No, this is not a Doug! post, but I stole his song lyric-post title shtick because it fits my topic so perfectly. Ever since the unthinkable catastrophe of a Trump administration became our waking nightmare, I’ve dreamed of its end, preferably in disgrace and with the Republican Party in smoking ruins in its wake.
But I’ve tried to be a responsible dreamer. I avoid the high-fructose corn syrup confections some enemies of my enemy have been peddling for the last year in the form of promises that this next revelation will bring the entire Jenga treason tower down on the heads of the liars, cheaters, incompetents and thieves in this odious pigpen of an administration.
Well, despite it all, I’m becoming a believer. I understand what we’re up against. I remember the Ghost of Fitzmas past. But formidable obstacles aside, I’m becoming convinced Trump won’t serve out his first term.
The revelation that Don Jr. was colluding with WikiLeaks — and communicating with senior members of the campaign about it — is the latest straw. One of the people Junior emailed with WikiLeaks tidbits was Hope Hicks. I find that significant.
Beltway media types have long been mystified by Hicks’ role in the Trump organization, but I think it’s simple: She primarily functions as a human email interface for Trump. I’ve never believed Junior would take a crap without running it past the old man first, and the fact that Hicks was looped in proves it, as far as I’m concerned.
So, I am officially allowing myself to hope that indictments will roll in, people will flip, and Trump will react with such panic and madness that his presidency will end, one way or another, most likely with a huffy resignation. Sure, I could be wrong. But the staggering stupidity and amateurishness of nearly every actor in the Trump shit-show is an asset for justice.
Anyhoo, IF Trump goes down, that brings us to Mr. Pence, the Man Who Wasn’t There. I apologize for inflicting a Morning Joe clip on you, but this one does address Pence’s lying about the Russia scandal:
Steve Schmidt, from the clip:
“We don’t talk enough about Mike Pence… We don’t talk enough about the vice president’s nonstop lying… I think that over these months, the vice president has exposed himself as a titanic fraud… The truth of the matter is, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, 100% of the time, 100% of the people around this administration, when asked a question about Russia, the Russian involvement in this election, they lie about it. Not 99% of the time, not 99.9% of the time, 100% of the time.”
There’s no mystery about how Pence earned the nickname “Dense Pence” — he’s not a bright guy. But unless Mother rode around on Pence’s shoulders during the entire campaign and transition, with her thighs clamped over his ears, one hand covering his beady eyes and the other stopping his mouth, there’s just no way Pence didn’t know the Trump crew was ass-deep in Russians. He needs to go down too.
I’m guessing 15% or more of the responses to this post will be people telling me I’m an idiot for getting my hopes up. Maybe y’all are right, and feel free to piss on my parade. But I’m feeling more hopeful than I have in months.
Roger Moore
I don’t think that’s the only interfacing she’s been doing with Trump, IYKWIMAITYD.
Lapassionara
From your keyboard to dog’s ears.
Karmus
Haven’t been following, just got up today and no telly around, but it’s nice to wake up to a minty-fresh blast of Hope from Cracker land.
Humboldtblue
Can we all just take a moment to celebrate Ferry McFerryface?
(I posted it in the thick of the early morning open thread and they weren’t having it, the bastards)
boatboy_srq
I’ve begun to think that Conservatists are all amateurs, who are fooled by their own propaganda into thinking that Dems are incompetent imbeciles and that only Conservatists are true geniuses and MOTUs, and only discover that doing things is tres difficile when they’re landed in the position they insist the Dem they ousted was doing so very poorly because s/he was incompetent.
Davebo
Sessions: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to try to not to answer that.
The Moar You Know
Get rid of Pence first. Otherwise, the media will throw up their hands and say “problem solved” and then we’ll all be dealing with President Mother.
Who is going to be far less pleasant, due to competency, than dealing with Donnie Two Scoops.
So do I. I withhold my thoughts here in respect to Ms. Cracker.
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: Don’t talk about the fourth Mrs. Donald J. Trump and next First Lady of the United States that way.
Yarrow
Been saying for months that they’re all going down. They’re all guilty. Trump, his family, his campaign staff, his organization’s top staff, GOP leadership. All traitors. Pence is definitely guilty. If he gets to be president it won’t be for long.
I don’t think Trump will resign unless he can convince himself he’s doing it because it’s the smartest move. I think he’ll throw everyone under the bus, including his kids, before he goes.
lollipopguild
They have been consistently and endlessly stupid from the beginning. They have consistently and endlessly lied from the beginning. They have never changed.
Sandia Blanca
Here’s a visual I did not need: “unless Mother rode around on Pence’s shoulders during the entire campaign and transition, with her thighs clamped over his ears, one hand covering his beady eyes and the other stopping his mouth . . .”
boatboy_srq
@Adam L Silverman: There’ll be a Fourth First Wife?
Yarrow
@Humboldtblue: We howled about that in my house last night. So funny.
Major Major Major Major
@Humboldtblue: This trend must die.
clay
Steve Schmidt, bringing the thunda!!
Regarding Pence, it’s been noted that he denied the campaigns involvement with Wikileaks the very same day Don Jr. was communicating with them. He’s denied knowing about it. I’ll also remind folks that he lied to the public about Mike Flynn, and then tried to claim that Flynn lied to him. But such a claim has always been laughable, since Flynn’s troubles were public well before the Trumpers took office.
So it seems clear that Pence will deny deny deny, but he doesn’t have the blatant sociopathy of Trump to lie with impunity. And I’m pretty sure the IC (and therefore Mueller) will have ample documentation that Pence isn’t as in-the-dark as he pretends.
MattF
@Roger Moore: So, you think there’s a division of responsibilities between Hope and Melania?
And, on topic… I think we tend to overestimate the strength of Trump’s connection to reality. I think that what constrains him is his cowardice. Will that be enough?
lollipopguild
@Major Major Major Major: So says Major Mcmajor Face.
Jeffro
@boatboy_srq: they are just like any other crooks- if they had half a brain or even a minimal work ethic they wouldn’t have to be crooks
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Says the man who, in a comment replying to Mnem yesterday used “Boldyface McAllcaps.”
Corner Stone
You’re an idiot for getting your hopes up.
What? Somebody had to represent.
Tom Q
I have your back, Betty. As I said yesterday, I think this is by a wide margin the greatest political scandal in American history, and I think Robert Mueller is onto it all.
I’ve mentioned this here before, but it’s worth repeating: I had lunch with a bunch of fellow liberal Dems the Monday after the Saturday Night Massacre in ’73, and three of the five at the table were dismissive of the idea that Nixon would suffer any consequences. While Republicans always believe they’re on the verge of full triumph, Democrats always believe they’ll lose (possibly because they think it ennobles their cause — their most beloved work of art, To Kill a Mockingbird, is about losing a case and having a client get killed, which demonstrates moral superiority to everyone else in town). Ignore the emotional plague of defeatists. This is a trainwreck for Trump/GOP, and I don’t see any way they escape it.
Major Major Major Major
@lollipopguild: It was cute the first two times but now it’s just dull.
Mnemosyne
@The Moar You Know:
I’ve seen the accounts of when Pence was governor of Indiana and how he was so incompetent that his own party was running him out of town on a rail. The jackass started an AIDS crisis by mistake and only backed down when the evidence was incontrovertible that his policies had led directly to the sudden rise of AIDS cases.
Any “competence” of Pence’s will only be relative to Trump’s, and even then I think he’d give Trump a run for his money.
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t think Hope Hicks is going to be the next Mrs. Trump; she seems like the type who is always going to be the mistress and never the next wife.
On the general topic of the article, I don’t know if Trump is going to go down, and I’m not 100% certain it matters. Unless we can get a Democrat into the likely line of succession, getting rid of Trump will just leave us with somebody about as bad. I think the Democrats’ primary goals should be twofold: minimizing the damage the Republicans do to the country and maximizing the damage the Republicans do to themselves. These are unfortunately at least somewhat at odds- doing real damage to the country when they can’t dodge responsibility is the surest way for the Republicans to damage themselves- but I think we can hurt them badly enough to win big in 2018 and 2020.
MJS
@Roger Moore: I do not believe Trump does any “interfacing” anymore, and probably hasn’t since about 9 months before Baron was born.
No Drought No More
Not bad, if I do say so myself. I figured out the song lyric was from I’m A Believer inside of 60 seconds. Good thing, too, because I don’t google stuff like that until it drives me crazy and I can’t take it anymore… and it would have driven me crazy for at least a few hours before I did.
Yarrow
@MJS: He may not have “interfaced” for that either. Assisted reproductive technology can do wonders.
Corner Stone
@Yarrow: “Ve haff vays of making you breed, comrade.”
Origuy
@Humboldtblue: As I recall, this whole meme started with the contest for the name of the mascot of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014. Glasgow being Glasgow, some wag suggested Punchy McFuckface. It didn’t win, but the idea lives on.
Roger Moore
@Yarrow:
From my POV, that sounds like a good thing. The more Republicans he throws under the bus in an ultimately ineffective attempt to save his own hide the better.
Cheryl Rofer
Betty, I am feeling more optimistic too, despite what my post last night may have seemed like. A lot of good responses to that post, mostly in the vein of “We’ve got to take back Congress in 2018.” The results of last week’s elections show there’s a good chance of doing that, for the House at least. And even Paul Ryan is deserting Roy Moore, rather than simply diverting the conversation to his tax bill.
We are learning more about how the Trump campaign accepted Russian disinformation. We need to know more about how many of them were useful idiots and which were the fellow travelers.
But I am concerned about what is going to happen when they all go down. Maybe Robert Mueller will try to time his indictments and revelations so that Nancy Pelosi can be in the line of succession. That would be the best outcome.
hueyplong
Not going to piss on B Crack’s parade. I’d rather lead it.
Some level of optimism is required so as to avoid sinking into a pit of bitterness and despair, and I have hope that the GOP’s emphasis on purity (and the Trump crowd’s emphasis on self) to the exclusion of intelligence will result in their paying a price at some point.
Too bad about the collateral damage to us all, but we are where we are.
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: We don’t need to get a Dem into the line of succession (although we will, in a way, in 2020! =) If the GOP ticket was aided by attacks of a hostile foreign power (and it was), abetted by the criminal acts of Americans (and it was), then the whole ticket should be invalidated. New election or hand it to Clinton, full stop.
I know we’ve been over this a million times, but there are a million ways to at least try to pursue this. None of which are guaranteed, of course. But it’s the only just outcome here. 65 million Americans were denied their right to democratically pick their own leader. If and when Trumpov goes down, it should not be okay for Pence to take the oath and continue on merrily…and if Pence goes down with him, same goes for Ryan.
cmorenc
When the rubber really meets the road is how Trump, Sr. reacts when he starts believing that indictment of Don, Jr and/or Jarad are very likely forthcoming soon, unless he acts quickly and decisively to shut the whole Mueller thing down. At that point, he will cease caring what some key GOP legislators have cautioned him against trying to shut Mueller down, and dare them to find both a majority in the House and 2/3 in the Senate to successfully impeach him. And he’d be right that the odds would be in his favor that they’d likely come up at least a few votes short. Hope he’s wrong about that, but Trump has a history of being a reckless risk-taker back in his pre-political business career.
Lee
One thing to keep in mind about this is 15 minutes after Assange told Jr to bring up Podestas emails 45* tweeted about it
NotMax
Oh, yes. Like Wile E. Coyote, he’s going to find himself standing on nothing – and it’s a lo-o-o-o-ong drop down.
Adam L Silverman
@boatboy_srq: Carries the 2, divides by 27… Yep, that sound about right.
Corner Stone
And then when busted he posted all his emails about it! Like, “Surely I have nothing to hide!”
I contend that Trump despises his weakling moron son, and Don Jr hates his dad with every fiber of his being. All his “contributions” to the campaign may have been his best efforts to ingratiate himself with his old man. But they could have also been trap doors waiting to get sprung.
germy
Facing which way?
Brachiator
So, could the House of Representatives impeach all its Republican members?
A guy can dream…
Corner Stone
@Origuy: As it should. I have a lot of affection for Boaty McBoatface.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer:
I don’t think Mueller has that kind of time, and (as noted above) it shouldn’t matter. We should ask – loudly, publicly, and now – what would Republicans do? Would they settle for the next Democrat? If Hillary had colluded with the Chinese, would they be okay with President Kaine? I think not.
I hope he drops a couple dozen indictments on their heads, everything from conspiracy to hacking to perjury to obstruction to money laundering (hell, I hope he gets the entire Trump Org on RICO charges). Just drop the indictments and let justice follow. The majority of the country is already there.
Chip Daniels
We also need to keep in mind this wasn’t some landslide wave election; Trump squeaked thru by like 80,000 votes in a few counties to tip things and of course, lost the popular vote.
We don’t need to win over the Jim Hofts or Steve Bannons of the world, just those who actually want government to keep the lights on, streets swept and garbage picked up.
TenguPhule
You’re not an idiot, Betty. I do hope you’re right.
I just freeze up every time I contemplate just how bad the damage is and how far down the rot goes.
The GOP have always been a symptom of a disease we’ve tried to normalize in the interests of peace.
I don’t think we’re going to be able to go back to that. It truly does feel like the last days of Rome, the empire.
Lyrebird
@hueyplong: Thanks, you said what I was thinking better than I could.
Well and usually not many readers like my jokes, but here goes “not going to piss on your parade… no matter how many rubles you pay me!”
Yarrow
@cmorenc: If the indictments are sealed and just sitting there, then if Mueller is removed those indictments don’t just go away. Those indictments can be unsealed.
Mueller is smart and very experienced in how things work in Washington. I’m sure he’s got plenty of dead man’s switches in the investigation in case of his removal. The wheels are in motion. Besides, who’s going to remove Mueller? Going to have to go through a lot of people to get rid of him.
Dave
@boatboy_srq: Basically yes. I think they are coming to the inevitable end of the course they’ve been on. That is they have imbibed their own bullshit and spat in the face of reality for so long that they have lost almost all mooring. They have conned themselves and don’t have anyway out. The biggest concern I have at this point isn’t that they will win, they won’t, but that we can all still lose. I’m falling on the somewhat more hopeful side at the moment but yeah they aren’t good at this.
Jeffro
Trumpov is tweeting that he has a major announcement to make upon his return…
CAPTION CONTEST!
TenguPhule
@Chip Daniels:
But we still need a majority.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
Heh. I knew there would be karmic retribution for Major^4’s dissing of brunch, the holiest of all meals. ???
bystander
I do hope Mueller heard Trump calling Brennan, Comey and Clapper “hacks”. That should give Mueller some motivation.
germy
I wish I lived in less interesting times.
I remember “slow news days” and I miss them.
I maintain drumpf’s win was the worst thing to ever happen to him, his family and his party. They would have been so much better off if Hillary had won. They could have heckled from the sidelines, they could obstruct and investigate to their heart’s content.
Drumpf would have built a TV empire based entirely on attacking everything “crooked” HRC said or did.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow: The problem isn’t that he might win. The problem is that he can ensure we don’t win either.
cmorenc
@Jeffro:
Alas, that’s not what the constitutional framework provides for succession of a deceased or successfully impeached president. And there is no provision whatever for what happens if a whole Presidential election turns out to be fatally compromised by corruption, except for impeachment and the constitutionally specified line of succession. We’d be in uncharted territory where supporting your premise would require SCOTUS to make shit up out of whole cloth. Which they basically did in Bush v Gore, but that was light-years less drastic and interventionist than what you’d be requiring them to do here – either way you’d be asking them to ratify what amounts to a coup against the current constitutional electoral framework, instead of following the clear line of succession when a President is forced from office.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: Was I doing a poll to name something? No.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: I remembered it because it actually made me laugh out loud yesterday when I read it. And all hail brunch.
Adam L Silverman
What people need to understand is that by the time a story on this stuff is published – meaning it has been researched, vetted, edited, vetted again by legal, and then reedited – it is long past the time that the Special Counsel and his team have seen the material that the news reporting is about. It is important to remember that Mueller and his team have inherited the Joint Counterintelligence Task Force that Comey set up and that gives them access to all the US, allied (Five Eyes), and partner intelligence dealing with these matters. They may not have been able to get through all of it yet, because that is a ton of material to go through. But they have it, they know what it is and what it covers. The challenge that Mueller and his team face is mapping what they know to what can be charged criminally in the US and can be done in a way that doesn’t destroy US, allied, and/or partner intelligence sources and methods. Hence the seeming focus on the financial crimes aspects.
Lee
@Corner Stone: This theory cannot be discounted. I mean he could just be a spoiled idiot that has never had to face the consequences of his actions, but somet of the shit he has pulled has actually been pretty fucking devastating the his dad.
SFAW
Maybe Hicks is hoping to be the next Megan Marshack.
bystander
@Jeffro: I’m betting its some very, very big deal he got a letter of intent on while he was making a fool of himself in Asia. He doesn’t want to discuss all the deals he screwed the US out of by pulling out of TPP.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
Sorry, no. That would require a sane majority on the SC, which we don’t have.
Anonymous At Work
First, thank you for that imagery around lunchtime.
Second, Trump controls his underlings in a number of ways, but one of them was the Spicer-method: compromise their integrity and independence immediately and bigly. Spicer was made to lie about reality as his first duty. Trump in all probability compromised Pence in some other fashion rather quickly. I imagine, and believe, that the best method would have, “Pence, coordinate a secret conversation between Flynn and the Russians.”
germy
@Jeffro:
This can’t be good. Who is he firing?
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: If you want the trend to die, using it isn’t helping. Fwiw, it made me laugh out loud.
MJS
I’m with Betty. I get the inclination to pessimism some have here, but what’s irksome is the “it won’t matter” crowd. No matter what good news comes our way (indictments, leaks, solid reporting), that crowd just knows nothing is going to change, because.. reasons. There is no historical precedent for what is happening now, but somehow, everyone in that crowd has already seen this movie and knows the ending.
Thom Rogers
I’m with you 100% on this. It’ll be him resigning rather than face the humiliation of impeachment. Never forget that Trump is above all else a coward. So that leaves us with President Dense. My yellow Lab, Jake is smarter than him and understands more words. We can rule out the possibility of him being impeached since at that point neither the Congress nor the American people would have the stomach for it. (And do we really want a President Paul Ryan?)
The solution that resolves all of these issues is the election of a Democratic Senate and House effectively neutering the chair warmer in the Oval Office.
If you’re gonna dream, dream big.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Don’t tempt fate. Desperate people do desperate things.
No Drought No More
“Hopes up”? Are you telling the world that you’re getting your hopes up anticipating a Ryan presidency? Because it sounds like you are doing just that. As you well know, Americans fucked up egregiously last November. The ramifications for that blunder are egregiously fucked up, too.
But that’s an old story with the political racketeers of the GOP. During my lifetime alone I’ve witnessed Watergate; Iran-Contra; the 2000 presidential coup; the 2003 War in Iraq; the 2008 economic disaster; and now, Donald Trump et. al.
It’s been enough to drive anyone a little nuts. It’s driven me to incessantly demand “death to the republican party” with the same intensity as Inspector Cluseau’s boss scribbled “Kill Cluseau” on the walls of his padded cell with a crayon between his toes because he’d been driven into a straight jacket.
cmorenc
@Yarrow:
I agree with you that Mueller is cagy enough to have indictments and dead-man switches in place – but OTOH indictments would be worthless if the US Attorneys/DOJ attorneys assigned to prosecute them tank the cases. If Trump doesn’t trust them, expect Saturday Night Massacre #2, except with a less firmly supportive congress to do the right thing to force Trump out or stop him.
Dave
@germy: Absolutey they would have gotten away with it if HRC won. There would have been no investigation, politically motivated witch hunt by the Clinton’s don’t have know, and midterms would have been a disaster etc etc etc. I am not a heighten the contradiction typ it’s almost always a bad idea but if and this is still a fairly big if we come through this ok it may have been one of the few times it turned out true.
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
I think that’s the morally correct outcome, but there’s no obvious constitutional way for it to happen. That means either ignoring the constitution or ripping it up. Even if we accept the need for a new election, it’s not something we can pull off overnight, so there will be a need for some kind of caretaker acting president in the meantime. Given how long our presidential elections take, unless Trump is booted out soon, it would make sense just to skip the special election and just keep the caretaker until 2020. So the question is how we get an acceptable caretaker into the line of succession before giving Trump, Pence, and the rest of the corrupt crowd the boot.
Mnemosyne
@Dave:
This is what I think, too. The Trump campaign was vulnerable to any con artist who claimed to have the goods on Hillary because they actually believe she’s crooked. It’s not fake to them. They’re dumb enough and propagandized enough to think it’s all true.
Fox has gotten them high on their own supply.
Stan
Steve Schmidt is my favorite republican. Well except for one of my cousins.
However, no matter how guilty, stupid or depraved Mike Pence is (and he is clearly all of these things) he’s probably our next president. When things become untenable for trump and he quits in a huff, GOPers can afford that ‘loss’ if they get president pence in return. Then they can claim the guilty have paid and let’s all get back to making American great again. The return to normalcy crowd will like this and Pence coasts in. The dem officeholders will go along and then wonder where the enthusiasm went.
Betty Cracker
@germy: Okay, I laughed. :)
@Jeffro: He’ll lie about deals he made to sell weapons in Asia. In truth, he’s coming home empty handed. There were “memorandums of understanding” about various possible deals that might happen in the future, but that was just his hosts being polite to his face while the world moved on behind his back.
Yarrow
@TenguPhule: It’s not tempting fate and I’m not the first to think through the process. There are steps that have to be taken for Mueller to be removed. So finding someone to do it would mean others have to go first, and that’s going to be a big, big deal. Which is why it hasn’t happened yet.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: Also, the financial crimes are the low-hanging fruit and thus can be used to, um, encourage people to talk about the rest.
The financial crimes are not unrelated to the question of Russian interference in the election, which is the subject of Mueller’s investigation. If Manafort was laundering Russian money and in debt to Russian oligarchs, then offered his services for free to Trump, one has to ask how that all comes together. In my designation of useful idiots and fellow travelers, Manafort looks much more like one of the latter.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: The trend is going hurr hurr let’s stuff the ballot box with blanky mcblankface, the wordplay scheme is fine and as has been noted predates the original Boaty.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
One would hope they put the good of the country first. Sources and methods are not going to mean much if the ones in charge of them are fucking sellouts and traitors. Just saying.
Humboldtblue
@Yarrow: I loved it, my sister sent me a text, we need all the laughs we can get.
@Major Major Major Major: I think this may the end, it’s worked and it’s mainstream.
@Origuy: I learned something today. Thanks
Redshift
@cmorenc: Yep, there is no established provision for it. But faced with the alternative of “well, the Constitution seems to demand that if we discover that our government is fatally compromised by a foreign power, we we have no alternative but to hope we can survive it and run a free and fair election,” I can’t help but wonder if a lot of people will be willing to get creative. I don’t necessarily think it’s likely, given the portion of the population that is brainwashed by the right-wing bubble, but I don’t think it should be ruled out either. These are extraordinary times.
Yoda Dog
I’m with you, Mrs. Cracker.
I don’t know when or how but all these wanna-be-gangster dipshits are going, fucking DOWN.
TenguPhule
@No Drought No More: Come sit by me.
JMG
Dear Ms. Cracker: I think you are more likely to be wrong than not. But there’s a lot less “more” in my opinion than there was even a month ago. I think Trump can’t stand the gaff of the job. West to East transpacific jet lag is the worst, and he’s gonna have it bad when he gets back to DC. Look for magnificently deranged tweet storms tomorrow am. I think he might accept health reasons as a rationale for resigning. He’s an obvious stroke/heart attack candidate. A little tachycardia late at night and he might decide to go play golf all the time. As an ex-President, he can still travel around and get bling from dictators if he wants.
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
With the warning that I am not a lawyer and never have been, I wonder if something could be done where the SC voids the previous vote of the Electoral College and they re-vote. That would se to be the least destructive way to do it but, again, IANAL.
Elizabelle
Betty. Very glad to see this. I agree. And no rewarding the GOP thieves w keeping the Executive Branch. President Hillary, President Pelosi, even President Kaine or Biden.
Trump and Pence and their whole admin is the poisonous fruit of an illegitimate election. They all need to go.
Betty Cracker
Christ on a crumpet!
Humboldtblue
@Corner Stone:
He didn’t speak to him for two years after the way Trump treated his mother, Ivanna.
Adam L Silverman
One other thing, which I think is important to keep in mind, is that the reason that certain GOP members of the House and Senate are so anxious and upset about FISA and unmasking isn’t just that it’s a partisan weapon of diversion. Rather they know who they were speaking to and who their senior staff were speaking to on their behalf. Congressman Jordan and the rest of the Freedom Caucus guys were all in regular contact with AG Sessions when he was a senator, as well as with his senior aid Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon over scuttling the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform plan in the House, as well as other issues that had passed the Senate, but Sessions and his patrons (Bannon and the Mercers) wanted killed in the House. They were also in regular touch with Miller and Bannon and Sessions on other issues, including campaign issues. So they are worried that they are included in the unmasking.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
No.
SATSQ.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: If you don’t want people to think of it then don’t continue to use it and keep it alive. Someone has to suggest it for the ballot box stuffing. They have to think of it first.
Elizabelle
@Stan: I do not agree w you. In the least. Nice try.
Dave
@Humboldtblue: So in addition to stupid Watergate are we also watching stupid Shakespeare play out? It would be fitting if part of what brings then down is how terrible they are when it comes to family relationships.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: Sorry, that’s just silly. I’m allowed to criticize people for using language one way while using the language myself a different way.
Woodrowfan
@Corner Stone: I don;t think he’;s smart enough to set a trap. He is dumb enough though to accidentally leave some landmines behind him. Like Fredo accidentally revealing he had spent time with the man who tried to kill Michael..
wenchacha
@TenguPhule: That is exactly what I want, even though we have nothing in place to make it happen. Russian meddling in the interwebs was bad, if voting rolls and machine results were hacked, the election was a sham.
jc
The Trump gangsters think they’re entitled to get away with anything and everything. They seriously appear to believe: what’s power for but to abuse? What’s the point of holding public office but to enable (their) private gain? May their bottomless arrogance and hubris be their undoing.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman:
If they haven’t done anything wrong then they have nothing to worry about.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Thus, they are very worried.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker: Are you trying to butter us up?
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Since your use of said language played on the original, which you now criticize, that seems a bit hypocritical.
Humboldtblue
@Cheryl Rofer:
USGS just posted this link on Twitter, does this mean anything? 40 million pounds of uranium on the high Texas plain.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@germy: I hate you.
John
That Morning Joe segment was depressing. Insightful, but depressing.\
The only part I enjoyed was how casually they referred to Roy Moore as “the pedophile running in Alabama”.
Humboldtblue
@Dave:
Pretty much.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Again, requires a majority on the court.
We don’t have that thanks to Bush vs. Gore.
Not unless we’re talking about arresting/impeaching SC justices.
Redshift
@boatboy_srq:
I think it’s an inevitable progression of the conservative movement from the grifting that was built into it from the beginning. They started out with leftover Republicans who actually cared about governing, some of whom were actually conservatives, and grifters who delivered votes for them and used the information the compiled in the process to extract money from the base, and condition them to be more gullible. As time went on, the people who were actually smart enough to govern noticed that grifting, wingnut welfare, and media were where the real money is, and the rubes who were dumb enough to fall for the con in the first place eagerly moved up to being office-holders in their place.
And so here we are. The vast majority of “conservatives” in government have been told all their lives that they are the majority, that their ideology is absolute truth and any so-called “experts” only disagree because they are biased against conservatives and want to drag the country down, and because their gut is just as good as those eggheads, their complete failure to make anything work is always the fault of the nearest liberal.
marcopolo
Betty, I am with you in believing this whole mess that is the Trumpocracy is going down–probably in the ugliest conceivable fashion. Back in January when the first whiffs of smoke were starting to appear I was telling friends and family that the Trump campaign had obviously done some illegal shit to get him elected but I was willing to go benefit of the doubt on whether it was a coordinated effort and whether that coordination would lead all the way back to the center of orange turdistan. Every drip, every tick, every tock since then has moved the needle in that direction. If we had known in Jan what we know now I think there would have been a mass uprising march on DC that would have dwarfed the Women’s March.
Okay maybe that was a tad hyperbolic.
Now, for the political junkies, here is a lovely featury/analysis piece from the FTFNYT from inside one of the VA delegate races starting pretty much just after the Women’s March:
I sure hope we replicate this all over the country next year in Congressional races!
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: Again, blanky mcblank has been around a long time, and I wasn’t criticizing the language, I was criticizing naming things using it in online polls.
Could, I don’t know, a comic book artist not validly say we have too many damn superhero movies?
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
So are you endorsing a coup or Civil War? Because those are your only two options for getting there.
Your wish is not possible with our current Constitutional System.
Aleta
@The Moar You Know: Get rid of Pence first.
They got Agnew out a year before. I thought it just happened that way, but some who were there say no.
The chance that Pence is not involved?
Trump uses everyone in his air space like god-given provision and wouldn’t have omitted Pence. Especially because he thinks Pence “owes him” and because the only way he can trust Pence is by incriminating him.
Personally I think Pence is dirty from a long time back.
? Martin
Trump will pardon everyone, including his kids. The matter of the legality of doing that will become the next partisan fight, with the NY AG putting the real pain down to avoid some pardons. Those New York Liberals will then be accused of finally implementing Obama’s plan to round up conservatives and put them in FEMA camps. Nothing really will change but Congress will get something to caterwaul about (proof that it was really the Dems colluding with Russia!) while they continue to fail to pass any legislation whatsoever. The 2018 midterms will roll around, Dems will pick up seats but not enough to do anything other than keep the lights on until 2020. Who the fuck knows what happens then.
boatboy_srq
@Humboldtblue: @MJS: Ain’t it amazing what you can do with a turkey baster?
TenguPhule
@wenchacha: Our Republic has relied for too long on unstated norms to our detriment. The founders never gamed out what would happen if so many people in the line of succession were actual fucking traitors.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Yep.
marcopolo
@Betty Cracker: Who knew that using the memo line could get you in so much trouble :)
boatboy_srq
@Dave: Add Sophocles and Euripides to that list and you’ve about got it.
Redshift
@Major Major Major Major:
So? None of the “ballot boxes” are binding. The research vessel in the original instance didn’t get that name, they used it for an associated submersible because it was good for public engagement, which was the whole purpose of the contest. This latest instance is clearly Australians being Australian, and is only attracting notice because they actually went through with it. It’ll peter out before too long; let people have their fun.
Elizabelle
@TenguPhule: Gorsuch has to recuse. He directly benefited from the election fraud. He gets no say. None.
OGLiberal
@Chip Daniels: “just those who actually want government to keep the lights on, streets swept and garbage picked up.”
Unfortunately, many of those people also want to make damned sure that brown people not only don’t get those things but also don’t get stuff like support to feed their children. They’ll pass on garbage pickup if it means that some lazy brown person doesn’t get help from the government to give his/her kid a decent lunch on a school day. There are a lot of Trump voters who want stuff from government, even more than they get today. (the Never Trumpers are much more pure on cutting entitlements than rank and file MAGA voters) They just don’t want those people to get it as well.
HeleninEire
I ain’t gonna piss on your parade, Betty. If only because I soooooo want it to happen.
“You gotta give them hope.” /Harvey Milk. RIP.
trollhattan
Odds.
Trump completes second term. 1,000/1
Trump completes portion of second term. 500/1
Trump elected to second term. 100/1
Trump nominated to second term. 20/1
Trump completes first term. 10/1
Trump makes it through 2017: 1/9
That’s how I call it.
Matt McIrvin
@Tom Q: I can’t speak to the situation in ’73, but to me it looks like our national thought about politics never recovered from the Republican presidential landslides of the 1980s. That really established the axiom that Democrats Always Lose, even if sometimes they don’t.
Maybe 1972 is the real watershed, though: Nixon wins in a 49-state landslide with every liberal already hating him with volcanic fury and being sure he’s crooked as hell. I was too young to really remember it.
Redshift
@marcopolo:
Yeah, that was an awesome read. I was very impressed with how effectively she was able to harness groups that put a premium on being “leaderless.” That’s definitely something a lot of Democratic campaigns need to learn from.
Ridnik Chrome
@Sandia Blanca: I’m imagining that scene as drawn by Harvey Kurtzman or Robert Crumb, and it’s hilarious…
Elizabelle
@Redshift: Will bookmark it. Thanks.
Major Major Major Major
@Redshift:
I find it dull.
I’m not exactly trying to stop them.
Humboldtblue
At least three dead in a shooting in Tehama county here in NorCal.
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Unfortunately SC justices are not governed by the same rules as other justices.
Gorsuch does not have to recuse himself if he doesn’t want to.
Would it break even more norms and customs? Certainly. But the rules allow him to do it with impunity.
Redshift
@Betty Cracker:
And when was it that Mueller added a FinCEN guy to his staff?
MJS
@? Martin: Who knows what happens then? You, apparently.
Elizabelle
@? Martin: Stop typhooning on our parade.
SatanicPanic
We’re already a year into this admin. If Dems take the house in 2018 they can hound him out of office by demanding his tax returns and at that point, how much harm can whoever replace him do? Whoever it is, they’ll be very likely to lose reelection, and in the meantime they’ll be hemmed in by a Congress that can refuse, rightly, to do much of anything beyond keeping the lights on.
Tim C.
@Roger Moore: I think it does matter, but not in a short-term way. The thing that has the GOP completely terrified right now is how many of their own voters are fully on board the Trump train. Those voters *hate* the institutional GOP, they hate the Bush family, and they hate, hate, hate. Mitch McConnell with a flaming purple passion. If Trump goes, pretty much for any reason and is replaced by any other Republican. Then policy wont matter to them. They’ll be done. Chuck and Nancy aren’t good enough boogeymen (women). Hillary Clinton was maybe the only person they could use; it’s no accident Trump and company are *still* attacking her a year after they won the electoral college. The GOP can’t afford to lose 10-25% of their own base, and I think that’s possibly on the low end of what they lose if Trump isn’t president in 2020.
Please feel free to throw fruit if you think I’m wrong. :)
bobbo
what the hell is going on with Scarborough’s hair? Is this some kind of Something About Mary thing?
Starshot
I want a bumper sticker that says “Nancy Pelosi 2018”
Lyrebird
@Humboldtblue: That’s awful.
If anyone needs to cry, Doug Jones’ “Seeking Justice” talk is a good way.
Gin & Tonic
@Cheryl Rofer:
To me, “fellow traveler” implies some shared ideology. Paul Manafort has no ideology. He is a mercenary, pure and simple, with no more understanding of ideological or ethical principles than your dog.
Cheryl Rofer
@Humboldtblue: It means that if the Trumpies have their way, the Texas panhandle will be one big open-pit mine.
It looks to me like the uranium may be there, but there’s no way to recover it that wouldn’t mean intolerable environmental damage.
ETA: As the article says, this is the kind of thing that the USGS does – assesses what’s there. It’s up to us through our congressional representatives (yes, I know) to decide what to do with it.
rikyrah
I don’t know why being hopeful is considered bad.
The thing about it…these muthaphuckas are liars. And, there isn’t a question Bobby Three Sticks is asking that he doesn’t know the answer to. I have said for awhile that Race Bannon is delusional.
1. He’s up to his eyeballs in the Flynn mess.
2. He’s also up to his eyeballs in the Comey firing.
3. If he thinks that Dolt45 is going down WITHOUT TAKING EVERYBODY WITH HIM – that is having a PhD in delusional on Race Bannon’s part.
The three folks – without hesitation – that KNEW ALL THEIR ACTIONS WERE ILLEGAL..
are Race Bannon, Flynn and Attorney General White Citizens Council.
I want all of them in jumpsuits.
Mike in DC
The post-Trump GOP will depend in large part upon how disastrous Trump turns out to be for them. The post-Trump Democratic party will depend upon how effective opposition was, and how much the get-along don’t rock the boat mentality is broken apart in the wake of Trump.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
Seriously, people need to stop asking this question. Its bad luck.
rikyrah
A Trump Judicial Nominee Appears To Have Written About Politics On A Sports Website And Didn’t Disclose It
After the Sandy Hook mass shooting, a commenter on a University of Alabama sports fan message board who later identified himself as Brett Talley wrote, “My solution would be to stop being a society of pansies and man up.”
Originally posted on November 13, 2017, at 5:34 p.m.
Zoe Tillman
BuzzFeed News Reporter
One of President Donald Trump’s federal court nominees appears to have written posts for years on a University of Alabama sports fan website — including posts about gun control and immigration — and didn’t disclose the writings on his Senate questionnaire.
The messages on TideFans.com were posted by the user “BamainBoston.” In a Dec. 8, 2014, post, the user identified himself as Brett Talley, linking to a Washington Post article about Talley under the subject line “Washington Post Did A Feature On Me.”
Talley has been nominated for a seat on the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, and is already facing criticism this week for a disclosure-related issue: The New York Times reported on Monday that Talley failed to include in his Senate questionnaire that he is married to a lawyer in the White House counsel’s office, Ann Donaldson. The questionnaire asks nominees to disclose family members who are “likely to present potential conflicts of interest.”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/zoetillman/a-trump-judicial-nominee-appears-to-have-written-about?utm_term=.pemR0zr1Ok#.jqKjyn7rmd
Cheryl Rofer
@Gin & Tonic: You’re probably strictly correct, in the historical use of the word. But the ideology of the oligarchs, if we can call it that, is MOAR MONEY. Manafort shares that.
CaseyL
@Betty Cracker: I’m inclined to be a little suspicious of that “scoop,” because an espionage operation doesn’t announce itself on the memo line of a check. Also (per responses to the tweet) the payments could be associated with legitimate expenses; i.e., there was an election in Russia, and Russians abroad at the time needed absentee ballots to vote.
Gelfling 545
@Roger Moore: You think Trump is still able to engage in interface?
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m never sure about that. You’d think that somebody who had no ideology and was just going where the money was would occasionally pick a decent client.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
What keeps the rest of us up at night is that Trump’s idea of taking everybody with him really is taking everyone else with him.
Major Major Major Major
@CaseyL:
Unless you’re Paul Manafort…
Humboldtblue
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thank you.
Dave
@Tim C.: What you are talking about in my mind is the good outcome. Which is that portion of GOP base either actively views itself as GOP enemy or withdraws from politics while at the same time a modest portion of the uninvolved electorate is activated and stays that way. I’m not sure how likely this is but it’s a plausible outcome at this point.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore: Decent clients wouldn’t pay him enough.
rikyrah
The Associated PressVerified account @AP
BREAKING: Authorities say 3 dead in shooting in rural Northern California; shooter killed after also wounding kids at school.
10:18 AM – 14 Nov 2017
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore: The “indecent” clients always pay better.
dogwood
I don’t feel completely helpless or hopeless about the situation we find ourselves right in right now. But I do feel frustrated at all the Deus ex Machina fantasies that turn up in all these threads. There is no dream scenario fix for any of this. I see the California billionaire is spending another 10 million on impeachment ads. That’s 20 million that could have been used to actually register voters and elect Democrats. We have Democratic Senators facing tough re-election campaigns in places like North Dakota and Missouri. Democrats need to be dead serious about what we can do to stop this degradation of our democracy and stop all the wishful thinking.
Betty Cracker
@CaseyL: It does seem to be too dumb to be real.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah: Let me predict the future:
White Shooter: Lone Wolf! Mental Issues
Black Shooter: Black Lives Matter Facist Terrorist!
Muslim Shooter: Terrorist!
Brown Shooter: Terrorist! Also, Illegal immigrant!!
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
It says something about the times we live in that we can’t be completely sure about that.
rikyrah
Kyle GriffinVerified account @kylegriffin1
Between Election Day 2016 and September 2017, political committees reported paying at least $1,270,000 to Trump entities.
Not a dollar has come from Democrats.
Among congressional Republicans, 40 have spent campaign, leadership PAC $ at Trump properties.
TenguPhule
@dogwood:
Thinking and planning are for whining negative trolls. Do something without a plan and wishful thinking, that’s the way forward! //
Ladyraxterinok
@Tom Q: I think you’re on to something with your statement about To K a Mbird. For some liberals, democrats, progressives … the only important thing is knowing that they are morally superior. Who cares how much collateral damage to real people there may be.
rikyrah
ABC News PoliticsVerified account @ABCPolitics
Asked if Black Lives Matter is a “black identity extremist group,” AG Jeff Sessions says “I’m not able to comment on that.”
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: The unqualified asshole’s wife is not just a lawyer in the WH counsel’s office — she’s been identified as a witness by the Mueller team. And Trump is dangling this lifetime appointment for her husband? Sounds like obstruction to me.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Another bad guy with a gun, deep in Trump country..
While the NRA defends felons’ right to have guns they want everybody else to as well.
rikyrah
ABC NewsVerified account @ABC
Attorney General Sessions says he does not have “a senior staff member, at this time, that’s an African-American. http://abcn.ws/2htbyes
Major Major Major Major
@dogwood: there are significant chunks of the democratic coalition (and fair-weather democrats/noisy leftists) who fundamentally reject practicality.
germy
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
For legal reasons or practical reasons? Those are two different objections, which is why I ask.
TenguPhule
@trollhattan: WTH, I thought felons were one of the few remaining classes that are still prohibited from owning a gun legally?
rikyrah
James ArkinVerified account @JamesArkin
“We will be including that” Sen. Toomey just told me on individual mandate repeal in tax bill
11:28 AM – 14 Nov 2017
HeleninEire
@Adam L Silverman: Yes. Kinda like, when you read in Newsweek that a new cancer treatment is da bomb, the people curing and treating cancer have known about it for 2 years.
Interrobang
OT: Delurking to vent at a bunch of fellow pet-lovers. I just got a new job. I won’t be paid until next week. Yesterday, my beloved cat Gypsy (the one who picked me at the Humane Society) went into acute renal failure. She needs to be hospitalized, and even if so, the prognosis is grave. I cannot find a vet here in Toronto who will take even a short-term payment plan. The vet I’m seeing wants $2500-3500 for everything. My sweet hugglebug is going to die because I’m broke. Fuck my life.
Humboldtblue
@Interrobang:
I’m so sorry. I sort of found myself in the same position with my sweet Midnight in July. She had been going downhill, losing weight, getting weaker and three trips to the vet for no results cost me more than $750 between March and June and when she really went downhill I had no money left for anything more.
She died in my arms on Wednesday night.
She was my first pet.
Man I miss her.
Now I’m fucking crying.
burnspbesq
@Cheryl Rofer:
If that were to happen, Bernie would immediately commence some sort of ugly, misogynistic proxy war against her re-installation as Speaker. He won’t be able to help himself.
HeleninEire
@SFAW: ohhhhhh raise your hand if you get that reference. I do. Cuz I am old. And a NY’er
manyakitty
@Interrobang: Is there a veterinary school nearby? Maybe they can help.
rikyrah
This is how a superpower commits suicide:
Excerpt:
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/930309540012265472
manyakitty
@Humboldtblue: Oh no! I’m so sorry. hugs.
Major Major Major Major
@Interrobang: how awful! I can’t believe the vets won’t take a plan.
ruemara
I agree with you, Betty. I don’t necessarily believe that Mueller’s investigation will be quick or result in something like the movies, but as more information comes out, the Republicans will have to decide how they want to go down both in history and for the rest of their lives. Most will choose self-preservation.
catclub
@The Moar You Know:
I am guessing not so much, if trump has been thrown out, the rest of the Federal government will slow him down a lot from doing as many bad things.
Especially if other Department heads ?Sessions? also go in the process.
SFAW
@Aleta:
I’m sorry, but when I saw the end of that line, all I could think of was Pence standing on a corner in Moskva, saying “Hey Vladi, me love you long time!”
SFAW
@HeleninEire:
Glad someone did.
ETA: Of course, Rocky really WAS rich, not pretend rich. And he didn’t have a BMI of 36
rikyrah
@Humboldtblue:
So sorry for your loss:(
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
Unfortunately, their personal self preservation is not necessarily in the country’s best interests.
D58826
Watching this hearing and dis regarding all of the partisan snipping but how in heavens name can you develop any kind of oversight or factual record with a 5 minute limit on the questions by each critter. There seems to be a premium on rapid fire questions by the critters and a slow long drawn out answer by the witness. There is no time for detailed question s or followup. There is way to develop a line of information. Each critter gets his/her 5 minutes w/o regard to what the other critters are talking about
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: Now THAT is what I am talking about!
hueyplong
@SFAW: You should be sorry. We can’t unread that.
I’ll get you back. And it will involve either Bannon or Sessions. Maybe both.
TenguPhule
@D58826: Its a circus for the media. If they were serious about it the doors would be closed for the session.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Interrobang: @Humboldtblue: Aw, damn. So sorry to hear.
catclub
@rikyrah:
Apparently Rand Paul also wants this. His effort to help sabotage the bill just a little. The same two or three GOP senators who killed the Healthcare bill will now be willing to kill this bill as well.
Or at least, I live in hope that they will.
jl
Don’t have time to read all comments, so apologies if already mentioned. Medicare cuts still in the House GOP tax proposal, and it also requires additional massive cuts that would violate US law without additional Congressional action (not possible under reconciliation, if I understand correctly). House proposal can ‘only’ take $25 billion from Medicare under current rules, and not enough money can be found under current law to reduce expenditure through sequestration (another $110 billion). So, an F-up on arithmetic of epic proportions. Seems like House will have to make some major changes or try to ram something through that is in conflict with current law. I guess we need help from BJ lawyer who is an expert in conflict of laws and in violation of reconciliation rules. Link in Krugman’s tweet goes to a two page explainer CBO sent to Hoyer.
Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
This is awesome: passing the R tax cut would REQUIRE an immediate $25 billion cut in Medicare, plus $111 billion in other cuts (which isn’t legally possible). I.e., the whole exercise is illegal under Congress’ own rules https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/costestimate/hr1hoyerletter.pdf …
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/930520569661022209
Shana
@germy: EEEEEWWW!
GregB
Essentially the nation is at a point where about 30% of the population is demanding national suicide and the GOP have been slowly pulling the trigger since January.
Also, another NRA gun stroker has decided to use his toys to murder children today.
TenguPhule
@jl:
Why not both?
catclub
@TenguPhule: Yep, or they would have a committee counsel asking all the questions. The name Sam Dash springs to mind. Anybody older than I remember if I am correct?
D58826
According to the AG the first amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion. He emphases ‘exercise of’ not just religious thought. So if my religious beliefs include sacrificing a virgin (if I can find one. maybe substituting a congress critter) does that mean I can go out and actually exercise that belief?
TenguPhule
@GregB:
They have strapped the nation in a wet suit and have fully greased the dildo. Now they are tightening the noose.
Major Major Major Major
@Humboldtblue: how terrible! So sorry.
hueyplong
Very sorry about the pets. We lost ours last year, but it was after 17 great years and we pretty much knew her time was up. The vets make their money on the end game, when you pour your money in for treatments that at best delay the inevitable. But you can’t help it. You look into its eyes and you can’t let go.
TenguPhule
@D58826: Only if its found in the Bible.
hueyplong
@TenguPhule: We were just kidding. You can go back to the straight-up eliminationist stuff now.
D58826
@TenguPhule: True but your assuming that they run the hearings differently behind closed doors. If the format behind closed doors is just as silly then it’s no wonder nothing gets done.
jl
@Cracker
” responses to this post will be people telling me I’m an idiot for getting my hopes up. ”
Well, House GOP has another problem on its hands in passing its ultra rich person’s tax slash. You are welcome.
Full service commenters for a full service blog!
D58826
@TenguPhule: Hmmmm. I assume that if it is found in the Koran then it doesn’t count. (snarky)
TenguPhule
@D58826: They do. Closed door sessions tend to result in Democrats performing better.
TenguPhule
@D58826: I wish I was joking. Its not as funny when its true.
catclub
@jl: My prediction is House passes its version and throws it over to the Senate, which (I hope) continues following its own rules and finds it cannot pass it via reconciliation. And it all dies. meanwhile DACA and CHIP are forgotten – funny that.
Kay
The NYTimes is reprinting Clinton Cash again to flog the Uranium One scandal:
Someone needs to investigate why this newspaper is so completely in bed with the Trump Administration.
Freaking ridiculous. Watch the herd follow the Paper of Record for yet another year of investigations into Hillary Clinton.
The imaginary Clinton Administration gets more rigorous coverage than the actual Trump Administration.
JaneSays
In the absolute best case scenario, the Democrats retake control of the House, win the Alabama senate seat next month, and then flip Arizona and Nevada next year giving them a razor-thin 51-49 majority (no, they’re not flipping Texas or any of the other five extremely red GOP states in play).
Impeachment in the House becomes extremely viable at that point, but the Senate is still going to be a tall order, because they’ll need all 51 Democrats PLUS 16 Republicans to extract the tangerine douche from the Oval Office.
Can you name 16 Republican U.S. Senators who are prepared to oust their king? And even if you can, do you really think they’re going to follow that up by immediately ousting his replacement (Pence) and putting a Democrat (very possibly Nancy Pelosi) in the White House? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
And keep in mind, we’re talking about the best case scenario for Democrats in terms of the senate composition. It’s still a lot more likely that the Republicans will control the upper chamber in 2019 than that they won’t (Democrats are defending seats in TEN states Trump won next year). Which means they’ll probably need 17-19 Republicans to hop on board the removal train to get it done.
I do think it’s very likely that Trump won’t finish his first term, but I think it will probably be because he resigns when shit gets too hot. I see absolutely no chance of the Democrats taking over the White House in any capacity prior to January 20, 2021.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: America will not truly be free until I can wear a collander in my passport photo.
TenguPhule
@hueyplong: I hope Mueller succeeds. We’re running out of time.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Without going into the weeds of such things as who would have standing to bring a case forward, especially one for which there is no legal canon of applicable judicial redress, the short answer is: Both.
LurkerNoLonger
@jl: D’oh! Math and reality are hard for Republicans.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: Sounds more like bribery, flat out. We need to be bringing back the tried and true crime of misprision.
Kay
Boehner needs to be a pundit. He would be the best thing that ever happened to cable. Three words. Beautiful.
The Moar You Know
@Gin & Tonic: My dog has a very stringent awareness of fairness and insists on it.
His ideology, granted, is restricted to replacing money with tummy rubs and that the rights of dogs to consume chicken whenever they want shall not be infringed.
I would put him up against Manafort any day. Manafort wouldn’t come off looking too good.
TenguPhule
@JaneSays:
If Mueller has enough evidence on enough Republicans, this is not necessarily true.
In theory, if enough of the line of succession are subject to removal for high crimes, we could get a Democrat in the White House before then.
But it would take a lot of luck and everything going right.
marcopolo
@Redshift: Yeah, having to use a spreadsheet to keep track of all the pop up resistance/political groups–who’d have thunk? She does sound like a great campaign manager, leveraging all of the energy of those groups while (and this is really noteworthy) not seeming to take them for granted/take advantage of them just for the campaign’s sake.
Immanentize
@HeleninEire: Trump gets it too….
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize: wow, what a great word! p.s. close your link
JaneSays
@The Moar You Know: You will never find 16-19 Republican U.S. senators who are willing to get on board with removing Mike Pence from office, especially if they see that the road ends with a Democrat moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue before 2021.
hueyplong
I don’t see an impeachment conviction happening, absent incontrovertible evidence that Trump had to be physically restrained from putting the nuclear codes in play. [I hope someone in the room would in fact do that if the situation came up.] The way out is to get him so apoplectic that he quits for whatever reason. That’s why I like to see things that point toward prosecution of Trump family members. Sure, it’s long odds that threats to anyone but himself will move King Mirror, but you play the cards you’re dealt.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
How much would you like to bet that the answer is money?
Gin & Tonic
Completely OT, but if there is a company anywhere with worse customer service than Network Solutions, I have yet to find it.
SatanicPanic
@Kay: Wow, they’re pretty much a garbage paper at this point.
TenguPhule
@hueyplong:
I don’t see Trump as the type of person to leave quietly.
More like flip the table, flip everyone the bird, then order military strikes on other countries just to spite everyone.
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: Amazon?
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic: Comcast?
Ladyraxterinok
@Humboldtblue: So corporations just tear up/destroy western OK??
OK already in trouble with lots of earthquakes b/c of fracking.
With major financial probs, the GOP controlled state would probably sell everything in sight at fire-sale prices.
Humdog
@Interrobang: and @Humboldtblue: I am very sorry. Just survived my dear boxer Lexi’s passing inAugust. It may be some consolation that I don’t believe our dear pets want to suffer for long. While you no doubt fault yourselves for lack of funds, money cannot fix everything and often only buys a few months of pain and medicines. Spend time thinking of the joy you had when you first got your critters and of the fun and happy times you’ve had and try to think of their too soon passing being an escape from extra suffering.
PAM Dirac
@SFAW: Didn’t a (very early years) SNL do some kind of skit on “A new Rescue 911, guest starring Megan Marshack”?
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: Oopsie — too late to edit linky. Sorry and Sad!
D58826
As I listen to Sessions try and explain away his various meetings with sundry Russians a question pops into my mind. By the time he was filling out his disclosure forums for AG the issue of Russian interference in the election was going full blast. Even if one or more of these meetings was purely in his capacity as a Senator, why not just say on the form these are ALL of the meetings even though disclosure of some of them may not required. Under the current circumstances over discloseure is the better approach.
hueyplong
@TenguPhule: He was always a quitter in business (bankruptcies), so why not politics, if he’s gone long enough while having little or no fun. Under the right circumstances, he’d leave with a deal in place to keep all his ill-gotten (foreign) gains, and we’re a country with a history of saying “bygones” to such shit (see Watergate, the Confederacy).
JaneSays
@MJS: Thanks. Now I’ve got a visual image of Trump “interfacing”. You owe me a lunch, to replace the one I just tossed up.
jl
@Kay:
” The imaginary Clinton Administration gets more rigorous coverage than the actual Trump Administration. ”
I think rigorous reporting on any criminal activity, or any kind of scandal at all, involving Uranium One would consist of a complete debunking. Citing the right wing propagandist the Times hired to spread disinformation disguised as reporting doesn’t quality. Looks like House GOPers raving complete insane horseshit about it in the hearing today.
You can make a fuss about contributions and fees that could have had an appearance of influence peddling wrt to Bill Clinton and Foundation, but, really, even there, nothing at all out of ordinary SOP in US politics today. Nothing there. Period.
Edit: if there was anything at all to Uranium One, why do Trumpsters and GOP have to spread ridiculous Big Lies about it? They just make counterfactual shit up. For example, no uranium could leave the US, less than 1 percent of US production was involved -the 20% concerns production capacity, and there is a completely independent mechanism for providing US and Russia with uranium needed to maintain nuclear weapon stockpiles, Uranium One had nothing to do with that.
Matt McIrvin
@Tim C.: Yes. If Mike Pence becomes President, he’s going to have this super-short honeymoon because all the Very Serious People will be so happy that he’s not Donald Trump. It will fade almost immediately, because the guy’s none too smart, he’s not particularly likable, and… he’s not Donald Trump. Evangelical Christians and hardcore conservatives will still love him; the mostly apolitical jerks who just saw Trump as a big middle finger to everyone they hate, or who thought of Trump as an amusing celebrity businessman from TV, won’t. Mike Pence is just some random cold fish to them. He’s not going to be making those charmingly insane totalitarian tweets on the can.
So, politically, it’ll be progress. It just may take more elections for that to manifest.
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize: great word though, be a good title for a novel, already wrote it down no stealing
TenguPhule
@hueyplong:
He also shit on everyone he could when he did declare bankruptcy. The horror stories about the contractors were quite enlightening. Trump is obsessed with attention. He likes to hurt others by proxy. He’s a physical coward, but that also means he reacts worse then if he were just a typical strong man.
Nobody on either side would believe in that deal. It wouldn’t be worth the paper its printed on. He’s made an enemy of the IC. They know he’s a traitor.
catclub
@TenguPhule:
about the same likelihood that all the gas atoms in my room decide to move to the far wall at the same time. But not impossible!
TenguPhule
@JaneSays: Imagine how bad backing up the data must be.
tobie
@Kay: I think I saw Peter Baker last night lamenting that although an investigation into the Uranium One deal and the Clinton Foundation is merited, it would always have the taint of a political witch hunt. These people have so internalized the rightwing’s conspiracy theories that they can’t help but repeat them all the time. Sad to see the NYTimes sink so low.
TenguPhule
@catclub: You gotta have hope!
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: It will make a great novel! Or, just the history of the 2016 campaign….
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: @TenguPhule:
Amateur hour compared to NetSol.
Matt McIrvin
…Also, if Trump is still around, he will of course still be running his yap and will have immense grudges against everyone still in office.
hueyplong
@TenguPhule: But it would be Trump making that deal. It wouldn’t matter if both parties on the other side didn’t believe in it. And Trump has always been more aggressive than smart.
trollhattan
Ted Lieu brought his inner Al Franken to the Sessions hearing. You can hear the “thwack” from three time zones away.
Ah do believe he gave Beauregard a case of the vapors.
martian
@Interrobang: I second the vet school reccomendation. I’ve gotten good care for pets from university programs when I was flat broke. Maybe Anne could throw up a pet bleg? Is there time? I’m so sorry – it’s not fair.
@Humboldtblue: You surrounded her with love until the end, and that’s the best anyone can do. I’m sure she felt it. I am so very sorry for your loss.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Still think it’s somewhat hypocritical to say it’s okay to use it in everyday conversation but not okay to stuff ballots with it. Why not? Or is stuffing ballot boxes with any name in a naming contest not acceptable? Just the Boaty McBoatface variations are wrong?
A comic book artist can say what they want to say and I’m free to have an opinion about what they say. If they make a living creating superhero characters but complain about having too many superhero movies, I’d see that as somewhat hypocritical as well. Unless they were always consistent about wanting to keep the superheros on the page and not on the screen.
JaneSays
@MJS: Thanks. Now I’ve got a visual image of Trump “interfacing”. You owe me a lunch, to replace the one I just tossed up.@Jeffro: There’s absolutely no provision in the U.S. Constitution to “invalidate” an election, or hand it to his opponent. Hillary Clinton is never to be appointed to the presidency by an invalidation of the 2016 results. Whether you, I, or anyone else thinks that should happen is completely irrelevant – there is no mechanism in the Constitution that would trigger such an outcome.
The only way we are going to be rid of the Trump thing before 2020 is via his death, resignation, or removal following impeachment.
Scenario #1 is possible given his horrendous diet and generally lousy health habits, but he does have the benefit of access to the absolute best medical care of anyone in the entire world.
Scenario #2 is probably the most likely path to getting rid of him before 2020.
Scenario #3 requires at least 16 and possibly up to 19 or more Republican U.S. Senators agreeing to join Democrats to vote for the removal of their king. Not very likely at all. And even in the extremely unlikely event they do get on board, there’s virtually NO chance of them following up with that momentary lapse of non-mendacity by joining Democrats to give Pence the boot to, especially if it will end with a Democrat in the White House prior to the next election. Will not happen, period.
The Moar You Know
@JaneSays: I know.
The only way we are getting back into power is with votes – in a system we know to be rigged by the opposition. This will be tough and ugly. It will take far longer than anybody here will want. And even a successful recapturing of federal power does not fix the core problem – that there is a voting majority of American citizens that have voted for the Nazi Party to take over every branch of local, county, state and federal government, aided and abetted by a complacent Democratic Party that will not take its blinkered eyes off the presidency even while the lion’s share of the damage is being done elsewhere. Ellison’s presser yesterday was the first truly hopeful thing I’ve heard since the election. 50-state strategy at all levels. That’s the only way we get our country back.
martian
@Interrobang: Throwing out an idea – shelters have vets who volunteer time. Maybe a no-kill shelter could point you to a sympathetic vet?
jl
@trollhattan: Ted Lieu knows how to go on very effective attack. I need to learn more about his policy positions.
JaneSays
I do think the end result of all of this will be a Democrat becoming the 46th or (much less likely) 47th President of the United States – at 12pm ET on January 20, 2021. And not a minute before then.
catclub
@JaneSays:
For completeness sake, 25th amendment solutions are also possible.
Humboldtblue
Thanks for all the kind words, folks. I had prepared a comment I had written when she passed to post here among this sea of lovely pet lovers, but it never seemed the right time to post it so I kept it to myself.
TenguPhule
@hueyplong: I doubt he’ll do a deal. More likely it’ll be BBB.
Bluster, Bluff and Blackmail.
RepubAnon
@Origuy: The mascot was going to be The Donald?
Yarrow
@Interrobang: So sorry you’re dealing with this. Definitely look for a vet school. Also, ask about any sort of payment plan. Maybe your vet will help you out.
@Humboldtblue: So sorry for your loss. So very hard.
rikyrah
ABC NewsVerified account @ABC
Asked what steps he’s taken to protect elections, Attorney General Sessions says, “I have not followed through to see where we are on that.”
TenguPhule
@catclub:
But extremely improbable.
Ladyraxterinok
@Matt McIrvin: The democrats in congress just rolled over and gave Reagan everything he asked for. They were struck blind, deaf, and dumb by the landslide. I was furious.
ALSO the 3 networks called the election for Reagan before rhe polls closed in the pacific time zone. (And maybe in the western zone as well.) That drastically cut down the vote in those zones, people reportedly hearing the call and leaving the voting lines.
That then drastically skewed the results in down-ballot elections, including House and Senate seats!!
rikyrah
CNNVerified account @CNN
Rep. Ted Lieu: “Did Donald Trump ever ask you to pledge an oath of loyalty to him?”
AG Jeff Sessions: “No”
TenguPhule
@trollhattan:
Interesting how he’s so specific about what he thought he was answering.
Interrobang
Thanks everyone for the suggestion and moral support. I’m pursuing credit. I don’t know if there’s time. I’m halfway expecting to get home tonight and find that all my efforts today (and I’m on the second day of my new job, so already overwhelmed) to secure funding are moot, if you get my drift. This sucks.
Precisely when did our collective trolley go off the right tracks and get diverted into the Darkest Timeline siding? Because I don’t like this one. Someone put up pro-Nazi posters at the University of British Columbia (across the country from me), calling them “the true heroes of WWII” on Remembrance Day, of all the bloody things, we’ve got this mess with Trump spilling all over the place like an uncontained deluge of toxic waste, and now my cuddlebug is dying. FML.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Sessions: He never used the word pledged at all.
rikyrah
Trump, breaking with precedent, will not meet with American Nobel recipients
NOVEMBER 13, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump, breaking a tradition that stretches back nearly two decades, will not personally greet the eight American Nobel laureates this year before they travel to Sweden in December to receive their prizes.
Not all the honorees are disappointed.
Two American Nobel Prize winners, when contacted by STAT, indicated they would not have attended a White House event even if invited. Columbia biophysicist Joachim Frank, awarded a Nobel in chemistry for his work in microscopy, said in an email he was “very relieved” when he learned there was no chance of an encounter with the president.
“I will not put my foot into the White House as long as Trump, Pence, or Ryan (i.e., the possible succession of impeachments) will occupy it,” Frank said. “I cannot speak for the others; don’t know them personally yet, but I strongly believe that as thinking intelligent people they will have a similar attitude as I.”
https://www.statnews.com/2017/11/13/white-house-nobel-ceremony/
jl
@TenguPhule: Good point. Session’s memory lurches from non-existent to perfect recall. Very strange.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: ok, as long as you’re consistently wrong.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: Lieu is Asian. Pretty sure an Asian daring to impugn Jefferson Beauregard Session III’s integrity is just too far!
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
To the contrary, have found Amazon customer service to be extremely responsive, efficient and helpful.
Have dealt with them only by way of phone. Cannot speak to dealing with them online.
TenguPhule
@Ladyraxterinok: Same thing happened in 2004. Lot of dispirited voters in the pacific. That’s how we got stuck with Lingle (R).
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Who’s consistently wrong?
rikyrah
Daniel DaleVerified account @ddale8
Daniel Dale Retweeted WilliamThornton
Roy Moore’s wife shared a Facebook post claiming the Olde Hickory House restaurant didn’t exist in 1977. Alabama reporter proves it did:
TenguPhule
@jl: He even remembers things that his questioners never asked him. Al Franken comes to mind.
Tazj
@rikyrah: Good grief. Name a job not in the Trump administration, you would get to keep with an answer like that.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow: John Cole.
/Its a hallowed BJ tradition.
TenguPhule
@Tazj:
CEO of any Fortune 500 company.
Ladyraxterinok
@TenguPhule: In Gore v Bush, Thomas should have recused self cuz wife working on W’s transition team. Scalia should have also, cuz 1 son in law firm arguing W case before FL court and 1 son in law firm arguing W case before SCOTUS.
Major Major Major Major
@Interrobang:
Everybody knows David Bowie was singlehandedly holding our understood reality together.
jl
@rikyrah: Moore is a reactionary Xtianist fundamentalist. He should have admitted to sin and repented early on. Instead he issued an absolute denial, did a generalized confession that could obviously allow that he picked up some underage kids during his admitted serial pick-up attempts and assaults on age of consent plus one day teens (which however were not ‘general’, do remember that proviso!). Now he’s back to absolute denials.
Half a dozen Xtianist fundy preachers that I remember in the news know how to play it, but Moore doesn’t. Odd.
chopper
@Interrobang:
cubs winning the series.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: you. Your opinion on the matter is wrong but as it is consistently applied I have no trouble agreeing to disagree.
feebog
The shit will hit the fan when Bobby Three Sticks indicts Donnie Jr. and Jared. Trumpov will go off the rails at that point and issue premature pardons to one or both. This will trigger a national crisis and bring million out into the streets. The only thing that would keep a lid on it would be for SCOTUS to invalidate the pardons. The pressure on congress to impeach will be unbearable, they will have to act.
Matt McIrvin
@Ladyraxterinok: I also think the media obsession with psychoanalyzing the angry white voter also began in 1980, with pundits asking themselves why they’d misread the country so badly. Evangelical “born-again” voters had sort of come out of nowhere in 1976 supporting Jimmy Carter, but now they were part of this massive Republican wave.
TenguPhule
@Interrobang:
The moment five justices decided Bush vs Gore.
rikyrah
Alixandria Lapp @AliLapp
Dana Rohrabacher losing by 10 points to a Democratic opponent, 41% to 51%, in CA-48 (Orange County). Ryan at 28/63 and Trump at 44/54.
5:17 AM – 14 Nov 2017
TenguPhule
@feebog:
If you’re expecting either one of those, I’m afraid you’d better plan for a long term wait.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@rikyrah: I just saw a tweet claiming that Moore and his wife fabricated the letter from pastors supporting him.
Aleta
@jl: To the best of his recollection, the only thing Sessions remembers clearly is that he must be innocent. Obviously! To be questioned so grieves him to the white, Southern bone.
TenguPhule
@chopper: Nah, that was part of it being the Darkest Timeline.
Just One More Canuck
@Interrobang: I don’t know where you are in Toronto (I’m in Markham), but there are some clinics that do have payment plans. The one I found quickly is in the Beaches. Here’s a link to their webpage that discusses this and has a link to the company that provides the financing
http://www.vetstoronto.com/emergency-steps/
Good luck to you and Gypsy
rikyrah
Sarah KendziorVerified account @sarahkendzior
Sessions hearing has three main lines of inquiry:
1) Did Sessions collude with Russia or abet others colluding?
2) Did he cover up collusion and lie about it?
3) Is he going to abuse his position to target Trump’s enemies?
These are horrifying questions #SessionsHearing
8:02 AM – 14 Nov 2017
TenguPhule
@Aleta:
Corrected for accuracy.
Aleta
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): really
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Yes.
Aleta
@TenguPhule: hmmm
JaneSays
If and when Trumpov goes down, it should not be okay for Pence to take the oath and continue on merrily…and if Pence goes down with him, same goes for Ryan.
@Jeffro: Agreed, it should not be OK for Pence to take the oath. But short of removing him from office via impeachment, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t have a provision to prevent that from happening.
As for Ryan, he’s a wretched asshole and an enabler of these vile people, but there isn’t a shred of evidence that he had any involvement in their nefarious activities with sketchy Russians. If you remove Trump and Pence and he’s still the Speaker, we’re stuck with him as president until at least January 2021. The fact that he belongs to the same party as the criminals currently occupying the White House is not, in and of itself, a constitutionally disqualifying factor.
I’m hopeful that we’re going to take over the House next year in a big way. I’m cautiously optimistic that it’s at least possible that we might get the Senate, too (though I’m keeping my expectations realistic on that one). I’m feeling a growing confidence that we might really see the Trump thing depart the White House before his first term ends. I’m feeling great about our chances to take back the White House in 2020.
But I have absolutely no delusions about a Democrat moving into 1600 Penn before January 20, 2021. It just ain’t gonna happen. No chance. We’re stuck with the cancer of the Republican Party having control of the presidency for another 3 years, 2 months, and 6 days. In the meantime, we need to work on taking over anywhere else we can and throwing as many monkey wrenches as we can into their agenda while we bide our time.
TenguPhule
@Aleta: Some of those named in the letter deny ever signing off on it.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Your opinion on the matter is hypocritical. You did not answer my questions, which might have shed light on whether or not your thought process is consistent. I have no opinion on agreeing or disagreeing on this issue.
TenguPhule
@JaneSays:
Well, I wouldn’t say that.
His “just joking” was almost certainly not.
glory b
@The Moar You Know: My dog does too, which is why, when we run across a forgotten ball or toy at the park, he grabs it and insists on heading home immediately.
He knows he’s wrong.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Aleta: Well, it’s twitter, so I’m withholding judgment.
TenguPhule
@JaneSays:
I hope you’re wrong about this.
It’s a one in a million chance, but there is a chance to evict the Rs en masse from the line of succession.
NotMax
@feebog
Under what authority?
Supreme Court does not initiate cases, it accepts them for hearing. The only instance in which SCOTUS would be involved would occur if a president issues a pardon to himself for federal crime(s), as there is a strong argument to be made that such an occurrence falls under the express Constitutional denial of the power of pardon when impeachment is involved (acceptance of pardon being a tacit admission of guilt of impeachable offense against the United States).
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: Fine.
Because language is largely about context, and criticizing the use of a construction in a particular manner does not preclude using it in another manner.
There are countless examples I could give of why I don’t think doing one thing in one way while criticizing it being done in another way is hypocritical, such as the aforementioned comic book artist. You disagree on that example, which means we have a fundamental disagreement on principle of what constitutes hypocrisy, and we’re not going to solve that in a comment section on a political blog. ETA and as long that’s consistently applied then I’m ok with that state of affairs.
Perfectly acceptable, I enjoyed it the first couple times Colbert did it.
Colbert knew when to stop.
I also never said it was “wrong”, I said I found it dull and not very amusing any more.
JaneSays
@TenguPhule: The Republicans will not hand the White House to the Democrats under any circumstances. You will not find 16-19 Republican U.S. senators who would be willing to impeach both Trump and Pence if it means Nancy Pelosi (or any other Democrat) will become president via succession.
The only chance both of them get removed is if Ryan is still the Speaker (he’s a shitty human being, but there’s no evidence he has any connection whatsoever to the Administration’s shady dealings with Russian colluders)… and that would mean that both a Republican House and a Republican Senate will have been willing to remove the current president and vice-president. Not bloody likely.
You can wish in one hand that we’ll have a Democratic POTUS before 2021 and shit in the other hand, but we both know which one will fill up first.
Tom Q
@Ladyraxterinok: I had the same impression from the 1980 results. I remember John Chancellor (god, I miss him) announcing that Reagan would have a “substantial” victory — this was at 6PM Eastern, 3PM Pacific. There were reports, as you say, of people leaving line, and we can’t know how many people simply never bothered to go to the polls from 3PM on. This might have cost Democrats any number of House seats in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, and very possibly the Senate, as well (GOPers flipped a dozen Senate seats in that election, by small margins, not a few of them in states like SD, ID & WA). It was the flip of the Senate, as much as the unexpected Reagan margin, that caused the press to scream Landslide (though Reagan only had 51% of the vote), and put Dems into the fetal position for the ensuing decade.
As far as The Way Out of Today’s Mess — it’s true that our democracy is not equipped to find a solution for what we might find out was a pilfered election. If we were a parliamentary democracy, the solution would be obvious: dissolve the government and hold a new election. (My brother says that, given the complete ideological divide between our two parties, we now have all the disadvantages of a parliamentary system without the benefits.) I think our best case is that Mueller casts a wide net, snaring not just Trump and Pence, but also Congressional leaders who had at least complicit knowledge, and that we end up with a caretaker president along the lines of Orrin Hatch, who’s hamstrung by a Democratic House and possibly (if barely) Senate. If that caretaker has any integrity — not a given — he will act like Churchill did in the 40s, bring in a truly bipartisan cabinet, to navigate the country through a crisis that rivals the Civil War.
Matt McIrvin
@JaneSays: The big question mark is war. Bush got his “legitimacy” through 9/11. Trump and his beloved generals could start another major war or induce some kind of international emergency at any time, and it could be a huge, horrifying one, one way or another. Do the people rally around him and upend all the progress that’s been made? Are they sick and tired of all that? What if, say, Kim Jong Un nukes a city, is Trump suddenly the hero of 90% of the country like Bush after 9/11? I certainly don’t know.
TenguPhule
@JaneSays:
If Mueller can pitch a perfect game, there wouldn’t be a Republican majority in either House or Senate because most of them would be up on charges.
Sure, its a hail mary pass to hope on. But its all we’ve got left at this point.
This nation is not going to survive 3 more years of Republican rule. Because they don’t know how to rule.
Fleeting Expletive
Rachel Maddow’s segment on Roy Moore was disappointing in that it seemed to be spinning out scenarios for the R Senators to act in anticipation of his being elected rather than a more sober analysis of more plausible processes. She showed the 20 or so R senators who have said he should never be seated.
My first thought is, D’s have to win this election, which calls for economic boycott (industries, universities, etc.) to persuade the PTB in Alabama and campaign on basic decency. That might not be enough anyway.
But, this is a Man problem–among Powerful and mostly White Men–and they need to make it be NOT OK to be Senate candidate Moore. The Powerful Men Club is responsible for pushing him as a viable choice in the first place. So my thought is get those 20 Senators, plus whoever else, to go pay a visit to Moore and explain in sincere terms that he can’t continue, he’d be a pariah and wouldn’t get to eat lunch with them.
As bizarre as this situation is, Mean Girls and Idiocracy might be instructive.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
Fun with metaphors!
SatanicPanic
@rikyrah: You know he’d try to weasel the medal out of them.
JaneSays
@The Moar You Know: Yup.
Those state legislative races and school board elections involving candidates most of us have never heard of matter a hell of a lot more than the national party has acknowledged for the past 15-20 years.
catclub
@TenguPhule:
I am aware that muddling through works far more often than it should, and betting on calamity is a sucker’s bet.
I am also aware that rwnj’s were saying the same thing in 2009 about Obama and Democratic rule, and also if Hillary were to be elected.
catclub
@Tom Q:
We don’t even have any contingency plan laws to deal with it. Any way to steal an election is ok if it works and you get the office.
Aleta
@TenguPhule: Somewhere someone is claiming they were paid to not sign off on it.
JaneSays
@catclub: That’s even less likely to occur than impeachment, death, or resignation. It’s a pipe dream.
A lot of people are under the false impression that it begins and ends with the VP and a majority of the Cabinet declaring the POTUS unfit to serve. That’s only the first hurdle. Most people skip over the second paragraph of Section 4.
If Pence were to invoke it (and he would be required to be on board), all it would do is temporarily make him the “Acting President”. Trump would almost certainly immediately make a written declaration to Congress that he is in fact fit to serve, and Pence would then again have to call for a second vote of Cabinet members to declare that Trump is unfit to serve, at which point Congress would have to settle the matter. They would then have 21 days (or, if they are in recess, 21 days after they start their next session) to take up the issue, and then only if a 2/3 majority of both houses of Congress agree that he is unfit to serve would his removal stick. And even then, Pence would still only be serving as “Acting President” until the next election.
With impeachment, you would just need a simple majority in the House plus 2/3 majority on the Senate to give Trump the boot. With the 25th Amendment, you would need VP Pence plus a majority of Trump’s Cabinet to vote TWICE that he is unfit to serve, and then you would need 2/3 majorities in both the House and the Senate to give it any level of permanence.
If they don’t have the votes to successfully remove him via impeachment (they probably don’t, at least not in the Senate), they absolutely wouldn’t have the votes to remove him via the 25th Amendment.
The Moar You Know
@TenguPhule: Please explain to me exactly how this would happen, using current US law, no magical “then the Supreme Court throws out the 2016 election results and puts Hillary in office” bullshit, and no civil war.
I will wait.
feebog
@NotMax
“Supreme Court does not initiate cases, it accepts them for hearing. The only instance in which SCOTUS would be involved would occur if a president issues a pardon to himself for federal crime(s), as there is a strong argument to be made that such an occurrence falls under the express Constitutional denial of the power of pardon when impeachment is involved (acceptance of pardon being a tacit admission of guilt of impeachable offense against the United States)”
There is also a strong argument to be made that the President can not pardon an individual in order to obstruct an investigation into his own wrongdoing which could lead to his impeachment. To argue otherwise is to essentially argue the Presidential ability to pardon puts him above the law.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major:
Your original comment was “This trend must die.” It was in response to “Ferry McFerryface” having won a ballot for naming a ferry. As such it was unclear what trend your “this” was referring to – the ballot stuffing, the use of a Boaty McBoatface variation, or the use of the Boaty McBoatface variation to stuff a ballot. I took it as the use of the name variation and because you had just used a similar variation yourself gently teased you about it. That was how this all started.
I think it is hypocritical of you to use a variation of a phrase you claim is played out and dull. As you said, language is about context. Since Boaty McBoatface is a well known name and joke, then using a variation of it will remind people of it. You can change how you use it–another context as you say–but pretending that people will not relate it to the original is naive. And when they do then you increase the likelihood of it being used more. You don’t like it being used, stop using it yourself.
JaneSays
@TenguPhule: It wasn’t Ryan who made the joke about Putin paying Trump and Rohrabacher in June 2016, it was House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Ryan’s only involvement in that interaction was telling his colleagues not to repeat what McCarthy said. That’s not remotely conclusive evidence that Ryan has anything to do with Trump’s Russian affiliations. It absolutely wouldn’t be enough to prevent him from succeeding to the presidency if Trump and Pence were removed and he was still Speaker.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know: Mueller brings up charges on all of them for conspiracy against the US government. At the same time.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow:
I have no objection to it “being used.” I have an aesthetic objection to things being named it via online poll stuffing. In the extreme example, I have no objection to the word faggot, but most people can’t walk around all day saying faggot faggot faggot, whereas I can.
ETA: Again, since we can’t agree on the superhero example, which I think is very clearly not hypocritical, we will never agree on this.
ETAA if we want to go back to gentle teasing, then very well I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
JaneSays
@Ladyraxterinok: True, it surely did hurt downballot elections, but what exactly were they supposed to say once he had already locked up more than 400 Electoral Votes before polls had closed in California and the rest of the West Coast? Pretend like it wasn’t obvious to literally anyone who could count that Reagan had already won in a landslide regardless of what happened out west?
DougJ
One of the best songs Neil Diamond ever wrote.
Tenar Arha
@Aleta: @Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Just in case, this links to the article on an apparently local Alabama website called AL.com.
JaneSays
@TenguPhule: I’d love to be wrong about it.
But if you’re staking your happiness on this “less likely than me winning Powerball” scenario, you’re almost certainly setting yourself up to be unhappy.
KithKanan
@JaneSays: I don’t know what they should have done, but to do what they did was still interference with our elections. Yet another argument in favor of national popular vote, not that I expect that to get anywhere until the unlikely event that the electoral college costs a Republican the White House.
If it wasn’t for the first amendment, I’d say there ought to be a law against reporting *any* election outcomes until the polls had closed in all states.
Tom Q
@JaneSays: But he hadn’t locked down that many EVs by 6PM Eastern. Polls hadn’t yet closed anyplace but the perennially-early IN and KY. Chancellor’s declaration was made by surveying the exit polls. People in the newsrooms certainly knew it was over — as they knew Obama had triumphed in ’08, well before they made their call at 11PM Eastern. But even a huge Reagan-lean couldn’t have been officially true until 8PM, 2 crucial hours later, and a win wasn’t technically possible till 9PM.
We can never know if this made the difference in the make-up of Congress, but the networks essentially acknowledged it was an error: from that night forward, no state was called till polls closed, and no election was called till a win was projected in enough closed-poll states to clinch.
Matt McIrvin
@JaneSays: And Pence is a complete sycophant anyway, so he’d be extremely unlikely to get the ball rolling in the first place.
Uncle Cosmo
@JaneSays: @JaneSays: Thankew, thankew, thankew for reiterating something that I’ve been posting every time someone has floated this lead balloon over the last several months – maybe Juicers will hear you more clearly than they heard me.
The 25th Amendment was crafted in order to preserve a clear chain of command in the Executive in circumstances where POTUS agrees that s/he is or will be incapacitated, most clearly, when under general anesthesia during surgery. IMO it was deliberately designed to be a more difficult (specifically, requiring more votes in Congress) means of getting rid of a President who does not agree than impeachment & removal as provided for in the Constitution.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: yeah. We heard about the shooting after that are as in our rear view mirror. We spent last night nearby.
dogwood
@Tom Q:
Calling races before all the polls were closed existed at a time when there was more likelihood that tv journalists would simply tell the truth. Changing that policy was actually good for business, keeping viewers hanging on the edge of their seats as they bullshit for several hours. Meghan McCain said they received the word that her father had lost in the late afternoon before any polls had closed. Watching the tv talkers spend hours pretending that they didn’t know that and inventing scenarios about McCain’s chances as the evening wore on, is elections as entertainment.
JaneSays
@Tom Q: I was just a little kid that year, so I didn’t realize they had actually called it for Reagan as early as they did. But it was actually 8:01pm ET when the first network made the call, and it was CBS. ABC called it at 8:13pm, and NBC was the last to call it at 8:31pm.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/07/us/1984-elections-long-campaign-finally-ends-tv-networks-call-race-early-renewing.html
They did wait until polls had closed in enough states to be able to project that he had cleared the 270 EV margin (he would have been at 312 EVs from all the states he had won after the 8pm poll closings), which happened earlier than it has for any other election in the last 100 years. I agree that the networks shouldn’t have called the race that early given the effect it had on all the downballot races, but it’s the same standard they’ve used in every election since – once they can project a hard 270 EVs, they call it. It was obvious Obama was going to win pretty early in the night in 2008, but he didn’t actually clear the 270 EV margin until the polls closed out west, which gave him 77 EVs and brought his total to 284 at that point. Virginia, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Indiana, and North Carolina weren’t called for Obama until after 11pm ET. And polls were still open in Alaska when Obama was declared winner.
Personally, I think there should be a law to prevent any precincts anywhere in the country from reporting their results until after polls have closed in all 50 states. It won’t stop networks from making predictions based on exit poll data, but it will slow down how fast they make their projections if they don’t have any actual vote data to use in their prediction models.
The Moar You Know
@TenguPhule: And then what? They get trials, man. Mueller doesn’t wave a fucking magic wand and everyone goes to prison, lala, good bye forever. They don’t have to leave their jobs, even, they’re not proven guilty of anything. They stay just where they are, until and unless they go to trial, are found guilty and sentenced, and then exhaust all appeals.
Just how long do you think that would take? Fucker’s already been in office one of four years. I’ll bet they could run out the clock and then some.
LanceThruster
For the record.
JaneSays
@Tom Q: I think we’re mixing up 1980 and 1984.
John Chancellor did call it for NBC in 1980, but it was at 8:15pm ET, not 6pm. Here’s the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsDe-8cOSYY
In 1984, NBC called it at 8:31pm, and it was Tom Brokaw who made the call:
https://youtu.be/mWZaJZ6yN0I?t=1m42s
JaneSays
@dogwood: They standard they used in 1980 and 1984 is the same one they use today – they call the race once they can firmly project wins in enough states to push someone past the 270 EV margin. They called the races for Reagan so early both times (shortly after 8pm ET) because the polls had closed in enough states for them to project enough wins to give him 270 EVs. Obama’s win in 2008 was substantial (365 EVs), but it wasn’t remotely close to the landslides Reagan got in 1980 and 1984 (489 EVs and 525 EVs, respectively). They didn’t call Obama the winner until 11pm because they weren’t able to call enough states to give him at least 270 EVs until then. When they did finally declare him the winner, polls were still open in one state, Alaska.
Reagan was at 276 EVs when they called it for him in 1980.
JaneSays
@KithKanan: You couldn’t make a law prohibiting networks from making projections based on whatever data they can get their hands on, but you could make a law preventing precincts from releasing their results until polls in all states have closed.
The networks would still be able to make projections based on exit poll data, but they would be a lot more cautious in how quickly they issued their projections in closer races since the data would be much less reliable (they currently use both exit polling and precinct reporting).
JaneSays
@TenguPhule: Ummm… charges? WTF are you talking about? Most of the Republicans in Congress would be up on charges?
What charges, exactly? Being generally lousy human beings with horrible policy ideas who hate anyone that isn’t a straight rich white Christian is certainly deplorable, but it ain’t a crime.
I’m pretty certain Mueller isn’t in the process of putting together indictments to bring against 240 Republican Congressmen and 52 Republican Senators.
It’s a lovely fantasy, though.
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: May I introduce you to AT&T Business Services? Do you have murderous intent in your heart? Because you will soon.
Tom Q
@JaneSays: 1) I was speaking of 1980 from the start — that was the year the early call seemed like it may have had an effect on downballot races. (Despite the 1984 presidential landslide, Dems completely held their own in the Senate and House.)
2) Chancellor didn’t “officially” call it until 8:15, but he’d come on the air that night at 6PM, saying “We are (can’t recall the exact word — something like “projecting” or “seeing”) a substantial victory tonight for Ronald Reagan. Substantial” (I vividly recall him using the word a second time, as it was a dagger to my heart.) It was that “characterization” of the overall election result that was challenged (and led to change in network policy), because it effectively told people the race was over.
As for, is there any way to fix this (i.e., people in further-west time zones being partially disenfranchised by having results reported while they’re still voting) — only some uniform system with all polls closing at the same time (“real time”) would make it work, but even then you’d have complaints that it gave some states time later in the day than others. Maybe if we did it all by mail, and tallied results a day later?
JaneSays
@TenguPhule: Please pass the bong.
Tom Q
@JaneSays: I believe the theory here is that the McConnell/Ryan stance on revealing Russian influence — their refusals to sign on to Obama’s declaration in September ’16 — indicated they had knowledge that all the interference was to their benefit, and that there could exist evidence (even recordings) substantiating this which could implicate multiple members of Congress.
You’re correct, of course, that it exists only as fantasy so far, but a number of things that seemed far-out fantasy six months ago are accepted as common fact today, so we need to wait and see what Mueller has and how deep his probe goes.
JaneSays
@The Moar You Know: Actually, even if they do get found guilty, they don’t have to leave their jobs. They can only be removed from their congressional seats if their colleagues vote to expel them (2/3 majority required). Yes, you can be a convicted felon in prison and still be a sitting member of Congress.
I only knew that because of the discussions surrounding the Bob Menendez trial – if he does get convicted, he doesn’t have to voluntarily vacate his seat, and if Republicans want him gone, they’ll have to get at least 15 Democrats to join them to vote for his expulsion. If it comes to that, the Democrats should agree to expel him, but no sooner than January 16, 2018 – the day Phil Murphy takes office as New Jersey governor. They can argue that they’re invoking the “Scalia Rule” – the lame duck Republican governor should not get to choose a placeholder for the seat, especially given that the voters already chose a Democrat to be their next governor.
JaneSays
@Tom Q: Even if you believe there’s some plausible scenario in which Mueller could indict a few Republican members of Congress for involvement in any Russian collusion (I simply do not see any such scenario occurring, aside from possibly going after a nobody like Devin Nunes), TenguPhule was talking about Mueller bringing up charges against “most of them” – meaning most Republican members of Congress. Even if it’s just a bare majority, we’re talking about no fewer than 121 GOP House members and 27 GOP Senators.
What non-delusional charges could possibly be brought up against that many Republican members of Congress by Mueller in regards to Russian election interference?
Tom Q
@JaneSays: I’m not sure how you define “non-delusional” in this context. Six months ago, it would have been delusional to suggest Donald Trump Jr. would get an email offer from Russia to help his father’s election and he’d respond “I love it”.
In that vein: suppose there are conversations on tape of Senators/Congerssmen being told that Russian money is being funneled into their campaign coffers? Or that Russian hackers are breaking into voting machines in their states/districts to remove opposition-party voters from the rolls, aiding their efforts at (re-)election? (I don’t believe there’ll ever be evidence of vote totals being changed on election day, but I think there’s a strong possibility this kind of vote-scrubbing was done.)
I’m not endorsing TenguPhule’s notion, that wholesale numbers of GOPers could be thus expelled. But just one or two Senators so affected would substantially up the odds of Dems taking control of the chamber.
But, at this point, it’s like arguing the afterlife. None of us know what Mueller has, and thus we’re all taking stabs in the dark about what might happen. I don’t rule anything in or out, but, as I said yesterday, given what I’ve seen these past months, my tendency is to bet the over.
J R in WV
@Humboldtblue:
@Interrobang:
Please accept our condolences for your loss. Interrobang, renal failure is how our cats leave us, and therapy usually does little or no good to help them.
We have had 2 or 3 dogs and several cats at all times for 30 years, longer for cats. So obviously we have lost many of them. One cat to a fatal encounter with a vehicle on the county road, when we still lived right beside it. (A couple of chickens too!)
Some of the dogs have gone out into the woods, never to return, a stroke or cardiac event while climbing the ridge to howl at the wind.
We have taken a lot of loved fur babies to the vet on that last trip. Our cats have never taken to the kidney diets, seemed that they would rather starve, so we give in, feed them what they will eat to the end.
At our vet clinic, they have one exam room that no vet uses, it’s clean and quiet, away from the other bustling spaces of the clinic, which stays busy. For big fur babies, they lay quilts on the floor, so we can sit down with our baby in our laps, and they administer a very mild sedative, to keep them calm and attentive.
The vet tech and vet leave then, and keep an eye on things through the little window in the inner door of the exam room, and after 20 or 30 minutes they’ll come in, speak to us, get down on the floor with all of us, and gently slide the final medications to our dog, last time it was Boomer, 90 pounds of wriggling, wagging brown furry love.
Then they leave, while we’re free to complete saying goodbye to our loved family member. For cats, there’s a bench you sit on, and our kitty sits on our laps, and the routine is the same. Very peaceful, dignified, and loving on the part of the vet staff as well as our family.
It is the last hardest best thing we do for our small furry family members. You guys have our condolences, we thank you for caring for your kitties and dogs, right to the end.
Please accept our sympathy, and don’t feel guilty about being unable to afford more treatment, it most likely wouldn’t have done much good, and as I said, our cats mostly refuse to eat kidney diet options.
Take care, be well. Keep in touch!
JaneSays
No it wouldn’t have. Seriously, was anybody here shocked when evidence of collusion between Trump family members and Russians started to surface? There was already a ton of smoke there, this just confirmed what many of us had already suspected.
As for going after a few (meaning less than 5) members of Congress, I suppose it’s possible, but right now I’m not even seeing smoke suggesting there’s any “there” there. Probably the closest thing to “smoke” would be the general shadiness of Devin Nunes… but even with him, what exactly would he be guilty of… and what indications do we have there is any evidence to back up whatever that theoretical charge is?
I guess I’m irked because I think some people are getting way ahead of themselves in all of this. It’s not even certain yet that we’re going to get anything substantial from the Manafort indictment, much less take anyone down higher up the food chain. I would say the odds of Trump being impeached and removed from office at this point are still on the very low end (less than 10%) in terms of the likelihood of it actually happening. But we’re here dreaming of a scenario where Trump, Pence, McConnell, and Ryan are all removed from office and dozens and perhaps even more than 100 GOP members of Congress are brought up on criminal charges?
Again… pass the bong.
At this point, I’ll be happy if we can just keep moving this thing towards getting Trump out of the White House as soon as possible. And right now, the most safest bet is still January 2021, and no sooner. Other than that, let’s run the table in the House and try to go for the Senate, and when the next Congress starts, kill Dolt45’s legislative agenda, and keep him and his cronies bogged down in endless investigations for the next two years until we can vote him out, if we can’t get him out sooner.
Tom Q
@JaneSays: I don’t disagree with anything in your last paragraph, but I’m much more sanguine about how deep Mueller’s investigation will go. I don’t think he’s hired on the legal equivalent of The Avengers just to hand out some traffic tickets. (I also don’t think the CIA would have sounded such an alarm, back last year and in January, if there weren’t a whole lot more fire than we’ve seen to date.)
dww44
@Tom Q: Thank you. My take, too, but helps when others agree and provide good reasons for holding that belief in a favorable outcome for the country and our democracy. That IS what this is about. I have to believe that there are plenty Republicans, maybe largely outside the South where I live, who also understand and agree that the country’s democratic institutions are at risk with the continuation of GOP control of all levers of government.
TenguPhule
@JaneSays:
Treason, Espionage, Conspiracy against the United States, Money Laundering.
And that’s just based on what we know now.
TenguPhule
@JaneSays:
I did say its a million to one chance. But let us dream. Its all we have.
JaneSays
@TenguPhule: That’s quite a list you’ve assembled.
OK… you’re the prosecutor – what evidence is there that Devin Nunes committed money laundering? Treason? Espionage? Conspiracy against the United States?
I mean, specifically, what material facts could be presented to a jury in a trial that could actually lead to an actual criminal conviction of Nunes for any of those things? Anything?
You said that’s based on “what we know now”. So what exactly do we know now?
We’re not trying to convince a jury that he’s a malevolent asshole who has been trying desperately for months to thwart the House Intel Committee’s investigation efforts, we’re trying to convince them that he committed a specific list of crimes, and that we have hard irrefutable evidence which shows that he is guilty beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt of these crimes.
So what do we have? Because if there’s anything actually there, I’d love to see him put away for a long time. I’m just not really sure precisely what we know about today that could lead to his conviction for any or all of those crimes.
efgoldman
@Jeffro:
This is a great story, from a journalist/historical POV, and I’m dying to see where it goes, and how. But this particular fantasy does not take political reality and basic arithmetic into the equation. Even if there were a way, the election wom’t be invalidated. At least one house will remain RWNJ, and do the thing they do best: obstruct, obstruct, and obstruct some more.
Tehanu
@Lee:
I agree that Trump’s 3 adult children probably hate him even when they’re being most assertive about how much they love and admire him — even if they don’t realize it themselves. If they were raised by him and Ivana the way I think they were, what they really care about is inheriting the money. In fact, I’m beginning to think that calling Jr. and Eric “Uday and Qusay” is a slur on the memories of the real Uday and Qusay — and they were titanic assholes.
No One You Know
@Lee: I’m interested that his support appears to serve multiple purposes. Is it necessary to be smart to do that–or just cunning?
No One You Know
@Interrobang: @Humboldtblue:
I’m so, so sorry. I was pretty close to that situation ( And am again now, as it happens, Brunswick is terminally ill, but there’s nothing anyone can do, I can only keep her comfortable).
Tears in my eyes too.
The thought I hold is that we all give them the best lives we can, and love them to the very end, knowing that while they were with us, we made a positive difference to each other. And grieve, because that, too, it’s a measure of how much we care. Oh, good, how much that hurts.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, also, too.