Here we go with Gates: A superseding information — not indictment — filed in DC. Two counts: Conspiracy against the US and false statement. https://t.co/Khxdaultej / Follow @ZoeTillman, who is at court, for the latest. pic.twitter.com/K0hcDaMib9
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) February 23, 2018
and from a trained observer and commenter we get some rapid reaction:
You don’t give Gates this generous of a deal unless his “Queen for the Day” proffer was something significant and material. https://t.co/9LjsmZ5MIJ
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) February 23, 2018
Update 1 The false statement charge refers to a Member of Congress in 2013. Is that relevant? If so, who would it be?
UPDATE 1B: The Congress critter is most likely Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Putin stooge
Corner Stone
All these indictments and plea deals make me think about Dick Mayhew. Haven’t seen that guy in a while and it makes me wonder just how deeply he was involved in the Trump campaign.
Corner Stone
This fucking Good Ole Petey Williams is trash, just pure damn trash.
MisterForkbeard
IANAL, so can someone explain this to me? Is this paring down all previous indictments to just Conspiracy Against the US and False Statements to the FBI?
If so, that’s a HELL of a deal. I can’t imagine what he can give Mueller for that unless it’s pretty damning, and not just on Manafort. Though I suppose it could also be about significant other lawbreaking he’s aware of that isn’t related to Mueller Russia investigation. That’s possible.
@Corner Stone: He probably changed his name and went underground.
LAO
As to Moss’ tweet, what is even more incredible is that Mueller is still offering cooperation while charging Gates with lying to federal investigators during his 2/1/18 proffer session.
But her emails!!!
This is sooooo boooorrinngggg. In before the trolls!
NotMax
@Corner Stone
Word was he worked for Balloon Juice for nothing.
;)
Miss Bianca
@MisterForkbeard: I dunno…*just* “conspiracy against the US” sounds like a Big Fucking Biden Deal to me. But IANAL.
WaterGirl
I really like that the rotating tag for this thread was: This is a big f—–g deal. How appropriate!
Corner Stone
@MisterForkbeard:
Gates isn’t really guilty of anything but he knew the relentlessly corrupt FBI would manufacture some cooked up BS evidence against him. So he took the deal because really, he just wants to spend more time with his family.
lollipopguild
Tick Tock! (Borrowing from yarrow)
eric
@LAO: having lied once to the FBI, that makes his eventual testimony a touch of the “he will say anything and lie to anyone” variety. I would expect there are some objective type pieces of evidence or corroborating witnesses.
Corner Stone
@Miss Bianca:
It’s almost as if Mueller is laying the groundwork for indicting other co-conspirators…
Corner Stone
@eric: Mueller (likely) already knows where the money came from and where it all went. Gates can put people in the room when some of that fraud went down.
WaterGirl
never mind.
Miss Bianca
@Corner Stone: But that’s so booorrriiing. Tell me why I should care! //
Kay
@MisterForkbeard:
No one knows, though. That’s the amazing part of this whole thing. The entire country is waiting for one man.
I’m uncomfortable with that just kneejerk, and everyone else should be too. It was NEVER supposed to come down to one person.
Our system failed, over and over and over. The worst happened. It’s down to one person, Robert Mueller. The whole United States scheme was designed so that would never happen. But it did.
You have to trust Mueller and so does everyone else. You have no choice.
NotMax
@Corner Stone
Yup.
It takes two to tango and all that.
Olivia
First thing I thought was that his beard will serve him well with the higher publicity he will be getting for awhile. When it is all over, he can shave and look like a different person to rebuild his life. The photos and video of this time will be of a trump conspirator with a beard. Cheaper than a face makeover
rikyrah
@MisterForkbeard:
Gates is the only one who was around from the campaign through the White House.
He knows a lot.
MisterForkbeard
@Miss Bianca: I mean, “Conspiracy against the US” is bad, but it’s a single count. Not 30-odd counts of fraud, money laundering, etc. It’s a more serious charge in a lot of ways, but the total jail time is probably a lot lower.
Still not sure exactly what this news means – like I asked originally, does this mean the other indictments all ‘go away’ in favor of these new indictments?
Corner Stone
@Miss Bianca: To be honest, I’m starting to think there is nothing here.
eric
@Corner Stone: but that is the kind of testimony ripe for the “he will say anything” cross examination. He has to be bringing something objective and verifiable to the table.
efgoldman
I hope Adam hears from Yarrow soon.
“Tick tock…” doesn’t really count unless it’s a certified original
dmsilev
@Kay: While Mueller is the guy in charge of the investigation, let’s not forget that there’s a whole (big) team of very talented investigators and prosecutors and so forth. It isn’t really just one guy. Yes, we should never have come to this point, but here we are.
rikyrah
@Kay:
The founders never thought that the Legislative Branch would abdicate their role completely.
Miss Bianca
@efgoldman: Yarrow is back among us as of this morning! : )
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: If I recall correctly, conspiracy against the united states was one of the original charges Mueller brought against Gates and Manafort all those months ago.
eric
@efgoldman: Yarrow was in the last thread
Kay
@rikyrah:
Well, we’ll find out and as we know Nothing Can Be Done by anyone else outside Robert Mueller (apparently) so we’ll just have to wait.
Talk about a thin blue line. The only thing standing between us and a complete breakdown is this one guy? That’s …alarming.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Yarrow showed up directly downstairs.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
Trump: “Vlad! Do something!
eric
I am assuming that there are specific limitations on the kind of work you can ever do in the future if you plead guilty to these counts….so Mueller needs only one of each kind.
eric
@Kay: Oddly, the “one great man” ideal is a strong impulse in American polity. Think how often you here about Lincoln ending slavery or saving the Union. The truth is that there are more people at work behind the scenes that care deeply about this.
MattF
IANAL, but I have a feeling that the ‘conspiracy against the United States’ is relevant to the collusion charge. There has to be a conspiracy of some sort for collusion, and that’s hard to prove. If Gates will testify that he knows there’s a conspiracy because he was part of it…
Corner Stone
@Kay:
As you say in the previous thread, media failed us over and over. But the entire system failed. 100M+ people went to vote in 2016 and maybe, *maybe*, 1% had an initial understanding of what was really happening. HRC calling Trump Putin’s Puppet on stage was a palpable hit, but it’s still just dismissed as campaign rhetoric. The joint letter DHS/DNI sent out, way too fucking late, might as well have been a statement to drink more Ovaltine. We needed some hair on fire actors/actions that institutions do not provide.
efgoldman
@Miss Bianca: @NotMax:
Whoopie
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@Kay: We are the heroes we’ve been waiting for. If Mueller fails it’s up to us. It always was.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Courts too, to be fair. Courts have been doing some reining in, but they’re not supposed to be on the front lines.
I’ll never understand congressional abdication. I like power and so do most people, especially people who spend a good part of their lives running in HORRIBLE political campaigns to get it.
So you win and then you’re like “nah- I don’t feel like using this power- too risky!” WTF? Who acts like that? I feel like I would be an overreaching member of congress, if anything :)
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
Yarrow was on earlier today.
Miss Bianca
@MisterForkbeard: No idea what it means, but.. attached article says original indictment count was 12. Then when Gates decided he’d try to bluff his way thru’, looks to me like Bobby Three Sticks said, “nuh-uh, sucker – here’s 20 more we can slap you with – *now* who’s your daddy?” and Gates went all “meep, OK.” So the only thing my non-lawyerly self can come up with is, “whatever Gates has got to offer has to be big enough to knock the indictment count down to 2. So I’m guessing that we ain’t seen nothing yet when it comes to revelations and future indictments.”
Corner Stone
@eric: I don’t know, but I suspect Gates is cover for a lot of the info Mueller already has but doesn’t want to tip to yet.
dr. bloor
@Corner Stone:
And you know what else? You never, ever see Mayhew and Greenwald photographed together.
clay
@rikyrah: Not the ONLY one *coughkellyanneconwaycough*
Kay
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?:
I’m emotional about school shootings and I teared up with Obama’s statement because he said about the kids “we have been waiting for you”
What a nice thing to say! I was just blown away by that. So simple and so true and such a vote of confidence! BAWLING, I was.
Mike in NC
Still early on a Friday afternoon. Maybe more info coming out before Happy Hour.
rikyrah
@Kay:
They.are.compromised.
And, now, we know, they have absolutely no problem with TREASON against this country.
And, should be responded to accordingly.
manyakitty
@Olivia: That makes a lot of sense. Bet he grows his hair out, too.
JPL
Per John Harwood
Who’s the congressman?
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: But try not to mention how difficult it can be to find a correctly fitting bra. Seems to be a bit of a sensitive subject, I gather.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Giuliani is another name I’ve heard mentioned over the last few months as someone who is surprisingly absent from the news cycles. Could he already be snared in the Mueller net? We know Mueller doesn’t automatically tell us everyone who’s been indicted at the time. I’d love to see that guy go down.
SFAW
@dr. bloor:
Thanks. I needed that.
ETA: I seem to recall an Art Buchwald column from the 1970s — during the “Paul is dead” period — noting that he had never seen Paul McCartney and Spiro Agnew in the same room at the same time.
Yes, I’m old. What of it? And get off my lawn!
manyakitty
@JPL: Betcha it’s Rohrbacher
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@JPL: More evidence that Mueller’s team always, ALWAYS knows the answers to the questions when they bring these people in. They’re just letting them hang themselves. I love this guy.
I know it’s terrible as Kay says to have it all come down to one investigator, and I know that to do the job right that investigation has to proceed at a pace most of us find painfully slow. But all of this is going to have the positive effect of increasing American trust in the rule of law. To strengthen one of our key pillars, in other words.
MattF
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Possible that Giuliani pictures himself as Justice Giuliani or AG Giuliani. If so, he’d be avoiding headlines.
efgoldman
@Corner Stone: It’s very early in the day for you to be drunk
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
@rikyrah: Pence?
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: Geez, I didn’t know it was such a sore point for you as well.
petesh
Apparently the 2013 meeting was with Rohrabacher; and another name to look for is Tom Barrack, who (1) loaned Trump money that was later replaced by money from an unknown source; (2) recommended Manafort to Trump; and (3) employed Gates after Gates left the Trump orbit. This is getting yuuuuge.
efgoldman
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’ve seen him lately in off-hours commercials for Experian’s free “dark web” service. Typical that he’d be involved with a disreputable outfit in a near scam.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Remember when we had a President who always knew the right thing to say? And it was only two years ago…which feels like half a generation ago since I’ve been aging in “dog/Trump” years.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: I spoke with a good friend and former colleague yesterday morning. He’s a retired Marine colonel. He asked what I thought. I told him my money’s on the Marine.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Other than Jared, Ivanka, Erick, Jr, Scavino, and Hope Hicks.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: almost all of our systems, including things like polling, but also especially voters, failed in 2016. I hope to hell that it was a black swan.
SteveNKY
I wish it was Rudy “9/11” Giuliani. But I will take a tea-bagger congressman’s head on a pike too.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
Why can’t the president be indicted?
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: He’s commenting in the two previous threads and he emailed me back just before he commented.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
I thought the polling was correct, it just didn’t account for the EC?
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: That isn’t true. We can do something. We can get as many registered to vote and out to vote and as many to run up and down the ballot for every position this November. If the Democrats take one or both chambers in Congress, a lot of the institutional safeguards will begin to kick back in.
p.a.
@efgoldman: Since 1/20/17 it’s never too early to be drunk.
lgerard
I think it is important to remember that Gates stayed with the campaign long after Manafort was ousted and likely knows quite a bit more then Manafort about what transpired
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: huh, Judy must be running low on handbags and the first class seats to set them upon.
My longshot bet (and desperate hope) is that Rudi will be proven to have acted as an un- or semi-witting Russian pawn in the campaign, and indicted. My safer bet is there’s a lot of Russian money floating around New York, and it’s going to come out that Rudi has/had business ties with the Russian mob in ways that may or may not be part of Meuller’s bailiwick
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman: Right. The House can defund ICE, for example.
Adam L Silverman
Britain’s not sending their best, though some, I’m sure, are decent people.
satby
@Corner Stone: @Corner Stone: it’s a nightmare. Just sayin.
@manyakitty: I think so too.
Cheryl Rofer
I know this has been mentioned, but I just can’t
The stupid is knee-deep. Or utter desperation at being trapped. And they all lie. Probably worth re-upping Popehat on the subject.
Anonymous At Work
Cough cough Dana Rohrabacher cough
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: polling was off by two sigmas, all in the same direction, which is somewhere between a catastrophic failure and just pretty weird. (Not suspicious, but it indicates that either respondents were lying or the pollsters all shared the same inaccurate assumptions about the electorate.)
ETA or a too-late-to-catch swing from the Mueller letter
No Drought No More
It’s less a matter of Gates going down, I think, than it is of him stepping up. Finally..
rikyrah
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
He’s been quiet as a church mouse pissing on cotton.
MisterForkbeard
Not that anyone will care, but we’re getting to the point (long past it, actually) where if the defining problem with EMAILS was “judgment”, then Trump has demonstrably done worse by hiring a white collar criminal in hock to Russians to run his entire fucking campaign and personally pick his Vice President.
I mean, in addition to all the other glaringly awful shit, like giving his son-in-law access to the highest levels of intelligence when the guy can’t even get a security clearance due to numerous huge red flags, aside from being under investigation by Mueller.
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?:
Nobody knows if he can it’s never been tried. Jaworski, the second Watergate prosecutor, thought not, so he named Tricksie as an unindicted co-conspirator
trollhattan
@But her emails!!!:
Just checked, the St Petersburg overnight low will be 3 and tomorrow’s high, 12. That’s Fahrenheit, no sissy Celsius. It’s 9 at night so trolls are inside, huddled over their warm monitors on the third bottle of vodka.
rikyrah
@MattF:
Never forget…it was Rudy’s responsibility to make sure that Bobby Three Sticks never got his hands on the emails from the campaign and transition…
and, he failed at that task…
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
You probably already know this by now — have not read through all the comments yet — but Yarrow is back! He posted in both of the downstairs threads (“Gates Cooperating” and “Good Guy With a Gun”).
sukabi
@JPL: I’m guessing either Rohrabacher, Sessions, or the current ambassador to Norway…what’s his name. The no go zone guy.
Ruckus
@Kay:
You know he’s not doing this alone. If he’s gone there will be lots of people that work for him with the info, there will be lots of info now out where it would be much harder to stop – in the court system.
Mueller is the guy in charge, he’s not the only lawyer in the room. What do we expect would happen if he’s incapable of finishing this? That the whole thing just folds up into a couple of legal sized storage boxes and never gets seen again?
Yes it sucks a lot that we see that our country and system is down to this, but this is not one man at his desk, with his book light on at 3am studying some obscure piece of paper.
Major Major Major Major
@Major Major Major Major: correction: “Comey letter”
trollhattan
@Cheryl Rofer:
Wait, what? He lied during a plea bargaining session?
A fine example of “surrounding myself with the best people.”
rikyrah
@lgerard:
Yep…
Campaign….
Transition..
Even onto the White House…..
Immanentize
@MisterForkbeard: I haven’t read all the comments yet, but:
An information is a charging document for a felony filed by the prosecutor, not one that has gone through a Grand Jury (whose charging instrument is called an indictment). In some states, like Florida, all felonies are filed by Information (prosecutor only) except for capital crimes.
In federal court, all felonies must be charged by Grand Jury indictment. So, this information is basically a reduction of all previously filed felonies that have previously been indicted by the Grand Jury down to two crimes. It is the plea deal (as long as Gates continues to be a very good boy). If Gates starts being a poor informant, all the other indictments — and more! — will flood back into his life.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Hit dogs holler, and stuck pigs squeal
Laura Ingraham @ IngrahamAngle
HOW TEENS SPEAK TO AND ABT ADULTS: “We shd change the names of AR-15s to ‘Marco Rubio’ bc they are so easy to buy,” Stoneman Douglas sophomore Sarah Chadwick tweeted.
Jon Lovett Retweeted Laura Ingraham
Laura thank you for sharing this very good joke that we might have missed.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: A Democratic House can (and no doubt would) subpoena Trumpov’s tax returns, for instance. HUGE.
MJS
OT, but I need some advice. If I want to use something other than Norton anti-virus on my laptop, because Norton is in bed with the NRA, what should I use?
Fair Economist
@Corner Stone:
Mueller has a lot of information from intelligence sources he doesn’t want to reveal. But if he can get the same information from another source, he can add it to his indictments.
Corner Stone
I like how the MSNBC chyron describes Gates as “Ex-Trump Aide Arrives in Court to Enter Guilty Plea”
And not as a “Manafort Deputy” or some such other.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: IIRC one explanation was white males (ex-urban FL and PA Man) who were missed by likely-voter models, also Stein voters.
You know, morons.
JPL
@Anonymous At Work: That appears to be the likely person, but Pence was still in congress. There must be a reason that Manafort wanted him on the ticket.
Adam L Silverman
@eric: The Church of Latter Day Saints’ White Horse Prophecy.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major:
Not true. National polling was fairly close. State polling averages were way off *but* there was a big shift to Trump in the last few days. Add in the fact that last weekend trends typically continue into the polling booth and it’s not that far off.
The rest of the error is that Trump really did get deplorables who don’t often vote to the polls. So the story is last-minute changes plus turnout modeling errors, which are both pretty common issues with polling.
Brachiator
From CNN
different-church-lady
@Kay: There’s people backing Mueller. The system is under grave attack, but Mueller wouldn’t be there if others hadn’t put him there and allowed him to continue.
Aleta
“exiting this process” smooth lingo
–for the sake of his family —
No matter what kind of guy he is, it’s still true he is saving any kids and spouse from lives focused on trials and appeals, convictions and then jail. Even if they have to believe he’s not guilty, and would defend him the whole time to their world.
If he knows he’ll be convicted, he’s right that he is sparing them agony. The point should be made more often that white collar sociopaths (who go to trial) do that to their families.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
Yes. Makes me extremely nervous.
Fair Economist
@trollhattan:
Ultimately probably an indicator of how much information Mueller has that the bad guys don’t realize he has.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: It is all conspiracy, collusion isn’t the right term here even though it seems to have become the popular default term.
patrick II
Manafort and Gates, in spite of the myriad of the laws they have broken, and years of wildly disloyal activity in the Ukraine, would not now be under investigation if not for getting caught up in the Trump investigation. I have read that Manafort has been under surveillance for years, but now with all of the evidence brought against him, the question to me is why wasn’t this used against him before? There is enough to put him away for years.
And Trump, if anything, is worse.
Which begs the question of just how lawless and reckless must many of the people in the upper business environs be? Why have our various tax collecting and law enforcement agencies been unable or unwilling to corner Manafort/Gates before this, and what indication is this of a broader problem in the enforcement community?
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman:
“No white horse, no white horse, I am the white horse!”. Trump to Romney at disgrace dinner.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: I can only do so many front page posts on the topic during any given election cycle.
MisterForkbeard
@MJS: I used to like Avast and AVG, though I’m not so sure about AVG now.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
And Bannon. Don’t forget Bannon.
ETA: And Pence, too, of course.
Ruckus
@Miss Bianca:
I also am not a lawyer, but…. Is it possible that the 2 indictments cover what the others did and adds a lot to it? Or that this was the next shoe that Mueller was holding silently over his head and has now used on him? Mueller does not seem the type, from what we’ve seen so far, to give up ground. He’s methodical and cautious, not revealing any more than he has to at any one time. I’d bet he has not only a timeline/who line laid out but secondary and tertiary lines, back ups and furtherances laid out. This isn’t a game to him, but there is real value to be gained in not rushing in all at once, in showing your hand too soon.
We are in round one of a long and vicious fight here, the law against a rather large group of lawless people. And the lawless people seem way out of their league. As several have stated, the US justice system has flaws, but it also has real power. And if it’s against you, it can steamroller your butt rather well. If it’s against you and it’s right………
Immanentize
@Aleta:
He is also.saving his family from having every asset stripped from them through forfeiture — house(s), cars, jewelry, all the cash, everything — by making this deal .
This is why, I guess, Mueller included his daughter and son in-law in the new indictments. Too Much Pressure!
Bobby Thomson
@Corner Stone: He just went back to the underworld.
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: Honest question: Have you ever gotten media requests to act as a SME and be interviewed about this kind of thing? If so, is that something you’re actually interested in doing?
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: yes, I meant state level polls (the ones that matter), see also my edit re: the Comey letter.
MJS
@MisterForkbeard: Thanks. I’ll check into them.
HeleninEire
@MattF: Disagree. Rudy used to be the US Attorney in one of the toughest districts; Southern District of NY. He knows EXACTLY was is going down and he is keeping his head down. He wants no part of it.
Immanentize
@Ruckus: see my comment at 90. The 2 charges in the information are his plea deal (all the others still hanging out, not dismissed, if needed)
Ruckus
@p.a.:
So now it’s OK to have 2 major problems, one self inflicted?
Bobby Thomson
@sukabi: Pete Hoekstra is ambassador to the Netherlands.
It was Rohrabacher.
lgerard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Remember when wingnuts wanted to hear the wisdom of teenagers
CPAC 2009
Fair Economist
@SteveNKY:
Rudy was tied into the Republican cell in the FBI. I suspect Mueller has a special hate for FBI agents who participate in political conspiracies so, don’t worry, Rudy will get his eventually. As many have said, Rudy’s sudden silence shows something is up. At the very least, he is afraid.
pamelabrown53
@Adam L Silverman: #105.
Adam, do you know how “collusion” became the default term? Should we stick to conspiracy? Also,I’m not sure why it matters.
Manxome Bromide
@MJS: Like Forkbeard, I also used to like AVG but gave up on it as too intrusive. Against normal threats Windows Defender is actually pretty solid, and I like MalwareBytes as a periodic backup (it can be set to just scan so you don’t have the usual problems with multiple AVs at once).
Aleta
@efgoldman: Maybe s/he would let the BJ store sell it on mugs and T shirts, as an attributed quote. Or trademark it and sell them hirself.
trollhattan
O/T heard this a.m. France is the world’s #1 tourist destination. With buses like these I can totally understand. Classy!
Nice “random” search.
JPL
@MJS: Not anymore. Symantec dropped sponsorship of the NRA. I notice a trend here.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: Could be anyone on the GOP side from Senators McCain and Graham who were incredibly concerned about the Russian intentions towards Ukraine to Congressman Rohrbacher (R-Putin’s Favorite Congressman) who wasn’t.
Bobby Thomson
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: in one of the 51 Federalist papers written by Hamilton (#69), it seems pretty clear that he views the president as immune to prosecution unless and until he is removed from office – and why.
Immanentize
KAY — if you are on this thread, your comments in the last about how these prosecutionsbeen go, made the perfect image pop into my head about this prosecution:
Austin Powers
Eljai
@MJS: I have Norton too and I was going to threaten to cancel. Then I read that Symantec, which owns Norton, has decided to cut ties with the NRA. Guess they saw the backlash coming and decided to distance themselves.
SiubhanDuinne
@sukabi:
I think you’re thinking of the current Ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: There are no black swans. Someone has always predicted what get termed black swans. Normally they’re ignored, told they don’t know what they’re talking about, and/or ridiculed. That entire explanation is ahistorical, a-theoretical (empirical), and anti-factual.
NotMax
@MJS
Windows machine? Not the best of the best, but the built-in Windows Defender is more than adequate for the average person, in fact pretty darn good. (Or its earlier incarnation, Microsoft Security Essentials, if running Win 7. If you’re running anything earlier than Win 7, your at-risk factor is sky high regardless.)
Also, if you don’t already have it, download Malwarebytes (free version is perfectly fine), install it and run a quick scan with it periodically. (Note that if you need to update free version, it’s easy to confuse the “update now” and the “upgrade now” buttons in the Malwarebytes interface. “Update now” would be the one to click on to keep using the free version.)
And if you’re planning to abandon Norton (a good choice) and excise it from your computer, don’t use its own uninstall tool; use the “uninstall programs” option reached through the Windows Control Panel.
Major Major Major Major
@lgerard: I saw that kid a few years later saying Christ, what an asshole I was, I’m liberal now.
@Adam L Silverman: to me, a “black swan” is a story of total institutional/system-wide blindness and failure, not a story of nobody predicting something. Perhaps I’m misusing it.
Ninedragonspot
@MJS: Symantec/Norton apparently just ended their relationship with the NRA, due to the backlash.
Edit: Already noted by two commenters above. Bronze medal for me. Honor just to compete, etc.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: The black swan guy, Taleb is a Trumper and a fraud.
Immanentize
@pamelabrown53: Collusion is a word that was probably focus group tested by Lutz et al and is used because it means NOTHING. It can mean whatever you want it to any day.
“Criminal conspiracy” or “accomplice” are the criminal law terms for what the behaviour seems to be. Try to stay away from repeating the republican “collusion” language.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Have to admit the Dutch journalist who countered Hoekstra’s “fake news” defense by showing him a video saying what he just denied saying was one of my most satisfying moments of 2018.
JEC
@Cheryl Rofer: With due respect to the point the Popehat post makes, an “accidental” or impulsive lie to an investigator is not necessarily irrevocable. Tell your lawyer what you’ve done, and the two of you will draft a letter to the investigating authority identifying and correcting your “mis-statements.” A criminal conviction for lying to investigators, like most criminal charges, requires evidence of intent. Leaving a false statement uncorrected kinda looks like criminal intent. A prompt correction, not so much. (What you can’t do, of course, is retroactively remain silent; if you blurt out a false denial of criminal conduct, you may have a problem.)
So, from the circumstances reported so far, we can fairly speculate that not only did Gates make false statements to investigators, but his lawyers knew them to be false, and that Gates affirmatively refused to correct them, forcing his lawyers to withdraw.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Actually the better polling wasn’t off. The better national polling estimated a 4% win by Clinton. She won the popular vote by 3%. What the polling didn’t take account of, or rather the analysis based on the polling, was the electoral college and its effects on the outcome.
gvg
@JPL: I thought Pence was a Gov. at that point not a Congressman.
patrick II
@pamelabrown53:
Conspiracy is criminal, collusion is a broader term that include people acting together with malicious intent that may or may not be criminal. There was not enough evidence to prove conspiracy from the start and every time someone used that term someone on the other side of the argument would ask “where is the evidence of criminal activity”, and there would not be, in the legal sense a good answer, so it would just be a distractive assertion.
Now there is a good answer, so we can start using the narrower legal term “conspiracy” with confidence and backing it up with indictments and evidence of criminal action in at least some cases.
Of course, that’s just me. Adam will probably be along in a minute to give you the correct answer.
trollhattan
@Ninedragonspot:
Love that “oopsie” response, as though they didn’t enjoy the income right up to this week.
Unless they’ve changed, Norton is bloatware worth avoiding on its own merits. Hard pass.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I have two edits/corrections/clarifications to that comment later on.
geg6
@pamelabrown53:
I have refused to use the term “collusion” all through this (or if I do, I use scare quotes). Because it is not a term used in law. The word for what is happening here is conspiracy. I believe in using the proper terminology and not the favored word of Dolt 45 and his enablers. They chose it because they could then claim that “collusion” is not illegal. Which is true. The actual crime is called conspiracy.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: Sorry, but I have been reliably informed by internet commenter Chris Carson that you don’t know what you’re talking about and your facts are untrue. Nice try, though.
BlueDWarrior
@Major Major Major Major: I think there was a systemic failure, but I think it was brought about by deliberate sabotage. And the fix would have been earlier if it weren’t for Obama being there at the right place and right time. This has been a 40 year project by right-wing entities to dismantle and disrupt the whole of the governmental structure of the United States (and many of the constituent States) and replace it with a corpo-religious vassal government.
And it is working now, to the extent it is, because the poison has finally reached the brains of half the voting public and they are acting like a cult more than a political party these days.
But it is hard to keep a system in place when people inside it are deliberately sabotaging it, and if anything, I think the Democratic Party and liberal activists need to make that the central thesis to their governing and electoral philosophy: to root out the saboteurs and make the government function as written and as intended (and to be changed as conditions would warrant).
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
It helps to actually read all the comments before jumping in…….
Also, in my own non lawyerly way I was trying to say the same thing. Everything is still out there, waiting to be dropped on his head, if necessary. Here is the best deal he is going to get, take one step out of line and the rest of this very tall building is going to fall on his head.
That about it?
(Never take 100 words to say something when 500 will do)
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major: At the time there were comments on the discrepancies between state and national polling, including the observation that they’ve been divergent in the past and that the state polling had been correct in such cases. I never saw a detailed analysis of why there is often a discrepancy between state and national polling.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: Hoekstra.
NotMax
@Ninedragonspot
Good on them. Norton is still bloatware, though, and will impede your computer’s speed and performance.
My 2¢.
JPL
@gvg: You’re correct that he was sworn in January 2013, so he’s not a possibility.
We still can hope that Flynn will take him down.
Inventor
@patrick II:
Great question.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
The Electoral College is the election security equivalent of setting your root password to “12345.”
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Pence’s last day in Congress was January 3, 2013. After that he was Governor of Indiana. So probably not Pence.
I think it’s Rohrabacher — although I do think Pence is in this up to his eyebrows, and his relationship with Manafort will prove to be especially interesting. I just don’t think he was the Congressman mentioned.
VOR
@MJS: Symantec, makers of Norton, just dropped the NRA as a partner. An article at Gizmodo says “Symantec had previously offered a variety of discounts to NRA members who purchased its Norton antivirus software. On Thursday, First National Bank and Enterprise Holdings, which operates three major car rental services, likewise cut ties with the gun advocacy group.”
Adam L Silverman
@Immanentize: Is it:
“Alexa! Order the whiskey flavored popcorn!” or “Alexa! Order the whiskey and the popcorn!”?
Asking for a friend.
Corner Stone
@pamelabrown53: IMO, the flap about collusion is somewhat similar to the gun nuts fooforaw about “clip v magazine” and if you don’t get it right then the entire world ends. I have probably used it a few times myself but I much prefer conspiracy now. It’s not only a better term, it’s just so much sexier.
Major Major Major Major
@BlueDWarrior:
Agree, but this was happening inside not just government but all the things we depend on to monitor and circumvent government sabotage, like news and education. And I don’t think the polls were sabotaged, but they did (at the state level) all fail pretty hard in the same direction. ETA which is what I consider an institutional failure.
Adam L Silverman
@MJS: I liked Trend Micro when I had a PC.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Bannon, Pence, Bossie, and Conway where not there for the entire campaign.
bemused
On my tv now, trump is looking very low energy.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: the Macs at work use ESET.
MattF
@Adam L Silverman: It’s probably safe to assume that Alexa has heard that question before and that your Amazon account will be offering you several different brands of good whiskey.
Cheryl Rofer
@JEC: Thanks!
I really appreciate all the lawyer commenters who help me understand these ins and outs.
Adam L Silverman
@MisterForkbeard: I had one reporter sent my way by Cole. She wanted to talk about the social media component. While I understand that component – as in I know what is going on – I am not a specialist. And other than some informal network mapping I did at the beginning to help myself make sense of stuff, I never did anything formal and large scale. So I provided the reporter, who was just beginning her research, with decent background on what was happening overall in terms of active measures and then recommended several people that have far better technical understanding of the social media stuff for her to talk to. Other than my piece from June of 2016 that we are at cyberwar being cited in a WaPo op-ed by one of these technical types, I’ve not been approached or contacted. Since I don’t use twitter, I’m not promoting myself. And without that platform enabling breakthroughs, so to speak, it is a pretty closed ecosystem when dealing with the national news media. There are multiple gatekeepers from bookers and producers to national security analysts who advise the bookers and producers, as well as the reporters themselves.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Sorry, I missed the “entire campaign” part.
Corner Stone
@bemused: He’s spent after tearing the head off a black baby at CPAC this morning, then punching a Welfare Queen on the way to the car, just for good measure.
NotMax
@NotMax
One more thing. Go to Norton and cancel your account/subscription before uninstalling it.
May have improved by now, but used to be horror tales of people still being charged again and again if they uninstalled first and it was a bear to resolve.
Adam L Silverman
@pamelabrown53: I do not know. My understanding, and our legal fleegles can hopefully add more info, is that there is a technical legal term and usage for collusion, but it is very limited and not for anything that Mueller would be investigating. I think conspiracy has been steered away from because of the significant problem we actually have with conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theories as opposed to real conspiracies.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: No love for Kaspersky?
Aleta
@patrick II: Yes. And I think is related to the destruction of the middle class, destruction of lower class neighborhoods, displacement of their residents, more homelessness and hunger in the US.
Could be that the absence of previous charges, despite surveillance/investigation, gave Mueller a head start, and even a road in, so there’s that.
piratedan
it strikes me that Gates in pivotal in that his information helps shore up the money aspect of what’s been going on, because apparently there was so much of it being tossed in multiple directions, the social media stuff, the voting suppressing initiatives, the big data analysis, paying off of people that influence the media (I mean who is telling these nosy reporters on what stories to follow and broadcast) all of that shit, Gates probably knows who was handling what, if not knowing who was getting paid for what.
also, I think we need to nominate “tick, tock motherfuckers” as our very own “Dilly Dilly”.
This is a scandal that will be taught over generations in schools how an enemy was able to corrupt and sieze power from a formerly open society… thru the use of money, racism and the media.
Adam L Silverman
@Adam L Silverman: Never mind, apparently it was Rohrbacher. If Mueller knows what was actually said at that meeting, then Congressman Rohrbacher should be very, very concerned right now.
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby Thomson:
The governors of New York, Maryland, and Delaware are all subject to indictment and prosecution while in office.
Immanentize
@Ruckus:
Oh, taking 500 words to say what might in 100 is the sign of an experienced attorney!
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: You are not using it the way Taleb uses it.
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman: for me?
Alexa, Whiskey!
Popcorn gets stuck in my teeth…..
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Aw, fudge.
;)
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t know about that. I do know that he is one of the folks who believes that if it doesn’t involve numbers/math, then it can be ignored. Which is a fatal blindspot to have when talking about historically big events that he alleges no one predicted. Which we know, from the historical record, is not true.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Bless his heart.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: His grasp of the math of probability is shaky at best. He doesn’t really understand what he is talking about. The reason he is respected is because he made a lot of money on Wall Street.
ETA: I have read his book and some articles. This is my opinion FWIW.
ETA2: His conclusions are overly broad and sweeping.
WaterGirl
@manyakitty: My first thought, too!
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Is it any good?
MB in CA
Friend of mine had an unexpected visit from the FBI a week or so ago, regarding a few Russian tenants sharing an apt. at one of her buildings. They only stayed for about three months then broke lease. Their tenancy was throughout the time when UC Berkeley was being targeted by all those “free speech” protests (her building is near campus). Then they broke lease and took off. She knew nothing about them. Anyway, interesting.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: No worries.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: As we’ve discussed: Hell NO!!!!!
JPL
@piratedan:
The question though is whether or not it will be taught in schools in the United States.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: That works too!
JPL
@MB in CA: hmmm
MCA1
@Kay: I think for many (to be too simplistic, more of those driven in politics by ambition more than they are by idealism), once they’ve obtained power, keeping that power becomes a bigger psychological motivating factor than using it.
Chet Murthy
Damn, just … damn.
He lies in the middle of a proffer negotiation, forcing his lawyers to withdraw? Did he also shoot himself in the pecker? Give himself a high colonic with bleach? Sheesh.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I do not argue with your conclusions. I could not get through the book. It was terrible. Factually inaccurate, clearly ahistorical. I’m not a probability specialist, but I’ve taught enough stats to know the math had issues. So I decided I’d rather spend my time on better things.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: Or if in the United States in English or Russian.//
bemused
@Corner Stone:
He obviously enjoyed himself immensely, closest thing to being on the campaign trail with big audience, seeing himself on the screen and he can blather on as long as he wants with cheers from the rabble. Less than 24 hours later, he seems quite deflated. I’m hoping he’s having Mueller nightmares every night.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: I guess the guy never had a chance to watch Law & Order on TV! Otherwise, he would have known better.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Confession time, I couldn’t make it to the end of the book, either, nor am I a statistician. His article on renormalization group ( a technique I have familiarity with) was so full of BS that I can not take anything said by him seriously, ever again. I believe it was linked here by DougJ as an example of perpetuating nonsense with shaky math. I think MSMers are impressed because he is wealthy and they are innumerate.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: Taleb wrote about the renormalization group?!
rikyrah
@NotMax:
As someone who knows nothing about the programs, what would you recommend, if not Norton?
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t know, but our IT people are! :)
When I’m on the train, it sometimes gives me an alert that an unknown device is trying to connect, and I turn WiFi off.
@Adam L Silverman: ahha, now I remember a quora thread on this exact topic I read some time back, I came away agreeing with you about Taleb, and I believe that’s where I got the usage I described.
rikyrah
@JPL:
1. He’s up to his eyeballs in the Flynn mess.
2. He’s stupid enough to think that he can lie to Bobby Three Sticks.
Hoodie
Seems pretty likely that Manafort and Gates are Russian agents and Trump either knew that or should have known that. Mueller has proof, Trump can’t pardon because of the optics of pardoning a spy.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: Oh, God, I looked it up and I remember now. According to Taleb the renormalization group proves why sharia law will rule us all.
eric
@Inventor: See Bulger, Whitey
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: My first thought about all that is “It’s sad that twitter of all things is the gatekeeping tool. Blech.”
My 2nd thought is that it’s too bad – not sure what your stage presence is like, but around here you’ve been highly informative and (generally) calming.
PaulWartenberg
My eyes keep going back to this part of the statement: “Conspiracy against the U.S.”? Is that a real charge that Gates is pleading out to? Because if he is… the word Conspiracy itself implies that more people were involved in Gates’ criminal misdeeds against this nation. WHHHHOOOOAAAAAA.
PaulWartenberg
@Gin & Tonic:
Is AVG or Malwarebytes acceptable?
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Yes the same!
NotMax
@rikyrah
See #134 above, please.
WaterGirl
@Bobby Thomson: I am trying to figure out if that is a known FACT or if you and others are stating it definitively because he is the obvious choice.
Sm*t Cl*de
@schrodingers_cat:
He started out as an apologist for self-regulation within the banking / market-speculation industry. “Gubblement should stay out; regulations will merely interfere with the flow of information; bankers and speculative investors stand to lose everything if they make the wrong decision, so they have more incentive to get it right than any regulator.”
Then everything crashed and burned, soTaleb stopped talking about bankers losing everything and re-invented himself as the Prophet of Hoocoodaknown,
Cheryl Rofer
LOL
Gin & Tonic
@PaulWartenberg: Malwarebytes is very good, and I recommend that people actually pay for it. Software doesn’t write itself.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: No worries.
Suzanne
@Cheryl Rofer: LMMFAO.
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: We know that Gates lied about his involvement in that meeting, and Mueller got him on that. So either Mueller already knows what was said in that meeting or Gates told him everything he knows as part of his plea deal.
Either way Rohrabacher better lawyer up.
Bobby Thomson
@WaterGirl: the latter. But it’s him.
Gin & Tonic
@Cheryl Rofer: Poor Paulie. Such heartbreak.
schrodingers_cat
@Sm*t Cl*de: OMG so Taleb is MoU’s taxi driver!
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
So old that used to run F-Protect when it was still in nappies (and free for all).
Bobby Thomson
@PaulWartenberg: legally, a conspiracy requires only two people – the indictment and superseding information do not refer to unindicted co-conspirators. They may also have been in other larger conspiracies but the filings don’t tell us.
eric
@Cheryl Rofer: as a lawyer who does not practice criminal law, i can say that would NEVER let my client say what he “expected” a potential co-conspirator to do. “Hope,” yes. “Expect,” no.
Adam L Silverman
@MisterForkbeard: You tell me:
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: I saw your comment about ESET and just wanted to pipe up that that’s what the family and I use at home. I have it on my Mac and both of our PCs. Seems pretty robust, user friendly, and is very easy on the system resources. Always happy to renew the subscription.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: And all the American so-called journalists said, “really? you can do that?”
Bobby Thomson
@Adam L Silverman: that’s the point, because he’s comparing them to the president under the Articles of Confederation. The purpose of the Federalist Papers was to sell the Constitution as superior to the Articles of Confederation.
Shana
@Immanentize: Something I don’t understand about Gates: just the other day we heard about $30 million in money laundering by Gates and Manafort. Yet we’re also hearing that Gates doesn’t have the money to fight this (among other reasons he may have not to fight). So where did Gates’ money go? Has it all been seized by the Feds? Was he screwed over by Manafort on money? Anyone know?
Adam L Silverman
@Calouste: This was my take about the Van Der Zwaan indictment:
Corner Stone
@Cheryl Rofer: It may just be me but statement by Paulie could be construed as a threat.
Gin & Tonic
@Leto: You’re confusing me with someone else.
David Anderson
@MB in CA: FYI this is interesting to read through on Mizzou (article by a colleague who literally sits in the office next to mine)
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/02/21/dealing-social-media-trolls-and-other-online-outlaws-opinion
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Hoekstra’s face was a study.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: So I am; apologies to Major x4 at 164!
eric
@Corner Stone: not just you; though I read it more as a reminder. Niether is a good look.
Hoodie
@Adam L Silverman: when you combine this with McCarthy’s slip about Rohrabacher being on Putin’s payroll, doesn’t that add up to Gates being a Russian agent? Are we about to see “espionage” raised? Thing is, they allknew, or should have known.
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: I think you need to wear bandoliers to your presentations to really bring the excitement. Or just a single one, like Chewie. Also possibly some kind of fireworks. Have you watched Better Off Ted, by chance? The Jabberwocky presentation has some good pointers: https://youtu.be/spyJ5yxTfas?t=12
Otherwise, I’m looking at a pretty decent presenter. I’ve certainly done worse. :)
Corner Stone
@Shana: My guess is they took a cut of the laundering action but it was always for someone else. Hence the lawsuit Deripaska filed against Paulie for $17M or so a few years ago. Which I always found strange and thought the action did not add up or make sense.
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby Thomson: I’m not sure what you excerpted means what you think it means. I’ve taught the Federalist Papers, and the Anti-Federalist Papers too, to both undergraduates and graduates. I know this is your position. I know you will never move off of it no matter what happens. I am not a lawyer, just a political scientist and criminologist whose specialties include low intensity and unconventional warfare. I know what the arguments are and I also know that even among top legal scholars and practitioners they are all over the map. From yours that it cannot be done/happen to it can be done, it just never has been, to who knows. Only time will tell if Mueller even tries to answer the question, let alone put it to bed for good.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
How went the movie experience?
Bobby Thomson
Edit to remove dickish comment.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Do you use a Mac at home? Curious whether you use ESET or anything like it at home.
Adam L Silverman
@MisterForkbeard: I’ve briefed all the way up to the 4 star/secretariat/special envoy level. I’m very good at it. Both the quick hit and the on the platform for hours variants.
Jay S
@Adam L Silverman: @Major Major Major Major: ESET was recommended and installed by a computer shop for someone I know. It tends to ask for explicit permissions for software that can confuse people and have them block access that is necessary to run in ways that can be difficult to diagnose if you aren’t familiar with the software. I spent an hour or so researching and debugging her problem. I am not a fan of its use for people without strong computer literacy skills or a great IT support team.
Shana
@Corner Stone: Thanks.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
Russky software. Use at your own peril.
Corner Stone
I’d kind of like to be a bombs and rockets guy. Kind of like the leader of The A-Team with an unlit cigar in my mouth anytime I wasn’t making out with seriously hot ladies in distress I had just rescued from certain death.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
This. It’s driving on to untested ice.
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: Then it says the exact opposite of what Bobby Thomson thought it was saying?
eric
@Corner Stone: when did trump say that? ;)
Corner Stone
@Shana: It could also be that Gates has a stash somewhere that Mueller can’t find or know about and he’ll need it to permanently disappear when he serves his jail sentence. These guys got up to some dirty shit with even dirtier people so who knows what he’s trying to pull off.
Bobby Thomson
@WaterGirl: no, the key word is “afterwards.”
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby Thomson: I have a PhD in political science and criminology. As I’ve indicated, in a previous life I’ve taught the Federalist at accredited universities to graduate and undergraduate students in political science (and anyone else that signed up for the course). My bona fides are easily verifiable.
I appreciate your expertise and your certitude in this matter. I’ve read the different arguments. I honestly, as a professional political scientist and criminologist, am not sure which of the arguments would actually carry the day if forced. Other than the who knows one, that I think we can rule out. We will either get an answer as a result of what Mueller is doing or we won’t and it will remain a theoretical issue to be argued without any actual empirical evidence to prove or disprove the arguments.
You seem to take my not agreeing with you 100% as some sort of personal and/or professional attack. They aren’t. If you decide to keep acting as if they will, you will be very unhappy.
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby Thomson: It’s fine. I understand the frustration. I’m not challenging your expertise as a lawyer. All I’m saying is we have two substantively different arguments and no actual empirical evidence to prove one or the other. We have the null set – that Jaworski didn’t think it could be done, his team thought it could be done, and he decided he didn’t want to risk it given that Congress was demonstrating that they would take action.
Sm*t Cl*de
@schrodingers_cat:
I still have Wilson & Kogut (1974) filed away somewhere. There is a special circle of hell reserved for people who take the precise, refined tools of maths and physics and turn them into vague, hand-wavy metaphors, just to give the impression that they know what they’re talking about. Case in point: Spontaneous symmetry breaking, therefore cancer.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chet Murthy:
Your link is behind a TPM Prime paywall. Any chance you could paste a couple of nut grafs or provide a summary?
WaterGirl
@Bobby Thomson: Has Kevin McCarthy had a chat with Mueller yet? I should have phrased that the other way around.
Major Major Major Major
@Sm*t Cl*de:
Sure, maybe in your branch of the multiverse.
Yarrow
Late to this thread. Had to go do real life stuff. Can’t be said often enough…tick tock, motherfuckers.
Thanks for the kind thoughts, everyone.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: It was a joke.
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: I read it differently. He is reading the second paragraph reference to the Confederation of the United States as explicitly making a break with the United States as constituted under the Articles of Confederation. I’m reading it differently. As a political scientist I have trouble believing that the framers of the Constitution, let alone the founders in general, wanted to place the President above the law while in office. That literally would indicate that they meant the US to be a nation of laws, not men except for the President.
I think there are two problems at play here. 1) The way the founders and framers use of language is not the same as today, so we may be reading something very literally that they didn’t intend to be read literally. (This is part of the problem with other parts of the Constitution – American English has changed enough or a lot since the 1790s causing interpretive issues). 2) The founders and framers used precisely the language they intended, they just did not expect they had to make it explicit that any president would be considered above the law for crimes that either predated his or (one day) her presidency or for crimes that are clearly not the political high crimes and misdemeanors, which are essentially whatever Congress decides they are.
This is a theoretical disagreement. I’m looking at it from the political science side. Bobby Thompson from the legal side. I find it fascinating. I find his responses fascinating. While I appear to be pissing him off, he is actually sharpening my thinking and consideration of the issue.
SiubhanDuinne
@Corner Stone:
@bemused:
A brief summary ? of his CPAC speech (link).
Fair Economist
@Hoodie:
Oh, they all knew. They laughed at McCarthy’s joke.
schrodingers_cat
@Sm*t Cl*de: I have a reprint of Wilson’s renormalization group paper for The Review of Modern Physics.
GregB
@Yarrow:
TTMF.
Aleta
I wish a visible website or blog would compile a daily or weekly list of What Else They Are Doing Right Now.
Maybe it’s out there and I don’t see it, as I’m consumed by the headlines too.
I see other stories scattered around, but I wish for a very big constant spotlight on a list of headlines that are not the outrage of the moment (it’s justified outrage of course).
It wasn’t an isolated slip up when Parkland was called a reprieve. It’s basic to what political operatives believe in. How Republicans and Bernie and Bill Clinton and Cheney work. It’s how Trump campaigned and kept curious voters on his side and still willing to go out to vote.
(I made a ranting list but deleted it because everyone here knows the other stories that are also out there.)
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, I think he meant to reply to Whisky, Neat.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: how’d you know my old drink?
les
@Leto:
I’ll second that–use it home and office, haven’t had an issue yet. It’s Micro Center’s choice as well.
Bobby Thomson
@Adam L Silverman: he made a colorable argument in his brief. I just think it’s weak.
For all practical purposes, the language means what five justices say it means, and I find it hard to see Kennedy and/or Roberts getting on board with that view. Not a chance the three right wing ideologues do.
Vhh
@MJS: Avast or the Microsoft security suite.
Doug R
@Major Major Major Major:
Only one thing failed-our countermeasures vs espionage.
Edit: Of course 60,000,000 idiots didn’t help.
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby Thomson: No argument with this analysis at all. Though Kennedy could go any direction. And Roberts always seems to have an eye on his legacy.
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for all that. Interesting and useful.
Aleta
@Immanentize: Didn’t think of that. Big thanks for pointing these things out, as you do.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: I’m
psychoticpsychic.Doug R
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: The polling was as close as the hacking dared to get-note all those 1% margin PA precincts-statistically impossible.
Major Major Major Major
@Doug R: and, you know, the media.
@WaterGirl: porque no los dos?
Bobby Thomson
@Fair Economist: thing is, it was a “joke” in its absurdity, not in the sense of being made up. They also laughed at other objectively true statements made before that one.
Doug R
@Major Major Major Major:
Or somebody tweaked the results just enough to be almost believable.
Anonymous At Work
@JPL: I think the entire campaign staff was worried about selling a thrice-married, multi-cheating, greedy, lusty, wrathful, slothful, envious, boastful glutton to a lot of religious leaders and their followers. And Pence was low-fruit, being a favored son and a great fundraiser who was going to lose his re-election for Governor.
Plus, Pence was in Congress from Jan 1 to Jan 3 in 2013 before becoming Governor.
Suzanne
@Yarrow:
Damn skippy.
You were missed.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, there are some historians who insist that Hamilton was a secret royalist and wanted America to have a king, so … ?
(Obviously, I think those people are stupid and/or have an agenda, but I’m only an amateur student of history.)
Doug R
@MJS: Symantec ends NRA membership deals after backlash Norton dropped the discount.
Doug R
@bemused:
“Low t cuck”
Armadillo
Do we know who Company A and Company B are in the superseding information? One of them is Skadden, right? Has TPM done one of its “CTRL-H” remixes of the information yet?
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: it’s beyond dispute that Hamilton favored a strong central government and a strong executive, because a weak central government had been tried and was failing miserably. And because the economy needed a financial diuretic. I don’t think it’s a stretch that Hamilton thought the chief executive should be immune from the laws while executive, with an escape valve for high crimes and misdemeanors.
PaulWartenberg
@Bobby Thomson:
I know conspiracy is a minimum of two people. :)
but given the scope of the investigation, and what it is we’re looking at, the likelihood of multiple people facing conspiracy charges is very very very VERY high.
#PassThePopcorn
Bobby Thomson
@Armadillo: Skadden isn’t mentioned in this indictment. TPM says that according to filings, we know that day Manafort met with Rohrabacher and Vin Weber of Mercury Public Affairs. We also now know that Gates’ former lawyers withdrew on the same day he met with Mueller, likely because they knew he had lied.
Bobby Thomson
Company B is the Podesta Group, so get ready for a reprise of the whole Uranium One shtick.
Mnemosyne
@Bobby Thomson:
I’m commenting more on the conservative historians who insist that Hamilton wanted an actual king, not just a strong executive, based on what people claimed years later was the topic of his indelicate six-hour speech on his own form of government at the Constitutional Convention.
Obviously, my view (from a history, not legal, standpoint) is that while Hamilton had a LOT of personal and professional flaws, I seriously doubt he was trying to create a monarchy in the US.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: disciplined dissident James Madison did call it essentially an “elective monarch.” Under that plan, Washington could have continued to serve for good behavior.
M. Bouffant
@lgerard: Young Mr. Krohn wised up & went left. So left that he types for The Intercept now.
JEC
@Cheryl Rofer: Just to clarify, IANAL, just some guy who apparently sounds like one on the Internet.
Miss Bianca
@Cheryl Rofer: My God, that’s positively Soviet-speak!
Llelldorin
@Adam L Silverman: My god, thank you for that. Taleb’s book is one of the very few I’ve ever owned that’s taken flight repeatedly.
Achrachno
@Adam L Silverman: “If Mueller knows what was actually said at that meeting, then Congressman Rohrbacher should be very, very concerned right now.”
Boy-oh-boy, do I hope Rohrbacher’s sweating. I knew him slightly in college and he played a role in my leaving the Republican party I’d been raised in (Nixon played a bigger role). He did not impress me much. He was the product of wealth (his dad was a big shot in Flying Tiger Airlines) and his folks lived in a pricey house on a hilltop on the Palos Verdes Peninsula overlooking L.A. I was there once for some meeting. He was absolutely paranoid that the anti-war people were going to kill him (or something) so he managed to finagle a concealed carry permit back in those days when I think that was pretty difficult. He posed mostly as a libertarian and an anticommunist — though those things are harder to see in his subsequent political career. I always wondered what his conservative supporters would have thought if they’d known more about his private life.