Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

ā€¦ gradually, and then suddenly.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

When youā€™re a Republican, they let you do it.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

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

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republicans don’t trust women.

So many bastards, so little time.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Iā€™d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

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Reader Interactions

116Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    As a long time reader, I found it interesting that both our very own LAO and Andrew Weissmann think trump will be indicted

    just sayin!

  2. 2.

    Ivan X

    Hey NYC people, come meet us, weā€™re here at the meetup! SE corner of Bryant Park (6th Ave/40th St) at The Porch! Weā€™re sitting immediately behind the host stand.

  4. 4.

    Ken

    @JPL: Are you sure LAO and Andrew Weissmann are different people? Have they ever been seen in the same blog together?

  6. 6.

    cliosfanboy

    My worst fears came true this afternoon. A couple days ago I mentioned my elderly dachshund, Spud, was having trouble walking. This afternoon we had to say goodbye. Just one month ago our elderly mini wienerdog Brandy died suddenly. We still have Candy, another little old mini. She wondering what’s going on.Ā  Maybe in a couple months we’ll adopt a little sister for her.Ā  BTW, all 3 are on a BJ calender. Candy is in July, Brandy September, Spud in October.

  7. 7.

    bbleh

    [huffs pompously] Well!Ā All thisĀ unseemly joking aboutĀ allegedĀ crimes of aĀ national political figure for which there has been only theĀ barest due process! Why, itā€™sĀ outrageous!

    The next thing you know, theyā€™ll be calling to ā€œlock him upā€ or some such nonsense! I mean really,Ā whoĀ behaves that way?!

  11. 11.

    Scout211

    IANAL, but I agree that that F-POTUS will be indicted. I also think there will be other people indicted after the CCTV footage is viewed and the finger printing is done.

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    In other news, Phys.org:

    The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by President Biden this month contains $3 billion to help the U.S. Postal Service decarbonize its mail-delivery fleet and shift to electric vehicles.

    On the heels of the Aug. 16 bill-signing ceremony at the White House, a new University of Michigan study finds that making the switch to all-electric mail-delivery vehicles would lead to far greater reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than previously estimated by the USPS.

    In its analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle program, the Postal Service underestimated the expected greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles and overestimated the emissions tied to battery-electric vehicles, according to U-M researchers.

    “Our paper highlights the fact that the USPS analysis is significantly flawed, which led them to dramatically underestimate the benefits of BEVs, which could have impacted their decision-making process,” said Maxwell Woody, lead author of the new study, published online Aug. 26 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology.

    The NGDV program calls for the purchase of up to 165,000 new mail delivery trucks over the next decade. The Postal Service said in February that at least 10% of the new mail trucks would be electric. But following blistering criticism from many quarters, the agency upped that number in July.

    Though the Postal Service now says at least 40% of the new delivery vehicles will be electric, the flaws in the USPS environmental analysis remain and need to be addressed, said Woody, a research area specialist at the Center for Sustainable Systems, which is part of the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

    […]

    Study senior author Greg Keoleian said the new findings suggest the Postal Service should be deploying electric delivery trucks at a rate much higher than 40%. The failure to do so exposes a lack of sustainability leadership by the agency, he said.

    Many of the largest private fleet operatorsā€”including FedEx, UPS, Amazon and Walmartā€”have begun electrifying their fleets and have more ambitious electrification and decarbonization targets than the current USPS purchase plan, he said.

    More at the link.

    Gradually, and then suddenly…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  18. 18.

    C Stars

    I don’t think there will be an indictment. Burned from the Mueller anticlimax, I guess. Not that there shouldn’t be, of course, but he’s the teflon fpotus. F him.

     

    @cliosfanboy, I am so sorry about your dear loved ones.

  19. 19.

    Ken

    I would like to make Asha Rangappa‘s dream a reality:

    In NARA-Lago: The Musical, I imagine Act I ending after 1st FBI visit with ā€œWe Got Away With It,ā€ a celebratory jazzy duet with Trump and Kash Patel dragging boxes out of unexpected nooks and crannies and tossing them aroundā€¦number ends with paper strewn all over the stage

  21. 21.

    LAO

    @JPL: take it back! But seriously, I enjoy his commentary now that weā€™re on the same side. But he really was/is a giant prick.

  22. 22.

    Skepticat

    @cliosfanboy: I’m so sorry and empathize so strongly. Please give Candy extra scritches and treats for us, and keep a few for yourself. Maybe there’s a Sandy or a Randy sometime in your future to keep Candy (and you) company?

  23. 23.

    Ken

    @LAO: Heā€™s an asshole and Iā€™m just a jerk.

    Now I’m imagining some Dungeons & Dragons variation with a character class where those are a couple of the named levels. How many XP do you need to move up from jerk to asshole?

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @cliosfanboy:

    You knew this moment was coming. Surely doesnā€™t make it any easier. Hugs to you, and scritches to Candy (who must be feeling kind of lonesome).

    ā¤ļøšŸŒˆšŸ’•

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @Scout211: I agree with you. Ā They have to indict T****. Ā At this point if Trump and his minions aren’t indicted, the rule of law goes right out the window. Ā It would mean nothing

    Oh, and EFF POTUS.

  31. 31.

    MattF

    Yes, there has been a very great deal of fuckery with a very large amount of very very classified stuff. Itā€™s hard to see how that can be ignored. Everyone knows exactly who is responsible. There isnā€™t any obvious scapegoat. All that said, I still find it hard to believe that Trump will be indicted. Iā€™ll settle, uneasily, for the Republican Party falling, forever, into an abyss.

  33. 33.

    Martin

    @HumboldtBlue: I don’t think you put in this much effort without indicting. I’m getting more of a vibe that part of what they’re recovering is evidence of obstruction to Jan 6 probes.

  34. 34.

    jonas

    @C Stars:Ā ā€‹
     

    Burned from the Mueller anticlimax

    Special counsel =/= DOJ criminal investigation, but yeah, I get the nervousness. My one hope is that Merrick Garland would not have signed off on that warrant unless he and a lot of other really smart people at DOJ weren’t convinced that some *very* serious criming was going on down in Palm Beach — way beyond just some inappropriate retention of documents or whatever. He had to know that if this turned out to be a nothingburger with nothing indictable in the end, he, and Biden, would be toast. I don’t think he’d do that.

  35. 35.

    LAO

    @C Stars: IDK, Ā the Mueller investigation failed because of the extraordinary interference of Bill Barr. I donā€™t see that happening here.

  36. 36.

    Citizen Alan

    @Ivan X:Ā  I am intensely bitter that there were no meetups in NYC for the 9 months I was there, but now one happens while I’m back in the barbarous hell-state.

  39. 39.

    kalakal

    Meanwhile the GQPs latest manly mancrush reveals the reason all is not perfect in his part of the world

    BBC News – Hungarians warning education becoming ‘too feminine’- report
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62686894

    Translation: Our neo-fascist authoritarian policies have trashed our economy, we’re a basket case and everyone who can get out is doing so. We’re left with the equivalent of MAGAs and the place sucks. Obviously this is all womens fault ( we’ve already done teh gays, foreigners, model railway enthusiasts etc, etc ) , and once they’re put in their proper place , freedom will reign and we’ll all have jam for tea

    What an utter tool

  40. 40.

    Gremcat

    Do we know yet if all the missing documents in the affidavit were retrieved by the FBI? Ā I thought I saw that the boxes were being moved and thatā€™s why the SW was procured. Ā Itā€™s still possible that some documents are still missing.

  41. 41.

    Scout211

    I also think that way down the road there will be a plea deal and no trial. But the period between the indictment and the plea deal could be a swirling mess of crazy from F-POTUS and his minions. I donā€™t envy the federal court having to manage that, but the good news is that itā€™s not the US Senate that conducts the trial and sentencing this time. I donā€™t think the federal court will be amused.

  43. 43.

    steppy

    At this point, I don’t see how Tubby doesn’t get indicted. The ball is rolling downhill and picking up speed.

    Hey, maybe DOJ will think, that was easier and felt better than we thought. And then it’s Katie, bar the door. So much winning!

  44. 44.

    jonas

    @Gremcat: It seems like they went over most of the rooms in Mar-a-Lago that Trump himself used with a fine-toothed comb, including safes and the like. If additional stuff does turn up in coming weeks/months, it means that he was *seriously* trying to hide it, destroy it, etc., which goes to state-of-mind, motive, etc. Imagine the FBI, in the course of analyzing Hillary’s private server, turning up evidence of an even *more* private server where she hit the serious shit. I think it would be pretty much all over for Trump at that point.

  45. 45.

    dexwood

    @cliosfanboy:Ā  My heart is with you. We had to euthanize our fantastic terrier mix last week, the smart and happy Ollie. He was only ten. Fuck cancer.

  46. 46.

    brantl

    Did anybody find a readable copy os STumpā€™s ā€œstatementā€? Ā I canā€™t read the image from the warrant.

  47. 47.

    Bill Arnold

    @C Stars:
    Another Teflon Don spent the last part of his life in prison. Bold mine:

    “On April 2, 1992, after only 14 hours of deliberation, the jury found Gotti guilty on all charges of the indictment (Locascio was found guilty on all but one). James Fox, Assistant Director in Charge or “ADIC” of the FBI’s New York Field Office, announced at a press conference, “The Teflon is gone. The don is covered with Velcro, and all the charges stuck.” On June 23, 1992, Glasser sentenced both defendants to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and a $250,000 fine.

  48. 48.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @MattF:Ā ā€‹ What or who do you imagine “the Republican Party” to consist of? If it “falls into an abyss”, who goes with it, and how is the depth of the abyss measured, in terms of civic disability? Lawyers can be disbarred; other kinds of professionals can be delicensed; criminals can be imprisoned; personae non gratae can be deported; etc. etc. etc. but what can be done with voters? Where do they go and what are they allowed, or not allowed, to do when they get there?

    The answers to these questions lead one at once into awkward territory. We say (reaching for new and exciting flavors of legitimacy) that we outnumber them; I am not so sure, but what price outnumbering? You may be sure that they ask this, and answer it, among themselves, and that the price changes each time they do so.

    In a sustainable society, can it be allowed to matter who outnumbers whom? Can any of the consequences that lie at the bottom of the slippery slope of outnumberment — the very bottom, for it is a very slippery slope — be allowed to happen? Any and each would not only violate the human conscience, but to all purposes abolish it.

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: Over their service lives, electric vehicles are cheaper than gas or diesel powered ones. And drivers breath cleaner air. So this is a good use of the federal government’s financing ability.

    The Infrastructure bill has money to convert 20% of the nation’s school bus fleet to electric by the end of this decade. Once parents appreciate the cleaner air their kids breath, I expect a lot more than 20% will be converted. Some will be retrofitted with electric powertrains that companies like Cummings Engines are now selling.

  51. 51.

    C Stars

    @jonas: Yeah, it’s a weird feeling. It seems very obvious to me that of course TFG took those documents for nefarious reasons. (Just as it seemed/seems obvious now that his campaign colluded with Russia).

    I’m not ambivalent about the existence of actual guilt–that’s a foregone conclusion with this guy. But he’s also a very hard guy to pin down, because of his armies of slavering minions, many of whom hold influential positions in government.

    Also, (if) he is guilty of the worse,Ā what does that mean? He sold our secrets to Russia? I mean, the implications are horrible.

  52. 52.

    SpaceUnit

    Whatever the outcome for FPOTUS, I’m worried that instead of asking what he planned to do with these documents in the future we should be asking what he’s done with them already. Ā I’m sure the CIA and NSA are currently in scramble mode.

    The fact that the FBI has recovered the originals doesn’t give me much comfort.

     

    ETA: Ā Imagine trying to do a damage assessment for 700 documents. Ā  Christ.

  54. 54.

    C Stars

    @Bill Arnold: That’s a great quote. Thanks.

    It’s just so bizarre to be teetering on this inflection point in which we are all hoping our former president did the very worst, so that he can finally be disgraced in the eyes of his supporters and removed as a threat. But if he DID do the very worst…well that presents its own set of new and exciting threats to our Democracy.

  56. 56.

    Ken

    @LAO: the Mueller investigation failed because of the extraordinary interference of Bill Barr. I donā€™t see that happening here.

    Once you’ve pushed the claim that Trump’s still allowed to declassify documents with a wave of his hand, why not say that Barr still has his Attorney General magic power to interfere with ongoing investigations?

  57. 57.

    jonas

    @Bill Arnold:Ā ā€‹
      The feds eventually got Gotti on murder charges (among many, many others) after Sammy “the Bull” Gravano flipped and testified against him. That would be basically the equivalent of Jared turning state’s evidence. Probably not gonna happen. We’ll see what comes of this FBI case, but my bet is that Trump is taken down first by either the tax evasion shit up in NY, or by the Fulton County, GA DA on election interference.

  58. 58.

    MattF

    On reflection, I think the problem with indicting Trump is that the basic issues and questions here are politicalā€” judicial/police methods and events donā€™t have traction on the fundamental politics, and you donā€™t really want them to have the last word. So, I just donā€™t know.

    ETA: Iā€™m MattF, again with the flailing fingers.

  65. 65.

    jonas

    @C Stars:Ā ā€‹
     

    But heā€™s also a very hard guy to pin down, because of his armies of slavering minions, many of whom hold influential positions in government.

    Up until now, Trump has mostly been exposed to the kind of white collar crime that rich white guys have been eluding accountability for since forever. Political influence and a coterie of pitbull lawyers have always been protecting him. That stuff is starting to fall away now. He may have a lot of money in the bank, but he’s not president any more and his legal representation has become a joke. And now he’s looking down the barrel of not just defrauding a charity or something that he can settle with and make go away, but serious criminal liability. He’s never really been in that position before and his usual shenanigans aren’t going to get him out of this. One can hope.

  66. 66.

    gwangung

    @SpaceUnit: That’s a question that should be asked, but I’m not sure it’s going be answered In public. I’m almost certain that the answers will be something that’s part and parcel of national security and even partial answers will be damaging to ongoing security work.

     

    @JPL: I stand as living evidence you can be both.

  69. 69.

    Cacti

    Republican Congress turds are really up in their feelings since Dark Brandon called them out on their grotesque PPP loan hypocrisy.

    Unsurprisingly, the response universally seems to be:

    “I’m special and deserved it, plebes!”

  71. 71.

    LAO

    @Ken: Iā€™m not sure I understand your comment. If Barr had any current authority in/over the DOJ, the warrant would never have been approved. Barr is no longer in a position of authority that grants him any access to the leadership of the DOJ.

    Trump may not be indicted, what do I know? What I do know is that once the DOJā€™s machinery is engaged, it hard to stop. Itā€™s relentless.

  72. 72.

    Starfish

    @Another Scott: Someone here posted a Zoom to the last USPS meeting, and it was basically a lot of people yelling at them about not electrifying fast enough.

    The concern about these vehicles is that they have to be long-lasting, so they are expected to last about 25 years or more. Not electrifying more now means that we are stuck with gas guzzlers until close to 2050.

    There are some things that may be hard to electrify like extremely rural routes or ones in extremely cold climates, but we better be trying to electrify everything else.

    Other comments that came out of the meeting were prioritizing low-income communities that are experiencing a lot of environmental impact from pollution for getting the new trucks.

  75. 75.

    Fair Economist

    More fun for crypto:

    Some people might be familiar with ENS, the “Ethereum Name Service”, which seeks to be a web3 equivalent ofĀ DNS. If you’ve seen people with usernames ending inĀ .eth, that’s an ENS address. The problem is thatĀ .ethĀ is not a functionalĀ top-level domain, and so many services relied on eth.link to surface these DNS records to other services.

    However, the eth.link domain is only rented for a set period of time and needs to be renewed. ENS DAO tweeted that the domain’s owner,Ā Virgil Griffith, is “unavailable”. By this, they mean that he is currently serving his first of five years in prison for helping North Korea evade sanctions. With Griffith “unavailable”, the project has found itself at the mercy of GoDaddy.

    Although GoDaddy previously allowed another person to renew the domain on Griffith’s behalf, they reversed that decision, and now say they intend to allow the domain to expire on September 5.

    So – a huge selection of web sites are about to become extremely hackable (by redirection to scam sites) if *all* the sites and *all* the users and *all* the relevant code don’t fix things to use standard internet addressing. In the next 2 weeks. Fun!

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @jonas: It’s also possible that trump can be charged over the January 6 Insurrection. That may require flipping Roger Stone, but there was enough improvisation in that scheme that trump may have been sloppy and let less trustworthy henchmen in on the conspiracy.

    And who knows what else may be in the works? I like to think that there will be money laundering charges stemming from the sale of condos. Money laundering certainly did occur.

    My Atlanta friend thinks there will be a plea deal that includes a prohibition on trump running for office again, although he isn’t sure trump is rational enough to take it. But Warren still fears trump as a candidate.

    I see this question differently. I believe that politically, trump is a spent force. He did what he could to wreck the nation, but at this point all trump can do is wreck the Republican party.

  78. 78.

    SpaceUnit

    @gwangung:

    Yes, it can’t be answered in public, but I’m going to assume that the damage to our national security and intelligence is already catastrophic.

    If FPOTUS had documents that identify covert agents and foreign assets then the agencies have no choice but to pull them out. Ā The risk is too great to leave them in place. Ā This is a goddamn disaster.

  79. 79.

    JPL

    @JaySinWA: this is different.Ā  Ā I think they have him.Ā  Ā It might cause unrest, but that might be necessary to save our democracy.Ā  The one thing that concerns me though, is why haven’t they arrested Patel yet.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @SpaceUnit: Not to mention the people who are NOT covert operatives but have a station in life that could be used by a covert operative ā€“ they may be suspected of being so, which could be quite dangerous.

  84. 84.

    evodevo

    @JaySinWA: Yeah…I certainly remember it…just when it seemed like cheney would finally pay for outing a CIA agent in revenge for her husband telling the truth about “yellowcake”, they talked a minion into taking the fall…Bush commuted his sentence, and then the Orange Mad King pardoned him…that’s when I decided there was no justice when the upper echelons of govt. are involved.

  86. 86.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Geminid:

    I believe that politically, trump is a spent force. He did what he could to wreck the nation, but at this point all trump can do is wreck the Republican party.

    I think a number of high ranking Republicans want him to be a spent force. They want his supporters to move on to someone else before he wrecks the party. However, I think there is a sizable chunk of GOP voters who absolutely have no intention of letting him go. What ever comes of this, I hope we end up in a better place eventually, that we dodge the fascism bullet.

  87. 87.

    Geminid

    @Starfish: Some fleets may need hybrid vehicles for the more extensive routes. That is why UPS is planning on a mix of electric and hybrid vans in its future fleet. Rural school districts may do similarly with their buses.

  88. 88.

    evodevo

    @Starfish: Yeah…electric is fine when you deliver in a subdivision, or in town where they clean the roads off after a snow, but where I deliver, out in rural KY, there’s NO WAY I’d settle for electric.Ā  An AWD Subaru with studded snowgrips is the only way I can get around a 90 mile route with 500 boxes in one day in the winter.Ā  And that’s if the snow is less than 8 inches or so…

  90. 90.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Another Scott:

    I hardly know what to say. I mean, I donā€™t want to come across as an elite footist or anything, but those are some weird-lookin toes.

  91. 91.

    SpaceUnit

    @WaterGirl:

    Exactly.

    I’m as pleased as anyone else to see the walls close in on that jerk, but I can’t bring myself to do the happy dance. Ā This is a national security / intelligence nightmare, a worst-case scenario. Ā It boggles the mind.

    I hope the asshole ends up at Guantanamo.

  95. 95.

    Starfish

    @evodevo: A lot of advanced government projects involve accelerating the maturity of one technology on the way to some larger goal.

    For example, the James Webb Space Telescope was ridiculously late. Some of it had to do with assumptions about technology that had to mature for the final telescope to be possible. Government has the money to throw at cutting edge research that is needed to create a technological advancement that is needed on its way to meet a different goal. Industry won’t invest in long-term goals (> 5 years) because CEOs are paid based on short-term gains.

    Don’t look at this as “what cars are available now?”Ā  Look at it as “What technological advancements can government do in electrifying these vehicles” that may then help industry advance. Do we need better batteries? What do we need to make electric vehicles work in colder temperatures and last for a longer period of time?

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Yeah, Republican elites are in a real bind. They want to put trump in the rear view mirror but they still need his voters.

    Right now their horizon is the midterms. They hope to at least retake the House, maybe even the Senate. So when it comes to trump and his adherents, Republican leaders think discretion is the better part of valor.

    If Republicans can’t flip either house, I think there will be a bloody intra-party brawl, and it could go on for years.

  97. 97.

    gwangung

    @SpaceUnit: Oh, yeah, it’s catastrophic. Once there was a HINT that the orange twit had something like that, I imagine they were pulling assets as fast as feasibly possible.

    Bet there was a sizable swell in budget and operations to clean up after his criminal ass.

  99. 99.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott: DeJoy’s USPS buried the benefits? This is me, shocked! ą¼¼ 恤 ā—•_ā—• ą¼½ć¤
    How they’re used–start/drive a bit/stop, repeat dozens of times/shift–is a worst-case for maximizing emissions so I can well believe electrifying the fleet has huge benefits.ā€‹

  101. 101.

    JPL

    @Geminid: Trump needs to be wrapped around their necks.Ā  They chose not to impeach him after the uprising on 1/6 and because of that he was allowed to carry home information that could kill our intel folks

  102. 102.

    evodevo

    @Another Scott: OMG them’s some weird feet lol – although the toe number could be explained by the little piggy being buried in the sand on both sides…but STILL…they look like cartoon feet…

  103. 103.

    Another Scott

    @Fair Economist: Oh man.

    “But these magic beans were promised to hide me from the laws of IP packet routing!Ā  How was I supposed to know that that was not true!!1” – True Believer Who Lost His Apes

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  106. 106.

    cliosfanboy

    Thank you for all the kind wishes. I keep looking for Spud to be here.

    We can’t take credit for the names, all 3-Candy, Brandy, and Spud-were all rescues.

    And I am so sorry about Ollie. Fuck cancer indeed

  109. 109.

    WaterGirl

    @gwangung: Pulling all those people, surely necessary because of these documents, will put them/us back years or decades, right? Ā Because they will lose everyone who was established in a position that allowed them to be valuable.

  111. 111.

    CaseyL

    @cliosfanboy:

    @dexwood:

    Heartfelt condolences to you both!

    Letting go of a beloved companion animal is a dreaded, grievous inevitability.Ā  I do think bringing a new animal into one’s life, and showering it with the same love and care, speeds the healing process. But that’s just my take.

  113. 113.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @cliosfanboy: I’m so sorry for your losses.Ā  It’s hard, I know.Ā  The hole they leave is enormous.

    But the joy of a new dog will help ease the pain.Ā  May you be ready for that step soon.

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