SCOOP: Roger Stone met with a Russian promising dirt on Clinton during 2016 campaign, despite earlier denials. And…the Russian once claimed to be an FBI informant. By @RoigFranzia @PostRoz https://t.co/ZNIEbo9Qrw
— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) June 17, 2018
Happy Father’s Day, ya mutha– !
MIAMI — One day in late May 2016, Roger Stone — the political dark sorcerer and longtime confidant of Donald Trump — slipped into his Jaguar and headed out to meet a man with a “Make America Great Again” hat and a viscous Russian accent.
The man, who called himself Henry Greenberg, offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s presumptive Democratic opponent in the upcoming presidential election, according to Stone, who spoke about the previously unreported incident in interviews with The Washington Post. Greenberg, who did not reveal the information he claimed to possess, wanted Trump to pay $2 million for the political dirt, Stone said.
“You don’t understand Donald Trump,” Stone recalled saying before rejecting the offer at a restaurant in the Russian-expat magnet of Sunny Isles, Fla. “He doesn’t pay for anything.”
Later, Stone got a text message from Michael Caputo, a Trump campaign communications official who’d arranged the meeting after Greenberg had approached Caputo’s Russian-immigrant business partner.
“How crazy is the Russian?” Caputo wrote, according to a text message reviewed by The Post. Noting that Greenberg wanted “big” money, Stone replied, “waste of time.”
Two years later, the brief sit-down in Florida has resurfaced as part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s sprawling investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, according to Caputo. Caputo said he was asked about the meeting by prosecutors during a sometimes-heated questioning session last month.
Stone and Caputo, who did not previously disclose the meeting to congressional investigators, now say they believe they were the targets of a setup by U.S. law enforcement officials hostile to Trump.
They cite records — independently examined by The Post — showing that the man who approached Stone is actually a Russian national who has claimed to work as an FBI informant.
Interviews and additional documents show that Greenberg has at times used the name Henry Oknyansky. Under that name, he claimed in a 2015 court filing related to his immigration status that he had provided information to the FBI for 17 years. He attached records showing that the government had granted him special permission to enter the United States because his presence represented a “significant public benefit.”
There is no evidence that Greenberg was working with the FBI in his interactions with Stone, and in his court filing, Greenberg said he had stopped his FBI cooperation sometime after 2013.
An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Mueller’s office.
The meeting took place two months earlier than federal officials have said a counterintelligence operation was officially opened and before WikiLeaks began releasing hacked Democratic emails…
There were so many Russian assets falling out of the trees, looking to help us! Who can remember every single dodgy contact among them?!?
Stone and Caputo clearly want the story to be about "Greenberg", but the interesting story seems to be the Ukrainian man that Greenberg brought with him. Whom Stone neglected to mention. https://t.co/5i1UYkmqxz
— zeddy (@Zeddary) June 17, 2018
Yes, I’m looking forward to Adam’s thoughts on this revelation, too.
The more I learn about Stone and his alleged political brilliance, the more I realize he's only been successful bc he's willing to lie, cheat, and subvert ethics wherever he can. Not sure I'd really consider that brilliance…
— Chapman (@MikeChapmoo) June 17, 2018
At least Rudy isn’t far enough gone that he tries to claim Stone was just some short-term volunteer who’d barely even met the candidate… yet:
GIULIANI, SHORTER: Roger Stone may have tried to collude with Russia, but I believe his effort was unsuccessful, so meh pic.twitter.com/kZKBxXEGoG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 17, 2018
Jerzy Russian
Christ, what an asshole! This refers to both Roger and Rudy.
WereBear
Nay, it is an Infinite Regression of Assholes.
NotMax
“Russian? I swear I thought he said Rush fan. You know, the guy on the radio.”
efgoldman
I wonder if Rudi911 is pushing pardons with Weasel Face’s blessings, or on his own.
Maybe he’s trying to plant the seed of an idea for himself.
khead
So, courtesy of Mr. Cole on Twitter earlier, I see that Salena Zito is at is again. Except now it appears she has opened up some kind of Cletus Safari tour company where she packs up the liberal kids, puts them on the bus and takes them with her from town to town to meet the common clay. These poor kids are SO sheltered. Why, only one or two of them have ever fired a gun or stepped in a Catholic Church! (faints). Anyway, let’s take a look at two of the fine random people the kids happened to meet. There’s Susan Olson:
Well of course Susan can rattle off those key points. She’s a gun nut who was a GOP candidate for the NH House back in 2012. There’s also Joe Cassese:
Joe, of course, grew his business the old fashioned way by taking over from his father after Dad passed away. In an amazing coincidence, MVR was visited by John McCain back during the 2008 campaign.
I’m surprised the kids didn’t visit Zito’s “working class” surgeon friend from the Pittsburgh suburbs yet again. And don’t even get me started on the snowflake bullshit at the end of the article. Anyway, Tom Scocca is already pointing this sort of thing out on Twitter with respect to her book. But if I can find the folks from the article with a google search, other curious people can too.
Suzanne
I have been tuning out more (and coming around here less) of late, because I have such fatigue and sadness surrounding everything having to do with our government and my fellow Americans. I’ve been throwing myself into work and hobbies instead. I read shit like this, and I just really need to hear and believe in TICK TOCK, MOTHERFUCKERS. You know? The alternative is to believe that these people are going to get away with it because owning the liberals is more important.
Teddys Person
A new defence coming to a twitter account near you…
“There was no collusion/conspiracy/shenanigans because we were too cheap to pay.” ~ Dolt45
Jake the antisoshul soshulist
The person I want most to do time from this is Roger Stone. That cartoonishly evil POS is the ratfucker’s ratfucker.
NotMax
It’s like Putin heads up the Guild of Calamitous Intent.
(Hi, Venture Brothers watchers!)
efgoldman
@NotMax:
Or the mediocre rock group?
Suzanne
@khead:
I read the book “White Working Class” by Joan Williams last week, and I definitely think that it has some deficiencies as an analysis, but I also think that it illuminated some truths for me that I found valuable. One of the chapters is about why white working class people admire the rich but resent professionals. Short answer: professionals are demeaning to working class people and work too hard, which the working class interprets as not devoted enough to family. But the rich are to be admired because they work hard. Or something. (Williams, to her credit, doesn’t pretend this shit is logical.)
However, the fact that the rich people in that cohort almost all inherited a stack of money or a business is not mentioned, nor is the fact that becoming a professional is really the only path to upper-middle-class living (what Williams calls “PME”) for those people who are not lucky enough to inherit a stack of money or a business.
Teddys Person
@Jake the antisoshul soshulist:
Seriously, the only thing he’s missing is a mustache to twirl.
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
If I had to guess I’d say bat boy is winging it. I don’t think either of them is capable of any actual long-term strategy. he is making it up as he goes along
debbie
If I may quote John Dean:
efgoldman
@khead:
What they don’t teach is reacting in what’s basically a panic combat situation. Most of these doofuses (what’s the feminine form?), if the ever draw down, will shoot an innocent third party or injure themselves.
Good guy with a gun my ass.
debbie
@Suzanne:
How’s the new job?
Cheryl Rofer
Something I don’t understand about the Washington Post story. Maybe this has been explained long ago, but I forgot it or missed it at a time when Michael Caputo (haha, I was in grade school with a kid by that name) was a bit player in this grand drama.
Petrushin is a Russian name, but lots of Americans have Russian names. I may just be hyper about such things, given what’s been going on.
Wikipedia describes him as a businessman in Russia during the 1990s, but it’s not a very good article.
Let’s look at the bio on Caputo’s public relations firm’s website.
I’ve bolded the interesting parts. He resides in Moscow. One of his clients is Alfa Bank, which has come into the story in various ways.
Has anyone looked into his background and further connections? He’s Caputo’s partner, for crying out loud.
Suzanne
@debbie: It’s good. I miss my friends from my old job a lot, but I am enjoying my projects more. One of my new colleagues, who essentially had the role I wanted, resigned to move across the country, and so I am being moved into his role. So that is great, even though I miss him.
I wish that the working life was less stressful in general. I wish I was the kind of person who was happy showing up in time, working steadily for eight hours, and then going home. I wish I wasn’t a striver.
Mary G
I’ve talked before about the well-off totebaggers that always come down from San Francisco for Thanksgiving. They watch the Snooze Hour and listen to NPR and donate to whoever Nancy Pelosi tells them to, but their dedication to and interest in politics is minimal. They emailed me a couple of months ago, all riled up, because they had watched “Get Me Roger Stone” on Netflix at my suggestion. They were horrified and repulsed and wanted to know what to do, so I gave them a whole list of voting rights organizations to send money to, plus Swing Left.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
You raised them to mediocre?
That’s pretty harsh to music isn’t it?
Yarrow
Tick tock, Roger Stone. He’s not going to like prison.
George
So what are we going to do about all these people who have set about to ruin our country?
After fascism/authoritarianism tends to run its course–and I’m thinking of Europe mostly but I’m sure other nations did the same–there often is a bloody, but fully necessary, response by those who were harmed.
I’m not trolling and I’m not advocated violence, but what I am saying is that we on the sane left who actually do give a damn about America and never once thought about fleeing to Canada when Trump got elected perhaps should understand where this all might be headed, and what we might be called upon to do.
Because as we see with the separation of children from their parents, which is tacitly if not openly supported by the pro-Trump forces, fascists are not going to stop any time soon.
lamh36
UGH…this is just…ugh…
Hundreds of children wait in Border Patrol facility in Texas
“One cage had 20 children inside.”
M4
OT because open thread: got this in the mail for Father’s Day ?
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Could it be that most working class people don’t know or interact with rich people, but have contact with professionals? So, it is easier to idealize people you don’t know, especially if you covet their lifestyles.
I am not familiar with this book or its author, and will check it out.
ETA. I’m curious how the author defines “rich.”
Mike in NC
Trump has attracted so many mendacious turds in his lifetime, ranging from the infamous Roy Cohn to Bannon to Stone to Gorka, etc. Speaks volumes about the depth of the Alt-Right in this country. Stuff you will never read about in the NY Times.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: I’ve missed you here. Just for you: Tick tock, motherfuckers! They will not win. They have nowhere to run.
tobie
I read the Post article when it was published this morning and it was pretty clear that what Stone and Caputo were trying to claim was that Greenberg was an FBI informant who attempted to entrap them by offering to sell them dirt on Clinton. Why they didn’t say anything at the time and even lied in their Congressional testimony is of course an open question. What is clear is that they think they’ve found another way to discredit the FBI probe. We’ll see if it sticks.
Mnemosyne
I guess it’s good to have fair warning of what the next PR ploy by the Trumpistas is going to be: Sure, I talked to Russians, but it was all a set-up by the FBI! Entrapment! Entrapment!
I actually wouldn’t be surprised if this dude was well-known to the Russian mob-connected NYC office of the FBI, the same way Boston’s FBI field office was well-connected with Whitey Bulger.
Kay
I was looking up advice on “dealing with liars in the workplace” for how we could handle the Trump Administration, because most of the advice is when you’re in a personal relationship, and yuck, no, doesn’t apply.
If you confront them directly they just gaslight and turn it back on you so they have to be handled delicately:
So- let’s try that.
khead
@Suzanne:
Zito makes her bones as a WWC fetishist but somehow, someway, keeps finding GOP folks for the common clay quotes in her articles.
Litlebritdifrnt
Posted this below, apologies for the repost but this has to be seen, they are flying the girls from Phoenix to Miami, what possible purpose could that have?
WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS?
The Ancient Randonneur
@lamh36: ICE is the American Gestapo. Every last employee of ICE is guilty of crimes against humanity.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: They really do move the goalposts.
satby
@Kay: Let’s not https://youtu.be/pojL_35QlSI
Jeffro
“We didn’t commit treason because the guy didn’t have any good dirt on Hillz/we’re too cheap to pay for whatever dirt he DID have” is still somewhat less patriotic than “we were approached and right after that, we called the FBI”.
Somewhat.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I inherited a business.
I had a long comment about inheritances and business but the bottom line is not that you inherited something or even the size of it but that you did something positive with it. Ron Regan inherited his fathers name, but not his politics, I inherited a small, blue collar business, mostly making molds out of metal, mostly for products that you might recognize, especially if you are in my age range. We made molds for Hanna Barbara cartoon characters for shampoo for kids. I worked on Barbie doll molds before I was old enough to know what real girls looked like one on one. I use the knowledge that I gained from those 33 yrs to support myself today, still working, and working at turning 69 yrs old.
My point is not that inheritance is bad, it’s what you do with it and what it does to you that matters.
Tony Jay
@Suzanne:
To adopt a pretty old pop-culture reference this is the Empire Strikes Back part of the story. The bad guys have responded to past defeats by cracking down with everything they have, intending to crush all resistance and break the spirits of anyone who would even think of fighting back. That’s all they know how to do, it’s all they were ever going to do. And it’s not just happening in America. The same forces of regression and brutality and naked greed are doing the same thing all over the world, and yeah, it’s really depressing and horrible to see.
But they’re going to lose. The weight of shitty villainy these monsters are dumping over everyone is breeding resistance and rebellion in places it hasn’t been seen before. Now that the masks have been shredded and the hamsters are being gobbled down on live tv (another olde worlde pop-culture reference there) so many people are so very horrified to find their lives genuinely threatened by the rise of far-right ideology that they’re looking for ways to hit back – which is where the ballot box comes into its own.
Organize. Vote. Snark. Animal pics. That’s how we’ll put these cheating losers back in their box and save the world, one small victory at a time.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
Thank you
Yarrow
@Litlebritdifrnt: Can you link more information, like the account that tweeted this? How do they know. Is there a news report?
The Ancient Randonneur
@Litlebritdifrnt: This is an outright violation of US law and international treaties. Our government is committing crimes against humanity.
geg6
@Cheryl Rofer:
Wasn’t one of guys at the Trump Tower meeting some sort of Russian pop star? Possible connection, maybe?
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
I either went to school or was in the navy with a kid with the same name. It’s too familiar and yet not common enough that I remembered the name, if not the person it was attached to.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Yarrow: AP is reporting it
sukabi
@M4: talented cat you have there?? also thoughtful friend.
Josie
@satby:
I REALLY love that song.
ETA: and the Dixie Chicks
Jay
@Ruckus:
Quit picking on Canada or we won’t tell you when the nukes are inbound.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: I’ve seen some additional info on him. It would take me awhile to find it and I can’t remember specifics right now. He’s got to be on Mueller’s radar, given his close association with Caputo and Trump. Mueller’s investigation is so leak free that even if they are investigating him we wouldn’t hear about it unless he, his lawyer or someone else they told said something.
Meanwhile, this deleted tweet from Michael Caputo where he says he worked for the Kremlin caught my eye this morning. You have to click through to see the image. And why would he delete it?
Ruckus
@Jay:
So like rush’s music it really won’t matter will it?
gene108
@Suzanne:
Heh…I wish I was a striver…would’ve helped me fit in with my family better, when I was younger…
Jay
@Ruckus:
North of the 49, Rush’s Music Matters. Based on “Chuck” and a bunch of movies and other TV shows, Rush’s Music Matter’s alot in TinselTown.
There’s only about 12 US C&W songs in total, that are as good as the worst of Rush. So that’s 38,957,622 songs about crap, polluting US Radio like the other ‘Murkin Rush, that will never measure up to Rush.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HHST5n068bc
nasruddin
This is a short summary of how psychopaths operate. They see a small opening between what is
acceptable and what is not (that most people do not see), and they see an advantage to them
in using it. So they do.
lamh36
What’s Really Happening When Asylum-Seeking Families Are Separated?
ruemara
@Litlebritdifrnt: trafficking
Ruckus
@Jay:
I’ll easily give you the CW music. Some of the early stuff, from when I was a kid, which feels like 2 or 3 millennia ago, is OK, but like a lot of other music of the last 40 yrs, today’s music seems awfully formalistic. But I still have to argue about rush. They may not be, in fact are not the worst of the time period, but good? No, EFG was right, their music is formalistic mediocre at best.
The Ancient Randonneur
According to Think Progress the Democrat who hasn’t signed on to Senator Feinstein’s Keep Families Together bill is Manchin of WV.
Cole?
https://mobile.twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1008471402809356288
Yarrow
@The Ancient Randonneur: Do you have a link? My google skills are failing me. I can find the tweet but it includes a screenshot from someone who is a friend of a flight attendant who claims the girls were on her flight. That could all be true, but wondering if there is actual reporting.
The absence of coverage of what has happened to the girls and young children is terrible. I haven’t seen the news really ask that question and it should be asked. Where are the girls?
J R in WV
Like any Russian secret agent in America wouldn’t lie about really REALLY being a secret FBI Agent:
Really Squirrel, am FBI Agent underground, have been for years now!!
lamh36
? Martin
@lamh36: I don’t think the GOP really gets how bad this is for them. They’re pretty much on the record in favor of torturing children in order to extort wall money from Democrats. It was bad before when a generation of voters thought of them as sexist, racist douchbags. Now that generation thinks of them as actual fucking Nazis. The GOP is irredeemable, every last one of them.
Suzanne
@Tony Jay:
I am working on beauty and meaning. That is what is sustaining me these days.
rikyrah
@The Ancient Randonneur:
It needs to be disbanded
Mnemosyne
@nasruddin:
Yep. They see opportunities in the things that other people would never do, because those other people have some moral sense.
Psychopaths like Stephen Miller see nothing wrong with ripping babies away from their mothers. It’s not his concern. If they didn’t want their kids taken away, they shouldn’t have asked for help from other people.
Josie
@lamh36:
People may not realize why it is a problem for people to be turned back at legal points of entry. Reynosa was the town across the river from the area where I used to live. Those of us who lived there went back and forth freely with no problem. Not so in the last 5-10 years. The cartels have gradually taken over many of these towns and even the land into between towns, since there are hidden tunnels they use to transport drugs. The people who are turned back at the points of entry are in grave danger from the cartels and would be desperate to get across to safety. The border patrol people know this as well as I do and are forcing them into illegal entry. It is heinous.
lamh36
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@efgoldman:
Mediocre!?
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Ugh. Don’t read the comments. There’s one MAGAt there who blames all immigrants for the car accident that paralyzed him (her?) Just a pathetic, hateful excuse for a human being who’s getting off on imagining the terror and pain of others.
sukabi
@lamh36:
Suzanne
@Ruckus:
Oh for sure. I’m not saying it’s bad. Williams makes the point that white working class people ***want*** to be rich, but that many of them don’t want to get rich or even more prosperous by getting educated or moving to an area with more jobs. They want to get rich doing what they already do (but likely owning a company doing what they already do) and living where they already live.
As for professionals, they seem to represent a path forward that they don’t want to follow (education, relocation away from family, possibly long hours). But for people that don’t inherit…..how else to move forward? I should note that it doesn’t seem that the people she talks to want to be lazy, per se, but certainly do not want to take risks, experience discomfort or disconnection, and don’t want to think strategically about their lives and their places in the world. I came away from the book with perhaps more empathy, but also more convinced that, ultimately, they just want life to be EASIER, and, well, it isn’t.
There is no cogent policy implication for this. Life is hard and not everyone will be successful. And yet it seems to be overwhelming our discourse.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Yarrow:
My tweet posting skills suck and I apologise for that but when I saw it all sorts of horrible stuff started going through my head and I just kept thinking “why are they flying children from Phoenix to Miami, there can be no legitimate purpose, none, other than to traffic these kids” at that point I lost it and couldn’t even look anymore.
debbie
@Suzanne:
When you’re happy enough in your job (and maybe that guy’s position will be it for you), you’ll find your balance. Striving isn’t always what it’s built up to be.
Suzanne
@Yarrow: I have been working, like, insane hours. And my new project is on the other side of the city, so I have been driving a lot, too.
And I just got three new projects, and they’re all far away, too. Woot woot.
BTW, if anyone is looking for a job in architecture, we are hiring!
debbie
@? Martin:
Has any Democrat come out and called the GOP out on this in clear and specific language, like “You’re holding those children as hostages until we agree to fund your wall”? If so, yay, but I haven’t seen anything.
chris
@Cheryl Rofer: Petrushin sounds like he would know a lot of young and pretty Russian women. Just sayin’.
efgoldman
@Mnemosyne: I
Since they’re all prima face guilty as fuck, their only reasonable tactics are delay and deflection. You’ll see a lot more of it as more indictments start dropping.
lamh36
At this point guys, I’m leaving the Russia-gate stuff in the hands of Mueller and the special counsel. Because if anything happens on that front, it will be all up to Mueller.
I’m following along with the Parkland kids, as they seem to have the NRA by the balls, and the NRA, while still fighting, are too busy trying to get their balls back to do what they usually do…the Parkland kids are not letting this one get away from them. Seeing them expand their efforts to also include urban gun violence…makes me happy.
But this zero tolerance polcy by Chump co, has got my focus. I have not always been as laser focused on immigration as I had been others, outside of things that cross my timelines, but these images and articles and stories of seperating this families, and just stockpiling these kids…has me soo disgusted.
So while I am still paying attention to it all, this situation has snatched my central focus…right now..
The Ancient Randonneur
@lamh36: #WhereAreTheGirls
It’s got my attention as well.
lamh36
Josie
@lamh36:
Yes. At this point it’s triage and these children are where the most pain is.
Cheryl Rofer
For those of you in Philadelphia,
MomSense
@lamh36:
Same here. We are making calls and organizing protests at Collins’ offices. This separation of families has to be stopped.
debbie
@lamh36:
She’s taking all kinds of grief. She brags about seeing the Wailing Wall, and here’s the response she’s getting:
? Martin
@debbie: Kamala Harris is:
Pretty much daily she calls these human rights abuses.
FlipYrWhig
@lamh36: What is she trying to say, that there isn’t a policy, just some things that might or might not happen? What a hideous fucking monster. I keep wanting to say “Of the whole lot of them [NAME] is one of the worst,” but there are no good people in this administration, they’re all tied for worst.
JPL
@lamh36: What is next, we see a picture of her sneaking out behind bushes.
Since they closed down legal entry to ask for asylum, in her mind they are all criminals.
debbie
@debbie:
Here’s her post. The comments might cheer us up.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@lamh36:
This is why the US is planning on leaving the UN Human Rights Council. I’m sure the UNHRC has been critical of how the Trump admin is handling undocumented immigration. This is a human rights violation I’m sure. I won’t be surprised before this thing is over children will have died.
debbie
@? Martin:
This is good to see, thanks.
I treasure my memory of her grilling Sessions during his confirmation hearing.
Redshift
Stone and Caputo seem to think that the classic Steve Martin above will work for explaining why they emphatically lied to investigators, Congress, and the public about having no contact with Russians: “I… forgot!”
For further context beyond the Post article, here’s Caputo explicitly saying he never heard Russia or Russian contacts mentioned by anyone in the campaign: https://twitter.com/RanttMedia/status/1008349244523237377?s=19
JPL
@debbie: I didn’t read all the comments, but did someone mention the SS St. Louis.
lamh36
Beto O’Rourke, Veronica Escobar lead Father’s Day march on tent city housing separated immigrant children via @TexasTribune
Mike in NC
Maybe these girls are being screened for entry into the new Trump Vocational School in Mar-A-Lago, where they could train to become minimum wage housekeepers and kitchen help. Subject to being groped anytime the Commander of Cheese gets the urge.
debbie
@JPL:
Not that I saw, but that’s been getting plenty of mentions across Twitter. I’m not sure she would know what that even means. I know Trump and Sessions don’t.
JPL
@Redshift: lol It’s like saying that I hired someone to knock off someone, but they didn’t do it. no problem
JPL
@debbie: Trump and Sessions wouldn’t care.
efgoldman
@MomSense:
Suzy Q is all three monkeys (hear, speak, see) all on her own
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I have concluded that Collins is a fraud and a total fucking coward. She and Jeff Flake and Bob Corker and everyone else who pats themselves on the back for saying “this is wrong” and then does absolutely nothing to try to stop Trump can all rot in hell.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@lamh36:
I always hate how none of these Goopers ever try to the right thing even at great cost to themselves, only when it’s convenient and politically expedient to do so. Hurd probably also knows that this has not only a good chance of hurting the National GOP greatly, but is also a human rights violation in the making that could put us at odds with the international community.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: Y. E. S.
It makes me absolutely crazy.
Yeah, we know it’s wrong. No shit, Sherlock. Grow some goddamn huevos and stop this, or change parties. It’s just a job, you spineless cowards.
lollipopguild
@Redshift: Also Steve’s “Well excuuuuuse ME!”
Spaniel
Michael Caputo has been a whiney little **** for a while, as the quote below comes from around July 2017.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
She’s passing the buck. Technically the kids are being passed to HHS for processing, so therefore Homeland Security isn’t responsible for them once they take them away from their parents.
It’s how they prevent these little problems from bothering their beautiful minds.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Suzanne:
For them, it’s not just a job, it’s power. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
JPL
@MomSense: Susan Hennessey stands with you
https://twitter.com/Susan_Hennessey/status/1008378017553485824
Mnemosyne
@debbie:
Pretty much all of the California Democratic contingent is ripping DHS and HHS. Senator Feinstein has a bill to stop this that has ZERO Republican support.
Mai naem mobile
So repeat after me :
Lock Him Up!
Lock Him Up!
Maybe even chant it in Russian so Roger and all his pals can clearly understand it.
MomSense
@efgoldman: @WaterGirl:
She said it in such a way that a lot of people think she is doing something to stop taking children from their parents. She is horrible.
Litlebritdifrnt
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Exactly, I had a vague dream the other night where the US was charged with Human Rights violations by the UN and sure enough a couple of days after the dream it breaks that they are thinking of withdrawing from the counsel. I’ve got news for the US, just because you declare yourself a “Sovereign Citizen” doesn’t mean you are not going to get a ticket for not having a drivers license.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
What great leaders we have! They can’t even own up and say, “Yes, we’re separating children from their parents at the border. What’s wrong with that? They’re criminals. What are you stupid libtards gonna do about it?”
They can’t do that because even they know this is wrong or at least know that much of society is going to think they’re a bunch of monsters for saying that. So they lie pathetically in hopes that they’re going to not end up in prison someday for this.
Jay
http://warrenkinsella.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/img_8357.jpg
Kay
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the Trump White House when it slowly started to sink in that normal, decent people find snatching children away from their parents abhorrent.
Remember- they didn’t know this themselves- they all approved of it until there was public outcry. Some of them even bragged about it- Miller, Kelly, Sessions.
They must have first been confused “well, what’s WRONG with snatching children away from their parents?” then as it built they started to worry…is there still time to do a passable impression of decent people who wouldn’t do this, or is it too late?
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: Ds offered the wall during the last DACA negotiations which T refused. They want to rewrite the entire immigration policy, that’s the goal.
efgoldman
@Kay:
Weasel Face neither knows nor cares. As to what the building thinks, who knows.
Jeffro
@Spaniel: “liquidated his kids’ college fund to pay for his legal counsel”…for whatever criminal/dumb shit he did for Trumpov?!?
You have GOT to be kidding. What a weaselly weasel of weasel puke that guy is. Spend your kids’ college fund on frickin’ lawyers (sorry, legal BJers) for the stuff you should just own up to and take your lumps for? Wow.
Suzanne
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: What good is power if you never exercise it?!
What are they using their influence for?! All of them have plenty of money and can get their asses kissed for the rest of their lives. So it has to be the power they’re attracted to. But they’re not using it! I don’t get it! Lord.
sukabi
@WaterGirl: there’s really only 2 choices for their behavior at this point.
1) they’re being blackmailed and don’t want their skeletons spilled.
2) they’re evil, sociopathic assholes
Kay
General Kelly and Attorney General Sessions endorsed this when they were boasting about the child detention policy:
They’ll lie and deny it. No one should let them forget it.
Groucho48
@tobie:
I was thinking the same thing. If you are approached by someone you think is law enforcement trying to entrap you, wouldn’t the obvious thing to do is walk away and call the appropriate agency and tell them that so-and-so is up to no good? So that you are covered?
Jeffro
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Isn’t that pretty much the entire GOP playbook? They know that the majority, usually a LARGE majority, of Americans aren’t on board with what they want to do, so they pretend they’re good folks, moral, religious, for balanced budgets, for freedom, for families, looking out for kids, providing opportunity, unleashing the free market, protecting our rights, MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! And it’s always a lie, so that they can line their/their big-dollar donors’ pockets and keep ‘those’ people down?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Litlebritdifrnt:
The trouble with that analogy is that the US (and other powerful states) are effectively immune from such prosecution. Sure, we can be economically sanctioned but do you think for one minute that Trump, Pence, Sessions, Nielsen, Ryan, or McConnell are going to be hauled in front of an international human rights court? No way. We’re too powerful right now as a nation to face any sort of serious repercussions that cause a society to turn away from doing such horrible things. Defeat in a war and subsequent occupation is often what does that.
However, I’m hoping that as with the Civil Rights movement, exposure of this disgusting and its effects to the public will change opinion and bury the GOP.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Wasn’t really thinking that you were condemning inheritance, I was just telling that there is another side of the story of it that is not often heard.
When I got my current job I worked with a young guy, his family and my boss are friends. This guy’s dad has worked for county public works his entire career, his mom has an even better paying public sector job at I don’t remember what but she makes more than her husband. I was told that their combined salaries is $180K. They have retirement programs, SS, medical care, a paid for house, a paid for second vacation place and are nearing retirement. They are worried that they won’t be able to manage on $80K retirement income a year. Their son got a job working in LA public works, makes a good salary, same kind of bennies, is in his early 30s. I believe all three are trumpers, think that people are coming here to take all the good jobs. I’ve worked all my life and have never had a yearly salary at the level of their retirement income, let alone what they make working. I’ve owned 3 homes, 2 in socal, lost my first and dad’s business in an earthquake and have lost most everything in a republican recession. These people have no idea what life is like near the bottom. Hell I’ve been very close to bottom and I have only a passing idea. People who think that $180K is minimal bottom income and that people who come here are taking those jobs or that this country is full or that they are somehow going to be made a lot worse by being in some distant, very unlikely contact with a person fleeing another country to come and find a shitty job for maybe $300 a week at best are so full of shit it begs the question, how stupid are they and how do they keep breathing? I know an ex meth addict, who got straight at the behest of a judge and at no cost to himself except staying out of jail, who has 2 illegitimate kids (who he pays support for) who is a trumper. He thinks that this is his country, that people that come here are taking american’s jobs, jobs that he would never do. He’s been one of the lucky ones, this state/country didn’t just throw him away, it gave him the chance he wouldn’t have in many places and now he’s too fucking stupid to do that for anyone else.
Yes I’m tired of this bullshit, just like so many others. People have been fighting to make this a better place since before I was born. Black men like the Tuskegee airman who had one of the best records of any air wing during WWII, or the black men who drove trucks, or the Mexican laborers that you talked about in another comment. Or the women who worked in factories during WWII or……….. The list goes on and on of people who were and are far better humans than anyone in the current republican party.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Suzanne:
But they do exercise it. They vote for tax cuts for themselves and they get to belong to one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, the US Senate.
They’re like Ivanka in a way; they want to look good and moderate but in reality are really not/too cowardly.
Kay
This was the Trump Administration last week “you mean ripping nursing babies out of their mother’s arms is…wrong?”
None of them knew so they turned on the news to see how they should act.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
i believe they offered a wall, but with a quarter of the funding he wanted? Or am I misremembering?
@Mnemosyne:
We can always count on CA! Part of me hopes the state is split in three, just so there will suddenly be six senators driving the conservatives nuts.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
They actually are using their power. They have a power to act or a power to do nothing and they have chosen to use the power to do nothing. To use the power to act they have to take a stand against everything they believe. We think they should be enraged that this maladministration is taking upon itself to be the worst one in history. But they aren’t because they agree with the policy. Never give them credit they refuse to earn. They are as evil as the assholes that have spoken the words that make this happen.
They are as powerful as they want to be. They’ve been given the opportunity to speak out to side with the better angels and they chose to sit down and shut up. They are using their power. They are just using it extremely badly.
SiubhanDuinne
Some of you who enjoy traditional English folk songs may enjoy:
Jay
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
There’s lot’s of former US Politicians and functionaries that have to be careful where they travel, what routes they travel.
Ruckus
@debbie:
There might be 6 senators but not all of them would end up being who you might want as senators. This is a big state with a lot of people and not all of them are liberal. It might end up with 3 liberal senators and 3 RWNJ senators. Remember that Issa, Rohrabacher, Nunes, McCarthy, Hunter are all republican house members from CA. Plus 9 others. We run blue because of the size of the cities/areas of SF and LA. We have a rabid trumper running for gov. He’s a carpetbagger from NJ.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Weasel Face knows that it’s considered a bad thing to rip kids away from their parents. That’s why he immediately started blaming Democrats and saying it was their fault, not his fault.
Narcissists know that they do things that other people think are wrong. That’s why they spend so much time gaslighting and weaseling out of the responsibility.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Isn’t that part of what makes them shit, they know what they do is wrong, they do it anyway?
nasruddin
@Mnemosyne:
> If they didn’t want their kids taken away, they shouldn’t have asked for help from other people.
The only way I’d differ from your perspective is right here. The reasons psychopaths say for some wretched behavior usually
have nothing to do with their real motivations. It’s just more interstitial opportunism, used to play their audience. They’ll
switch message in a heartbeat if the original message backfires. Just words uttered that seem to be in a language
you recognize. Learned thru painful experiences and a lifetime of observation.
Now that I think about it, this “tell” is another giveaway.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
Having the power to block other people from doing shit is still power. In fact, some people find it more satisfying since they don’t actually have to do anything, they can just sit there and smirk while the other person gets frustrated.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Yep. They think they’re smarter for doing shit that other people won’t do. They think it makes them winners and only losers would flinch at ripping a breastfeeding infant out of its mother’s arms if it gets them what they want.
And, sure, they have to lie and deflect to keep the losers from getting all whiny about “morals” and “ethics,” but that just shows how much smarter they are than everyone else. Only losers play by the rules.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: I just got the sense from the book that the “White Working Class” is essentially resentful of the fact that the kind of lifestyle that they want requires college and/or relocation to an urban area and/or both parents working full-time.
But women and minorities and immigrants have never had the luxury of the baseline expectation of success. So while I am trying to be empathetic that their lives are hard and that they feel culturally disregarded (with good reason, I will readily admit)……the world is different and they should never have had such unrealistic expectations. The idea that someone should graduate from high school and immediately get a job making $35/hour hanging drywall is just so foreign to me. I was raised to think that brass rings were something I would have to work my ass off to get, and that no man should never be expected to be reliable and able to support me.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Jay:
I’ve heard of that, but did not think of it at the time. Bush and Cheney come to mind.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Par for the course for her. She is such a fucking hypocrite.
Mnemosyne
@nasruddin:
It’s one of the classic abuser’s rationales: I’m abusing you to toughen you up so you’ll know that nobody can be trusted. They’re trying to teach a “lesson,” and the lesson from Miller is that the US can’t be trusted to help anyone — we only want to hurt people. He and Kelly have been very explicit about that, but the MSM wasn’t willing to listen until now.
WaterGirl
@Jay: These photos belong along side the horror that is the abu ghraib photos. America,
fuck yeah!Ugh.randy khan
@debbie:
Well, since Trump has more or less said it in clear and specific language, it’s almost unnecessary for the Dems to do it, but I get your point.
J R in WV
@sukabi:
Why not both??
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Ah, the Boy Named Sue defense.
WaterGirl
@Kay:
That’s practically the definition of a sociopath.
WaterGirl
@sukabi:
I am totally with you on that!
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: First thought: that’s a lot of verses!
Second thought: did you listen to Preet’s podcast this week? He played a call from someone who told a lovely story related to Preet’s “God Bless America” song comments from the week before. All those verses in your comment made me think of his story.
efgoldman
@Suzanne:
The mines are never going to reopen
The mills are never going to reopen
Meanwhile they live in a racist, we hate everyone system and won’t take any action to fix it, while they sit around drinking swill beer and smoking meth.
Fuckem
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I started rambling again.
Been there done that. Looked for a job for 2 yrs when I figured out I had to leave my last one working in pro sports. Every where I looked, college degree. None of the jobs did that degree have to be in anything related to the job, but you had to have one. I was offered a job in 2011 that no one gave a damn about education only if you could perform the job. But it was night shift and didn’t really suit me. And it was the wrong job for the company. They just didn’t know it yet.
Listen, life has changed dramatically since EFG or I or raven or any number of other old farts started working. It had changed dramatically at that time since my dad started working, even more so since my grandfather started. When gramps started was just about the time the industrial revolution got really going. Just after the turn of the last century. Machinery came into being that lead to far better production and the ability to actually do what people wanted. Electronics didn’t exist and many homes didn’t have electricity for quite a while. Or even oil fired furnaces/boilers. Life has changed more in the last 110-120 yrs than in the previous what, 500? Hell life has changed more in the last 75 yrs than pretty much all of time. Every aspect of our lives has changed from what us old farts grand parents knew when they reached adulthood.
Except politics, that really hasn’t changed a lot has it? Not since the Romans.
Suzanne
@efgoldman: @Ruckus: One of the points in the book is that many men in that cohort do not want to take “pink-collar” jobs, as they are considered somewhat emasculating. So there’s work, but they don’t want to do it, because it’s women’s work, and therefore doesn’t provide the sense of masculinity that they want. Another point that Williams makes is that guns are wrapped up in the sense of masculine dignity that these people have constructed for themselves.
I came away from the book with the sense that these people absolutely cannot be reasoned with. They want a fantasy. I mean, I want fantasies, too. But I recognize them as fantasies and don’t expect politicians to erect a policy structure to support them.
So as far as I am concerned, I think we should be done trying to drag them into the coalition. They can come along for the ride, but their concerns are secondary to minorities, women, immigrants, forward-thinking young people, and others who genuinely need help.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
No, I didn’t. Thanks for the pointer.
trnc
@Jerzy Russian: Isn’t it interesting that every story about trying to get dirt on Hillary ends with a sad trombone for the would be colluders? It’s almost as if there isn’t actually any dirt to be found?
Mnemosyne
@trnc:
The fun thing about believing in a conspiracy theory is that any evidence that disproves or challenges the conspiracy is just more proof of how big the conspiracy really is. Therefore, the fact that no proveable dirt has been found only shows how much dirt is really there but has been covered up by the massive conspiracy.