Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Giving up is unforgivable. ~Joe Biden

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / The Leaks Begin

The Leaks Begin

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I like the styling of the headline in parallel to Trump’s “Some say”.

Some on Mueller’s Team See Their Findings as More Damaging for Trump Than Barr Revealed

It’s not clear how many leakers there are from Mueller’s team, and they are speaking through others.

Some of Robert S. Mueller III’s investigators have told associates that Attorney General William P. Barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated, according to government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations. [my bolding]

But it looks like more than one, and it looks like they are talking to more than one of their friends.

The Mueller team held complete secrecy during the investigation, so this leak is quite deliberate. They don’t want their report to be misrepresented.

Early concern was that Attorney General William Barr would misrepresent the report and set the narrative in that misrepresentation. Polls have shown, however, that a large majority of the country wants to see the report, even a majority of Republicans. The House of Representatives voted unanimously that the report should be released. That includes the Republicans, who felt free to do that because they knew that Mitch McConnell would never let it come to a vote in the Senate. Now they will have to live with their vote.

Barr’s gambit will not work. The longer the report is withheld, the more it will be in the news, the more suspense will build for the revelations.

And there will be leaks.

And an open thread.

 

Update: And now the Washington Post weighs in with a similar story. Looks like the leakers and their allies are shopping this around to multiple news outlets. There was another story a while back where they did that, but I can’t recall which one it was. Too late at night.

Reader Interactions

184Comments

  1. 1.

    A Ghost To Most

    My optimism remains intact, despite the below the belt shot last week. Fuckem.

  3. 3.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    Open thread, eh? I went out to photograph the San Gabriel Canyon Bald Eagles early this afternoon. They’ve increased the protective zone around the nest so I couldn’t get as close as before(about 25 yard further back), the eaglets are getting big, and I finally got some pics of one of the eagles in flight.

  5. 5.

    laura

    Let’s get leaking!!!
    Just got an invite to the day of action to release the report and ancillary materials…
    Hopefully a big turnout will pressure Barr and give a clear signal to potential leakers that the people have their backs.

  7. 7.

    Cheryl Rofer

  8. 8.

    Patricia Kayden

    It’s bizarre that Republicans think that they can keep such an important report out of the public eye when we’ve been waiting for it for almost two years. What nerve from the Party of Benghazi Hype.

  9. 9.

    Central Planning

    Planning a trip to Boston this weekend to do a college tour of Emerson. Only a 6-hour drive. An added bonus is I get to see my college roommate. Downside is I need to talk to the financial aid people.

  10. 10.

    Jay

    Every report that has ever crossed my desk came with a perfectly acceptable Executive Summary just after the title page and the index page.

    There was no need for Barr to write a summary not really a summary, okay sort of letter at all, other than as an attempt at a cover up.

  11. 11.

    Kirk Spencer

    @Cheryl Rofer: I keep picturing one of the people with the full report approaching a Democratic congressperson – AOC being an example – to be published in the congressional record. We’d get to revisit the fun of the Pentagon Papers.

  12. 12.

    geg6

    @Patricia Kayden:

    What’s bizarre to me is that Barr and Trump are stupid enough to think they could portray this however they wanted and no one on the investigative team would push back.

  13. 13.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay:

    There was no need for Barr to write a summary not really a summary, okay sort of letter at all, other than as an attempt at a cover up.

    I’m sure he’ll try to heavily redact the executive summary in the released version of the report, both to obscure how damning it is and to justify writing his own summary.

  14. 14.

    geg6

    @Central Planning:

    As a financial aid person, I reject the idea that we are bad news. We do the best we can with what we’re given to work with. We don’t make the rules or mandate the budgets. It’s not always a pleasant job, as we often are the bearers of bad news, but I love my job and try to do the best I can for my students.

  16. 16.

    LuciaMia

    And now that theres an official demand for Trumps tax returns,”What is the President trying to hide?” should be the first question at every WH press briefing. Oh, wait, do they still have those?

  17. 17.

    raven

    I’m sure we’ve all considered that the findings may be such that the menace would be removed from office and there will be blood in the streets?

  18. 18.

    drdavechemist

    @Central Planning: We visited Emerson but my kid felt the program was too limiting for someone with his diverse interests so he ended up at UMich where he’s trying to figure out how to double major in biology and music while also keeping up his interest in technical theater. Emerson will be a good fit if your kid likes urban life and has a clear career plan.

  20. 20.

    sukabi

    Called it?{ insert happy dance}.

    Still think before it’s over, if congress doesn’t get the full unredacted report it will be leaked in full.

    Also Cummings has indicated that the accounting firm that handled drumpfs taxes and financials for his bid to buy the Bills is ready to turn over his financials…

    And his taxes have officially been requested from treasury.

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    Commenter plato has not been shy about his disappointment since Barr’s letter came out apparently exonerating Trump. Let’s hope this news cheers plato up.
    ETA:
    @Plato:
    That was too much to hope for, I guess.

  22. 22.

    Kent

    Gotta wonder if there are copies of the Mueller Report out there on flash drives somewhere behing held in reserve in case Trump and his minions try to cover this all up. There were a lot of people working for Mueller and some of them seem quite patriotic.

    Just the threat of it could be enough.

  23. 23.

    Dan B

    Great news about the Mueller team pushback! I hope the media notice.

    Regarding the Wisconsin Supreme court justice who may have won the election. In 2005 he wrote, “The idea that homosexual behavior is different than bestiality as a constitutional matter is unjustifiable.” B. Hagedorn 10/2005

    I hope he’s evolved. :<(

  24. 24.

    Kent

    @sukabi:

    Called it?{ insert happy dance}.

    Still think before it’s over, if congress doesn’t get the full unredacted report it will be leaked in full.

    Also Cummings has indicated that the accounting firm that handled drumpfs taxes and financials for his bid to buy the Bills is ready to turn over his financials…

    And his taxes have officially been requested from treasury.

    If they were smart you’d think they’d get it all out now when people are only partially paying attention, instead of dragging things out and having everything leak during the heat of the 2020 campaign.

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    @geg6:

    What’s bizarre to me is that Barr and Trump are stupid enough to think they could portray this however they wanted and no one on the investigative team would push back.

    What do they have to lose? If the report is likely to be really damaging to Trump, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by holding it back. People love to say that the coverup is worse than the crime, but that’s not always true. In this case, it’s quite possible that the crime is bad enough that any degree of coverup is likely to be less damaging. In that case, there’s no reason at all for Trump or his people to release it until they’re absolutely forced to, and you can bet they’ll fight every step of the way.

  27. 27.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    The Gang of 8 get to see the unredacted report and all the background material.

    Pretty sure that one of them will sit down with the unredacted report and the redacted report, just for the purpose of interrogating Barr for 11 hours behind closed doors in the Secret Hearing, leading to 13 hours or so in the Public Hearings.

  30. 30.

    Dan B

    @Kent: I’ll bet that if it leaks or us released in minimally redacted form that there would be hearings followed by lawsuits all the way through 2020. I also hope there’s damage to Pence and others in the White House – many more.

  31. 31.

    B.B.A.

    Personally I’m betting that the tax returns end up being a lot more consequential than the Mueller report. We know Trump isn’t getting indicted, but at least the public knowing how un-rich he really is might give him an aneurysm or two.

  32. 32.

    Central Planning

    @geg6: I don’t think the financial aid people are bad people at all. I’m just surprised with all the acceptance letters she’s gotten that the financial aid package doesn’t seem to take into account that I have 2 kids in college, and this will be my 3rd in college next year.

    I don’t feel like I truly understand the financial aid process: the formulas used, how colleges come up with wildly different amounts of aid for a person, and if the in-person meetings can really do anything. There’s no real way I can gauge what program at what university is best for my child. Every one says they are the best, they have the most hired graduates, their grads make the best money, etc.

    I guess what I’m really saying is that I’m not looking forward to displaying my ignorance of all that in person :)

    @drdavechemist: My daughter definitely knows what she wants to do, and has known it for years. We had the dean at one university say “If you know what you want to do with your career, we are not the place for you.” Yes, that is absolutely correct.

  33. 33.

    Bailey

    Really absurd to think that the Mueller team wouldn’t have already presented Barr with an executive summary with all the pertinent sensitive information redacted and that was ready to be released to the public without additional DOJ commentary.

  34. 34.

    Ruckus

    As this is an open thread I’ll report here that the LA County republican party sent me an email today thanking me for being a member of the republican party. It was in my junk mail folder. My email knows how I roll even if the trolls in the republican party haven’t got a fucking clue.
    They do now.
    Hope who ever reads my reply likes the word fuck. The republican carpetbagger that was running for CA governor last election didn’t like it when I responded to him so he had his wife send me a scolding email about how great he was. Bet she didn’t like my answer to her any better. At least the last email I got from some local republican state official, who also thought I was a republican never sent me another after getting my answer to him.
    I’m a registered democrat so I have no idea why I’m getting this crap. Other than to fuck with dems.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    @Jay:

    There was no need for Barr to write a summary [. . .] other than as an attempt at a cover-up.

    This. It beggars belief that the Mueller team, fully aware of all the ramifications, would not include a “clean” (no security issues, no redactions needed) summary of the report that could be rolled out to the public right away.

  36. 36.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    The thing is, being ReThugs and Insane Clown POSus’s Evil Minions, they have absolutely no clue on how the various levels of Government work and the powers they have.

    What they think are “smart moves”, are incredibly dumb. They think it’s all just a Reality TV show.

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay:

    The Gang of 8 get to see the unredacted report and all the background material.

    That’s what the law says, but the Trump administration hasn’t let what the law says stand in their way. They’ll fight full release tooth and nail using whatever justification they can imagine.

  40. 40.

    Jeffro

    He’s so innocent that we couldn’t possibly see the Mueller Report.

    He’s so smart that we couldn’t possibly see his grades.

    He’s so rich, so incredibly NOT on Putin’s payroll that we couldn’t possibly see his taxes.

    What is this guy, Jesus Squared or something? Everything about his awesomeness is to be taken on faith, hallelujah??

    Come on GOP. It’s past time to pull the plug on this creepy weirdo loser fraud.

    (see? That’s how you do it, Dems ;)

  41. 41.

    The Dangerman

    The Leaks Begin

    Isn’t that how this all started, in the Moscow Hotel Room with the “professionals”?

  42. 42.

    AnotherBruce

    So when does Barr get indicted for obstruction of justice for withholding the Mueller report? It should be when the subpoenas go out. But I cannot trust these bastards to appear.

  45. 45.

    drdavechemist

    @Central Planning: In that case, I hope that the visit goes well and that the financial aid people are kind. With two getting ready to finish their first year in college, I feel your pain about the multiple tuition bills!

  46. 46.

    Jeffro

    @lamh36: Whoa there Julian, “dangerous”? That’s pretty strong language! ;)

    Still waiting for some straight-talkin’ mavericky sacrificial lamb type to speak directly to the olds: “you better get over your issues with non-white folks coming to this country, ’cause if you don’t, your entitlements, baby, your entitlements are. going. down.”

    It’s just math!

  47. 47.

    Jay

    @Steeplejack:

    Well, if you’ve been following Barr as he has crawled backwards grovelling, it wasn’t really a summary, it was sort of a summary and then it just became a letter,

    All in less than 3 Scaramucci’s,

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @Steeplejack:

    It beggars belief that the Mueller team, fully aware of all the ramifications, would not include a “clean” (no security issues, no redactions needed) summary of the report that could be rolled out to the public right away.

    Barr is going to claim that they failed to redact some stuff that needs to be redacted. In particular, he’s really eager to use the argument that they aren’t supposed to release disparaging information about people who weren’t indicted to redact anything bad about Trump. That will justify redacting/rewriting any accurate summary.

  50. 50.

    Gravenstone

    @raven: There may be blood in the streets when he loses in 2020, too. Doesn’t mean we’re not going to hold the elections.

  51. 51.

    burnspbesq

    @Central Planning:

    One of my nieces is in her final semester at Emerson. It has been the perfect school for her. She has had opportunities to act, direct, and have her writing produced.

  52. 52.

    Ruckus

    @Patricia Kayden:
    Nerve is all they have left.
    None of their policies are good for the majority of republicans, let alone anyone else. I can’t think of one honest republican politician or one who actually supports anything that helps any of their constituents other than the uber wealthy and maybe just a bit to the regular wealthy. None of their positions are majority positions and if you took faux news out of the mix their support would get far worse in short order, even with the rest of the MSM. That’s why they are all in on Trump, he’s their useless leader that allows them to get done what they could otherwise never do. They are hoping that they can ram through so much horror in the next two years to make the normal democratic sweep after they commit all their bullshit not effective enough to reverse all of it. That’s how they have been rolling for the last 40+ yrs, Trump is the culmination of that. We have to hope that the house can stop them and the public will demand that their heads roll. Because we sure as shit aren’t going to get the MSM to help, they are a major part of the problem.

  53. 53.

    plato

    Heh dumbshit, doesn’t your totus thug always say NATO is irrelevant and waste of money?

    US Vice-President Mike Pence has warned Turkey against buying a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile system that Washington sees as a threat to US jets.

    He said Turkey “must choose” between remaining a key Nato member or risk the security of that partnership “by making such reckless decisions”.

    Turkey responded that the purchase of the advanced system was a done deal.

    Ankara has been establishing closer links with Russia after recent souring of its ties with the US and Europe.

  55. 55.

    Kent

    @B.B.A.:

    Personally I’m betting that the tax returns end up being a lot more consequential than the Mueller report. We know Trump isn’t getting indicted, but at least the public knowing how un-rich he really is might give him an aneurysm or two.

    I doubt its the wealth (or lack of it). His tax returns are no doubt filled with the most egregious cheating ever imagined and then some. Based on the NYT reporting, there is no doubt fraud piled on top of fraud piled on top of fraud. And if his returns get out there will be financial reports across the country counting up how many hundred of millions that Trump has cheated on his taxes over the decades.

    I suspect that is what he doesn’t want to get out.

  56. 56.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    Maybe, maybe not. They can take it to Court, but that won’t work as the Law and Jusprudence is clear and has been for decades.

    They can try to stall, but subpena’s are going to start dropping tomorrow,

    They can try to force a Constituional crisis by ignoring the subpenas,

    But the House controlls the purse.

    The Trumpist MO is to bluff, whinge and stall, but in the end, they roll over.

    Barr is coming to the point, ( and it’s moving quickly now) where his choices are to release the unredacted report and al the backing materials to the Gang of 8 and a properly redacted report to Nadar,

    Or spent the rest of his life in jail.

  57. 57.

    Jeffro

    @AnotherBruce:

    So when does Barr get indicted for obstruction of justice for withholding the Mueller report? It should be when the subpoenas go out. But I cannot trust these bastards to appear.

    You know, it’ll be interesting to see which lawsuits and proceedings against the prez* that CJ John Roberts decides to support/not support, in his never-ending quest to make the law fit his desired outcomes here.

    My guess is that he defers on Barr getting in any actual trouble for being a hack, but supports the release of the prez*s taxes to the appropriate Congressional committee. It’ll be fun watching Gorsuch, Alito, rapey K, and Thomas twist themselves into knots trying to run cover for trumpov.

  58. 58.

    Jeffro

    @Gravenstone:

    There may be blood in the streets when he loses in 2020, too. Doesn’t mean we’re not going to hold the elections.

    Damn straight.

  59. 59.

    burnspbesq

    I’m not even a little bit offended by the idea that the report will be redacted. It should be redacted. There is no reason to spill Rule 6(e) material or information about intel sources and methods.

    The problem is that I don’t trust the folks who will be doing the redacting any farther than I can throw them.

  61. 61.

    Aleta

    Barr’s media team explaining why he didn’t make use of provided summaries:

    However, the special counsel’s office never asked Mr. Barr to release the summaries soon after he received the report, a person familiar with the investigation said. And the Justice Department quickly determined that the summaries contain sensitive information, like classified material, secret grand-jury testimony and information related to current federal investigations that must remain confidential, according to two government officials.

    Mr. Barr was also wary of departing from Justice Department practice not to disclose derogatory details in closing an investigation, according to two government officials familiar with Mr. Barr’s thinking. They pointed to the decision by James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, to harshly criticize Hillary Clinton in 2016 while announcing that he was recommending no charges in the inquiry into her email practices.

    Right.

  62. 62.

    Sab

    @Ruckus: Could you be on some old list as a business owner? I have a professional license that gets me on all kinds of Republican mailing lists although I have been a Democrat since I worked on the McGovern campaign in high school.

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay:
    You have more faith in the courts than I do. Trump has been packing them as quickly as he can, and there is currently a “Conservative” majority on the Supreme Court. I don’t know for sure that Trump can get a majority on the Supreme Court to back his stonewalling, but I am no longer confident that he can’t. I am worried that we’re going to go to the courts to get them to block Trump from doing something patently illegal and they’ll just plain ignore the law and the precedent and let him get away with it. Again, I don’t know that it’s going to happen, but I’m afraid that it will.

  67. 67.

    Jay

    @Aleta:

    Ain’t gonna help Barr one little bit.

    He’s gonna have to make the call soon, roll over and survive with his reputation in tatters, or take two in the chest and one in the head for Trumpistan.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Jeffro:

    He’s so innocent that we couldn’t possibly see the Mueller Report.

    He’s so smart that we couldn’t possibly see his grades.

    He’s so rich, so incredibly NOT on Putin’s payroll that we couldn’t possibly see his taxes.

    He’s so healthy that we couldn’t possibly see his actual height, weight, BMI, LDL/HDL, etc.

  73. 73.

    geg6

    @Central Planning:

    Well, the FAFSA does take into account how many you have in college, so that covers federal aid. It’s a formula that mainly takes into account parent income and assets, student income and assets, number of people in the household, number of dependents on college and the age of the older parent. There are various protections depending on individual circumstances. The result is an EFC (expected family contribution), which isn’t an estimate of what you have to pay, but a way to determine financial need and thus which federal programs a student qualifies for. States may have their own aid programs (PA certainly does) and most use the FAFSA and a version of the federal formula. Scholarships are whatever the donor criteria requires. I’m at a small campus of a much larger public research university and what we do is the same as what most public universities do. We use the FAFSA for almost all awarding with the exception of some scholarships. It’s pretty straightforward.

    Private schools are a whole other animal. You still have to fill out the FAFSA but they may have their own forms (almost always). They may take into account things the FAFSA does not, like the family home’s net worth and the accumulation in retirement accounts (FAFSA only asks for a particular year’s contributions). They do discounting. At a private school, it never hurts to try to get a deal. They have a freedom to do things with their often huge endowments that we public schools cannot. I say ask if they can sweeten the pot.

  74. 74.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah: Is there a primary threat to Jeffries? I thought he was a rising star but I realize that someone may have it out with him.

  75. 75.

    Another Scott

    @lamh36: Quoting a Castro tweet –

    As the @UpshotNYT noted this morning, the U.S. is seeing a dangerous decline in our working-age population.

    If that’s what Castro really thinks, my opinion of him fell a couple of notches.

    This is nonsense. If there were a “dangerous” labor shortage then wages would be rapidly rising.

    They’re not.

    Democrats shouldn’t be using this nonsense as a reason for increased immigration. We need more immigration because immigrants are highly motivated people and contribute greatly to our society, not because we don’t have enough (especially cheap) labor.

    Grr….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  76. 76.

    tobie

    @lamh36: God, that is so awful. I really don’t know what to say about a consulate building a crematorium to dispose of bodies.

  78. 78.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    Thing is, it’s defined in the Constitution and the Separations of Powers acts, so while Trumpistan can make a legal filing, there are no grounds or standing for any Court to hear the case.

    So, at best, by cobbling up a mix of gobbledy gook and legal gibberish, they get a week at best if they file on a Friday, before it’s tossed.

    That’s a week of everything from Trump tries to overturn the Constitution and Popehat et al explaining what morons the Trumpists are.

    You might not have noticed but even Federalist Justices have little truck with Trumpist Major Legal Mumbojumbo.

    The thing is, the wheels grind slowly,

    Read this and bookmark it for when you are dispairing,

    http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/03/the-plot-against-america-3

  81. 81.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    OMG. Can’t even click, but if headline is anywhere near accurate … ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. God.

  82. 82.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Wages have been untied to employment rates, productivity and other Keynesian economic markers for decades.

    Median Wages haven’t even kept pace with inflation the past 30 years or more.

    Why raise wages when you can bring in TFL’s from 3rd World Countries?

  86. 86.

    B.B.A.

    @Kent: Everyone expects him to be a tax cheat. Far fewer people expect his income to be…as low as it is, I’m not going to guess the number.

  87. 87.

    Barbara

    @Jay: I no longer keep track in a detailed way, but a significant component of money that might otherwise go to wage income goes to fund employer provided health care.

  89. 89.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Roger Moore: IIUC there are 4 members of Congress that have the statutory right to see the full (unredacted) Mueller report. Schiff (Chair, House Intelligence Committee) is one; I’m guessing Chair & Ranking member of Senate & House Intelligence Committees.

    I for one would like to see Chairman Schiff propose sitting down with Barr, the other 3 MoC’s, Mueller & mutually agreed-upon members of the IC with the appropriate clearance, & having the AG justify every proposed redaction. Some of them may be justified to avoid burning sources & methods (though Twitler will probably hand them over to Putin anyway). I would not want to see the Democrats demand & then release the whole report without doing this – that would hand the Thugs (with the aid of the complicit MSM) the opportunity to shriek that DEMOCRATS are the ones endangering national security.

  90. 90.

    TS (the original)

    @Aleta:

    Mr. Barr was also wary of departing from Justice Department practice not to disclose derogatory details

    Sure didn’t bother anyone when releasing information on those emails

  91. 91.

    Bill Arnold

    @Kent:

    Just the threat of it could be enough.

    Yes. And the idea (fully reasonable) entered the right-wing media bubble a while ago, or emerged within it :-)

  92. 92.

    Jeffro

    @plato: It’s almost like the Emperor…has no clothes. Or much of anything else, for that matter.

    C’mon, RWNJs: you wouldn’t accept this from your afternoon shift leader at McDonalds or from a dogcatcher in Podunk, IoWisconState. Wake up before he picks your other pocket and gives the proceeds to his billionaire buddies (not all of whom speak Russian)!

  95. 95.

    Another Scott

    @Major Major Major Major: No I didn’t, but I just clicked over.

    In the first few paragraphs, I see that it talks about north Dayton. My best friend from high school lived there. His neighborhood was decimated by the housing crash (houses that were worth $60,000 were selling for $5,000). I know the area well.

    I went to high school in Dayton and am well aware of the problems there.

    In the context of Castro’s tweet – I don’t need to read Neil’s piece to know that economics 101 says that supply and demand is supposed to be the basis of our economy. If companies need labor, then they will have to find a way to pay for it. Back in the mid-late 1980s, lots of EEs that I knew would change jobs every 2-3 years with a big raise because there was so much demand.

    That’s not what’s happening now (at least not to the same extent – YMMV).

    The labor market is tightening, and has been for a while, but there is still a lot of slack in the economy. E.g. the number of people unemployed 27 weeks or longer is still over 1.2M.

    Plus, the economy is changing. If companies aren’t willing to pay more for labor, maybe they figure they don’t need more labor.

    Don’t get me wrong – there are demographic issues going forward that we need to be thinking about (like what are we going to do with potentially productive people who can’t find work. We’ve seen what happens in countries with 20+% young-adult unemployment rates.). But a country’s working-age population falling doesn’t automatically mean doom and gloom. Cities have big problems when their populations fall, of course, but the falling population is a symptom, not a cause.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  96. 96.

    gwangung

    @Major Major Major Major: Ah. Different twitters. Because Black Twitter isn’t pleased (nor should it be).

    The undertone to “All Lives Matter” has always been “You people are exaggerating all that racism stuff,” and folks (even those as powerful as Pelosi) need to be careful invoking it. It’s too existential to be subject to nuance.

  97. 97.

    Bill Arnold

    @LuciaMia:

    And now that theres an official demand for Trumps tax returns,”What is the President are the Republicans trying to hide?” should be the first question at every WH press briefing.

    And if they push back with the House vote to release the Mueller report, amend it to “OK, good point. What are the DJ Trump administration, Mitchell McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, and others trying to hide?)

  100. 100.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @B.B.A.: Combine an absurdly low reported taxable income with his habitual inflation of his fortune in order to get loans & you’ve got Cheetoh Benito going & coming.

  101. 101.

    sukabi

    @lamh36: That’s a compassionate, well thought out immigration policy framework. Also like his ideas regarding investigations and separation of customs from immigration enforcement.

  102. 102.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Another Scott: I mean, at a certain point you’re Japan and you literally just don’t have enough young people to do the jobs, and everybody else is too young or old to work.

    ETA: Not that we’re becoming that bad. But I’m willing to bet Castro isn’t trying to say we need more immigrants to keep wages low.

  103. 103.

    MomSense

    @Another Scott:

    I heard on the local NPR news the other day that Senators King and Collins were teaming up to expand H1b visas to bring more people to Maine to fill our employee shortage. I found myself yelling at my radio again. We don’t have an employee shortage. We have a terrible housing shortage where the jobs are. I don’t care if they import people from Machias or Madagascar – there is no place for those people to live. And the seasonal service jobs don’t pay well enough to afford the rents even if there were any rentals available.

    They just cannot being themselves to raise wages or deal with affordable housing. It’s beyond frustrating.

    On the local good news side, our governor restored net metering. Instead of charging people for using solar panels, we will now let them sell their surplus power.

  104. 104.

    Major Major Major Major

    @gwangung: yeah, he’s definitely not the only Dem who’s said it, as you note. I feel like people deserve a chance to address remarks like this. I’d even be willing to give Tulsi *gack* a chance to explain her past ridiculously homophobic rants, were she a normal candidate.

  105. 105.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: Months now Copacabana has been crawling through my head:

    Its name is RICO, it brings the Hammer

    but damned if I can make any progress on the obvious parody (sigh).

  106. 106.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: Good points, but overstated, I think. I addition to Barbara’s point about medical benefits, I don’t think the immigration numbers have been sufficient to account for changes.

    E.g. The US Labor Force has increased about 46M between January 1985 (to pick some arbitrary date) and now. Pew says that 28M immigrants were working in the US in 2016 (17% of the labor force). There’s still nearly 20M people who aren’t working immigrants that are part of the labor force, potentially driving down wages.

    We know that the top X% of the wage distribution got most of the economy’s gains since Carter left office. I don’t think that H1Bs and similar immigration policies have had much of an effect on that wealth transfer.

    My gut tells me that things like the drastic shrinkage of union power since the 1970s, and the games that the financial industry has convinced companies to play (lease everything, don’t own your physical plant, call in expensive experts to drive up “shareholder value” while destroying the strength of your firm so that banksters and consultants get rich while putting people who are the heart of the firm out of work) have probably contributed more to stagnant wages than immigration.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  107. 107.

    lamh36

    @Major Major Major Major: interesting enough, I’m writing my next HCM paper on the increase in the aging population and it’s effects on health care.

    In my HCM economics course, the teacher talked about Japan and how the decades of population control and the increase in aging population has lead to exactly what you said…it’s overwhelming the health care system they have there …or something to that effect.

    Anyway, I’ll be writing that paper this weekend.

  109. 109.

    gwangung

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeah, they need to address it and not sweep it under the rug. But they also need to recognize the way these issues have been used by the right wing, and why minorities are sensitive to their use. Dismissing this as “identity politics” is, to many of us POCs, ceding the debate to white supremacy.

  110. 110.

    Kent

    @B.B.A.:

    @Kent: Everyone expects him to be a tax cheat. Far fewer people expect his income to be…as low as it is, I’m not going to guess the number.

    They are one in the same thing. You cheat on your taxes by underreporting your income (or overreporting your deductions).

    I expect that Trump has massively committed both types of frauds.

    The point is, he can still claim to be a billionaire and show no net income for tax purposes and would likely brag about how smart he was to game the system that way.

    He’s hiding lots of horrible shit no doubt. But I’d be shocked if the worst of it was that he isn’t as rich as he makes out. Tax returns don’t show wealth anyway, they show taxable income. Not the same thing at all.

  112. 112.

    plato

    "Some things that we do not need a Mueller report to see: 1) Trump asking Russia for HRC’s emails at a July 2016 presser 2) Stone’s collaboration with Wikileaks, in the public domain 3) Cohen and Sater’s Nov 2015 emails saying Putin would help Trump, also in the public domain…— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) April 4, 2019

    Yup. I am with her.

  113. 113.

    Sab

    @Barbara: Re health insurance, I see a lot of the prices of employer provided. In the Midwest I am seeing anything from about 5500 per year (single employee with major employee contribution) to well above 25,000 per year for a family plan without much employee contribution.) Employees used to not see these numbers. Now it’s right on your W-2 if you bother to look.

    It’s a huge ticket item in employee compensation.

  114. 114.

    debbie

    Early concern was that Attorney General William Barr would misrepresent the report and set the narrative in that misrepresentation. Polls have shown, however, that a large majority of the country wants to see the report, even a majority of Republicans. The House of Representatives voted unanimously that the report should be released. That includes the Republicans, who felt free to do that because they knew that Mitch McConnell would never let it come to a vote in the Senate. Now they will have to live with their vote.

    This is the icing on the cake.

  116. 116.

    trnc

    @Roger Moore:

    In particular, he’s really eager to use the argument that they aren’t supposed to release disparaging information about people who weren’t indicted

    Is that argument based on an actual DOJ rule? I thought it was just a way for Barr to sound reasonable while covering up.

  118. 118.

    Another Scott

    @Major Major Major Major: I thought Japan would come up, and almost mentioned it. I’ll let Dean Baker take it from here:

    The NYT featured yet another piece on a country, in this case Japan, facing a future with a lower population. The piece warns that it will be difficult to maintain economic growth with a declining population and that Japan’s labor shortage would get more severe.

    This doesn’t sound like too bad of a story to people familiar with economics. Thus far the labor shortage has not been serious enough to cause wages to rise in Japan. If it eventually does get more severe and wages do rise then it just would mean that some of the least productive jobs would go unfilled. For example, perhaps Tokyo would no longer pay workers to shove people into overcrowded subway cars.

    As far as GDP growth, economists usually care about GDP per capita as a measure of living standards, not total GDP. This is why Denmark is a richer country than India, even though India has a much larger GDP. (The piece does note this point in passing in the second to the last paragraph.)

    It is worth reminding readers that growth in productivity swamps the impact of demographics. If Japan can sustain a 1.5 percent pace of productivity growth, then output per worker hour would be 80 percent higher in forty years. Even in a very extreme demographic change, say going from three workers per retiree to 1.8 workers per retiree, this would still allow for a 17 percent rise in average living standards over this period. (This assumes retirees consume 80 percent as much as workers on average.) And this does not account for the benefits from less strain on the infrastructure and the natural environment. Nor does it take account of the lower ratio of dependent children to workers.

    If Japan can sustain productivity growth of 2.0 percent annually (well below the 3.0 percent Golden Age pace in the United States from 1947 to 1973 and again from 1995 to 2005), then the living standards of workers and retirees could rise by 42 percent over this period, in spite of the rising ratio of retirees to workers. Presumably the folks who are concerned about the job-killing robots expect that productivity growth will be considerably more rapid.

    We visited Japan 20 years ago. It’s an amazing place. But lots of people weren’t being very productive – e.g. we bought some trinkets in a shop and the sales clerk would spend a bunch of time wrapping it up in a pretty box with pretty paper even though we didn’t ask. If there actually is a labor shortage, then as Dean says, those clerks will be doing something more valuable.

    And I didn’t mean to imply that Castro wants low-paid immigrants. It’s just that most of the business people who complain that they can’t get workers at “good wages” refuse to raise those “good wages” high enough to attract the kind of person they want. They want cheap labor.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  119. 119.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I got a photo of a nesting bald eagle yesterday, in the fair metropolis of Mount Vernon, WA. It’s the female and she’s sitting on a branch behind and above the nest. It’s behind a business in a wildish area behind their rear parking area, but she’s up so high that it was difficult to find a way to photograph her. The area is so flat that there’s no higher ground I could shoot from, so I couldn’t see any babies.

    https://flic.kr/p/2fpG6vB

  120. 120.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    WOW!

    Lawrence O’Donnell just slammed Wilmer for hiding his tax returns.

    Finally, someone decided to stop giving him a free pass.

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @tobie:

    I really don’t know what to say about a consulate building a crematorium to dispose of bodies.

    Well, you know, they almost certainly built that oven for BBQ cooking!!! Baby back ribs, Kashoggi hams, all that, slow roasted and basted with, well, something. Napalm, maybe!??

    I know what to say — despicable criminals~!!~ Monsters in robes, willing to do anything for power and control~!!! Unclean…

  124. 124.

    zhena gogolia

    I liked this Jon Zal tweet.

    Next time someone suggests seeking compromise with Republicans, remind them that a single, rotten, greedy, racist asshole elected by less than a million Kentuckians prevented a Democratic president who received the most votes in history from putting a judge on the Supreme Court.

  125. 125.

    lamh36

    @gwangung: agreed. the reason why Beto was able to make a blip on the radar with Black folks was his answers on Colin Kaepernick and the respecting his right to protest.

    Something other white pols shied away from cause it mind offend those particular voters they keep trying to court.

    I’m sorry, but I don’t see Pete making the same blip as Beto…not going by some of his past rhetoric and some of the things that happened while he was Mayor that I’ve read about and have found problematic.

    We’ll see, but I have my own prediction of what will happen if/when he doesn’t resonate with Black voters…

  126. 126.

    Sab

    @lamh36: Wow. Didn’t Henry Louis Gates profile some celebrity and they found out his ancestor came on the last ship and the last ship went out to prove that they could import slaves after it was illegal.

    Two points: lots of white people in the south laugh at the rule of law.
    Mid-westerners don’t seem immune lately either.

    Second point. How do you deal with the outrage if your ancestor’s life was completely disrupted ( or destroyed) by a phucking bet?

    Black people in America are awesomely resiliant.

  127. 127.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    I should also note that Lawrence is a life long Socialist who supported Wilmer in 2016.

  128. 128.

    J R in WV

    @Bill Arnold:

    What is the President trying to hide?” should be the first question at every WH press briefing.

    \
    There are no press briefings any more. Possum Queen Sanders doesn’t really ahve a job any more, since they don’t bother to brief the press any more, at all. Who was it said her “smokey eye makeup is the ashes of the truth”?

  129. 129.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Another Scott: culture manages to overcome market rationality in a lot of Japanese businesses, which is one of the reasons they haven’t gotten away from globalization unscathed. Lots of wasted hours, of the “sit there for no reason other than being seen sitting there” variety, not necessarily of the “too much packaging” variety. But they still do that, even though it’s made their companies less competitive internationally.

    I had to chuckle at the idea that jamming people into train cars wasn’t important, though. I don’t see how else you increase transit-rider throughput in a city with every-two-minute train frequencies.

  130. 130.

    gwangung

    @lamh36: Yeah. That was respectful to everyone. And folks pay attention to that.

    I’ll be wondering if Buttigieg can make any headway with the black community, and what happens in the aftermath of that success or failure. (I’m thinking that he can make some headway with the Asian community; sad to say, a lot of the Asian American community disrespect our own history, let alone the history and concerns of the black community).

  134. 134.

    Lyrebird

    @Central Planning:

    I guess what I’m really saying is that I’m not looking forward to displaying my ignorance of all that in person :)

    Please don’t label your ability to see through marketing haze as “ignorance” – the schools are hung up on ratings and being “best” but reality is messier than that. The good part is that if your soon to be student does have a clear direction, that is awesome. Each option will be different, but it sounds like there are several good ones to choose from.

    Best wishes weighing the financial pros and cons.

  136. 136.

    opiejeanne

    @Ruckus: mr opiejeanne got a letter from Melania singing the praises of her husband and could we please give them some money?

    $25 will do but they’d really like $1000. I think I will send the letter back with a nasty note.

    P.S. Oh shit, it’s not a pre-paid envelope and I don’t feel like wasting a stamp on these idiots. I’ll think about what I do to make them stop.

    P.P.S. I got a letter from Bill Clinton thanking me for my donation. It was nice and didn’t beg for more.

  139. 139.

    debbie

    @Ruckus:

    For some reason, I get robo-calls from the GOP. I haven’t voted for a single Republican since the 1980s for a NYS senator who was exceptionally good.

  142. 142.

    Mandalay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Mayor Pete seems to be in trouble with rose twitter for saying he doesn’t think free college is very progressive.

    Mayor Pete is absolutely correct. Free college for all is fiercely regressive, and an idiotic idea.

    Those who think our tax dollars should be used to pay for the Kushner kids to go to college may disagree.

  143. 143.

    piratedan

    What I suspect Barr is trying to do (and likely STILL trying to do) is provide cover for those either “not yet indicted” or “to be indicted, once this shit comes to light”.

    That’s likely to be a damn lengthy list considering who has been implicated in the secret dealings that were alleged, alluded to in some of the previous testimony and this is where dots get connected ass things unfold. I don’t expect the report to have actual recorded conversations of some of the players committing actual crimes, but I do expect dots to be connected.

    so once this document gets released and we enter into subpeona-rama, I wonder how prepped Nadler is to start issuing invitations to the Trump team, I’m guessing that it the ink wells and printer cartridges have been restocked in anticipation.

  145. 145.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Just added an update.

    And now the Washington Post weighs in with a similar story. Looks like the leakers and their allies are shopping this around to multiple news outlets. There was another story a while back where they did that, but I can’t recall which one it was. Too late at night.

  147. 147.

    Cheryl Rofer

    From the WaPo article, as some have been speculating:

    Some members of the office were particularly disappointed that Barr did not release summary information the special counsel team had prepared, according to two people familiar with their reactions.

    “There was immediate displeasure from the team when they saw how the attorney general had characterized their work instead,” according one U.S. official briefed on the matter.

    Summaries were prepared for different sections of the report, with a view that they could made public, the official said.

    The report was prepared “so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately — or very quickly,” the official said. “It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself.”

    Mueller’s team assumed the information was going to be made available to the public, the official said, “and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words — and not in the attorney general’s summary of their work, as turned out to be the case.”

  148. 148.

    Cacti

    @Mandalay:

    Mayor Pete is absolutely correct. Free college for all is fiercely regressive, and an idiotic idea.

    Free college is one of those ideas that sounds better in principle than it is in practice.

    It doesn’t make kids in sub-par K-12 education systems more likely to go to college.

  149. 149.

    piratedan

    @Cheryl Rofer: hoocouldanoode that a guy who white-washed the Reagan Administration of any wrong doing in the Iran-Contra affair would act in such a partisan matter in regards to the interpretation of law?

    Are these guys on Mueller’s team a total bunch of naifs?

  151. 151.

    tobie

    @Cacti: Is anyone besides Bernie on board with free college at this point? I thought HRC’s ‘debt-free college’ had become the gold standard in the party. Those who can afford college will still pay for it. Those who take out loans for college will have their debt forgiven at some point. I forget what the age was but it was early enough in life that you could still start a family without being saddled with the debt you took on to go to university.

    (My other concern with free college is that it would give state legislatures even more control of university policy and curriculum. I’d hate to see what a conservative state legislature would demand to fund the state universities.)

  152. 152.

    plato

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Mueller’s team assumed the information was going to be made available to the public, the official said, “and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words — and not in the attorney general’s summary of their work, as turned out to be the case.”

    Fixer barr has been bleating from day one about not publishing the full report even to congress, it’s a public knowledge and these mueller guys missed it? Are they that stupid and incompetent?

  154. 154.

    B.B.A.

    Three more women accuse Biden of being Biden. Can this please kill his campaign so we don’t get another year of this torture?

  155. 155.

    Peale

    @piratedan: my guess is that the response in the Senate will be to subpoena Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They will be outraged by the amount of evidence and claim that the fact that it was gathered proves that Obama was illegally spying on Americans. Matt Taibbi and Glen Greenwald will write endless stories about FISA abuse.

  156. 156.

    Mandalay

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Looks like the leakers and their allies are shopping this around to multiple news outlets.

    Are the leakers liable to prosecution for anything yet? And if not, are they risking their careers?

    IANAL and guessing that:
    – Handing over the raw report to some media outlet is a crime.
    – Voicing concern about Barr anonymously is legal, but fatal for your career prospects.

  157. 157.

    tobie

    @B.B.A.: One of the woman accusing Biden apparently wrote of her love of Russia and Putin in December:

    Edward-Isaac Dovere
    ‏3h3 hours ago

    latest woman to accuse Biden of touching her inappropriately – https://www.theunion.com/news/local-news/nevada-county-woman-says-joe-biden-inappropriately-touched-her-while-working-in-his-u-s-senate-office/ … – wrote in December: “I love Russia with all my heart … President Putin scares the power elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring, visionary leader.”

    Something smells fishy here.

  158. 158.

    piratedan

    @Peale: to be fair, that sounds exactly like a McConnell game plan.

    I hope that one day, I can see Mitch perp walked, like he so richly deserves….

  160. 160.

    tobie

    Dovere has more links regarding this accuser in Russian. Zhena Gogoglia, are you still here?

    Edward-Isaac Dovere
    ‏Verified account @IsaacDovere
    2h2 hours ago

    Here’s that first post, which she also put up in Russian.
    In another, she writes: “Why would a liberal democrat support Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin? Maybe it is because I believe he has saved the world from a large conflict on more than one occasion.”

  161. 161.

    Jay

    @Barbara:

    Paul Krugman and many other economists greatly disagree,

    https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/opinion/wage-stagnation-unemployment-economic-growth.amp.html

    https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/opinion/corporate-america-suppressing-wages.amp.html

    https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/on-income-stagnation/

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/20/opinion/monopsony-rigidity-and-the-wage-puzzle-wonkish.html

    Basically, since the late 1970’s the sytem has been “gamed” so that all the profits go to the top and rather than raise wages, imported labour and other aspects are used to keep wages low.

    As an example, three years before my Dad retired from Sears, in 1984, Sears was allowed to bring in a two tiered compensation system. Old employees kept their full hours, indexed wages with annual wage increases, full benifits and indexed pensions.

    New hires started at slightly over minimum wage, were limited to part time, flex shifts, had a 3% RRSP, ( our 401k) match, 75% defined benifits, raises based on performance reviews, and no pension.

    By the time Sears closed, and defaulted on wages, benifits, pensions, benifits and RRSP matches, there were no Sears Employees. They were “stallholders”, a semi-legal form of contract employee paid on meager commission.

    The Sears Board shared out $35 million in bonuses amongst all 8 of them for managing the bankruptcy.

    In town, despite the presence of an inlet University, ( most students are from away), the Service Industries can’t find employees, despite a 6.8% unemployment rate, ( it’s actually much higher).

    You could live a meager life in town on a full time, minimum wage job, because there would be partial benifits, but the Service Industries arn’t offering that, because they don’t have to.

    You could defray your school costs by working a minimum wage part time job that worked with your Class schedules, but they ain’t offering that either. They are using the laws and computer software to try to perfectly match their labour needs to their labour demands, half hour by half hour. So, as an employee of Tim Hortons for example, you can be scheduled on Thursday for 2 hours starting at 7am, an hour and a half starting at 11:30 am, then same thing Friday, but with an added 5pm to 10pm shift in summer, as the Roadwarriors drive through and gas and gulp.

    Instead, the Service Industries contract with a Labour Consultant and Contractor. That get’s them a Temporary Foreign Worker* permit. The Contractor then rents a crappy house in town and fills it up with contract labour from the Phillipines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, etc, lays them off as needed to match seasonal demands and for the most aquisiant employees, rotates them between Canada and home, every 6 months. Needless to say the “system” is ripe for abuse.

    *The Temporary Foreign Workers Program was origionally set up so that highly skilled Professionals like engineers, specialist doctors, etc could be brought into Canada for projects and programs that were too short of a duration, or seasonal, for Companies to make an expensive permanent hire.

    BTDubs, many of the TFW’s come because the Contractors tell them it’s a fast track to Immigration. It’s not, it’s actually a block, unless they can prove abuse, ( criminal or labour), win in court, and then make a sucessful claim for refugee asylum, due to retaliation if they go home.

  162. 162.

    dmsilev

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Summaries were prepared for different sections of the report, with a view that they could made public, the official said.

    The report was prepared “so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately — or very quickly,” the official said. “It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself.”

    Mueller’s team assumed the information was going to be made available to the public, the official said, “and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words — and not in the attorney general’s summary of their work, as turned out to be the case.”

    Pretty much as expected. I’m guessing it won’t be long before either someone leaks those meant-to-be-public summaries or Barr is forced, kicking and screaming, to release them.

  165. 165.

    B.B.A.

    @tobie: I don’t care if the victim (I hate the word “accuser”) is Ann freakin’ Coulter. Zero tolerance means zero tolerance.

    I’d be willing to cut a little more slack to a woman or a man of color or someone who hasn’t had a 50-year-long career of being wrong about almost everything… but Biden is none of those.

  166. 166.

    Jay

    @dmsilev:

    The process will be followed, so the 8 and Nader get a chance to drag Barr kicking and screaming,

    There will be allowable other leaks to keep the pressure on,

    But there won’t be actual leaks of the summaries or the reports unless the process fails.

  169. 169.

    Jay

    @B.B.A.:

    There’s two seperate subjects happening,

    One is sexual assault, ( that’s what it’s called in Canada, it’s all lumped together),

    The other is people using #MeToo for crass political gain, weaponizing it and tribalising it.

    For the first point, acknowlege, apologize, amends, which all depends on the level of sexual assault.

    For the second, no forgiveness because they are demeaning and damaging the claims and reputations of everyone who has been sexually assaulted.

  171. 171.

    Raoul

    @Dan B: “I hope he’s evolved. :<(“

    Nah, his ideas are six thousand years old, just as god created them on his young earth.

  172. 172.

    Jay

    @Raoul:

    “Hagedorn led liberal-backed Lisa Neubauer by 5,962 votes — less than half a percentage point — in a race that could still go to a recount. But it came after a string of losses by Republicans in special and statewide elections since Donald Trump carried the state.”

    https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-wisconsin-supreme-court-election-20190402-story,amp.html

    To be eligible for a recount, 1% or less is required, but the Challenger has to pay costs,

    If the margin is below 0.5%, ( or you have completely filled your frequent recount customer loyalty card), the recount is free.

    There’s gonna be a recount.

  173. 173.

    B.B.A.

    @Jay: For me, it’s first and foremost about smashing the patriarchy. Once our feminist overlords are in place we can talk about sorting out the details.

  174. 174.

    Jay

    @B.B.A.:

    The curiously timed attacks on Gropy Joe by a BernieGal and a Putin Lover are achieving a two fer,

    Tanking Biden,

    And trashing #MeToo,

    Much more effective than Jacob Whal,

    But we arn’t going to even dent the Patriarcy if all thats left of #MeToo is a smoldering corpse that people call #FakeNews.

  176. 176.

    SenyorDave

    @B.B.A.: I don’t care if the victim (I hate the word “accuser”) is Ann freakin’ Coulter. Zero tolerance means zero tolerance.

    MIght hate the word but it is the correct term. Example: my mother was the victim of the scam. We (unfortunately) had the records to prove she was the victim. Bank withdrawals, money order receipts, etc. If I am mugged in the street and I believe I know my assailant, I can accuse that person, but absent proof it is just that: an accusation.

    Juanita Broderick swears that she was a victim of rape at the hans of Bill Clinton. Ken Starr did not find her credible enough to use her as a witness against Clinton.

  177. 177.

    West of the Rockies

    @lamh36:

    Why wouldn’t they make use of an existing crematorium? A quick bribe, roll in after midnight, no questions asked.

  178. 178.

    Jay

    @SenyorDave:

    Their target is not just Biden,

    It’s also #MeToo.

    Wilmer’s 2016 was a swamp of mysogeny filled with expats who worked for The Exile in Moscow for the rape runs, not the money.

  179. 179.

    Jay

    @West of the Rockies:

    Because they had built a bunch in Sawdi Arabia and at their Consulates and Embassies world wide. This is the first time their use was exposed, but they have been used for years.

  180. 180.

    Hob

    @plato: I realize that your assumption is always going to be “Mueller is corrupt or stupid”, but what you’re saying here makes no sense at all. What the article is saying is that Mueller’s people prepared summaries that were suitable for a general audience, and that was a good idea. They may have thought Barr would release them willingly, or they may have assumed they would come out one way or another—that doesn’t matter. What they did was the correct thing to do, because if there are summaries like that, Barr has no excuse for his stonewalling. If their summaries had contained classified information, he would have an excuse. He’s lying and saying they did anyway, of course– hence the leaks now. But that’s not on them.

    I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to get this, but Mueller’s team did not have the ability to prevent Barr from doing what he did. Their best hope was always going to be the House.

  181. 181.

    Mnemosyne

    @Another Scott:

    We visited Japan 20 years ago. It’s an amazing place. But lots of people weren’t being very productive – e.g. we bought some trinkets in a shop and the sales clerk would spend a bunch of time wrapping it up in a pretty box with pretty paper even though we didn’t ask. If there actually is a labor shortage, then as Dean says, those clerks will be doing something more valuable.

    Dude. Do you not realize that wrapping things in Japan is a fucking art form?

    Try not to be an ugly American the next time you visit. And tone down the sexism, too. It’s okay for people to want packaging to look pretty.

  182. 182.

    Jay

    @Hob:

    Yup, double yup,

    ??????

    But Meuller didn’t deliver Trumps bleeding head in a box to Nacy so as far a Plato is concerned, Meuller failed.

  183. 183.

    Another Scott

    @Mnemosyne: Um. You read a lot of things I didn’t write, there.

    The clerk I was talking about in at least one instance was a young man who was wearing a suit and tie.

    I wasn’t being an “ugly American” there. I was quite impressed by the work. I was simply remarking that it wasn’t “efficient” and was an illustration (one of many I could cite) that there isn’t (or wasn’t) a labor shortage in Japan even though birth rates were low (and falling now).

    Sorry I punched your button.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  184. 184.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Jay: Shopping bag.

    Severed heads are properly delivered in shopping bags from high-end shops in the capital city.

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