Riffe Center, which houses many lawmakers’ offices.
Her colleague told the trooper Sykes was a member of the Ohio House.
She was told: “You don’t look like a legislator.” The trooper then clarified: “You look too young.”
On Wednesday, Sykes had trouble getting into the Riffe Center for a meeting. She flashed her badge for security there. Security said they couldn’t see the badge. She flipped it around. They still couldn’t see it. She was stopped, and officers examined the badge, Sykes recalled the next day.
rikyrah
@Villago Delenda Est:
truth
sukabi
@germy: how very Aryan looking.
rikyrah
Someone wrote on another blog that this reminds them of Mississippi Freedom Summer.
You know their organization is what’s enabling them to do this.
They know that it’s summer – school is out- so, no school shootings, and legislators are usually out. So, what are they doing?
Voter registration, and now, going on the road. This guarantees, that wherever they land, they will get local press, which will keep their issue, in the news.
Whomever is advising them is on point. Keeping these kids engaged and busy. Not allowing grass to grow underneath their movement.
Felanius Kootea
@Betty Cracker: He’s my congressman and he definitely does a lot more than tweet but he is the best Dem at the twitter game in my opinion.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Readily:
Or a heart attack during a rage tweet over how he got the wrong ice cream at a state dinner. .
germy
@rikyrah: It’s the new voter registration that gives me hope.
Amir Khalid
I was under the impression that they were the contradictory blatherings of multiple Guilianis, as pointed out by Dr. Silverman.
Betty Cracker
@Felanius Kootea: Agreed — Lieu really is great on Twitter, which, for all its many flaws is an important communication channel. Senator Chris Murphy is good on Twitter too — and also appears to be an able senator.
cain
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
If he leaves on his own, it will depress his supporters and finally reveal the scam. Hopefully, they will get the fuck out of the way, and let us do what needs be done and clean up our mess.
cope
@OzarkHillbilly: And my favorite, seen on a stall wall when I was studying geology in grad school in the ’70s:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” – Emerson
And underneath that line:
“You keep saying that” – Unknown
jimmiraybob
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That would not stop things. They’d just have him taxidermied, continue his tweets and roll him out for photo ops and rallies. I will have to look at the Constitution again but I don’t think there’s a requirement to be living to be President. Just a norm. His base would love it.
Of course Ivanka/Jarad, the first Copresidency in Waiting, would probably work to undo this flaw in the succession scheme.
To be clear, I’m only kidding….sort of kidding……..just gallows humor ………….probably being prophetic.
Kelly
On a Portland State restroom.
“Art is Truth”
“Art is Beauty”
Art is my uncle. He lives in Gresham.
germy
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: A 60-day bus tour across the country costs money. I wonder who’s funding it?
jimmiraybob
@VOR:
Exactly. Always. As someone important once said, “If you can keep it.”
germy
@Gin & Tonic: Soros!
…
USA TODAY-Feb 21, 2018
Oprah is “joining forces” with George and Amal Clooney. … and donating in support of student survivors of the Parkland, Fla. shooting rampage
Gelfling 545
@LAO: They are numerous and they are all Giuliani.
jl
Hmmm, I wonder what the Framers would have thought about this?
‘ Mason objected that “he may frequently pardon crimes that were advised by himself.” He complained, “If he has the power of granting pardons before indictment, or conviction, may he not stop inquiry and prevent detection?” ‘
‘ Madison pointed to “one security in this case to which gentlemen may not have adverted.” The security was that “if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; [and] they can remove him if found guilty.” In Madison’s view, “This is a great security.” ‘
https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/opinion/state-national-columnists/the-simple-answer-to-the-trump-pardon-question/
We can dither and thither over what Jefferson would have though about Title IX gender equality, or Washington about personalized license plates, or if Franklin would have liked video games. But this one is pretty simple.
Shell
Ahhh, Giuliani. From America’s mayor to the President’s lawyer. I wonder which he prefers.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
It’s an open thread, so here’s a link to an Ars Technica story about newly declassified NSA Cold War era security posters.
Ars Technica
Interesting.
Mandalay
MSNBC has been in complete pearl-clutching-fainting-couch-meltdown mode for over 10 minutes (so far) because Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
I suppose there is absolutely nothing else happening in the world right now.
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
Don’t we still have a thing called the Witness Protection Program, where the government sets up a new, documented identity for a witness somewhere far, far from their original location. So Manafort, wearing a beard and shades, becomes a grower in Humboldt county, with his family working on the farm? Or something like that?
Or can’t the DoJ do that very well nowadays?
SFAW
@Yarrow:
Except that path might lead to a poloniumtini with a Novichok chaser.
stinger
@Gin & Tonic: Soros, natch.
SFAW
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
That’ll happen right after he admits that he’s been a grifter most of his adult life. In other words: not in this plane of reality.
J R in WV
@satby:
efg posted briefly recently and told us he had been in the hospital, but was now out of stir and doing much better. Sounds a little scary, but he seems in good humor.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Mandalay: It’s almost as if the MSM doesn’t like Democrats or something.
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
I thought it was leftover funds from what they raised from their 501-3-c
Gravie
Re MSD students talking guns with people who are gun lovers: I was out canvassing on Saturday for Jamie McLeod-Skinner, our Democratic nominee to eject Greg Walden from office in Oregon’s 2nd district, and encountered a young guy who listed 2nd amendment rights as one of his two biggest issues in the election. (The other was healthcare.) He said he was an absolutist on gun ownership; although our candidate has pledged not to take any NRA money, and is probably what this voter would consider left of center on gun issues, we were able to have a good conversation about gun safety and common-sense gun laws. It can be done.
Mandalay
@Gin & Tonic:
So just the usual terrorist-Jew-Muslim-Nazi-Commie-fag-traitor-scumbag-filth suspects who hate America.
I can’t wait for Oliver North to start a campaign for NRA members to boycott Gucci.
Yellowdog
@eric: What makes you think he would be safe in jail?
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
I have a bone to pick with you:
“Whomever is advising them is on point. ”
You are assuming they aren’t smart enough to be organizing and plotting out their strategy on their own. Naughty of you!
These are really smart people, and they’re dedicated and working together, which multiplies the intelligence when done well. And it is done well so far.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know:
Putin will silence him anyway. He is not known for trusting people to keep their mouths shut. He prefers to ensure they do.
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
Interfering in a US presidential election is supposed to be low key?
Hungry Joe
@NotMax: Re California 49th: My wife and I are phone banking for Dem GOTV. Just took a break to scan the Juice. Now I’m back at it. Join in! https://phonebank.bluevote.com?pt=Vj7z5SvNG6fsPAeJrXD8sVoEkUIDVEXZs4q1tl2GTjxM3BdFTA1gOkDJPPYeMeiI2HyrSbYqx-LHrfUeyr8pCHNrlQrPa9vDLz1my5pXIwU=
misterpuff
Ketchup running down many DC walls today!
Betty Cracker
Someone should create a collection of all the “privately, [fill in the blank] opposed Trump’s [fill in atrocity]” statements. It could be called “Profiles in Cowardice.”
S Cerevisiae
The walls of mar-a-lardo are running red with ketchup, think The Shining.
Alison Rose
SpaceUnit
Throwing one’s lunch against the wall is going to become the new symbol of solidarity with Trump.
zhena gogolia
I agree with this post!
Capri
Reporters shouldn’t let them get away with that. The bar for off the record should be extremely high.
Baud
The Committee said there was more information coming.
I wonder if more witnesses will step forward after today.
Kay
So the go-to move on the Right is to throw your lunch against the wall? A lot of them do this?
50 years these people have been lecturing the rest of us about self discipline and behavior and they all react like spoiled 4 year olds.
I lol’ed at the incident where Trump went after the driver. Fat fucking chance that soft, coddled slob was winning that round. Maybe he believes those ridiculous depictions his cultists create, where he’s a mass of rippled muscle.
Baud
The meeting at the Willard is getting more interesting.
Kay
These honorabe Republicans threaten to throw their lunches against the wall (for someone else to clean up). That’s how they express their manly outrage.
They should be issued high chairs and bibs.
Matt McIrvin
Still thinking “you come at the king, you best not miss”. It takes some courage to do this publicly, knowing that despite everything, Trump could very well still become President again, and knowing what he’s capable of.
realbtl
If this throwing your lunch thing catches on will this reduce the regular folks at the diner hunts?
pat
She was interviewed four times and snippets of those were shown in previous hearings. I can’t imagine that she was lying.
I think it is quite likely that what she said today was hinted at previously but for some reason her trumpy lawyer didn’t want her to be specific. Therefore the change in lawyers and the committee putting together this absolutely riveting testimony.
(I left this at the end of the former thread,)
Leto
@Kay: throw your lunch against the wall and wish you could’ve done something. Oh, if ONLY THERE WAS SOMETHING THEY COULD DO/HAVE DONE!!!! Assholes. Actually, that’s a disservice to assholes as assholes are actually useful. Sorry assholes.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: Half of the examples will be Ivanka. Excuse me, ‘people close to Ivanka’.
HumboldtBlue
@Betty Cracker:
That goes for reporters too, here CNN again uses non-attribution when quoting GOPers about Hutchison’s testimony.
SpaceUnit
I feel bad for the wait-staff at next year’s CPAC banquet.
Matt McIrvin
What’s going to be the half-life for shock and dismay among Republicans this time? How long before they explain that this is actually the sign of a leader who’s just that committed to law, order and cheap gasoline?
mistermix
Is anyone else old enough to enjoy the Sam Irvin / Howard Baker dynamic that Thompson and Cheney have going? Irvin was a slow talking old southern Democrat and Baker was the younger, faster talking Republican, but they were quite a duo.
There’s been a ton of wank in the papers (esp the Post) about Watergate, but as James Fallows pointed out today on Twitter, if you want to know what it felt like when Dean testified, today’s testimony is the same feeling. Of course, Nixon didn’t try to choke a Secret Service agent or overturn an election…
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: That’s why I’m not going to parse her voting record.
bbleh
Oh please, the “private” statements of Republicans are worth less than the ketchup after it’s hit the floor.
Of course Trump, and Meadows and Giuliani and and and, at a minimum knew that violence was being planned and that their actions (and inactions) — very much including Trump’s speeches — were encouraging it. And there certainly is evidence suggesting that several of them were up to their saggy jowls in actively collaborating in the planning of it. And every Congress-critter (and media-critter) knows all this perfectly well.
But the Republican politicians are still trying to have their cake and eat it too. They know they benefit from the violence and from Trump’s incitement, and from all the rest of the MAGA/Dominionist/Fascist zealotry, and they’re willing not just to let it happen, they’re happy to abet it, as long as they don’t get caught. (And of course, many of them have sought pardons, for absolutely no reason at all.)
And, just as importantly, MAGA nation not only thinks all this incitement and violence is ok, they think it’s justified and even heroic! Trump was battling the deep state, at risk to his own life, to lead the people’s fight to reclaim the Capitol! His
childish temper tantrumsmanly expressions of passion are righteous, and the people who thwarted His Will are traitors and should be strung up, just like Pence!And perhaps even more importantly, the Good Germans among the Republicans are still willing to come up with excuses, and to look the other way, and to quietly retreat and murmur to each other about tax cuts and those awful you-know-whos that just moved into the house down the block.
All of which is to say, there is no news here, just Republican kayfabe. (And gawd is it cheesy…)
zhena gogolia
@mistermix: Good comparison.
cain
@misterpuff:
They are just mad that it might make the midterms go the wrong way. They don’t really have any moral outrage.
Regardless, Leader McCarthy is in hot water.
Martin
Even the co-chair of the committee knew what was going and and who was involved before it happened. They all knew. Liz and a few others are now at least trying to earn forgiveness for their sins. But man, is it just a few.
Kay
@Leto:
What, exactly, did they think was going on? Donald Trump and his sleazy, low quality hires had by then been screaming for months that they intended to try to overturn the election.
I’m just a regular person. I knew they were dead serious ten days into refusing to accept the results. Did he hire ONLY extraordinarily stupid people? I mean we know they completely lack character but were they also dumb as rocks?
Mike in NC
@Kay: There’s a shabby second-hand appliance store not too far from us. The other day it was flying a new Trump banner which showed the Abominable Showman (wearing his trademark baggy blue suit) standing on an M-1 tank, holding an assault rifle. These folks are certifiably insane.
zhena gogolia
@bbleh: NO NEWS HERE????
JoyceH
@S Cerevisiae:
Oh, I must protest! I cannot allow this slur to go unanswered! Do you honestly suggest that Trump would be at Mar a Lago in the OFF SEASON? Nonsense – the ketchup is adorning the walls at Bedminster, obvs.
catclub
I see that quote as some Republican saying “I am like trump’ and wanting others to know it. No real repudiation of Trump.
The Moar You Know
Wow, they love that Trump guy so much they’ll do anything to imitate him. Perhaps this fine representative can try strangling his driver on the way home.
Kay
@Martin:
I will always like her for that. Too bad there aren’t more women on the Right with a spine.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump, threw a cheeseburger against the wall. My gawd, talk about behaving like the childship twit he is. ROFL
columbusqueen
@mistermix: Yeah, even Nixon didn’t attack his SS detail. Now I know why I was so sure no SS agent would take a bullet for Trump by the end of his term.
mistermix
@cain:
KevMac isn’t ever going to be Speaker. Hopefully by Dems keeping the chamber, but even if we don’t, someone’s gonna shiv him in the back and take the speakership. God knows the R’s like a weak speaker but KM is just too weak.
Mallard Filmore
I don’t follow ALL the details of the investigation, and my brain is a sieve … so I hope a Youtube or posting will spell out the lies that Cassidy made in the past.
JoyceH
Headline at the Post: “Trump wanted armed mob to march to Capitol, sought to join, aide says”
debbie
@mistermix:
I’ve thought about that. Imagine grown-ups setting aside their diferences!
Baud
Kay
@Mike in NC:
Our biggest Trump shrine is on a state route I travel constantly. It was always nuts but when the flags and shrines and the plywood sheet signs worshipping their god start to fade and fall down it just looks like a junk heap. They mow AROUND the shrines so the grass is all grown up around the magical cult items. An eyesore. Six months from now someone will think “why does that guy have all that shit in his yard?”
debbie
@columbusqueen:
All this time, I’ve heard the SS rolls their eyes at Dem presidents. Hopefully, they now see how much worse it could get with a GOP president.
The Moar You Know
@Mike in NC: the artist’s name is Jason Heuser and the Trumpsters have ripped his shit off left and right. It’s too bad. He’s actually quite good.
ian
I think this country is well past the point where privately wringing your hands about El Dictador’s bad behavior has any meaning.
rikyrah
Enough of the behind the scenes.
Anonymous outrage
Stop letting them seem serious, instead of the sycophants that they are.
Name yourself or shut up.
and stop writing about the anonymous folks.
Ihop
So it was vital to the success of this cunning plan was that TFG had to be in the capitol so that when antifa/BLM attacked he could order martial law and/or an indefinite halt in the proceedings.
Have I got that right?
cain
@mistermix: I am sure he’s going to get a shiv and his days even as leader is going to be in doubt especially if more is revealed in his role in the whole thing especially in regards to the big lie and his flips on his position.
sab
@Betty Cracker: Do you think Cassidy Hutchinson has ruined her career chances outside of Trumpworld? She seems so unflappable and competent for someone so young. There must be places in the Republican world for someone like her, although probably not in politics directly.1
Betty Cracker
@mistermix: I don’t really have a clear recollection of the Watergate duo (I remember my hippie mom’s fury and glee, mostly), but I have enjoyed the Thompson/Cheney dynamic. I’d watch a buddy movie with those two as protagonists! “Bennie and Liz Dump Trump!”
Kay
The teaser on the Trump hires who tried to (or did succeed in) intimidating witnesses was excellent. Touche. Great job. Not good, thugs. Veiled threats or bribes to witnesses is not good.
Please tell me they put it in texts.
Burnspbesq
I expect that when the likes of Giuliani and Eastman start getting target letters, at least one of them will play Queen for a Day and try to get immunity in exchange for testimony that incriminates Trump.
Baud
@Kay:
I know, right? The only thing that would have made it more exciting is if Joe Pesci had narrated those texts.
cain
@rikyrah: This. Stop hiding – they are hiding hoping they can leverage either way and they shouldn’t be allowed to do it. They all know now what went down – their lives were on the line too. That mob would have given a shit who they would have tore them to pieces.
If you can’t come out and condemn Trump at this point – you’re a weak shill and Dems should start building attack ads immediately to make them say something. Let them cower before their crazy base.
cain
@sab: I have no doubt that she’ll land fine. Her name is going to be in the history books as of today.
Baud
@Burnspbesq:
Liz will get Rudy to turn by
waterboarding himslapping him on the back.Burnspbesq
@Kay:
They did. The Committee has some of the texts, and they can be read as showing Trump actively involved in witness tampering.
These clowns aren’t as careful as Tom Hagen was.
topclimber
@rikyrah: A 25-yearold staffer had the guts to go public. But not the macho MAGA men of Congress.
JMG
I know this is very serious, really I do, but while dark, the comedy elements of the testimony today are undeniable. I don’t know about legally, but politically, the ludicrous slapstick nature of Trump’s behavior has to resonate. He looks ridiculous as well as addled. Laughter is the universal solvent for false idols.
MattF
I’ve always thought that Trump not going to the Capitol on J6 was due to his cowardice, but that now looks wrong. So, what did stop him?
bbleh
@zhena gogolia: in the hearings, absolutelY news! They’ve been riveting. Dramatically exceed expectations.
In the pathetic “private” ass-covering of Republicans, not a bit
mistermix
@Mallard Filmore:
Are you talking about her role in Trumpland? I think she had a staff job where she didn’t do any public speaking but I could be wrong.
Going back to the John Dean analogy, Dean made plenty o cash as a California investment banker after he turned on Nixon, and generally seems to be having a decent life. I’m guessing someone pointed out to her that she basically didn’t do anything wrong, so why get caught up in an expensive, drawn-out legal battle over testifying when she could just dump core and move on, and be respected by 60+% of the population?
zhena gogolia
@Baud: haha and cracking his skull with a light tap
Kay
@sab:
I am grateful she either stopped lying or elaborated on her testimony but these people all had something they could have done to inform and warn the public. They could have gone to a newspaper. They did not tell us, for months, that the President was planning an insurrection and we were paying them.
Do they need some remedial course in public service? Do they even have the vague outlines of what the thing is supposed to look like? None of us told these people to go into public employ. God knows there are enough Right wing billionaires to keep them all fat and happy for generations. They need to stay in the private sector. They are ethically unsuited to this work. They cannot meet the ethical demands.
zhena gogolia
@mistermix: I think they mean in her previous testimony to the committee.
catclub
@Baud: Gilbert Gottfried.
HumboldtBlue
@MattF:
The Secret Service.
Roger Moore
@Mike in NC:
They aren’t insane; they just believe talk is more important than actions. So they’re happy to ignore Trump’s history of cowardice because he spends so much time talking like they imagine a tough guy is supposed to talk. They can happily ignore Republican Senators spending July 4th in Moscow because they brag properly about how patriotic they are. It doesn’t matter how much Evangelical preachers sin themselves as long as they spend enough time inveighing against others’ sins.
JWR
O/T
Oh geez. Chris Cillizza has another “analysis” up, so watch out Repubs, Chris is on the job!
I don’t care if JW has always called himself a Democrat, because he does the work of the Republicans every day.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: I started working for the federal government when I was 16. I can still remember taking that oath “without reservation or purpose of evasion.” Just to do xeroxing and filing.
Betty Cracker
@sab: I hope she lands on her feet. It took courage to tell the truth about what she saw. A right-leaning but non-psychotic journal, think tank or lobbying shop would be lucky to have her.
rikyrah
@Ihop:
I don’t know..what I do know is the most consequential thing to happen that say was NO COUNTER PROTESTORS. They were DEFINITELY going to use them as the scapegoat to declare martial law.
sab
@Kay: After two failed impeachments why bother going public? Nobody would care.
Immanentize
I am laughing very hard!
It is now clear the right wing talking point has gone out and it is:
“This was all hearsay!”
This sounds smart and lawyery but they will find out it is in fact the statement of party opponents (at least) involved in crime and not hearsay at all!
There is some stuff for you to answer the hearsay argument which has the added benefit of restating how all these creeps are co-conspirators.
Hard laughing, I am.
jackmac
Since this is an open thread, permit me an innocuous, boots on the group report on today’s Illinois primary. As of 4 p.m. (CDT) my far west suburban precincts have had more than 250 people vote, a healthy total and a surprise to judges. (The school voting site covers two precincts). The precincts have been purplish (and occasionally blue) in recent elections but I suspect a largely uncompetitive Democratic Illinois ballot and a heated GOP race for governor will draw Republican voters out. It’s hard to say if the ultra-conservative candidate for governor (Darren Bailey) is attracting big support or if locals are giving some backing to Richard Irvin, the mayor of nearby Aurora. If polling is accurate, Bailey is bound for a big win and would face incumbent Dem Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Baud
@JWR:
Haha. I remember when the media was abuzz about Hillary running in 2020.
Cheap clicks.
HumboldtBlue
If you need a distraction, the Serena Williams v Harmony Tan Wimbledon match just went to 5th set tiebreaker.
Baud
@rikyrah:
This.
oatler
My friend says he saw Donald Trump in the shower and that Trump had an eight-pack, and was totally shredded.
Immanentize
@MattF: what stopped him? Everyone understood and agreed with Cipolloni that if Trump went to the Capitol they all would be charged “with all the crimes.”
debbie
@MattF:
Secret Service. The driver refused to drive him. TFG tried to grab the wheel and was pushed away, and then it sounds like TFG made a move to throttle the driver.
mistermix
@zhena gogolia: Ah, got it, thanks.
@Mallard Filmore: OK, I found a piece that goes through her previous testimony to the committee.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cassidy-hutchinson-who-is-january-6-committee-hearing-mark-meadows-former-aid/
This links to two transcripts of her previous testimony to the committee
Also she previously worked for Steve Scalise and Ted Cruz, so clearly her judgment in employers is impaired.
hueyplong
If you’re anonymously, privately “aghast,” you’re not aghast at all. You’re merely lying about the fact that you still support the pig despite all that went on today.
And I refuse to believe that anyone in the Trump White House only learned today about the stuff to which she testified. Is it credible that people saw that shit go down and said nothing to their coworkers, confidantes, etc.? Bullshit.
Finally, shame on each and every media person who permitted the cowards to hide behind private revulsion. Either give their names or say no GOPer would go on the record as being so much as mildly embarrassed by what we learned today. If it’s true that they fear for their lives if their names are released, then make that the story.
MattF
@JWR: Note that the phrases ‘Chris Cillizza writing in The Hill’ and ‘Juan Williams as Democratic pundit’ are a quilt sewn out of red flags.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
Go to a think tank or one of the fake Right wing “orgs”! Go to the private sector they all claim to worship!
They’re not good at public service. They were tested in the moment and every single one of them failed.
At the time that mob was moving to the capitol she knew they had weapons. She is damn lucky many more people weren’t killed and if many more people had been killed it wouldn’t matter what she said a year later. She would possibly be facing criminal charges.
You know why these people have the luxury of worrying about their careers instead of worrying about criminal charges and incarceration? Luck. Dumb luck. They had nothing to do with it. All they needed was one AR 15 in that buidling and it would have been a massacre.
Roger Moore
@topclimber:
My gut feeling is that she was outside Trump’s circle of cronies, and that’s the big difference. This represents a real danger to Trump. He needs to surround himself with people who are personally loyal to him, but the US government is just too big for that to work. There are just too many jobs that provide people with access to incriminating information to fill them all with loyalists. They need a ton of young idealists and older apparatchiks to fill all the positions, and there’s just too much risk some of those people will turn on them.
TriassicSands
@Matt McIrvin:
The witnesses, including and especially Cassidy Hutchinson, have been extraordinary. Contrast their integrity and, yes, courage with the groveling cowardice of members of the House (excluding Kinzinger and Cheney) and the entire Senate.
After watching the who!e hearing today and seeing the veiled, Mafia-like threats to witnesses, I wondered if Ms. Hutchinson should be put in Witness Protection.
bbleh
@debbie: Technically I believe the head of the detail grabbed his arm when he reached for the wheel and Trump went after HIM with his other hand.
sab
Speaking of dishonesty in high places, did everyone hear about giant accounting firm Ernst and Young’s huge SEC fine because they ignored their young accounting pups exchanging cheat sheets to pass the ethics portion of the CPA exam? I had to laugh. In my day with a big firm that would have been a firing offense.
Captain C
@debbie: “Sir, I have to take a bullet for you, not let you choke me during a tantrum.”
Baud
I wonder if they talked to the Secret Service agent. I recall from Monicagate the Service doesn’t like to testify against a president.
JPL
@MattF: He couldn’t walk that far, and they wouldn’t let him take the car.
Baud
@sab:
I take it that wasn’t on the exam.
debbie
@bbleh:
Okay. I thought I heard the word “driver” in there somewhere, but the whole thing was shocking.
Frank Wilhoit
No one voted for Trump (with the debatable exception of himself, if he could figure out how).
No one voted for the Republican Party.
They all voted against the Democrat* Party; and they would have done so, come the Flood, no matter what the rest of the printing on the ballot said (tl;dr).
How can any Republican officeholder, or even unsuccessful candidate, not know this? And yet they act like they really think Trump, the individual, made a difference. This is beyond stupidity, beyond indoctrination, beyond ideology, jenseits von Gut und Böse; we need a new word.
* -ic, or -ick, according to taste
JPL
@Baud: The Washington Post reminded me that the supremes have ruled on this, and secret service would have to testify. Of course, that was the olden days, and after Clinton spoke with Lynch on the tarmac.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
I will at least give Liz Cheney a tiny amount of credit and say that she probably assumed it was all a lot of big talk and bluster like it usually is from these assholes. She was probably just as shocked as everyone else that they actually fucking tried it.
Tony G
@Alison Rose : It’s been obvious for many years how corrupt and evil Trump is — but that anecdote about him trying to take the wheel of the vehicle illustrates how delusional the guy is. An elderly man in terrible physical shape is going to overpower a young, strong, highly trained Secret Service agent? Really? That reminds me of some of the male dementia patients when my mother was in a nursing home years ago. The incident also illustrates the contempt with which Trump treats anyone who he deems to be his servant. The Secret Service guys must have really hated him.
Mike in NC
Most of us had read about what a spoiled man-baby Donald Trump always was. Born a millionaire, driven to school and everywhere else by a chauffeur, etc. Pretty sure he never had to bother learning to drive a car or getting a license. Remember him sitting behind the wheel of a large truck and making vroom-vroom noises? That he tried to grab the steering wheel of his limo and hijack it to the Capitol just shows how bonkers he was on January 6.
hueyplong
@JPL: And if there is one thing the current Court respects, it’s precedent.
louc
@JWR: LOLOLOLOL.
All you need to know about Juan Williams is contained in a memoir by journalist Jill Nelson about working while Black at the Washington Post. It’s called Voluntary Slavery.
VOR
@sab: Ruined her career chances? I hope she is in Witness Protection after today. Yes, seriously. There are plenty of MAGAts who would try to avenge the honor of their god-king.
Roger Moore
@sab:
I saw this in my news feed. Accountants cheating on their ethics exams is just way too on the nose. It’s the kind of thing it would be hard to sell in fiction because it’s just too obvious.
pat
We wonder where all these people were and why they didn’t come forward shortly after it happened, and especially during the second impeachment.
Maybe it took this massively organized committee hearing to get it to all come out.
Also, why did we not hear about AR-15s in the trees? Where was the news that day?
Martin
@Baud: Very different scenario. With Clinton, the Secret Service are supposed to be invisible. Nothing that happened with Lewinsky involved the Secret Service. She even had authorization to be in the building.
But this situation is very different. At a minimum, a viable question is: What authority does the Secret Service have to oppose the President’s request, and can they oppose that with physical force. And what authority does the Secret Service have to defend themselves against the individual they are charged to protect.
There doesn’t need to be a single question regarding ‘spying’ on the president. It can all be around the operational role the Secret Service plays, are they there for the protection of the individual or of the office, or both. Do they have any internal guidance on how to handle such a conflict? If the President assaults an agent, what are the legal ramifications of that. Can an agent press charges against the President? Can they sue them? How is disciplinary action handled if an agent responds in self-defense.
Almost Retired
Trump’s statement that the armed lunatics should have been admitted into his rally because they weren’t going to hurt him – and the empty space looked bad – is parked at the intersection of Narcissism and Depravity Streets.
And if throwing your lunch against the wall is the new Conservative solidarity action, there’s going to be a lot of grilled nugget injuries at Chick-fil-A.
JWR
@MattF:
I think that even if he’d managed to get within earshot of the Capitol, the noise alone would’ve scared him off.
sab
@Kay: To whom was she supposed to go? The Capitol Police already knew. The White House head of security and the Secret Service already knew. It sort of sounds like a big chunk of Republicans in Congress already knew. The press wouldn’t have believed her. (It sounds like BLM and progressives had already figured it out on their own weeks before she did, so they stayed away.)
Things are really broken on their side.
TriassicSands
@Roger Moore:
Outside? But very much in the thick of things. She was probably amazed every day by her “good fortune” to have such an elevated position at her age and experience. She likely saw her future as tied to Meadows and people like him in the GOP. What’s her future now?
She may have an admirable place in history, but few, if any, prospects in the fascist GOP. My hope would be that this has opened her eyes to what the Republican Party is today and as a decent person, which she certainly seems to be, she can’t be a part of that.
It’s hard to imagine her saying that after this, she will still vote for Trump in the future. Yet, a number of Republican elected officials, who witnessed Trump’s criminality first hand, have said they would vote for him in 2024. The only thing scarier than that is Trump getting bad news while holding a plate of spaghetti in his tiny little hands — and you’re in the line of fire.
Frank Wilhoit
@columbusqueen: The agent who somehow restrained himself from snapping Trump’s neck is, for that superhuman forbearance, some kind of hero. If he had, he would be a different kind of hero.
@Kay: 37 between Johnstown and Alexandria?
HumboldtBlue
@Baud:
I’m almost positive they interviewed the head of his security detail,
He was.
Brachiator
Republican lawmakers are shocked, shocked to discover that Trump was intimately involved in insurrection.
VOR
@JWR: Yeah, Cillizza’s named sources are a Republican operative plus frequent Fox News guest Juan Williams. And she’s going to be 77 so the age issue isn’t exactly solved – remember how they attacked her health in 2016? I’m sure the Republicans would love for her to run so they can run against her. That solves their problem of having an unpopular agenda and unpopular candidates – they run against HRC instead.
Mnemosyne
@JWR:
The good news is that I’m pretty sure Hillary laughed her ass off at that and then had another glass of wine. She has no interest in running again.
Montanareddog
@topclimber:
Nor has Cipollone, the guy in the room telling them all they were committing felonies. Telling Meadows he had blood on his hands. I hope, but doubt, he fills sufficient shame. Why has he not been disbarred for not testifying?
JPL
Does the staff now serve trump’s lunch on Chinet?
Mallard Filmore
@mistermix:
I was thinking about her previous private meetings with the J-6 committee.
sab
@Roger Moore: The funny thing is their ethics exam is just not that hard. Just study for the damn thing. It’s not complicated philosophical questions. Like all of accounting it’s just memorize a bunch of rules and regurgitate them for the test, just like they did all through college.
citizen dave
@mistermix: I was 11 to 13 during the time of Nixon’s major crime spree.
Regarding another comment that the Willard meeting seems more and more interesting. And another that all the R people knew the plan. (or at least many).
Brings me to the Watergate era question: What did you know and when did you know it?
google gives me: Baker famously asked aloud, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” The question is sometimes attributed to being given to him by his counsel and former campaign manager, future US Senator Fred Thompson.
H.E.Wolf
@mistermix:
“Going back to the John Dean analogy, Dean made plenty o cash as a California investment banker after he turned on Nixon, and generally seems to be having a decent life.”
All this is true. In addition, John Dean served a prison term for obstruction of justice. Only 4 months, but convicted and jailed is convicted and jailed.
I expect he’d be among the first to wish similar repercussions on this batch of obstructionists.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
I appreciate the hilarity! and would appreciate it even more if you could kindly elaborate on what that means for those of us not of the legal persuasion? I gather that it’s not “just” hearsay, but how does this work? Thanks. :)
Mallard Filmore
@Kay:
There were a few YEARS when doing the legal, moral, Right Thing would be dangerous for one’s career, income, or involve the need to hire expensive lawyers. Years during which the government would not have your back.
I’ll cut some small number of them a break.
HumboldtBlue
@Martin:
cain
@mistermix:
I see what you did there.
TriassicSands
That is just not true. My neighbor adores, worships Trump and it is because of racism and guns. There are countless more just like him.
O. Felix Culpa
@sab:
Fellow CPA here. Cheating on the ethics section. Just wow.
Mnemosyne
@Mallard Filmore:
The speculation I saw in the previous thread is that, when she dumped her Trump lawyer for a real one, the new lawyer had a serious talk with her about how much jail time she could get for perjury if she didn’t go back to the committee voluntarily.
Alison Rose
@Tony G: It’s of a piece with every other belief about himself, i.e. ludicrously inaccurate. He thinks he’s smart, he thinks he’s attractive, he thinks he’s a good businessman, etc. No surprise he also thinks he’s a fucking MMA fighter.
citizen dave
@Roger Moore: I was thinking about this doing some work outside earlier. She seems very competent, organized, smart, etc. At some point, even these goons need people like that do actually do the work. Remember how often the WH press releases had simple grammatical errors in them? Their failing–fortunate–is not making sure all of the competents are drinking their KoolAid. If one is quiet, the big shots and decision-makers just assume you’re on board with them. You might not be. You might just be doing a job.
Chris T.
@Kay:
Yes, but it’s “are”, not “were”. Never doubt the capacity for self-delusion when a dumb guy (it’s usually a guy) wants some particular outcome. Most people aren’t that bright to start with. These guys are in the low quality bottom and wanted that particular outcome, so…
NotMax
Lunching at two in the afternoon? How very Saint Tropez.
//
TriassicSands
@zhena gogolia:
No one told you that you are supposed to cross your fingers when saying “I do.” Oops!
HumboldtBlue
Claire McCaskill is pretty effective as a pundit and analyst.
Roger Moore
@TriassicSands:
Exactly. I think this is what Trump is always talking about when he derides someone as just the person who got coffee. He’s saying they’re too unimportant to be part of his circle of cronies. As a private criminal, he could run his whole organization by only giving orders to a limited set of people within his personal circle of trust. When he needed to expand that circle, he could bring in someone who had already proven themselves as a helper to someone within that circle of trust.
As President, he couldn’t do things that way. He had to allow in a lot of people outside his personal circle of trust just to deal with the scale of the operation. Meetings had to be big, with deputies and assistants and stenographers, most of whom were people who he didn’t know intimately. Those were the coffee fetchers. But just because somebody’s main job was to fetch coffee (or something else Trump saw as beneath his notice) didn’t mean they were absent when the crimes were discussed.
pat
@Mnemosyne:
I have left this comment on two threads.
I do not believe she lied. They showed a lot of her four testimonies, and if she might have been holding something back, she needed to get rid of her trumpy lawyer.
I don’t know where anyone got the idea that she was lying with her other lawyer and now with the new one she has decided to come clean.
Mallard Filmore
@mistermix: Thanks for the link. The temperature here is an energy sapping 100F. Being retired, I can sit in front of a fan, with a squirt bottle drenching my shirt every 10 minutes.
Every gram of water that evaporates carries away 550 to 600 calories of heat. I am too cheap to set my AC thermostat below 85.
topclimber
@TriassicSands: She has a decent chance of outliving the current GQP. Sadly, many of us jackals have no such hope.
SFAW
@Leto:
Mrs. SFAW might disagree with your first sentence, but I thank you for your apology.
RobertB
@HumboldtBlue: Ladies Singles finals in all of the tennis Majors go to only three sets. In Wimbledon, and all of the Majors, the final set has a 10-point, win-by-two tiebreaker. No more 18-16 matches.
lollipopguild
@sab: At some firms it would be a cause for a promotion.
ian
@Tony G:
If only. Those guys loved him so much, Pence wouldn’t get in the car with them and Biden would only select ones he knew personally.
HumboldtBlue
@RobertB:
Yes, 3rd set tiebreaker, not 5th.
HeleninEire
@Baud: ROFL!!
Nelle
Interview the valet. The cleaning staff. The secretarial staff.
I was a cleaning lady in a big office building (6pm to 2 am) to put myself through college. I read papers on desks of lawyers and psychiatrists. I knew which lawyers were screwing (literally) their clients; occasionally, we would disturb them in progress. I was still a naive Mennonite girl then; my cleaning partner, an older woman, would shoo me away and clean up after them herself.
The invisible secretarial and janitorial staff see stuff, hear stuff, clean up stuff.
sab
@pat: Yes. Aren’t clients supposed to follow their lawyers’ advice? Isn’t that part of the point of having lawyers?
Alison Rose
@NotMax: second lunch, he follows the Hobbit Diet
zhena gogolia
@TriassicSands: yeah the idea that nobody voted for tfg is bs
Martin
@Mallard Filmore: Reminder to all that food calories are ‘kilocalories’. A peanut has about 6 food calories, or 6,000 heat calories.
Baud
@Martin:
No wonder we’re all so fat.
different-church-lady
@mistermix:
Nixon’s crimes seem almost quaint to today’s eyes.
topclimber
@HumboldtBlue: Do they also have a duty not to help the President engage in a criminal act like trespass in the Capitol?
Roger Moore
@citizen dave:
My basic feeling is that Trump just couldn’t vet everyone who came close to him. He could vet Meadows to make sure he was sufficiently craven and careerist not to go against the boss, but he couldn’t also vet Meadows’s whole office. That’s how people like Hutchinson, who were loyal to something other than Trump, got hired.
lollipopguild
@sab: You are VERY funny. Lawyers are to help you lie steal and cheat!
different-church-lady
The vital question here is: did Trump go ahead and eat the burger anyway after throwing it?
Mnemosyne
@pat:
I guess I’m not getting the distinction between “lied” and “held something back that, if revealed, could lead to jail time or other legal trouble,” but my dad wouldn’t let me go to law school. ♀️
JWR
@VOR: @Mnemosyne:
Yep to both comments. Like I said, Williams has always worked for the bad guys. (Hey! Just like Larry Summers!)
JoyceH
@ian:
I don’t think that’s true across the board. Yes, there were a handful that were true believers, like the guy who actually moved from SS to the campaign (and then back? how is that allowed?!), but I suspect most of the detail hated him. Most of the members of Congress who actually dealt with Trump hate him, even if they don’t admit it. He’s an impossible person to deal with, and he treats people like dirt. A general rule about Trump – those who love him don’t know him, and those who know him don’t love him.
HumboldtBlue
@topclimber:
From my limited understanding, safety reasons and a lack of a secure area are the trump cards the SS has in these instances.
Burnspbesq
@sab:
That is so EY.
HumboldtBlue
A visual depiction of Trump attacking the Secret Service agent.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
Denial is a hell of a drug.
mistermix
@H.E.Wolf:
I don’t think Ms Hutchinson committed any crimes so she’ll probably walk. Her lawyers were probably pushing her to the edge of a crime (lying / obstructing / whatever) until she got rid of them and got a decent one who told her to just tell the truth. I glanced at the transcripts of her testimony linked in the article in my comment above, and there seemed to be some lawyering going on about national security, privilege, etc.
LordAvebury
@Betty Cracker: Coincidentally, “The Martha Mitchell Effect” documentary is now on Netflix. Highly recommended!!
different-church-lady
@JWR:
God almighty Cillizza’s like an oldies act that hasn’t put out an album of new material in three decades.
prostratedragon
To the tune of “Spoonful:”
Somebody throwed it out (a little)
Another told about it (a little)
Now we all know about it (a little)
Everybody’s talking ’bout ketchup,
That ketchup, ketchup on the wall.
Frank Wilhoit
@TriassicSands: …and would have voted for whoever, or whatever, had the (R) behind its name; nor stood home, for less than about nine foot of snow. My point stands.
Scout211
@HumboldtBlue:
That is perfect!
Gravenstone
@Kay: Sounds like a nice grass fire waiting to happen. That’ll get rid of a lot of the junk. The guy’s house too, maybe. But ya gotta break some eggs or something something.
Mallard Filmore
@Martin: Thanks for the clarification. I knew about “big” and “small” calories but not where the line was drawn. Still, wet clothes in a breeze is like wearing a personal swamp cooler.
sab
@Nelle: My dad was a pathologist. Medical people are mostly so careful about confidentiality.
I was shocked as a baby lawyer about how lax attorneys are with client information. Chatting with each other in bars and restaurants, etc. When I switched to acounting it was better but still not up to Dad’s standards. My husband didn’t even know who my clients were unless the client told him, and at work we lock up everything before we leave the office.
HumboldtBlue
Damn! Even Monica Lewinsky is getting in dunks on Tiny Hands Trump.
Baud
@Scout211:
Technically inaccurate because Trump didn’t try to choke the driver. He tried to choke the other agent in the car.
pat
@Mnemosyne:
“held something back” could be “I wasn’t really asked specifically about that.”
WE DON’T KNOW. I don’t understand people who jump to conclusions, with NO EVIDENCE WHATEVER that she lied.
MisterDancer
From TPM:
This is the big thing. Hutchinson is small fry; I hope she gets some help on ethics and empathy, and is well-protected from the violent assholes.
But these fuckers above? They aided and abetted Trump. They conned American into thinking things were more OK than they were. They had easy access to any reporter they wanted. Money enough to pay for personal security, if needed.
They were supposed to be the adults in the room. Hell, Pence was at serious risk, from what we can tell!
And they are still running around, breathing free air and saying as little as possible. Making a mockery of Democracy and the Rule of Law.
Those are my enemy.
Baud
@pat:
You must be new to the internet. You should sign up for one of our beginner classes.
different-church-lady
@JPL:
Silly Rabbit, that was the old SCOTUS.
HumboldtBlue
@Scout211:
Ain’t it?
Ken
Especially if it’s in Hungary again. Living under Orban plus having to smile at fifty-somethings throwing a tantrum?
prostratedragon
@columbusqueen: Some of these things were pretty loud even before the facts came out, weren’t they?
different-church-lady
@HumboldtBlue:
Hilarious, but “Pussy” would look relieved instead of dismayed.
ian
@eversor:
It certainly doesn’t matter what the subject is, you find a way to use it to call for abolishing religion.
Tell me, if we follow through with this little plan of yours, how do you think we will fare in the next election? Or do those matter as little to you as peoples free rights to believe and associate as they please?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@sab: When I used to be required to take annual security training, if I didn’t have time to go through the video I’d just skip to the quiz at the end and pick “I would definitely ask the Security Office about that” to every question.
I suspect the choices on the ethics exam are similarly difficult.
MisterDancer
Team: Can we look into this person, advocating for burning all the Churches?
This is well beyond an open comment/pieing situation, and into shit that gets you FBI visits.
(And here I am working on compiling resources on how to protect people who need to look for Abortions, with this asshole’s posting making us look crap. Fuck off!)
SpaceUnit
I don’t want to get anyone too excited, but today’s hearing is making some pretty huge waves in the media.
Even the reliably awful John Podhoretz (or Pudwurst, as I like to call him) seems ready to throw Trump to the lions. I saw a couple snippets of Fox’s coverage, and their people appeared devastated by today’s testimony.
zhena gogolia
@HumboldtBlue: haha
Gravenstone
@MattF: Someone claimed Secret Service was trying to arrange the trip to the Capital with relatively short notice (like learning about the desire the week prior?). Wonder if someone there slow walked it to the point that they just “couldn’t manage the logistics” and they told him “sorry, no can do. Why don’t we get you back to the White House?”
NotMax
Premature to dub her Grokalong Cassidy but she now appears to be pointed in the correct direction.
//
Alison Rose
@HumboldtBlue: When the link opened, I laughed so hard, I snorted and scared the cat.
Baud
@SpaceUnit:
Their people were part of today’s testimony.
zhena gogolia
@MisterDancer: I’m with you
Baud
@MisterDancer:
Can’t you ban?
Brachiator
@citizen dave:
In some businesses, the lazy and corrupt people know each other, hire equally corrupt buddies, but keep honest people out of the loop. Strangely enough, the corrupt people dislike the honest people because they can’t be trusted to go along with the grift.
Also, the lazy and corrupt people are often arrogant and believe that they will never get caught.
I once worked with a woman who was insecure and vulnerable largely because of her struggles with an abusive husband who she deeply loved. This made her easy prey to her boss, who took credit for the work she did and later got a huge promotion.
His utter incompetence and vile behavior got found out. He was quietly let go, but details were hushed up because very important people had vouched for him.
Later, he ran for a city council seat in a Southern California community. Fortunately he did not win.
HumboldtBlue
@Alison Rose : @zhena gogolia:
We need more laughs.
@different-church-lady:
Good point.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: oh my Gawd
Gravenstone
@JWR: Oh for fucksakes!! She’s already preempted this bullshit by stating definitively that she will not run in 24 and how disastrous it would be to the party to do so. Fuck off, Chris.
MisterDancer
@Baud: As a fairly new FPer I’m not cool with solo banning, esp. as I’ve never used that tool in this version of WP and thus don’t trust I’d do it right.
Baud
@Gravenstone:
Do you have a link? Curious to see how it came up.
Baud
@MisterDancer:
Fair enough.
sab
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: No. You have to answer. It is mostly about how closely related to a someone can you be before you cannot audit their books because it looks like a conflict of interest. And also, when I disagree with my boss on an audit issue, what steps to cover my ass disagreeing with him without getting fired or costing the firm the client.
Not hard. Just follow the rules. They don’t always make sense, but just follow them.
Law ethics is much much harder. You have to think about ethics.
different-church-lady
@eversor: Maybe take a break, get some fresh air?
mistermix
@MisterDancer: I trashed the comment and banned him.
different-church-lady
@MisterDancer:
“Grandpa, tell us again how MisterDancer erased the internet!”
“Well, you see, it all started with this strange little blog called ‘Balloon Juice…”
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Y2KXXII
HumboldtBlue
@SpaceUnit:
The talking heads had some awkward moments on live TV that’s for sure. (posted in an earlier thread)
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Sorry, I realized that when I posted it that it was probably blah blah blah, Ginger.
I’ll try: everyone knows hearsay as “he said, she said.” That is generally true as a basic point. But there are statements that are “NOT Hearsay” which include a few exclusions. Then, there are “exceptions.”
The whole question about hearsay is what was reported, but said by another probably the truth? If someone said, “I saw your girlfriend down at the Holiday Inn with Felix, that might not be credible because the person might have lots of reasons to lie in the moment (although it might be true!) But the whole underlying Q about hearsay is whether it is a believable statement. When people are describing their involvement in criming, we as a society believe those statements are almost always what the person saying it is true.
It is somewhat complicated, especially the exceptions, but the basic rule plus exempt statements is easy (especially in this case).
A statement is EXEMPT from being called hearsay (that is, NOT Hearsay) for a few reasons. But in my Crime World, statements by criminal co-conspirators, (whether charged or not) are just NOT legally considered Hearsay. There are lots of reasons, the biggest one being that what people say planning crimes 1) should not be left out of evidence available and 2) (the underlying theory) people talking about a criminal conspiracy don’t lie about the crime.
(This also shows up as an “exception” — statement against interest, which is when you say something that would be a crime like, “if we give the IRS the real account books, I’m screwed!” But we don’t even need to get to that because of the “excluded” part of the rule.)
So, although what Hutchinson testified about is “he said, she said” we don’t call it “hearsay” because what they said were things about their criming.
Immanentize
I am in moderation prison?
Scout211
@HumboldtBlue:
And they went on to say if only Jim Jordan was on the committee, there could be some push-back. Ha ha ha.
Speaker Pelosi won that battle hands down. McCarthy really looks stupid right now.
Immanentize
Maybe Mistermix in a fit of childish pique banned me as well?
JWR
@HumboldtBlue: LoL
ETA In moderation, also, too, but there’s gotta be a few good captions I can almost imagine for that one. Something like, “Dashcam video captures president overpowering secret service agent”.
mistermix
@Immanentize: I have no idea why those comments went to moderation but I just approved them.
HumboldtBlue
@Baud:
Here’s a news story from US News
Scout211
Are we doing the constant moderation thing again?
sab
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: No. You have to answer. It is mostly about how closely related to a someone can you be before you cannot audit their books because it looks like a conflict of interest. And also, when I disagree with my boss on an audit issue, what steps to cover my ass disagreeing with him without getting fired or costing the firm the client.
Not hard. Just follow the rules. They don’t always make sense, but just follow them.
Law ethics is much much harder. You have to think about ethics.
brantl
mistermix
I trashed and banned one person and now everyone is in moderation. I’ll keep approving but this looks like a glitch. I haven’t trashed and banned anyone since we moved onto this new version.
Ken
Isn’t that “Minority Leader”? Or have the Republicans changed it, and if so, was it because they don’t like “Minority”, or because plain “Leader” is a better translation from the original German?
Baud
@Immanentize:
That’s a very good example of why lawyers who are not me get paid the big bucks.
SpaceUnit
@HumboldtBlue:
Yeah, that’s one of the clips I was referring to.
I’m sure they’ll regroup once they get their talking points, but it’s nice to see them in complete disarray.
ETA: Moderation? I don’t need no stinking moderation.
Baud
I am in moderation.
pat
@Baud: </p
Did you forget the snark signs ?
Immanentize
@mistermix: hee hee
Scout211
@mistermix:
It happened recently and WaterGirl fixed it . . . somehow. I think it was magic but I am not sure.
sab
End of the quarter, so lots more pleas for contributions and lots less offers for hookups. These would be gay hookups because they think I am a man. I wish I could get off their list. Also off the list of Democrats on the other side of the state or the country.
Immanentize
@mistermix: It looks like you shouldn’t just ban people on your own.
mistermix
@Immanentize: Goddamit even if I approve you once it still goes into moderation. Shit.
geg6
@Alison Rose :
That made me LOL. I ❤️ Randy Rainbow.
JWR
@mistermix: Thank you!
@Scout211: It’s a test.
mistermix
@Scout211: I contacted Watergirl.
It worked fine on the old blog – I did it on occasion for spammers and flagrant assholes.
SpaceUnit
Abandon thread!! Abandon thread!!!
geg6
I must have done something stupid to land in moderation. Maybe the emoji?
Baud
@SpaceUnit:
Women and presidential candidates first!
Omnes Omnibus
@eversor:
Bigots gotta bigot.
HumboldtBlue
@Scout211:
Yup.
phdesmond
@zhena gogolia: @mistermix
i bet a lot of people aren’t familiar with the 1974 LP album The Missing White House Tapes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxfZt4vbg4I,
Kent
Most of his top people (other than his own spawn) came in through other people not up through the Trump Organization. Because unlike every other president, Trump didn’t have a political organization prior to winning. Even Obama had his own political staff from his Senate days. And candidates like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden had lots of top politics aids where were long inside their orbit before the White House.
For example, Stephen Miller came in via Jeff Sessions.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@JWR: Wonkette has a concise summary of the Cilizza piece.
Suzanne
Is every elected Republican as dumb as Susan Collins?! Jesus. They are the dumbest motherfuckers ever to stare directly into the sun.
mistermix
OK I edited and re-saved the blacklist and it looks like we’re back in non-moderation business.
Scout211
@geg6:
Nope, we’re back to “You get moderation! You get moderation! Everybody gets moderation!”
ETA: It’s fixed! mistermix can do the magic, too.
SpaceUnit
@Baud:
It’s every commenter for themselves.
sab
@Immanentize: Back when I was in law school my briliant law school let the guy who taught evidence take a sabbatical the year my class was supposed to take evidence, and didn’t warn us or get a temporary replacement.
I didn’t worry because I never intended to do trial work, but hearsay is really really hard to teach yourself. It don’t make sense if you haven’t been led through it by a cognoscenti.
CarolPW
@mistermix:
I was very happy to have the hearing today because it for a while overshadowed the rage and distress at Roe. But this contretemps amuse me no end (despite upcoming moderation no doubt). Thanks for the laugh and for getting rid of that asshole!
Matt McIrvin
@Frank Wilhoit: Oh no no no, many people loved Trump and voted affirmatively for Trump. He was a TV celebrity! He said the scary asshole things they were afraid to say!
geg6
@mistermix
Yes! My John and I were saying that the other night while watching a Watergate doc I’d recorded a couple of weeks ago.
HumboldtBlue
@Baud:
I see what you did there.
karensky
@mistermix: I am old enough. I remember sitting in my neighbor’s kitchen, smoking and drinking coffee and then switching to beer while glued to a tiny tv watching the Watergate hearing. Our kids were running around outside and having a great time.
The hearings were mesmerizing and I love your reference to the dudes who ran the table in light of the Thompson/Cheney class act.
hilts
Peter Alexander @PeterAlexander
A source close to the Secret Service tells me both Bobby Engel, the lead agent, and the presidential limousine/SUV driver are prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.
6:24 PM · Jun 28, 2022·Twitter for iPhone
h/t https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/1541910389289635841
mistermix
@CarolPW:
Glad to be of service!
HumboldtBlue
GRAB THE WHEEL!
Baud
@hilts:
Do it. Get it on the record.
Scout211
@hilts: Haven’t they already testified to the committee?
Leslie
@Mnemosyne: Her former lawyer was very much still tied in to Trumpworld. From the many clips they played of her multiple interviews, it doesn’t seem that she was being evasive or reticent in her answers. The sticking point may simply have been that the committee had previously asked her to testify in person, and her attorney had subtly or, more likely, not-so-subtly discouraged her from doing so, knowing the impact it might have. That teaser about witness intimidation almost certainly had multiple layers of meaning.
mistermix
@hilts: Let’s just hope the committee doesn’t call them.
Also, hard to unring that bell. At least for once, the fact that a lie (or misunderstanding or whatever) can go around the world before truth gets its pants on will be something in Democrats’ favor.
Gravenstone
@Baud: So he went after Agent J instead of Agent K?
zhena gogolia
@hilts: they’re lying. Why would she make up a story like that? It’s just too believable
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
She testified to what she heard. She wasn’t in the limo.
different-church-lady
@mistermix:
“Grandpa, tell us again how
MisterDancermistermix erased the internet!”“Well, you see, it all started with this strange little blog called ‘Balloon Juice…”
Baud
@different-church-lady:
As long as someone does it.
Scout211
@mistermix: Engel has already been interviewed.
HumboldtBlue
@Scout211:
Just the head of his detail has been interviewed as far as I know.
Gravenstone
@Baud: On my phone so will have to go digging. I just recall seeing it a week or so ago.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: she heard it from someone who was
Baud
@Gravenstone:
No worries.
@zhena gogolia:
Yes, but that’s not direct eyewitness testimony.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
There are various ways one can respond to a question. Sticking to yeses and noes or as close to monosyllabic answers as possible is one. It is frequently recommended by lawyers. The old “do you know what time it is?” test. The answer is yes or no, not “Yes, it’s 7:30.” Another is answering as completely and in as much detail as you can. Both can be perfectly viable strategies depending on one’s situation.
Scout211
@HumboldtBlue:
I just added the last paragraph of that article. “Multiple agency personnel were interviewed.”
FelonyGovt
@MisterDancer: This agnostic agrees with you.
WaterGirl
@eversor: that gets you a 3-day time out.
Jerzy Russian
@zhena gogolia: I would assume the committee has other eyewitness accounts that corroborate these claims. They (the committee) seems to have been thorough and professional so far.
Alison Rose
@mistermix: Thank you.
geg6
@jackmac:
I was very heartened to see an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that voter turnout in the primaries here in PA was very high for a non-presidential year. Set a record that was previously set in 2018. Much Dem enthusiasm.
hilts
@Baud:
@Scout211:
@zhena gogolia:
@mistermix:
Hopefully, there’s sufficient evidence to put Trump in prison even if this claim from Cassidy turns out to be wrong.
Given the explosiveness of this anecdote, I’d like to know what the facts are.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Hence the hearsay talk. But as Imm mentioned above, there are exclusions and exceptions….
Baud
@Jerzy Russian: Right.
@geg6:
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Thank you! I’m glad you were released from moderation jail despite your unspecified crimes.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
It may not be hearsay, but it’s still second hand.
Omnes Omnibus
@O. Felix Culpa:
It was a technicality.
Another Scott
@misterpuff: I’m not interested enough to click the links, but…
The quote doesn’t say why the anonymous House GQPer was upset.
Something else?
This is up there with Susan Collins expressed concern…
Grr…,
Scott.
JPL
Popehat explains hearsay to the gop
link
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Absolutely.
JPL
@Scout211: Might be time for Engel to correct his testimony.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
That’s true, but Trump did try to vet his most important appointments personally before making them. It’s obvious he was looking for personal loyalty rather than anything else, and I think at the beginning of his term he was a bit overwhelmed and let some people through who he wouldn’t have let through later. But he did his best to make sure his top lieutenants were personally loyal. The problem, and I said, is that he just couldn’t do that for every third level staffer, but even those third level staffers (i.e. coffee fetchers) might be around when criming was discussed.
WaterGirl
From the comment policy:
HumboldtBlue
JWR
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Oh sweet baby Jeebus is that ever LoL funny or what? Thanks. ; )
Old School
@hilts:
So they’ll testify that Trump never intended to go to the Capitol?
Feathers
I am reminded of a professor who was convinced that the real glass ceiling for women in business was that men felt they couldn’t be trusted to keep quiet about the illegal and unethical shit that goes on at the top.
Leslie
@Baud: I’m pretty sure she testified that Engel was in the room (the office across the hall from hers, the deputy chief of staff for security or whatever, don’t remember his name) while said deputy CoS related to her what had happened, and did not contradict the deputy CoS’s account.
Jim Appleton
I’m old enough to appreciate the comparisons to the cochairs of Watergate and iDJTgate committees.
I’m deeply enamored with every time Thompson says “aks.”
MisterDancer
@mistermix: thanks so much!
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
Was he Mirandized? (Sp?) Or is that no longer necessary these days.
Baud
@Leslie:
We’ll see what he says.
Chris Johnson
@Old School: More like, sometimes we get to see who’s trusted to make shit up on the spot to try and carry water for Trump, insurrectionists, Putin et al.
The committee had to know the enemy would just straight make shit up and contradict. What went down today was in the full knowledge that the enemy would try and just deny it, full-throatedly.
Or in shorter words, bollocks, nonsense, disinformation.
JWR
@HumboldtBlue: “I wanna go wahlly!”
Or however you’d spell Rally with a W. ; )
SiubhanDuinne
I have nothing remotely intelligent, let alone insightful, to say. Commenting only to find out if I end up in moderation.
phdesmond
@phdesmond:
if you’re old enough, you’ll enjoy the harsh parody of Sam Erwin, starting at 30 minutes.
patrick II
@Omnes Omnibus:
The questioner doesn’t necessarily have a complete enough picture to ask all of the right questions at the beginning. She was deposed more than once and, as the questioner knew more, may have hit the jackpot with questions later on. And, although this testimony is new to us, I don’t think Cheney asked a question today that she didn’t already know the answer to.
HumboldtBlue
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, at least I get to curse the Braves for the next few days. Two goddamn homers in the first inning.
Phils get one back.
Old School
@Chris Johnson: Yeah, I was thinking along the lines of “TFG reached for the clavicle, but never assaulted the agent as his arms were too short.”
Mnemosyne
@Scout211:
Mistermix forgot to sacrifice the goat before he did the ban.
Leslie
@Baud: Here’s the relevant portion, the first 3:30ish minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qC6vUJPGiM
She says Engel was in the room (looking “discombobulated”), did not contradict any portion of the account, and neither he nor the deputy CoS ever told her afterwards that the account was untrue.
JPL
@Old School: Since he already testified, it might be time to correct his previous testimony.
Ken
For those who are wondering, I think @Mnemosyne is referencing a joke that circulated in the 1980s: “SCSI is not black magic. There are sound technical reasons why you have to sacrifice a goat to properly terminate your SCSI chain.”
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s not quite legal testimony, but I was given similar advice about talking to an investigator from a regulatory agency. We are advised to answer their questions directly but not to volunteer any information they didn’t specifically ask for. It’s hard not to slip up and give them more than they asked for, but you at least want to keep it to a minimum. Of course we’ve also heard the opposite: if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, bury them in paperwork. If they ask for something you don’t want them to notice, your chances are better if it’s surrounded by reams of superficially related stuff. The trick is that you mostly have to pick your strategy and stick with it. If you spend the first two days they’re there providing them with exactly what they asked for and no more, they’ll get suspicious if you respond to the next request with 12 binders full of bullshit.
Baud
@Leslie:
Thanks. We’ll see if Engel is willing to contradict that under oath. No real evidence of that yet. Just a triple hearsay tweet.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl:
I love John.
JPL
So someone told Peter Alexander that Engel wanted to testify under oath, but left out the part that he actually has testified under oath.
What actually happened was someone at Fox said let’s use Peter to spread something we can lead with tonight.
okay
Another Scott
@Burnspbesq: We know that TFG didn’t pay Rudy. Was Rudy actually TFG’s lawyer? Legally?
I assume that even in pro-bono work, there’s some sort of contract saying that the lawyer is your legal representative. Is there any such paperwork for Rudy? Or did TFG tear it up, eat it, flush it, …?
IOW, if Rudy cannot provide evidence that he was actually TFG’s lawyer, presumably there’s no valid attorney-client privilege claim (except in Bizarroworld / 2022 Roberts-SCOTUSland, I guess…).
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Neither payment nor paperwork are needed.
Chris Johnson
@JPL: Fake. Made up shit for the purposes of exactly the type of disinformation currently needed to combat what the committee’s done. Fake.
Mnemosyne
@Ken:
SCSI is not the only reason to sacrifice a goat to the gods of technology.
Ken
It’s the example he chose that makes this finest quality.
CarolPW
@Jim Appleton:
Me too! I miss that locution from my time in South Carolina (along with the “hey” finger wave whenever you see a car coming towards you).
JPL
@Ken: Clear and precise.
JPL
@Chris Johnson: yup Already there’s a clip of Erin Burnett asking Adam Schiff about it.
bbleh
FIFY
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
I don’t think that will go well for Burnett given that I’m pretty sure Schiff’s answer will be, “We would be happy to have him come back under oath and testify to what he saw.”
Nelle
@patrick II: Did you catch the little exchange of smiles between Cheney and Cassody at the beginning of the second part, right after the recess?
JWR
But really, is the “TFG
reachedlunged for the wheel” item the only item discussed in today’s hearing?Baud
@JWR:
No! They also discussed the ketchup.
The Lodger
@rikyrah: TFG was planning on counter protesters being there so his goons and the Capitol Police could shoot at the same people. I still don’t know why Antifa etc. stayed away.
Central Planning
@mistermix: Speaking of the old blog, what’s the status of getting archives back and will there be a lawsuit?
H.E.Wolf
AAVE for the win! :D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English
JWR
@Baud:
Well that’s a relief! ; )
Jinchi
@JWR: I think it’s the whole ‘How was that even supposed to work?’ stupidity of the whole scenario.
Scout211
@The Lodger:
Counter-protestors listened to local leaders.
Thank goodness.
Jinchi
Probably for the same reason Bigfoot stayed away.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
I wish I could laugh at this. I’ve been dealing with youngs and fauxgressives gaslighting. I think they are under the impression that codifying something imbues it with mystical properties.
Geminid
@The Lodger: There were a lot of antifa and antifa adjacent people on social media who discouraged protesters from showing up at the Capitol and the Ellipse. There was a demonstration a few blocks away, but DC police had them isolated from the action.
“Socialist Dog Mom” Molly Conger was with her Richmond sidekick Goad Gatsby a block away from the Capitol, live tweeting what she saw as a reporter.. Later in the afternoon, when buses pulled up and cops in riot gear started piling out, Conger split.
JWR
@Jinchi:
Prezactly.
MomSense
@sab:
It’s tough in a small town. Clients see you at the grocery store and start broadcasting things they shouldn’t. You have to figure out how to get them to stop without crushing them. Can’t do the discuss the situation without names either because it’s a SMALL town. The stories my dog could tell if she could talk.
HumboldtBlue
@Jinchi:
Hee hee
Ladyraxterinok
@citizen dave:
Did Baker get involved in some scandal later in his life? Didn’t he die in a plane crash or something ?
And didn’t Ervin later make some really snide comments about women and the ERA?
Steeplejack
@pat:
She might have had a lot of “Gee, I don’t remember that seemingly obvious thing” previously, rather than smoking-gun lies. But it seems like there were things that needed to be “cleared up” after she fired her Trumpy lawyers and got real ones.
And it should be obvious that they’re not going to show clips of her lying when they’re trying to portray her as a credible witness today.
Eunicecycle
@Ken: because Gym Jordan is ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee?
Another Scott
@Central Planning: https://jackal-action.com/2022/05/28/562/
tl;dr – a class-action lawsuit was filed. I don’t know the status of the backups, etc.
If you want anything in particular from the last 10-15 years, you can usually get it from Google’s cache (minus the graphics, etc.). The WaybackMachine works too, but that can be harder to search.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@hilts: A agent in the DC service, who is a cousin of the woman I am currently sleeping with told me you are the epitome of the rule of goats.
Just passing that along!
Central Planning
@Another Scott: Thanks. I just hadn’t seen anything since the great migration to here.
YY_Sima Qian
Haven’t we seen variations of the same from anonymous GOPers for the last 6 years, since the primaries of 2016 election? Hell, some times they are even named in the articles? They almost all fold like wet noodle in the end, & right quick, too!
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia: this. Engle and others have already testified. The Cmmt would not set up the witness without serious corroboration.
Periot.
Immanentize
@Scout211: this is veritas
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Oh, I have committed crimes! But today is not that day
O. Felix Culpa
@MomSense:
The Voting Rights Act was “codified” with massive Senate support and the SC still gutted it. Codifying a thing does not make it bulletproof against a revanchist SC. Perhaps tell them that?
Ken
@H.E.Wolf: Also the standard pronunciation in 3001, according to Futurama.
HumboldtBlue
@O. Felix Culpa:
May I have your permission to use this quote henceforth? (When’s the last time anyone used henceforth in a question?)
O. Felix Culpa
@HumboldtBlue:
You have permission to quote my scribblings henceforth. They’re worth exactly what you paid for, and not a penny less!
Steve in the ATL
@HumboldtBlue: you clearly do not spend enough time with lawyers. Or people in the 14th century.
H.E.Wolf
@Ladyraxterinok: “Did Baker get involved in some scandal later in his life? Didn’t he die in a plane crash or something?”
Sen. Baker died in 2014 at age 88, a week after suffering a stroke.
@Ladyraxterinok: “And didn’t Ervin later make some really snide comments about women and the ERA?”
Sen. Ervin was adamantly opposed to the ERA, but from what I recall, was not generally reputed to be a snide person.
ETA: This comment has been brought to you by Late To The Party And Bad At Editing. :-)
Matt McIrvin
@The Lodger:
Because they were too smart and they saw the tactic a mile off. I remember warnings going out all over lefty Twitter saying not to show up. To their credit they were really consistent about that one.
lowtechcyclist
The walls are alive with the flow of ke..etchup…
Paul in KY
@Kay: I have alot of respect for her. If you’d told me 10 years ago ‘One day you will have great admiration for her’ or something like that, I would have thought you were completely insane!!! As I completely HATED her back then. Still hate her evil mother & father.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: The debate was interesting. Some said, “but aren’t we obligated to contest the streets whenever the fascists show their faces?” A majority said, “No, not this time.”
Glidwrith
@Paul in KY: I don’t. She has the voting record of everything anathema to us. Evil, intelligent and the will to use it. She applauded the fall of Roe. She wants to be the fascist in charge, not the incompetent lower classes.