As the depraved and corrupt Repub Party keeps learning, maintaining fealty to the Trump cult requires defending indefensible behavior, and the task snowballs. When damning details about the classified documents started coming out, I figured his apologists would eventually abandon any pretense at justification and land on, “Oh, he can’t help it — he just takes things! Like a magpie!” From the NYT:
The phrase [“beautiful mind” material, a reference to the movie about mathematician John Nash] had a specific connotation. The aides employed it to capture a type of organized chaos that Mr. Trump insisted on, the collection and transportation of a blizzard of newspapers and official documents that he kept close and that seemed to give him a sense of security.
Press clippings interspersed with nuclear secrets and battle plans make a weird security blanket. Maybe go with the “all magpies are attracted to shiny objects” story. It could really be as simple as that, in a sense. I’m agnostic on the question of whether Trump stole the docs to sell or use as blackmail or whatever. I think it’s just as likely he took them because they made him feel like a big shot when he showed them off.
That said, as the tawdry tale unfolds, it turns out the cult is right on one point: the charging decision was political. If it were anyone other than an ex-POTUS who made off with such a trove, that person would have been indicted, clapped in irons and thrown in jail to await trial. He would not be repeatedly asked, pretty please, with sugar on top, to the return the documents.
Anyhoo, fuck that guy. Open thread!
Jerzy Russian
If this post had the format of a paper in a scientific journal, that phrase would be its abstract, the introduction, and the conclusion/summary. Different journals/disciplines have different standards/practices regarding footnotes, but that phrase would appear in a few footnotes in those journals that use them.
rikyrah
The way that the GOP is contortioning itself to further excuse the traitor knows as Dolt45 is just amazing. They had plenty of chances to rid themselves of him and they didn’t….so phuck them.
I am SO looking forward to the next couple of rounds of indictments from Georgia and Jack Smith…..because these will not be just indictments of Dolt45…there are going to be groups of people indicted right along side of him.
piratedan
it’s why all of the cries from assorted Conservative punditry to appease the MAGA and pardon Trump are ridiculous. It doesn’t matter what 46 does… if they pardon him what, then he’s “fully exonerated” and free to attack them for their “unjust” persecution of 45. Doesn’t matter if 45 is guilty of anything, it’s all us versus you and they WILL NEVER BE SATISFIED. Even if all of their dreams of building a Gilead come true, they’ll find something else, they’re empty people and apparently they prefer hate to fill themselves up.
dmsilev
“Organized”?
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
From your keyboard to all the deities’ or non-deities’ ears.
different-church-lady
You don’t negotiate with
terroriststoddlers.piratedan
@rikyrah: yeah, I’m right there with you, I’m hoping that when J6 drops, there’s going to be a lengthy list of MOC included from both the House and the Senate and if so (as is suggested by what documents, texts and behaviors), it is going to be lit. I imagine that the MSM will have a crisis of sorts because it will comprise roughly 75% of all GOP guests that they invite for commentary.
West of the Rockies
@rikyrah:
Any chance the grotesque Bannon will be among the Trumpalongs who get indicted?
NotMax
Shall never, never forgive Barbara Bush for pre-ruining “beautiful mind.”
RaflW
Whatever chemical all elected Republicans (with the possible, though not certain, exception of Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski) have injected that perfectly targeted and melted away the section of their brains that previously operated shame, man has that had a toxic impact on our republic.
robmassing
@dmsilev: My sentiments exactly. Is this the famed fluffer Haberman, forever trying to give Trump more credit than he deserves? To ask the question is to answer it.
gvg
Yeah, actually I don’t get why this indictment only charged Trump and the one aid. Unless the reason the details were so laid out is that a lot of people went straight to the FBI.
I do think it’s going to turn out that there were a lot of informants. I mean he showed the docs to a lot of people who would have known or suspected it wasn’t OK, and plenty of people watch TV shows about this or just have relatives.
The lawyers are the ones stuck. They would know its illegal but also I think they would not be free to just run to the FBI depending on how they were told? and what their official relationship to Trump was.
I wonder if the people who interviewed him for the book or movie actually worked for the Justice department?
Danielx
Point. There are people doing time right now for being found guilty of a hell of a lot less than that of which Trump is accused.
lollipopguild
@dmsilev: Trump is a CHAOS bringer/carrier so yes it is “organized” in a Trumpy(Tm) fashion.
Suzanne
I don’t think he has enough foresight for blackmail. I think he just… wants things.
Jeffro
it is a marvel, that’s for sure
oh well, hopefully they can all talk about it at length either in retirement or in prison
lollipopguild
@different-church-lady: “terrorist toddlers” do exist and trump is one of them.
Jay
Reality Winner anyone?????
Scout211
Karl Rove (remember Turd Blossom?) has spoken. Link
Not that anyone really cares about what he is opining these days, but his op-ed is in the Wall Street Journal so some of the less crazy Republicans will read it. Maybe. Are there any less crazy Republicans out there anymore?
NotMax
@RaflW
“Shame-away! Now with added Propagandine!”
//
FastEdD
Don’t mean to bug you guys.
I’m trying the strikethrough to see how it works.It works! Hooray!Jeffro
@Suzanne: he knew they were valuable, and just like a low-performing, recently-fired disgruntled employee, he took off with them on his way out the door.
I don’t care what, if anything, he planned to do with them. They weren’t his to take, his taking them put us all at tremendous risk, he was given ample chances to give them back…and he didn’t. Here’s your cell, Orangemandias – do not pass ‘go’, and most certainly do not collect $200.
Suzanne
@rikyrah:
It’s such an interesting collective-action problem. So many of them appear to know that they need to dump his orange ass, like, yesterday….. but they all want someone else to do it, so they can swoop in and inherit the MAGA “coalition”, such as it is. So far, Chris Christie seems to be the only one willing to take any shots in Trump’s direction.
Maxim
@piratedan: I have not seen (m)any indications that the J6 investigation includes MOC, though it damn well should. Their crimes are greater than those of the non-elected folks who took part.
Miss Bianca
@Scout211: Karl *Rove* has discovered that the leopard he helped let out of the cage is now eating faces?
Suzanne
@Jeffro: I agree with you. I don’t really care what personality disorder leads to his actions.
tobie
I didn’t even need to read the article to know that Magpie Maggie Haberman wrote that sycophantic tripe to please her favorite leakers on the Trump team. Yuck.
RSA
I liked this, from CNN:
I guess the conservative position is saying everything is fine, except that this shouldn’t be a crime for TFG.
Layer8Problem
Apropos of nothing, I’m having a perfectly delightful mild thunderstorm outside my windows here.
Tony Jay
OT? Excellent.
A LETTER FROM BREXITANIA
ECCE FLOBBO’
“And when they came to the place that is called the Parliamentary Privileges Committee, there they crucified him, and the civil-servants, one on his right and one on his left. And Flobalob said, “Father, forsake them, for I am furious with what they do.” And they cast votes to divide his children. And the people stood by, watching, but the MPs scoffed at him, saying, “He underbussed others; let him unbus himself, if he is the BoJo of Middle-England, their Chosen One!” The journalists also mocked him, coming up and offering him free column inches and saying, “If you are the King of the World, say something outrageous!”
So, here’s the deal.
The Parliamentary Privileges Committee is where MPs go to get judged if they’re accused of breaking The Code; a body of precedent and behavioural guidelines for Members of Parliament most often honoured in the breech rather than the observance – especially if you’re a well-connected Tory with the shame-glands of a horny monkey with shit to throw or Rudi Guliani’s latest mistress. Yesterday, it released its official report on whether or not Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson, former Tory Party leader and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, deliberately misled Parliament about his role in, knowledge of, and statements about, the ‘Partygate’ scandal that led to his disgrace and ousting last year.
Guilty as fucking sin. Guilty. GUILTY. G.U.I.L.T.Y. Guilt to the motherfucking T.
A quick reminder of the context. Covid Time. National lockdowns. Gatherings of more than a couple of people banned. The hard of thinking fined thousands for minor breaches of the rules. Children unable to be with their parents as they choked to death in overcrowded emergency wards. A National Health Service buckling but standing firm under the unbelievable pressure because of the sacrifices of its underpaid and disrespected staff. Government Ministers all over the Newspapers and TV telling everyone, no exceptions, that these rules HAD to be obeyed, or else, for the safety and security of the nation.
Meanwhile, Flobalob Johnson’s Downing Street was a bacchanalian piss-up haunt where leaving-dos, birthday parties and just general posh-boi champagnery & boozy wine o’clock behaviour continued in a bubble of blissfully unconcerned privilege. Their only concession to Covid rules was to tell staff to leave by the back door and keep it all hush-hush front of camera. When all of this eventually came out – thanks not to investigative journalism, but because of leaks – Flobby and his Government told Parliament that none of it was true, all rules and guidelines were abided by, nothing to see here. Until the pictures came out, then it was “Oh, those events and gatherings, oh, yeah, didn’t know about them, or if I did I wasn’t there, or if I was there (like, on a fucking picture raising a toast) then it was all either completely within the rules or else I was told it was all within the rules, so totes not my fault or responsibility.”
The verdict of the Committee today squashes all of that flatter than a Lou Reed chorus. Once again, to underline the point, they found him Guilty as fucking sin. Guilty. GUILTY. G.U.I.L.T.Y. Guilt to the motherfucking T.
Here’s what they actually found him guilty of –
And they slapped a 90-day suspension from Parliament on him, which is ENORMOUS, like, literally the longest ban ever that hasn’t been a straight expulsion, and way over the line that would automatically give his constituents the right to ask for an emergency by-election to replace him as MP. Humiliating disgrace doesn’t even begin to cover it. The Committee couldn’t have found him guiltier if they’d unmasked him as Monsieur Giles l’Tee, tenured Professor of Advanced Guiltiness at the Sorbonne’s affiliated Collège de Culpabilité Formidable.
This was all by-the-by anyway, because Flobby had been given an advance copy of the findings a couple of days ago, hence his immediate scuttling off amidst gassy clouds of misdirection and resignation as an MP (to avoid actually being hit with the threatened suspension so he can prop up a technical terminology/legally speaking ‘argument’ that he wasn’t, actually, strictly speaking, suspended from the Commons) accompanied by a discordant cacophony of Trumpesque whining blaring out of his facehole and the assembled orifices of his closest acolytes and supporters. Witch-Hunt! Biased! Fake News! Political hit-job! Remainer plot! Blah-Blah frigging blahtittyblah.
For your delectation, this is part of the statement the egotistical crack-piper released.
Fictionalised cack. “Not me, Sir! I wasn’t there, Sir! It was some other boys, Sir! Why are you being so unfair, Sir?” He’s exactly the same whining, entitled brat he was back in Eton, only now with decades worth of ‘Getting Away With It’ bulging out of his threadbare saddlebags. He knows he’s guilty, technically, yes, but in his rat-run of a mind that’s far less important than the universal truth that He should never, ever, ever be held to the same behavioural standards as lesser people. The ‘real’ truth, the one he’s lived his life by, is that any demonstrable fact which happens to contradict whatever fictional narrative best suits his needs at any particular moment must and should be ignored, or else it’s unfair to Him, to the narrative, and to the country.
That’s how it’s always worked, and how ‘everyone who matters’ already agreed it should continue to work. That’s how he became an MP. That’s how he became Mayor of London. That’s how he became Foreign Secretary. That’s definitely how he became Prime Minister. The collusive mythmaking that always insulated him from consequences, whereby everyone might ‘know’ that there’s more to it than he’s letting on and it’s probably rather seedy, but come on, just let Boris be Boris and we’ll say no more about it, eh? He’s done his part, crawling out of bed every afternoon to play the role we all expect him to play, hasn’t he? We bally-well owe it to him. It’s simply his due. Changing the rules now is horribly unfair, and if we don’t stop this nonsense immediately, he might get quite justifiably angry and start breaking things! Is that what we want? Do we want him to break things?
‘Things’, in this case, meaning the Conservative and Unionist Party he once led. To which I say, fill your fucking boots, Bully-Boy. It’s not like the husk of the now-defunct Labour Party is interested in having a go.
The funniest thing, though. The Committee may have given its report, but none of it means a thing unless Parliament votes to accept its findings. That’s right. Tory MPs, many of whom have local party memberships still primed to love them some Flobalob, are going to have to decide whether or not to walk into Parliament on Monday and vote to acknowledge or reject clear evidence of his lying, while Flobby’s stalwart defenders in the Tory Party (i.e. the people he has given various honours to, including seats in the House of Lords) are spicing the goose by openly threatening civil-war and a co-ordinated effort to target any Tory MPs who vote to accept the Committee’s findings for deselection ahead of the next Election.
That’s the cleft stick the Tories are in. They’ve spent years feeding MAGOPesque red meat to their increasingly radicalised Base through the Far-Right Press. They overwhelmingly selected as their leader, and thus the country’s Prime Minister, a catastrophically unsuitable narcissist with the integrity of a well-rusted suspension bridge, because they thought (rightly) that his incestuous deal with the national news media could get them out of their Brexit and Austerity shaped holes. They defended him to the hilt while he was fucking everything the fuck up. Now, when they desperately need to draw a line under all that and coalesce around the ‘leadership’ of a Lilliputian phantasm so humiliatingly spineless Stuart Little could give him wedgies, they find themselves caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Cray-Zee.
Awesome. Loving it. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of deviants, deadbeats and daddy-issue having delusionists.
And what’s even more perfect is how cravenly Rishi Sunak, the hand-carved teak bookmark masquerading as the UK’s Prime Minister and Leader of the Tory Party, has handled the whole shitshow. It’s not enough that he spinelessly waved through the vast majority of Flobalob’s (Dis)Honour’s List last week when he could (and should) have shown the merest flicker of strength or a glimmer of self-respect by simply delaying his approval until after its author had been convicted or acquitted of lying to Parliament. Or even that he’s been blaringly silent while Flobalob and his minions have been all over the TV and Press screaming blue murder and threatening all kinds of spittle-flecked revenge on what’s supposed to be Sunak’s Party.
No, the best bit is that the vote on Monday is going to be a free one. No Government whip, no need for Tory MPs to even turn up. You can bet your bottom dollar that a lot of Tory MPs are looking at that and thinking “Thank Satan, I can just plead pressing prior issues and not have to vote one way or another”, but a LOT of them are going to be looking at it and thinking “If he can’t even muster up the courage to take a stand against Johnson and Johnsonism now, in the wake of this report, with the issues so clear and the truth so obvious, is he really Prime Minister at all?”
There’s cowardice, and then there’s this. Sunak is so terrified of his Party’s extremist MPs, and so devoid of the political skill necessary to bring together a coalition of less-extremist MPs he could rely on for support, that he can’t even provide the limpest response to Faction Flobalob basically declaring war on him. There’s no confusion about what is likely to happen now. Once Parliament votes through the report’s findings, and it will, Sunak will be called on to boot Johnson from the Party, and to show his fortitude by putting down this rebellion with the ruthless force that Flobalob himself showed when he purged the Tory Party of its ‘moderate’ MPs in 2019 over their stance on Brexit. Otherwise, he’ll be left to ‘lead’ a divided, self-destructing mess of a Party into an Election next year with zero authority, fuck all chance of winning, and a whole raft of far-Right lunatics already running stealth leadership campaigns against him. The ERG fanatics who minority/majority the Party’s direction will need someone to blame for their faction’s failure to make the most of ‘the wonderful opportunities of Brexit’ and Sunak has to know that that’s going to be him. Badenoch, Braverman, Patel, etc, they’ll all be gunning for him as the man who was simply too weak to lead their Party to victory over a crappy Nu-Labour alternative, and Flobalob himself will be pissing fuel on the fire from his new post as a well-paid columnist for the Daily Mail.
Yer doomed, ye boneless prick!
But that’s for the future. Right now, I’m quite enjoying seeing Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson getting some, but not even remotely all, of what he so richly deserves. It’s an indictment of our terrible News Media and the cynical bastardy of the Right-Wing Establishment that it didn’t happen years ago, and that the country is in such a disastrous state because they preferred to elevate a humanoid word-cloud of random bullshit rather than let those dirty, filthy Lefties upset the rotten applecart. Flobalob is no different now than he was in 2019, or 2016, or 2010, he was always a lying, treacherous sausage-skin of bloated ambition and unexplored scandal, but rather than front page any of the myriad failures he plopped in his wake, our self-congratulatory Media Village preferred to spend years systematically lying about one of the few honest politicians in Parliament, and as a result the disgraced creature gracing their front pages today will always be able to burnish his portfolio by claiming that in the one Election where he was in charge of the Tory Party he gave them an 80 seat majority, and for once, he won’t even be lying – much. It was a disaster for the country, but that’s what happens when millions of people are propagandised to make stupid and self-harming decisions over and over again.
Consequences. They always happen eventually.
Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.
Maxim
@Suzanne: The only reason establishing his intent matters is to the extent that it informs charging decisions. Otherwise, nope.
FelonyGovt
Nominated!
Roger Moore
The thing I can’t get about this is how they think this is an actual excuse for continuing to support the guy. I can imagine how this might constitute some kind of criminal defense- though if the allegations in the indictment are true it’s clear this defense is doomed- but it isn’t any kind of defense of returning the guy to office. There’s no way on earth someone who behaves like this should be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, but the Republicans seem to accept that “successfully dodged a felony rap” is just fine.
Jeffro
Interesting blast from the past here (via MSNBC):
NBC GOP primary poll *June 2015*
Bush 22%
Walker 17%
Rubio 14%
Carson 11%*
Huckabee 9%
Paul 7%
Perry 5%
Cruz 4%
Christie 4%
Fiorina 2%
Trump 1%
Graham 1%
Kasich 1%
You can almost smell the Burgum-mentum for 2024, just looking at that list, eh? Well, YOU can’t, but I bet ol’ Doug can, LOL
*I told y’all about the time I was seated next to Ben Carson on a flight home, right? Back around 2018, I think?
Dangerman
I’ve said it before; a long time ago, I had a special clearance, and for a tiny fraction of what TFG did, I would have been enjoying the Christopher Boyce Suite in Lompoc immediately.
My recollection is there was no fucking around back then (late 80s); I have no idea what the culture is today.
artem1s
Maybe the current staff refer to The Beautiful Mind papers to describe the chaos and untidiness. But it seems more likely this set of Know Nothing, low level lackey’s aren’t that clever. I’m betting the originator of the phrase was referring to likelihood TFG was having a full blown, bugnuts psychotic break a la, John Nash (maybe one of his less MAGAt lawyers, or SS agents). The MAL house staff picked up on and probably have no idea what the movie was about other than it had The Gladiator in it and that guy was cool and tough so surely it’s a compliment to refer to TFG’s papers that way.
Betty Cracker
@Layer8Problem: I love thunderstorms! They are the only thing that makes summer in Florida bearable.
piratedan
@Maxim: my understanding is that they’ve been reviewing the Capitol “tour” videos in regards to who was providing them and those on the tour who showed up the next day. Reviewing who was at the hotel mtg the day before coordinating the proposed events of the day on J6 and all of the texts that were being bandied about, with some allegedly between MOC, rioters, Mark Meadows and other WH staff and folks like Bannon. Then there is the apparent coordination in how the vote was being purposefully delayed to keep members in the chambers as the assault unfolded.
Scout211
It didn’t take long for Jack Teixeira to be indicted.
artem1s
@Jeffro:
Walker 17%?
good lord for the life of me I cannot think who this is. All I can come up with is George Herbert Walker and I know that’s not right. I’m OK with forgetting and probably don’t want to remember. But lordy, what a list of losers – and why wasn’t Mittens on this list? Forget it, I don’t want to remember.
Layer8Problem
@Betty Cracker: That, that right there, is the thing that would bring me to Florida. Thunderstorms. You folks have the best. And the food in Miami.
Patricia Kayden
Trump is toast. I hope he is the GOP nominee because he should be easy to beat. He can’t run the White House from prison.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Layer8Problem: I like thunderstorms too.
Re Trump, I find I’m torn between wanting to read about him so I can get outraged, and knowing that I’m happier if I never see anything about him again.
Miss Bianca
@Tony Jay: “hand-carved teak bookmark” for the win!
Oh, and the rest of it ain’t bad either.
Layer8Problem
@artem1s: Scott Walker, the famous asshole?
RaflW
IF some level of sanity returns to this country (I remain quite unconvinced of the timliness such an arc), one can hope that the pledge to pardon by all these mooks can be held against them effectively by whatever Dem is the presidential nominee in 2028.
And if one of these mooks wins in ’24? I will not care about 2028 because I’ll be living somewhere, anywhere, not here. I’m sorry for y’all who have to remain. But as much as we’re already seeing state-level refugees from hideous places like FL moving to MN and the like, I can imagine my partner and I blowing our moderate nest egg to charter an Omni Air 767 to some LGBTQI welcoming country so we can GTFO while it remains possible.
Jeffro
@Layer8Problem: I was gonna explain it to artem1s, but then you did, and now I can’t stop laughing. =)
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
Newest pitchman for I Can’t Believe It’s Not Face®?
:)
Miss Bianca
@artem1s: Wasn’t Walker the Governor of Wisconsin? It’s amazing how quickly these asswipe GOP Governors who, after causing so much rack and ruin in their home states, crash and burn after kidding themselves that the rest of the
worldGOP will see them as POTUS material, get voted out afterwards (usually in favor of a Democrat), and then are never heard from again.With any hope, in a few years we’ll all be going…”what was the name of that asshole from Florida?” or “Ron DeSantis…which one was that one, again?”
ETA: Remember Bobby Jindal? No? Neither do I.
Layer8Problem
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The ironic part is that I’m a pseudo-retired IT guy and thunderstorms can screw up the delicate electronics. But the flash followed shortly after by the low-frequency rumble of a distant bolt echoing — it reaches something deep inside one, kind of spooky and mystical.
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay:
Bravo!
patrick II
@Roger Moore:
I belong to the Trump magical thinking school of stolen classified documents. He owned and controlled powerful secrets so he was still a powerful person. He is effectively the leader of a Cargo Cult and he has built the biggest and most beautiful cargo plane.
Scout211
More information today on the global cyber attack. It has affected numerous government agencies and persona data of the residents of Oregon and Louisiana.
Redshift
Right out of the gate on June 8:
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: That…that is…I’m not sure WHAT the hell that is.
252man
jonas
I’m sure some of them, esp. Cochran, were probably relieved to a certain extent when that judge overruled a-c privilege and ordered them to testify. It seems like he came pretty clean about what Trump was asking him to do. Helping your client conceal evidence of crimes relating to the Espionage Act is something no lawyer — even a Trump lawyer, sometimes — wants to be suspected of.
Jackie
@Suzanne: The news clip playing often of TIFG’s interview with Hannity makes me believe he thought he could extort NARA “for millions.” TIFG claimed Nixon got something like $18 million.
edited to add video link:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jszdeeo4jHs
Redshift
@Suzanne:
I don’t think he has enough foresight for blackmail or selling secrets, but I could imagine him thinking they were something he’d be able to trade for getting out of some other trouble (like the J6 case) and never thinking just having them would be be trouble for him.
Redshift
@Jackie: Yeah, that’s plausible. And he refuses to allow himself to understand that the Presidential Records Act made that impossible. They’re valuable, so of course he can get paid!
jonas
@artem1s: I think it referred to how Crowe’s character, in the throes of schizophrenia, would hoard random newspapers and plaster them all over the wall of his office looking for word patterns he believed were being sent by Russian agents.
Whoever came up with it was basically calling Trump an obsessed nutcase, not necessarily a Nobel-prize-winning mathematician.
JoyceH
@piratedan:
They’re going after the ‘Willard War Room’? Oh, I SO hope that’s true! When the J6 indictments come, I want there to be DOZENS, including all the ‘war room’ jackasses, and every fake elector that didn’t flip to rat out a bigger fish. I want the GOP as an organization BEHEADED!
In open thready comment, I saw in the news that the Bidens hosted a showing of Flamin’ Hot. I saw that last week (on Hulu, I think it is), and it was cute, about the guy who invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. I also saw Air, also cute. Made me wonder – is ‘Brand Name Product Origin Story’ a genre now? Like the other new genre ‘Gal-pals in the 80s have madcap adventures and get into trouble’?
Redshift
My favorite thing right now is all the wingnut politicians and pundits making a defense based on the assumption that the charges cover everything he did, and prove he didn’t do anything more. (Lindsay Graham and Hugh Hewitt insisting that the Espionage Act charges are ridiculous because he didn’t act like a spy and pass along secrets.)
I would be happy to take a bet that half the stuff where they’re saying “it’s a witch hunt because he didn’t do X!”, we will find out he did, either from additional charges or evidence, news leaks, or most likely when he publicly brags about doing it.
jonas
Not only that, he seems to be name-checking the PRA now constantly as though it somehow allows what he did, as opposed to expressly *forbidding* the exact thing he did.
Jeffro
Sparing everyone from the galactic-level GOP-protecting spinning efforts of one Hugh Hewitt in today’s WaPo, I’ll just note the end here:
(Shorter: why’d you take so long, why are you going so fast, why did you charge him for something this small (or big? who knows?), and most of all, why don’t Republican voters trust you, Merrick Garland of the Vile And Dreaded DOJ?!?!???)
Roger Moore
@Maxim:
It might influence the jury, too. There very well might be some jurors unwilling to convict someone who honestly believed they were following the law, especially if the person is important and powerful. Showing the violation was knowing and willful will help with that kind of juror.
Amir Khalid
@Patricia Kayden:
TFG couldn’t run the White House from the White House.
catclub
@Scout211:
That the clear law does not apply to Trump is the definition of the rule of men rather than laws. GOP cult of personality forces them to ignore that.
Miss Bianca
@Jeffro: So, now Hewitt has jumped on the “Deep State” bus? Yeah, cool. Good to know.
Layer8Problem
@Miss Bianca:
In a slightly seedy bar way too early in the day for normal decent sober people, two Republicans share a reflective moment:
Scott Walker: (staring into empty glass) “Y’see, I still have a lot to offer, I know it. It’s a setback, but I’m on the road to greater things! The other day Paul Ryan was telling me my day would come, just wait!”
Bobby Jindal: (knocks back his sixth shot of Jack Daniels) “Fergget it man, it never comes back. Barkeep, hit me again!!” (waves shot glass insistently)
catclub
@Jeffro:
Any police or FBI should now know that red America will turn on them in a millisecond. Ask the Capitol Police.
The GOP is delusional if they think the FBI is deep blue liberal.
The J Edgar Hoover prints are deep.
gene108
Something that didn’t hit me until yesterday is all the Republican efforts to send asylum seekers to Democratic run states, as well as the panic over migrant caravans (asylum seekers) “invading” from the Mexican border is the opening salvo on undoing legal immigration.
Every statement Republicans make about asylum seekers equates them with being here illegally.
There are a lot of stupid Republicans, but there are just enough well funded clever ones that can take any issue and get every Republican run state to adopt what they want.
Immigration is trickier for these folks, since it’s run by the Federal government, but the next Republican president will take less crude steps than Trump to eliminate legal immigration.
As it is, Trump did a lot of damage to immigration, which has been a pretty dysfunctional bureaucracy for decades. At least from the point of view of anyone interacting with USCIS or the State Department on someone’s behalf.
catclub
@Jeffro:
We now know it took so long because Trump kept criming even more. And the charge list kept getting longer.
Geminid
@Patricia Kayden: I think you are right about a Trump candidacy. A lot of potential Republican voters have Trump fatigue. He’d almost certainly lose, and he could potentially drag down a lot of Representatives and a few Senators.
And if Trump is the nominee, that would take the issue of Joe Biden’s age off the board.
Sister Golden Bear
Ugh, the anti-LGB-and-especially-T hate campaign/genocide is causing acceptance for sex-same marriage to weaken.
Sure Lurkalot
@Scout211:
Karl Rove can fuck right off with the “mementos from his time in the Oval Office” bullshit.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
Maybe more along your lines?
:)
Omnes Omnibus
Daniel Ellsberg died.
Shalimar
@dmsilev: I am far more interested in the boxes than i was before because i would love to look through them over the course of a year or so and figure out what Trump’s method of organization was. Because he clearly did have one, even though no one else in the White House had a clue what it was. He put this stuff together over 4 years. He knew roughly where to find items and which boxes to take with him in short trips. And we’re not talking about a genius with a great memory.
Why did this particular nuclear document end up in a box of press clippings from the New York Post? etc. etc. Does the organization in any way indicate who he might sell certain secrets to? There are so many important questions for a historian.
RaflW
@RaflW: And to be clear, that charter would have about 210 seats, so I’m saying we’d organize an evac flight for manageable bunch of folks, not just hopping in the life boat alone.
MattF
OT. So, an HVAC repair person just spent four hours figuring out what had gone bad with my heat pump, and then fixing it. The wiring around the roof unit had gotten corroded (forty years of exposure to the elements will do that) and it all needed to be cleaned up and rewired. Expensive, but now it’s fixed.
Brachiator
@Tony Jay:
Love this! Beautiful rant, and a straightforward explanation of the political bullshit Boris Johnson and the Tories have been slinging.
I have spent part of the morning watching YouTube clips of Tory MPs explaining how all this is a witch-hunt and a kangaroo court and just not right. If you ignore the British accents, these yobs sound exactly like Republican Trump defenders. It is uncanny how both former leaders and their loyalists are singing from the same Devil’s hymn book.
It will be interesting to see how many Tory MPs vote against the report, or abstain. But they may be screwed either way. Loyalty to Johnson may be irrelevant if the Tories are wiped out in the next general election.
And did I hear right, that Boris Johnson is going to be paid a huge amount of money to write a column for the Daily Mail?
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: Stephen Miller was always very clear that he wanted to more or less eliminate legal immigration. It’s been a focus of VDARE types for decades. “We’re fine with LEGAL immigration” was always the opening move in a Catch-22: if there is no legal immigration, costs you nothing to be fine with it.
Geminid
@JoyceH: There was the Willard War Room, but the hotel reference might be to meetings at the Trump Hotel the night of January 5. There were a lot of people like Tommy Tuberville hanging around a public area and talking about events the next day. A more important meeting was in a two-floor, private apartment. That’s where some of the action-planning for the Insurrection may have taken place.
artem1s
@Scout211:
Karl Rove (aka Turdblossom) who thru Scooter Libby under the bus so he wouldn’t get prosecuted for outing CIA operative Valerie Plame, says WHAT, now?
catclub
So close!
Bugboy
RE: “A Beautiful Mind”, you know, I might agree to that concept, but it struck me as something else entirely: Trump, in his incessant quest for validation, adopted the moniker because “Hey! A movie about a smart guy(tm)! Just like me!”. Yeah, he’s just that dense.
James E Powell
FTFNYT just can’t quit him. Without liberals giving them money, they would be out of business. Those recipes must be so awesome.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Shalimar:
I personally suspect his method of organization is similar to the way my mother-in-law’s was at the end.
When I went through her filing when we moved her from independent living to memory care, I discovered that the older files were well-organized and on topic. Later documents were filed haphazardly. At best.
For example, her late husband’s DD-214 (which she would have needed after he died) wound up in a folder labeled “2005 Insurance” with some insurance paperwork and a couple copies of her phone bill. Extra copies of his death certificate wound up with her bank statements and a recipe torn out of a copy of Southern Living.
Like TFG, my mother-in-law had a history of dementia in her family. He is about the age she was when she started to decline significantly–right about the time we had to get her into a nursing home.
In other words: TFG put shit wherever it fit.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: My God, how have I never seen that one before??
Brachiator
@Sure Lurkalot:
This part is certainly true about a lot of what Trump has done.
James E Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
A pretty good article from Salon 2006 in which Ellsberg discusses the Pentagon Papers and his thoughts on the Iraq invasion & occupation.
catclub
@Tony Jay:
Sounds a LOT like Trump, our press and Hillary Clinton.
artem1s
@Jeffro:
OK, now I remember – the one Charlie Piece referred to as the goggled-eye something or other from WI. Anyone really believe the FL version of Scott Walker is going to be anywhere as successful as the original “oh, that asshole”?
Ruckus
@piratedan:
I thought that they were already almost filled with hate, that hate is what makes them – them.
I mean if you boil it down (sounds like a great idea in their case…) their entire world is comprised of 90% hate and the rest is looking to find that other 10%
smith
@artem1s: I recall Pierce referring to him as “a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries.”
Roger Moore
@gene108:
They’re way past the opening salvo. I’m sure Schrodinger’s Cat will be happy to talk about how completely fucked up our green card system is, and that’s largely because of deliberate sabotage by people who want to stop legal immigration. Now many red states are in the process of passing laws to make it harder for immigrants to own homes. They absolutely want to scale back legal immigration and to limit it to White Europeans.
Tehanu
@Tony Jay: The moment I saw the headlines about BoJo resigning, I thought, “I can’t wait to see what Tony Jay has to say about this!” And you came through like a champ! Loved every word!
Good point, but why not sell, blackmail, AND feel like a big shot?
NotMax
@artem1s
IIRC Pierce was referring to a different scion of Wisconsin, Paul Ryan.
Walker was more like Ben Stein without the charisma.
artem1s
@smith: I think he may have been both
Frankensteinbeck
It’s Okay If You’re A Republican.
If any of you expected the Republican Party to not throw a shit fit at any attempt to prosecute any Republican president for any crime, no matter how abominable or obviously guilty, I don’t know what to tell you.
@Jeffro:
And then he said Mexicans are rapists, and catapulted into the lead.
@jonas:
Sounds like the ‘perfect’ phone call transcript, and his inability to declare that raping women is bad. And the bizarre ‘Ukraine has Hillary’s email server’ thing that most people didn’t notice him pushing because it’s so weird. His ego requires something to be true, and that’s it, he can’t repudiate it.
@gene108:
Yes. This has been the goal for a long time. They don’t want brown people in America.
smith
@NotMax: Nope. I’ve got the receipts: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12466/scott-walker-recall-poll-6645464/
Pretty sure Ryan was the goggle-eyed granny starver.
ETA: Correction, it was “zombie-eyed granny starver.”
mrmoshpotato
G’damn did a bunch of racist, misogynistic, white trash elect the biggest manbaby imaginable!
hueyplong
@smith:
Walker = goggle-eyed homunculus
Ryan = zombie-eyed granny starver
State of Wisconsin = wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries
Citizen Alan
@NotMax: What was the timing on that? Because I might actually be able to forgive her for that insipid statement if it turns out it was tacit admission that she was mentally ill and was crying out for help.
Ruckus
ShitForBrains gave rethuglicans something that they wanted and had really no other way to get. The presidency. And you want them to walk away from that, to disown their chief clown?
Who else do they have that checks off as many of their shitty boxes as SFB? Those rethuglicans with a better sense of reality (not a good sense, just better than their average) know that he is shit for brains, a loser who can’t do really anything correct, even for their side of the aisle. But their concept of life really does not give them a lot of options. They may know that their concept that skin darker than the background I’m typing on is wrong is, well, totally wrong. But they don’t care because they lose a sizable amount of political support if they do. In the last post I commented upon that it has been less than 3 reasonable lifetimes since we got rid of slavery, that we are still attempting to clean up that crap, but there is an unreasonable level of humans in this country that still have not lost that civil war loving feeling.
mrmoshpotato
@Layer8Problem:
YUMM-O!
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
In reference to talk of casualties stemming from invasion of Iraq, in 2003. “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
He failed to hold onto it, which ought to relegate him to the outer rim of nothing, like George HW Bush. They don’t love him because he won the presidency. They love him because the Republican party is now a personality cult, and they can’t quit their cult leader. It’s going to get incredibly ugly when he dies and the other would-be cult leaders fight for control.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Is it too much to wish for the Capitol rotunda to be closed for renovation when he finally does kick the bucket?
mrmoshpotato
No. Do tell. (Will I regret asking?)
Did you ask him about trying to shiv someone outside of a Popeyes “chicken restaurant?”
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
Fixed.
...now I try to be amused
@Redshift:
Trump has so many skeletons they don’t fit in a closet. He needs something more like a Zeppelin hangar for them.
Tony Jay
@Brachiator:
The distinct similarities in behaviour, ideology and terminology between the MAGOP and the Nat-C Party have become so obvious that someone should really look into them, maybe into the Tufton St lobby machine at the same time. If only we had a big national institution with tons of investigative reporters and a platform with global reach that could make be give it a go.
Unless they’re too busy throwing up stories about the sex lives of disgraced TV presenters. Which they are.
1) Yes, Flobby has apparently been given a well paid sinecure at the scumbag Daily Heil. Once again shitting all over the code of conduct everyone else has to adhere to and daring Rickety Rishi to do anything about it.
2) Apparently Flobby has instructed his loyalists not to vote against the report on Monday. From that I can only assume that, a) so few were actually going to vote against it he would have been embarrassed and/or, b) he made a deal with Sunak to call off the dogs in return for him not standing in the way of Flobs making a fortune writing shite for the Heil.
He’s nothing without his avaricious selfishness.
Barry
@Maxim: “The only reason establishing his intent matters is to the extent that it informs charging decisions. Otherwise, nope.”
Ignorance of the law *is* an excuse if you are rich, white, and surrounded by lawyers.
laura
@gvg: after reading the indictment, it appears that Waltine is willingly going to prison for a long long time. Other numbered but unnamed individuals had enough sense of self preservation to cooperate and not lie to the FBI or the Grand Jury. It is a stunning indictment- so clear and concise and drafted in a way to be read and understood by the average Jane and Joe. Just stunning criming and covering and obfuscating and criming some more.
Tony Jay
@catclub:
Sounds a LOT like Trump, our press and Hillary Clinton.
It does, doesn’t it? Had the same disastrous effect, too. Except the Democratic Party didn’t end up being taken over by the backstabbing faction who helped it happen.
@Tehanu:
You’re very welcome. If I didn’t vent about this stuff I’d be 90% ulcer by now.
Dan B
@RaflW: My partner and I might consider the same move, probably BC. We both own our homes free and clear so might be able to buy our way in. Portugal looks good as well but the language at our age would be challenging. And two cats?
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I don’t disagree with you other than I think that you give their entire group too much credit. These are people who relish hate. Maybe not openly but they do seem to think that hate for hate’s sake is normal. They at the very least hate people that are not like them and I think they do that because they think if those people get equality, it has to come from somewhere/someone and that is them. They see everything in the form of a currency that has a limited supply. Anything that someone gains has to come from someone else.
RaflW
@artem1s: The term was Goggle–Eyed Homunculus. Which I recall having to look up.
“Definitions: a person who is very small or diminutive. synonyms: manikin, mannikin. Type of small person.”
kalakal
@Tony Jay: Nicely done 😀
I put this up below but here is a better spot for it. This is a page from the report and illustrates Tony’s post very nicely
Johnson report
RaflW
@Dan B: I would want to try for Sweden, because I have a ton of relatives there who I get along with really well. And in most of Sweden, people speak quite a bit of English (and I think I’d manage to pick up the language eventually. I studied it sporadically in my late teens and early 20s).
But, my partner is not keen on the dismal winters (sun angle is rough even for us Minnesotans! And lots of drear and rain w/ some snow).
Most unfortunately, Sweden isn’t much keen to have us. My cousins, even the few 1sts, aren’t close enough to qualify us for familial immigration. Unless the US looses it’s moral mind badly enough to make it obvious, I don’t think being run-of-the-mill gays would get us refugee priority. So we’d be very low on Sweden’s immigration ‘welcome’.
Geminid
@RaflW: What about Portugal? That was Ingrid Bergman’s and Paul Henreid’s destination in Casablanca.
Dan B
@RaflW: Dark winters are tough. Seattle is north of Minneapolis and Montreal. But Paris and Vancouver are the same latitude and Sweden is much farther north so Portugal might be great.
Subsole
@rikyrah:
They never will.
Modern conservatism is predicated on the idea that they are superior to us.
The b.s. they feed themselves changes. Maybe it’s genetics/race. Maybe it’s values/culture/faith. Maybe it’s politics. Maybe it’s tradition. Maybe it’s Maybelline.
But at the end, conservatives have built their entire personality around the idea that they are superior to us, and we both deserve the pain they inflict on us, and owe them gratitude for it.
If they stop sneering down their nose at us, they might have to start looking straight-on at themselves, and I don’t think they have the horsepower for that.
bbleh
@Roger Moore: @Ruckus: I agree: they’re anger junkies. Anger gives them purpose and energy and an outlet for their other frustrations and a feeling of belonging. It’s why Fox is so popular with them: it’s a nonstop outrage-fest. Ditto talk-radio (slightly different audiences, mostly in age, but lots of overlap.) And as both Fox and TFG make clear, the object of the outrage doesn’t really matter (although there are some perennial favorites) so long as there is some excuse to be outraged about it.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dan B: Portugal has been my go-to back up plan, despite having to learn the language. Mostly because it’s extremely LGBTQ+ friendly, and the cost of living is low enough that I could get by with early retirement using the savings I already have (assuming the Christofascist wouldn’t seize them quick enough to offshore them).
bbleh
@Subsole: If they stop sneering down their nose at us …
The irony being, that’s one of the things they accuse us of doing, and one of the reasons they’re superior, since they are moral and many are Christian™ and they would never do such a thing (except of course to people who deserve it, but that’s their own fault).
It really is the in-group/out-group thing and the “boundary maintenance.” And of course it’s self-negating, because the more effectively you exclude Others, the greater becomes the urge to define new, tighter boundaries that subdivide the in-group.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dan B: Portugal has a California climate in the middle/southern regions — albeit with Mediterranean humidity. Northern Portugal’s climate is more reminsant of the Pacific NW.
Last time I checked, in 2016, cost of living for a couple was around $25K-$30K depending on location. Bigger cities like Lisbon and Porto obviously will be the higher end. But there’s also the southern beaches, which are popular with ex-pat retirees, as well as couple university towns, which were charming when I visited.
Maxim
@NotMax: Right up there with her post-Katrina remarks:
Geminid
@Sister Golden Bear: I read that Portugal’s population growth is static, even declining in some areas because of a lack of economic opportunities. So they encourage immigration.
Subsole
@Ruckus: Yep. Arrogance is all they have. Everything else, and I mean EVERYthing else, flows from the need to look down on us.
So of course they worship Trump. That Godless, oxygen-thieving prick looks down on everyone. Because if they can’t see the top of your head, they think their eyes have no value.
Steeplejack
@Tony Jay:
Lord, an 18-PgDn screed! I’ll have to come back to this after I’ve had a few more drinks.
Maxim
@Sister Golden Bear: One of my cousins just emigrated to Portugal with her husband. They had to pay up front, something over $100k, which they got by selling their house here. I’m not sure if that’s required of everyone, or if it’s age-based (she’s early 50s and he’s around 70).
Subsole
@bbleh: Yep. That’s what galls me more than anything else – getting lectures on arrogance, morality, and so on from these assholes.
It’s like that Andrew Tate fella. Guy sitting there looking like someone slapped a set of googly-eyes on a butt-plug, talking about other peoples’ appearance.
I am tired.
I am tired of getting lectures on morals and masculinity from such smugly vapid, preening, insecure little half-inch-deep raggedy-ratchet trifle-trick shits.
bbleh
@Subsole: I like “trifle-trick.” I will steal it.
Tony Jay
@Steeplejack:
Everything in the world is improved by more drink, except for solemnity and sobriety, but who needs them?
bbleh
@Sister Golden Bear: @Maxim: a gay friend moved to Portugal about 5 years ago. Took him a while to set it up, had to get the paperwork in order, had to have a lease (which meant getting an agent to find him an apartment he liked), and overall it wasn’t something that can be done without some patience and some cash investment. But it worked, and from what I’ve heard he’s happy as a clam.
Tony Jay
@Subsole:
Oh yes! (Stands, applauds, makes ‘my hands are hurting but it’s worth it’ face)
Ramona Rosario
@catclub: In claiming the DOJ took this long to file charges against Trump, does Hugh Hewitt mention the at least three month (and likely longer) delay induced by Judge Aileen Cannon’s August ruling preventing the FBI from investigating? Her ruling was not overturned until December if I remember correctly.
karen marie
At the end of the day, Trump’s motive is irrelevant. People who want access to the documents he stole are perfectly capable of tricking him into giving them that access. He is a clear and present danger.
Chris Johnson
…fuck ME.
OK, so you know how I tend to think Trump is a literal Russian spy and has been all this time since as far back as the Eighties? And how he deals with everything by brazening it out and being super obvious?
You are telling me Trump’s people called certain boxes ‘the Beautiful Mind’ boxes because they are full of stuff like in the movie, where a guy hoards newspapers and crap because he believes they have messages from Russia agents.
Espionage case, eh?
I didn’t know enough about this movie and was thinking of Barbara Bush’s ‘why would I trouble my beautiful mind with a thing like that?’ but of course Trump manages to be worse.
Why YES, I guess they would call the boxes the ‘Beautiful Mind’ boxes because those are the ones with his fucking Kremlin instructions in it, which have to be stupid enough for him to read them, and so he can’t really let them fall into just anybody’s hands, yes? And so they’re the beautiful mind boxes to those around him, either because he acts that much like the guy in the movie, or because they FUCKING KNOW and they’re being cute about it, knowing that these are the boxes where dumbass keeps his instructions from the fucking Kremlin.
If that turns out to be reality and not me having my own beautiful fucking mind, I want a word with the scriptwriters.
Another Scott
@Chris Johnson:
There was already a proposed Stable Genius Act, maybe there should be a Beautiful Mind Act to go with it.
Cheers,
Scott.