In a bizarre interview with The Hill last night, Trump bragged that he is doing the country “a great service” by declassifying documents pertinent to an ongoing investigation into his campaign’s possible collusion with Russia. What he is actually doing, of course, is trying to further undermine the Mueller investigation and influence the news cycle.
I hope and believe that Adam’s prediction about that effort will come to pass — that it will make Trump and his toadies in the House look like idiots. In The Hill interview, Trump said the declassification could become one of his “crowning achievements” because it will reveal that the FBI was out to get Trump all along when they surveilled Carter Page. The Atlantic covered this odd strategy here:
But it’s looking more and more like House Republicans have chosen to die on a hill that’s shifting below their feet. “Be careful what you wish for,” Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters on Tuesday. He was indicating, according to an aide, that “it’s simply impossible to review the documents” on Page and conclude anything other than that the FBI “had ample reason” to investigate him. It’s not only Democratic Senators who believe that: Republican Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN in July that he believes the FISA judges had “sound reasons” for issuing the Page surveillance warrant to the FBI. “I don’t think I ever expressed that I thought the FISA application came up short,” Burr said at the time.
But Reps Nunes, Gaetz, Meadows, et al, are doubling down on the Page-as-martyr strategy. It may make sense to people (like Trump) who marinate in Fox News 24/7, but it’ll likely fall flat with everyone else because believing all the Deep State conspiracy crap is a prerequisite of buying the Page-as-victim angle. It would be as if you or I showed up at a city council meeting and started babbling about lost mustard and naked mopping. Any jackals in the audience might find it amusing, but the rest of the crowd would look at us as if we’d lost our goddamned minds.
Anyhoo, there was also this piece of supreme weirdness from Trump in last night’s interview with The Hill:
Trump also said he regretted not firing former FBI Director James Comey immediately instead of waiting until May 2017, confirming an account his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, gave Hill.TV earlier in the day that Trump was dismayed in 2016 by the way Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email case and began discussing firing him well before he became president.
“If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don’t want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day on the job. … I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don’t want him there when I get there.”
Trump has offered different reasons in the past for his firing of the FBI chief, blaming Comey’s handling of the Clinton case but also linking it to Comey’s actions in the Russian investigation.
Emphasis mine. Of course, Comey served at the pleasure of President Obama when Trump won the primaries and was nominated at the convention. But I suspect Trump was just indulging in mindless superlatives as usual during that interview but was otherwise faithful to talking points created as part of an evolving legal/PR strategy — to claim that he was onto this Deep State conspiracy even before day one and, therefore, Trump fired Comey for the Clinton email investigation rather than to shutdown the Mueller probe.
But believing that dog’s breakfast of a post-hoc justification requires going down rabbit holes within rabbit holes. For instance, recall that the memo Trump ordered Deputy AG Rosenstein to produce to justify firing Comey rightly claimed that Comey’s actions at the conclusion of the email investigation were unfair to Clinton. But now we’re supposed to believe that Clinton was colluding with the Russians to take out Trump, either with the active participation of Comey or via his negligence? Come on, man.
It’s nonsense. But so is everything else Trump says, like the claims this morning that the economic recovery began the day he was elected. You can plot unemployment rates, GDP growth, etc., on a chart that represents a gradual upward trajectory from the Great Recession to the present day and wave it in Trump supporters’ faces, but they won’t believe their lying eyes or lived experience. Nope, the USA was a Dickensian hellscape until 11/9/2016 and the ascension of the Golden Calf.
Will the con work again? I don’t think so. One thing successful con artists know is that you have to move on because the bamboozle only works until it stops working. Ironically, being POTUS is the first real job Trump has ever had. And it looks like the first performance review is going to be all kinds of ugly.
feebog
This will, as everything else connected to Trumpov, turn out to be a gigantic shit sandwich with a side of vomit. We should be crying loud and long about the recklessness of releasing classified documents without proper redaction while at the same time asking why selective documents were released.
The Dangerman
Aiiiieeeeeee…
*jumps from window, only to find out I live on ground floor*
Jerzy Russian
He apparently never read any of the documents that he ordered to be released. Yet somehow he knows he will be vindicated? The scary thing is he probably believes this.
zhena gogolia
Yeah, when I did that it didn’t go over well.
hells littlest angel
Yup, sooner or later Trump’s con will collapse, and most of his supporters will bail on him. And it will happen very quickly. One day he’ll be the beloved Grand Emperor of Bonerland, the next he’ll be fleeing a mob armed with bags of feathers and a bucket of tar. It will be so fucking crazy and chaotic we might not even be able to enjoy it.
Full disclosure: on 11/8/16 I was confident Clinton would win the presidency by 30 points.
bystander
Just watching the 9,000,000th broadcast of Judgment at Nuremberg. The monologue in which a former judge describes the transformation of the German justice system under the Nazis. One early step was to pack their Supreme Court with Nazi ideologues. Then they stepped up the use of the death penalty.
It never sounded so real or so compelling as it does today. So, I’m turning it off for fear my bp goes through the roof.
Yutsano
Gah! I give up. I’m just gonna have to make his new IRS commissioner regret taking the job from his cushy Beverly Hills gig.
jacy
I think it’s clear that something needs to be done about the KKKrazy Kaucus in the House. (Nunes, Gaetz, Meadows, Jordan, etcetera). Because they’re nuts. They’re the guys sitting on the bench outside of the public library wearing pith helmets and eating jello with their hands while muttering about the lizard people stealing their essence. In a normal world, they’d be so marginalized that they would only be a momentary annoyance to passersby, but instead they’re being allowed to literally erode national safety. In a normal world, the Speaker of the House would at least rein in their craziest impulses, but Paul Ryan already has one foot out the door, no doubt drawing up plans for the torture chamber he wants to build in his rec room for other people grandparents.
Taking back the house is the first step, of course, but beyond that….well, I don’t know. My personal wish is that when these people spout crazy shit, whoever is interviewing them don’t just nod along, but shut that shit down immediately. And then I want a pony who will brew me tea and fold my clothes and chauffeur my children around. I figure that’s more likely.
ChrisS
I’m still confused as to why the FBI would launch a secret investigation into the trump campaign so that they could oust him after he was elected President and became their boss instead of just torpedoing his campaign in October like they did with Clinton.
Gravenstone
Just when you thought Trump was approaching bottom in terms of demonstrable idiocy … Seriously, this man is bone stupid and clearly proud of it.
JPL
It’s always a good day when they let the pres travel, because he can do less damage then when he is tweeting. As least I hope so.
@Jerzy Russian: The real scary thing is his supporters will believe it also.
Gravenstone
@Jerzy Russian: My question, who did read those docs and was then able to convince Trumpenweinie that they would clear his name?
catclub
@ChrisS: this. The whole point of a bogus investigation to kneecap the Trump campaign is that you have to let people know about it before the election. The FBI did the opposite.
schrodingers_cat
Craziest Kavanaugh theory I have come across so far.
Really, WashPost?
Matt McIrvin
Now we don’t even blink at his failure to remember that he wasn’t President before he was President.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: People’s minds are made up about him, nothing he can say or do is going to elevate his image in my mind. Everyday it sinks lower.
The Dangerman
@jacy:
Not that long ago, I would have called the chance of Nunes losing basically zero (and dropping). Now, maybe … 1 in 10? He’s really pissed some powerful people off.
I’ve got some business over in Tulare (I’ve crapped on Tulare, along with all those cows, more than a few times, but it’s actually a decent place) so maybe I’ll drop in and donate a few hours along the way.
patrick II
@Gravenstone:
It’s called grasping at straws. Trump and his minions are guilty as hell so any complete and real record will show their guilt. So they are trying to cherry pick, but it is tough to pick cherries in a briar patch of evidence of guilt.
Jeffro
Rick Wilson yesterday on Twitter (paraphrasing ’cause I’m lazy): “After talking with former and current IC officials, it’s quite clear that this move crosses the reddest of lines for them”
Bring ’em down, IC! We’ve got a Russian asset in the WH and he needs to learn some very hard lessons on his way out the door.
SFAW
Some Dem Rep/Sen in an extremely safe seat should opine to the MSM: “Based on their attempts to cover up apparent Russia-related wrongdoing, I’m wondering if it’s time to investigate these gentlemen for treason against the United States.”
As LBJ said, make them deny it. Those assholes.
ET
I put this out there as food for thought
MORE
For many years the US political discussions and political adjacent discussion have been devolving – tRump and the current iteration of the GOP are just a culmination.
Jerzy Russian
@Gravenstone: Maybe some poor slob over there was given the task of kicking the can down the road for a week (that is to say find something to distract Trump for another week), and this was the best they could do?
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: Yes. Maxine Waters has said as much, but the media tunes her out because black woman.
это курам на смех
No, they won’t. They are in too deep, and their epistemic closure is too closed. They will not suddenly become capable of rational thinking because thinking is not their thing. Expecting them to get woke is like expecting Rapture seekers to become evolution scientists.
Our only real hope of ending this cult is the collapse of Faux News and its fellow travelers, and their ability to spread ever more preposterous lies to an ever more gullible segment of the public.
FelonyGovt
I hope things start accelerating soon. I’m tired of not being able to sleep thinking about all these awful people running things.
Doug R
@ChrisS:
The rot needs to be cleaned out of the NYC FBI office. Investigation after investigation of a loyal competant public servant who at worst bent some internal email regulations vs no activity on a money laundering mobbed up con artist who probably committed tax fraud and was probably a Russian asset since 1987. All the while leaking like a sieve to a friend of the crooked candidate.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
They will look like idiots, The Base(tm) will think it’s awesome, Trump will take a crap over any gains he makes with it. So the same old.
Mandalay
@schrodingers_cat:
More accurately, “Really Kathleen Parker“?
It’s a transparent attempt to create a talking point where both sides are telling the truth so nobody gets hurt: yes, the assault definitely occurred so the woman isn’t lying, but it certainly wasn’t Brett who did it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Kavanaugh and Parker have known each other for many years on the DC social circuit. He probably never tried to rape Parker, so he’s obviously innocent.
schrodingers_cat
@Mandalay: Yes, but they did publish it.
randy khan
@schrodingers_cat:
The evil twin did it!
I’d totally forgotten about Parker. After reading this, I think I will forget about her again.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I mourn the day the Pulitzer was awarded to Kathleen Parker. She is not worthy. I think she was just the least objectionable conventional wisdom conservative woman. Because, balance.
Gonna read it. As with David Brooks, the reader comments are likely to be far more intelligent.
Glefling 545
@schrodingers_cat: It’s Kathleen Parker. She gets like that.
Gelfling 545
@schrodingers_cat: They published Theissen on Trump’s wonderfully successful foreign policy too. The comments are…not kind.
bemused
@schrodingers_cat:
Oh ugh, Kathleen Parker. Piece of work.
Chief Oshkosh
@Doug R: Yep. The next Dem president needs to come down hard on NYC FBI. They should be investigated and very publicly charged if warranted. None of this “looking forward” bullshit that just leaves the evil-doers to continue doing evil.
JPL
@Mandalay: He also didn’t try to rape me, but Dr. Christine Blasey Ford sound like she was the victim.
randy khan
@ET:
I really enjoy a detailed, good faith discussion/argument. (I had a particularly memorable one once on Slate about the deficit, which went on for maybe 20 posts, and was picked up in Best of the Fray, when that was a thing.) And I often respond to right wing crazies with factual explanations of why they’re crazy, mostly for the benefit of other people. But sometimes you just have to let someone have it with both barrels, rather than having an Oxford Debating Society moment. Done right, it’s remarkably effective.
Mandalay
It’s too early to get overly excited about these numbers, but for what they are worth a new Reuters poll showed this:
ET
@hells littlest angel: I would like to hope so but I trly don’t know. Many of his most ardent fans (short for fanatic) have a lot of energy, emotions, and self tied to him. For many, bailing on him means bailing on themselves and one of the things they love about him is that the feel (wrongly) that he speaks for them, he “understands” them, and he is a manifestation of many of their deepest feelings.
Now loose voters/supports may be different. Of course they are so inculcated int he anti-Democrats mantra that the GOP has been peddling for the last 40 years that is still may be hard to wean some of them off. It is like air to them and sense many Republicans like the security that being told what to do/believe they may not want or be able to give that up – regardless of how horrible tRump and his political enables are.
bemused
Our idiot president wants to shitcan everyone, probably even his family. At this rate, if he actually carried out his threats, the only one by his side would be Stephen Miller.
randy khan
The declassification is basically totally nutso – he didn’t read any of it, probably wasn’t really briefed on any of it, and just did it to satisfy his id. On top of it, there’s no paper trail even to say what exactly is supposed to be declassified.
And yet I find myself wondering if it’s actually in the top 10 most crazy things he’s done.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Of course it won’t work because the documents don’t say anything close to what their Fox-fried brains imagine they say.
Nunes is an especially pathological case because he believes that stuff AFTER he reads the words that contradict his tiny brain.
My concern is in the declassification itself, the revealing of sources and methods. I hope the Intel community has a way of slow-walking this request and keeping the most sensitive secrets still secret. People die when this stuff is revealed.
In US security law, Secret has a formal legal definition:
Technically, Trump has the legal authority to release the info. But practically, the damage it will cause is, as the statute says, exceptionally grave and long-lasting.
The Intel community is living in interesting times. They have to figure out how to thread the needle of protecting the national interests when the declassification authority is a foreign intelligence asset. I don’t envy them, but I’m trusting the professionals can figure out how to thread that needle.
Aleta
Jamelle Bouie at Slate
bemused
@randy khan:
Amazing how stupid he and his massive ego is. He believes he can “win” everything and has no clue he is his own worst enemy.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Yup.
He’s obviously brain damaged, and it’s going to get worse this fall as the days get shorter. Sundowning is real and his is going to do nothing but get worse.
How bad does it have go get until the Congress acts??
47 days to go!!
Cheers,
Scott.
CindyH
working with the trumpster dumpster fans, his de-classifying has convinced them that this is bad for Democrats and good for Trump – they don’t care about the actual information, they believe everything he does is just fine and been needed for a long time.
The Moar You Know
@Chief Oshkosh: I agree. In addition, they need to break up and then blackball most of the currently serving ICE/CBP officers. And pull Fox’s broadcasting licenses.
None of which is going to happen, but damn it needs to.
Another Scott
@Mandalay: I was flipping channels last night and saw a Vice News report about the Ted/Beto race. I didn’t have the sound on, but they showed some poll with Cruz up by about 10 points that seemed to be current. I didn’t check the details.
We should fight as if we’re 10 points down even if we’re actually not. The future of the country depends on winning as many seats as we can.
Fight, fight, fight!!
Cheers,
Scott.
tobie
@The Moar You Know: I still wonder how come the FBI investigation of the NY field office was quashed. Comey said he started one before he was fired but evidently IG Horowitz and Deputy AG Rosenstein didn’t think it was worth pursuing. Rosenstein’s presence at Kavanaugh’s hearing on the first day and the friendly pat he gave Kavanaugh on the back reminded me that he is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican and Federalist Society Award recipient. I’ll never feel entirely comfortable with him as the DOJ head of the Mueller investigation.
randy khan
@Another Scott:
Cruz is acting like his internals are closer to him being 5 points down than 10 points up.
Aleta
@Another Scott: it’s going to get worse this fall as the days get shorter. Sundowning is real and his is going to do nothing but get worse.
Thanks for that link. Concise and useful.
ruemara
@Jeffro: I will never trust them until they clean house of their own rightwing nutbags. So I hope the IC likes having targets on their back and knowing their dear leader is selling out their secrets to their enemies. Until y’all clean out the NYC FBI bureau and hold those fuckers accountable, I have to conclude you support this traitor in office.
@CindyH: Good. I hope they also believe in drinking 10 cans of coke & eating fast food while not getting exercise. I hope he tells them toxic waste is good for the skin.
Mandalay
On MSNBC this morning Mika Brzezinski – self appointed champion of women’s rights – dropped her pants and took a big wet shit on the notion that there should be an FBI investigation into Kavanaugh’s alleged assault before Christine Blasey Ford testifies.
With friends like her #metoo doesn’t need enemies.
Aleta
@schrodingers_cat:
Parker: “There are no apparent witnesses other than Judge, who has denied Ford’s allegations.”
Judge is a participant not a witness.
The Pale Scot
Truly historical, not in a good way. from the comments on FTFNYT article
I only represented indigents — robbers, drug defendants, an ocassional homicide, petty theifs, burglars —- so most of my clients were pretty straightforward, once they knew you were working for them. I can only imagine how difficult must be to represent Trump, a far less honorable, far more devious and dangerous person.
The Pale Scot
Sorry, link
Trump’s Growing Legal Team Has a Problem: It’s Operating Partly in the Dark`
Aleta
@Aleta: s.b. Judge is a participant not merely a witness.
She’s positing two coincidental dopplegangers who happened to be working together?
James E Powell
@Another Scott:
This Quinnipiac poll of likely voters has Cruz up 9. So it’s a question of the relationship between the “likely voter” model and reality. Always a tough call in the midterms.
Agreed that we ought to run like we’re behind. Always and everywhere.
bemused
@Another Scott:
He acts like that 24/7. He’s way past just sundowning, imo.
Tracy Ratcliff
@Another Scott: @Another Scott: Quinnipiac shifted to a likely-voter model, and had the bad numbers for Beto. There’s a new Reuters/Ipsos poll out to day that has Beto up by 2, but I haven’t read past the headlines on that one.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
to be crass about the politics, are the Rs really gonna bet their whole stake on this “take it or leave it” shit, and bet against Christine Ford doing an interview with Rachel Maddow or Savannah Guthrie, or whoever, between Monday and the full confirmation vote? that strikes me as really, really dumb
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know: Why can’t it happen? We are all past “appearances” and well into “saving a democracy, albeit a wobbly one.”
James E Powell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I believe they will. They have an unshakeable confidence in their superior turnout for midterms. The only thing that could hurt them with their base voters would be backing down.
Mandalay
@Another Scott: Both polls are very recent, though some are going after the Ipsos/Reuters poll:
ruemara
@James E Powell: And well they should. The democractic voter makeup is Democratic party members, liberals, independents & civic duty types who sorta know they need to vote. The last 3 have been epic fails at being reliable, sensible, focused and having a long term gain. Republicans & bigots will gladly vote for a republican who they know will be sorta as evil as they’d like to those they’d hate. Meanwhile, “liberal” white men in particular think we should get away from identity politics & talk about free college & busting up banks. When have conservatives ever paid a price, even as it becomes clear they’ve committed treason? We should always assume that the Dem coalition will not hold without effort to make it hold. They’ve proven to be the lamest assholes possible who need to see blood run in the streets to wake the fuck up & do the modicum decency requires.
Aleta
@The Pale Scot: Oh, brother. Trump lies to his lawyers and limits their access; Bannon blames their incompetence for causing a legal mess. Impressive work by the reporters: locating Bannon, getting him to disclose, then discovering that ‘many friends of the president’s’ agree.
MisterForkbeard
@Aleta:
Wow. Isn’t that straight up perjury? Like, not even deniable. I hadn’t heard of this one.
Kay
@Aleta:
I like that except for the “rule of law”. Because that’s the thing, that’s the low bar. Whether or not Kavanaugh fits the specific factors for “perjury” as an actionable offense, he shouldn’t be lying under oath. Judges can’t lie under oath. That makes them bad and unacceptable.
Whether there’s a statute of limitations or not on the assault- he can’t assault people.
I feel like they’re relying on us continually referring to specific crimes and then saying “well, it isn’t THAT”. They’re lowering the bar and we’re helping them because we continue to frame this in terms of actionable crimes.
MisterForkbeard
@Mandalay: Yep. That author is highly questionable, though – he’s a proud Cruz supporter and finds ways to make every piece of news Cruz friendly. I can’t speak to his specific criticisms, but the poll runners are actually responding to him in his twitter thread and he’s ignoring them.
He was trumpeting an article earlier about “How Beto is now getting known to the voters and that’s a huge problem”, which is… novel.
Fleeting Expletive
Bollocks and crap. T’s tariffs on just about every relevant consumer item @ walmart goes to 25% on 1-1-19. So we go another round of beggar-thy-neighbor, SO THERE! My skin in the game is 20 shares that my son & I share title to from his grandad some 20 years ago. I don’t know what it’s worth now but it would be a PITA to cash it in–the stock split at least once as I recall.
Anyway, buying bikes and Christmas lights will cost more, just to spite each other, never mind what this wreaks upon the land.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Or the Washington Post getting interviews of the friends who reportedly remember hearing her story more contemporaneously? I hope that Blasey does testify, even though I agree that it is blisteringly unfair to her to set it up this way. In the meantime I hope WaPo and CNN and NYT and others are working around the clock to write about other people and add background. Because unless that happens before whenever it is they are determined to hold a vote, I don’t think most Republican senators care about how ugly it will get, they just want a fig leaf to justify confirmation.
Barbara
@Kay: It’s obvious that Kavanaugh and his friends considered themselves to be above the law. Now, I assume they recognized limitations to that stance. Like they can’t actually walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot someone. But Mark Judge’s high school yearbook blurb had the following gems: Alcoholics Unanimous (Founder); 100 Kegs or Bust; etc. In other words, it was no consideration whatsoever for colleges, parents or even his freaking Catholic high school that he drank like a fish well under the lawful drinking age. My husband had an acquaintance from high school who became a licensed broker, and he showed me the guy’s web page. It was filled with stories of how he drunkenly and brazenly violated all kinds of social norms, conduct that would have caused many people to be arrested and prosecuted and certainly would have prevented them from obtaining some kinds of professional certifications. This guy was using it like it was a client development tool. I almost felt like commenting on his site that this is what white privilege looks like — when you get to BRAG about your law breaking and assume that people will love you more for it. My husband stopped me.
catclub
@MisterForkbeard: Yeah, if Kavanaugh comes to testify again he Democratic senators should ask him about this perjury first.
catclub
@Barbara: Lili Loofburrow has a good article at Slate on this – male privilege combined with fear of actual consequences for actual bad acts – what a concept.
catclub
@James E Powell:
Actually, no. I think they would claim that Kavanaugh has been Borked and rile up their base with it.
Ruckus
@Jerzy Russian:
By now this should not have to be repeated.
Shitgibbon believes everything that comes out of his mouth. Doesn’t matter if he said exactly the opposite less than a minute ago. His life is a moment to moment bullshit contest. His mouth is the Niagara Falls of bullshit. He has no concept of truth/bullshit like most people.
JPL
@catclub: Why should they believe him now, when he misled them the first time?
The GOP members of the judicial committee have offered to meet Dr. Blasey Ford in California. Wow!
The Moar You Know
@Elizabelle:
From ruemara above, who pinpoints the issue precislely. We need the presidency, the Senate and the House. And then need to herd an utterly dysfunctional coalition of folks with very different goals into getting a very specific set of tasks accomplished, some of which, like pulling Fox licenses, a majority will object to on 1st Amendment grounds. That’s why a lot of my wishlist is not doable. I’m realistic enough to know it.
You can spare me your daily and predictable pollyanna squealing about negativism because you’re going right into the pie filter after I submit this post. I have no time for people who refuse to deal with reality, regardless of party affiliation.
The Moar You Know
@JPL: Just moves the scene of the crime. And gets it off CSPAN. She’s made her terms clear, and the problem for the GOP is that they need to make this go away, and she’s not going to let that happen.
Mandalay
@Kay:
And guess who is doing EXACTLY THAT on MSNBC today?…Mika Brzezinski, blathering on about “the statute of limitations” and “what can the FBI possibly find out 35 years later”.
I hate her with the heat of a thousand suns. She does more harm to women’s causes than Trump, Limbaugh and Hannity combined, while anointing herself as the champion of women’s rights. There is nobody more loathsome and hypocritical in the media than her.
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know: I am delighted to be in your pie filter. I seem to have been agreeing with you, if you missed that tiny point.
Make mine lemon meringue.
waspuppet
Imagine being so pampered and entitled that you think every investigation of you or someone who worked for you is just more evidence of how biased law enforcement is.
“They get paid TAXPAYER MONEY to do nothing all day but look into allegations of crimes!”
TenguPhule
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes. SATSQ.
dmsilev
@The Moar You Know:
We do have TV cameras here in California you know….
More seriously, any public hearing, no matter where it is, would be televised.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
Exhibit A: 2010 midterms.
TenguPhule
@Barbara:
Yet.
TenguPhule
Unfortunately, its still working.
Kay
This is what I;ve observed so far in Ohio. I went to a state Party organizing event last night where Trump wasn’t mentioned once.
This piece is VERY pro-Sherrod though. I wonder if he’s running for President in ’20.
It’s almost like he planted it :)
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I never heard much about meringue until I became a Great British Bake Off addict. They don’t just eat it on pies — they make freestanding structures of it and eat those! :)
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That’s the playbook I’m seeing from Democrats in FL too — healthcare, saving Medicare and Social Security, funding education, etc. Seems like the smart play. Aside from his dwindling pack of rabid cultists, everyone knows Trump is a disaster.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Sherrod seems fine except for the fact that he loves T’s idiotic tariffs.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Have yet to watch that show. Say what you will, meringue ingredients are about the easiest and cheapest to obtain out there.
@Kay:
!!! Glad to see Sherrod get some positive attention.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Those are all “women’s issues” too.
Remember the ladies. This year: watch out for them!
debit
@Elizabelle: You come sit by me.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mandalay: I heard that. They kept saying the FBI wouldn’t find anything that we didn’t know already. How do they know that? Is there no one the FBI can interview? No documents they can look at? The silliness of the assertion startled me.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Well, of course. Her comments only matter when they’re in regard to some evul black person doing something evul to sully the delicate flowers that are white people. For example: when an unarmed black man or boy has the temerity to do something which requires a LEO to shoot him 16 times (more or less). Or to sit quietly in his own apartment, just INVITING the bullets of an off-duty cop.
And so on.
So glad we’ve finally arrived at post-racial America.
Elizabelle
@debit: Thank you. I don’t know what that whole exchange was about. Folks get excitable here.
Shall we have tea or coffee with our pie?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It’s nice in that piece because it’s not patronizing to voters. Sherrod is able to explain what he’s doing on pensions in real terms- no promises of fixing it magically (because it really is a mess and it pits younger union workers against older ones). They hear him out because they trust him but I like his assumption that they are CAPABLE of being spoken to like adults. No bullshit about making “great deals!”
Maybe by 2020 people will be tired of Trump’s bullshit. Just the fucking incessant yammering. Sounds like some of them already are.
Gin & Tonic
@JPL:
That is indeed a wow. The female members of their staffs must be giving them quite an earful.
debit
@Elizabelle: Coffee, for sure. I’ll take a slug of brandy in mine.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I haven’t read that piece, but I like Grunwald in general. He wrote a great book on the Stimulus (The New New Deal) and is a longtime climate hawk, and also has a bizarre libertarian streak.
I kept waiting to see TNND on MSNBC, to become a resource for Dem talking heads, but it went pretty much under the radar >The only time I saw Grunwald on TV was a half a segment on the old Ed Schultz show, and the host had pretty clearly not read the book and didn’t seem particularly interested.
bemused
@Kay:
Very interesting that trump wasn’t mentioned at all and wasn’t sucking up all the oxygen. Stick to the issues such as healthcare which most Americans are worried about, R’s and D’s.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
I liked this comment:
Kay
@Mandalay:
But they want that. They want liberals to say “attempted rape, code section 2109” so they can say “actually it is NOT”
That right there is the bar-lowering. Because we’re then in “has he been INDICTED? No? Then he passes!”
This is the standard: candidates for the US Supreme Court can’t lie to Congress. It doesn’t matter if they’re “under oath” or if it meets the bar for “perjury”. The LYING is bad enough. That’s the charge; lying. Dishonesty.
We don’t have to prove “perjury” – judges shouldn’t lie to Congress and if they do we get to reject them as not good enough. Not violating a statute is too low a bar for such an enormously powerful and prestigious job. It can’t be the same ethical standard as Taco Bell employment. Has to be higher. Must.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Um, you do know that the term “British Cuisine” is an oxymoron, right?
Except for haggis, that is.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Kathleen Parker’s column is weapons grade crap.
But I really do wonder if she knows Brett Kavanaugh, at least socially, and she’s at the “denial” stage. She just cannot believe those allegations against such a nice Republican guy. Who she thought she knew.
Her column is kind of clinical, really.
Alexandra Petri could have changed just a few words, and it would be the snarkiest column evah. It’s got a toe in parody already.
TenguPhule
@SFAW:
Haggis is Scottish. The only people condemned to worse cuisine then the British.
Kelly
@JPL: I had not realized you have to pay your own expenses is a congressional committee calls you to testify. Apparently it always been like that. Kinda stunned.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I remember once during the 2016 campaign, Clinton was asked about Trump’s endless antics, and she said she didn’t think he would “wear well” with the American people. I remember smiling at that phrase at the time. It struck me as such a gentle way to describe a source of irritation that is more akin to having a psychotic orangutan screaming in your face 24/7 than like water imperceptibly wearing a stone away. But I think Clinton was right, if off on the implied timing. We partisans who follow the news closely reached our exhaustion limit quickly. But other people are catching up, I think.
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: It’s not so much for the food, though they do make interesting breads, cakes, etc., sometimes. I can’t really explain it, but GBBO is like Xanax delivered through the TV screen. Everyone is generally so nice and such good sports. It calms me.
Immanentize
@Kay: Every year I have FBI agents in my office asking questions about my students who are going into government (esp. CIA or FBI), or the military (JAG or intelligence) and they ask all sorts of questions that have no time limitation. IF I know a student was sent to jail for marijuana possession in high school, they expect me to tell them. It is in their title — “Investigation.”
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Did you watch “Making It” with Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman? It has very much the same soothing vibe, by design. It’s probably still available on Hulu.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Hmmm. Our local PBS station demands $5/monthly minimum contribution to air their content, streaming, including GBBO.
If it’s that soothing, might be worth it. I rely on Forensic Files with its soothing narration about unspeakable crimes to soothe me to sleep. Works in about 4-5 minutes!
But maybe meringue Stonehenges would make for a better dreamscape.
Villago Delenda Est
The con will work again on Donald’s drooling, knuckle dragging cult members.
The rest of us, not so much.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: “Making It” is the ‘This is Spinal Tap’ version of GBBO. I was not nearly as soothed as the real thing.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
I think the extra soothing of the GBBO is those exotic British accents. American accents don’t have quite the same effect. But I thought “Making It” was adorable.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: It’s on Netflix right now, I think. Or maybe Prime.
@Mnemosyne: No, but now I must see it as I adore both Poehler and Offerman! I can believe a collab between those two escaped my notice somehow!
NotMax
@Elizabelle
One word: Netflix.
@Mnemosyne
Might give Zumbo’s Just Desserts a look-see.
The overlay of showbiz razzmatazz is silly but the camaraderie amongst the bakers competing against one another is refreshing. In toto the series demonstrates the necessity of balancing talent and skill, as well as the difference between those two attributes.
And the Aussie patois is, well, a hoot for us Americans, as is the non-editing out of blue language honestly born of frustration or disappointment. Overall grade of B; an amiable enough pastime.
satby
@TenguPhule: deep fried haggis is surprisingly good. Had some in a pub in Glasgow.
Mary G
I am addicted to GBBO. Netflix has a new version with Paul Hollywood and another older woman who’s name isn’t Mary Berry, but she’s just as great. And instead of Mel and Sue they have a tall young Goth named Noel and a very short woman; they’re both great, so supportive of all the contestants. Most reality shows seem to be rooting for failure drama, but they want everyone to do well and are genuinely anguished when they have to make someone leave.
Princess Leia
@Mary G: GBBO is my go to right now. Calms the nerves for sure!
Ruckus
@Mandalay:
Not aimed at you, but what in the ever loving fuck is that moronic idiot testifying for?
Ruckus
@The Pale Scot:
That’s not dark, that’s massive stupid that they are seeing. Three stooges was funny, one moronic stooge really isn’t.
Shana
@ChrisS: There you go being all logical and stuff.
Travels with charley
Long time lurker here, chiming in to say I love the Great British Baking Show! It’s so…relaxing…it makes me believe in people again, because everyone is so NICE. And, inspires me in my new baking hobby?
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
I fall asleep listening to the plummy British accents on the BBC. I might be soothed by the GBBO, but there’s the danger of it making me hungry.