Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

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

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

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

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

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Did I miss the Flynn sentencing memo?

Did I miss the Flynn sentencing memo?

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Been waiting for my phone to DING with glad tidings of Muellermas, but so far, nothing. Maybe because Trump tanked the economy by lying about reaching a deal with China? Hmmph!

Here’s something amusing to divert us while we wait: Angela Merkel using one of my very favorite English words — SHITSTORM — in remarks that are otherwise in German:

Good to see evidence that the linguistic borrowing isn’t Einweg.

Anecdote: I was driving myself and two friends around Salzburg many years ago, and passing motorists kept waving at me and saying “Einbahn!” in a pleasant tone. I asked my friends, “WTF is Einbahn?” But they didn’t know either. I eventually figured out I was going the wrong way on a one-way street (when a policeman pulled me over and politely informed me, in English).

I couldn’t believe how nice they were about it! Pull that shit in America, and 10 people will flip you off and call you a stupid fucking bitch before you get a block down the road.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

117Comments

  2. 2.

    Booger

    Like the story of the guy visiting Germany who remembered that he had parked his car on EinBahnStrasse.

  3. 3.

    cope

    A commenter in a previous thread said the sentencing process can be done electronically and can be filed any time before midnight.

  4. 4.

    Lapassionara

    If they do legal filings like we did, they have until midnight Eastern time to file the doc on Pacer. This assumes they don’t ask for and get an extension,

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    Been waiting for my phone to DING with glad tidings of Muellermas, but so far, nothing.

    IMO, Mueller is going to play coy with this release, if it comes public, and not detail all the dirty shit he’s got.

  8. 8.

    oldgold

    “ESTRAGON: I can’t go on like this.
    VLADIMIR: That’s what you think.”
    ― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    @germy: TBH, whose name would you care to see in a headline event about sex robots? Unless it also contained the words, “accidental death by robot assphyxiation?

  15. 15.

    cope

    @Lapassionara: Just lucky this time. You have no idea how many times I have tried to make a point first and by the time I have pecked it out on this steam powered iPad, my comment comes in at #42.

  16. 16.

    rikyrah

    Black Women Decided The 2016 Democratic Nominee. They’ll Have An Even Bigger Say In 2020.
    Know anyone?

    Ben Smith
    Posted on December 3, 2018, at 11:23 a.m. ET

    The biggest missed political opportunity in recent memory is probably Deval Patrick’s decision, after losing quite a bit of sleep, not to run for president in 2016.

    At the time, the path seemed fairly clear: The former Massachusetts governor could run as Barack Obama had, on unifying optimism, progressive politics, and a strong connection to the black voters who make up a pillar of the primary electorate.

    Hillary Clinton’s team was, Darren Sands reported, quietly afraid of him. And the results of that election left Patrick intensely frustrated.

    One reason for that is obvious: Clinton was a far weaker candidate than the media and Democratic establishment thought.

    The other possible reason just as obvious, but less discussed: Patrick could have won the primary. The Democratic primaries, as they are currently built, favor a black candidate. The winning formula in recent years has been to build a coalition from older black voters plus another group: white progressives for Obama; white moderates for Clinton. And the Democratic electorates in Deep South states, which vote early in the primary process, are dominated by black voters. That was where Clinton won in 2016, despite no particular attention to the region, and where Bernie Sanders lost it.

    “When Southern black voters united behind a Democratic candidate, the South becomes a formidable firewall that is hard to overcome for any candidate who performs poorly among this group, which comprises the base of the Democratic coalition,” wrote Seth McKee, a political scientist at Texas Tech, in a compelling new study of the 2016 election in the South titled The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be.

  19. 19.

    Mart

    I thought Ausfahrt must be like the biggest German town I never heard of before I realized the signs were for highway exits…

  20. 20.

    germy

    Various WaPo headlines up now:


    13 Trump entities being subpoenaed in case targeting president’s D.C. hotel

    U.S. stocks battered as U.S.-China trade deal appears to sputter

  24. 24.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Not an encouraging sign when Germany is the picture of warmth and friendliness in comparison with us.

  25. 25.

    ThresherK

    My wife and I were xc skiing in Quebec’s Laurentides and kept falling trying to go down a hill after passing a sign saying access interdit.

    We learned that bit of French afterwards, at the lodge.

  27. 27.

    Corner Stone

    @Betty Cracker: I think the sex robots are all going to be like adolescents, mentally. They won’t know their own strength until something awful happens.
    “No! No! I said DON’T put it on me!!”

  28. 28.

    Keith P.

    She literally said “Shitstorm”. I would have figured that German for “shitstorm” would be “SCHEIßE STURM!!!”

  29. 29.

    tobie

    @rikyrah: I don’t mean to detract from the gist of the article but when I read lines like the following, I still wince:

    One reason for that is obvious: Clinton was a far weaker candidate than the media and Democratic establishment thought.

    I can’t tell–was she weak or vilified mercilessly by just about everyone under the sun? Betty Cracker recently posted a clip of her from the campaign in which, Cassandra like, she predicted Trump was a compromised candidate. More than the content, I was struck at how strong her voice sounded in the clip. This stood out to me since I complained during the campaign that she needed a voice coach. It was scary to see how our likes and dislikes are so easily manipulated.

  30. 30.

    lollipopguild

    Four years of high school german and one thing i remember is “Zug hellfarht’ or “have a bright journey” or “have a good trip”.

  31. 31.

    phein55

    @Major Major Major Major: My uncle Rich retired from the AF after 20 years as a German/Russian linguist, spent his time in West Berlin and Shemya, “listening.” Once told me that the two funniest things he heard a German national say were:

    Ich kindere sie nicht, and
    Das geflackt mir

  32. 32.

    TenguPhule

    Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) on Tuesday defended Trump’s response to the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, telling a CNN host, “Journalists disappear all over the country.”

    Khashoggi was killed by a team of Saudi agents inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October. Trump and senior members of his administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, have insisted that no single piece of evidence irrefutably links Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the killing.

    Several senators stated after a closed-door briefing by CIA Director Gina Haspel on Tuesday that the evidence overwhelmingly points to the crown prince’s involvement.

    But Stewart echoed Trump, telling CNN’s Brianna Keilar that “no one can say” for certain what happened and maintaining that it is in U.S. interests not to allow the relationship with Saudi Arabia to rupture.

    “We have to have a relationship with some players that we don’t agree with,” Stewart said. “Journalists disappear all over the country. Twenty journalists have been killed in Mexico. You don’t think it’s happened in Turkey and China? Of course it does. And yet, we have to have a relationship with these individuals, or with these countries.”

    JFC. Worst cult I’ve ever seen.

  35. 35.

    Mike in NC

    Steve Bannon owning a sex robot makes perfect sense. His lack of personal hygiene is well known, after all.

  36. 36.

    tobie

    @phein55: There are other classics like “Die Leute sind ausgeflippt.” I always liked the German term “Talk-Meister” for talk show host.

  41. 41.

    TenguPhule

    Trump plans to hold a second summit meeting early next year with Kim Jong-un, even though North Korea has failed to follow through with promises to start dismantling its nuclear weapons program, John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, said on Tuesday.

    “They have not lived up to the commitments so far,” Mr. Bolton said. “That’s why I think Trump thinks another summit is likely to be productive.”

    WASF.

  43. 43.

    jacy

    @germy:

    Sheesh, that’s almost like it came from a random sentence generator.

    Why is life now constantly like Mad Libs played drunken goblins?

  45. 45.

    Mart

    @TenguPhule: Speaking of Nazi Propagandists, these two young atheists have over two hours on Youtube making fun of Bannon’s “Torchbearer” a religious propaganda film starring Duck Dynasty’s gay hating old man with a beard. Their “short” fifteen minute review of the film’s trailer is here. WIth youth like Hugo & Jake, maybe there is hope.

  48. 48.

    Doug

    @Keith P.: Shitstorm has been a good German word for a number of years now. I forget what the famous precipitating incident was, but it was even named Anglicism of the year for 2011.

  49. 49.

    TenguPhule

    @germy:

    This timeline is the creation of some cosmic, antic Malice.

    There has been speculation that one of the jackals is actually dead and we’re all trapped in his personal hell.

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    rarely is the question asked, is our Democrats learning? It would seem so

    ‏@ jamalraad
    This is great. @ RepMarkPocan writes: “No Labels is slick, and I got duped. But no other current or newly elected member of Congress should fall for its shtick.”

  53. 53.

    Mike J

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    The folk in Salzburg are eternally grateful that I never drove there.

    I used to drive in Boston. I have no idea what the locals thought when I drove around in Europe, but as a Boston driver I didn’t let the opinions of others determine my own self worth.

  55. 55.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @TenguPhule:

    “They have not lived up to the commitments so far,” Mr. Bolton said. “That’s why I think Trump thinks another summit is likely to be productive.”

    John Bolton refers to his boss by last name only? No title, no honorific? That’s some lèse-majesté, that is.

  56. 56.

    debbie

    @Mustang Bobby:

    I like how long the words are. Makes for easy subtitle reading at German films. Sometimes, there’s even enough time to reread and ponder the words.

  57. 57.

    Mandalay

    @tobie:

    …she predicted Trump was a compromised candidate…

    It’s doubly ironic that “weak” Clinton not only accurately foretold the problems with Trump’s presidency, but at the time I vividly recall that she was pounded by the media for being negative, and spending too much time on attacking Trump.

    Of course if she had just ignored him she would have been pounded by the media for being a weak candidate who was afraid to criticize Trump.

  60. 60.

    Corner Stone

    @Shana: If you include the concept of a sex robot manually shoving someone’s head up their own ass until they die of suffocation…then the line forms to the right.

  61. 61.

    Mike J

    @Betty Cracker: Just a different mindset. Once you’re in the groove it’s pretty easy. If you want to merge, you just go. If you sit around and wait for somebody to let you in, you’re going to have a long, long wait.

    Compare to Seattle where I have seen cars come to a complete stop on a major (40mph limit, 4 lane) road to let somebody enter the road from a driveway. Infuriating when the person would have only had to wait for two more cars to pass anyway.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    And now there’s Qexit.

    Qatar will withdraw from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Gulf nation’s Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi announced.
    [snip]
    Since 2013, the amount of oil Qatar produced has steadily declined from about 728,000 barrels per day in 2013 to about 607,000 barrels per day in 2017, or just under two percent of OPEC’s total output.
    [snip]
    Qatar is the world’s biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG), producing almost 30 percent of the world total.

    According to Al Jazeera’s Bellis, Al-Kaabi said the declaration was purely a business decision.

    “Al-Kaabi said ‘We are a small player in OPEC, and I’m a businessman, it doesn’t make sense for me to focus on things that are not our strength, and gas is our strength so that is why we’ve made this decision’,” Bellis said.
    [snip]
    Qatar shares the world’s largest known natural gas field, the North Field, with Iran. Source

  68. 68.

    Mike in NC

    @Betty Cracker: They’re replacing some stop lights at intersections around here with traffic circles (supposedly safer), but the rules call for people to yield to oncoming traffic. The notorious “rotaries” in the Boston area, by comparison, are merely a great game of ‘chicken’.

  69. 69.

    debbie

    @Mike in NC:

    They’ve done that here. I have to go through six of them when I go to get my hair cut. Boston’s are better because they’re bigger. Here, the turns are kinda tight when you’re not sure of your exit.

  71. 71.

    Mike J

    @debbie: They just installed one in my neighborhood. Came back two weeks later with several large boulders to fill the center island as people kept driving over it.

  72. 72.

    debbie

    @Mike J:

    LOL, wish I’d thought of that trick. The real problem here is the signage. There are arrows pointing everywhere, but no one can tell which road is being pointed to.

  74. 74.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I couldn’t believe how nice they were about it! Pull that shit in America, and 10 people will flip you off and call you a stupid fucking bitch before you get a block down the road.

    The time I was going the wrong way in San Francisco, which is incredibility easy to do, the other drivers merely flashed their lights at me.

  75. 75.

    rikyrah

    @tobie:
    I understand.
    Hillary did two big mistakes in 2016:
    1. Not treating Wilmer the way that she treated Senator Obama in 2008
    2. Not taking the GOP Voter Suppression as seriously as she should have…..a reminder…
    The number of people denied the franchise in those key states was 2-3 times the margin of victory for Dolt45

  76. 76.

    Regnad Kcin

    Last time we were in Germany, my wife went out and got lost in Berlin. Called me up. “What street are you on?”

    “Einbahn,” came the reply.

  78. 78.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I honestly think that the number of people who like politics to be vitriolic and take-no-prisoners is actually pretty low. The vast majority of people just want the government to get shit done like fill their potholes, have police/fire protection, etc.

    The problem is the small number of screamers who have managed to convince people that the other side wants to literally kill them so they have to hit first.

    This is a long and rambling way to say that I can see how a politician who just wants to get stuff done could be suckered by the soothing tones of No Labels, and it’s good that they’re admitting they got suckered and promise to try not to do it again.

  79. 79.

    Fair Economist

    @tobie:

    More than the content, I was struck at how strong her voice sounded in the clip. This stood out to me since I complained during the campaign that she needed a voice coach. It was scary to see how our likes and dislikes are so easily manipulated.

    It’s not *that* easy. There was a tremendous amount of work generating dislike and disapproval for Clinton – literally billions of free air in the TV networks alone, plus newspapers, plus social media. It was hard not to be sucked in. I suspect a lot of the reason CDS missed me is that I don’t consume much of the media used for manipulation – I almost never watch TV news, only read newspaper some of the time, and only use social media when forced to.

  80. 80.

    Amir Khalid

    @Quaker in a Basement:
    The manager of Liverpool FC, an exuberant German named Jürgen Klopp, was just fined £8,000 for running onto the pitch before the end of the match to celebrate a goal.

  81. 81.

    PaulWartenberg

    on the other side of the pond, the UK Parliament just voted on measures that defeated May’s attempts to fast-track the Brexit vote, meaning it’s very likely her deal is going down to defeat on the next vote.

    The Brexit situation is looking more like one of the worst self-owns in political history. Cameron didn’t really need to make that promise for a referendum, but he and the country got lied to by a Far Right media that just hated the EU (and there’s enough evidence of Russian meddling to suggest Putin’s destabilizing agenda was at play).

    The situation is dire because both major parties – Tories and Labour – are internally divided on Brexit as well. if the current government collapses there’s no guarantee one party will unite enough seats for a solid majority.

    Madness. MADNESS (and no, not the band)

  83. 83.

    BR

    Dumb question — why hasn’t anyone suggested to the Wisconsin or Michigan Dems to filibuster and/or basically occupy the legislature for the next few weeks until the lame duck session is over? While there might be some rules they’d be breaking, those rules would only get sorted out in court well after the lame duck session.

  84. 84.

    sm*t cl*de

    @TenguPhule:

    “They have not lived up to the commitments so far,” Mr. Bolton said. “That’s why I think Trump thinks another summit is likely to be productive.”

    “My boss is a dumbarsed fuckstick, and I want it on record that his self-delusive stupidity is not my idea.”

  85. 85.

    Amir Khalid

    @PaulWartenberg:
    I saw a clip on the BBC site wherein a reporter pressed her repeatedly to say if she would resign should this happen. Her reply, was the same talking point expressed in the same words: that she was focused on … something. It made me think, “How like a Republican.”

  89. 89.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Booger: Friend told me that when he was driving on the Autobahn he wondered why all the towns the hiway led to were named Einfahrt.

  92. 92.

    Fair Economist

    @BR:

    Dumb question — why hasn’t anyone suggested to the Wisconsin or Michigan Dems to filibuster and/or basically occupy the legislature for the next few weeks until the lame duck session is over?

    I don’t know the specific rule there, but my guess is that meaningful filibusters aren’t possible. Wendy Davis’ famous filibuster, for example, required all kinds of personal restrictions, like she couldn’t lean on anything IIRC, and so she could only do it one day. These Republican legislatures have weeks to destroy democracy.

  99. 99.

    Platonailedit

    I wonder if Mueller is waiting until 9PM to release the Michael Flynn sentencing memorandum so that Sean Hannity can find out that he's implicated in this mess live on air?— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) December 5, 2018

    Indicting klannity will be the peach today.

  100. 100.

    Aleta

    Pierre Omidyar @pierre
    Wisely, the Constitution was concerned about corruption, and our federal system allows States to sue when Congress refuses to act.

    Norm Eisen @NormEisen
    here are the actual subpoenas in the #emoluments case–lots of them! Fasten your seatbelts folks–the evidence is going to prove one of the most systematic constitutional ethics violations in US history

    Links to the pdfs at a .gov :
    http://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2018-12/Emoluments-Trump-Organization-Subpoenas.pdf
    http://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2018-12/Emoluments-Federal-Government-Subpoenas.pdf

  101. 101.

    NotMax

    @Aleta

    The word “ethics” does not make so much as a single appearance in the Constitution, therefore is moot .

    /Federalist Society ‘originalist’ judges

  102. 102.

    Procopius

    @TenguPhule: Bolton is misrepresenting what North Korea promised. We’ve seen that done since Yalta. America makes an agreement with Russia. The Russians are very clear what they promised and scrupulously adhere to the exact letter of the agreement. Right wing Americans interpret the words differently or just lie about what was agreed and accuse the Russians of lying and being unfaithful to their words. The public often doesn’t have any way to find out what the actual deal was, so they believe it.

  103. 103.

    Mnemosyne

    @BR:

    IIRC, the last time the Wisconsin Democrats wanted to halt a Republican vote, they had to physically leave the state to deny a quorum, because the WI state police can be sent out to forcibly bring them to the capitol. So it sounds like they don’t have a lot of recourse when it comes to slowing down or stopping the majority.

  104. 104.

    A Ghost To Most

    @emrys: I pulled up to a traffic light on a two lane street.in Paris. A car pulled into the lane to my left, then another to his left. A car pulled up next to me in the parking lane, then another to his right on the sidewalk. When the light changed, I sat there and watched. The guy on the sidewalk won.

    Another joy of France is that ( at least back then), people coming into a traffic circle had the right-of-way over people already in the circle, which was exciting.

  106. 106.

    burnspbesq

    CNBC is reporting that The Special Counsel’s office is recommending a light sentence for Flynn.

    Where’s my fucking PACER login and password?

  110. 110.

    Chyron HR

    @rikyrah:

    “Conflicted Miller FAILED to find any dirt on Rat Flynn! Proof his 65.6 million angry Democrat investigation is a HOAX!”

  112. 112.

    laura

    @Aleta: holy Toledo, shit just got real. So many demands to produce records, communications, taxes, room rates, iiieeeee! Shitler is going to go Def Con 5.
    And that’s just emoluments.

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @A Ghost To Most:
    Of all the cities I been to Naples Italy is the worst. First day 5 of us took a cab. I sat front seat. Driver swerves onto the trolly tracks in the middle of the underpass with a train bearing down on us from the other direction. As the light turns yellow the opposite direction, he floors it, cuts off the guy in the left lane and just misses the train. Fancy bit of driving, I’d have preferred not to be in the best viewing position. As our time in Naples progressed we noticed that trick was nothing. I’ve driven in Boston, NYC, LA, SF, Atlanta, through out FL including Orlando and Miami, I’ve driven across the US a number of times, once drove a 73 ft rig across in 2 1/2 days. Naples is my worst memory.

  117. 117.

    Aleta

    @NotMax: And for the longest time we thought the words “public scandal” and “open corruption” had some relation, some of the time, to “resign” and “disgrace.” It took people like Neil Bush, Cheney and the entire Trump OC Familia to straighten us out.

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