WSJ: Rohrabacher sought WH deal to pardon Assange in exchange for evidence he said exonerated Russia of email hacks. https://t.co/5u72OqtRaM
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 15, 2017
The craziest part about this is Trump doesn't even have the power to pardon Assange becaus…never mind we live in the dumbest timeline https://t.co/qsTzgjZFi2
— Marcus H. Johnson (@marcushjohnson) September 15, 2017
Someone needs to tell Mr. Rohrabacher that Spy vs Spy was never, nor was it intended to be, a documentary. Even as the elected representative of the deep-red rump of California at its nutsackiest, this seems to be… beyond satire:
A Republican congressman perceived as sympathetic to the Russian government tried to strike what he described as a “deal” with the White House to get WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of legal trouble with the United States government, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
In exchange, Assange would produce alleged evidence that Russia did not provide the hacked emails released by WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential election, the newspaper said. The release of those emails appeared intended to damage the Democratic Party in an election that the Republican Trump won.
In a phone call with White House chief of staff John Kelly on Wednesday, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Ca., described a possible agreement to pardon Assange or “something like that,” the Journal reported. The U.S. government is looking into WikiLeaks’ release of secret government documents in 2010, though it has not formally accused Assange of wrongdoing…
Rohrabacher is seen as sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In May, a report said fellow GOP lawmaker Kevin McCarthy once joked that “there’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” …
“Joked”?
Ahem “There’s — there’s two people, I think, Putin pays,” McCarthy responds, “Rohrabacher and Trump — swear to God.” https://t.co/SdGggHPN3k
— Colin Frangicetto (@colincirca) September 16, 2017
KELLY: Yes?
ROHRABACHER: John, I've got a deal! Pardon Assange & he'll prove Russia is innoc–
KELLY: *click*
ROHRABACHER: John? You there?— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) September 15, 2017
And then things went seriously askew…
WOW. Rohrabacher just straight-up said he's working against US intelligence agencies & accused NSA/FBI/CIA of lying about WikiLeaks. pic.twitter.com/TmdSyqUdYf
— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) September 16, 2017
Reminder: the Mercer/white power faction was at that meeting. Don't forget the overt fascists ? pic.twitter.com/yIld4CrGUV
— Trevor Smith (@MrTSmith81) September 16, 2017
Baud
Harvard should offer Rohrabacher and Assange fellowships and then rescind them.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I can’t believe these clowns are even nominally running the government of the biggest economy and military in the history of the world. This is like some kind of farce. Every day at some point it hits me and I shake my head in wonder and say, “The president of the United Fucking States of America is Donald Trump.”
Doug R
Does anybody know what child Stars look like today? Is there a link I could click on?
What health secret should every man know?
These links and MORE in the clickbait minefield ABOVE BJ comments!
germy
It still hits me every day as well. It’s like if someone told me Leona Helmsley or Herman Cain or Joel Osteen was in the white house. It’s just unreal.
And what’s more nightmarish is the “team” he’s assembled.
germy
updated timeline
Doug R
I am FB “friends” with Colleen Rowley and she and a pile of dead ender leftists are deep into the RT and Russian medling denial.
Even linking to Tucker!, FFS.
Baud
@Doug R:
Who is Colleen Rowley?
germy
@Baud:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleen_Rowley
waspuppet
But don’t you dare EVER think Dana Rohrabacher, Donald Trump and the whole crew don’t have any right to lecture you about patriotism, and explain to you that they are Real Americans and you are not.
Roger Moore
@Doug R:
Anything to avoid admitting they got played for suckers by Putin’s propaganda machine.
germy
Snarki, child of Loki
So Loki got really, really, REALLY drunk last year, and was telling all about the jokes he had planned…
crazy relatives, what can you do?
NotMax
In keeping with the Foreign Affairs tag –
Nothing much new in it, per se, but a fine and current one stop resource laying out the strategic and the tactical threads involving the DPRK and things nuclear.
Highly recommended reading.
Baud
@germy: Interesting. Who did she vote for?
different-church-lady
No, the craziest part of this is believing Assange has any evidence exonerating Putin.
Chyron HR
@Baud:
With a rowley, powley, gammon, and spinach,
“DNC stole the primary!” says Colleen Rowley.
germy
@Baud: She has nice things to say about rand paul.
Baud
@different-church-lady: I’m sure he could produce a “hacked” communique in which Putin revealed that he really wanted Hillary to win.
germy
@different-church-lady: surely he could fabricate some?
SFAW
I was going to ask when it became “kewl” (in some circles) to be a traitorous fuck, especially if you have “Representative” or “Senator” in front of your name. But then I realized, the only uncertainty is whether it was 11/9/16, or 1/20/17.
Those highly-selective meteor strikes can’t happen soon enough.
Baud
@germy: WTF is wrong with white people?
chris
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Indeed. Yelling at the screen in front of me before the first coffee is not healthy. But I can’t look away.
SFAW
@different-church-lady:
Incriminating, not exonerating. Why would Vladi give his PR flack Assange anything BUT exonerating “evidence”?
SFAW
@Baud:
Probably “Doctor” Jill Iosifovna Stein.
Baud
@SFAW: Doug R said he was Facebook friends with her, so hopefully he’ll confirm.
eclare
Obviously Jemele Hill needs to lose her job to make things right.
fuckwit
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Rome. We are Rome at its collapse.
Lurking Canadian
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): You know how Gingrich said at the time of the 2012 election that Obama was a “fake president”? Obviously, I don’t understand somebody saying that about Obama, but I DO now understand how it feels to think the president is fake.
There’s a part of my brain that just will not accept that all of this is happening. It’s like some not-very-bright, badly-behaved, terminally-ill child got “Make me President for a day” from the Make-A-Wish Foundation and for some reason they let him stay.
SFAW
@Baud:
Hopefully he has better things to do, like floss the cat.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Doug R:
Well said.
John, Alain please consider that those ads are not your true friends.
They serve as off ramps. They invite readers to leave the site in pursuit of other material.
They give a cheap look to the joint.
If you say you need them, the majority of us will stay because we value your content and this community, but the ads pretty clearly are annoying or distracting folks, too.
//* steps away from a red BJ hat in flames on his mom’s glass table and looks into the camera… “Your call….”
Baud
@SFAW: He’s the one who brought her up!
sharl
Speaking of Russiagate and stooges:
Baud
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
And that’s my job!
Gravenstone
@different-church-lady: Of course he has evidence! The finest evidence! Hand crafted, and delivered by Putin himself!
Doug R
@Baud: She did promote Stein a bit, it was mostly how Hillary was the worst most corrupt war monger ever.
Lot of useful idiocy in other words.
Edt: She really didn’t seem that worried about trump for some reason.
SFAW
@Baud:
Yes, I know. I’m just hoping he had/has an epiphany, on the order of “Wait! Who REALLY gives a rat’s ass re: how she voted?”
Lurking Canadian
@Baud: I confess, I clicked on the one about the half-woman, half-horse. I swear I wasn’t expecting actual centaur pics; I just wanted to find out what their angle was.
There’s no angle. It’s just a fit young woman with wide hips doing exercises. I’m so ashamed.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Chyron HR:
You know what? Rowley really is a roley-poley little bat-faced girl!
debit
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I use ad blocker, so I don’t see any. I pitch in when John rattles the cup (whenever I see it, anyway) but would happily pony up for a subscription. Could someone break down what they figure they get in ad revenue per visit/day/whatever?
tobie
@Lurking Canadian:
I will never accept the results of this past election as legitimate what with Comey’s intervention, Russian hacking and propaganda, voter suppression, etc. In the absence of a full scale audit of the election (voting machines, tabulation machines, voter rolls, etc.) I’ll never be sure of the tally either. This is what scares me most going into 2018. I don’t have faith in the integrity of the election system at the most basic level (i.e., in counting votes).
West of the Rockies (been a while)
I hope Representative Ratbastard ends up a Mueller target. How does that traitorous clown still have a job?
No Drought No More
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I know what you mean. I’d be upset, too, except I know I’ll be waking up in a few minutes. Still, this is without a doubt the most intense nightmare that’s ever haunted my dreams. I wonder if I’ll remember it when I wake up.
Doug R
@West of the Rockies (been a while): The Taboola crap wouldn’t enrage me as much, it’s just that on a phone to scroll past if your touch is the least bit off,you end up in clickbait.
tobie
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Add Devin Nunes to the list of Congresscritters one hopes will be exposed in Mueller’s investigation.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Its not just white people, T’s election has emboldened the terminally stupid. I will give an example. The skilled immigrant Indian lobby which has many of its members and their families stuck in interminable GC waiting hell, think that the most productive use of their time is attacking DACA recipients.
ETA: One of the most illogical BS supporters I know IRL is an older black woman. She hates T, of course but hated HRC even more.
Baud
@Doug R: So a member of the Sarandon Party.
Look, that’s her right. All we can do is recognize she’s not an ally and shouldn’t be treated as such
The Pale Scot
There’s never a Sen. McCarthy around when you need one.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: No group is immune to the 27% rule. But only one race blows past it when it comes to voting.
What’s that group’s angle? Purely partisan or do they have a real interest.
Seth Owen
Enjoying a break from Trump in Milan, Italy, as we visit my recently graduated step daughter. Interesting city. Very comfortable.
mdblanche
@Snarki, child of Loki: Bind him beneath a serpent with his son’s entrails?
Baud
@Seth Owen: Nice. And congrats.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: They seem to think that their cause is more just than DACA because they did everything according to the rules and they are jealous because unlike DACA they are no one’s political radar.
ETA: I think what they are doing is antagonizing their potential allies. They are too small in numbers to have the clout that DACA recipients do. This emotional lashing out is short sighted and selfish.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@The Pale Scot:
Have you no decency, Scot? At long last, have you no sense of decency?
Cheryl Rofer
Here is a presentation from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. I haven’t gone over it in detail, but my corner of Twitter wants to know who he thinks State’s “customers” are (slide 6).
I’ve just come in from walking with the kittehs. We circumnavigated the house. They are getting more accustomed to the vests and more willing to make the tradeoff of discomfort for going out. But they continue to tell me that they are well past the training wheels stage and can handle going out by themselves.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: What cause of theirs is being ignored? And the only reason there is attention to DACA is because Trump is going after DACA kids. Do they want Trump to go after them too?
eclare
@Seth Owen: Jealous to be anywhere but the US right now! And congratulations!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@fuckwit: I don’t think so. Conservatives are desperate because they know they’re on the edge of losing everything, pretty much forever. That makes them dangerous, but they can’t hold on this way forever. We’re going to outlast these people. It might be hard and ugly, but they can’t win.
CaseyL
I’m not sure what stuns me more: the entire GOP being so pro-oligarchy they either collaborated or winked at Putin putting Dolt 45 in the WH, or that there are voters so pro-GOP tribal they’ve decided it’s OK for an adversary of the US to determine the shape and outcome of our elections.
I mean, isn’t AMERICA YEAH! “patriotism” supposed to be one of their calling cards?
RandomMonster
@Lurking Canadian:
I’m intrigued!
The Pale Scot
@Seth Owen: Milan?
Make sure to buy some clothes, save some money
Baud
@CaseyL: They only believe that to the extent they can use that to beat up on liberals.
Uncle Ebeneezer
SwingLeft is working hard to get this jackass out of office.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
Isn’t it just as crazy that Rohrabacher wants to have a pardon for someone who has, as I understand it, no charges even pending in the US? Not that I’d bet there isn’t something we could charge him for…..
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The children of EB-2 are not included in the current version of the DREAM act. ( Children don’t derive automatic immigration benefits from parents after they reach 21, IIRC)
ETA: Because of the way the 1965 act is structured the people from the countries that send most immigrants to the US, India, China, Mexico and Philippines have extra long waits for GC #s to become available even after their I-140s (intent to immigrate) has been approved.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Fair point.
Dave
@different-church-lady: Oh I’m sure he has “evidence” as long as we consider something ginned up by Putin’s minions as reliable.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I agree but shitting on DACA recipients is not going to help their cause.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Yes. Agree. We’ve seen that dynamic play out badly in a number of settings.
Timurid
@schrodingers_cat:
Way too many of those guys are Hindutvadis, which means their ideology is just Trumpism/Fascism with the serial numbers filed off…
Gindy51
@tobie: And Putin succeeds…. THAT is what a major chunk of this crap with Russia was all about, making us doubt our elections and system of government so Putin could point to us and show his people how stupid democracy is and how lucky they are to have him.
schrodingers_cat
@Timurid: True, although as a group south Asians (including Indians) vote for Ds by huge margins (after AA’s that South Asians was the group that gave Barack Obama his biggest margins), their lobbying group is made of rich R bastards kinda like the Jewish lobbying groups.
Tom
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): If it’s any comfort, if they keep this up, it won’t be the world’s biggest economy much longer. In fairness, China’s economy will supplant us in that category at some point, but they are hastening the day that will occur by years to decades. Of course, when that occurs the US dollar probably stops being the world’s default reserve currency, with all the domestic hardship that will entail
germy
meanwhile, back at home:
Mnemosyne
@germy:
I was wondering if Bodett was going to make a statement. He seems like a decent guy.
rikyrah
Maddow did a segment last night outlining all the lies that Pence has told. I know that he is on some House of Cards shyt and thinks that he can just move Dolt45 out of there, but last night just reiterated what I have been saying all along:
1. Pence is up to his eyeballs in the Flynn mess
2. No way Dolt45 goes down without taking Pence with him
3.Pence is up to his eyeballs in the Comey firing
germy
germy
@Mnemosyne: It’s his second tweet about it. This one’s a bit stronger. The first one was “I have faith they didn’t mean…” etc.
Dave
@schrodingers_cat: That is a line you hear from a fair number of immigrants. Some members of any group are vulnerable to bucket of crabs/zero sum thinking.
mdblanche
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): So we’re the Allied Powers in 1917-1918.
Baud
@germy: Best argument against single payer I’ve heard yet.
germy
@Baud: Well, he did change his mind about that.
Sherparick
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): You forgot the “FUCKING” before Donald Trump.
Josie
@Ruckus: Rohrabacher is an idiot. Always has been, always will be.
Ruckus
@Josie:
Of this there is no doubt, none in the least, odds in Vegas against are zero……
And he keeps proving it every time he opens his mouth.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
Creating that is a major goal of Republican policy. They want to convince us to fight each other for the scraps so we won’t notice the reason there are only scraps left is because their wealthy donors have eaten the whole meal.
debbie
He’s the asshole who accused Clinton of dying his hair gray so people would take him seriously. I see the malignancy hasn’t improved in the slightest.
tobie
@Gindy51: This argument has always struck me as a bit too circular. Putin wanted us to doubt the integrity of US elections, so in doubting US election we’re handing him a victory. I don’t dispute the broad outlines but I still think it side-steps the point of whether/what crimes were committed. I believe Chris Hayes pointed out that the one charge Democrats and Republicans alike have rushed to dismiss without any investigation is vote tampering. The hacking of voter rolls has been looked into, albeit not with the vigor it should given the seriousness of the offense.
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore: Some of the dead ender leftists are paid agents. Some long term leftist bloggers are obviously pushing the Russian lines, carefully matched with sane stuff so people still read them. 200 billion buys a lot of trolls.
Fair Economist
@tobie: The electronic voting machines really aren’t trustworthy. The past CA Sec State tested them and they all flunked. They could have been manipulated in the past election and we will never know. Or maybe not and we’ll never know that either.
This is a fixable problem going forward. Paper ballots.
Captain C
@different-church-lady: Maybe a note in Assange’s handwriting saying
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
Or there could just not be enough of them for some elections at some precincts. As happened in the precincts where I lived in OH in 2004. Two machines total, for, if I remember correctly, 5 precincts, all voting in one church. It took 4 hrs to vote. And I voted there in 2000 as well, took less than 15 minutes because we had many more machines.
Tim C.
@Ruckus: Voter ID laws aren’t just about keeping the poor off the rolls, they are also about making it more physically difficult to vote at already under-resourced urban voting precincts. Live out in the rural areas? No worries, easy short wait. Live in a city? 6-8 hour wait. Add another minimum 30 seconds a voter to check IDs and you get the picture.
Tim C.
@Tom: Someone should explain the whole reason we ended up with Social Security and the safety net in the first place… hint: it wasn’t because things were peachy awesome in 1932.
Ruckus
@Tim C.:
That comment was also for our OH listeners. There was circumstantial evidence that the number of machines was limited for districts that were a far bluer color. Which the area that I lived in was. A friend in the same area worked for President Obama in 2008 as an area captain. They won the precincts around where he and I lived. But it was also raining that winters day of the election in 2004 and there was limited parking and limited area to wait out of the rain. I’d bet some pretty serious money that while turn out was good it could have been quite a bit better. I thought about leaving because I ended up being over 4 hrs late for work. Fortunately I was salaried and had a drunk supervising me, who rarely showed up before 2 pm, so I stayed.
Ruckus
@Tim C.:
Well it wasn’t like a lot of other countries were going to step in and take charge, at best they were as bad off as we were in 1932. It isn’t quite the same these days. The power is now spread around a bit better and we are where we are due to two reasons, monetary momentum and a big military, which we’ve seen isn’t as big or well prepared as we’d like everyone to think.
Shalimar
@Ruckus: There have been rumors for years that there are sealed charges against Assange that will be acted upon as soon as he exits the embassy. It seems very far-fetched, but Assange’s crowd tends to see threats everywhere.
Death Panel Truck
@Doug R: I was just thinking the other day, “The problem with Balloon Juice is that there aren’t enough ads! I hope they do something about that!”
Mike G
@Seth Owen:
Milan is kind of grimy and industrial, but Lake Como is a real jewel and only an hour away.
ChrisGrrr
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Great words, found at the right time. Tnx !
Alain the site fixer
@Doug R: I’ll move it down for mobile site, thanks for good input. Such effect was NOT intentional!
Tehanu
@Chyron HR:
omg, are you channeling The Midnight Folk?
Procopius
@different-church-lady: I must have missed the memo. What crime in the U.S. has Assange been charged with? He’s like Anwar Awlaki, accused of many things, but not actually charged. He’s not afraid of being extradited to stand trial in court, he’s afraid of being extradited to Sweden (where he is wanted for questioning, not yet actually charged with a crime, but accused) where he suspects the government would collude with the CIA to render him to the U.S. to be tortured, or at least locked up for life.
And the only reason it’s ludicrous to think Rohrabacher has evidence Putin was innocent is because it’s not possible to prove a negative.