After reading the IG complaint, I don’t know how Trump and Barr stay in office and Giuliani stays out of jail.
I mean, other than the Senate being wholly corrupt.
This post is in: Trump Crime Cartel
After reading the IG complaint, I don’t know how Trump and Barr stay in office and Giuliani stays out of jail.
I mean, other than the Senate being wholly corrupt.
Comments are closed.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
It only takes 34 Senators to be corrupt, not the whole Senate. And yes, there appears so far to be at least that many who are.
nalbar
Pale skin is how.
.
Josie
Well, see, there’s your problem…….
ETA: cmorenc is more precise than I am. I yield.
Major Major Major Major
It’s so wild that they thought releasing this stuff would in any way help.
Leto
FTFY.
Fair Economist
Actually the Senate being 1/3 corrupt would suffice, and it’s presently 53% corrupt.
AlienRadio
What If this is the excuse the trump cabinet use to pull the 25th and try to save what’s left of their skins? Trump’s already itching to throw Pence under the bus.
Yarrow
@AlienRadio:
Started that yesterday. Not going to be hard. Why was Manafort so determined that Pence be Trump’s VP?
JPL
@AlienRadio: They won’t
WaterGirl
@AlienRadio: I could be wrong, of course, but I think they have lost their chance at their bite of the 25th amendment apple.
Hoodie
@Major Major Major Major: Recall that there were a lot of people who thought Nixon didn’t do anything wrong even after listening to the WH tapes, and that his biggest mistake was not destroying the tapes. It wasn’t a mistake precisely because there are a lot of people who think this kind of behavior is ok because their kink is authoritarianism. Because of this, a potentially better tactic than hiding the evidence is to just let it all hang out and hope that attitude prevails. That really is a standard part of Trump’s MO, hence his comment about being able to shoot someone on 5th Avenue without any consequences. Guys like Trump get off on being able to do stuff they know is wrong and openly get away with it because it shows how “powerful” they are.
Alien Radio
@Yarrow: Because Pence is owned by the same people as Trump, with more fundigelical koch flavour. The fact that Pence is being thrown under the bus probably does mean it’s too late for them to pull the 25th escape chute. but they might try it because what other options do they have right now? limping to 2020 with pence and hoping for a miracle might offer better odds (for them personally) than riding this shitstorm.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
You expect conspiracy theorists to assess risk accurately?
mrmoshpotato
@Major Major Major Major:
I disagree when it comes to this criminal cabal of idiots.
Dump’s a mobster shitpile, but the kind of mobster shitpile who’d openly yell at you in court, “Give me all your money, or I’ll burn down your house!” instead of the more “subtle” “Nice place you got here. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.”
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: Russians probably have kompromat of deviant behaviors involving Pence. His not meeting women without “mother”‘s chaperoning sends the alarm bells ringing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@AlienRadio:
That’s what I am thinking, at some point in this the GoP is going to offer up Trump and his cronies to save themselves. Nixon was a Good Republican so that’s why the GoP protected him, but with Trump there is no such obligation.
Major Major Major Major
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Until they didn’t…
schrodingers_cat
@nalbar: In India being a Brahmin works the same way. You have to assassinate a Mahatma Gandhi to be tried for murder. And 70 plus years later, fellow Brahmins will try to resurrect you as a patriot.
*you get extra special bonus points for being male.
Felanius Kootea
The sheer brazenness of the Trump people. I shouldn’t be shocked but I am.
Fuck Putin.
Llelldorin
@Fair Economist: In the case of Susan Collins, at least 1% of that corruption is deeply concerned about all the corruption, in more or less the same manner as the walrus:
‘I weep for you,’ the Walrus said:
‘I deeply sympathize.’
With sobs and tears, he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
Sebastian
@Yarrow:
I read that Trump is doing that to scare the GOP of President Pelosi.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
As cliche as this may be, it applies:
Yarrow
@Alien Radio: The 25th requires the cabinet. The cabinet is complicit. If the word gets out that they’re thinking of using the 25th, dirt on cabinet members will be leaked pronto. Trump will throw everyone under the bus to save himself. Everyone. Even his kids. Even Ivanka, although she’ll be last.
@schrodingers_cat: I think the not meeting with women thing is a smoke screen for his real actions, which would not involve women. Mother knows she has nothing to fear from other women.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: That is always a possibility. He doesn’t give off the lecherous vibe that Kavannaugh exudes.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Presumably that means the stuff they didn’t release is far worse, and that this level of disclosure would appease Democrats.
That’s the problem with people with no ethical standards – they grade everything on a curve. So this stuff is fine, no big deal because they know there’s other stuff that they are much more worried about.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@schrodingers_cat:
Out of curiosity, how do immigrants fit into the Indian caste system/Indian society?
JPL
@Sebastian: Sounds like a trumpish thing to do.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I have a few friends who are convinced that this is going to help Tяump somehow. I’ll just copy in something one of them wrote on Facebook:
It’s an, uh, original take, I’ll give him that…
Sebastian
@JPL:
Nixon did the same thing sorta
Elizabelle
I think, and hope, the situation could go very badly for Trump and for Republicans. And yes, Trump, Barr, Giuliani, they should all go to prison. For years. I hope they will.
We cannot exist with this level of lying and malsfeasance. No patience with cynical takes. It’s that simple.
Yarrow
@Sebastian: Trump’s a narcissist. He’s not thinking that far down the road. He’s thinking, “Who can I make take the fall for this?” Republicans in general may be doing that but not Trump. He’ll blame everyone and anyone for everything.
Baud
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Why is that person your friend exactly?
schrodingers_cat
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Do you have any guesses?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I continue to think that the only way that works is if Nikki Haley is willing to step in. I’ve thought for months, and especially for the last week, that she’s too smart to tie herself that closely to trump. I wouldn’t be surprised if a “family situation’ compelled her to be extremely selective about media/campaign appearances from now on
I can’t think of any R trump would see as an advantage over Pence (a woman or POC) who would be dumb enough to do it, and isn’t so obviously dumb trump’s lizard-brain survival instinct (and Pompeo and Mnuchin) wouldn’t reject– Bachman, Herman Cain
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I had two T voting friends IRL, notice the past tense.
ETA: Our friendship survived two terms of Bush II but could not survive two years of T.
Martin
@AlienRadio:
Trump will throw as much of the cabinet under the bus as he can so he can claim any 25th amendment claim will be seen as them just protecting their own bad acts.
Besides, a 25th amendment claim will fall on its face now. There’s nothing different about his behavior today than a year ago, other than the public’s increasing acceptance of his criminality, and his administrations furtherance of it.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
“They” who? Barr? The guy who’s complicit in all of this will find Trump did nothing wrong? And will “expose” Biden’s “corruption”? Who is “they” supposed to be referring to? Because Dems will certainly find a lot wrong. This “Ukraine stuff” is just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t forget the whistle blower allegations of misusing natsec classifications to protect politically sensitive info
Your friend definitely has an original take for sure
dmsilev
A letter to the editor in the local paper made a good analogy: Impeachment knowing that the Senate is overwhelmingly likely to rubber-stamp an acquittal is akin to prosecutors charging and trying people for lynching in the Jim Crow era knowing that an all-white jury is overwhelmingly likely to rubber-stamp an acquittal. It’s still the right thing to do.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@schrodingers_cat:
Well, probably only wealthy ones are respected and everybody else is hated by Modi’s ruling party and the upper classes
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jennifer Rubin, who probably had a bunch of big name R candidates’ cell numbers if she doesn’t anymore, has begun to try to plant the idea that a weak, care-taker President Pence would blow 2020 open for the likes of Sasse, Haley, Paul Ryan…
as for the 25th A, I don’t have the details at my mental fingertips, but I believe the cabinet vote only begins a long, drawn-out process that looks a lot like impeachment, it’s not a silver bullet
Kent
@Yarrow:
That would make some sense as these folks are always projecting. And Pence’s anti-LGBT crusading as Governor would fit the pattern these folks follow when they are in denial.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
He’s talking about the American people! We’re going to see the light! Any day now! You’ll see!
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The 25th Amendment process is a more difficult road than impeachment; you need 2/3s of both the House and the Senate, whereas impeachment just needs a majority in the House and then 2/3s in the Senate to convict.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Martin:
I’m not sure if I agree with that last part. If anything I see the majority of the public is in opposition to Trump and that opposition is hardening, if anything.
cmorenc
Meanwhile, Fox News’ efforts to misdirect, muddy, and deflect on every aspect of the Trump-Ukraine-whistleblower-DNI-McGuire story are nauseatingly astounding, even by their usual political metrics. In short, they are presenting this as nothing more than a D-concocted effort to gin up a faux scandal, and it’s Rep. Schiff who is a danger to national security. Oh, and BTW Nancy Pelosi is a conniving bitch (they don’t use the b-word, but that’s the gist).
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
There’s T-voting and then there’s full blown QAnon conspiracy theory Dem hating on a public forum.
schrodingers_cat
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Most Indians in this country are upper caste, higher education was the sole preserve of Brahmin and some other scribe castes before the British came to India. And in India Islam and Christianity have their versions of the caste system, mirroring the Hindu version.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: My friends are self described T skeptics but they were not skeptical enough not to vote for the R nominee. Of course they hated HRC more than they liked T.
Martin
The president does not have executive privilege in the commission of a crime. They need to be reminding the ADNI of that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve got the sound muted cause I can’t stand the format, but MSNBC chyron is saying McGuire is refusing to say whether he spoke to trump about the whistle-blower, which is kind of like Fredo refusing to say if he took the Fifth.
also, my twitter legal advisors are telling me his citing of privilege in this case is, to quote Blackstone, horse shit,
rikyrah
Moscow Mitch, Cole.
Moscow Mitch.
smintheus
Everybody involved looks dishonest, shifty, and corrupt…including Barr and McGuire. The acting DNI is coming across in this hearing as an evasive bullshitter who deliberately gave Trump and Barr the option to cover up the whistleblower complaint because McGuire didn’t have the integrity/courage to do anything that would irritate Trump. He’s a lickspittle, like nearly everybody Trump surrounds himself with.
rikyrah
Phone call notes expose Barr’s deep involvement in Ukraine scheme
Rachel Maddow notes today’s shocking revelation that two separate officials referred Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine to the Department of Justice for possible investigation. The DOJ decided against any action after a cursory investigation, only to have it revealed that Attorney General William Barr was mentioned by name several times in the Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president.
Felanius Kootea
@cmorenc: Fuck them and Murdoch too. They are the reason Trump thinks he has a prayer of getting away with all this. The country has to address the problem of propaganda channels masquerading as news or entertainment. We need a think tank on this stat because it’s hard to know how to proceed when those being conned largely want to be conned.
Maybe showing clearly how this allows foreign adversaries like Putin to exploit the US might wake some up if they have some patriotism left, but I don’t know how many.
Kent
Folks, remember who exactly we have serving in the Cabinet. Which one of these lackeys is going to show the independence and integrity to do anything for the country instead of theselves. Betsy DeVos? Steve Mnuchin? Wilber Ross? Sonny Perdue? Ben Carson? Mike Pompeo? Elaine Chow? Rick Perry? Bill Barr?
Spanky
[Bounces in the door out of the blazing sun.]
Hey everybody! I’ve been out in the shop all morning, off line. Anything happen yet today?
patrick II
@AlienRadio:
Because if Pence gets impeached and Trump gets impeached, that would mean Pelosi, and the Republicans aren’t going to let that happen. So Trump may want Pence off of the bus first so he is the only option other than Pelosi.
MazeDancer
Reading the Whistleblower complaint is only slowed down by shrieking OMG every paragraph.
The only reason Maguire would think it was a good idea to consult the WH would be to perpetuate a cover-up.
Starfish
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: From listening to this, it is obvious that he says “No” when he can, and he claims executive privilege when he can’t.
Yarrow
@Felanius Kootea:
We need anti-propaganda and anti-misinformation education. Not just schools. Classes can be given at community centers, retirement communities, etc. Finland and Sweden are doing it effectively. We can too.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
HRC taught us a lot about people’s true nature. I hope we don’t forget it.
Starfish
@Spanky: I ignored politics for the past week because I was busy. I was going to catch up on stuff I ignored today, and now I am accomplishing nothing because I am injecting this garbage fire into my veins directly.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: IANA psychic, but I think Goku was asking about immigrants to India. Which I’m also curious about now that I think about it!
smintheus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s insane. McGuire is making himself a laughingstock.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@smintheus: to whom? is always the question
smintheus
Who was the jerk who just insisted that Maguire cannot be accused of any crimes because he has served his country?
PJ
@smintheus: As I said in a thread below, what Maguire did is like a cop taking a victim’s complaint to the alleged criminal and asking the criminal if he thinks he should take the complaint to the DA – Maguire is either a moron, a coward, deeply corrupt, or all three.
Chyron HR
VERY COOL AND LEGAL!!
BRING ME THE HEAD OF NORTON ANTIVIRUS!!!
PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!!!!!
Betty Cracker
I’m still trying to puzzle out the motivation for releasing the call not-transcript. I’ve never seen anyone deliberately shoot himself in the dick before, so I keep coming back to that decision. I think Martin made a great point above that Team Trump’s amorality makes it impossible for them to evaluate how things would look to normal people.
Also, at that point, they were desperate to head off the Democrats’ stampede toward impeachment prior to Pelosi’s announcement, so it had to be a bold play. I like to imagine them all around a conference table brainstorming this problem and whey-faced nonentity Jared raises his noodle-like arm and says, “Why don’t we release a doctored ‘transcript’ of the call? That’ll stop Pelosi in her tracks and satisfy everyone who’s made about the whistleblower complaint, and we’ll go down in history as the most transparent administration in history.”
I really hope it went down like that.
Aleta
Great line, so usable. T shirt, balloon j tag, campaign commercial, fraudulent koan …
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: trump’s an idiot, and so is Jared, and Pence, and… but there are smart people around him, and we’re not seeing the usual leaks (from KA Conway et al) of “we tried to stop him, but he was determined…”
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: They have gotten away with it so many times in the past with so many people in the media willing to take their narrative and treat it credibly when dealing with an administration that lies constantly about many things.
trollhattan
Ugh. Listening to this clusterflock on the radio as I sit at home with no water because the crew here to install meters decided to for no extra charge, break the supply line in our backyard. So no shower, one flush (choose it wisely) and wash hands using a bottle of “Smart Water”, which is so smart it can balance my checkbook.
“Everything I say to the president is privileged and so I can’t say whether I spoke about Ukraine or breakfast besides I don’t remember.”
Also, Devin Nunes’ cow probably has a serious headache. To compare his intellect with a bag of rocks implies rocks never have a legitimate use.
schrodingers_cat
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: @Major Major Major Major: I am sorry I misunderstood the question. If you are wealthy and white and male you are treated well, that’s the legacy of the colonial experience. Also the caste system initially was based on color (varna is skin tone in Sanskrit).
ETA: I am reading a book about the origins of the IndoEuropean languages it makes for fascinating reading.
Contra the BJP-RSS, Sanskrit is not the oldest of the Indo-European languages. We are all Ukranians/Russians..
JPL
IOKIYAR
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Then mention that the whistle blower had second hand information. If they had just released the complaint, we might not be listening to this hearing today.
smintheus
Maguire claims that the complaint was NOT about election interference! This guy is utterly shameless.
eric
@Betty Cracker: i will give you a reason….now they can fight disclosing the hidden “transcripts” described in the Complaint because Congress already has the “one” that matters. They are more scared of the other “transcripts” than the one they released.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@schrodingers_cat:
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah, that’s what I was asking about. I wasn’t clear to be fair
Gravenstone
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Can you have that poor soul committed for their own protection? They probably shouldn’t be allowed in public without a guardian.
Martin
@Betty Cracker: I’ll add that Trump seemed completely flummoxed that his call to Pelosi didn’t call her off. He seems to view the US legal system as a parent investigating who broke the lamp in the living room. Parents tend to go very easy on kids that admit their wrongdoing because the parent’s goal isn’t to obtain renumeration for the lamp, it’s to teach the kid to be honest and forthcoming. He seems to think that’s Pelosi’s job as well, that some light treason will be excused away if admitted to voluntarily.
I can appreciate that mindset because that’s been his whole fucking life. He’s been excused for his bankruptcies and allowed to again overborrow. Every time he’s fucked up, he’s been given another chance. Why should he view this any differently?
smintheus
@PJ: Maguire is a coward who is deeply corrupt. His evasions and excuses don’t make him look terribly intelligent. He seems like a career naval officer, where ignoring wrongdoing up the chain of command is so normal as to be unexceptional.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks! I didn’t really consider the influence that colonialism might have had. It makes sense, since the Indian upper classes fared best under the British than anybody else
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: I repeat: am I a fuckin’ genius or what?
Gravenstone
@patrick II: If he turfs out Pence, he’ll never get a VP approved (requiring consent of both houses of Congress) to replace him. So it would actually make a Pelosi presidency more likely in such an event.
rikyrah
@smintheus:
He was unqualified for the job and only got it once the WOMAN WHO WAS QUALIFIED FOR THE JOB WAS FORCED TO RESIGN.
smintheus
@rikyrah: I think the primary qualification for any job in the Trump administration is “lickspittle”.
Ladyraxterinok
@schrodingers_cat: Could you tell us the name and author of the book?
Matt McIrvin
@Yarrow: I actually had that! In the fifth or sixth grade, would have been around 1978 or 1979, we did a “critical thinking” unit on how to recognize propaganda and loaded rhetoric, etc. I recall hearing that it was hugely controversial, got pulled from a lot of schools for being godless Commie trash, etc. I wonder if it had any lasting effect on most of the students, though.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
…half the rest of the country?
patrick II
@Felanius Kootea:
When castigating right-wing media people often leave out Limbaugh. That is a mistake. He is a gifted liar who embeds his lies into stories of elitism and resentment that his working-class audience relates to. He has, according to some, 20 million listeners. Whether that is true, he is popular with the lunchtime crowd and has had been a force for racist right-wing nationalism for over thirty years now and has a loyal, deluded audience. He is as harmful as anyone to this country.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Major Major Major Major:
Ford’s pardon. The GoP basically did the bar minim they were forced to do on Nixon. I don’t see Pence doing the same for Trump.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady:
You are. Very stable genius.
Matt McIrvin
@Gravenstone: I kind of doubt the Congressional Democrats are hardball enough to hold the line if he actually nominates some completely anodyne Gerald Ford-like figure. Charlie Baker, say.
joel hanes
@Betty Cracker:
puzzle out the motivation for releasing the call not-transcript
As nearly as I can tell, they believed that everyone else shares their prior that Biden must be guilty of the same sort of extortion, and the Dems would want to protect Biden.
And that of course Biden would do so, because _they_ would do so if they could: in their mind, that’s how the game is played, and they assume everyone else is like them and cheats when possible.
So they expected this to be a neutralizing move, because the Dems would avoid pushing an issue which (in their minds) exposed the Dem king. Check, libs.
schrodingers_cat
@Ladyraxterinok: The Horse, The Wheel and Language. How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes shaped the Modern World by David W Anthony.
ETA: Anthony is an anthropologist with one foot in archeology and the other in the study of languages. Most of the results in this book have been recently corroborated by the study of ancient DNA led by David Reich and others.
ETA2: The oldest Sanskrit inscriptions were found not in India but in Syria. Sanskrit is the language of Hindu liturgy.
MisterForkbeard
@Matt McIrvin: I can imagine why a course teaching how to recognize loaded rhetoric and to think critically about propaganda might be opposed by some of the more… predatory religious groups out there :(
Ladyraxterinok
@Matt McIrvin: IIRC the TX GOP a bit ago explicitly stated schools were not to teach ‘critical thinking skills’!!
sukabi
@Major Major Major Major: it’s a function of how they comport themselves on a daily basis. “This is nothing, you should have seen what we did on Thursday. lololol”
Martin
@rikyrah: Given the timing, I think that was Coates protecting Gordon. The DNI is fucked here. The statutes don’t allow her to do what she should be doing. What’s more, her legal advisors are implicated in this. So where does she turn? Gordon would have been caught in this, either violating executive privilege or being in contempt of congress. Laws and rules create contradictions all the time, particularly in situations they can’t foresee, which, by the way, are the kinds of situations that bad actors tend to steer toward assuming they can survive via some legal loophole.
Honestly, I think we need 3 OLCs – one in each branch of government and any member of government can turn to any of the three for advice if he/she believes that a given branch is compromised. What’s more, they could be set up as a kind of informal voting bloc.
hells littlest angel
No. It is Republicans in the Senate who are wholly corrupt.
The Senate itself is an anti-democratic institution, but that’s another story.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: The WaPo article says that there were major arguments in the WH over whether to release the memo. Barr favored releasing it, Pompeo and Mnuchin were vehemently opposed. The final decision was Trump’s. I’m guessing that Trump wanted it released because the Ukrainian PM’s flattery was so abject.
Hoodie
@Martin: I saw an NIH study that showed that grandiose narcissism has a negative correlation with feelings of guilt or shame. I suspect Trump doesn’t have the normal emotional apparatus that would have instinctively signaled to him that this kind of thing was wrong and potentially not forgivable, e.g., he would not have looked at some set of objective or quasi-objective principles before acting. Instead, he tends to interpret right and wrong as what he perceives as good or bad for him, a perception that is often distorted by his lack of an objective conception of right and wrong. In other words, he’s not really that great at figuring out how normal people will react to his behavior, so he does all kinds of weird stuff. His coddled experience could certainly have reinforced this because he was shielded from negative consequences. Influences like Roy Cohn may have also reinforced it. Therefore, he may have concluded that releasing this information was a good idea, because he thinks it shows he didn’t do anything wrong and even makes him look good.
Frankensteinbeck
@joel hanes:
That is a good point. One thing this episode revealed is that Trump believes his insane bullshit. We need to be reminded that Republican officials are not too smart to drink the Kool-Aid. Decisions look completely different if you actually think there’s a hard drive with 30,000 emails in Ukraine that reveal Hillary Clinton’s criminality.
artem1s
@Felanius Kootea:
we also need to address the notion that we always have to bow to capitalism. If someone makes money at it, it should never be regulated or thought of as undesirable. It’s time to start moving away from a consumer based economy where success is only based on how much crap you accumulate. No one needs to be a trillionaire. There is no greater good in topping the Forbes list, but those are the people the US holds up as icons of success even if they loudmouthed their way there, like Dolt.
Fox and Rush and O’Reilly all happened because no one said, “I don’t care if they bring in a lot of ad dollars, I don’t think they should be on the public airwaves.”
Mandalay
Now that the White House Press Secretary has cleared up this storm in a tea cup, can we move on, and get back to caravan leprosy and ISIS infiltrating our borders?…
patrick II
@Gravenstone:
Our difference is this: Trump feels that the Republican Senate would stick with him under any circumstances if the only option is Pelosi.
Ladyraxterinok
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you very much. I got very interested in the history of language yrs ago in grad school.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia:
LET’S NOT GET CARRIED AWAY HERE!!1!
Rand Careaga
@Yarrow:
I am put in mind of The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV, by W.H. Lewis. Here he writes of the king’s brother:
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: Oh, they would block the candidate as being the product of a tainted act. How can Congress trust Trump to act in good faith with a VP nominee when Trump himself is so badly compromised? Agnew could be replaced because Nixon was not implicated in Agnew’s acts (he had a whole other set of bad acts) and he was choosing from an elected figure, so he had the cover of the voters. That leaves a member of the House or Senate, and there’s almost nobody there that the Dems would go along with simply because there’s nobody in the GOP calling for an investigation of the WH. So anyone the President could trust the Dems absolutely cannot, and anyone the Dems could trust Trump couldn’t tolerate because the only expression of trust that the Dems care about are those that are calling for Trumps impeachment.
Mandalay
@Frankensteinbeck:
I can’t understand how you reach that conclusion at all.
Trump has been systematically covering his tracks, lying and changing his story constantly, at every stage of the game.
And the notion that he truly believes in anything beyond winning and not getting caught is a stretch.
Mike in NC
Never heard of this guy (DNI Maguire) before yesterday. Obviously hand picked for the job solely due to his loyalty to Trump and Barr.
A Ghost To Most
Does anybody have Sue Gordon in the whistleblower pool?
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Don’t overthink it. This transcript was the LEAST criminal thing they’ve been doing…and they had to cop to something.
Martin
@patrick II: Yeah, I agree. Trump is now threatening the Senate GOPs – impeach me and I’ll take out Pence and you’ll be stuck with Pelosi as prez.
Pence is screwed here. Either he implicates himself further in this and puts his future in Trumps hands, or he tries to stand independently and gets the President as an enemy who will be more than happy to lie about Pence’s involvement in order to get him impeached as well. This is why you never get involved with people like this. You will always lose in the end.
Immanentize
@trollhattan:
First, I am sorry that the house situation is continuing to suck. Remember — “If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, send it down!”. I learned that is Israel….
Second, Acting DNI — as you described — told a questioner that even saying whether he did or did not talk about a topic (the whistleblower’s complaint) with the president, would be a violation of confidentiality.
Then, when answering another questioner, he unconcernedly answered that “he had never had a conversation with the President about the Ukraine in his six weeks on the job.
Which is it Dude? You just violated your own standards. Dummy! Who prepped you on the previous answer?
Boy I wish I was doing the questioning….
schrodingers_cat
@Ladyraxterinok: I have always been interested in language. I am amazed at the similar roots and almost identical words in say Marathi and English, two languages that are on different branches of the Indo-European language tree, which were isolated from each for two thousand years.
Recent impetus is the BJP is trying to squash recent archaeological finds about the Indus Valley Civilization because it doesn’t fit into their political narrative.
trollhattan
@Ladyraxterinok:
Yeah, it was part of the published Texas Republican Party platform. I haven’t had the stomach to check back in to see how it may have evolved [heh] in the years since.
MCA1
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): The funny/sad thing is that it’s not an original take at all, though. I’ve seen that interpretation of this in a dozen places, which means it’s coming down the puke funnel to chuckleheads like your acquaintance.
It’s also part and parcel of one of the more popular gaslighting weapons from the troll front over the last 3 years. The whole “you’re just handing Trump another term, suckers!” thing is used exclusively to get Democratic leaning people to question whether or not it’s wise to do anything that would amount to the Democrats playing political hardball.
Patricia Kayden
House Democrats did a good job this morning with the Acting DNI hearing. I’m sure they’ll do a good job investigating the nooks and crannies of the whistleblower complaint. All the slime that Trump and his sycophants have been hiding is about to be revealed.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: What is the name of the book? This is a subject that I find really interesting and would like a more substantive good read when I get through my Denise Mina binge.
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
Nice summary. His next stop: Dancing with the Stars. “Thank you for your service” seemed like the phrase of the day. [Ding] “You’ve just won a free Whopper!”
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: Here it is.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
Glad to hear it. I’m never able to watch these things as they happen.
MCA1
@rikyrah: I think they assessed (rightly) that the storm in the House was going to mean this came out at some point regardless, and they wanted the ability to control the messaging by being the ones to bring it forward. First, they thought they’d get some credit for voluntarily releasing it, and second, they thought they’d be able to use that voluntary release to back up their intimation to their base that there’s nothing damning in it. It fit with Dotard’s “perfect conversation” hooey. They primed their fans to take it as no biggie. Similar to Uday releasing his “If it’s what you say, I love it” e-mail so he could get out in front of it, knowing it was gonna be out there anyway.
jonas
@Major Major Major Major: It’s why they’re calling it “Stupid Watergate.”
PJ
@Immanentize: Furthermore, “executive privilege”, to the extent it exists (and it’s being stretched every day by Trump), is not like attorney-client privilege and does not apply to every conversation by Trump with a government official relating to legal matters or government business generally. Maguire is just another corrupt MFer protecting Trump.
Immanentize
@trollhattan:
Not to GnT:. I specifically put in “THE Ukraine” in the Maguire quote because the Acting DNI has slipped up a couple of times on that issue.
Matt McIrvin
@Ladyraxterinok: I think opposition to “critical thinking” turned into a cultural shibboleth, like set theory in math classes (a signifier of the dreaded 1960s New Math, the Common Core of its day).
japa21
Only been listening a little and mostly following here but I have a question. My understanding of the DOJ opinion, based on Schiff’s questioning, is that no further investigation can be done by the IG of the IC because the subject of the complaint is outside of the intelligence community. In addition, as Trump is Maguire’s boss is was appropriate to bring it to the WH.
If Trump is the boss, does that not make him part of the intelligence community even if not active in it?
Baud
Blue state Republican governors starting to feel heat.
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
He’s edging this close to “The Democrat Party.”
Immanentize
@PJ:
Insofar as there is an “Executive Privilege” (which I personally believe ought to exist in very narrow circumstances) the only person who owns it is the President. Period. No one else can exercise that privilege — the President must do so in writing before it can be honored. Then, it can be litigated. I am pretty sure every Court so far has understood this point.
Rommie
What if Pelosi pulled a Sherman? Could both sides live with a temporary POTUS Grassley, or any of the people they could hold a quick Senate election to replace Grassley with? The D’s get rid of Trump/Pence and look to clobber whomever runs in 2020: The R’s get rid of Trump/Pence, look temporarily sane, and think they have a Golden Candidate to be competitive in 2020?
That would be the ultimate gamble for Pelosi to roll the dice on, but are the odds that bad?
Aleta
@Immanentize: Thanks for mentioning that. I wish you and other focused lawyers were doing the questioning too. I hoped there would be much more of that. I always appreciate yr input.
rikyrah
@Major Major Major Major:
what they’re hiding must be so much worse.
jonas
@Martin: From a classic Monty Python sketch:
moops
How can this not result in criminal charges against the White House Counsel? and once under the threat of real jail for real high crimes which of them will keep their mouth shut for the GOP?
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: It’s the voluntary release of BOTH documents that puzzles me. Neither would be a good thing for them, but the combination is so much worse because they reinforce each other. I figure the Trumpies thought the not-transcript would back Pelosi off. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
guachi
Adam wrote this in the previous post but I’ll put my comment here as things are moving so fast:
We literally have training on this every. single. year. It’s one of the things specifically pointed out in the training. If you have access to classified information, you know this.
Kirk Spencer
@Martin: There is another possibility here. If (I know, bear with me) Pence is as dirty as Trump and would be up for impeachment at the same time then Pelosi is up. But if Pence goes first, Trump can nominate and the Senate approve a new VP ala Ford. It’s a chance to clear decks while containing damage.
Not this may not be Trump’s reasoning. If knowledgeable enough, he aims for a Nixonian pardon. If not he’s being sold Pence as the person tossed from the troika to divert the wolves.
Fleeting Expletive
Did anyone notice Trump’s threat against the Speaker yesterday? “Unfortunate(ly). Nancy Pelosi … no longer Speaker of the House.” That was weird when he said it, like everything else, but it’s part of this gangsta wannabe dialect he throws around.
Would the timeline of the whistleblower’s complaint match up with Sue Gordon’s firing along with DNI Coats? Coats was trying to protect her, I think.
Mnemosyne
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
These are the same kinds of people who vote illegally to show that it’s possible, and then are indignant when they get prosecuted. Sure, they broke the law, but only to show that it could be done! What, is that illegal or something?! You people should be thanking me!
Betty Cracker
I hadn’t considered this angle:
LOL!
Kent
@japa21:
No. Absolutely not. The Army, Navy, and Marines are all ultimately answerable to the commander in chief. But that doesn’t make Trump a soldier, sailor, or marine. Scientists working for NOAA and astronauts working for NASA also ultimately answer to the President. But that doesn’t make Trump a scientist or astronaut.
As president, Trump is a consumer of government intelligence, no a producer of it.
Immanentize
What I am about to write is crazy, but that’s what kind of times we live in:
I think what Scaramucci said a few days is true. The way to handle Trump leaving is to negotiate a face saving (and perhaps lucrative) way for him to leave. To quit, resign, have a medical emergency, complain he’s bored, blame other Republicans or the deep state of whatever. I think we should forget the 25th A (nah.gon.hap.en) and while things are like they are, put together the negotiation team to get him out. Hell, give him 28 million from the military. Win win.
sukabi
@Mandalay: that’s not a hard leap to make. Drumpf is clearly not well, his mind has lost the ability it had 10 years ago to track and sort the massive amounts of bullshit he spews. (Compare interviews from then with his mangled thoughts now. ) And he appears more and more to be “medicated” , dilated pupils, low energy and slurred speech combined with his inability to complete a thought.
Think there’s a good chance he’s either being treated for delusions or Alzheimer’s or both.
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
Meh. It’s hard to say, because it’s also not uncommon for the big anti-LGBTQI crusaders to be, like, child molesters who need to point attention away from themselves and/or to reassure themselves that, sure, some people may think that the thing they do is bad, but OTHER people are doing worse things, so their sins aren’t so terrible.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if Pence is a hetero serial cheater who points at LGBTQI people to try and salve his conscience by reassuring himself that at least he cheats heterosexually as God intended.
Aleta
@guachi: There were those stories about Trump’s school records being mis-filed in order to lose them before reporters could look for them during the campaign. His lawyer Cohen called administrators and maybe got tough. Iirc, in one story someone said records cannot be thrown out, so they had to get lost in the filing system.
BruceFromOhio
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I love this idea! Go Jen go!
JoyceH
@rikyrah:
MisterForkbeard
@Betty Cracker: Honestly, I just think it was a bad miscalculation. They thought a bunch of Dems were wobbly on impeachment and were only doing it because Trump was stonewalling the complaint. Biden’s statement even says as much: “Impeach if they keep stonewalling”.
The theory here is that if they release the transcript, they can just say that they’ve complied and that Dems are making it sound worse than it is and Republicans will stick by them. So long as the Senate absolutely won’t convict it’s likely that some Democrats won’t want to impeach. That the complaint and the transcript are very different things doesn’t really matter.
The problem is that the transcript was so bad that it reinforced the need for the complaint to come through – and that once they were claiming that the target of the complaint was a nothingburger, there’s no reason NOT to release the complaint as well. Just a huge fucking miscalculation the whole way down. It might still work in general if Republicans refuse to acknowledge the plain evidence before them, but now everything looks worse and is much more urgent.
patrick II
For everyone guessing who the Republican candidate will be if Trump is gone, my bet is Tom Cotten. Just as rabid a capitalist, a more fervent evangelical, and, unlike Trump, when in doubt bomb somebody. I think the Repubs will swing right in anger if Trump is taken down. And Cotten is as far-right and has true-believer charisma. And he is much smarter than Trump. I would say more dangerous, but Trump keeps testing the theory that we are better off having a dumb right-winger than a smart one.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne:
As I recall, Bible God actually ordered that a few times, no?
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: He couldn’t go against the Times motto, No Despot Left Behind.
Cermet
I too voiced my puzzlement early this morning down stream in a much early post asking why on why they released that damning transcript . Still don’t see why. As I said, it is the real smoking gun.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
I keep saying that they released the transcript because it’s the LEAST bad shit they have. Even these idiots realize that the other stuff they’re still hiding is much, much worse.
Ponder that terrifying idea for a while.
eric
@Cermet: because it is not the smokiest gun. now they can fight the clamor to release all of the hidden “transcripts” from the Intelligence Committee. I much easier fight with this “transcript” released
Kent
@patrick II:
I doubt it. He lacks charisma. My guess is that we would see an absolute feeding frenzy and blood letting as there is no real heir apparent like there was in 2016 with Clinton. And for sure Ted Cruz will be part of the food fight. Because he has a radar for the spotlight.
Starfish
@Immanentize: Given the history that a lot of the people involved were the people involved in previous political scandals under previous Republican Presidents, I think some people need to go to jail for the rest of their natural lives to discourage this type of behavior in the future.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: Ted Cruz has whatever the opposite of charisma is.
smintheus
@Mandalay:
So by her admission, Trump would not be open and transparent when he does have something to hide.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: I think it was actually the very next person who questioned him! And then he said something like “I never talked to anyone about Ukraine except for about the whilstleblower stuff”. Then Schiff says, “from you saying that, it sounds like you are saying that you did indeed talk to them about the whistleblower thing”. At which point the evasive, lying, treasonous cowards say, “oh no, i didn’t mean to say that”.
*Everything in quotes is paraphrased.
DIFFERENT-CHURCH-LADY
CHRIST, I KEPP TELLING YOU PEOPLE: HE THINKS HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG AND THE TRANSCRIPT PROVES IT!!1!
(DCL +1 and typos not deliberate but left for effect)