My old man would say, of some particularly sweaty and unsuccessful hustler, That guy would spend a dollar to steal a dime. Trumpworld is full of such people, because like calls to like.
Here there are many damning facts…
And now for a dose of old time wisdom https://t.co/0Na9JiUORt pic.twitter.com/B5CWsH4Pjt
— Keen Observer (@Hammbear) June 30, 2022
Mark Meadows, of course:
Behold Mark Meadows, doomscroller in chief, feckless, indifferent, or both. https://t.co/qjTXhvmX82
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) June 28, 2022
Bill ‘Ever Lower’ Barr, who never gets the (dis)credit he deserves:
A lot of people seem surprised about the overt witness tampering.
That same stuff went on w/Russia.
After Roger Stone was convicted for using militias like the Proud Boy to threaten Randy Credico, Billy Barr dismissed that witness tampering as "a technicality." https://t.co/7Ga4qVPtjk
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) June 28, 2022
(And, of course, Barr’s running buddy Roger Stone — but that monster deserves a post to himself.)
Less probable, but still interesting: Mick ‘Weathervane’ Mulvaney —
Very low probability, but who knows how bad the news will get?
June 27, 2022.
Maybe Mo Brooks can tell us about this which we have already known about for 17 months. pic.twitter.com/tfo4wBJ8PS
— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) June 27, 2022
schrodingers_cat
The unsung hero of Jan 6 is Nancy Pelosi. She can have all the ice-cream in the world.
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat: Pelosi is the hero of many things. Including stopping Social Security privatization and Obamacare.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
@Fair Economist:
Baud
That was graceful for Trump.
Fair Economist
My take on watching Hutchinson’s testimony was that Meadows wasn’t just allowing the insurrection, he was actively supporting it. Nothing Hutchinson said would be legal proof of that but the secrecy and innuendo certainly sound like he was in on it.
Another Scott
It’s hard to come up with any appropriate snark because we’ve known how absolutely horrible these people are for ages. Only horrible people willingly worked for TFG. That some are finally being forced to speak up about it, and tell the truth under oath, is – as Kennymack1971 says in the last tweet – is only because Democrats have the majority in Congress.
Without consequences, nothing will change.
Vote, fight for every possible seat, keep working for progress.
Entropy is relentless. We have to keep working to make things better.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Fair Economist: I must have blocked and unfollowed a lot of Berners on Twitter who threw a fit at her freezer full of ice-cream.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: The blog offered me the chance to edit your comment. Unfortunately, my substitution of “Fuck you all” for your ubiquitous “Cheers” didn’t take.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodingers_cat: Those people might as well be MAGAts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: more than a few probably will be in the next five to ten years
I saw Jon Voigt burped up something the other day, and I was tempted to go back to Marc Maron’s interview with Jane Fonda to remember what she said when he asked what happened to him, but I think she just said, basically: I don’t know, weird, ain’t it?
zhena gogolia
Great roundup, Anne Laurie! Sorry I have to go to bed.
Another Scott
@Fair Economist: My take:
He knew what was going on and what was likely to happen. He was plugged in.
He liked his cushy job and didn’t want to make waves with the boss. He knew it was all-kinds of illegal and that they were going to be “charged with all the crimes” – anyone could see that – if it didn’t work. Meadows just thought that his position would protect him.
It’s the remora school (heh) of politics and power. Just along for the ride and the perks while it lasts.
Oaths and norms and the laws don’t matter. Just being attached to power matters.
In a way, these people are as bad or worse than the guys carrying rifles and playing insurrectionist. “The banality of evil” and all that. They’re the enablers on the inside.
Grr…,
Scott.
different-church-lady
Shine up the trophy, Understatement of the Year has been won.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve seen that too. It’s a great temptation! But a false one!! :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
dmsilev
@schrodingers_cat: It’s like the time a bunch of journalists pretended to be offended that Barack Obama ordered a glass of orange juice at some diner. Says more about the people pretending to be offended than it does about the target of their hatred.
Scout211
CNN calls the enforcer Meadow’s intermediary.
. . .
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott:
That’s why it’s the law.
Spanky
I don’t think of Mark Meadows as feckless.
I think he is well and truly fecked. If not by the DOJ, then by his owners who have suddenly found that he’s become a bit of a liability.
schrodingers_cat
I just came across a horrific story
Three days after Dobbs, an Indiana OB-GYN got a call from a child abuse doctor in Ohio, which had banned abortion after six weeks with no rape exception. “Now this doctor had a 10-year-old patient in the office who was six weeks and three days pregnant.”
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: Rumor has it that people who succumb to the temptation and try to edit other people’s comments go onto a …special list that WaterGirl keeps. What she will do with that knowledge is not yet known.
Ohio Mom
It will be interesting one day to get the full back story on Cassidy Hutchinson. I read somewhere she switched lawyers before coming clean, but that leaves a lot out. Who was coaching her, or did she figure out on her own that what she knew needed to be told?
piratedan
to be fair, there’s probably enough Conspiracy to satisfy all of us…
WH staffers… check
old school Nixonites… check
skeevy old dudes who fled before it got to be really bad but are just as guilty for a whole lotta other shit… check
media steering the bus, selling the narratives… check
senators and congresscritters up to their necks… check
supreme court coordination looking for any plausible justification to act… check
dark money ties to rich theocrats and the suadis and the russians… check
cripes, lets just make it a series and run it twice a week until November
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: I would put Meadows in a category with Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham and other mediocrities who stumbled into positions of prominence and power (not as much of either as they like to think, I suspect, but…) and even more, to use Graham’s own term, “relevance”. He was a dime-a-dozen backbencher whose career had probably peaked when caught trump’s eye on TV around the time Mulvaney committed whatever sort of sin made people fall from grace. Then for few months, he was one of the most important people in the world, as long he didn’t cough too close to trump or wear the wrong tie or get a dirty look from Vanky, or whatever.
Also, I think he was the truest believer among trump’s COS, probably among the most devoted of the cabinet. IIRC he wept when the doctors said trump could be one of the diers. Priebus, Kelly and Mulvaney would’ve been making flattering phone calls to Pence.
Scout211
The code of omertà is a powerful thing. I am in awe of Ms. Hutchinson. What a bright shiny star she is.
Super Dave
@Gin & Tonic: Similar to gravity: it’s not jus a good idea, it’s the law.
pat
@schrodingers_cat:
eta: I had to check, I think she was taken to Indiana for the procedure.
It seems she was able to get care after the doctor was notified.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ohio Mom: She seems to have some sort of conscience, as near as I can tell. She often sounded contemptuous of Meadows in her testimony, I thought.
Alyssa Farah, who I believe was along for the whole trump ride, put her in touch with Cheney and helped her get a lawyer to replace the one trump was paying (with other people’s money, no doubt). Farah’s kind of an interesting character. The daughter of the founder of I forget which minor and possibly extinct RW news outlet, World Net Daily?
ETA: Yes, and WND is still active, apparently.
Gin & Tonic
Dude doesn’t even put out his smoke. Respect
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Another reactionary broadsheet. There are a zillion of them, going after the lunatic wingnut audience that TFG commands.
Mnemosyne
I’m annoyed that every time I get the Moderna vaccine, I end up with a fever of 100 or 101 that neither Tylenol nor Advil does a thing to lower. Feh. This is the FOURTH time since yesterday was my second booster.
And when I say I want a Pfizer booster instead, they won’t do it.
different-church-lady
@Villago Delenda Est:
The most underrated of all the Bond Girls.
JWR
@Another Scott:
Truer words were never writ. All during Tuesday’s hearing, all I could think was, “boy, if no one goes to jail…”.
Of course, I thought that all the presidents men, all the Iran-Contra hoodlums and all of GWB’s war criminals should’ve been prosecuted, as well.
Steve in the ATL
@different-church-lady: you are en fuego
James E Powell
@Ohio Mom:
I can recall twice in my career where I was the “switched-to” attorney. Neither one remotely close to this in importance or publicity, of course. In both cases, it was extremely traumatic for the switching client. Something they only did after a lot of agony and internal conflict. And even after they switched, they were still scared of the people they stood up against. Even after you take the hooks out, the holes are still there.
different-church-lady
@JWR: If I recall correctly, some of the President’s Men went to prison even before the tapes were revealed.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “The secret to success is honesty/sincerity – Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made!”
The testimony of him being a compulsive, passive doomscroller doesn’t sound like the behavior of a true-believer to me. But who knows.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Steve in the ATL: This is fine.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: North and Poindexter were convicted for lying to Congress, but their convictions were overturned. Some might draw the conclusion that these kinds of cases can be difficult to pursue and prosecutors should take great care and double check that I’s are dotted and T’s crossed before moving forward
Weinberger was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges for covering up the fact that Poppy Bush had perjured himself while Veep, but by then Poppy was POTUS and pardoned Cap to shut down the trial and IIRC there was nary a peep.
dmsilev
Via Josh Marshall’s Twitter feed, sometimes it feels like DougJ has a mole that he’s running inside the NYT:
Alison Rose
@Gin & Tonic: I love that country. Found this fun one on the official Ukraine Instagram page, couldn’t find it on their Twitter or Tiktok though so I made my own FB post public, hopefully it works. It’s short but perfect (make sure to click the speaker in the corner so you can hear the music)
craigie
@Another Scott:
My new bumper sticker.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: I think by that point he was just a mediocrity overwhelmed by events and without a clue what to do
JWR
@different-church-lady: Oh yeah! I forgot about the Johns: Mitchell and Dean, and others.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: It’s ironic to me that the right wingers all think 1-6 was actually staged by Pelosi to make TFG look bad! They say she’s responsible for it.
Alison Rose
@JWR: At first glance, I thought that said Joni Mitchell and I was like, the fuck?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Elliott Abrams
Served in the last four Republican administrations.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
List of people indicted for Iran-Contra, last but not least is
It’s always the taxes….
Marmot
Reading Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, the Nazis from the beginning were chockablock with pornographers, scammers, con men, and sexual oddballs of different sorts.
I’m tempted to say it’s a signature characteristic of right-wing populism and demagoguery. Anyone know that for a fact?
Quiltingfool
@Gin & Tonic: My grandfathers were farmers, and several uncles were too. The Ukrainian farmers I’ve seen on Twitter would fit right in the fields and sale barns in central Missouri. And, I’m pretty sure if my grandpa saw missiles flying overhead, he wouldn’t drop his cigarette, either (and he’d be cussing, too).
Most of my family’s farm land was around missile silos (they’re gone now).
Jackie
@Ohio Mom: Without searching, she stated she thought Trump “had done great things for America.” Yet, understanding he had lost the election, and hearing from various persons the rumors of potential violence circulating about J6, as an American, she was scared and appalled of what might happen. The last two days leading into J6 only confirmed her fears. She felt compelled to testify.
Ohio Mom
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Okay, now in addition to wondering what makes Hutchinson tick, I have to add Alyssa Farrah to the list.
Yes, they did the right things but after years of being dedicated to supporting wrong things. Somebody distill and bottle whatever it is that allowed them to get beyond their Republican loyalties.
@pat: According to the newspaper article, the Ohio child abuse specialist contacted the doctor Indiana who performed the abortion. I suspect it’s a small circle of doctors who work with abused children so they know one another.
What happens to the next girl when Indiana bans abortions? That’s what is next.
JWR
@Alison Rose : Hee hee! But no, I think Joni’s always been anti-crime, tutti-frutti colored collar or otherwise. ; )
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@Marmot: Jesus! I can’t think of a Republican administration that wasn’t chockablock with criminals since at least Eisenhower.
ETA, to fix second reply to author.
ETA again to ADD the correct commenter. I think I’ll go lie down. ; )
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat: How the hell can anybody get mad at somebody who likes good ice cream? I get why disinfo and propagandists try to pick on anything, but why didn’t people just laugh at them?
different-church-lady
Took me a while to dig it up, but one of my all time favorite Doonesbury sequences is when John Dean is hosting a reunion of Watergate figures. Donald Sergetti arrives early and making small talk with Dean’s wife:
SERGETTI: Maybe I should come back later when the other guests have…
MRS. DEAN: I won’t hear of it! You sit down right here. Tell me what you’ve been up to lately.
SERGETTI: I’ve been in jail.
MRS. DEAN: I beg your pardon?
SERGETTI: Look Mrs. Dean, I’ll just come back later, okay?
MRS. DEAN: No, no, don’t be silly! Here, have some onion dip!
NotMax
‘@different-church-lady
Segretti.
Strzok.
Egil Krogh.
;)
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I had no problem getting Pfizer for my first 3 and a Moderna for #4.
I had a bitch of a response to #1, #2 was far less 3 and 4 a piece of cake. I think the design of the vaccines being different in style had a lot to do with individual responses. I also know, from first hand experience that some older vaccines were far worse. Day after vaccination assault in boot camp, I came down with a 105 deg temp that stayed 105 for 9 days. I also passed out for a bit, fell to the ground. I talked to the guys that carried me to the dispensary, which I have no memory of, I just woke up there a couple hrs later. Good times. I think I would have enjoyed a 101 fever.
Betty
Mark Meadows has no moral compass. It’s that simple.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: Cool guy.
schrodingers_cat
@Fair Economist: She had a nice fridge. That’s what they were upset about. And some of the ice-cream was expensive.
According to the BBros and BSises
3 houses == man of the people
Nice fridge + ice-cream = Second coming of Marie Antoinette.
apocalipstick
@Fair Economist: What? No! Pelosi is a neolib sellout gerontocrat who… doesn’t… even… try, and has never used her considerable powers to reverse climate change, codify Roe v. Wade, and hypnotize Joe Manchin into moving to the left of Bernie Sanders.
Whew, I’m exhausted.
apocalipstick
@Fair Economist: Supporting it by being totally inert in order to land on his feet no matter the outcome. In some ways, Meadows is more loathsome than an Eastman, who at least picked a side.
apocalipstick
@Ohio Mom: Her new lawyer worked for Jeff Sessions. Revenge is truly a dish best served cold, and the Keebler Elf is eating it all right how.
apocalipstick
@Scout211: I think she decided it was better to testify than to risk disappearing during a camping trip or something.
apocalipstick
@different-church-lady: In the Timothy Dalton movies, right?
Burnspbesq
@schrodingers_cat:
There will be hundreds of these stories daily from now on.
@schrodingers_cat:
SteveinPHX
@craigie:
My old man used to occasionally offer the quote: “Everything tends toward a dull mediocrity.”
Burnspbesq
@different-church-lady:
Segretti served his time and got disbarred. After the mandatory five-year waiting period, California gave him his license back, and he made a nice little career for himself doing estate planning for rich Republicans in Newport Beach.