Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

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

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

This really is a full service blog.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

No Justins, No Peace

The willow is too close to the house.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

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Archives for October 2019

Late-Night Open Thread: Floriduh Man, Impeachment Inquiry Edition

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Impeachment Inquiry Open Thread: Bill Barr Drops His Figleaf

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… Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges…

Mr. Trump has made clear that he sees the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. That view factors into the impeachment investigation against him, as does his long obsession with the origins of the Russia inquiry. House Democrats are examining in part whether his pressure on Ukraine to open investigations into theories about the 2016 election constituted an abuse of power.

The move also creates an unusual situation in which the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into itself…

It was not clear what potential crime Mr. Durham is investigating, nor when the criminal investigation was prompted. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment…

Revelations so far about Mr. Durham’s investigation have shown that he has focused in his first months on the accusations that Mr. Trump’s conservative allies have made about the origins of the Russia inquiry in their efforts to undermine it. Mr. Durham’s efforts have prompted criticism that he and Mr. Barr are trying to deliver the president a political victory, though investigators would typically run down all aspects of a case to complete a review of it…

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Open Thread: Trump’s Latest Waaaaahll Proposal

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The Oval Office Occupant was in Pittsburgh to share his ‘wisdom’ with the Shale Insight Conference, because it’s nice for him to get an ego-boost from people wearing suits for a change. Of course, in a ‘sympathetic’ venue, you can always count on some off-teleprompter mayhem…

I’m beginning to wonder if it’s gonna come down to a question of whether the impeachment proceedings can be finalized before the guy has a complete mental breakdown. At least Nixon (reputedly) talked to the portraits on the walls of the White House in private…

Also predictably, the non-functional walkback from his staff afterwards:

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Kellyanne Conway cc’s the provost!

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If you’re up for a Dynasty-style beat-down in the ornamental pond, listen to the audio of this call.

Prediction: additional wigs will be snatched. Open thread!

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The Impeachment Shapes Up

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Every day brings new evidence of Donald Trump’s crimes, or his commiting a new one in front of the television cameras. The scene changes rapidly, but the House Democrats are starting to focus on how to impeach Trump.

Although it is not official, the strategy that has been mentioned is to concentrate on Trump’s abuses of power in his attempts to force the President of Ukraine to comply with his desires to absolve Russia of interference in the 2016 election and to manufacture a scandal against the Bidens that would serve the same purpose as Hillary’s emails. The investigation and current depositions are consistent with this strategy.

It’s a good strategy because an airtight case is necessary, and only one or a few of Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors can be investigated to that point, because of the limitations of time. Impeachment does not require that all crimes be addressed in this way, just enough to make a persuasive case. Presumably a list of uninvestigated probable high crimes and misdemeanors could be part of the bill of impeachment.

It also helps to focus the public’s attention and make credible Trump’s lawlessness. After the closed-door depositions now taking place, the House committees intend to hold open hearings. The purpose of the depositions is to learn the extent of this set of crimes, gather evidence, and focus the open hearings.

The attempts at influencing President Volodymyr Zelensky contain multiple probable high crimes and misdemeanors. Some may be statutory crimes. Others may amount to abuse of power or obstruction of justice. All seem to be against the interests of the United States. Here’s a list:

  • Obstructing the distribution of funds as Congress has voted
  • Asking non-US persons for help in an election campaign
  • Using government funds to acquire personal benefits
  • Using a personal attorney to perform governmental functions (This probably contains multiple other crimes, like communicating classified information over insecure channels to people not cleared to receive it.)
  • Lying to Congress (This would include people working for Trump. If he instructed them to, he is culpable too.)
  • Abuse of power in firing an ambassador
  • Accepting non-US funds for an election campaign (Parnas and Fruman?)

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman are connected to both Rudy Giuliani and Ukrainian oligarch  Dmytro Firtash and seem to have been passing money through to Republican campaigns, although it is not clear whether they are connected with the scheme to influence Zelensky. Beyond this immediate crime cluster, other crimes associated with Ukraine may become apparent.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney now in prison, was a connection to Ukrainian organized crime in the United States. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry tried to influence Ukrainian officials to put people of his choosing on the board of Naftogaz, a Ukrainian natural gas company. Kashyap Patel, a congressional aide, supplied President Trump with information on Ukraine.

Update: Adam suggests that John Solomon is another backchannel. He is being represented by Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, who keep popping up in this drama. I’m not including all Adam’s suspicious because I am more cautious about that, but Solomon is worth noting. Potentially diGenova and Toensing connect several of the players, but I have run out of yarn to connect all the stickies on the wall. Adam’s suggestion reminded me of another aspect to the attempts to influence Zelensky. It’s possible that once Trump had Zelensky “in a box,” he would put pressure on him in other ways. In other words, he would be able to direct Ukrainian national policy.

Further back, Paul Manafort and others in Trump’s campaign tried to exert influence relative to Ukraine in multiple ways.

Recent depositions implicate Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland and Special Representative Kurt Volker. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General Bill Barr have been mentioned in the depositions.

There is much more to come.

 

Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner

 

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Respite Open Thread: Throw Like a Girl

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I have a busy day ahead, but this started things off just right:

Here you can see the actual throw:

And thanks to Adam for sending this to me:

Bailey used to talk and back-talk aaaallll the time. I miss it, but Scout is working on it. Sometimes she finds her voice and it startles her. Adorable.

Before today’s onslaught, here’s a respite open thread.

 

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