The night shift discussed Trump’s expanding universe of legal peril under Tom’s post here, but I’m still processing the new felony charges in the Disgraceland documents case. TPM’s summary is as follows:
- The number of counts in the indictment swelled from 38 to 42.
- Trump was hit with an additional charge of willful retention of national defense information (now 32 counts on that charge, up from 31) for the Iran war plan document he allegedly flaunted at Bedminster.
- The new defendant, a MAL worker named Carlos De Oliveira, was added to the existing conspiracy to obstruct justice count, so now all three defendants are charged in this count. In addition, De Oliveira gets his own false statements count.
- All three men were charged under a new count of altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing an object.
- All three men were charged under a new count of corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing an object.
De Oliviera is the Disgraceland property manager, having come up through the ranks starting as a valet, according to this Forbes coverage, which also notes that neighbors describe De Oliveira as “a nice guy who kept to himself and played golf.”
But as the feds closed in, the burning question among Trump’s buffas was whether De Oliveira was “loyal.” An excerpt from the indictment, via TPM as linked above:
91. Just over two weeks after the FBI discovered classified documents in the Storage Room and TRUMP’s office, on August 26, 2022, NAUTA called Trump Employee 5 and said words to the effect of, “someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good.” In response, Trump Employee 5 told NAUTA that DE OLIVEIRA was loyal and that DE OLIVEIRA would not do anything to affect his relationship with TRUMP. That same day, at NAUTA’s request, Trump Employee 5 confirmed in a Signal chat group with NAUTA and the PAC Representative that DE OLIVEIRA was loyal. That same day, TRUMP called DE OLIVEIRA and told DE OLIVEIRA that TRUMP would get DE OLIVEIRA an attorney.
As an aside, it sure sounds like this anonymous PAC representative is ass-deep in the criming! And De Oliveira proved loyal, if as alleged he was behind the plot to destroy servers containing the surveillance footage by draining the resort’s pool into the server room.
But it’s interesting that the Trump buffas were uncertain of De Oliveira’s status so recently. Maybe the prospect of jail time will reset his loyalties. But maybe not since Trump is paying for his lawyer.
By the way, it seems…not ideal that unrelated defendants who are jointly accused of a crime can pay for each other’s legal representation. One thing I’ll say for the Trump years, the ordeal has opened my eyes to lots of problematic aspects of the executive branch and the justice system. Maybe y’all knew all along that so much depends on the honor system. I did not.
Open thread.
Yarrow
Mob. The T family and associates has always been mob.
waspuppet
@Yarrow: Would-be mob. The real mob wouldn’t have anything to do with such lazy morons, except maybe as an ATM.
Yeah right. Trump isn’t even paying his own lawyer.
Parfigliano
The Attys being knowingly paid by a Co-defendant are opening up a big can of problems with their state disciplinary board. But you know only the best people…
schrodingers_cat
Has anyone checked on Do Something Twitter? Have they shifted the goal posts for Garland outside the solar system yet?
NotMax
Omerta-Lago.
UncleEbeneezer
@schrodingers_cat: Yes. Now it’s “I’ll admit I was wrong once he’s CONVICTED.” Which will then move to “once he’s IN PRISON”, lol
Yarrow
@waspuppet: No. He was tight with Roy Cohn and used his mob connections. And they used him. Link.
Here’s another article about his dad’s mob connections.
Once the Italian mob started getting rolled up and the Russian mob came in, he was tied up in that. His Atlantic City casinos were part of that.
He’s mob from way back.
UncleEbeneezer
Love that DOJ used subpoenas to essentially bait Trump into more crimes, and of course, he took the bait!
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat:
@UncleEbeneezer:
Also, “it’s good he’s FINALLY doing something but it took too long and probably isn’t going to work. If only he’d acted sooner….”
WereBear
@UncleEbeneezer: Sweet!
Tony G
@Yarrow: According to my careful research (seeing a few Martin Scorsese. movies) I expect De Oliviera to start flipping against his former boss (if he hasn’t already done so).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: Yup, it’s a cliché for a reason. “Is he good?” “He’s loyal” Sopranos viewers can imagine Silvio having that conversation with/about a suspect captain two or three scenes before said captain, thinking he’s safe, opens his door to see Paulie Walnuts standing there with that look in his eyes….
Betty Cracker
@Parfigliano: Is that an ethical no-no that’s likely to be addressed? I’m not a lawyer and know nothing about how that works. They’re doing it so openly (not just with the latest character — it’s an ongoing thing) that I wonder.
Yarrow
@Tony G: They should all flip. It’s their best chance. Although once they’ve flipped they may not be safe in prison.
The Thin Black Duke
@Yarrow: The moment they hooked up with Trump they weren’t safe.
Bugboy
There is some discussion at Empty Wheel (ETA: now that I think of it, it might be Lawyers Guns and Money) about this, and it seems like the general consensus is that attorneys are required to represent their client’s interests, not the person who is paying the bills.
Yarrow
@The Thin Black Duke: Of course. It was a bad decision on their part!
smith
@UncleEbeneezer: Wait til they get to, “once he’s EXECUTED.”
NotMax
@smith
“Once the Great Prophet Zarquon shows up.”
//
Alison Rose
@smith: “Once he’s EXECUTED and then is REINCARNATED but as himself again and he commits all the same crimes and the second time around Garland DOES SOMETHING sooner well THEN I’ll be happy.”
CaseyL
@Bugboy: Yeah, good luck with that; just ask Cassie Hutchinson. Or the fake electors in Georgia and Michigan.
“Required” isn’t enforceable. People have to know their attorneys have that responsibility, which they often don’t, and be ready and able to fire the bespoke attorneys and hire their own, which they often can’t.
I think, though I’m not sure, there was at least one instance in all these Trump cases where the judge made a comment about how the defendant’s attorney wasn’t acting in the defendant’s best interests. I’m not sure how often or how forcefully a judge can make those comments, though.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
When TFG is paying for your lawyer, “your” lawyer’s advice is not designed to benefit you. Some defendants have learned that (particularly Cassidy Hutchinson), some have not.
Betty Cracker
@Bugboy: That seems like a sound rule! But it doesn’t do much to remove the appearance of a conflict of interest. Even if the attorneys’ behavior is totally above board, such an arrangement could encourage defendants whose lawyers are being funded by a co-defendant to avoid pissing off the person cutting the checks. (Not that Trump himself cuts a check, but if his PAC is funding the legal work, he calls the shots.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bugboy: I sometimes wonder where we’d be if Cassidy Hutchinson’s trump-paid lawyer had been more subtle about the fact that he thought they should both have The Beast’s interests top of mind
sdhays
@Bugboy: Tell that to the guy(s?) in Georgia who didn’t know there was a deal offered to them by their Trump-paid attorneys because their attorneys didn’t tell them.
marklar
Betty, it’s buffas all the way down.
sdhays
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, right! I had forgotten about that! Yet another example of it clearly not being the case that attorneys will represent the interests of their clients over the people paying the money.
Burnspbesq
@Parfigliano:
Indeedy. It’s also a slam-dunk motion to disqualify. It’s also tip-toeing right up to the line that separates legitimate cooperation between counsel for co-defendants from witness tampering.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: ”Nice democracy you got here. Be a shame if anything whether to happen to it.”
Lyrebird
Open thread, so here goes our lawn controversy: there’s a new hole in our back lawn. I suspect the local groundhog is responsible. This link (it’s a PDF, new tab) says don’t bother trying to relocate them far away. We have no dogs, and the kids would be upset if we had it killed on purpose. I am angry at it for the half dozen green tomatoes it ate before I covered the plants better, but oh well. I will get an estimate next week on trapping and removal. We could just leave it instead. Apparently they don’t start having crowds of friends around.
hueyplong
@Lyrebird: Maybe the time-honored revelation that the groundhog has a new home on a farm upstate?
Old Man Shadow
Every conversation in Trump’s circle sounds like a badly written script for a mob show.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Old Man Shadow: I agree, but the central character is too stupid and uninteresting to actually make an entertaining show.
Maybe if you gave it a sci-fi spin and replaced TFG by Jabba the Hutt.
Burnspbesq
@Betty Cracker:
varies from state to state, and most state disciplinary authorities are woefully under-resourced (it took the CA bar years to get around to disciplining Orly Taitz). Add in the looming specter of retaliation by DeSantis, and I wouldn’t expect the FL bar to be champing at the bit to go after DeOliveira’s counsel, even if the facts seem egregious.
Betty Cracker
@Lyrebird: You could plant a groundhog garden!
Suzanne
wait whut.
Is that allowed?! Seems an obvious conflict of interest.
John S.
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
More like Pizza the Hutt. Maybe he’ll get trapped in his limo and eat himself to death.
sdhays
I knew some of it was, but you are not alone in being surprised as to how much it is.
MattF
We’re learning all about legal ethics. And we’re learning all about mental illness. And we’re learning all about fascism.
The Pale Scot
@Lyrebird:
Guy Catches Adorable Groundhog Eating His Veggie Garden
Jay
@Betty Cracker:
seconded
The Pale Scot
@Betty Cracker:
Beat me to it
mrmoshpotato
@Old Man Shadow:
LMAO!
Delk
That bottom of the barrel is turning into a clown car.
Roger Moore
@waspuppet:
Trump is paying for the lawyers; he’s just using other people’s money. Trump has the power to hire and fire the lawyers and to tell them how to do their jobs, which makes him the paymaster regardless of where the money originally came from.
TriassicSands
So much in our government depends on norms, integrity, and a sense of fair play. McConnell and Trump trashed all of them and the rest of the Republican cult went along willingly and even amplified the problems. Today, we can never take anything that a Republican in Congress at face value. In both the Senate and House there are countless Republicans who are as corrupt and dangerous as anyone who has ever served in our Congress. Outside of elective office, Trump, DeSantis, and others are just as bad. It will be a huge struggle for us to maintain even a semblance of a free and open society, because the Republican voters are no better.
gvg
@Lyrebird: Google says used kitty litter, epson salts and various other suggestions. they don’t like strong scents so growing things like lavender, sprinkling pepper etc.
Also block up unused dens with stones to discourage them from coming back each year.
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: I’ve seen that video like ten times and every time, I love it more. I especially love how they look dead into the camera while chomping away, like “Yeah, what are you gonna do about it, bitch?”
Betty Cracker
Trump’s PAC has paid millions in legal fees which is okay because reasons. Seriously, this is all so fucked up.
Bugboy
@Betty Cracker: Right. But eventually, it can catch up to them, just like the light bulb went off over the plea offers to the Georgia fake electors, and Ms. Hutchinson’s eventual “wake up and smell the covfefe” moment.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: Look at it this way: It’s donor money that can’t be used for ads or ratfucking campaigns or anything else like that.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Well, Biden still loves his son, so clearly both sides are corrupt.
narya
If they weren’t such a threat to democracy, they’d be opera buffa as much as anything.
rikyrah
@The Pale Scot:
I think that’s Chunk.
Dude gave up and fixed an entire garden for Chunk and his pals.
Alison Rose
On the topic of humans doing adorable things for wildlife, these lesbians building a gay treehouse for a squirrel they named Xena is definitely one of my favorite videos.
MattF
@dmsilev: Right. And it increases the ‘velocity of money’ in the economy. What’s wrong with that?
OzarkHillbilly
@Lyrebird: Groundhogs can do a lot of damage in a short time. Live trapping them is difficult at best, I was never successful at it. You can fill in the rest of the blanks.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Lyrebird: We had a groundhog in our backyard daily in the year we were between dogs. I have not seen it in 5 years. The squirrels and chipmunks never touch the grass either. They scamper across the fence. Good luck.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
but, that’s the rubes. If they wanna pay…let them pay. I’m sure the finances of that PAC is very interesting
catclub
@Betty Cracker:
only matters for liberal leaning supreme court justices.
By contrast, Trump’s blind trust during his presidency.
mrmoshpotato
@Lyrebird: Get yourself some graboids!
(Monsters from the movie Tremors)
Roger Moore
@Bugboy:
That’s true as far as it goes, but there’s an inherent conflict of interest when the person paying the bills is a co-defendant, and doubly so when the lawyer is also representing that co-defendant.
The problem for the legal system as a whole is that neither allowing nor forbidding a lawyer from working in this situation is ideal. The defendant who’s depending on someone else paying for his lawyer might not be able to afford a competent lawyer any other way, so forbidding it might be denying him the most effective counsel he might receive. On the other hand, if that counsel has a conflict of interest in the case, allowing it might also deny the defendant effective counsel. The only thing to do is to have the judge on the lookout for whether the defense attorney is representing the client diligently.
Bugboy
@Burnspbesq: That’s my read as well. It’s not flawless but it certainly isn’t the wild wild west…
lee
Have we confirmation that the hard drives on those servers were actually inaccessible?
Just because they got wet doesn’t mean you can’t get data off of them.
Dangerman
I know it’s a quote, but there needs to be a rule (kinda like Rule 34, but in reverse, so let’s call it Rule 43) that the word erect can appear no where in the proximity of some people’s names.
Mental health being a fragile thing and all.
catclub
@Alison Rose:
I like the ground hog sized picnic table.
Or pik-a-nik table as Yogi Bear might say.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
If they all have one attorney, then that attorney will have to recuse if DOJ offers a deal to one of Trump’s co-defendants to flip. I don’t know if that’s in the cards.
catclub
@lee:
Michael Cohen was saying on CNN that Trump has no idea about technology and the main servers that held all the backups were in Trump Company locations, not MAL. Flooding the local servers should have no effect, except to get an obstruction of justice/destruction of evidence charge.
The subpeona was to the Trump org for the footage, which makes sense.
MattF
@Baud: And the lawyers all have lawyers.
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: my favorite is how much the RNC paid for his legal fees. My god, they really are worthless.
catclub
@Baud:
Wasn’t there a delay and an angry judge because an offer to flip by DOJ was not relayed through their lawyers to the defandants? I think the Judge was reported as angry at the Prosecutors but should have been angry at the defense lawyers.
Manyakitty
@catclub: that was in GA.
catclub
@MattF:
The lawyers all NEED lawyers.
patrick II
This has to be the dumbest crime I have ever seen by a person over 21. Once the government knew Trump had government documents, which are verifiable objects in space, not ambiguous words spoken in back rooms, and that there were severe legal penalties for having them, Trump should have given them right back. But arrogance, pride, and a desperate holding on to a piece of the power of the presidency prevented that. What a fool.
And for those of you gloating how well handled this. This is a gift case, and the government almost blew that. There could not be a case where physical evidence is so clear, obstruction so verifiable, and motive so gaumless. But our government moved only after six months of negotiation, during which they knew they were lied to, that there were serious, stories of highly classified papers and documents with Donald’s stories at dinner being used like an extra door prize for joining Mar a Lago. And negotiations kept going and only finally agents moved in when a review of security tapes showed how accessible the door behind which nuclear secrets were being held was.
That happened before Jack Smith showed up, and Mr. Smith is not moving with hesitatiion or lack of confidence or ill-placed respect for institutional norms when the other side has been destroying those norms. Smith is moving forward with all necessary speed and gravitas the investigation calls for and not walking in molasses like the first two years.I will just for those3 thinking that the Justice Department was like a duck paddling underwater, the Attorney General of Michigan gave their election obstruction case to DOJ in January of 2022 where they sat on it for a year. She took the case back in frustration and got 16 people indicted in seven months, showing that should have happened last year if the DOJ had done their job.
So we are going to have all of these indictments hit and trials set for election season, including the big one — Jan 6. And each trial is going to give Trump reasons to delay other trials as he is busy with preparations for other trials and a presidential election in the U.S. is thrown into chaos.
Because of previous delays on even this straightforward case, we are moving further into election season and multiple cas
rikyrah
AND?
SO?
Nobody cares.
#TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) tweeted at 0:26 AM on Fri, Jul 28, 2023:
Melania Accuses White House of Rearranging How She Decorated Private Quarters and She’s FURIOUS https://t.co/eJfg5djRHF
(https://twitter.com/realTuckFrumper/status/1684797465458044929?t=9lU0lRdJSOt_wSSBHZVfOg&s=03)
Redshift
@lee:
I don’t think we have. The FBI is really good at recovering data (as Teri Kanefeld discussed last night), another fact that TFG is too stupid to know. Remember he heard the reports that Hilary’s team used BleachBit data-wiping software on personal files and believes to this day that they used actual bleach. (Hmm, pool water has bleach in it, technically…)
mrmoshpotato
@catclub: I still love that they – somehow – drained the pool into the server room!
Ummm what?
patrick II
@patrick II:
That comment is somewhat awkward because I hit the comment button too soon. But you know what I mean.
WereBear
@rikyrah: Right? Their Blood Christmas will never leave my mind.
lee
@catclub:
@Redshift:
Glad to hear this.
Thanks!
WereBear
@mrmoshpotato: It could happen to anybody.
mrmoshpotato
@patrick II:
Simpler but still accurate.
Chetan Murthy
@patrick II: Let us imagine TFG sees the inside of a Federal prison. Then, and only then, will be the time to both celebrate and to express loudly our thanks that we were so, so, SO WRONG about Merrick Garland. But before that moment? Nah. TFG is a *mobster*. The prospect of mere slaps on the wrist like “probation” mean nothing. Dragging out litigation for decades is nothing (remember Vinne “The Chin” Gigante and his antics with a bathrobe?)
Only hard time matters. And sure, when and if that happens, I will be loudly proclaiming how thankful I am, that I was so wrong about Merrick Garland.
HumboldtBlue
Did someone say Trump made a phone call to the janitor?
P Thomas
“Draining the Pool Into The Server Room” to destroy evidence is the “Rose Mary Woods” story of this whole criminal enterprise.
“The short version of the story goes like this: at one point during the Watergate investigation, approximately 18 1/2 minutes of the White House tapes came up missing, and Woods stepped up to claim responsibility. In testimony, Woods claimed that she had been transcribing the Oval Office conversation in question, when, due to the set-up of her desk, she reached over to answer a phone call, and in doing so, accidentally hit the erase button, keeping her foot on the transcription machine’s pedal, which forwarded the recording. The press dubbed this unlikely move, “The Rose Mary Stretch.” (Thanks to Atlas Obscura.) https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rose-mary-stretch-nixon-scandal
Photo link below. She claimed she held this position for 18 minutes and accidentally erased the tape.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Exhibit_73,_Picture_of_Rose_Mary_Woods_in_Her_Office_-_NARA_-_7582819.jpg
mrmoshpotato
@WereBear: Anybody with a pool, a server room, hoses, and a pump! Anybody! :)
lee
@Chetan Murthy: I’m not one to Eeyore much but when the MI AD had to file charges against the false electors because Garland was not doing anything, I have to give credit to the Eeyores for being right about that one.
sdhays
@rikyrah: I guess she doesn’t realize she’ll never set foot in that house ever again, so all she needs are her memories.
Redshift
@mrmoshpotato:
A basement server room. In Florida. I remember when it was shocking to learn that MAL had a basement, and the documents were stored in it.
patrick II
@mrmoshpotato:
I respect your eloquence.
Chetan Murthy
@lee: The fact that the documents case (we’re literally discussing here) was filed *only* due to the efforts of the archivists at the National Archives, even though Merrick Garland’s DOJ had all this information for over a year, is further evidence.
But even still, I will give him credit, if his DOJ will see that justice is done. Full justice, not some half-carbon-copy — the real thing.
The Pale Scot
I just went to see what the Ukrainian twitter guys I follow had posted.
Their chronology is messed up, year old tweets interspersed with a occasional current one. Intel Crab, Darth Putin, Rob Lee etc. EEyo is a RU asset. He needs to go to Gitmo,
https://twitter.com/DarthPutinKGB
Chief Oshkosh
@patrick II: Careful Patrick, don’t disturb the masses.
cain
@patrick II: Just realize that the DoJ is probably full of MAGA people. Just see the shit show the New York FBI Office is.
We have no idea what kind of machinations are going on to protect the orange shit stain. Regardless, the special prosecutor is exactly what we need who is driven to drive the stake through the heart of this asshole and send him to jail.
laura
@rikyrah: Triffling bish is trifflng, film at 11. Seriously, the Forever FLOTUS style looks cozy, homey and warm. In contrast, the Mel T revisions look, well, I’ve never been to a Mediterranean whooore house- but strong vibes. That janky peach paint everywhere is awful.
HumboldtBlue
@Burnspbesq:
That’s a name we haven’t hard since 2009 or so.
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
When my employer wants to make disks unreadable, they run them through a shredder that tears the disk platters into tiny bits. I think the point is as much to prevent people from trying to reuse the disks and accidentally leaking information, but physically destroying the media is the only really reliable way of getting rid of the data. People who aren’t working in bulk have melted the platters.
Lyrebird
@Betty Cracker: @The Pale Scot:
LOL! The local critters think everything out there is their buffet anyway… We have one rabbit visitor that likes to eat dandelion flower stems, thhat is handy.
@hueyplong: @gvg: @OzarkHillbilly: @Old Dan and Little Ann:
Thanks for the practical input! One of my grandmas had a dog with the knack for eliminating groundhogs, but that was before my time. We have different kinds of hawks and even some foxes in the area, so we definitely do not want to use any poison, and we are not out in the country, so no hunting.
@mrmoshpotato: Graboids would be effective, but might also want to eat the children. Can’t have that, I’m afraid. :-)
Chief Oshkosh
@cain:
I don’t understand your argument here; sorry if I missed your point. If everyone knew/knows that DOJ is full of MAGA people, isn’t that even more reason to move as quickly and directly as possible to set up an independent prosecutor? Or to Patrick’s example, maybe immediately give the case back to the MI AG if you know you can’t trust the people in your own institution?
Manyakitty
@rikyrah: dafuq? After whatever horrors they no doubt left, she needs to shut up forever.
Manyakitty
@Chetan Murthy: thing is, he belonged in prison 50 years ago. Can’t blame Garland for all that.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@mrmoshpotato: Took a while to accidentally lay all those hoses from the pool to the server room, too. They had to accidentally go out and buy more drain hose. Twice.
@catclub:
From some of the indictments it sounded to me like there was a nonzero amount of missing surveillance video, so somebody managed to delete something. Just enough to get them in trouble for that in addition to what was on the existing tapes.
Chief Oshkosh
@rikyrah: Yeah, who cares, get a life, Mel. But, great catch, Rikyrah. Gave me a laugh over lunch. Thanks for linking to it.
Jackie
@rikyrah: Jill doesn’t appreciate Melania’s exquisite decorating talents. ///////
Chetan Murthy
@Manyakitty: Au contraire. He belonged in prison on January 21, 2021, for his crimes of January 6. Any functioning state that knew how to protect itself would have done that instanter. That he committed a multitude of crimes going back 50 years, does not change this fact.
What’s that phrase? “enforce the law, without fear or favor” That’s Merrick’s jobs. His fucking *job*. He doesn’t wanna do it? He can fucking *resign*.
mrmoshpotato
@Lyrebird:
I believe they enjoy dining on pogo sticks too. And everything else but rocks.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@rikyrah: What’s the principle here on which she claims to be “furious”? That you’re not allowed to redecorate a home when you move in? You have to leave it exactly the way the last tenant did?
Bugboy
@HumboldtBlue: Don’t say that name 3 times!
Manyakitty
@Chetan Murthy: no argument regarding Jan 6, but seriously. He never should have had the opportunity. Had the New York prosecutors showed the slightest whiff of backbone while he was commiting fraud and various other crimes across the city, none of this would have happened. This is the end result of praying to money and rich people above all else.
mrmoshpotato
@patrick II: Why thank you! 🤣
Chetan Murthy
@Manyakitty: Sure, I agree with everything you’re saying: a succession of DAs in NYC didn’t do their jobs. Like Cyrus Vance Jr. All shitheels. But the fact that Cy Vance Jr. didn’t do his job, does not excuse Merrick Garland from not doing his job.
mrmoshpotato
@Redshift: WTF? How? The water table isn’t too high in that part of Florida?
Manyakitty
@Chetan Murthy: fair enough.
Jackie
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I keep hoping Jill will replace the rose bushes… Maybe during Joe’s second term!😊
Chetan Murthy
@Manyakitty: There’s a vid going around of a UK Parliamentary investigation into the circumstances whereby Prigozhin (who was at the time a sanctioned individual) was able to instruct his lawyers to go after BellingCat and Eliot Higgins. The MP is asking the minister (or permanent secretary, or whatever) about how it happened, if it was common practice for the ministry to work against the explicit policy of the government in this way. And the minister just hems and haws in perfect Humphrey Appleby speak. “Oh, we don’t comment on individual cases”. I wanted to scream “well, you fucking will, or you won’t go home this night — guards, seize him!” The fucker was dissembling, covering up his people caping for the fucking Russians, and they were letting him get away with it.
Just infuriating. This happened *very* recently. The fact that Londongrad has been going on for decades, that that fucking Lebedev is a Lord, doesn’t change that *today* MPs have a responsibility to hold these assholes responsible, and “a heavy questioning” isn’t that.
mrmoshpotato
@laura:
Nominated.
hueyplong
Still waiting for the first story about a Trump that fails to makes a reference to the Trump in question being “furious” or “livid” or some such. We get it. They’re always pissed. Like their base.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: A commenter here went down that path last night.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: I care enough to hope it’s true, and to say “Ha ha!’ in my best Nelson Muntz voice
Gin & Tonic
The IOC did something good. I have to check out my window for flying pigs.
Chetan Murthy
@UncleEbeneezer: Do you think any Mafia mobster ever cared about getting convicted, unless it landed him in prison? Even *one*? What matters is *punishment*, not “oh, he’s been warned now!”
mrmoshpotato
@Manyakitty:
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Even better that she’s Eurotrash that’s “FURIOUS.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Never mind. It seems that they have arrived.
mrmoshpotato
@Manyakitty:
So true
UncleEbeneezer
@patrick II: Jan 6 is infinitely more complex, required prosecuting hundreds of underlings, PBs/Oathkeepers, to develop and pressure witnesses, litigate EP and AP claims, was kneecapped by reluctant FBI and Jan 6 Com refusing to share transcripts. And yet, indictments are about to drop. But hey, just keep fucking that Feckless DOJ chicken if you must…
Currants
@BettyCracker
Manyakitty
@Chetan Murthy: yeah, that’s super gross.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
That’s basically what I do. I let the lawn grow near the groundhog holes (multiple), and never use weedkiller. The groundhogs, an adult and a child about 2/3 the size, mostly stay near their hole(s), happily eating whatever survives mowing every month or so. Clover, various other weeds, some grass. They (and the rabbits) mostly don’t touch the vegetable garden because the “lawn” is good eating; the deer do sometimes chomp on tomato plants, though.
They are fascinating creatures; they are quite alert, sometimes standing tall like meerkats. They sometimes wander a bit, and eventually the kids leave home.
On the other side of the house, an adventurous groundhog once entered using a cat door, and wandered a bit, including upstairs. I heard a noise, startled it, and it very quickly reversed its path (stairs plus a few turns) and exited the cat door. A house is a big big burrow.
Alison Rose
@Gin & Tonic: The stoppiest of stopped clocks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Is she the one who was DQed the other day?
UncleEbeneezer
@Chetan Murthy: They all fear Indictment because that is first step to conviction. No monster wants to be indicted. And Garland is making that possible contrary to all the shit people like you talked about him. Be an adult and just take the L.
WereBear
@cain: Garland’s choice of special prosecutor speaks volumes to me. :)
Also, rumor has it that he was pressured by his own prosecutors. That can be a way of gauging true support… but time was of the essence.
Now we are getting into politics, and I’m speculation.
Burnspbesq
@cain:
Name one. Clark doesn’t count, he’s out and likely to be disbarred.
BeautifulPlumage
@rikyrah: “…who cares about fuckin Christ maas…”
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes. Sometimes spelled “Kharlan” due to transliteration differences.
sdhays
@Roger Moore: Isn’t that what Mitt did when he left the Massachusetts governorship? Bought up all of the hard drives and shredded them.
Really makes you wonder what they knew was there.
Ken
Wait. Maybe I’m misunderstanding because of all the mob references in this post and comments, but — are you looking for a way to kill the groundhog and make it look like an accident?
Dangerman
Have we seen pictures of her “decorating”? Given her Christmas decorations would have had Kafka saying “wow, that’s fucked up”, I can only imagine the private quarters were a nightmare.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Well done then.
BeautifulPlumage
@Ken: hahaha thanks for the chuckle
Ken
Yes, exactly. I’m sure Melania’s own redecoration left the private quarters exactly the way Michelle Obama had them, right?
(Actually, I could see her getting a huge budget to redecorate the quarters, diverting the money, and not actually making any changes….)
BeautifulPlumage
@Ken: now I’m reminded of the squirrel who staged an accident scene and played dead.
YouTube link
Betty Cracker
@Bill Arnold: Awww! They are cute little things. Never seen one in real life. I have small dogs who could theoretically use a cat door, but since we live in a Florida swamp, there would be the danger of alligators, Komodo dragons or Burmese pythons slithering in, so, no thanks! ;-)
Alison Rose
@BeautifulPlumage: OMG. Okay, stop worrying about AI taking over and start worrying about squirrels, because that is some seriously troubling complex thinking on display there. But also adorable.
eversor
@Ken:
They think the White House is theirs. That entire idiotic family really thought they were going to be a cross between a dictator, The Kennedy’s, and European royalty.
BeautifulPlumage
@Alison Rose: and all done for the security camera! 😸😸😸
laura
@Dangerman: Criminy! The compare and contrast photos Are in the link. Obama -homey, trump- whooore house.
Chris
@waspuppet:
I’m not sure that’s the moral here. I suspect the moral is “supposedly legitimate elites can afford to be lazier than the mob about hiding their crimes because it’s simply understood that in this day and age they’re incredibly unlikely to be prosecuted for them.” (Trump had to go to incredible criminal lengths for the system to finally take a shot at him. In a remotely functional system he should have been brought down long before most of us ever heard of him, let alone ran for president).
Or, as John Rogers so pithily put it:
Betty Cracker
Well!
Source.
bbleh
@Betty Cracker: hmm, despite all the what-about-the-House-seat bleating, I think that’d be a great race. Youngkin is an empty suit (well, fleece vest), and she has, y’know, credentials.
laura
@Betty Cracker: something something dance with the one that brung ya. If I had contributed to her Congressional run, I’d be righteously pissed off.
Betty Cracker
@bbleh: I don’t think he can run again, can he? Thought VA was a one term and done dealio.
Chief Oshkosh
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
No, I could be getting this wrong, but I think what she’s supposedly furious about is that the magazine photographers moved her stuff around, and maybe changed other things, prior to photographing the rooms that she’d re-done. I actually agree that if they were photographing the rooms to create a photohistory, then they should have left the rooms just as Melanoma signed off on, no matter how crass or disturbing that was.
Ken
So lots of piano wire, gunshots, decapitations, and poisonings in their future?
Jay
@Lyrebird:
Groundhogs, Marmots and Pack Rats are notoriously hard to trap.
Colonizers tend to be young males or females evicted from the family nest.
The key to them staying isn’t the presence of food, it’s the ability of finding a mate, so they tend to stick around a month or two, and if they can’t find a mate in the area, will move on.
BeautifulPlumage
@Chief Oshkosh: you’re right about why she’s pissed, but screw her, she fucked up the Rose Garden. That should be the modifying line whenever she’s mentioned: M…T….., who fucked up Jacqueline Kennedy’s Rose Garden and tore up Michele Obama’s garden out of spite, blah blah…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eversor: @Ken: Don Jr and Eric do have that chinless quality that seems not uncommon among the minor houses of Northern Europe
japa21
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes they have. What get me is that people who can be so reasonable on other matters can be so irrational on others. Like saying Trump should have been in jail on 1/21/21 when that would have gone against all the legal principles this country relies on. And blaming Garland for that when he wasn’t even AG then.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: It’s a Katie Porter situation. We need her House seat!
bbleh
@Betty Cracker: ah, Mr Google says you are right about about one term, but he CAN run again if it’s not consecutive terms. So yeah it wouldn’t be against him, too bad. But I still think she’d be a strong candidate.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Who the hell would make that jump? Is she out of her mind? One year and done as Guv? Is she that sick of her current gig?
(honest to God, even tho’ I’m a died-in-the-wool Democrat, Democrats make me fucking crazy sometimes.)
japa21
@Miss Bianca:
Possibly to heighten her national profile, go for the Senate, or maybe the Presidency.
Chris
@Jay:
Huh.
Our groundhog has been around for years, but I’ve never seen more than one of him. Guess it’s a compliment to how welcoming the yard is that he’s willing to stay even without a mate.
Miss Bianca
@japa21: Then she’s an idiot, imho. One year as Governor, *maybe*, then…what? It’s a long, long way to 2028 from there. And unless either VA Senator is making noises to retire, no joy there either.
Sheesh. Meanwhile, we need that House seat.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: It’s one term, not one year — I think. And then you can run again for governor after someone else serves. I’m not 100% sure how it works, but I think VA govs can serve for one term at a time but multiple non-consecutive terms?
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I don’t know that district, but I’ve heard it’s a tough one. Maybe Geminid will show up and fill us in.
Jay
@Chris:
Might be a “bachelor farmer” kinda groundhog,
not to judge,: )
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Exactly. A governor cannot succeed him/herself.
In recent history, we’ve had one governor, Mills Godwin, who won two (non-sequential) terms. (1966 and 1974; the first as a Democrat, the second as a Republican.) Terry McAuliffe was running for a second when he ran into the Youngkin CRT buzzsaw. There was a two-term governor in the 1800s, too.
Hob
@Chetan Murthy: I was too late to follow up on your similar reply in the other thread when you said this. I’m not sure why you replied to me there, since my comment didn’t say there are literally no people who would be willing to change their minds about Garland if things go well; I said that there are still a lot of people in the “Garland is a wuss” camp who have made it clear that they’ll persist in that view even if Smith entirely succeeds, because they’ve made it an axiom that Smith is personally responsible for everything good and Garland is responsible for everything bad, and that Garland either doesn’t actually want Smith to succeed or is totally indifferent to the case. I know that you know this, because I’m partly talking about people in the LGM comments (I do still lurk there sometimes). So, thanks for clarifying your own personal position I guess, but that’s irrelevant to the other position that is still being loudly repeated by others.
I can’t say I think your personal position is meaningfully different from that, though. I mean… if and only if Trump goes to prison, then you’ll say you were wrong about Garland, great, whoopee. That’s not a logical position though, it’s an emotional one: if everything goes great then you’ll be less angry, and if you’re less angry then you’ll feel magnanimous toward someone you hated. But that has absolutely no bearing on whether you were right or wrong about Garland being a cowardly AG who didn’t do anything valuable. Garland has already done the work he was doing. That can’t be changed retroactively by the outcome of the case.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter, and I don’t care whether you and/or a bunch of other commenters, at LGM or here, will at some point in the future say “I was wrong about Garland.” For all I know, maybe they’re all correct and Garland is in fact a lily-livered Republican who literally did not want Trump to be brought to justice. My point was only that, as a bunch of people who just follow the news and are only judging Garland by the limited information we have about the progress of the case, we have absolutely no way to know that, because we have no way to distinguish between “he meant well but made bad decisions” and “he didn’t mean well / didn’t give a shit.” The latter point of view is what I mean by political fanfiction; people have this investment in making it a personal thing. I don’t see any other way to justify the “all the good things were accomplished by Smith alone” stuff that I’ve seen, because none of those people can possibly know that.
Which again doesn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things, but I reserve the right to say that that shit is pointless and annoying. I stopped commenting at LGM partly(*) because there are so many people who seem to get off on repeating the cynicalest possible take on everything over and over and over again without adding any insight at all, as if it’s crucially important that every mention of Garland be accompanied by a ritual denunciation(**) or else we’ll lose savvy points. Similar things can happen here of course, but over there it’s the dominant culture (not unlike how “cranks going on at great length because they enjoy being visible on an academic blog” became the dominant comment culture at Crooked Timber).
(* The other part was because of your own specific contributions to the “we’ll have to kill all of the Republicans sooner if not later” genre, so I’m trying to be polite here but I don’t have high hopes for this exchange)
(** Also, apparently every mention of right-wing assholes on LGM has to be accompanied by 50 comments consisting only of a parody of a wingnut saying a racist thing. I don’t think you are a big practitioner of that, but there are many others who seem to be there for virtually no other purpose, and holy shit does it get old. YES WE ALL FUCKING KNOW WHAT THEY ARE LIKE)
Manyakitty
@japa21: and no reason or logic shall budge them off that, either. Oh well.
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
No, it’s 4 years as governor. Virginia is different in holding its state elections in odd years, but they have the standard term lengths.
From what I can tell, it’s a historical accident that Virginia started holding its elections in odd years, but this was something advocated by Progressives in the early 20th Century. They also wanted local elections to be formally non-partisan. The goal was to prevent federal issues from spilling over into state and local politics. I don’t think it’s been very effective. It can also strengthen local political machines, since local politics can’t depend on more exciting federal elections to drive turnout.
Kristine
Not seeing the You Tube video, just a box asking me to type in a letter jumble (like reCaptcha) because they, whoever they are, want to know if it’s a real person or a bot.
patrick II
@UncleEbeneezer:
We can agree that Jan 6 case is complex, which is why I pointed out that the classified documents is not and it was a more visible and clear display of timidity and lack of urgency. The documents case is so straightforward that it is a gift to prosecutors — and they still screwed around negotiating the return of classified documents for six months before having the courage to ask for a subpoena. And understand, that wasted six months puts even this straightforward case into election territory and it didn’t have to be. People then at Justice just didn’t seem to grasp the gravitas of this case or urgency of moving forward quickly when there is a still ongoing attempt at a coup. (although much less chance for short-term success for now.)
The other case that had clear visibility of unnecessary delay is the Michigan false elector case and I’d love to see you give me a good reason for Justice sitting on its hands for a year.
As for the House committee, they were formed on July 1, 2021 and ended with a finished report in Jan of 2022. The justice department had five months or more before the committee started interviewing witnesses — and yet as far as we know no subpoenas were issued nor interviews held in that time with such obvious and important witnesses such as Cassidy Hutchinson or Pat Cippollone waiting to be asked. In addition, Justice ended up quashing subpoenas for executive members while not interviewing them themselves.
Is there some legal reason that a Justice Department investigation and interviews aren’t allowed to run parallel to a committee hearing? I don’t know. But the Justice Department sat on its hands waiting for the committee to do its work and complaining when the nine senators and ten staffers (the Justice Department has over 113,000 employees) did over a thousand interviews and created and reviewed over a million documents and had their report out in Jan of 22 so Justice could, in itsown mind, finally move forward. It was about the same time as Michigan turned over their investigation and not much news on either until the following year when Michigan took its case back and Smith took over both the Jan 6 case and documents case and we started hearing real news of forward progress.
The Justice Department under Garland was too slow, timid, and careful. Smith is showing them how to do it fast, aggressively while being just as careful. So finally we are getting things done, I am amazed at Smith’s confidence and competence, but his investigation should have on Jan 22, 2001.
P.S. And as for that “But hey, just keep fucking that Feckless DOJ chicken if you must…” if you want to engage in dismissive, vulgar repartee take it to X where it belongs.
Alison Rose
@Kristine: Huh, weird. The video was there and now I’m seeing the same thing you are. This happened on another post here recently, and no matter how times I entered the letters, it just kept giving me new ones.
Dangerman
Well, that makes sense given I think Donald called upon her, if’n ya get my drift, and I think you do.
There certainly appears to be no love in that pairing (other than love of money).
Betty Cracker
@Hob: As a proud member of Camp Fuckifino, I’ll just note that the fanfic impulse applies to Garland’s fiercest detractors and defenders alike.
Kristine
@Alison Rose: I’m kinda relieved to know that. I use a Mac so malware isn’t as common a thing but it’s not impossible.
rikyrah
Lizzo in The Shire!🤗😍🤗
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZT88HeXDp/
Kristine
@rikyrah: I thought every new First Family had that option.
patrick II
@Betty Cracker:
It is important for many reasons to understand what happened at Justice, but I have now given the problems I perceive my best comment (o.k. long comment) shot and won’t raise the subject again. We are all just riding the wave of past actions now.
catclub
@sdhays: yep. also shrub’s admin had all their email on private servers. also likely shredded.
Ken
Gag. Not your fault, but I did not need to think of Garland / Trump fanfic, emphasis on the “/”.
gvg
@Miss Bianca: One TERM. And 4 years is longer than a house term.
catclub
OT headline: Farming
American farmers are desperate for labor. (npr.org)
I suspect they are desperate for CHEAP labor.
Fake Irishman
@Betty Cracker:
Spanberger’s district is competitive, but is D+1 PVI. Biden won it by about six points and she held it by five in 2022.
a strong candidate can easily win there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
so putting all carts in Virginia, full of unhatched eggs, in front of all the horses, the 43 YO Spanberger will be on the spry side fifty when she completes her hypothetical one-term as governor in 2029, when current Senior Senator Mark Warner (currently 65) will be about 72, so it all depends on what numbers are written into The Anti-Gerontocracy And Boomer Act that Maxwell Frost and Elise Stefaniak will pass by telling Bernie Sanders to look out Mitch McConnell’s window?
MomSense
I’m thrilled that trump and co are being investigated and prosecuted. I am also so frustrated that we spend so much of our time and resources going backwards with elected Republicans and then having to just clean up their messes. The electoral college and inept and/or corrupt media (with some exceptions), and unethical billionaires and corporations have contributed to this fucking nightmare.
So much wasted time.
sdhays
@Betty Cracker: Yes, McAuliffe tried to pull that off – he ran and won, then his Lt. Governor Northam succeeded him and then he tried to win a second term.
Virginia’s setup is really stupid. Off-year elections and single-term governors.
Anyway
@Betty Cracker:
Agreed. Both sides are pretty tiresome (ha, I’m a bothsides-er…)
Betty Cracker
@patrick II: No worries — people are welcome to rehash this all they want, even if it does get repetitive. I agree the truth matters, but from the cheap seats, I don’t think we can really know it, at least not yet. I have a similar view on the afterlife — Iris DeMent speaks for me! ;-)
Eyeroller
@bbleh: She wouldn’t be running against him, our governors cannot serve consecutive terms. Yes it is a stupid law. Supposedly (maybe according to Geminid) it was passed when the legislature got miffed that the Governor had more power than they preferred.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: LOL!
The Pale Scot
OH Nossss, Melanoma is outraged that the Bidens moved the furniture around.
Bloody foreigners coming over here moving the furniture around. First thought in my head when I saw the title,
Asian Dub Foundation ft. Stewart Lee – Comin’ Over Here
RaflW
@Yarrow: “he’d hired mobbed-up firms to erect Trump Tower and his Trump Plaza apartment building in Manhattan”
TBF, it’s probably hard to build anything in NCY without at least a few mobbed up construction contractors/subs involved.
My one mob story was when I was 18 and driving the owner of the Strand Bookstore. One day we cut through midtown to avoid a jam on the East River Drive. At a red light, Fred noticed that a trash truck driver was spraying water into the garbage.
Fred realized “Hey, that’s the loading dock of a building Biff Halloran (Fred’s westchester co. neighbor) owns. And that’s Biff’s water going into that trash truck! They’re loading it down with his water and then making him pay by the pound for tipping fees!”
I quietly sat in front, thinking, Mob guys ripping off other Mob guys, Whoda thunk it! (I do not in any way think the Strand or Fred were mob-related, to be clear).
Eyeroller
@BeautifulPlumage: It looks to me like a pet squirrel that was trained to do this stunt. At one point it looks toward something or somebody just out of the frame, then continues. Even so, it’s a complex series of actions. Squirrels are highly food motivated and can learn impressively complex tricks to get a reward.
RaflW
@The Pale Scot: The horrible woman who desecrated the Rose Garden?
Yeah she can f*&^ right off.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Almost perfect. I would have named the bill the Being Old Occasions Mandatory Early Retirement Act.
Jay
@catclub:
It might not be cheap labour,……
Here, the Valley farmers are switching to minimum wage rather than piecemeal to try to attract workers,
problem is, other than “students*”, who only want’s to work for less than a month?
* the thing is, most places will hire a student to work FT all summer break, then provide 20 hours a month of PT built around their classwork during semesters.
They changed the Temporary Foreign Workers program to allow TFW’s to work construction in the “off seasons”, but because construction had gone nutz here, they are working construction year round and not going back to the farms.
Steeplejack
Video of DeSantis and the little girl with an Icee. (Nitter.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Dammit! I guess that’s how you got to be Baud
Steeplejack
@Eyeroller:
I think this about 90% of the “spontaneous” animal videos I see.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: What do we call that? Bargain-basement politics (as opposed to retail)?
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: Well, it’s still cute, even if the animal is rehearsed. Quite a smart little squirrel.
Eyeroller
@Steeplejack: It’s still adorable.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
DeSantis sounds like if Jim Gaffigan ran a political campaign as fodder for his next comedy special.
Omnes Omnibus
@patrick II: This blog originated the phrase “skull fuck a kitten.” Perhaps you should bear that in mind.
Lyrebird
LOL no, but I see how my posting this in a mob-boss thread would make it seem like that!
@Jay:
Here’s hoping this one moves on…
Miki
@Lyrebird: Hmmmm. Might be interesting to discuss with Terrierman
I know he hunts his terriers in farm fields (with permission), and lives in Virginia.
Villago Delenda Est
Put all of these mofos in prison forever. Fuck ’em.
Jay
@Lyrebird:
When we lived in the hills south of Kamloops, we had a pack rat move in for a spring and part of the summer. Pack rats make a mess, mostly with their urine. I trapped it three times and relocated it, the last time finally worked because I moved it 50km away. I baited the trap with drill bits and R-20 foamboard, because it was using my shiny tools and foamboard to build it’s nest.
Then we had a marmot, (whistlepig) which we just enjoyed watching. Normally they live under rockpiles, (bears tend to dig them out), this one decided to live under the polebarn into mid summer. It would several times a day, climb to the top of the metal roof and call out for a mate. No luck there, (too high up in the hills), so they moved on.
Then came a beaver, (down by the lake they had damned the creek, built a lodge, flooded the road a couple times, raised a family. One of the kids moved up hill to our ponds, ate some stuff, but couldn’t find a suitable place to build a beaver pond, so moved on.
I would just wait to see what happens.
mrmoshpotato
@Dangerman:
And the love of being sentient shitstains.
JWR
@rikyrah:
Kinda funny that her own staff refers to her as “Mrs.” and not “Ms.”.
Alison Rose
@Steeplejack: This is…incredibly accurate. And now I’m imagining hearing some of DeSantis’ “woke” lines in Gaffigan’s “audience response voice” and it’s 10000% better.
mrmoshpotato
@catclub: Probably also labor itself. Field work does not look easy.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: I think it’s a flying squirrel! I’d love to have one as a pet, but it would probably land on my head all the time. Animals tend to fling themselves at my head, especially frogs.
MomSense
BTW, Air Force One landed in my town today and the local brew pub is right next to the runway. They’ve been posting cool videos.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Yes, it looks like a flying squirrel. We had one in our fireplace once, it was so cute. We managed to trap him and take him outside. He was kitty TV for a while, behind the glass covering.
patrick II
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t think that was aimed at another commentator, but I will keep it in mind.
lowtechcyclist
@MattF:
Well, MAGA does stand for “make attorneys get attorneys.”
Baud
@MomSense:
What’s Biden doing in Maine?
Alison Rose
@patrick II: “Keep fucking that chicken” is another, as the kids say, “internet tradition”.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore: oh, well…I am a bird brain, I guess. Thanks for the primer!
BeautifulPlumage
@Eyeroller: @Steeplejack: folks, it’s a cute video of a tame squirrel, yes. The damn joke was about the groundhog death being set up to look like an accident. Sheesh 🙄
Kathleen
@Alison Rose:
@NotMax:
@smith:
You all had me cackling out loud and I needed a good laugh today. Thanks!
Elizabelle
@Hob: Thank you for your comment. Cheap cynicism, and all the har har har, here is what Republicans would probably say about that …
Tiresome. In the extreme.
patrick II
@Alison Rose:
I didn’t appreciate the dismissiveness as much as the language. Trump’s game is delay and if we go past the November elections without a guilty verdict and he wins (which isn’t impossible) he won’t leave the presidency until he dies. There won’t be a 2028 for people to worry about. It will be the end of democracy. Jan 6 is complicated, but it is clear in the sense that we all saw it and all the more reason to have accelerated our inquiry. The documents case is a gift from a dumb man that has given us a better chance of a decision before the election.
Sorry for the rehash, but dismissiveness doesn’t seem appropriate even if Garland was trying his best and was being secretly fast and effective.
Steeplejack
@BeautifulPlumage:
Yeah, we get it.
Eyeroller
@Betty Cracker: It appears to be a red giant flying squirrel, native to a large area of Asia.
cain
@patrick II: one alternative timeline that would be crazy – is if Trump wins the presidency but we gain the house and senate and then we just fucking impeach him and then convict him in the senate.
evodevo
@Chris: What’s that John Rogers quote from? Ima stealin’ it if I can source it…
Baud
@BeautifulPlumage:
Oh. In that case, ignore my email proposing a Strangers on a Train type arrangement.
Baud
@cain:
We have no shot at 67 Senators, particularly in a situation where Trump has won the election.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t much care about that. I care much more about maximizing political electoral damage to Republicans, mainly in the 2024 election.
That is not the DoJ’s remit, but their timing appears to be working out OK from a 15-months-prior-to-the-election perspective. Probably not deliberately. There are a lot of moving parts and uncertainties.
Heck, been watching the sun, covered with sunspots (solar maximum) with a small telescope and solar filter for the past few weeks. A big flare and fast moving CME is always a possibility.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: This vile woman destroyed Jackie’s Rose Garden and she thinks ANYONE give a flying fuck about her feelings? She can fuck off, just like her damn john.
Bill Arnold
@catclub:
An old American tradition, particularly in the South.
MomSense
@Baud:
He’s visiting a manufacturer in Lewiston Auburn that benefitted from some Biden Bucks and then going to a fundraiser. Three of our congressional delegation (all but Suzy) will be there.
In Maine is a small town news, the people hosting the fundraiser bought an old barn, moved it several hundred miles, and restored it on their property. It once belonged to the Governor’s uncle. They had no idea when they bought it and Uncle H had been dead for decades. The fundraiser tonight will be in the barn.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
You made me look. That was John Cole,
https://balloon-juice.com/2007/10/16/stay-classy-mitt-romney/
Baud
@MomSense:
Nice. I assume your.gov will be gushing.
Hob
@Betty Cracker: As a proud member of Camp Fuckifino, I’ll just note that the fanfic impulse applies to Garland’s fiercest detractors and defenders alike
If you say so. I can’t claim to have seen all the opinions on the Internet so I’m sure there’s some of any damn thing you can think of, especially if you qualify it with “fiercest” which almost by definition means unreasonable. I myself haven’t ever encountered anyone who wrote in favor of Garland in an equal-but-opposite style to what I described; I’ve read a fair amount of Marcy Wheeler, who is the go-to example that a lot of smug jerks on LGM like to bring up every 30 seconds to illustrate what they see as irrational defense of Garland, and I would sum up her overall angle in that area as roughly: “People who insist there’s absolutely no good reason why Garland couldn’t do X, rather than what he’s apparently doing which is Y, are wrong because there are valid reasons for a prosecutor to do Y, and/or logistical constraints that I think make X unfeasible.” She could certainly be wrong, but if she’s ever taken a personal angle like “Garland is a laser-focused hero who is pursuing the absolute best strategy to get Trump, and I know exactly how he thinks based on his actions so far, and he cannot possibly lose,” I’ve missed it; every time I’ve followed a link from the smug jerks claiming that she wrote something like that, they were lying.
I also think there’s inherently a lack of symmetry between claims like “this person whose job is to investigate and prosecute crimes is taking actions that he probably thinks will further that goal” and “this person whose job is to investigate and prosecute crimes is secretly a traitor in league with the crooks, or literally does not care about the job at all.” The latter can be true, but just feeling that the person isn’t effective enough in their job is not by itself a reason to think that that’s true; Garland has taken enough actions contrary to Trump’s interests that painting him as actively malicious or recklessly indifferent is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence. The idea that he’s taking the work seriously, and that his decisions are based on his experience as a career prosecutor, is not an extraordinary claim and doesn’t require fanfic-type speculation about character. Similarly, a frequent refrain from the anti-Garland crowd is that he only appointed Jack Smith as a defensive gesture for himself because of extra damning evidence that had recently come out; that requires speculation about character and dismissal of the stated reason for the appointment (Trump announcing his campaign), whereas the pro-Garland position there is just that he did it for the stated reason. So I really don’t see the point in both-sidesing this.
zhena gogolia
@Hob: Good comment. I too was wondering who these fanfic pro-Garland people were.
MomSense
@patrick II:
The problem isn’t Garland. It’s the people who would vote for Trump even after all the shit he pulled (same was true in 2016), the media who are either incompetent or corrupt, the Republican Party that has enabled the worst in their voting base and that refuses to hold trump accountable.
KenK
“…Trump paying for his lawyer.”
hahahaha
patrick II
@MomSense:
I agree with your description of the problem with what is essentially a Republican cult. And if that didn’t exist Garland wouldn’t have much of a problem because no sane person would vote for Trump because, really we all saw him call for the marches to move onto the Capitol on TV. But that is not the country you, I, or Garland live in, so not taking account of that Republican intractable cultism and its likely consequence that Trump would be a strong candidate for president in the not-too-distant future should have been something that was acknowledged and planned for and the investigation treated more expeditiously.
Another Scott
@The Pale Scot: The Master Strategist has been on Mastodon for a while.
DarthPutinKGB
Cheers,
Scott.
MomSense
@patrick II:
You are assuming it could have been done more expeditiously and I don’t believe that is the case.
Chris T.
There is (or maybe should be) an old rule here: “if someone other buyer is paying for your lawyer, he’s not your lawyer, he’s the buyer’s lawyer.” (Doesn’t apply 100%, e.g., public defenders tend to be crappy and/or overworked, but at least they’re not normally actively trying to frame you for TIFG’s crime.)
Chris T.
@sdhays: Exactly. Lawyers should represent their clients, not the person paying them, but “should” and “do” are entirely different things.