Satire by ?@BorowitzReport? https://t.co/fHd8N0QXZE
— Philippe Reines (@PhilippeReines) September 27, 2019
Moral bankruptcy:
NEW: POTUS told Russian officials in an Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the election because the US did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed officials to limit access to the remarks. https://t.co/sccDtesL1H
— Yashar Ali ?? (@yashar) September 28, 2019
Even if this weren’t bullshite, how would Trump know about it? Look at the body language: This is the sorry little sidekick attempting to swagger with the big dogs on the playground at recess. But with global consequences…
The key to the big WaPo scoop breaking now isn't just that Trump told Russians that he was unconcerned about them interfering in the election.
It's also that White House officials manipulated the classification system to bury it:https://t.co/bqotMDH8PB pic.twitter.com/KfAX1QMeoJ
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) September 28, 2019
– Years of dirty deals with the Russians compromises Trump
– A scared Trump tells the Russians he won't look into their attack on us
– This comment is kept secret but is known to the Russians, which further compromises Trump.It's all a circle of accountability, you see.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 28, 2019
What do you call a guy who knows all the state secrets he bothered to listen to and/or remember, enjoys the flattery of foreign adversaries, nurses deep grievances, and will likely be facing arrest by several state authorities the moment he loses his current job?
A flight risk.
— Mike Sacks (@MikeSacksEsq) September 28, 2019
Penny-ante autocracy-wannabes…
One of the most training-wheels autocracy things about the Trump admin is his use of proxies & fixers who aren't accountable to the public but who use/abuse presidential/US authority. Family, obviously, Giuliani of course. More will get the spotlight.
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) September 27, 2019
Dictatorships use these methods all the time, even though you might think they wouldn't need to bother. But having public/official and private/unofficial conduits and contacts is essential for running a criminal enterprise. It's like keeping two sets of books.
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) September 27, 2019
Trump had his own little mob built in from his businesses, but they weren't ready for such a big stage so he had to outsource. Putin, Kissinger, they know how the unaccountable shadow govt game is played and were happy to help.
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) September 27, 2019
The part of me that begs for pure schadenfreude imagines this is all a snuggie-clad John Bolton, drunkenly forwarding info to journalists while he bids for replica pugios on Ebay. Reruns of 'COMBAT!' drone in the background. https://t.co/bBReevA5Ws
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) September 28, 2019
JPL
Gosh, I hope that trump is allowed to play golf all day, just to give us a rest. The leaks are dripping and how long will it be before the dam breaks.
WereBear
It’s like Stanley Kubrick does a Watergate movie.
I can’t wait for the musical!
OzarkHillbilly
It’s getting to be too much. I’m thinking of cutting off all access to the world until November 2020.
Spanky
I could have done without the snuggie-clad John Bolton.
Blech.
OzarkHillbilly
However, watching the unfolding internecine warfare at FOX could thoroughly schaden my Fruede:
……………………….
…………………………….
Pass the popcorn please.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: As true of jerks everywhere, they were Dunning–Kruger confident they had everything handled.
Betty Cracker
Yep — that photo of Trump with Kislyak and Lavrov always struck me the same way. It stands out because Trump is typically the arrogant, grandiose shithead surrounded by toadies, so seeing him in the suck-up role is weird, like watching Jabba the Hutt slither over to kiss Palpatine’s ring. Could we finally learn the details of why Trump is so obsequious to Putin and his emissaries?
No matter what comes out during the hearings, Trump will almost certainly get away with it because the Republicans are amoral and spineless and care more about power than the country. But if Trump does go down, his downfall will result from being a gigantic asshole who treats everyone like shit as much as from his misdeeds. Maybe that’s a lesson for future criminal despot wannabes — cultivate good will among your henchmen!
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Very stable geniuses, these guys. I love the
“Fox is about defending our viewers from the people who hate them,” the source told the magazine. “That’s where our power comes from. It’s not about Trump.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….. gasp…. wheeze…. Somebody should have told Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham, Pirro…
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly:
A straight-up admission that grievance-mongering is their programming strategy. That’s refreshing.
Kay
It’s not “new” though. How did it get all the way to sentencing with no coverage outside the Miami Herald?
OzarkHillbilly
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that our esteemed and very Christian VP’s wife would be part of such an environment.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Everybody knows they are the true victims in today’s society.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
tokyokie
@Kay:
I’m guessing the story ran in the Herald’s metro section, and nobody in the White House press corps bothered to read it. Why bother to look beyond Page 1 when you have anonymous sources offering you dirt on their foes in the West Wing?
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Betty Cracker
Via The Post:
Jesus, he can’t stop publicly confessing to crimes. He doesn’t know right from wrong, so he can’t even pretend to be on the up-and-up.
Kay
@tokyokie:
I’m just grateful for the whistleblower. Without him or her we’d be reading about the Joe Biden scandal in Ukraine this morning.
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly:
Meaning, they don’t know how to SPIN it. Covering it should be fairly straightforward: just report the facts as they continue to gush out like a firehouse. Covering it isn’t the issue. SPINNING it to benefit the GOP…now that’s the issue.
Chyron HR
@OzarkHillbilly:
Your bosses CCed the talking points to THE ENTIRE COUNTRY, dipshits.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Went to bed at 10, woke up at 6. Probably missed a couple major news drops. Wonder what they were?
Sm*t Cl*de
@Betty Cracker:
Daddy brought him up to be a boot-licker. He sees jackboots or smells the polish, he starts salivating.
Cheryl Rofer
@Betty Cracker:
The only photographers Trump allowed into that meeting were from the Russian media.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
We should start encouraging Dems to approach foreign governments for dirt on Republicans.
Baud
Dorothy A. Winsor
So much has happened this week that I’ve had to start triaging which scandalous stories I read or I’d never get out of my jammies.
I am gleeful, which probably means I should be disappointed in myself, but who cares?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
You’re gleeful because you’re moral.
OzarkHillbilly
Old news, I know but, Oh how the mighty have fallen:
Oh noooooes, he smoked some dope on a plane!
Was also going to come up with a cure for cancer, fix the climate, and end all wars.
Wow, I can’t imagine why investors would object to those very minor conditions.
Because banks are the true victims?
My Fruede is being Schadened on both sides now.
Immanentize
Did folks yet catch The New Yorker cover?
Direct, to the point.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Brutal.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You keep on saying it…..
But, that doesn’t make it any less true, Kay.
KEEP ON SAYING IT…???
So that anyone who may have missed it, sees it. Remembers it. Then, brings it up to others, as I have in my off-line world.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
Morning Imma.
I hope that Little Imma is doing well.?
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
There is a China transcript on that server. I am sure if it.
Immanentize
I have not given an Immp update in some time. In part because it feels oddly selfish but mostly because he hit a sort of recovery plateau. He is probably nearly surgery-healed as his wounds are closed and clean and internally the new link is excellent and scar fused. His internal stitches have melted away and his incision scar (which was expertly super glued) is fading nicely.
But his trials regarding eating continue. He has figured out many things that are just fine and some that just aren’t (like drinking cream). He uderstands small portions better, but has not figured out how to eat when he has no hunger. Keeping weight up is a chore and in this area I have leaned on my memories of my Slovak grandmother insisting I put more into my mouth. “Look at you. So thin. You eat nothing. You need to eat more… Etc.”. That ended up working for me, I guess, as I am not skinny anymore.
There is still almost daily retching. This is the part that breaks my composure. Some combination of food, or some odd texture, or too much, send the Immp to his chin bucket. Ugh. Otherwise, he walks a lot, although he tires easily.
But today is a big day for father and son — I am taking him in an hour or so to South Station in Boston where he is taking the Acela to NYC to visit his friend who just started at Barnard. He is going alone. To NYC. To see a young woman. The Immp is excited for the adventure. The Dad is stressed.
Spanky
@Immanentize: But DON’T read the morons in the comments. Sad!
Spanky
@rikyrah: There’s an off-line world???
Immanentize
@Spanky:
I learned that one little trick about three years ago.
Spanky
@Immanentize: Sigh. Dad would be stressed by any one of these things. And here they all are together.
You are doing a fantastic job, and as a major stresser* myself, I can relate. Breathe. Take walks. He’ll be fine.
* Not “stressor”, though my wife may see otherwise.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Nice.
@Spanky:
Here there be dragons.
NotMax
So as mentioned previously, good friend who on Friday left the island for the rough ‘n’ tumble environs of Seattle had arranged to come over to my place the night before for one last night of convivial drinking and chewing the fat. Lo and behold, he showed up driving his brother’s pickup, in the bed of which was ‘my’ chair from the years when our gaming group met at his house. That is to say the chair I favored spending a long evening sitting in when we met there. “Thought you might want this,” said he.
Not really what one would call a recliner, it’s a cloth upholstered wing chair which has a recessed swing-out footrest like a recliner but the chair back tilts only a few degrees from vertical. Super set-up for reading, as elevating my legs and feet helps greatly with making them feel better; have a small, sturdy ottoman (wooden legs, durable fabric top) frequently put to use over the past 40 years which can now be placed permanently in a spot where I can put my feet up when in the desk chair if so choose.
Really nice gesture from him and he refused to take a nickel for it. Spent the wee hours of pre-dawn Friday morn, after we’d said our good-byes, rearranging furniture in the living room in order to accommodate it. Hoping maybe my landlady can make use of the chair it has replaced.
Baud
@NotMax:
Very cool.
JPL
@Immanentize: Thanks you so much for the update. It’s difficult to know when I’m prying, so I try not to intrude to much. BTW When is he returning? I see a lot of pacing in your future.
Starfish
@JPL: He is going to golf with Senator Graham today. To be the bug in that golf club…
Immanentize
@NotMax:
That is a great story to upturn the disappointment I felt you feeling about the missed dinner. Better than a last supper; a permanent piece of your friendship now in your favorite spot. Sweet
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Going to see a young woman in NYC — sounds like an excellent adventure! :) I hope he has loads of fun.
So much sympathy for you. As a parent, it’s heartbreaking to see a child in pain, in danger or struggling — and to be powerless to swoop in and make everything right immediately.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Thanks for the update. Plateaus beat the hell out of crevasses any day of the week.
JPL
@Starfish: I still think that trump has something on Graham.
Immanentize
@JPL: It’s just a weekend trip. But this whole saga had me (both of us) returning to earlier days, like maybe when he was 10 or 11. Back then the Immp could get food and was generally self-sufficient, had a good vocabulary, could ask for what he needed, was humorous. Fun to be around. But there was no way I was leaving him alone in the house overnight.
That was how it was when he first came home from the hospital. But now he has gone from his regressed 10 back to being 18. Dad recovers more slowly it seems.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Tru dat.
J R in WV
@Immanentize:
Wow, that’s sounds pretty good… like he’s almost all well again, and going to see a friend in NYC. Congratulations, I think, are in order!
Amir Khalid
Scoreless at halftime in the lunchtime kickoff match between hosts Sheffield United and Liverpool. The visitors’ front are not quite on their game on a pitch still wet from rain, and Sheffield United are defending fiercely.
JPL
@Immanentize: So did he spend time with the friend over the summer? This is one of those times when I’m definitely prying, but would love to know more. I do hope he has a good time.
Spanky
Hey, remember that woman police officer who walked into the wrong apartment and killed the guy who lived there? Turns out there’s a reason, and not at all a good one.
JPL
@NotMax: That’s such a sweet story.
oldgold
Disappointing that Mueller missed this conversation and, more generally, the misuse of the intelligence classification system.
SFAW
@Starfish:
Even a maggot or carrion beetle would get revolted by Lackey Lindsey’s incessant ass-kissing/sucking of the Traitor-in-Chief. [I guess, technically, a maggot is not really a “bug,” but I think its kinship to Graham gets it a bye.]
Baud
@Spanky:
Today show is covering that trial. It is a tragedy all around. I’m not sure she is the type of killer like a lot of police officers who don’t get prosecuted or that jury’s refuse to convict.
hueyplong
@JPL: Someone has the goods on Graham. Trump merely passed along that someone’s threats to Graham on a golf course, in the manner that flunky hoods do such things.
Starfish
@JPL: That explanation for him being such a spineless lackey seems more palatable than him seeking proximity to power above all else. Several Senators dropped all opinions that they professed to hold to go and be friends with Trump, and I hope all these jellyfish get taken down.
My Senator, Cory Gardner, was very vocally pro-Ukraine and on the Foreign Affairs Committee. All of his opinions went out the window after the election.
debbie
@WereBear:
How about Mel Brooks: “Springtime for Trumpsters.”
Ohio Mom
@Immanentize: Thanks for the update, I know I’m not the only one who had been wondering about how Immp is doing. Glad to hear things are progressing, if more slowly than we all would like.
The trip to Barnard is very exciting news. This sort of thing is why cellphones have tracking apps, if that would alleviate some of your stress.
Is there an online support group of people who have had this surgery? One of the best pieces of advice I got when Ohio Son was first diagnosed with autism was to find a support group since the combined wisdom of other families was more than what doctors know. That this advice was offered by a child psychiatrist was unsettling but it proved true.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m hoping this will be the opening bit on SNL’s premiere.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
Eat. Eat. You so thin!” in my best Jewish mother voice.
@Immanentize:
Your little boy isn’t a little boy anymore. It sucks having them grow up, but it beats the other option.
My youngest was a snuggle bunny. I’ll always miss that.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Wow!
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Nice.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Aww. I hope his weekend is wonderful and that you manage to stop worrying.
Shalimar
@Baud: It’s amazing how many foreign governments have dirt on Republicans now. This is not how our democracy has traditionally worked.
Betty Cracker
My husband is wild about eggplant parmesan, a very labor-intensive dish if you cook it the way I do — homemade sauce, freshly grated cheeses, breaded and fried eggplant slices, etc. I promised him several weeks ago that when the eggplants in his garden were ready for harvest, I’d cook up a big tray of eggplant parm. Today is that day!
debbie
@NotMax:
Nice remembrance.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize:
This is a good thing. Relax.
Quinerly
@WereBear: ?
debbie
@Spanky:
Even worse is her attorney’s claim of self-defense.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I roast eggplant slices instead of breading and frying. If I had a grill, it’d be even tastier.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
Heh. Ain’t that the truth.
Ohio Mom
@OzarkHillbilly: What we Jewish mothers say is “Ess tottalah, ess!” That is Yiddish for Eat little one, eat!
Many years ago, when I was in the locker room at the JCC, I overheard one much older woman ask another how Thanksgiving went. With obvious pride, the second woman replied, “They are all good eaters!” Her life’s work was accomplished.
Fair Economist
@Immanentize: Glad to hear the Immp is doing reasonably well, well enough to start looking for adventures (which 18 year olds should be, as much as it stresses parents).
You probably already know this, but liquid foods (milkshakes, rich soups, and meal replacements) are a standard trick for keeping weight up and I’d think they’d be particularly useful after stomach removal as they reduce the fluid management demands on the intestine.
zhena gogolia
@Spanky:
THAT TWEET IS BRILLIANT
OzarkHillbilly
@oldgold: Which conversation? The Ukrainian conversation was 2 months ago.
zhena gogolia
@Immanentize:
Oh, I hope it goes well!
I had a Slovak grandmother as well, although I never met her.
zhena gogolia
@oldgold:
He “missed” it because everyone lied to him.
Immanentize
@JPL: she visited him a few times — at the hospital and here at the house. She is really smart and seriously feminist (Barnard, NOT Columbia for her) and quite attractive. Who knows? Relationships these days including my own, confound me.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think he means Trump telling Lavrov et al. that their election interference was okay.
Lapassionara
Good morning, everyone.
As long as Trump is president, we are not a sovereign nation. His allegiance is elsewhere.
Good thing he did not have sex with an intern though, and lie about it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Your husband has good taste, but you knew that already, didn’t you?
Fair Economist
@Betty Cracker: I also adore eggplant parm, but since I also do most of the cooking I eat it mostly when going out. Like Debbie, I usually roast instead as that reduces work (and calories) but it’s still a lot of work.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I listened to the Do Nothing Democrat Savages in clubs before they sold out and cut that first album….
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
Sounds like my Mamaw. She’d serve me heaping piles of shrimp because she knew they were my favorite. I’d look over and there would be just one shrimp on her plate. “They’re all for you, darling. Eat, eat.”
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
Thanks for the update.
Safe travels for Little Imma??
zhena gogolia
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
haha, me too!
Immanentize
@Ohio Mom:
Yes, it is happily named, “No Stomach for Cancer”
Gotta go be Uber Dad!
Quinerly
@Starfish: Lyndsey made “Page Six.”
https://pagesix.com/2019/09/27/lindsey-graham-loudly-blabs-about-whistleblower-controversy-on-commercial-flight/
Quinerly
@Immanentize: thanks for updating us. Sending hugs.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ohio Mom:
I think every single one of my Aunts on my old man’s side of the family were cut from the same cloth. Damn, did they know how to cook. Fortunately a little bit of that managed to get into my genes. I’m not about to say I am as good a cook as any of them were, but I do enjoy it just as much as they did.
Quinerly
@oldgold: I still can’t get over it, too. Actually woke up thinking about this. Trump thought he was going to get away with everything.
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia: OK, but am I the only person who remembers trump saying some version of that a long time ago? I am not shocked that he said it to Lavrov too. I would have been surprised if he didn’t say some version of, “Tell Vlad I have the situation under control, he needn’t worry.”
oldgold
@zhena gogolia:
And, the investigation he ran, the judgments he made, the report he filed and his defense of his report were much less than above reproach.
History will not be kind to the Mueller investigation.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: What little I knew of the business model never made sense. The company is on the hook for long-term leases on space that it rents out on a very short term basis? Space that is pretty-much just space (a desk and chair, a phone and and internet connection)? And the management thinks it can make giant profits and save the world by having jet-setting lavish parties?
Run Away! Run Away!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Quinerly
@oldgold: agree 100%. I feel strongly about this.
Ken
@SFAW:
I think Starfish meant the electronic type of bug. Rumor has it the Russians let the Israelis and Saudis split the woods and irons, but claimed the driver and putter for themselves because all the dirtiest conversations happen on the tee and green. Meanwhile the Chinese are snickering because they bugged the golf cart, knowing that Trump never walks more than ten feet if he can avoid it.
OzarkHillbilly
Danger! Danger Will Robinson! A den of purring kittens!
Ken
@Another Scott:
No, the management thought he could make giant profits by showing powerpoints with the word “disruptive” on every slide to a bunch of venture capitalists. And he wasn’t far wrong.
(The company and the VCs, on the other hand, wouldn’t make giant profits.)
ThresherK
I have heard this argument from some leftier-than-thou sorts. The weird thing is that they’re basically all younger than me and I’ve been screaming bloody murder about US intervention since I was politically sentient, which means before Iran-Contra.
TS (the original)
@Immanentize: Best thoughts to you both – I so hope he has a wonderful time
ThresherK
@OzarkHillbilly: I love the Kits Cats. Kitten Academy and TinyKittens are also bookmarked.
danielx
Been exhausted from work and too tired/busy to read or post much of late, though greatly missing the jackal commentariat. However, I must make note of the latest encomium from my man David Brooks, or at least the title – which is perfect in the same way ‘his hair was perfect’*.
Yes, Trump Is Guilty, But Impeachment Is A Mistake
Going way out on a limb, I will venture that this is a classic Brooksian viewing-leftist-radicalism-with-alarm-and-dismay piece on steroids piece, but the title is…just…completely David Brooks.
*bonus points for guessing classic reference.
Jamie
@danielx:
I saw a werewolf drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic’s. :)
danielx
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh my, the horror of the deafening purrs!
Yarrow
@hueyplong:
Correct. Lindsey Graham admitted his email was hacked. Wonder what the Russians found in it?
oldgold
@OzarkHillbilly:
The conversation in the Oval Office in early 2017 with the two Russian stooges that is featured at the top of this post.
Amir Khalid
A 1-0 away win at Sheffield United for Liverpool, who remain top of the Premier League with 21 points out of a possible 21. Manchester City are away to Everton in the 3pm kickoffs, and if City get the expected win they stay five points behind Liverpool.
Ken
@Yarrow: I’m sure it wasn’t nude pictures of 11-year-old girls.
ThresherK
@Immanentize: The latest Time cover is also worth the eyeballs.
I never went on a plane or train to see a girl, but I did date a number of women who lived outside my county (and I married one of them). Take a deep breath; the Immp will be fine.
JPL
It’s hard to believe that yesterday started with hyphengate and ended with Russia getting the okay to interfere with our elections.
Another Scott
@danielx: It’s not just Brooks, of course.
Yes, the New York Times Is Corrupt AF: Why Do You Ask?
Brad DeLong writes shrill headlines, but he’s not wrong. (That link is just a pointer to a Twitter screen capture.)
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: Do the docs think Immp will eventually be able to eat normally? I hope he has a great time in NYC.
Another Scott
@Jamie: If you like Piña coladas…
;-)
Hehe.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@Immanentize: Glad he’s doing better. Plateaus in healing can be a time for all parts of the body to kind of “catch up” and get ready for the next leap forward. Or so I’ve found. Doesn’t mean nothing is happening; just that you can’t really see the things that are happening.
The trip sounds really great for him. Take the time for yourself to chill out and let down a bit. If he needs you he’ll let you know, but that’s unlikely to happen. He’ll be fine.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax: What a nice gesture.
Kattails
@OzarkHillbilly: (…here’s your winnings sir) I’m sure Claude Rains would be tickled that his line has become so immortal–I always read it in his voice, with the little visual popping up in my head. Might be time for a re-viewing of that masterpiece.
The Thin Black Duke
@Immanentize: I had stage 3 stomach cancer ten years ago, and it was the same surgical procedure your son had that saved my life. Learning how to eat again was challenging but I got through it; so will your son. Hang in there and good luck to the both of you.
johnnybuck
Maybe, it’s just me but I’m pretty sure I knew the details of this story months ago. This is the same meeting where he boasted about firing Comey. I also remember the quote about interference and how it was no big deal since America does it. I dunno, maybe the recent developments make this old news “news” again. The breathless way MSNBC was reporting it was like like they hadn’t heard this before. Or am I crazy.
also, I think the server is the new taping system. It is remarkable to me how similar this is to Watergate.
Drdavechemist
@Immanentize: You’ve done a great job with the Immp and should be happy that under your supervision he is confident, at 18 years old, to navigate public transportation and an unfamiliar city on his own. I was really proud last year when my UMich freshman son booked a spring break vacation in NYC at an Airbnb for himself and some new friends (coincidentally including a visit to a young woman friend at Barnard!). Wishing both of you a fun weekend and a happy reunion.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Quinerly: LOL – the official notes of a conversation POTUS has are “hearsay” now? Graham is sounding every bit the conspiracy theorist that Giuliani is. And as desperate. They use legalese to make BS arguments using terms whose meaning has no relation to how they’re using it.
Jinchi
Remember this?
I wonder where these people were when all this was going on. It just seems strange that Trump’s fall is at the hands of an outside whistleblower and not the “grown ups” within the Resistance.
Of course, the NYT could shed some light on this for us, but they’re too busy exposing the whistleblower’s identity.
Spanky
@Immanentize:
Turns out the more you know, the less you know. Wish I’d have known that when I was 18. Would have saved me some angst.
danielx
@Another Scott:
The country will be irreparably divided! Rain of blood! Dogs and cats living together!
Lather, rinse, repeat.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
What I remember is him telling an interviewer that it was okay that Putin killed people because America had also done some very, very bad things. I don’t recall hearing explicitly that he told Lavrov et al. that their 2016 interference was okay.
Yarrow
@Jinchi: Of course the NYT is determined to conceal the name of that “Resistance WH insider” but will rush to out the whistle blower. No wonder people question who owns them.
zhena gogolia
@danielx:
I didn’t guess it, but it’s a great reference.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
Of course you’re stressed! You are a good dad who is taking good care of his son. He’s smart and will reach out if he needs help.
I recommend power cleaning with the tunes cranked up when the worry hits.
Jinchi
@Quinerly:
From the article.
Does the media understand the definition of “spy”? Because overhearing a loud conversation on a crowded flight does not make you a spy.
OzarkHillbilly
@johnnybuck:
I feel better now. I was beginning to think I had just dreamed it all up.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: No! You are not the only person. I read that and thought “this is NOT news”.
danielx
@zhena gogolia:
I really miss Warren Zevon.
oldgold
@Quinerly:
A recent tweet from Norman Ornstein concerning the Mueller investigation gets it about right.
Someone else quipped it was Ned Stark versus Joffrey Lannister Baratheon
sdhays
@oldgold: As we saw with the Kavanaugh affair, the FBI is wired to investigate only what it’s told to investigate, at least when it comes to Republicans, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the former Republican director of the FBI operated in the same way.
He did a very professional job. Where he failed was in thinking that was enough, and by the end, that should have been clear.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JPL: It’s hard to believe how things have changed in just a week. I listen to Pod Save America at the gym, and Thursday, I had a podcast from the previous weekend. They were speculating on whether Pelosi would ever pull the trigger and kind of seemed to think no.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@oldgold: Yeah how he wouldn’t have gotten all official records of Trump’s conversations with Putin and other Russians (which probably contain information more damning than the Ukraine call that has been released) boggles the mind. Maybe the Administration refused to turn them over but then maybe you make a bigger deal about how they thwarted in investigation? He’s a lifelong republican. I’m sure he has excuses that seem valid to him but the bottom line is maybe he didn’t want to dig too hard.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@johnnybuck: I wonder if Trump was caught off guard because indeed most of this stuff was public before. At least, we talked about it here. So he thought he’d got away with it.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nope, I thought I remembered that, too.
Leto
@Immanentize: Thanks for the update! I hope he has a wonderful time, and that you can relax just a bit. There was an article I read back in April that I should have posted, but it slipped my mind ‘till just now. The guy is from my old stomping grounds back in SC.
Lowcountry man has stomach removed due to cancer-causing disease now competing in Ironman
Dylan Davison Ironman After Stomach Removal
Also it’s not selfish. We’re all invested in you two and we like updates. The extended family wants to know! ?
johnnybuck
@OzarkHillbilly: I thought the whole thing about firing Comey was that he’d taken care of the investigation. anyway, I’ve had several deja-vu moments with the news lately. Maybe it’s just the MSM catching up with the story, but I swear I hear news outlets report on things, and then later do it again as though it were all new. Thank God. I thought I was losing it.
Quinerly
@oldgold: nailed it. Like you said history won’t be kind. Mueller’s health doesn’t look good to me. Hope he lives long enough to read a little bit of the history written about him down the road. People should also be asking some pointed and hard questions down the road.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Another Scott: DeLong is my birth name. I don’t think Brad and I are related, but the name always catches my eye.
johnnybuck
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And he probably would have were it not for the whistleblower story.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: We live in interesting times. I did see a good name for the whistle blower that made me laugh. Orange Crush.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Trump’s last four tweets have been in all caps. Maybe the caps lock key finally broke in the ON position.
Ken
@johnnybuck:
And very much an “own petard” situation. The Republicans spent about six years, a dozen Congressional investigations, and a few tens of millions of dollars priming everyone to equate “server” with “criminal conspiracy”.
The Watergate parallel also fits with my personal theory that Trump is what you get if you combine the worst characteristics of the last sixty-odd years of Republican Presidents. Sort of like SHAZAM in reverse – instead of the wisdom of Solomon etc., you get the paranoia of Nixon, the neurodegenerative-ness of Reagan, and so on.
Quinerly
@Jinchi: spy gets thrown around loosely, don’t you know? Public executions of passengers at the airport Starbucks! (also, did you catch that the spy revealed Lyndsey has a flip phone?)
Jinchi
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He’s got a point.
The mockery and contempt on his face when he said this is clear. He’s laughing, Putin’s laughing and the Republicans pretend there’s no collusion.
Ohio Mom
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Now you know the limitations of Pod Save America’s ability to see into the future. Don’t take any stock tips from them.
Seriously, my esteem for bloggers who came out early and loud against the Iraq War remains high, vs. the bloggers who weren’t. For one, I know people get tired of Atrios but looking back, he’s been right about most things.
Quinerly
@JPL: Good one.
Quinerly
@Jamie: ❤️
Amir Khalid
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Wow. That must be some serious damage, if Trump has broken a key that doesn’t even physically exist on his smartphone.
Spanky
@Quinerly: Older OSes are easier to secure, so that’s probably good OPSEC on Lindsey’s part.
His flapping jaws, no so much.
Quinerly
@Spanky: I read it that that he had 2 phones with him.
Amir Khalid
@Quinerly:
A flip phone? I did not know the Senator collected antiques.
Leto
@Ohio Mom: I stopped listening to PSA about a year ago because they just kept shitting on Dems and I couldn’t take it anymore. On top of Jon Lovett’s continual shitting on HRC, I had had enough. I will say that Dan Pfeiffer’s “Pod Save the World”, which focuses more on national security issues and foreign policy, is much better/more tightly focused. It also doesn’t suffer from having just him as a host with some really good/smart guests.
johnnybuck
@Ken: How nice if the two events bookend GOP control of Washington. Of course Nixon wasn’t stupid enough to confess his crimes. I read that it was Moscow Mitch that urged release of the transcript. Still trying to sort that out.
sdhays
@johnnybuck: Maybe Moscow Mitch made the rookie mistake of believing them when they said that the “transcript” would exonerate Dump?
I certainly thought it would, because I never expected them to produce something this close to accurate.
MomSense
@johnnybuck:
Definitely not crazy. I had to turn the news off since shouting at my TV was causing coughing attacks.
Leto
@Amir Khalid: My dad had a flip phone until just a few months ago. He didn’t see the need for a better one, though the one I kept pointing out was it would make texting easier/faster between us. I think my mom made him finally upgrade, but he just upgraded to the next Luddite version. Both my dad and Graham are roughly the same age, so i sort of understand.
Leto
In the convergent world of police recruitment and white supremacy:
Another Scott
@johnnybuck: Yeah, it was out there at the time (or a day later). Twitter recycles stuff as “news” all the time. It’s exhausting.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
johnnybuck
@sdhays: I’m guessing he was totally in the dark about all of this, which is why it will be very hard to explain away.
Another Scott
In other news, Section of Mt. Blanc glacier in danger of sudden collapse:
(Insert snark about Chinese conspiracy here.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
@johnnybuck: It is pretty solidly in the “You’re taking notes of a criminal conspiracy” territory. I can see why Moscow Mitch would assume they’d be no problem.
Chief Oshkosh
@oldgold: At the end of the say, Mueller is an establishment Republican. My take is that if he could find a sliver of justification for not pursuing something, then he didn’t pursue it. In this case, even if there were hints and leads suggesting up-classification (HT to Adam), he just didn’t want to know. It was a security level outside of his brief, he no doubt held…
MomSense
@Another Scott:
Damn. What are they going to call it when the glaciers are gone? The mountain formerly known as Blanc?
NotMax
@Leto
If Mohammed can’t go to the mountain….
//
Mai naem mobile
I am so old I remember when Mattis, Kelly, McMaster and Tillerson were supposed to be the adults in the room keeping the ship sailing right. Ends they were all a bunch of cowards. No profiles on courage. The first three are freaking military. Seriously sad and pathetic.
Butter emails!!!
I think we should refer to the whistleblower as “short straw”.
sdhays
@johnnybuck: MM has a Republic to destroy, so he can’t keep tabs on every instance of treason President Liddle’ Hands is up to. But I don’t believe for a second that he didn’t believe Rectum Mouth was totally guilty as soon as the contours of the crime started leaking out. Every single Republican in Congress knew he was guilty the instance they heard about it. What’s taken them by surprise is how little cover they’ve been given to obfuscate.
I think MM was expecting the consolidated-random-notes-from-a-call that we’re calling a “transcript” to be edited in such a way so as to not include incriminating language. That would be normal for this White House – they do it when there’s actual video tape to prove that they did it. But for some reason, they pulled a Don Jr. tweeting emails proving his collusion. I think they’ve sunk so far that they don’t know anymore what “incriminating” is.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Muslims find this expression baffling. There has never been a story in the traditional account of the Prophet’s life that says he — or God — made a mountain come to him.
Quinerly
@Butter emails!!!: I’m sticking with “Deep Whistle.”
zhena gogolia
@Quinerly:
The Mueller Report is full of granular detail that will be of inestimable assistance to Schiff et al. during the coming months.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Nor about what a dashing figure he cut when outfitted in lederhosen for climbing.
:)
JPL
@sdhays:
BINGO
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Amir Khalid: It’s from Francis Bacon’s Essays. Now, whether he heard it somewhere or made it up from whole cloth, we’ll probably never know. The mountain is supposed to be Mt. Safa.
Quinerly
@zhena gogolia: I read it.
zhena gogolia
@Quinerly:
I don’t think we would be where we are today without the work Mueller did. I’m not ready to consign him to the ash heap of history just yet.
Amir Khalid
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Aha! It is a damnable Christian libel!
//
zhena gogolia
@Amir Khalid:
I wonder if it’s a mashup with Jesus’ thing about having faith the size of a mustard seed.
Quinerly
“But just as Watergate demystified the White House staff as bumblers, the Ukraine scandal has revealed Trump and his allies are suffering from Fox News poisoning. The bizarre conspiracy theories that the rest of us took to be devious propaganda had a profound impact on the president and his inner circle. They are not-very-bright guys who also happen to be genuinely nuts.”
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/ukraine-scandal-trump-downfall-impeachment.html
Mai naem mobile
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I had forgotten Pelosi used to be the Intel Committee Chair. She probably did a WTF when she heard just the initial whistleblower info. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a hand in convincing the freshmen seven to write the op-ed. They had national Security/military .backgrounds and so did she.
NotMax
@zhena Gogolia
Had he been there, Mr. Cole would have lost that.
Chris Johnson
@Jinchi:
I do remember that. Looking at it now, it’s screaming ‘plant’. ‘I am a Russian security officer posting as resistance in the Trump Administration. No matter what you see happening here, don’t panic, there is somebody in control over here though they cannot reveal themselves to you. Peace out, and vote in the next election if you want anything to happen’.
Think for a second about who that message benefits. Yeah, it pisses Trump off personally and isn’t in the least true, but it’s just another way to keep the operation going for another day.
Much like Lindsey Graham loudly talking in a public place about how they’re soooo prepared to fight back and have good plans: Lindsey is a much better spy than Trump will ever be. He’s capable of throwing some smoke in a way that’s relatively plausible. Who says he was even talking to Jared at all? He could have been, and could have been bullshitting or trying to appease Jared. Or he could have been just talking for the bystanders on the assumption that people knew who he was.
oldgold
@zhena gogolia:
I doubt that.
This impeachment inquiry is going to be narrow and focused. It will steer clear, for the most part, from “Russiagate” and Mueller’s botched investigation of it.
Amir Khalid
Incidentally, Manchester United beat Liverpool 2-0 this weekend — in the Women’s Super League, which is the pro league for women’s football in England.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: Just like Hindus find the usage of karma to mean divine retribution baffling. When all it means is actions or deeds
Kar == hands ( you can see that root it in English words too like baker, maker etc..)
karma == things that you do (with your hands)
ETA: Ultimately what does people in, is their own actions. Our Orange President’s case is a good demonstration of this adage.
Ella in New Mexico
@SFAW:
Good money that we’ll find there are some pretty interesting conversations with/about Lackey Lindsey’s debts to pay on that Uber Duper Top Secret server.
Chris Johnson
@zhena gogolia: There’s a class of people who put a LOT of effort into claiming Mueller was full of shit and his investigation was worthless. They were and are Russian troll farms, and they were pretty effective. Their job is still relevant, and people do listen to the propaganda they tirelessly put out.
I saw a lot of that, especially on lefty spaces. Almost a litmus test on how much people are exposed to Russian trollage: how angry/bitter/cynical are they about Mueller?
Ken
@NotMax: Speaking of Cole, has anyone received a phone call asking for bail money yet?
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
I’m sorry your friend left!
zhena gogolia
@oldgold:
The Ukraine call has everything to do with Russia.
schrodingers_cat
@Mai naem mobile: They signaled their bravery or rather the lack thereof when they (Mattis and Kelly) stood right behind the Orange One when he signed that executive order banning Muslims just after he took office.
Amir Khalid
@zhena gogolia:
I agree about Mueller. His team provided the first extensive documentation of criminal acts commited by the Trump administration and put a few leading Trumpistas in the big house. Also, it scared the poo out of Trump for a year and then some.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
You mean instant karma isn’t gonna get me?
Phew. That’s a load off my mind.
;)
zhena gogolia
@Chris Johnson:
I hit the roof when Trevor whatsisname on the Daily Show said, “You just beat the Russia rap, why would you turn around and do this with Ukraine?”
He didn’t beat the Russia rap. And the Russia story is not over by any means.
zhena gogolia
@Amir Khalid:
I’ll say it again. The Ukraine call is not a new incident unrelated to the Mueller Report. It’s the sequel.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Yup. He had no brief to investigate or report on involvement in the 2020 election.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Chris Johnson: The speed of this impeachment investigation prevented those folks from debunking it ahead of time. They’re scrambling to play catchup.
Uncle Cosmo
@OzarkHillbilly: Just FTR, most of the difference between a Jewish mother and an Italian mother is the difference between Ess, ess, mein kindt! and Mangia, mangia! The rest of the difference is the difference beween matzoh balls and meatballs.
Jinchi
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t have any complaints against Mueller, he laid out what he probably considered a pretty devastating case and indicted quite a few of Trump’s people. The problem was that too many of us expected him to single-handedly take out Trump. That was never going to happen, because he never had that authority.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Agreed. Also too, you and I were right about Sarah Kendzior. Virtual High Five!
Amir Khalid
@zhena gogolia:
The articles of impeachment, when the House Democrats finally come out with one, could be a book-length document if they are so inclined.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Amir Khalid: Actually, in the original, yes. It was supposed to convey a sense of “brazening through a failure/scandal”. I wonder if it was originally a Simon Magus story.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: Well that depends on what karma you perform!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: If it’s possible to suffer from excessive rectitude, Mueller is the proof of it. Also, his faith in the institutions, and voters, of the American polity was willfully, determinedly naive. That said, it’s not his fault the lumpenmittel is too dense or too lazy or both to see the cases of obstruction he laid out*.
And I suspect he was curtailed by Rosenstein and then shut down all together by Barr. Maybe his team will start to leak.
* even now, are there signs that Susan Collins and Tom Tillis are going to suffer for their complicity?
NotMax
@Uncle Cosmo
Kreplach, ravioli, shishbarak, won tons, it’s all good.
;)
schrodingers_cat
@Mai naem mobile: I didn’t respond to your post about many US organizers of Indian PM’s Houston rally being Gujarati. If it makes it any better, the Sangh founders, and all except two sarsanghchalaks were Maharashtrians, including the current one, Bhagwat. As someone with deep roots in Maharashtra I find that shameful. Well at least Gujarat gave India Gandhi, and Maharashtra, Ambedkar.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah! (I’m not sure what you’re referring to — that her despair was unjustified? Or did something come out about her that I missed?)
(About to go out for a while, will check in later.)
Uncle Cosmo
@Betty Cracker: Your plans make my mouth water.
When my real-estate agent first led me into what would become my current domicile, the owners were apologetic. “We weren’t expecting anyone & we’re really sorry about the smell.” I looked at them like they were crazy. “Smell? Smell?? You’re frying breaded eggplant in olive oil! It smells like home!” Between that & the European travel posters on the walls (they’d spent a few years in Germany) I knew in the first 2 minutes I’d be buying the place. (I didn’t know I’d still be here 30-odd years later, but even if life comes at you half-fast, it comes inexorably…)
The Dangerman
My dream … Trump walks out of the White House for inauguration of new President … and the second he isn’t President, his fat ass is under arrest.
oldgold
@Jinchi:
Do you think it was a good idea:
1] Not to depose Doll Hands, Jr. and Kush?
2] Not to pen a straightforward declaratory sentence at the end of part II of his report? [The WB’s 9 page complaint establishes the power of clear and concise writing.]
3] To abandon his 484 page baby on Barr’s front doorstep and silently slink off. Then, to reluctantly return, months later, and barely remember the child’s name?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Her grifting became too obvious for most people to ignore. She was pontificating about Nancy Pelosi being beholden to Russians and having a Twitter meltdown, a couple of weeks ago.
Uncle Cosmo
@The Dangerman: I’m going with a split screen – the President-Elect taking the oath of office as US Marshals enter the White House grounds, where the about to be former POTUS is holed up inside the Oval Office with furniture pushed up against the door…
Amir Khalid
@The Dangerman:
Maybe not that fast. The incoming post-Trump DoJ leadership would still have some prep work to do first.
Jinchi
@Chris Johnson:
Actually, Anonymous pretty clearly didn’t want us to vote him out. They celebrated his deregulation and tax policies, and only tried to block his “worst inclinations”.
It was left to the reader to decide whether those inclinations included things like the Muslim ban, kids in cages, graft and casual treason, or if they were simply upset that he shouted too much in the oval office.
Uncle Cosmo
@zhena gogolia:
FTFY!
Quinerly
@oldgold: ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
My real life is exhausting at the moment, and the revelations have been like those damn Marvel movies– how the hell are you supposed to keep up with a new one every three minutes?– but… McMaster helped cover up a lot of this shit, didn’t he? The secret server? And kept covering it up after he was slowly humiliated before being fired? a couple of months ago Princess Grifterella tweeted out a picture of herself with Haley and McMaster, grinning like idiots, with the caption “Love these two!” and a bunch of emojis. In a sane world, McMaster would have a lot to answer for.
And, oh yeah, Mattis is a fraud and a partisan hack.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
I’m pretty sure there’s no traditional account of that, either. Modern-day bikers aside, who the hell is dumb enough to wear leather in desert heat?
Uncle Cosmo
@oldmold: You’re a joke and a fucking imbecile. Why haven’t the mods banhammered your whiny arse into the Lesser Magellanic Cloud?
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You left out the best or should I say the worst of the three generals, Kelly.
ETA: And how long after it was clear to anyone who paid attention how hollow their characters were, did the 3 generals keep getting good press?
Frankensteinbeck
@sdhays:
Having listened to Trump’s justifications and hearing Trump pushes the transcript’s release, I think the reasoning was as follows: Trump takes it as obvious that everything he’s asking for is real, that he is asking for proof of actual crimes and malfeasance. How can proving his enemies’ crimes be a bad thing? If anything he’ll be applauded as a hero.
Elizabelle
Good morning, jackals. A ProPublica link, from November 2016, which a WaPost reader commenter suggested is worth a look anew:
ProPublica: How Journalists Need to Begin Imagining the Unimaginable
Has been a failure of the imagination throughout. I am agreeing that Robert Mueller had too much respect for an edifice that had already decayed, and should have seen it. (I thank Kay for her many comments on institutional failure, and she called it.)
He also misjudged the deplorable and possibly eventually to be disbarred and imprisoned William Barr.
It’s having James Stewart’s sheriff of High Noon up against the sleaziest Bond villains imaginable.
Philbert
@Quinerly: aIso Ukranium One h/t Wonkette
catclub
@Baud:
She is white and the person killed was black. She will get either acquitted or minimum – involuntary manslaughter, maybe?
Jinchi
@oldgold: I think Mueller went “by the book” to a fault, but his report was pretty damning for anyone willing to read it. It’s up to other people to pick up the ball where he left it and carry it forward.
catclub
@Jinchi:
The part that has been released. Barr is still blocking full release.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Just like it was difficult to accept for many even on the usually savvy Balloon Juice not to speak anything of the terrible MSM, how hollow in character and lacking in bravery were the generals that T surrounded himself with. The ones who were going to save us from the Orange One.
ETA: Truth is a bitter pill to swallow, as I am finding out while dealing with my Modi approving in some cases worshiping friends and family.
Redshift
@Frankensteinbeck: Yeah, he definitely believes all the conspiracy theories, because they make him look better. That’s part of why his BS/lies are so hard for a lot of people to deal with; he isn’t sneakily saying things he knows are lies to put one over on people, he’s saying what he wants to be true, and that should be enough to make it true.
GregB
It’s fucking happening. The edifice of Trump Tower is about to collapse.
I hope everyone is well.
Fuck LBJ too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: Kelly doesn’t get the fawning coverage the other two still do, at least not in my media bubble. I’ve always been ambivalent about Lawrence O’Donnell, but damn me if he didn’t call out Kelly for the Southie Archie Bunker– and worse– that he is.
(apologies to Bostonites if I’m using that term incorrectly)
Quinerly
“Seems like we’re about to see a wave of time travel whistleblowing.”
Josh Marshall
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You have a point. Kelly lost his shine after he lied about Congresswoman Wilson.
catclub
@Spanky: There was also no real initial investigation – so she was probably drunk, but never tested.
Not sure if drunk would be extenuating circumstances for a cop. Unlike civilians
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is no longer operative, since at least one newspaper, the Connecticut Post, has called on trump to resign, but it is telling.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: if I believed in hell, I would wish on Kelly that along with whatever torture Dante imagined for him, the sound track for eternity would be his voice saying “the children will be put in foster care… or whatever”
Amir Khalid
@catclub:
My studies in the TV School of American Law tell me that being drunk at the time is not accepted as a mitigating factor for any crime.
Redshift
I know I shouldn’t be surprised that the only people who would agree to work for Trump would be scumbags, but it still boggles my mind that they heard Trump openly betraying the country and their first instinct was to try to make sure nobody found out.
I guess it’s good my mind can still be boggled…
Redshift
Great line that I happened to hear on a call-in show this week: “I’m still not sleeping well at night, but I’m happier now that Trump isn’t either.”
Quinerly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Boston Globe has called for his resignation.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Excellent comment!
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Yup. “His generals.” And the deplorable Rep. Stewart out of Utah, a howler monkey at the DNI’s testimony who brought shame upon the Air Force in which he served.
I am sorry about the Modi relatives. Has happened in my family too, and it is sad to see political ugliness intervene in family relationships.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Quinerly: good on’em. I thought there were more, but I wasn’t sure. Hard to keep up with the firehose.
Elizabelle
@Jinchi: The MSM proved themselves, for the most part, to be a bunch of lazy asshole careerists. And then you have William Barr, who lied and lied and lied (and was taken at face value for a crucial juncture).
These horrible people have learned that, if you get the lie out there first, for many people, the truth will never be heard.
Fuck them all.
Quinerly
@Quinerly: actually, I guess not. It came across on my news feed like that, but when I actually read it, it’s an op Ed piece. My bad.
Spanky
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Ha! Is this a full service blog, or what!
Quinerly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: see above. My mistake.
Amir Khalid
My mistake: Everton-Manchester City is the late 5:30pm kickoff, not one of the 3pm ones. 10-man Tottenham Hotspur lead Southampton 2-1. Wolverhampton Wanderers seem t have shaken off their poor early season form and lead bottom of the table Watford 2-0. Once-mighty teams Manchester United and Arsenal face off tomorrow,
Spanky
@Amir Khalid: If they’re smart, they’ll impeach for only the most obvious crimes, and if the Senate acquits too far in advance of the November ’20 election, they’ll start over with a new batch of charges.
opiejeanne
@Elizabelle: Gary Cooper was in High Noon, but yes.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No newspaper that wants him to resign thinks there’s the slightest chance he will. Of course, that starts the conversation about how everyone knows Republicans will act like partisan assholes, so their decision-making is ignored, so people become accustomed to the idea that only Democrats can make decisions and thus everything is the Democrats’ fault.
Amir Khalid
@Spanky:
Agreed. Only one charge needs to stick, and they can take as many shots at it as they need to. The rest, once Trump’s removel from office is secured, can be left to federal and state prosecutors.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Linda Tripp is trending on twitter. Did Chuck Todd book her to ask if trump’s abuses of power remind her of the time she was forced to rifle through Monica Lewinsky’s underwear drawer (metaphorically speaking)?
sdhays
@Jinchi: He could have been more aggressive. He didn’t even bother to actually interview President Toadstool, despite the written answers to his questions being provably false. There was so much shady business going on. Why Jared has been allowed to skate by on wanting to talk to the Kremlin in the Russian Embassy without US intelligence listening in? The transition fund was sloshing around with shady money; did that really not fall under his purview?
He was probably the best we could hope for from a Republican administration. But he wasn’t good enough.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ah the myth that won’t die. Liberal media. Not.
sdhays
@Spanky: Hell, a Republican House in the future will do that just to gum up the Senate to slow down Democratic nominations to the administration and judiciary.
CaseyL
@Spanky: I’m not sure it works that way, to be able to start one new impeachment inquiry after another. The GOP will frame it as harassment, “old news,” baseless vendetta, etc. and of course the MSM will go along.
I think the best idea is to have an impeachment inquiry with a flexible mandate: investigate the infraction with the most, best evidence (in this case, the Ukraine quid pro quo) and any additional crimes that emerge as a result of that investigation – which should open up the floodgates rather nicely.
patrick II
@Jinchi:
Where those people were was having a good laugh. TheY put forward a potemkin’s village of secret competence actually running the white house rationally and some of us bought it.
mad citizen
Notcied the comment above about Trevor Noah (Daily Show) saying Trump beat the Russian rap. Bull to the shyt! I agree with Casey, the inquiry must be expansive, and include EVERYTHING. Do people not realize there was never a House inquiry following Mueller? What is this timeline we’re in?
MomSense
My fantasy this whole time has been that Nancy Smash has been slow walking, and espousing reluctance to impeach because she has known all along she would end up president. She has certainly established plausible deniability.
Jinchi
I think we judge where we are compared to where we want to be, and forget where we could have been.
Rosenstein never had to appoint a special counsel at all. He could have picked Bob Barr to sweep the whole thing under the rug. When Trump met with Lavrov in the White House, he undoutedly thought he had gotten away with it and was celebrating the start a close partnership with Putin.
Rosenstein, Comey, Mueller. These are flawed people, but they pushed back on Trump when it would have been easier just to let it pass.
Quinerly
@sdhays: well said.
Matt McIrvin
So, which is better? The Senate convicts Trump and brings in Mike Pence as our new shithead President, or they vote to acquit on a party line and the bastards all get that fact nailed to them in 2020?
Well, it’s out of our hands anyway, either way.
Jay C
@patrick II:
Well, the “bought it” part was due (IMO) in no small part to “our” national news media, who were still, at that point, largely pushing the “Trump will pivot to being “presidential” any day now!” narrative, and were exceedingly loath to point out stuff (like the Trump/Lavrov/Sislyak meetup) that would counter their tales….
J R in WV
@sdhays:
Don’t forget that Mueller was severely constrained by the memo establishing the Special Counsel’s office, and the limited issues he was allowed to investigate in that memo.
Rosenstein (IIRC) wrote that, and it was a real piece of work as things turned out. So it wasn’t all Mueller’s fault, some of it was the fault of the DoJ. And Barr’s incessant lying about what was in the report.
Jinchi
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s better if the Senate convicts, even if Pence replaces him.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That is just pathetic.
sdhays
@J R in WV: That’s true, it’s definitely not all his fault. But I don’t think he really rose to the occasion; the fact that his boss, Rosenstein, was implicated in the initial obstruction of justice should have made him consider how much he was willing to be bound by what Rosenstein wanted. It was pretty obvious that the US government was becoming awash in corruption and compromised by the President’s criminal behavior and the Justice Department was not at all equipped to stop it, and he decided to agonize over the finer points of OPM memos.
PPCLI
@Amir Khalid: In re: Tottenham – southhampton. I noticed “Lloris” trending on Twitter, and thought “Hmmm… it’s usually bad news when a goalie’s name is prominent. Let’s see…. OMIGOD!!!
sdhays
@Jinchi: Absolutely. If President Liddle’ Hands is convicted by a Republican Senate, the Republican Party will implode. At least for a few months.
PPCLI
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I checked, and most of the tweets are in response to Lindsey Graham’s statement that you can’t impeach on hearsay. Tweeter’s are saying variations on “Oh Really? You didn’t think so when you and your buds used the Linda Tripp second hand account.”
WaterGirl
Everyone in Trump’s orbit: The president is a dangerous, raving lunatic who is destroying everything this office, and our country, stands for.
Next thought: Let’s do everything we can to hide the evidence of that so he can stay in office.
The mind boggles.
Repatriated
@zhena gogolia: Oh, but he thought he had indeed beaten the rap! That false sense of impunity just came back to bite him….
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Camels? But then they don’t have much choice in the matter.
:)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PPCLI: The pushback should also include the fact that it was trump’s own version of the Zelensky call that moved Dems to impeachment. The “hearsay” evidence is what led to the (I believe more or less White House confirmed) story about the secret server and the other phone calls where trump abused his power and sought to conspire with foreign governments. That’s about criminal activity of the people around trump, not just trump.
ETA: not that I imagine for a minute that either Lapdog Lindsey or Our Willard will be moved by internet comments or tweets, but Jake Tapper (if not Chuck Todd) might be reminded of such details if the right people tweet at him.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Doesn’t count as leather if it’s your own living skin.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Translated from Camelese: Well, tan mah hide but it’s friggin’ hot!
;)
prostratedragon
… and then suddenly.
Amir Khalid
Everton are behind 0-1 to City. Apparently they’re terrified of City, which never helps.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
So true. I would have said it like: “Next thought: Let’s do everything we can to hide the evidence of that so
heWE can stay in office.”debbie
@WaterGirl:
Or… they are so proud because Donald Trump has out-Nixoned Richard Nixon! What an achievement!
Amir Khalid
Man City are getting a lot of ridicule over their kit, which makes them look like walking fruit salads.
Leto
@Amir Khalid: I was watching a college game yesterday between Boston College and Virginia Tech. BC has a man sent off in the 41’ of play, but VT played defensive for most of the match, which somehow ended up 2-2. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand how VT could not capitalize on being a man up. Ugh.
Amir Khalid
Everton have an equaliser!
Leto
@Amir Khalid: I too support Mango City in the PL campaign!
Frankensteinbeck
EDIT – Removed because it’s too early in the morning, even at 1:12pm.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that’s the nub of it. Mike Pompeo went from back-bencher to an office held by Thomas Jefferson, Henry Cabot Lodge (ETA: scratch that and put in John Foster Dulles– just looking for a grandiose name from a long time ago) and Hillary Clinton. Mnuchin was a trust-fund billionaire who got Alexander Hamilton’s job– it clearly means a lot to him, he could have spent one day’s (a couple of hours’?) interest from his bond portfolio to fly his trophy wife in a tricked out private jet to watch the eclipse, probably nicer than whatever military jet he commandeered, but it’s a different kind of power. Kellyanne Conway was a C-list cable guest sucking cash out of Rebbekah Mercer’s desire to be a player. Without John McCain, Lindsey Graham’s influence would be confined to hissing about “feckless foreign policy” on Meet The Press. Paul Ryan never could have sold his tax cuts without trump getting the WWC to reeeeaaallly vote their hate.
Timurid
@J R in WV:
It’s clear after the fact that the public tension between Trump and Rosenstein was mostly kayfabe…
cain
@Amir Khalid:
Honestly, they were just jealous of Hanuman who in fact in the Ramayana, needed a herb from a mountain to save Laxmana, but couldnt find it so he just brought the whole mountain. That’s a fella who has no fucks to give.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Timurid: I don’t know, a lot of people went from trump-phobia to mini-trump: Lindsey, Ted, Marco, Minister Without Portfolio Mick Mulvaney.
cain
@Chris Johnson:
Plot twist, the newspaper article was meant for the Russians.
Amir Khalid
@Leto:
The disparity in numbers might not make a difference if the two teams are far enough apart in ability and organisation. A poor team could be unable to profit from having one more player, a superior team could be good enough to win despite being a player short.
Amir Khalid
@cain:
I’ve always considered the Monkey God a pretty cool character.
Leto
@Amir Khalid: Very true, but VT played way too defensively for what they had. Man advantage, ability to move the ball forward/control it, definitely the ability to score. It was just an interesting dynamic to watch.
Amir Khalid
It’s 1-1 at halftime. If it’s still level at the final whistle, Everton will have done Liverpool a big favour.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Ooh, I missed that! I’ll look it up.
joel hanes
@oldgold:
Ned Stark vs. Joffrey
nah.
It was Alliser Thorne vs. Janos Slynt.
joel hanes
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Trump was caught off guard, and is still flailing, because he is incapable of understanding what is wrong about what he has done.
J R in WV
NYTimes:
Opinion | Impeachment is an Act of Desperation
This is a whole string of 6 or 8 separate opinion pieces by the usual suspects. Of course the NYTimes added headlines to each article strung together, and selected the most hostile to America headline they had to work with for the whole creation.
Despicable yet typical. Wife decided to click on it, I took a brief look over her shoulder. Dowd and her fellow minions… sad.
joel hanes
@Ohio Mom:
people get tired of Atrios
IMHO, he has in recent months comprehensively misjudged Pelosi.
Bill Arnold
@ThresherK:
In case you’re not being coy, the American lefty (such as they are) argument spaces are actively injected with this sort of argument, by multiple entities and for varying reasons. Some of them basically attaching to valid anti-American-imperialism arguments to invalidly defend the egregious behavior of other countries.
germy
“Everything dies baby that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back”
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Perhaps the business model involved(s) rental of network sniffers to entities with plenty of reliably dark money. (Not sure I’m joking.)
WeWork’s weak Wi-Fi security leaves sensitive documents exposed – Documents sent on WeWork’s unsecured network included financial records, bank account credentials and a cat photo of Nicolas Cage. (Alfred Ng, September 19, 2019) (For cetain lurkers, yes, thought copied from elsewhere.)
joel hanes
@Amir Khalid:
Leticia James is rested and ready with a list of NY state charges that Pence cannot pardon away.
joel hanes
@Uncle Cosmo:
Why haven’t the mods banhammered
Not worth the effort.
Amir Khalid
Commenters on the BBC liveblog are comparing City’s yellow/orange kit to fruit salad, fruit-lavoured lollipops and sweets, even a tequila sunrise.
FlipYrWhig
@joel hanes: @Ohio Mom: Also, he’s an exasperating, carping dick.
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
Doctors know their experiences with whatever they specialize in. Families know the day to day experiences living with, supporting, educating about whatever disease. And they have varied experiences. The more of them you know the more likely you are to see something that works for you. Docs do the same thing, they talk to each other and they talk to their patients and families but they get more of a snapshot. And docs can be easily time constrained just because of volume of things that have to happen.
The family is the operational unit for the actual disease, they get more feedback and more immediate feedback. That makes the families a bigger and often better source of what to do and as important what not to do.
Another Scott
@Bill Arnold: It’s amazing. But not surprising.
While I was In The SLC a few days ago, waiting at a gate, I heard some guy talking far too loudly while he was on the phone and working on his laptop. “… Tell Them to Shut it Down Right Now. All Their Passwords are Compromised. NOW! DO IT NOW! … Tell Them I’m Not Getting Paid to Work on Zero-Day Flaws in ONE Storage …” and “…I’ve got $1M to spend and I want 1.5 TB of cloud storage …” and on for about 15 minutes before he got up and moved on to another gate.
Between leaving the network doors wide open, and people blabbering in public, it’s amazing that we aren’t all penniless.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: as certified O-Bot, one of the criticisms I’m willing to listen to is that Obama could have done more to protect middle- and lower- class homeowners. About a year ago (or whenever in this bewildering trump-skewed timeline) Atrios when on a twitter tantrum about it. I looked at his blog and his feed looking for some detailed explanation. The best argument Duncan Black, PhD (I believe in economics?) could come up with was ‘Obama was dumb and bad’.
FlipYrWhig
@Bill Arnold: What’s the key example of American meddling in foreign *elections* — not governments or foreign affairs in general, but elections in particular — that we’re all supposed to be acknowledging when this subject comes up on the liberal/left? Are we still talking about Mossadegh and Arbenz and Allende?
ETA And when Trump says it what is *he* referring to? He definitely knows nothing about those examples.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sounds about right alas
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I should get off the couch and the internet, but I really like Gallego. I’d love to see him move up the ladder
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: I’m pretty damn sure it’s a quote, but my google fu isn’t up to the task
japa21
Two GOP governors have supposedly come out in favor of the impeachment inquiry. Meanwhile, the wonderful governor of NY, Cuomo, has apparently said impeachment is a dead end and a waste of time and the Dems need to focus on bread and butter issues. Apparently he is another person who doesn’t know what the phrase “walk and chew gum at the same time” means.
Amir Khalid
Riyad Mahrez makes it Everton 1-2 City. Oh poo.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
okay one more– Breitbart has two advertisements today worth noting, one of a “Trump .45 Caliber” cartridge, and another seeking recruits for the LAPD.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t use Twitter much but since so many of the people I follow follow Atrios I was getting him in my feed constantly. It was for that reason that I first learned how to control that aspect of Twitter: how to see fewer posts from the people the people you follow themselves follow. He’s THAT infuriating.
Ruckus
@Shalimar:
I wonder. I’d bet that foreign governments had dirt on us, if for no other reason, because not every politician is squeaky clean. But countries work either by strength or by working towards a common goal. In an ideal world, like that every exists, common goals would be easily reached. But often countries goals are not equal or common so threading that needle takes tact, thought, time, recognition, respect…… Not bluster and dick waving. Or personal failings galore.
joel hanes
@FlipYrWhig:
He’s grown sour.
Back in the “Presnit give me turkee” days, he was consistently worth reading.
His comment section ….
Amir Khalid
Everton 1-3 Man City. So Everton didn’t manage to take points off City. Sigh.
Another Scott
@joel hanes: I haven’t read him in ages. It’s hard for me to bother when about 50% of his posts are things like “I’ve got nothing to say, talk amongst yourselves.”
He’s definitely on the curmudgeonly side, but when he’s willing to write more than a paragraph he can weave together a convincing narrative. Like how many, many things in the economy would be solved by substantially raising Social Security payments; how self-driving cars are a pipe-dream (especially in cities); how parking lots and curb cutouts and the like have huge costs in making liveable cities; how it’s much better to make benefits universal and not worry about the rich getting them too (simply tax the rich more to make up for it); etc.
tl;dr – he can be very good on policy. He can be very bad when he tells people in the trenches that they’re doing politics rong.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She was immortalized by John Goodman. “Speak into the flower, dear.” (quoted from memory, may not be accurate)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: close enough to match my memory. He’s so damn good. I keep meaning to check out that new show about crooked televangelists he’s on, with Walton Goggins.
I remember Tripp told an interviewer she liked his impersonation and it was all in good fun, so the next week he ramped up the mean.
boatboy_srq
@Spanky: Beats walruspanx…
boatboy_srq
All my MAGAt coworkers and neighbors have gone steangely quiet. Wonder why.
/s
Matt McIrvin
@Bill Arnold: Just saw a Twitter thread in which a bunch of white Western super-lefties were calling Chinese anti-government activists self-hating Asians, because they were criticizing the Chinese government for putting Uighurs in concentration camps.
boatboy_srq
@sdhays: Consider how much the tRumps and Kushners have gotten away with at the state and local levels, and what Crazy Uncle Rudy has pulled. Their understanding of what is legal and/or ethical is questionable at best.
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: Kendzior apparently progressed from just criticizing Pelosi for going slow, to asserting that Pelosi was actively working to protect Trump and saying she was on the take from the Russians.
Bill Arnold
@FlipYrWhig:
Also Russia 1996. An incomplete list here (other countries fingered too):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention
but I’ve heard tales of many more, and have to look them up and make a snap truth judgement.
IMO, though not sure, Trump is bullshitting because he’s heard others (aides, Fox Talking Fluffers, etc) talk about such things, but can’t recall the details because his memory is not good for things not directly related to his emotional states.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin:
To quote rikyrah — uh-uh, uh-uh.
GregB
Speaking of Rudy, ProPublica is teasing the release of a Rudy story that is “mind-blowing”.
Another Scott
In other news, AlJazeera:
The fearsome “Saudi Coalition” doesn’t seem to have any idea how to do this war thing.
How long before Donnie and Pompeo blame this on Iran, also too?? “It’s unpossible, therefore I’m sending more Americans over there…!!11”
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: how many times do they need to say it out loud?
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Really?
Maybe it’s my age but republican leaders have been this way my entire life. Not quite so obvious from the get go as trump is but still, their goal is power and money, simply to have and abuse the power and to get all the money possible by manipulation of the law to make things better for them and their friends, screw everyone else. It’s the conservative goal, it always has been and it always will be. The power allows the reallocation of the money.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@GregB: I suspect Giuliani’s financial and business dealings would result in some significant embarrassment, if not legal jeopardy.
germy
@GregB:
He’s an “expert”
The Rudy clip reminded me of Robert Benchley’s “befuddled lecturer” routine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1yc-19z14s
boatboy_srq
@OzarkHillbilly:
Tots’n’pears indeed.
Why this is not a scandal by itself is only because Reichwingnutsery has so firmly embedded itself in US culture.
cain
@Amir Khalid:
He was pretty no-nonsense, I agree. He should be the patron god of tech startups.
burnspbesq
@Starfish:
FWIW, ol’ Lindsay got eviscerated by George Conway on Twitter earlier today.
Jinchi
@Ruckus:
That really doesn’t narrow your age down that much.
Doug R
@Matt McIrvin:
Remember Pence is
Manafort’sPutin’s pick and he’s in deep on these phone calls as well.Ruckus
@Jinchi:
Older than quite a few, younger than some.
I was born just less than 4 yrs after the end of WWII. I’ve seen a few republicans. I’ve met one who was willing to help someone else, my rep – and he belonged to the John Birch Society and this was decades ago. And he didn’t last long or go far.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
This is one relationship that I just don’t get. George and Kelly Ann. Talk about two peas from different planets.
Doug R
@Matt McIrvin: Just saw a Twitter thread in which a bunch of
white Western super-leftiesRussian Trolls were calling Chinese anti-government activists self-hating Asians, because they were criticizing the Chinese government for putting Uighurs in concentration camps.FIFY
soga98
@NotMax:
Dont forget pierogi, khinkali and suigyo.
Quinerly
Worth the read:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/collusion-after-fact