BRING ME THE HEAD OF DEVIN NUNES
— Cake or Death (@Johngcole) November 7, 2018
Bob Mueller getting all Oprah up in here:
The Special Counsel’s Office and federal prosecutors in Manhattan are scrutinizing a meeting involving former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, one-time National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and dozens of foreign officials, according to three sources familiar with the investigations.
The breakfast event, which was first reported by The Daily Sabah, a pro-government Turkish paper, took place at 8:30 a.m. at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 18, 2017—days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration. About 60 people were invited, including diplomats from governments around the world, according to those same sources.
The breakfast has come under scrutiny by federal prosecutors in Manhattan as part of their probe into whether the Trump inaugural committee misspent funds and if donors tried to buy influence in the White House. The existence of that probe was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The Special Counsel’s Office is also looking at the breakfast as part of its investigation into whether foreigners contributed money to the Trump inaugural fund and PAC by possibly using American intermediaries, as first reported by The New York Times. Robert Mueller’s team has asked Flynn about the event, according to two sources familiar with the Special Counsel’s Office questioning.
This might be something Rep. Adam Schiff, the new House Intelligence Committee chairman, should look into.
rikyrah
Follow the THREAD??
??????? ?. ??????? (@wdlindsy) Tweeted:
So this has happened:
1. Jan. 7: Washington Post breaks Opus Dei-McCloskey story.
2. Jan. 8: Cardinal Burke mounts an attack on Pope Francis on German t.v., saying his response to the abuse crisis is “confusing.” /1 https://twitter.com/wdlindsy/status/1084951270312562691?s=17
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: It’s funny, because I was just thinking about that snake Vigano yesterday (as in, what ever happened with THAT?).
A very lapsed Catholic, but I feel very protective of Pope Francis. He is a breath of fresh air, and those conservatives are the worst, the very worst. Big reason I am a lapsed Catholic. I hope it breaks very badly for Opus Dei etc.
dmsilev
Seeing Devin Nunes perp-walked out of Congress would make my month. I’d say ‘year’, but I’m saving that for people with the surname ‘Trump’.
Baud
Foreigners are stealing American grift.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Actually Burke’s attacks predate this. He’s been working with the Vatican official that Pope Francis purged several months ago to essentially try to subvert the Church, remove Francis, and either reinstall Benedict or someone similar to him. This has been coming for a long time.
Barbara
@dmsilev: You know by the way he acted from the beginning that he was up to his ears in illegal stuff. And yet Paul Ryan let him be the chairman of the House Intelligence committee.
Adam L Silverman
I told you all so!
Nice to see the actual reporters catch up to what I’ve been saying here for two years.
Raoul Paste
Nunes always seemed like SUCH a weasel.
I hope his passport is being revoked.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Adam L Silverman: in part because of BJ, I wasn’t remotely surprised by this story. Have you any additional insight on the potential intelligence and legal signifiers of this reporting? A lot of it still feels opaque to me. On a scale of, IDK, Papadopoulos to Manafort, how screwed is Devin Nunes?
plato
jl
I don’t have time to read the article carefully, but searched for mentions of ‘White House’.
Did Mueller already finish investigating Nunes secret night trip to the White House, or at least to rendezvous with WH officials.
I guess so, since it seems not mentioned in the article, so not news anymore?
patrick II
@Barbara:
That would surprise me more I didn’t think Ryan was also up to his ears in illegal stuff.
Felanius Kootea
I sincerely hope Devin Nunes goes to jail and will do a happy dance if/when he does.
In other news, I think an alien life-form has received and is responding to our distress signals about 45’s administration (BBC link on mysterious radio signals from deep space).
raven
The Babushkas of Chernobyl is worth your hour and ten minutes.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
I was never actually Catholic, so I’m limited in how lapsed I can be (when I was 10-11-12 yo, I really wanted to be a nun, but that didn’t go over all that well with my Presbyterian grandmother). However, I’m with you on feeling protective of Pope Francis. I felt the same way about that sweet Pope John Paul I, who I am certain was murdered. ?
plato
different-church-lady
@Felanius Kootea: “SEND MORE CHUCK BERRY.”
jl
@Adam L Silverman: ” I told you all so! ”
You didn’t have to tell me so! This is more stuff that seemed very obviously so fishy at the time, as in ‘how can they possibly let that go?’ fishy.
So, more stuff that was reported out before, but amazingly to me, dropped out of sight later, and now finally comes back with an officially recognized ‘fishy’ label on it, as if that was ever needed.
But of course, you provided all the details and similar administrative technothriller stuff that I do not understand.
So, thanks for your work on this blog.
plato
The totus’ turd touch.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: You’ve just been saying it with reason and logic and sources and actual arguments. Why would reporters try to get into all that?
I think the best I’ve been able to do is “hundreds of indictments on dozens of people!!!” over and over. Points for consistency, but not nearly as good as your stuff!
SiubhanDuinne
@(((CassandraLeo))):
I’m a participant in a few left-leaning chat groups, and while I’m always grateful for their political stances, it takes me aback EVERY TIME when one of them posts “breaking news” or some brilliant “insight” that we’ve done to death here on BJ :-)
jl
@plato: McConnell, apparently, saw it coming. I remember reading that one of the first things he did after Trump was in office, was to make the rounds of his big money cronies and plan how to handle the comping complete flop of Trump’s promises on coal.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Hasn’t the BDS movement fizzled out anyway? What’s the point?
Chetan Murthy
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I doubt it’s fizzled out; indeed, I think it’s just getting started.
jl
This is sinister, and I think another impeachable offense, if anything remotely close to this happens.
‘Senior Trump Official’ On Shutdown: ‘We Do Not Want Most Employees To Return’
Matt Shuham, TPM
An unnamed “senior official in the Trump administration” wrote in an anonymous Daily Caller op-ed Monday that the record-breaking 24-day partial government shutdown “is an opportunity to strip wasteful government agencies for good.”
While it’s unclear how “senior” this administration official is — many senior Trump officials are still being paid, while the author claims to be “one of the senior officials working without a paycheck” — the op-ed could offer a window into another goal of this shutdown, in addition to using federal workers’ paychecks as leverage in an attempt to extract border wall funds from Congress: starving the government.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/senior-trump-official-anonymous-daily-caller-op-ed-shutdown-federal-workers
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: How sad, if that were true re JP1.
I do think the rightwingers canonized JP2 faster than anything I have ever seen (and threw in John XXIII to sweeten the deal) to keep him “protected” if all the scandals were traced back to his leadership (even if not personal misdoings). “What, are you going to say that about a SAINT?”
JP2 is a political saint.
rikyrah
Never forget…
Nunes’ business partners are Russians with deep connections to Putin??
Jeffro
In support of my (not all that hard to make) “hundreds of indictments” argument…I’m seeing reports of the trumpov hotel flat-out getting a $1M+ payment of some sort (on top of room rentals) for the inauguration, and Brad Parscale receiving $2M+ for “digital services” for the inauguration as well. Um, what?
This coupled with the obvious money laundering/kickbacks/which-is-it-I-can’t-even-keep-track-anymore of Melania’s assistant that scored several mil on the inauguration…SO. MUCH. CORRUPTION. But still of the same variety that Fred Trumpov taught his son Donnie: just way overpay family members and confederates* and that’s how you “legally” transfer (ie, launder) dirty money.
*you see what I did there, right?
jl
@rikyrah: OK. thanks for correcting the typo. I thought you were making a confession and turning yourself in.
I expect big breaking news like that from a full service almost top 10,000 blog. But, not today, I guess.
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
He was murdered??
I have no doubt about that either
randy khan
@dmsilev:
Sadly, he can’t be arrested on the floor of the House,* although that would make C-SPAN must-see TV.
*It’s in the Constitution, in fact.
rikyrah
@jl:
LOL
I hate autocorrect??
Quinerly
@different-church-lady:
?
Ken
Well duh.
Well double duh. In fairness, I think past donors have also hoped for influence; the difference is that this time they could get quotes for prices.
Ruckus
@plato:
Cheap coal isn’t as cheap any more, most of it seems to be gone. Most of the coal fired power plants are old and past their replace by dates and nothing is going to change that. No one wants to build new coal fired power plant as the cost of delivering coal rises with the cost of diesel fuel to power the trains and barges that deliver it and the needed emissions laws make coal an even higher cost fuel. IOW it’s problem with coal, not a shit for brains president issue.
We can’t blame him for this, but in his defense he has lots and lots of issues that we can blame him for.
MomSense
This news makes me ridiculously happy.
BTW I think Nunes and fuck You Paul Ryan are very close friends. Wonder if they attended any of those parties with underage girls at Nunes’ winery.
Jay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
BDS is getting stronger every year. Since the Coronation of the Pantsless Emperor, all the air has been sucked out of the US Media room,
But outside the US the world keeps turning.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/may/14/israeli-troops-kill-palestinians-protesting-against-us-embassy-move-to-jerusalem-live-updates
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/blogs/americas/2018/01/israel-fear-bds-movement-180108135253899.html
Yutsano
@Jeffro: What has been accomplished has been witnessed.
With the exception of Barron and possibly Tiffany, that whole family is rotten as hell. Every single one of them needs massive amounts of civil forfeiture and nice long jail sentences. And then we can work on the Republican enablers.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: Everyone complains about autocorrect. But nobody ever turns it off.
MomSense
@MomSense:
Here’s a news article about it.
cocaine and prostitutes at winery yacht party
Ruckus
@Ken:
Highest bidder wins influence. Nothing like a crime family running an entire country. On the bright side they aren’t very good at it, either in work output or hiding the crimes. The mob was at least efficient at doing what they did. This clown car, driven by shit for brains has 3 flat tires, the doors are falling off and they have no idea how/where to put the gas in.
Ken
@randy khan:
Except for treason, felony, and breach of the peace.
Also the house must be in session, and I imagine the Speaker could arrange a brief adjournment. (Though that’s tricky, since the immunity extends to “going to and returning from the same” – so is a member safe if he never goes home?)
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
Hi, my name is nobody.
chris
24/7/365 shitshow never ends. Greenwald was just on Tucker Carlson’s white power hour discussing the unfair treatment of Tulsi Gabbard.
Link
JR
Seems like a lot of these guys are switching brands to the National Razor company
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Chetan Murthy:
@Jay:
It’s real disappointing that more than zero Democratic governors have signed anti-BDS legislation in their states, such as Pennsylvania and Colorado.
I think it’s bogus to call the BDS movement antisemitic or that it attacks the legitimacy of Israel as a state.
Elizabelle
I kid you not, this is in the LA Times at the moment! Full story, in their sports roundup.
Whoa. I wonder if that was meant to make it to the website.
The Dangerman
@Yutsano:
RICO solve, eh?
Unfortunately, if they are all busted down to poor, I might someday have a burger* made by a Trump; I’m not sure that is wise.
* Speaking of burgers, how big of an asshole do you have to be to serve Wendy’s and Burger King to a bunch of D1 athletes, some of whom are getting ready for the Combine.
Chetan Murthy
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I’m no historian, but I was in college when the divestment movement was really ramped-up. I’m guessing it didn’t get much institutional support, either. Every bullet Likudnik Israel expends on protestors’ kneecaps, every time they bulldoze a Palestinian’s home, they’re making it clear to decent people both inside and outside Israel that they’re beyond the pale. I just hope they don’t destroy Israel in the process. Likudniks. Feh.
Chetan Murthy
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: As a techie with a PhD, I have a ton of Jewish friends. One of them was extolling the many merits of visiting Israel the last time I had dinner with him. On and on and on. I didn’t say much at the time, but after a few months, I felt compelled to email him and note that there was no way i could imagine visiting Israel, as long as it was an apartheid state. I don’t know how many people feel similarly, but I’m guessing it’s growing.
ETA: just to be clear, I’m quite sure most American Jews don’t support what Israel is doing. in the Occupied Territories. And this friend (is still a friend and) is not an American — from South America.
Adam L Silverman
@(((CassandraLeo))): I don’t know how screwed he is. Clearly there’s a leak somewhere, though we can rule out the Special Counsel’s Office. This leak may have been done to let Schiff know that his problem child counterpart is an even bigger problem, so he needs to be compartmented off from pretty much everything.
This isn’t the only meeting with Flynn that Nunes was involved with during the transition. If I’m recalling correctly he was also involved in the meeting with the Turks about Gulen and he was in one of the meetings where Flynn was communicating with the Russians. Part of the issue all along has been that while Mueller is running both criminal and counterintelligence investigations, we don’t know the overlap. This is what a lot of the President’s defenders got wrong over the weekend; counterintelligence investigations are intended to identify the intelligence breach or problem, triage it quickly, map the entire thing out, then get it closed for good. They don’t always result in criminal prosecutions. And they often run completely out of sight of anyone not read onto them. And they can take decades. Given all that Nunes may be facing serious issues because of the counterintelligence investigation and we just don’t know that. Given the reporting, which I’ve covered here on the front page, that American officials believe Nunes was giving classified US information to officials in Lajes, it may be that the Russians have ascertained exactly what that was and have compromising information on him. It may simply he be he’s tied his fortunes to the President and is in trouble because of that.
Martin
7 out of 53 reps from CA are republicans. One is under indictment and is likely to report to prison before his term ends. If Nunes gets read, that would go down to 5.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Wasn’t covered in the leak. And since Mueller doesn’t leak, whomever did doesn’t have that information.
Adam L Silverman
@raven:
is the name of my Death Metal Kletzmer band.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Fine, I didn’t tell you so. Happy now?
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I know Spencer Ackerman. I once guest blogged for him when he was at Wired. He’s good people and an excellent reporter.
dmsilev
@Elizabelle: I get the LA Times print edition (I’m old fashioned in some ways and like reading a newspaper over breakfast). I’ll try to remember to look for that tomorrow morning.
stinger
I just googled “Steve King Iowa”, and to the right of the search results are his pic and the beginning of his Wikipedia bio. Under his name it says “Former U.S. Representative”. !!!!! If only! The only stories about him are about his being removed from committee assignments. Nothing about his resigning or being kicked out.
Still, it makes me happy!
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: The Christian Zionists are very bothered by it. And Christian Zionism has become one of the dominant dogmatic components of white evangelicalism in the US.
Jay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Both benches of the US political divide clung to Aparthaid long after the rest of the World condemned it, boycotted it, divested from it and sanctioned it.
The $2 billion dollars Israel spends on K Street alone every year, buys a lot of US Politicians.
Tag teaming up with Putin, Mohammed Bone Saw, etc to ratfuck the 2016 Elections might eventually “dent” the relationship a little more.
Luring the US into Iraq dented it a little.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: You have email!
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
I keep it turned off on my devices.
Quinerly
@stinger: may have been mentioned, one of committees he has been kicked off of is Judiciary.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Yup, on it.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: Not a very sharp guy. He could have had his own hotel cater a proper meal, comped it, then written off his taxes.
plato
@Martin: Traitor nunes still won by a comfortable margin (along with mcccarthy) even after exposure of his corrupt collusion. What kind of voters are from his county?
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Danke!
stinger
@SiubhanDuinne: Me too! I was a good Methodist, but Audrey Hepburn really made nunning look like an appealing career choice.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Jay:
@Adam L Silverman:
Unfortunately, from what I’ve read, it’s not just American politicians who have accused BDS of being antisemitic. From Canada, to Australia, to all across Europe, public figures have criticized it, including JK Rowling.
Adam L Silverman
Why is he wearing his overcoat inside the White House?
And yes, I know, he’s wearing it because he thinks it hides his girth.
satby
@Adam L Silverman: my god, he’s so proud of himself for having a crapfest for a buffet.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
Someone replied, “The Adventures of Baron Trumphausen.”
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: I think I read the WH hasn’t paid its water bill. Maybe it hasn’t paid the heating bill either. Oddly, I also seem to recall pictures around Christmas time in the WH and Melania had her coat on too.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
People are going crazy writing dialogue balloons for the Lincoln portrait.
plato
@Adam L Silverman: That fugly creepy grin again. ugh.
jl
@plato: McCarthy is from Bakersfield in the Kern Basin, which is a little bit of Oklahoma inside California. And not just metaphorically, since that is probably the last place in the Central Valley that the Great Depression refugees from dustbowl (Okies, Dakes, Nebs…. etc.) keep a cultural mark on the area.
And Nunes’ district is east and southeast of Fresno. Fresno is the southern frontier of now mostly blue and purple Central Valley.
Times change. Back in the day economically progressive dustbowl refugees from Oklahoma, which once was a largely progressive state, made most of the Central Valley reliable Democratic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: You can see Lincoln can barely stand to be in the room
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
You can say it. His fat. Go on, you know you want to do it.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: speaking of Trump and his coat, remember that “production” he made taking off his overcoat before he sat down in the church at Bush’s funeral? Slinging it off dramatically and handing it to an aide waiting for it in the aisle. Such an ass.
Ken
@Adam L Silverman:
He called Rep. Jim Jordan and asked how coaches normally dressed around athletes?
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman:
Starting to feel like I’m getting my money’s worth out of this B-J subscription.
Jay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Likkuid talking points, cash and other “accidental” events have an impact.
As an example, look at the ReThug Party.
How many ‘Murkin’s still think it’s the party of Reagan, fiscally responsible and the National Security Party,
And how many see it as an extistential threat to American democracy, the economy and National Security?
It takes a long time to change “concensus”.
“The report outlined Israel’s failure to stem the “impressive growth” and “significant successes” of the BDS movement and set out strategies, endorsed by the Israeli government, aimed at reversing the deterioration in Israel’s position.
Similarly, in March, Israel’s top anti-BDS strategist conceded that the boycott Israel movement is winning – despite the Israeli government’s allocation of tens of millions of dollars and the formation of an entire governmental ministry whose sole focus is to combat BDS.
Speaking at an anti-BDS conference in New York, Israeli ambassador Danny Danon stated that “the BDS movement is still active and still strong. Every day, academic and religious groups, student unions and investment firms are all falling prey to boycott calls.”
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/what-were-top-bds-victories-2017
Kay
The inauguration was wildly corrupt. Just think about that. From the get-go, it was grift and greed and cronyism and incompetence and sucking up to autocrats.
Has any President ever had an investigation into their inauguration before?
B.B.A.
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Speaking as a Jew, I don’t think BDS is antisemitic and I consider Israel to be an illegitimate state.
I know this is a tiny fringe position, but hopefully as 1967 and 1973 recede from living memory the scales will fall from the world’s eyes as they fell from mine.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump should have checked what kind of fast food Lincoln ate.
And, you people are harsh. Trump gets no points for all the salads? I don’t think Trump would eat that stuff. Maybe someone clued him in that athletes need some kind of balance in their diet.
DanH
@different-church-lady:
Nevr yuse it miself.
debbie
@B.B.A.: @B.B.A.:
If scales were ever going to fall, they would have by now.
Quinerly
@Ruckus: we are fast approaching the year anniversary of THAT physical and Melania making those grandiose statements about getting him to eat healthier and to exercise.
Kay
They are going to have to hire more investigators. Trump only had time to obstruct justice on the big scandals. He had to let a whole slew of them go unobstructed. There are crimes just there for the taking.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Unfortunately in Scotland, as is the case in England, there is some overlap between support for the Palestinians and actual anti-Semitism. This is largely not the case in the US, though it is often alleged. I support the Palestinian’s pursuit of self-determination. I have serious concerns and problems with what Israel, as a nation-state occupying territory that is not their’s, is doing vis a vis the Palestinians. As an American national security professional I have serious strategic concerns about Israel’s actions as a nation-state who is a client of the US’s. I’m obviously not anti-Semitic, nor do these concerns make me so.
Mary G
@Elizabelle: @dmsilev:
Quinerly
@Kay: ?
Adam L Silverman
@satby: President Lincoln is clearly judging him.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: Leave the kid out of this.//
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: She has her coat on because she’s put weight on in the hips as she approaches fifty. The coat is intended to obscure this, whether she’s actually wearing it or just draping it over her shoulders.
randy khan
@Ken:
There was a wild case years back involving a search warrant for somebody’s Congressional office (IIRC, this was the guy who put the bribe money in his freezer – yes, the cold cash jokes were rampant), in which the Congressman argued that the speech and debate clause prevented the FBI from executing the warrant. Happily, he lost.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: Whoever staffs him does a terrible job. Whichever senior civilian aide was accompanying him that day should have taken his coat before he was led to his seat by the Soldier serving as an usher.
Ken
@Quinerly: I wonder if the results of this year’s physical will be released. Strike that – I wonder if he will even have a physical this year.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
I suspect “political sainthood” is pretty common in the 2,000-year history of the Church. JP2 qualifies, for sure. His canonization was almost obscenely hasty.
P.S. I’d still like to know why Benedict decided to retire so abruptly. Whether it’s to do with the pedophile/abuse scandals, or something less salacious (like money-laundering), it feels like there’s a huge untold story there.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Please establish a Patreon for me!!!//
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: your areas of expertise continue to amaze me! Women sneaking up on 50 tend to gain weight in their hips and waist? Wow! Wonder if she is menopausal? ? As a 57 year old woman, I continue to be fascinated by the obscure stuff I learn on this blog.?
Ohio Mom
@Adam L Silverman: Melania’s had so much plastic surgery already, what’s stopping her from getting her hips done?
On another note, we Juicers of southwest Ohio had a lovely meet up this evening. Photos have been sent to Anne Laurie. Thanks for all your behind-the-scenes help in pulling this event together, Adam.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: You’ll have to talk with the boss man. I’m just a random nobody here.
Martin
@plato: Agricultural. Low latino turnout, and Nunes has a pretty good reputation in the area for being good on local issues (water, ag, etc.). That was largely before 2016, though.
Quinerly
@Ken: I was wondering the same thing a few days ago. Good times a year ago on BJ, as I recall. Kidding aside, do we know who replaced Ronnie Jackson in the WH?
Gin & Tonic
@randy khan: William Jefferson, (D), LA-2.
Ruckus
@Quinerly:
He’s 3 yrs older than me. He’s a fucking idiot. He thinks every thing he does is the best. I’m neither of those. I used to own a triathlon/bicycle shop, I rode, ran and exercised for years. I have health issues and find it difficult doing more than walking. He doesn’t do that, can’t do that. He’s not exercising. He’s not changing his diet. He’s not losing weight. He pays docs to say he’s fit as a piano crate. And not as big. They lie, he might not even fit in a piano crate.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: What actually struck me is she actually didn’t really have much in the way of hips. The other day someone posted the pictures from one of her photoshoots, the one where she’s wearing the red thong monokini, sunglasses, and pointing a blinged out 1911 style pistol. She’s somewhere between a rectangle and an inverted triangle.
Steve in the ATL
@Yutsano:
Tiffany is in law school, so it’s down to Barron.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: She has to wait for the swelling to go down in her chest from her kidney procedure.//
sdhays
@Ken: Yes, “whether” the Trump inauguration committee misspent funds and “if” donors tried to buy influence is pretty ridiculous at this point. It’s pretty obvious that’s what was going on; Mueller is documenting and (hopefully!) prosecuting the atrocities.
Steve in the ATL
@Ohio Mom: thanks for driving it! Was great to meet everyone. I appreciate the warm welcome (it’s 15 degrees here).
Jay
“A Saudi teen who arrived in Canada Saturday after fleeing her family says she needed to risk her life in order to live freely and be independent, and is very happy to be in Canada.
“I felt that I was reborn, especially when I felt the love and the welcome.”
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, told the CBC’s Susan Ormiston in an interview on Monday that she never thought there was even a one per cent chance that she would be able to come to Canada, or that people would be talking about her story around the world.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saudi-teen-fled-thailand-canada-1.4977664
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: The guy probably wanted to and to follow protocol. That business with the coat at the funeral was all Trump. If you watch it again, it’s like it was orchestrated… he juts his jaw out. The former presidents and wives are forced to look up. As my Southern mother would have said, “it’s a production.” Loose translation…..calling attention to one’s self. He couldn’t do the normal thing and just walk in and sit his fat ass down. (I heard men of a certain age tend to gain weight in many areas?)
Steve in the ATL
@raven:
Quit trying to class up the joint—it ain’t gonna work!
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Now they have to keep her safe from MBS’s wetwork team.
Kay
Melania is implicated in the inauguration scandal, so I enjoy that. The more the merrier, I say.
Melania, lest we forget, is a birther:
The lady who never turned over her immigration docs “feels” the former President’s birth record is fake. She’s a horrible person, which she has made abundantly clear to anyone who chose to look.
Gin & Tonic
Tomorrow, January 15, is 100 years to the day since the Great Boston Molasses Flood. 21 people died, and large parts of the North End were destroyed.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
“We” will.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: again, you reveal another whole area of expertise. What exactly is a monokini?
Jay
@Quinerly:
It started out as a topless swimsuit.
Now it’s a one piece swimsuit with large cut outs to expose more flesh.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: It would not surprise me if that was the case.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: I know.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: My apologies, it was an actual bikini. Here’s the thread I was referring to, courtesy of the White Hat hacker known as The Jester!
Omnes Omnibus
@Quinerly: One piece suit with cutouts to make it more like a bikini in appearance.
plato
@Martin: Low latino turnout. Even at this point?
Quinerly
@Omnes Omnibus: @Adam L Silverman: love a full service blog. And to think, I was just a lowly Hawaiian Tropic chick on a local poster in NC while in college. We (5 girls) wore just old fashioned crochet bikinis (mine was chocolate brown), sold Hawaiian Tropic and rented surfboards from tacky little makeshift huts. Pre monokini, obviously.? I love this blog!
Sebastian
TICK TOCK MOTHERFUCKERS!
Fatalysk Barnes
Maybe Nune’s Armenian constituency (whom he clearly does not remember)in Fresno (there’s a lot of them) will have something to say re: him cuddling up and selling out to Turks.
Steve in the ATL
@Quinerly: pics or it didn’t happen
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: We’ll update your dossier.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: @Steve in the ATL: next time I’m at the beach place in NC, I’ll dig out the poster and somehow figure out how to scan it. Will send it to Alain for “On the Road.” (We will have to keep this from Poco because he thinks he’s the only one who can be “showcased” in BJ) So when Alain includes the poster pic, it will be our little secret how to identify me. I’m on the far end, waist length brunette hair, leaning on a yellowish long board. 18 years old… three jobs in my life… Hawaiian Tropic hawker, bartender, and lawyer. A great poet once said, “two out of three ain’t bad.” ?
jl
@Martin: True. But no one can get elected in rural Central Valley without being, or promising, to be very good on local issues, especially water and agriculture. In fact, that was a major point of attack against Josh Harder in CA 10, he did not bang the table or throw chairs when talking about water policy, was called on it, and he had to do penance.
Andrew Janz was a great candidate for the Dems, and I contributed often enough to follow his campaign, I think Janz was much more proactive and adament in reassuring voters he would watch out for the local district issues than Harder. So, I think turnout and general political ideology of the district was important.
Ladyraxterinok
@rikyrah: Lindsey’s blog bilgrimage.blogspot.com is always very good. He and his husband live in Arkansas; they were Catholic theologians until they were fired for being gay.
He posts info on the priest abuse of children around the world, the Church and its actions re LGBTQ people,
HEwomen, immigrants.
Before the 12 election he posted a great deal about the bishops working with the GOP.
He was raised in Arkansas in the SoBapt church and has posted a great deal about whites’ attitudes toward and treatment of blacks in Arkansas since the Civil War.
rikyrah
@Jay:
So glad that she got out
Ladyraxterinok
@Elizabelle: Lindsey has very negative things to say about the Pope he calls ‘the saint’. Esp because of his indifference to the clergy abuse and actually promoting, protecting those known to be involved in participating and/or cover-up.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Adam L Silverman: cool; thanks. A lot of unknowns still, but that’s no surprise, I suspect Mueller and the House both have quite a bit left to investigate, still.
Ladyraxterinok
@rikyrah: His death was very suspicious and very convenient for many high in the church.
I wonder about Thomas Merton’s death as well, though many knowlegeable people were sure there was no cause for suspicion. Merton was publically and persuasively opposed to the Vietnam War.
Sebastian
@Quinerly:
Fits that quote about Teddy Roosevelt? A corpse at every funeral, a bride at every wedding?
I never thought I’d actually see behavior like that in real life. He couldn’t stand NOT being center of attention. Christ, what an asshole.
Sebastian
@Kay:
She is stupid like a fence post, too. Like literally a moron.
One thing that always weirded me out about Melania is how much her facial features resemble Trump! And then it dawned on me that Donnie picked her because of that. So when he sees her he sees himself.
The sick fuck.
Ladyraxterinok
@Adam L Silverman: See John Hagee and his gigantic organization.
Hagee was an advisor or some such to McCain in 08 until it became known to the M$M that the group he runs subscribes to the theology that before the Rapture can occur Jews must convert to Christianity. Those who don’t will die horribly. So the ‘great love for the Jews’ that Evangelicals profess is in actually based in part on the role their conversion or death plays in enabling the culmination of Christianity. (As based on a 19th century view of Biblical prophesy encoded in the Schofield Bible.)
Ladyraxterinok
@jl: I read that in the early 20th century OK was one of the most socialist states in the US.
Ladyraxterinok
@SiubhanDuinne: There’s apparently something off in his brother’s diocese (Iirc brother has some major church position in Germany)
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
If I had read that when you writ it last night, my laugh would have awakened the sleeping Mrs. SFAW.
Semi-related: Was it you who posted “Bohemian Chanukah” here last month?
SFAW
@Quinerly:
Don’t I know it. Mrs. SFAW is classy enough not to “notice” it.
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
When I first came to this area, I read some travel-guide-like thing that said something like “on some days, if the weather conditions are right, you can still smell the molasses.” That was in the early 1970s. I had a tough time believing it then, but must confess I never checked. But, yeah, it was pretty bad.