Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

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

He really is that stupid.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

This really is a full service blog.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

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Reader Interactions

254Comments

  1. 1.

    zhena gogolia

    I can’t watch but I’ll look forward to the analysis here.

    I did see some texts from Lutsenko with some VERY salty language in them.

  6. 6.

    TaMara (HFG)

    Alexa, order ALL the popcorn.

    Wouldn’t miss it.

    Did you catch that McConnell is going to limit television and reporters’ ability to cover the trial? Fucker

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    According to Susan Collins, the real crime here is that House Democrats were  simultaneously too fast and too slow in how they handled this information. Goldilocks was unavailable for comment.

  16. 16.

    hitchhiker

    If you can’t catch the show, there will be a podcast of the audio up about an hour after it ends. This is my go-to method for finding out what Rachel has to say. She comes on at 6 pm where I am, and I’m either making dinner or eating it.

    Few (or no) commercials, 42 minutes long, easy to download. Go, Rachel!

  18. 18.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    On nights like this, I often wonder what kind counter-programming Fox is doin

    ETA: Y’all think The Beast is watching? Would someone at NBC have slipped him an advance copy? I shall get out of the boat and check his twitter

    ETA, A: Only three tweets in the last 12 hours, all about the (not so) big trade deal. Kellyanne must’ve hid his phone in the fruit bowl. He’ll never look there.

  19. 19.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    In one of these texts he says, “What kind of fucking freedom of speech do you have over there?” and some other choice language that I can’t really translate. Expletive based on the vulgar word for the female genitalia.

    The last texts from Lutsenko to Parnas show him complaining about negative U.S. press coverage, with no apparent reply. "They're brazenly discrediting me," Lutsenko said 5 days before Parnas was arrested at Dulles pic.twitter.com/AohAkNQITq— Josh Kovensky (@JoshKovensky) January 16, 2020

  21. 21.

    sab

    @Baud: Nope. A lot of the deliberations will be in closed session. We will get to see the witnesses testify on C-span, but we will not be able to see Senators speechifying amongst themselves.

    That’s according to former Sen. Russ Feingold on MSNBC. He was serving during the Clinton impeachment.

    I am not sure that is such a bad thing.

  29. 29.

    sdhays

    I was just reading this link on TMP to see the clip of Rachel’s interview (holy shit!), and then read down a bit to see this:

    Even if former National Security Adviser John Bolton doesn’t end up testifying before the Senate’s impeachment trial — which he has said he would do if subpoenaed — he will spill some of what he witnessed as the Ukraine pressure scheme unfolded in his new book, the New York Times reported. 

    The book, which will be published by Simon and Schuster before Democratic and Republican conventions this summer, is nearly finished, people familiar with the matter told the Times. Witnesses who testified before the House Intelligence Committee revealed Bolton was, on several occasions, vocally opposed to the scheme at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. At one point he called it a “drug deal.”

    What kind of farce is this that you can fuck around saying I won’t testify to the House (well, maybe, if the judicial system in all its glacial speed enforces a Congressional subpoena), but you’ll publish all this shit in a book released to the public?

    I understand the House not wanting to get slowed down by this nonsense, and it was clearly the right call, but damn, I’m tired of these people flaunting the law and then using that flaunting to try to make a buck. I wish the House would just subpoena him and send the Sergeant at Arms to haul his grifting ass into a hearing, but it’s not worth it.

  30. 30.

    lamh36

    @kylegriffin1
    1m1 minute ago
    More
    .@maddow: “Do you know if Vice President Pence was aware that that was the quid pro quo? That that was the trade, and that that it fact is why his inaugural visit was called off?”

    Parnas: “I’m going to use a famous quote by Mr. Sutherland [sic]: ‘everybody was in the loop’.”

  31. 31.

    lamh36

    @kylegriffin1
    12s13 seconds ago
    More
    .@maddow: “But you believe he knows what the administration was pressuring Ukraine to do?”
    Lev Parnas: “Bolton? 100%. He knows what happened there.”

  32. 32.

    lamh36

    @NatashaBertrand 8m8 minutes ago

    More

    Wow—Parnas says Giuliani instructed him to tell Zelensky’s top aide before Zelensky’s inauguration that the “relationships would be soured, that we would stop giving them any kind of aid” if they did not announce Biden probe. Next day Pence canceled his trip to the inauguration.

  33. 33.

    lamh36

     @Sifill_LDF 32s32 seconds ago

    More

    On Trump canceling his trip to Poland: “He said it was about the hurricane, but it wasn’t.” – Lev Parnas @maddow He’s saying that the President cynically feigned concern about an impending U.S. natural disaster as an excuse to withhold his presence from a meeting with Zelensky.

  34. 34.

    Alain

    Just..wow! Can you imagine what week 2-3 of the actual Senate trial, perhaps 4 will be like? Just craaaazyyyy.

    With a capital Roberto

  35. 35.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jay: Popehat is warning people to remember Avenatti when listening to Parnas, but Parnas has the documents. Jill Wine-Banks said no one would have believed John Dean if the tapes hadn’t been backed him up.

    Avanatti was one of a long line of White Guys Who Shout who get a certain kind of internet leftie (I suspect mostly guys) very excited– Alan Grayson, pre-dick-pick Anthony Wiener. I sense that’s the whole point of Chapo Trap House– They’re Angry!– but I’ve never listened.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    Parnas says creepy text messages by Hyde regarding ambassador were not serious.

    ETA: calls Hyde a drunk.

  37. 37.

    Kent

    @TaMara (HFG):Did you catch that McConnell is going to limit television and reporters’ ability to cover the trial? Fucker

    Trust me, any Dems who want to find a TV camera during impeachment will have no trouble doing so.  No matter how much McConnell tries to limit hallway conversations.  All this does is protect the GOP from getting “uncomfortable” questions they don’t want to answer.

  40. 40.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    “Joe Aherne was my contact at the America First PAC”

    Joe Aherne; Do you have a lawyer? not the guy who handled your closing or drew up your estate plan.

  41. 41.

    clay

    @Baud: Yeah. Rachel was like, hey these texts lasted a week; surely he wasn’t drunk the whole time?

    And Parnas says, No.  He’s ALWAYS drunk.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kent: Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz will find cameras. Cory Gardner, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins will be driven away from side exits with bags over their heads

  45. 45.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    I missed the first five or ten minutes but have been watching since then. Parnas is coming across as lucid and matter-of-fact, and his “testimony” is damning.

    I just did a spit-take because before this commercial break the teaser was that AG Barr is “on the team” and was aware of all the Ukraine shenanigans.

  47. 47.

    Keith P

    An aside: I’m loving the elevation of the word “tranche.”

    Anyone else notice an elevation of the word “curated” lately  I’m seeing people use it *everywhere* now, even over f’n music collections.

    PS: I have to be part of a large crowd who discovered Lev Parnas sounds *nothing* like expected.

  48. 48.

    geg6

    @TaMara (HFG):

    LOL! My thoughts exactly.  I think ol’ Lev knows he’s going down and he’s making certain he doesn’t take the entire fall for these people.

  49. 49.

    debbie

    @sab:

    Seconded. Not sure if Collins or Jordan would be allowed in (as managers?), but I’d hate for them to get any air time. All that yelling!

    I can’t embed from an iPad, but Stonekettle has a tweet about the Parnas dump, and a couple commenters think the Dems are being set to be made fools.  ?

  53. 53.

    patrick II

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Having just seen pictures and heard him referred to as a thug, I am surprised at Parnas’s presence and obvious intelligence. Based on appearance I was expecting someone more like Edward G Robinson.

  54. 54.

    Barbara

    @Keith P: I will take curated over “cravable” any day.  You can take “pure” and “kind” while you’re at it.  As in, pure insurance and kind food.  WTF?

  55. 55.

    Kent

    @Steeplejack (phone): I have Rachel on standing TIVO.  I only actually watch it about once a week.  But this way I can skip commercials.

    I’m about 5 minutes into the interview.  He is pretty well spoken and lucid.  Definitely more credible and brighter than the goober that he looks like in all the photos.

  56. 56.

    sab

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Lol. My parents’ family lawyer did wills and trusts and taxes.

    My family lawyer does low end criminal stuff.

    We consulted a real estate lawyer for one issue, and we had a trust and estate guy do our wills, but the guy we really need in a pinch is the criminal guy. “Kids these days.”

    I really wish the little guys would mature sometime in their thirties. Time is running out.

  58. 58.

    dmsilev

    @debbie: The managers from the House are all Dems; they’re essentially the prosecution team. Defense is whatever legal team Trump has scraped up from various Pits Of Despair, and while in theory he could include some of the House GOP Screaming Monkey Brigade, most of the news stories I’ve seen have said that he was talked out of that idea. For now, anyway.

  59. 59.

    clay

    Parnas just says he was GIVEN documents by John Solomon. Seems to be the opposite of how journalism normally works, no?

  63. 63.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    It would be too perfect if Trump’s ultimate undoing came from a document dump. And we didn’t even have to steal them!

  66. 66.

    Keith P

    @Alain: I have this dream where Team Trump negotiates for witnesses and then calls “The Whistleblower”, leading to several weeks of court proceedings as to if/how he would testify, dragging the impeachment trial out further, much to Moscow Mitch’s chagrin.

  70. 70.

    patrick II

    @clay:

    Yeah, I should have made that clear. Edward G when he was playing a gangster in the movies. I always liked him and his work.

  72. 72.

    Jay

    @Jay:

    crap, not the posts I meant to send.

    – the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security is using his pulpit to lie about the crime rate in NYC, blaming their Sanctuary City status,

    – at the same time that the Department Heads in the ODNI are telling the staff to not create, circulate or publicize intelligence assessments that contradict the Dump Administration’s statements.

  76. 76.

    jl

    ‘Tranche’ is a cool word. But ” Another tranche of Parnas’…” anything doesn’t sound wholesome.

    But Cracker is made of sterner stuff than I.

  81. 81.

    Steeplejack

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Popehat is warning people to remember Avenatti when listening to Parnas, but Parnas has the documents.

    I thought about this. There certainly is a lot of room for Parnas to spin and shade things, but, as I said above, his affect comes across as pretty solid, and he does have the goddamn documents, at least for some of his claims. (Something that Avenatti was always alluding to but never produced.)

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    @sab: I don’t know about his district.  Could it be the storied land of Oompa Loompa?  I mean, Gym’s light and reason is oddly orange.

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: That went into moderation because you had an extra “c” at the end of your email address.  I fixed it, but you’ll want to fix it in your browser before you comment again.

  86. 86.

    clay

    Heh. Rachel’s catchphrase of the evening is “We contacted XXXXX’s office about these allegations, but we have not yet received a response.”

  89. 89.

    jl

    @Baud: ” Nunes named ”

    Nunes seems to have trouble with the name Parnas. I don’t know why. It’s a mystery.

    Probably his wife handed to phone over the Nunes and didn’t give the guy’s name.

    Yeesh, this mess is like a set of nested Russian dolls. Scams within scams within scams within…. Is it scams all the way down?

  92. 92.

    Kai-two

    @Immanentize:

     

    In the amazing and great sense.

    I posted the other day wondering how much control or input the House Leadership had in obtaining this stuff.  My understanding is that it was all pretty much up to some fed. ct. judge, but I could be wrong.

    I remember Parnas sort of wondering around a few weeks ago saying “these documents are really great and you will want them…”

  94. 94.

    Steeplejack

    @TaMara (HFG):

    His lawyer, on the other hand, looks stoned.

    I think his role is just to sit there, monitor the conversation and jump in if anything catastrophic for his client pops up. I’d probably look stoned too after an hour or two of that. Plus he can entertain himself with a mental image of his $600/​hour meter ticking away.

  97. 97.

    Immanentize

    @Kai-two: Parnas would really like some Congressional immunity.  It’s a smart play.  Ollie North’s conviction for perjury was ultimately tossed because of a Congressional immunity deal.  If I were the House, I would give it to him right about…
    Three
    Two
    One

    Now!

  98. 98.

    Immanentize

    @Shana:   Shana!  Hi!

    Me too.  One of probably my top five adaptations.

    ETA. Ok I have a little Iben Hjejle thing. Unrequited of course.

  101. 101.

    hitchhiker

    This is the John Dean moment.

    A lot of olds here, so I know you’ll remember … the way he sat there deadpan, and just went on and on and on describing shit that seemed insane. Couldn’t be true. Impossible.

    That was almost 14 months before Nixon had to resign, which would NOT have happened if there hadn’t been tapes. Dean was crucified in the press right up until people got to hear Nixon’s own voice ordering crimes, and it turned out that Dean’s notes and memories of meetings (that he hadn’t known were being taped) were almost perfectly accurate.

    Parnas might be gilding and blowing smoke — but he’s got emails. Phone records. Chat logs. And of course the whole public record of what happened when.

    I actually think this might be it.

  104. 104.

    Kent

    @hitchhiker: And remember….he came within a gnat’s eyelash of escaping to Vienna.  Didn’t the FBI grab him waiting for his plane at Kennedy Airport?

    Gotta think there are Trump appointees at Justice who are pissed off that the FBI did their job here

    A couple of “what ifs” here and there and we never even hear about Ukraine at all and are living in a world in which Biden scandal leaks out drip by drip.

  106. 106.

    Kent

    The Nixon option of resignation followed by blanket pardons from Pence for Trump and the Trump spawn is going to start sounding better and better.   I gotta wonder if some GOP strategists are looking at the 2020 election calendar and figuring out how to make that work for Pence or whoever is their top alternative.  The clock is ticking.

  107. 107.

    Kai-two

    @hitchhiker:

    I thought this last night as I was reading the notes written on the Ritz notepad.  Then I said “Don’t get your hopes up, dumbass.”  And that’s where I am tonight.

    Somebody posted the other day “Slowly and then rapidly” and I hope that’s what we are seeing.

  111. 111.

    feebog

    I usually read all the comments before chiming in, but no time tonight.  In a sane political world this would be the end of Trump.  However, we are in the land of Trumpistan and there is no sanity, political or otherwise.  This may move the needle for a small percentage of citizens, but I doubt it makes any impact on Republican Senators.

  112. 112.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @clay:

    the legal acumen of a rambling, bug-eyed nosferatu.

    who probably thinks Robert Hyde is just a social drinker

  115. 115.

    sdhays

    @Steeplejack: Well, I didn’t “have” the baby – I’m the father, but it’s the constantly interrupted nights that have noticeably destroyed braincells.

  116. 116.

    Immanentize

    @Kai-two: They do not yet see that everything will fall down.  It’s just like a big drug gang trial.  Someone snitches first.  Sometimes it’s because they already got caught….  Yes.  But not everyone arrested turns. It is mostly because someone gets caught AND they see the whole shithouse is about to collapse. Then, first one out of the gang and who testifies gets the biggest prize. It is a really tenuous moment for someone to flip.

    Look at Flynn. He thought he was flipping at the right moment because everything was about to crash. Then it didn’t. So he is just sad. And totally fucked.

  117. 117.

    hilts

    Susan Collins strikes again.  No one should pin their hopes on her doing the right thing regarding witness testimony.  She’s as phony as a $3 bill.

     

    Collins told reporters Wednesday that new evidence in the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump in the form of handwritten notes from Rudy Giuliani’s business associate Lev Parnas should have been entered into the record earlier.

     

    “I wonder why the House did not put that into the record and it’s only now being revealed,” Collins said.

     

    Parnas, however, did not relinquish the evidence until last week. When informed of this fact Collins asked, “Doesn’t that suggest that the House did an incomplete job, then?”

     

    Collins’ statements about the Parnas documents caused the senator to become a trending topic on Twitter with most users disapproving of her apparent dismissal of this new evidence.

     

    h/t https://www.newsweek.com/susan-collins-trends-after-republican-senator-throws-cold-water-lev-parnas-docs-1482446

     

     

     

  120. 120.

    Jay

    @Kent:

    Parnas and Fruman, on the runway at JFK, with one way tickets to Vienna.

    For some strange reason, not in the edition I have of Clue.

  122. 122.

    zhena gogolia

    I don’t buy his dismissal of the stuff about Yovanovitch (basing this on you guys’ comments — I was watching Brideshead Revisited).

  123. 123.

    phein60

    @Keith P: “Tranche” is a term you hear in DoD circles about disbursements of appropriations, as in, “When is the second tranche of continual resolution funding going to be available?”

    What you don’t want to hear is reclama, as in, “There’s a reclama on unobligated funds from that latest tranche, something about needing funds for a border wall.”

  124. 124.

    Kai-two

    Ted Lieu on Maddow interview: Amazing Lev Parnas interview on #Maddow. Also, I’m disclosing that the lawyer for @DevinNunes wrote a letter saying Rep Nunes will sue me if I didn’t apologize for saying last month that Nunes conspired with Parnas.

    Devin, I’m adding to my statement: “Your pants are on fire.”

    https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1217645011703160832

  125. 125.

    Kent

    @Baud: In my mob world, the Senate GOP goes to Trump, tells him he no longer has the votes to acquit, and his best option is to step down with the promise of blanket pardons.  Because if he drags it out and gets removed there are no pardons.

    Then, of course, the media goes into “bygones” mode and we are in the Pence “Honeymoon” phase because the “grown-ups are back in charge” and just need a chance to govern without Dem hounding or interference.  And we get 10,000 photo ops of Pence looking steely, determined, and so “presidential”

  128. 128.

    Jay

    @hilts:

    And yet none of the vaunted MSM bother to point out to Gin Collins that the phone data was only released to the House this week.

    Useless as,……..

  129. 129.

    Immanentize

    @Steeplejack: I’ma gonna go out on my limb here, but I think Women in Love, the Ken Russel film, is one of the greatest adaptations of a really complex text ever.

    Flames accepted at the following number:
    Murray Hill 8878

  137. 137.

    jl

    @clay:Heh. ‘  Rachel’s catchphrase of the evening is “We contacted XXXXX’s office about these allegations, but we have not yet received a response.”  ‘

    That took up that last third of the show?

  138. 138.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: This is my hope — and the spooky calculus that all Republicans are contemplating.  There is a strong “I had nothing to do with this” contingent who might bail to save their skins.  Collins is the type I am thinking of.  Completely self driving and if it gets really bad, she will stand strong as the bulwark of the real non-corrupt Republican party (of your grandmom)

  139. 139.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: @Baud: I think I pledged two hundred dollars to the Anybody But Collins fund back at the height of the the Kavanaugh hearings, once when it was set up and again when she made me mad– probably her weaselly, look-at-me speech. I don’t know if that money was ever billed, or if they’re waiting for the D primary to be over.

  141. 141.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Audio of Warren/Wilmer confrontation revealed: (video)

    Warren: I think you called me a liar on national tee vee.

    Wilmer: What?

    Warren: I think you called me a liar on national tee vee.

    Wilmer: Let’s not do this right now.  You want to have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion.

    Warren: Anytime.

    Wilmer: You called me a liar, you told me… alright, let’s not do it now.

  142. 142.

    Steeplejack

    We’ve got an interesting gap here until the second part of the Parnas interview airs tomorrow night. Twitter is going to go nuts, of course. All of the Trumpistas are going to jump in with denials and excoriations of Parnas, but they have to be worrying about what new revelations may come out.

  143. 143.

    clay

    @Kent: I think it’s very unlikely Trump wouldn’t have enough votes to be acquitted; 67 votes is a high threshold!

     

    However, a somewhat more likely scenario is that a majority of Senators vote guilty, but not a supermajority.  What happens then, if Trump “wins” 45-55?  Obviously he stays in office, but what’s the political shakeout from this? There’s no precedent for it.

  144. 144.

    Feathers

    Any thoughts on the new TV version of High Fidelity? Starring Zoe Kravitz, TV series on Hulu, debuting on Valentines Day. Trailer

    I know nothing more about this than that it is happening.

  145. 145.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    Crazy idea I just had.  Probably wrong.  But if Biden does well in Iowa and maybe even New Hampshire, enough Republican voters will decide they can live with him as president for four years since he’s old and mushy and not very progressive, and they will decide Trump isn’t worth the continued fight.

    The problem is timing, though since the Senate trial will probably be over in a couple of weeks.

  146. 146.

    Immanentize

    @sdhays: When the Immp was born, I took every night  time disruption but feeding times.  I wandered around the house in the dark dazed with him in a snuggly. Sometimes I would build model train cars while he dozed in the Bjorn or whatever because he wouldn’t sleep horizontal. I was a mess for months. But I would not now trade that for one minute of sleep then.

  148. 148.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Kent:

    The Nixon option of resignation followed by blanket pardons from Pence for Trump and the Trump spawn is going to start sounding better and better.

    I just watched the whole interview and am now watching Rachel chat with L. O’Donnell, and she’s recapitulating Parnas’s statements showing that Pence was in this up to his unnaturally smooth and likely Botoxed brow ridges.

    I know “President Pelosi” is a pipe-dream, but I can’t see how Pence escapes from this sewer without being permeated with the stench.

  150. 150.

    Baud

    @Steeplejack:

    We’ve got an interesting gap here until the second part of the Parnas interview airs tomorrow night. Twitter is going to go nuts, of course.

    Back to the snakes!

  152. 152.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Huh. I haven’t seen it since it first came out, but I remember it as being pretty good. But, yeah, not a top five adaptation. Definitely better than the horrible 2008 movie.

  154. 154.

    Kay

    David Corn
    @DavidCornDC
    ·5h
    SCOOP: Robert F. Hyde, the new guy in the Ukraine scandal, worked with a mysterious Chinese donor who gave $237,000 to Trump and the GOP. Please read, RT, like, and share.

    Oops. Another crime.

  158. 158.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I don’t think that is wrong at all.  But you have to hope/expect? that even though the timing might be off primary wise, the poor proceedings in the Senate will just increase that near-republican feeling that Biden will be fine for four.

  161. 161.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    I know, that’s the problem. Because Charles Ryder narrates the book, and they didn’t write any DIALOGUE for him. So he sits around staring at people while they talk.

  166. 166.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    I just get the feeling the average GOP voter doesn’t really hate Biden the way they hate the average Democratic candidate, and especially Hillary.  Don’t get me wrong, they’ll smear him and vote against him if they think it’s worth it, but I think they are just less motivated by hate when it comes to him.

  167. 167.

    dmsilev

    @Kay: You know, even the vague hint that there was a slight possibility of taking money from “mysterious person in China” was seen as the end of the world as we know it back in the before times when Al Gore was Vice President.

  169. 169.

    Baud

    @lgerard: Dems shouldn’t rely on him, but his interview helps increase the pressure for true witnesses and a real trial.

    Also, it could help influence Roberts not to side with Trump on the executive privilege claims.  Roberts has blinked before when faced with pressure.

  171. 171.

    debbie

    @zhena gogolia:

    I was fine with that. He was such a wannabe when he was young. ?

    I remember a short prequel was published in, I think, the New York Review of Books about Ryder’s school days prior to Oxford. Did you ever read it?

  173. 173.

    Immanentize

    @clay: Not accurate.   There is a precedent.  President Johnson was not removed from office by one vote.  So, today, 65 remove, 35 nope.

  179. 179.

    Kent

    @clay:@Kent: I think it’s very unlikely Trump wouldn’t have enough votes to be acquitted; 67 votes is a high threshold!

     

    I agree totally.  If it is simply a binary option of acquit or convict we are unlikely to get to 67.  However, if thing disintegrate to the point that:

    1.  Trump is very unlikely to win re-election, and
    2. Bailing him out in the Senate is going to cost too any GOP seats, and
    3. Polling tells them that the public wants him gone, then….

    cutting a deal with Trump to declare victory and resign might be their best option.  Alternatively, they could just get him to agree to not run for reelection (as the quid pro quo for a senate acquittal) and all the wind gets taken out of the impeachment sails.  He could then really go on a red state MAGA victory tour while Pence, or whomever goes into the 2020 campaign.

  180. 180.

    Kay

    David Gura
    @davidgura
    ·40m
    “I can’t believe this was happening,” Lev Parnas tells
    @maddow
    he recalls thinking, watching
    @DevinNunes
    and Derek Harvey during the #impeachment hearings. “They were involved in getting all this stuff about Biden.”

    What was so shocking to him? That his criminal co-conspirators lied in a congressional hearing? Prior to that he thought they were honest public servants?
    I’d just like to remind everyone that all of these people were frantically lawbreaking in several countries because they’re scared of running against Joe Biden.
    Donald Trump was so scared of competing honestly in a political contest he and his bungling idiot “team” cooked up this elaborate scheme and spent more than a year on it. It would have been easier to just run a normal political campaign, and probably more effective. For one thing, he wouldn’t be getting impeached. Worst campaign strategy ever.

  182. 182.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kent:

    I wonder if Parnas now thinks that missing that flight saved his life. Lots of opportunities for “accidents” in Vienna.

  185. 185.

    Kent

    @Baud: I agree.   Similar to how people felt about John McCain.  I don’t think the average Dem voter really hated McCain either.  He was broadly liked in much the same way.  But of course 2008 was completely different from 2020.  And 2008 Obama is not 2020 Trump.

  186. 186.

    dmsilev

    @Kent: I can’t see any way Trump agrees to something like that. He’d be implicitly admitting that he did something wrong, and he’d be knuckling under to a bunch of nitwits in Congress, both of which are very much Not Possible for him. If someone broached a possibility of such a deal to him, he’s far far more likely to go the alpha-ape dominance route and try to get them to back down.

  188. 188.

    Immanentize

    @clay:
    C’mon Clay, that’s weak. Now is then is like tomorrow. The differences are more our clothing and devices than they are human nature.

    From Kenneth Fearing, Green Light:

    True; or exaggerated; or true;
    As the people laugh and the sparrows fly;
    As the people change and the sea stays;
    As the people go;
    As the lights go on and it is night, and it is serious, and it is just the same;
    As some one dies and it is serious and just the same;
    As a girl knows and it is small; and true;
    As a butcher knows and it is true; and pointless;
    As an old man knows and it is comical; and true;
    As the people laugh, as the people think, as the people change,
    It is serious and the same; exaggerated; or true.

  190. 190.

    jl

    @Bill Arnold: I think McConnell already said there would be sessions of the Senate trial proceedings that will  be closed to the press, aka, secret. So, nothing bad has to happen to C-SPAN.

  191. 191.

    Another Scott

    TheHill:

    […]

    The Senate’s impeachment trial is expected to formally begin on Thursday when senators and Chief Justice John Roberts are sworn in. Senators are expected to pass a resolution on the rules for the trial on Tuesday and start opening arguments later in the week.

    Republican senators initially hoped to finish the trial by the State of the Union, but Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who previously predicted it would be wrapped by the speech, said this week he no longer views that as a realistic timeline. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, also warned that it would be a “fairly tight deadline.”

    The first phase of the trial – opening arguments and questions from senators – is expected to last roughly two weeks. That would put the end of that phase up against, or potentially past, the State of the Union.

    After that senators are expected to have to decide on whether or not to call additional witnesses or request documents, a decision that is putting a spotlight on divisions within the Senate Republican caucus.

    Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) has said he wants to hear from former national security adviser John Bolton, while a handful of other Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), are viewed as potential swing votes.

    Democrats have requested four witnesses, including Bolton and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. They need four GOP senators to give them the simple majority needed to call a witness.

    […]

    (Emphasis added.)

    Hey, it was good enough for Clinton and that’s what Moscow Mitch keeps telling everyone – he’s going to run the trial like they did for Clinton – so what’s the problem?!?

    Other than Donnie will be livid, of course.

    I can’t find a link, but I heard some of Schiff’s comments during the press conference with the Speaker today. I liked very much that he pushed back against Moscow Mitch about witnesses, etc., during the Clinton trial. Schiff said that the witnesses were deposed – and all the Senators had access to the tesimony – before the trial started, and that the question that came up in the middle of the trial was whether they were going to have live witnesses testifying in the Senate about sex acts between consenting adults or accept the depositions or not. Not quite the same thing as Moscow Mitch is trying to say here…

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  192. 192.

    zhena gogolia

    Chris Murphy did a good video.

    Everything we know – including new revelations that Giuliani's associates tried to track, harass, and oust a U.S. Ambassador – makes it clear that the president and those around him tried to pressure a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 election.@CAPAction pic.twitter.com/qBZqnms6lU— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 15, 2020

  193. 193.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    two tweets I heartily agree with

    Kate Brannen‏Verified account @K8brannen 1h1 hour ago
    I’ve lost track of the number of quid pro quos happening.

    ROBERT MANN‏@RTMannJr1h1 hour ago
    Maybe Robert Hyde didn’t pose a serious threat to Amb Yovanovitch. And maybe he was just a drunk clown. But if he was merely a loony hanger-on, why the heck would he be privy to info about Trump’s animosity to her and the WH’s desire to have her removed?

    Especially the last one. According to Parnas, these people just hung out in the bar of the post office hotel in DC until they made contact with people who have access to the President of the United States, who likes to impress his customers by sharing classified information and whatnot, and who people have figured out can be flattered (one of many ways) if you sympathize, and act on, his resentful and vindictive obessesions.

  196. 196.

    Kay

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Part of the con of the low quality hires is scaring people into thinking they’re smart, but they didn’t have to do any of this. It would be more likely Trump is re-elected if they had done nothing at all. The whole gang are a net negative. The best thing they could do for Donald Trump is stop showing up for work. You know, “work”. If that’s what they call these…activities.

  197. 197.

    hilts

    @lgerard:

    let’s remember Lev Parnas is a career con man

    This has proven a successful strategy for Trump.  He recruits sleazy individuals and then when they flip on him, his defenders will accuse these individuals of having no credibility.

  198. 198.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kent: interesting comparison, Biden and McCain, broadly liked, perceived as decent even by people who disagree with him politically (excepting Rose twitter, of course), and Biden ain’t gonna pick a Palin.

    And 2008 Obama is not 2020 Trump.

    I would say the point of comparison there is 2008 Bush to 2020 trump

  201. 201.

    Immanentize

    @hilts: I did.  Oddly, Holly Near is in it.  Not on my favorite adaptations list.  Nor are any of the Heller Catch 22 movies (although I heart Alan Arkin).  It may just be too hard to pull that kind of horror insanity off in anything as short as a movie.

  202. 202.

    Jinchi

    @Kent: Trust me, any Dems who want to find a TV camera during impeachment will have no trouble doing so.

    It was witness testimony during the House hearings that captivated the public attention. Civil servants bravely and professionally testifying to clear evidence of wrongdoing. That’s what McConnell wants to avoid. He can always dismiss anything said by Democratic Senators and Congressmen.

  206. 206.

    debbie

    I know that Twitter is rife with paranoia and that these clowns couldn’t find their way out of a wet paper bag, but I sure hope this doesn’t turn out to be the real hoax.

    We’re sitting here, literally watching Trump plot the death of his own ambassador while the Senate Majority Leader openly refuses to do anything about it…
    …and instead of taking the lead on this, Democratic Candidates are right now throwing shit at each other. Unbelievable.

    — Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) January 15, 2020

    And from one of the responses:

    It’s probably wise to make sure this isn’t some kind of set up to get the Dems to appear foolish. The news just broke and none of the players are exactly stellar human beings. Verification is needed before reacting.
    — Mellybear (@Mellintex) January 15, 2020

  207. 207.

    James E Powell

    @Feathers:

    I was not aware of a High Fidelity HULU series. Thanks for letting us know about it. The trailer looks good. I will definitely check it out. I loved that book. Zoe Kravitz’s mother was in the movie.

  208. 208.

    Kent

    @Another Scott:Hey, it was good enough for Clinton and that’s what Moscow Mitch keeps telling everyone – he’s going to run the trial like they did for Clinton – so what’s the problem?!?

    Well, if we are comparing the two.  Clinton didn’t block a single witness from testifying and complied with every document request and subpoena.  So yes.  Exactly the same circumstances.

  209. 209.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @debbie: I’ve had those fears, I thought Lev’s phone was gonna be like Al Capone’s vault, but.. all those documents. The texts, the names, the voicemails, the notes on Vienna hotel stationary.

    I would dial back the assassination talk– that’s something that should wait for stronger evidence.

    (and I still think Bolton is playing some kind of weird game, and I don’t trust him)

  210. 210.

    Jinchi

    @Kent: And we get 10,000 photo ops of Pence looking steely, determined, and so “presidential”

    Have you seen Mike Pence?

    I mean seriously, it’s going to be hard for him to switch from human house plant mode to steely, determined and presidential. Plus he’d eventually have to start speaking in complete sentences.

  212. 212.

    feebog

    let’s remember Lev Parnas is a career con man

    The corollary to that is that most career criminals are stupid.  Parnas did not come across as stupid in this interview tonight, but good grief, his participation in this entire shitshow demonstrates he is not a smart person.  Let’s also remember most career criminals lie as easily as they breathe.  Every word he uttered tonight needs to be fact checked and double fact checked.

  213. 213.

    Feathers

    I will argue that the best film adaptation of a book is The Princess Bride. Why? Because William Goldman had the genius inspiration to keep the story within a story the same, but use completely different framing devices for the book and movie. The movie has charming Peter Falk telling the “good parts version” to adorable grandson Fred Savage. The book has William Goldman trying to abridge the favorite book of his childhood, which he learns has enormous amounts of political commentary when he goes to read it to his own son, who is bored by it. So you get the adventure story with a (hilarious) summary of the removed portions.

    It is the only adaptation pairing I know of where you can read or watch first and then go and have the entirely different experience of the book or movie without either being spoiled by having seen the movie or read the book first.

    William Goldman is a genius.

    Also, if your library has it, read his memoir Hype and Glory. It’s about the year where he was on both the Cannes Film Festival jury and the judging panel for the Miss America pageant. It was the year Gretchen Carlson won the Miss America title. The backstage story on that is all in the book, but I haven’t heard or read anyone bringing that context into her present story.

  215. 215.

    cain

    @Kent: Then, of course, the media goes into “bygones” mode and we are in the Pence “Honeymoon” phase because the “grown-ups are back in charge” and just need a chance to govern without Dem hounding or interference. And we get 10,000 photo ops of Pence looking steely, determined, and so “presidential”

    You know that’s not going to happen. Trump will not step down and he will make sure that he takes everyone down with him like a mob boss would do.

    Even if it went down the way you think it would, do you think that Trump will allow Pence to replace him? Oh no.. there will be a blood letting there too. He will fuck up everyone’s world after he has exhausted every legal option. Eg he will force his legal team to go to the supreme court if it went against him. He will use it all, but it will come to naught.

  216. 216.

    Another Scott

    @Kai-two: Hemingway – The Sun Also Rises:

    “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

    “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

    “What brought it on?”

    “Friends,” said Mike. “I had a lot of friends. False friends. Then I had creditors, too. Probably had more creditors than anybody in England.”

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  218. 218.

    hilts

    @Immanentize:

    @debbie:

    Speaking of Alan Arkin, another film adaptation I liked was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.  He won a NY Film Critics Circle award for his performance.

    Also, I’m a big fan of the film adaptations of The Andromeda Strain, MASH, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Fahrenheit 451, and Ice Station Zebra.

  219. 219.

    Immanentize

    @hilts: 7 (3) Days of the Condor?

    All your suggestions are very good.  But…  Not all those books are so great.  I do think the original Farenheit 451 was pretty moving.

    Alan Arkin = Simon.

    This topic deserves a whole thread some day.  But I gotta go

  221. 221.

    debbie

    @hilts:

    What did you think of the Road (if you’ve seen or read it)? I thought both showed the strength of the medium. There were parts of the book that were more chilling than they were in the movie, while some things in the movie better conveyed the desolation than the book did.

  224. 224.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Immanentize: Teri Gross recently replayed her interview with Francis Ford Coppola, and how he made a great movie out of a mediocre novel

    also, he shoots down an old Mario Puzo story about how Puzo claimed he recruited Brando for the part, and how Danny Thomas, who was richer than god from TV, was at one point gonna buy the almost bankrupt Paramount so he could cast himself as Don Corleone.

  225. 225.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @debbie: I thought the movie looked like it was very well done, and friends I trust told me it was very well done, but I was so gutted by the book I’ve never been able to watch it.

  226. 226.

    hilts

    @debbie:

    What did you think of the Road (if you’ve seen or read it)?

    Unfortunately, I’ve neither read the novel nor seen the film, but I’ve heard great things about Cormac McCarthy.  I know many critics regard him as one of the great novelists of his generation, so he’s on my insanely long list of writers to check out.

  227. 227.

    Tom Q

    Late additions to the lit discussion:

    Slaughterhouse Five is a surprisingly impressive approximation of a novel that you’d think would defeat any attempt to adapt.

    The gold standard for improvements between page and screen would have to go to The Godfather.  Borderline trash novel, with whole sections that seem out of Harold Robbins.  But an epic movie without flaws.

    On a lesser level, Jaws achieved something of the same: purged the airport-book stuff, emphasized the adventure.

    For me, best book making best movie is The Unbearable Lightness of Being — a great novel transferred beautifully.

    And, going back in time, The Maltese Falcon (Huston version) is a perfect equivalent of Hammett’s book.  And Double Indemity is beyond great.

  229. 229.

    Kent

    @hilts: Blood Meridian is Cormac McCarthy’s western epic. Searing and violent.  Kind of a American Apocalypse Now or Heart of Darkness.   I don’t think there have been any film adaptions.

  230. 230.

    hilts

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I heard that Coppola interview a few years back.  I’ve also heard an interview with Mario Puzo in which he stated that his goal while writing The Godfather was to create a bestseller to make lots of money to support his family and that creating a great work of literature was the farthest thing from his mind.

  231. 231.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    See, stuff is already starting to percolate. Tee-hee.

    Remember that Parnas’s original lawyer, John Dowd, told the House in writing that Parnas worked for Giuliani as part of Trump’s  legal representation and was thus covered by A/C privilege. So Parnas’s claim to be speaking on Trump’s behalf pretty solid.

    — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 16, 2020

  232. 232.

    Scott Alloway

    @Baud: ​Concur. The MAGATs I hear from kinda let him be with mild trashings, as opposed to Bernie, Warren, Hilary and Obama. They can’t seem to get worked up over him. And I’m in PA.

  233. 233.

    clay

    @Immanentize: I just don’t see how something that has happened exactly once, 150 years ago, is in any way predictive.  The past is a foreign country, after all.

    They didn’t have TV or internet or women’s suffrage. They barely had mechanical transportation.  Hell, Senators weren’t yet directly elected. The political pressures and consequences of a president “winning by losing” an impeachment vote — and the Senators who voted on it — are completely different now than they were then.

  234. 234.

    debbie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I was gutted too, and so very resistant to seeing the film. But I’m glad I did. The scenes were filmed in NO after Katrina and on Mount Saint Helens, so there was plenty of devastation to be seen.

  235. 235.

    hilts

    @Tom Q:

    Because of my intense love of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II , I can’t bring myself to read the novel knowing that it would be a major disappointment.  I second your recommendation of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  Also have to give a shout out to David Lean’s wonderful adaptation of Great Expectations.

  239. 239.

    Martin

    Regarding the interaction between Warren and Sanders at the end of the debate, I believe her, and I’ll leave it at that.

  240. 240.

    hilts

    @Kay:

    Very disappointed that MSNBC killed Gura’s weekend show.  The bosses at the network are supposedly planning many lineup changes.  Chuck Todd is supposedly pissed off about MTP Daily being moved to sometime in the morning.

  241. 241.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @hilts:

    I’ve also heard an interview with Mario Puzo in which he stated that his goal while writing The Godfather was to create a bestseller to make lots of money to support his family

    Yeah, I think Coppola told that part of the story on Fresh Air. And I think it was on last weeks WTF that Joe Mantegna said that GF-3 got completely thrown off the track when Robert Duvall got mad (about his salary?) and dropped out at the last minute

    @Martin: me, too

  242. 242.

    TomatoQueen

    @Kent: If you mean Jane Austen, then yes, as a loyal Janeist I watched part one, and had the feeling that she didn’t finish it for the perfectly good reason that other efforts were better by far. Also, if the timing is right, she may have been too ill to continue. Still, can’t complain about lovely lovely sets and costumes.

  243. 243.

    Kent

    @Martin: Me to.  You don’t make up a lie like that unless you are Trump.  No one else baldly lies like that out of the blue, making up a conversation that didn’t happen.

  244. 244.

    Anya

    @Kent: Not from Twitter though. The misogynist wing of Bernie supporters are still replying with snake emojis whenever anyone mentions Warren’s name. It’s like they have a bat single or something.

  246. 246.

    patrick II

    @hilts:
    I did see Slaughter House Five. It missed having what I thought was the most remarkable metaphor in the book. Billy Pilgrim is traveling backwards through time and watches as the fires burning down Dresden are sucked back into steel containers, elevated into large airplanes and taken back back to disassembly plants where the components are taken apart and put safely back in the ground where they came from.

  247. 247.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anya:

    Tom Nichols‏Verified account @RadioFreeTom 36m36 minutes ago
    This is fine. Everyone’s been keeping their eye on the ball of defeating Trump, and totally not working around a grumpy old man with zero legislative accomplishments who thinks the Dems owe him the nom even though he’s never bothered to join their party. All good here.

  248. 248.

    Kent

    @TomatoQueen: Austin?  Austen?  Yes, I meant Jane Austen.  I’m not an Austen aficionado but I read some of her stuff in school and have seen most of the big movie adaptations.   I found both the setting (a beach resort) and the black characters refreshing for an 1820s work.  I had no idea travel tourism was that much of a thing 200 years ago.  Obviously as an unfinished novel it doesn’t have the tight polish of her other works.  But I’m enjoying it.

  249. 249.

    Kent

    @Anya: Yeah, but about 0.001% of undecided voters follow these election spats on twitter.  They are just howling into the wind and making themselves look 13 years old.    The snake thing is unbelievably stupid.

  252. 252.

    hilts

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I think that was a total bullshit move by the studio.  Duvall was brilliant in the first 2 films and they should have paid whatever the Hell he requested.

    I’ve also heard that Coppola was extremely reluctant to direct Godfather Part III and was told by studio execs that this film would get made with or without his participation.

  253. 253.

    Jay

    @Anya:

    keep in mind that a bunch of Rose Twitter and the Bernie Bots are engaged in, what the cool kids call “inauthentic behaviour”.

    what that means is networks of <350 followers, ( with mostly the same shared follower) , retweeting through 5-8 “nodes”, ( larger number of follower accounts) to amplify and rebroadcast the message.

    A bunch of blue checkmark Bernie Bots and Rose Twitter accounts issued “stop it” tweets early today, but it hasn’t stopped.

    remember Watergirl’s Pie Filter front page?

    Twitter has no pie filter, so it’s basically 400 or so “shit stirrers” keeping the fight going, many of whom, ain’t Americans. Some who are, but you won’t ever see them at a Sanders Town Hall.

    A handfull turns themselves into what seems to be a horde through amplification using anger and outrage to get retweets and start fights, and keep them going.

    Social Media researchers are just starting to map these nodes and networks, track and bust the “fakes”, because of the way that the networks are being used, ( not just by these Berni-whatevers, also by Nazis, MAGAt’s), which is right out of the Internet Research Agency’s sucessful playbook.

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