To recap: the personal lawyer for the President of the United States has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for conduct including campaign finance violations involving hush money payments to women on behalf of the President.
Or, as we call it in 2018, Wednesday.
— ThankYouForNotSmockingHat (@Popehat) December 12, 2018
Open Thread
Update 1
AMI – the parent company of the National Enquirer – got immunity from prosecution for its role in a conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws with respect to the MacDougal story. They admit they coordinated with Trump’s campaign to influence the election. https://t.co/HAgLBSU4VN
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) December 12, 2018
Cermet
I see he got off easy. Not sure that is right. He held back and is protecting criminals (not necessarily the orange fart cloud.) As such, he should have gotten a minimum of four years.
hells littlest angel
Such is the state of justice in this country that it’s impressive he has to serve any time at all.
Oh well. He’d better sing a really good song.
HeleninEire
This is just the Mueller investigation, right? He still faces charges in the SDNY.
The Dangerman
I say he can work some of that off by giving up Sean Hannity.
ETA: I assume he’s already given up as much on Trump as he’s got.
Elizabelle
Curious how long he will be in prison, with a three year sentence. Is it the full 36 months?
He coulda done a lot worse.
dr. bloor
@HeleninEire: This is the whole thing. Both SDNY and Special Prosecutor’s office spoke before sentencing today.
Frankensteinbeck
What’s interesting is that we’re still in the layer of criminals that Mueller wants to flip. The goal of such flipping is to work your way up to being able to absolutely nail to the wall the criminals you think are truly important. So… who is in that tier for Mueller?
Corner Stone
@Elizabelle: Time off for good behavior, no parole. If he lives that long.
Corner Stone
Anyone ever had heated socks? I need some that are fairly loose, not compression type, that can be heated over and over again.
HeleninEire
@dr. bloor: Yeah I just figured that out. It sucks. Fucking white men can do any fucking thing and I am sick of it.
West of the Rockies
Is he going to dis-Barred (spelling)? Can’t imagine he’ll be practicing law other than maybe as DUI king of Long Island or such.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Clearly the times call for a “No smocking gun” tag.
Corner Stone
I think 36 months sends a pretty good signal. Mueller et al have set it up so that people in this mess know lying to prosecutors/FBI is the best way to get a room booked at the Gray Bar Hotel for yourself.
I’ll just be glad when we finally don’t see any more Michael Cohen interlocutors tell us his inner most thoughts anymore, like the despicable Emily Jane Fox or Donnie Deutsch.
Betty Cracker
Via WaPo:
Sounds like he’s trying to screw the shitgibbon to the wall as hard as he can. Good.
rikyrah
I’m waiting for the Paulie Walnuts sentencing.
Cohen should be relieved.
hells littlest angel
@Corner Stone: Wool, battery-heated socks. Not cheap but a real pleasure to wear in sub-zero temperatures.
Corner Stone
Stackpath Strikes Again!
Mike in DC
@Frankensteinbeck:
Guesses: People named Trump, Erik Prince, Mike Pence, members of Congress, Jeff Sessions, and Jared frickin Kushner.
Corner Stone
@hells littlest angel: That’s what I’ve been reviewing but the ones I have seen so far look super tight.
Elizabelle
@Corner Stone: I wonder if Trump will be alive when Cohen gets out.
Anything could happen, and Trump does not appear a healthy man, in oleaginous body or demented mind.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: He’s definitely baiting Trump.
hells littlest angel
@Corner Stone: Try an Army-Navy type store.
Elizabelle
Photo of Cohen with his family. Daughter (on crutches) has legs so thin I wonder if she is anorexic.
What pain his family has been through.
Spanky
@Corner Stone: Heated socks ?!? Don’t you live in Houston?
Electric ones OK?
lollipopguild
Gee, it’s not even Friday. I love infrastructure week. Or is it smocking gun week?
Raoul
McConnel apparently declined to comment on the sentencing. To which I say, Mitch is the cancer gene at the center of our American metastasis. Trump is just the biggest and ugliest tumor.
Raoul
@Betty Cracker: Still, the ‘everything Trump touches dies’ tears are salty and so, so sad.
LOL.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t want it to sound like he’s screwing anyone. I want it to be as cold and dispassionate an indictment of that whole criminal cabal as possible
Yarrow
Cohen also has to pay some money.
Corner Stone
@Spanky: Dude, it’s going to get down to 43F tomorrow! 43!
Edited to correct the digit.
Bostonian
So, if a fellow gets 36 months in prison for doing something illegal that some other fellow – let’s just call him Individual 1 – asked him to do, should that other guy get time too?
Asking for a friend who rigged a few witches back in his day.
Adam L Silverman
I’ll just leave this here:
germy
Corner Stone
@Bostonian:
Apparently every single pundit has been told to state as fact that a sitting president can not be indicted. So, the answer is no. We have a King.
MazeDancer
50K seems light in the fine department
germy
Jeffro
I just took the WaPo’s article about Cohen’s sentence, changed “Donald Trump” to “Hillary Clinton” and sent it to my RWNJ dad and bro, asking them if they’d be calling for a deeper investigation (or flat-out impeachment, or drawing and quartering) into Clinton given everything her lawyer just went to prison for. Will let y’all know what they have to say…=)
scav
@Adam L Silverman: aaaahhhh.
thank you.
germy
Corner Stone
@MazeDancer: I thought I heard it was $50K for each case, so $100K. But I don’t have a link for that.
germy
catclub
@Corner Stone: Sorel Boots were what I wore in Canada. Loose thermo-something liners were very warm.
Spanky
@Corner Stone: Wow! That’s only 6 in Celsius!
(Edited to correct the digit)
Luciamia
Better start collecting recipes for toilet wine.
cain
@Raoul:
The world would be a better place a hole to hell opened up and swallowed McConnell and left behind a cute dog instead.
MazeDancer
Okay, now see Cohen also has to forfeit ans repay, as well. Total $1.9 mil on those two.
TaMara (HFG)
@Adam L Silverman: That. Is. Awesome.
germy
catclub
@Corner Stone: Suppose Trump murders Melania in a fit of rage. Still impossible to indict?
I was just wondering if convicted ex-presidents get a SS protection team while in the pen.
steppy
That’s pretty stiff for some mere process crimes.
Spanky
@Adam L Silverman:
I wish you wouldn’t. There are some of us who can’t get twitter from work.
donnah
I feel zero pity for these criminals or their families. The bums cheated, lied, stole, and then tried to cover up serious crimes and they deserve worse than what they’re getting. Greed and self-importance got them this far and I hope they acknowledge that to themselves.
Searcher
@Corner Stone: I’d like to see the state with like the fourth best case against Trump file charges and get a SC ruling, just for shits and giggles.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Charles Colson, Nixon’s “hatchet man,” got a one-to- three-year sentence. He served seven months.
catclub
@germy: and the other co-chair was William Broidy, also not covered in glory.
germy
@catclub: So the GOP is less a political party and more a criminal enterprise.
Yarrow
@Spanky: It’s a tweet from Rick Wilson with an image of a deleted tweet from Cohen on December 19, 2015 that says: “@HillaryClinton when you go to prison for defrauding America and perjury, your room and board with be free!”
Geeno
@lollipopguild: I think it’s Crumbling, Smocking Infrastructure Week. Yay!
germy
L O C K
H I M
U P
Fester Addams
Anyone know how may indoor tennis courts they have at FCI Otisville? Google Earth shows just the one outdoor tennis court.
Adam L Silverman
@Spanky: Now you have something to look forward to for after work.
Corner Stone
@catclub: Apparently, if he rage killed his wife simply to earn some sympathy votes to *become* president then it wouldn’t matter if he did it. IMO, that is essentially the argument being made now by pundits. Sure, he conspired with a foreign adversary to *win* the presidency but now that he’s a sitting president he can’t be indicted for it.
TenguPhule
@Cermet:
If Cohen gets stuck in general population, I’ll be satisfied.
PPCLI
@catclub: Don’t forget Steve Wynn in there! Also co-chair. Or just outright chair, can’t recall precisely.
Jeffro
@germy:
Why, you could almost say that it…and the NRA…and the Trumpov Org…are racketeer-influenced and corrupt organizations, couldn’t you?
Adam L Silverman
@catclub: And the chair was Steve Wynn.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: No. way.
Corner Stone
Who is this brunette ingenue with Cohen that has the arm brace?
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
Yes…..you could…LOL
RICO, BABY!!
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: Isn’t that his daughter?
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: I wonder what those pundits would say about 65M voters being denied their franchise due to the criminal acts of a corrupt organization working in concert with a hostile foreign power? Do those 65M people just have to lump it? Democracy only counts as long as you’re ALSO willing to do whatever it takes to win?
No matter what you do to get elected, you get to stay president…and while you’re president, no matter what is revealed about how you got there, and no matter what you do while you’re there, you get to stay president. Hmm…I wonder if the pundits could tell us if this applies to all presidents, or just Republican ones?
Where is my bat?
Jeffro
@Yarrow: Way. =)
Yarrow
@rikyrah: Can’t wait until it moves up the chain to the RNC.
Mart
@Corner Stone: Years ago my dad around 80 flew from Phoenix to visit us in Chicago in March. Temps were seasonably low – in the 20’s and low 30’s. He was miserable. Was thinking of moving close to us, after his visit, no way in hell.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
Yes. If you create a set of rules and then don’t do whatever it takes to enforce them equally on all parties, this is what happens.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: His daughter.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39920669
Yarrow
@Jeffro: ?
Yarrow
On the other side of the pond, getting the impression Theresa May may survive the no confidence vote.
Ruckus
@germy:
For decades now.
They are just more obvious now.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
No doubt. The problem for her party is that every other alternative to replace her is worse.
Bobo, for fucks sake is a viable choice.
NotMax
@West of the Rockies
Applicable NY law:
oatler.
@TenguPhule: I imagine it would be more like the prison scene in Goodfellas where they’re frying steaks and slicing garlic.
TenguPhule
Bloody Bill’s replacement for being always wrong is off to a good start.
Wendell Thomas
@Elizabelle: It’s a federal sentence so he has to serve 85%. So that is 30.6 months before release. Now it is rare but they can do a downward departure of the time he got if he continues to coooerate. Rare but possible.
.
TenguPhule
@oatler.:
Cohen can only dream of ever having that much heft in the prison system.
Spanky
Aw jeez … Well, I clicked on it so you don’t have to. Another McArglebargle turd dropped over at WaPo:
Link? Are you kidding?
TenguPhule
Chaos and the chocolate factory as leak smothers German street
Germany’s infrastructure Week is making us look bad.
Corner Stone
@TenguPhule: The Democrats are in danger of being proven competent at their job of oversight. That alone could end any chance they have for electoral success in 2020.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
That was my immediate thought when I saw that picture. The kids look pretty stoic, but the look on his wife’s face is excruciating.
catclub
@TenguPhule: He is very plugged in with Russian mobsters. So he might have some heft.
s/very plugged in/ reported to know well/
I am wondering what will happen with Felix Sater – FBI informant and crook non-pareil.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
Why tease us like that…..
go on…..do us the favor….read it so the rest of us don’t have to..LOL
TenguPhule
Finally found the quote.
He is stark raving mad.
TenguPhule
@catclub:
They will come to bury Michael, not praise him.
NotMax
@TenguPhule
You’re on a different island but still may remember some years back the occasion central Maui reached total gridlock when portions of major arteries and other nearby roads were shut down after a rupture in a huge outdoor storage tank* holding molasses.
Normally commute was 18 minutes from home to work, took just under 3 hours that day.
*Capable of holding something around ten thousand tons of the stuff, IIRC.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: Cohen’s daughter might have a form of muscular dystrophy.
Van Buren
@West of the Rockies: Hell to the no. We have enough troubles already.
Elizabelle
So does Cohen report immediately to prison? Or does he get a little time to ready himself for that, and then report? Maybe they have not even decided where he will serve his sentence.
The newspaper stories are remarkably detail free, and not subjecting myself to cable news. No no no.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: Can’t we all practically write the article ourselves at this point?
Let’s see, it’ll probably include most of these things:
– Democrats will overreach
– Public will tire of hearing about Russia investigation
– Democrats won’t pass legislation their voters want if they focus on Russia/impeachment, etc. and their voters will kick them out in 2020
– Some bad/wrong economic assertions and/or statistics
– Comparison to some not really relevant other time when Democrats did something
– Sad attempt at humor
See! All done now!
Elizabelle
@Barbara: Will keep an ear out on that. Her legs looked wasted. Poor girl.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule: @Spanky: it really is one of the dumber things she has ever written (I know, I know, there’s a lot of competition for that title)
But seriously, McMegan…
Curse those darned “activists” that are only “activists” in the Democratic Party (in the GOP, they’re called “voters”, or “citizens”, or the “white working class”, or whatever)
Is it just me or does nobody really care much about the sex? (Other than the hypocrisy about it from evangelicals, that is) I hesitate to speak for the entire Democratic Party, but I’m pretty sure 99% of us care about the lawbreaking – the dirty money, the violations of what little campaign finance law remains, the lying to Congress, the obstruction of justice – and maybe 1% care about the (ugh) (ick) (gross) Trumpian sexy time.
And why would it be ugly or angry, McMegan? Or to put it another way, WHY AREN’T REPUBLICANS READY TO TOSS THIS LAWBREAKING, TREASONOUS, UTTERY IMMORAL KNOW-NOTHING RIGHT OUT ON HIS EIGHT-TON ASS? We want justice – that’s not ugly or angry until we run up against the people running cover for this scumbag. THEN, we get angry, yeah…
Yarrow
@Barbara: Doubtful. It was likely a play for sympathy. Let’s not forget when Michael Cohen did this:
She has since deleted her Instagram.
@Elizabelle: I heard he reports to prison in early March–maybe it was March 3?
waratah
@Corner Stone: have you tried shoes boots lined in wool. Uggs are good but there are others. Moccasins are lined in wool. The fist time I tried Uggs I was amazed how much they warmed my feet. I love the feel of them without socks.
Mike in DC
@NotMax: Did it happen in January, by any chance?
Barbara
@Yarrow: She was definitely using crutches so life might have taken a turn for the worse post-Ivy League graduation. At any rate, I never take joy over the effect that jail time, however justified, has on families. It looked like the son and wife had been crying nonstop before the hearing.
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
I was here for the great “Army Truck cracks bridge over major freeway” incident awhile back.
40 minute drive became 6 hours.
A Ghost To Most
@Corner Stone:
43? It is to laugh. You definitely have your thermostat set to Houston.
Spanky
In case y’all are glued here at the bottom of the post, David has added UPDATE 1 at the top.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
Truly her finest hour at being completely, utterly wrong.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Some of the responses to Cohen’s posting of his daughter’s “Edie Sedgwick” photo are funny.
Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article150573142.html#storylink=cpy
donnah
@TenguPhule:
Reminds me of my favorite Onion post of all time:
https://www.theonion.com/pudding-factory-disaster-brings-slow-creamy-death-to-t-1819565362
A Ghost To Most
@Jeffro: I no longer click on the asshole WaPo columnists, not even to bitch. McArglebargle is not the worst.
Barbara
@TenguPhule: I don’t know, her screed maintaining that insider trading has no victims might be hard to top (or, rather, slither under). She is truly, truly, the epitome of how to succeed by having wealthy parents and being totally mediocre.
Jeffro
Apparently AMI (parent company of National Enquirer?) has also reached a non-prosecution deal with SDNY…one Tweep noted “hard not to think that indictments of Trump Org aren’t far behind”
It’ll all drop at once.
Corner Stone
@Spanky: That seems…interesting.
Kay
@Jeffro:
I wish they would prosecute. They have to stop making deals.
Yarrow
@Barbara: She’s using a crutch but she’s also wearing heels. Whatever happened to make her need the crutch isn’t so bad that she can’t wear heels. I know she’s young, but come on. Heels are not recommended for people who need mobility assistance. It’s a safety issue.
I do agree with you that the family pays the price when something like this happens. I feel sorry for his family but it was his choice to put them through this. It does suck for them, though. They look distraught.
scott (the other one)
@Raoul: This is one of those (oh so many) places where our MSM has fallen down so egregiously. The Senate Majority Leader does not get to have no comment on the personal attorney to the President of the United States of America going to prison, especially not when the Senate Majority Leader and the President are from the same party. He simply doesn’t get to. Until he has an official comment, he doesn’t get to comment on another fucking thing. Not current legislation. Not the economy. Not how awful the other party is. Not what his holiday plans are. Every time he opens his chelonian mouth to speak to the press, he must be cut off and asked to comment on the President’s personal attorney going to jail–and the fact that said attorney implicated the President in criminal activities.
But of course he won’t be.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Once the new Congress is in the driver’s seat, or about to be. No allowing the GOP to run interference more than they already have.
I would like to see Mitch McConnell eventually get a much longer prison sentence. Nobody going to be crying when he reports for sentencing. I am good with him hanging for treason, too.
Adam L Silverman
@catclub: Sater is a long time FBI informant. My professional guesstimate is that he immediately cut himself a day and told everything to keep himself out of as much trouble as possible as he’s done every previous time he’s gotten in trouble.
Jeffro
@A Ghost To Most: Agreed: Marc Thiessen is the worst (human being, not just worst columnist)
Yarrow
@Jeffro:
Yep! I expect the really big stuff won’t drop until Nancy has resumed her throne.
Corner Stone
@A Ghost To Most: Don’t mock my pain! What comes after 43F? 41F? And then what, huh? 38, 39? GAAAHH! The horror of it all!
A Ghost To Most
@Yarrow: Recent hip surgery.
Yarrow
@Kay: Just think what they’re getting for all those people making deals. The really good stuff is yet to come.
Corner Stone
@Elizabelle: How far can you stretch a turtle’s neck? Let’s find out!
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
It’s the TREASON, you moron.
it always has been THE TREASON.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Pecker will have had to turn over the entire contents of his safes to SDNY. There is going to be a lot of negative downstream effects from this deal for a lot of people who thought they were safe.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: Did you know that sometimes it’s so cold that the water falling from the sky freezes? No, really! It’s true!
Jeffro
@Kay: I hear you, but they are essentially ‘taking a shot at the king’ here (and one backed by the worst group of enablers in the GOP and on Fox that our democracy has ever seen). They can’t miss…for the sake of the country they can’t miss. They’re going to have to drop a LOT, all at once, on these guys. Jr, Kushner, and Trumpov himself individually plus the Trump Org for RICO.
NotMax
@Yarrow
Would Pecker sing?
You betcha.
A Ghost To Most
@Jeffro: I hate that MFer with white hot heat. He’s a (im)pure propagandist, even worse than Ed Rogers.
Corner Stone
@Kay:
I really only want them to prosecute three people, and don’t care about the rest. It’s a bunch of Papapappadappoulesses to me outside of Trump, Ivanka and Jared.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: Yep. And it’s all going to have to happen at once or it won’t work. It’s just going to be chaos when it does.
@NotMax: Absolutely! Wonder what’s in those safes…
A Ghost To Most
@Corner Stone:
43 degrees is not the horror of Houston. That would be summer.
Jeffro
@Yarrow:
Exactly right. I know many have said that these kinds of roll-up investigations (whether money-laundering or counterintelligence/conspiracy, much less both) take quite a bit of time…in the end, we will probably hear that Mueller figured out early on that a) this was going to take a loooong time and b) would hopefully last at least as long as the 2018 elections, when hopefully the Dems would take over.
Everything that’s happened to drag this out and keep Trumpov from firing Sessions, Rosenstein, and Mueller…everything people did to buy time for the Special Counsel to lay this incredibly solid of a foundation…it’s almost heroic. I hope we hear more of the details eventually (perhaps we can kick off the 2021 Truth & Reconciliation Commission hearings with a full accounting of what was done to ensure Trumpov & Co were eventually brought to justice)
Corner Stone
@Yarrow:
Nice try, you fool! But I’ve been to a shaved ice shop before. I know how that frozen stuff really gets made!
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
Ow my ears.
Kay
What is the Republican plan here? They really plan to argue that no crimes the President or his low quality hires commit matter unless they are “collusion”?
“See? No collusion” as they lead all the Trump hires off in handcuffs. “Collusion” isn’t even the crime. Collusion is made-up pundit word for what they’re investigating. Comey has said that over and over.
Maybe that’s the plan- “See? There’s no “collusion” in the federal code so he’s innocent!” It’s so childish.
It’s not going to work either.
TenguPhule
Pinocchio and the two Democrats: how that Trump meeting descended into farce
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Make a mess. Try to escape in the confusion.
scott (the other one)
@rikyrah: The WaPo has been greatly outpacing the FTFNYT the past few years—admittedly, that’s a fairly low bar, sadly—but shit like this is why I still give them the automatic stinkeye whenever they’re brought up. Because…WTF.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
“It’s okay daddy, I’ll visit you every week!” [To self: “Like hell, I’m not going within a thousand miles of the joint. Enjoy your stay.”]
TenguPhule
@Kay:
FTFNYT says hi.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: True, but the strictly ‘personal failings’ will likely stay buried while the criminal stuff gets its eventual day in court, prioritized by severity.
I’m surprised the media aren’t asking about how Cohen wasn’t willing to testify about anything but Trumpov. I can actually see the Mango Menace taking to Twitter sometime very soon, with his usual threats and innuendoes: “Oh Michael’s SOOO innocent and I’m the bad guy? You should see some of the things he was up to and who he was dealing wi…” Wait. Actually I can see him stopping right there and deleting that tweet…he’s mixed up with the same people. Never mind (on Trumpov’s part, anyway). But why aren’t the media asking around?
trollhattan
@Kay:
It almost rhymes with “cold fusion” and that doesn’t exist, either.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule: More both-sides bullshit. That meeting was no more of a “pie fight” or “farce” than a skilled debater taking on a toddler who wants ice cream. Trumpov looked and sounded like a complete moron; Nancy handed him his fat ass. But to the media it’s a “pie fight”. Grrrrr
A Ghost To Most
@scott (the other one): Affirmative action for wingnuts. Fuckem; read Rubin, et al
Gravenstone
@TenguPhule: Honest question. Do these people actually inhabit an alternate reality, or are they simply trying to bullshit their way into making a percentage of the population believe in one?
Jeffro
@Kay:
Yes.
They’ll probably be saying “…and these other crimes, these payoffs and campaign finance ‘violations’ and perjury and what not, they wouldn’t even have HAPPENED – or at least, we never would have heard of them – if the phony ‘collusion’ investigation hadn’t gotten started…” any day now, if they haven’t already. Which is kind of gob-smacking when you think about it. If we go about investigating alleged crime #1 and during the course of that investigation find out about alleged crimes #2 and #3…do we then just take a pass on prosecuting #2 and #3???? It boggles the mind because unlike Republicans, my mind actually works and does not contain a FoxLogic operating system.
piratedan
@Jeffro: well you do have to admire her completely context free riffing on the possible doom and gloom regarding the Mueller investigation…
we had roughly four years of Whitewater investigations about real-estate deals that the President lost money on to turn up a consenting adults blow job that the President lied about…. versus a vast cornucopia of crimes committed by not only Individual-1 but his entire administration and likely leading to a series of very pointed questions to pretty much the entire GOP hierarchy in regards to money, coordination and an utter lack of ethics which has already seen indictments and convictions and McMegan is concerned that there actually might not be any Smocking Gun…..
If we could harness that raw power, we could run the entire eastern seaboard on her combination of stupidity and obtuseness….
TenguPhule
@Gravenstone:
I think a bit of both. They’re insulated from the worst effects of their propaganda while having the moral compass of a drunken weasel in heat.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro: “process crimes” and “no real victims”.
“we just forgot to complete some paperwork, everyone does it!”
Gaslighting by the GOP has already started.
A Ghost To Most
Cohen’s reticence to talk about everything may be him attempting to protect family or in-laws.
scott (the other one)
A reminder, since it’s easy to forget, since it’s really not all that much different from what they normally do and why: one reason McConnell and Graham and McCarthy and the rest are so “la la la I cannot hear you” about all this isn’t just because they’re greedy and power-hungry and petty—it’s because many of them are probably compromised themselves, whether directly or indirectly (through NRA money, for instance). And, as has been pointed out, many of them honestly don’t know for sure if they’re one of the compromised ones and, if so, how much. So best just to try to keep their heads down, pretend it’s business as usual, and hope against all rationality that things will be okay for them. Because, to their way of thinking, they’ve got no other viable alternative—not if they want to keep their political careers. (And they all do–not to mention, a bunch of them are still hoping they’ll somehow be able to turn this all to their political advantage.)
Barbara
@Gravenstone: My hypothesis about McMegan is that she is so mediocre that the only way she knows to say anything of any interest on any subject is to follow the pattern of “you might have thought that X was obvious, but I am here to tell you why Y is actually right.” Of course, the X has to favor liberals (or regulation) and the Y either has to implicate liberals or exculpate conservatives or be critical of regulation that might benefit average people. The fact that her arguments are often premised on a complete misunderstanding of economic theory is just icing on the cake. That’s why I view the insider trading screed as peak McMegan — she actually said something to the effect that markets are more efficient when there is asymmetry of information, when efficient market hypothesis posits exactly the opposite. She got so much criticism on Twitter for that article that she actually started whining in response that people hadn’t actually read it all the way through or misunderstood what she was saying.
M31
@NotMax:
the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 killed over 20 people
Gin & Tonic
@Yarrow: You’re a better person than I, then. I feel not a grain of sympathy for anyone in his family. Guy spends his life being a professional asshole, and they all live large based on that. Fuck him, and fuck them. I hope by the end of this they don’t have two nickels to rub together.
There, I’m a bad person.
Keith P.
@germy: But Trump is cash poor. I guarantee the $50 million he loaned his campaign stung, and not just on principle.
TenguPhule
@M31:
Giving a new spin on Candy Crush.
Jeffro
@A Ghost To Most: I’m thinking it’s his eastern European mob connections (and what he knows about their criminal activities)
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
Come sit by me.
When they burn, I will have smores ready.
A Ghost To Most
@Jeffro: Isn’t his father-in-law a shady Russian?
scav
It’s also possibly just a personal face-saving locution / dodge: “I never said Trump wasn’t guilty of being a complicit even eager arm of the Russian state and a tax-avoiding pussy-harrassing nincompoop. I said it wasn’t collusion†.”
† or an artificial blue-cheese spread or Mississippian pimento salad or Venusian gold-dust foxtrot.
The Moar You Know
Since the day AMI got hit with their subpoena/whatever, I haven’t seen them in a checkout stand. Not anywhere. Surely they have not shut down?
ruemara
@Jeffro: I predict a lot of silence.
@Kay: You’re probably going to see people say this is so common & both sides do it, because I’ve been hearing that from punditry & republicans. It’s going to take people demanding that it be important.
stan
My god, worse than the Bowling Green massacre.
Gin & Tonic
@A Ghost To Most: Cohen’s father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, is a Russian Jew from Ukraine.
A Ghost To Most
@stan: Well played.
Chris Johnson
@scott (the other one): No shit they are, and boy do they know it.
I heard McConnell let through some sort of legislation that was OK with Dems, and my immediate thought was ‘is it time for him to start making all kinds of concessions in hopes of being let go scot-free despite being an outright traitor and Russian agent?’ Because now they know. A bunch of people know. They’re not telling you, because ‘the discourse’ and preserving norms and systems that are already completely destroyed. It’s maintaining a fiction.
A Ghost To Most
@Chris Johnson: Mr. Creosote is a particularly odious symptom of a much larger disease.
Domestic short hair tabby (fka vheidi)
@A Ghost To Most: can’t remember where I heard it (prob msnbc) – sdny wants absolutely every last detail of one’s illegal activities, which could take quite some time. Cohen knew he was going to jail and wanted to get it over with
sukabi
There seems to be a ripple in the farce….
Wait, whut? Fox News Host Fact Checks Jason Chavetz Live
Ms. Butina’s ‘boy friend’, aka current target, conduit between NRA Russa and Trump
TenguPhule
@stan:
Ruviana
@Gin & Tonic: I’m not sure how minor children fit into this argument (yes I know they’re adults now but what do kids so?) One might consider how long it took for Paul Manafort’s daughters to xome to grips with where their money came from.
Peale
@TenguPhule: maybe Kenneth Starr could go back through the case and find those payments to Monica. The expensive gifts to her paid from the treasury or from campaign funds. Threats made by his security detail to keep her quiet. Maybe he forgot to look for those things.
ruemara
@TenguPhule: Seriously. I have a spit ready.
ruemara
@Ruviana: Didn’t they acknowledge that and disavow him in some released texts? I feel bad for them. I’ve been listening to the podcast Happy Face, which is about the daughter of the Happy Face killer and man, there’s some pain you go through as the child of a crook. Not to mention the multiple ways he tried to kill his family via stealth but just the mental games he plays with them is bad enough.
A Ghost To Most
On Twitter, re: Orrin Hatch’s Senate farewell speech.
germy
What a time to be alive.
Kelly
@Adam L Silverman:
A key shadowy bad guy in this story is named Pecker? These showrunners are shameless.
Yes, I know he’s run the National Inquirer and been buddies with Trump for a long time.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
For Smores? That’s hard core.
TenguPhule
Yay, Team Good Guys.
TenguPhule
Fucking Tennessee.
TenguPhule
NC scandal widens.
sukabi
@M31: “Slower than molasses in January” ….is that where that phrase came from?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule:
Did a Republican cross the aisle for this?
A Ghost To Most
@TenguPhule:
Let’s beat the rush, and start hating him now. I got no patience for anti-vaxxers.
jeffreyw
@TenguPhule:
Ask one simple question to shut that shit down: “Do you do it, Senator?”
Ruviana
@ruemara: Yep, there were transcripts of either texts or phone calls where the daughters were discussing their father’s sources of income and one of them called it “blood money ” I believe.
ETA I think one of them legally changed her last name as well.
scott (the other one)
@TenguPhule:
FTFT (fixed that for them)
ruemara
@TenguPhule: Long pig. To feed to the dogs.
@TenguPhule: I believe the NC GOP have signaled a surrender to the truth and are now oking a new election.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
Which is why the NC GOP is suddenly ok with a new election ???
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Yes, one and one R is absent from the chamber.
catclub
@sukabi: 35mph wall of molasses is fast and terrifying, so I am guessing, no.
I was reminded of the great maple syrup caper of 2013(?)
TenguPhule
@catclub: Apparently there was also a Pepsi Juice flood in Russia in 2017.
28 million gallons of fruit juice.
No casualties.
catclub
@TenguPhule: so will it die in the House, or president’s veto pen?
A Ghost To Most
@ruemara:
How much bile had to be swallowed by Rs to go along with that?
Gin & Tonic
@Ruviana: Correct on both counts.
Just One More Canuck
@Barbara: if there were truly such a thing as efficient markets, McMegan would have been cooking sparrows with a coat hanger decades ago
Gin & Tonic
@catclub: 2011-12.
J R in WV
@Corner Stone:
I have to disagree. Anyone associated with any political party or lobbying group (NRA, etc) who had anything to do with the election of Traitor Tot President needs to go up.
Including Mitch McConnell in first place outside the Trump Organization followed by Reince Priebus. (however you spel that mane.)
rikyrah
Why the National Enquirer deal should make Dolt45 nervous
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/1072938867014160384
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Never heard of this quack.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: Tennessee’s new House Rep. A former state government senator. Complete full racist wingnut. Because Tennessee.
TenguPhule
@catclub:
I’m assuming the House.
Mart
@TenguPhule: Local CBS affiliate played a Nationally CBS produced piece on Trump, Schumer and Pelosi. About 40 seconds of Trump shouting down the other 2 with the correspondent adding the president said several things. No context that the President is a lying loon. Thought the piece was crafted for the MAGAT mindset, not sane people. Kind of frightening propaganda to me. Maybe Trump is right, the press is the enemy of the people.
Just One More Canuck
@A Ghost To Most: @TenguPhule: He seems nice
Per wiki
TenguPhule
smintheus
I’m not happy so far with the lightness of the sentences and the galling amount of immunity lavished on these crooks to date. I hope that the severity of the punishment for people closer to Trump ends up making all this leniency worth it.
ETA: I agree with Kay above.
TenguPhule
@smintheus: I’m wondering if Cohen realizes it might not be good for his health to wander around in public before he’s due to report to prison.
So many unhealthy accidents have been happening to people with Russian connections last couple of years.
He might catch a fatal case of Death.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
FTR, last night Lawrence Tribe said that it’s ludicrous to believe a sitting president can’t be indicted and that there is language in both the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and various letters, etc. contemporaneous to the fight to ratify the Constitution that shows this. Since I have not had the time nor do I have the expertise to analyze all the documents, I’m taking his word for it over, say, Jon Heilmann or Tweety.
geg6
Since I’m apparently not allowed to edit a comment today, let me say that I regret the “both” in my comment #211.
Chyron HR
@TenguPhule:
“Conservative critics” like Nancy Pelosi, one presumes.
Barbara
@geg6: Article from Slate that makes the case that indictment is permitted: The Single Fatal Flaw in the Legal Argument Against Indicting a Sitting President
It cites to other analyses as well. I haven’t read closely enough to evaluate.
smintheus
@geg6: Can a sitting president murder people, set the Capitol on fire, or torture his political opponents without being indicted? I can’t imagine anyone involved in writing the Constitution thought that would be a good system to create.
It’s also worth remembering that in 1920 Eugene Debs ran for president while he was in jail for daring to speak out against Wilson’s war plans. Presumably everyone agreed that if elected, he could have served as president from his jail cell. Therefore somebody already elected president may be sent off to jail for committing actual crimes.
Barbara
@geg6: My reply to you is in moderation. Basically, an article in Slate today made the case for why indictment is permitted.
eclare
@Just One More Canuck: He got Marsha Blackburn’s old seat. Embarrassed as a resident of TN.
smintheus
@TenguPhule: There’s a long list of Trump associates who must be on the lookout for Russian “tourists” every time they step outdoors.
Corner Stone
@geg6: Just seems weird to me that almost 100% of pundits and legal experts brought on air all start with a factual statement saying a sitting president can not be indicted.
TenguPhule
@Chyron HR: Actually all of the listed examples are Republicans.
Tony Jay
Result just in, Teresa May survived as Tory Party leader, but over 1/3 of her MPs vote to remove her.
That’s….. not really too good.
Barbara
“May wins confidence ballot by 200 votes to 117” A victory but also a serious setback for her because that’s a lot of people who aren’t inclined to support her.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
Well, I can tell you that Lawrence Tribe definitely didn’t do that. And pretty much scoffed at anyone who does.
Doug R
@TenguPhule: We had a 4 lane bridge that was built in 1936 have a truck crash underneath the one section that was creasote soaked wood which caught on fire. TransLink eventually used a bridge section that was part of the elevated train construction after two weeks of gridlock. So our Richmond train saved Surrey’s bacon.
Corner Stone
@geg6: Great. We’ve got Tribe and his thoughts and scoffing.
catclub
@Tony Jay: May is a survivor. I predicted she would win this vote. Now it means the Tories cannot call another one for a year. I bet she has laid down the law that they will vote for the brexit plan on offer, or get full blame for catastrophe if it fails
Yarrow
@Tony Jay: Just saw that. Looks like it was worse than they expected.
@Gin & Tonic: I always feel bad for the kids, especially while they’re minors. It’s not their fault they were born into that family. Once they’re adults it’s different. If they choose to follow their criminal parent into a life of crime then no sympathy. If they’re struggling to come to terms with the whole thing, I get that. It’s got to be hard to realize your parent is a terrible criminal. Your whole world gets upended. That’s hard and it’s something they’re left to deal with that’s no of their making.
sm*t cl*de
@Barbara:
MM has given herself a pass to forget every time she turned out to be wrong. When she promised an painless productive victory in the Iraq invasion, her response to the actual result was “Well, those who predicted a debacle were technically correct, but their predictions were based on their hatred of Bush rather than on evidence, so they don’t get any credit for it.” It is always the same: her falsified prediction was data-driven, the other side’s correct prediction doesn’t count because it was only driven by their personal feels and they would have made that (correct) prediction whatever the underlying situation might have been.
She has made a decision not to learn from mistakes. She is never going to get smarter. This policy only works in the republican-pundit ecology.
Platonailedit
And Theresa May wins confidence vote by 200 to 117.
Not a good day for putin puppets.
sm*t cl*de
@Tony Jay:
1. May looks useless and weak.
2. May’s Brexit-profiteer opponents look useless, weak and unable to count.
UncleEbeneezer
Speaking of NY:
Platonailedit
@Tony Jay:
She is safe for another year. And has told, she won’t be contesting elections again.
Corner Stone
“MistUH TRumP”. Fuck Michael Cohen. He spent a dozen years with the worst person in America.
Uncle Ebeneezer
Speaking of NY:
(I submitted this twice. One is in moderation, feel free to delete)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/incoming-new-york-attorney-general-plans-wide-ranging-investigations-trump-n946706?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma
Brachiator
@Platonailedit:
And once again, Conservative Party losers show how pathetic they are:
joel hanes
@Yarrow:
Wonder what’s in those safes
[guessing]
Binders full of (paid-off) women, many of them expensive hookers.
Martin
@TenguPhule: I welcome our new Millennial overlords.
hilts
@Jeffro:
McMegan has cotton candy between her ears. She has attained peak buffoonery.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@TenguPhule: He was also trying to claim the mid terms were a rout for the Democrats yesterday. It feels like in Trump’s mind he’s decided Paul Ryan never existed and Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker of the House since 2016.
You’re right Trump’s sanity is slipping.
Immanentize
@sm*t cl*de:
I actually think the conservatives who forced the leadership vote were not bad whip counters, but were demonstrating exactly how many no votes existed on May’s Brexit plan to the rest of Commons. And how many Conservatives might join a Labour no confidence vote.
Chris T.
@NotMax: I don’t think sing is the right word, when a Pecker is involved.
Maybe spill…
Immanentize
@Uncle Ebeneezer:
I just hope AG James doesn’t frequent prostitutes.
Platonailedit
@Kay:
Yup. For all the hype, it’s been only underwhelming ludicrous slap in the wrist so far. Let’s see what manafort gets (away with). The white collar crime has obvious benefits.
Tony Jay
@catclub:
It’s hard to see how she can lay down the law to anybody. More than a third of her MPs just voted to dump her, she had to ape Tony Blair and promise she’d step down before the next scheduled General Election in order to win over wavering Tories, she still needs DUP votes to stay PM and get anything through Parliament and they are – not – going to back her deal as it stands.
Once the euphoria of survival ebbs away the reality of her weakness will come to the fore. All the Tories have done is expose the rift in the Party as being wider and deeper than anyone suspected and superglue their future to her and her deal, which is still as dead as the Holy Roman Empire.
When she’s got the BBC’s professional Tory whisperers making sad faces about the size of the vote against her and pointing out that when Thatcher suffered a humiliation like this she resigned…. no, it’s not good.
TenguPhule
@Doug R: The Freeway that the military brought to a halt serviced approximately a quarter of a million cars trying to get home from work.
Platonailedit
TenguPhule
@catclub:
That’s like being chewed on by a defanged garter snake.
TenguPhule
@Platonailedit: Wow. They only needed 139 nays to unseat her.
TenguPhule
@Tony Jay:
When they’re whispering that Thatcher had more honor then May, that’s pretty damn sharp.
Rand Careaga
@sm*t cl*de: I forget where it was McArdle was doing business a decade ago—the “Atlantic,” perhaps?—but I once weighed in to the effect on a comment thread that “Roy Edroso had your number a long time ago.” This was scrubbed within an hour. Edroso, by the way, has a daily newsletter that is well worth the $70/PA.
Martin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Pretty sure Trumps dad called him a loser. He can’t stand being a loser. He rewrites reality in his head to not be a loser.
Stuart Frasier
Someone needs to write the headline “Trump’s Pecker Problem Mushrooms”.
Brachiator
@Tony Jay:
So where does the UK go from here? The EU’s position is that they are not going to negotiate a new deal.
So, No Deal Tories, and we will get a new deal Tories are exactly where they were before.
Labour makes noise but is equally in the same place that they were before.
So we got a moment of drama leading to nowhere. Like May getting stuck in her car when she went to visit Merkel.
Tony Jay
@TenguPhule:
Yeah. Expectations have certainly been lowered to meet the current threshold for ‘honour’ amongst Tory PMs.
Loyalist Tories already briefing about maybe winning over pro-Brexit Labour MPs with promises of some kind of softer Brexit. They know the hole they’re come January when they have to hold the Meaningful Vote on the Withdrawal Treaty of face a Parliament wide rebellion. The thrashing about looking for some kind of unlikely miracle has begun even sooner than expected.
sukabi
@Mart: is it one of the Sinclair stations? If so that would explain it
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
Unless a General Election is called and Labour wins, its not their problem.
TenguPhule
@Tony Jay:
*snort*
They’re better off trying to make another pact with the Lib-Dems for a Supply alliance again.
Brachiator
@Martin:
Which only makes him more of a loser.
Platonailedit
@Tony Jay:
Despite all the media promoted doom and gloom, May got more votes now than her 2016 leadership fight. So, jow is this bad for her personally? BBC spinning this as a big loss for her is ludicrous.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
So, like I said, Labour is in the same place they were before. De facto irrelevance.
Theresa May is not calling for a General Election. And the clock is ticking. May still has to get a vote for her deal. Labour can only watch. If she fails, and a new election is called for, hilarity ensues. The EU hasn’t really moved from their position. And Labour may be hurting itself by saying nothing. Nobody has a reason to vote for them for any reason related to BREXIT, or any feeling that Labour could do something different or achieve anything better than the present government.
Tony Jay
@Brachiator:
Exactly. For once the Maybot would be almost right to drone “Nothing. Has. Changed.”
This morning the Tories were in a self imposed bond that only a complete change in strategy could get them out of. They’re still there, only deeper in and with fewer options open to them.
Labour’s strategy hasn’t changed. Wait for the Tories to lose the vote on May’s Withdrawal Deal, present the non-extremists on the Government benches with the option of supporting or, more likely, abstaining from, a No Confidence vote in the Government, or letting a No-Deal happen.
The endgame is a delay in Article 50 to accommodate either a General Election or a Peoples Vote. The longer Brexit it is put off, the less likely it becomes. Certain elements in Labour are openly opposed to becoming the face of the anti-Brexit movement, but the Party Conference laid out the policy and they have to follow it or follow the Tories into a mad schism.
It’s not without risk, but this is the situation the Tories have put the country in.
Robert (Nojay) Sneddon
@Tony Jay: The Tories can’t deliver a “softer” Brexit to any pro-Brexit Labour MPs and both sides know it. At the moment they’re thrashing around, saying anything that will stave off or delay the inevitable cliff-edge choice between no-Deal and no-Brexit. Those now are the only two realistic options and the Tories can’t deliver No-Brexit, not without being crucified by their mostly-pro-Brexit supporters.
My uneducated prediction is for Labour, the SNP and Lib-Dems to hammer the government to bring forward the Withdrawal Agreement for a vote in Parliament sooner than later. When this doesn’t happen, since PM May can’t afford to lose that vote and can’t win it then the Parliamentary vote of no-confidence in the government will be called. The leadership vote told the anti-May forces just how strong they are, one in three MPs basically and they know that if even 10% of them abstain then the Government goes down to defeat. There’s nothing May can offer the “rebels”, nothing she can deliver in political terms to stop enough of them abstaining.
More interesting times to come.
Ladyraxterinok
@TenguPhule: TheBBC page that had this story also had Europe links to at least 2 articles on the time Putin was a KGB operative working in Dresden. During the anti- soviet demonstrations in 89 Moscow was very slow to reply to requests for aid. He allegedly learned from this the importance of a very strong central authority. One of the articles has a picture of the ‘young’ Putin’s passport.
Tony Jay
@Platonailedit:
The Media were giddy with excitement over the drama but we’re still talking up a solid victory for May with the rebels confined to the 50 to 70 ERG Extremists and their threat to her right-click being crushed. Her losing over a third of her MPs in this kind of high-pressure vote is a huge blow. The fact that the BBC, which is to British Conservatives as NPR is to American Conservatives, is calling this a bad result for her credibility is a sign of just how terrible May’s position has become.
Or shorter, if those 117 Tories vote with the DUP against her Deal she needs over half of the Parliamentary Labour Party to cross over and vote with the Government in order to pass it. That’s something covered under the terms of the Treaty of Nagganappen.
Tony Jay
@Robert (Nojay) Sneddon:
Print this comment out and frame it. it’s exactly how I think (hope) it’s going to play out.
Robert (Nojay) Sneddon
@Platonailedit: She wasn’t the leader of the Party when she got less than 60% of the vote for leader. Now she’s the PM she’s expected to lead and the Party to follow without demur. She might have survived with fifty or so rebels voting against her, losing more than a hundred means she’s toast. Thatcher won her leadership election by a similar margin, about 55% rather than 63% but she knew that it was a hollow “victory” since it revealed the size of the opposition against her. The folks that launched the leadership vote against May knew they wouldn’t get her out by a simple vote count, they wanted the opposition’s strength to be made clear.
Imagine if, for example, an American President lost the confidence of a third of his party’s Congresscritters in the House. That’s the sort of fate staring PM May in the face with the parliamentary no-confidence vote to come and no fixed-term elections as in the US — the PM can be deposed any day of the week once it is clear they can’t command the confidence of a majority of the House since they can’t push important legislation through, stuff like Budgets or serious constitutional bills. The enabling legislation for the Withdrawal Agreement, something she fought like crazy to keep from Parliamentary approval but failed, is the biggest constitutional bill brought before the House in decades and it must pass for her to survive as PM. It’s not going to pass so she’s not going to be PM much longer.
TenguPhule
@Platonailedit:
139 nays would have unseated her as PM.
They came awfully close to that.
Platonailedit
@Tony Jay:
Yeah, brexit of all varieties is dead as a dodo. Given the leadership vaccum, aka Tina factor, she will limp along till another referendum happens.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
Labour would shoot their own dick off if they said anything right now. About a third of their own voters are Brexit supporters, Corbyn has to play a balancing act between all of the squabbling members of his party to keep them relatively on the same page. The only way that they have a hope of fixing things is becoming the majority government, but to do that they need all of the other minor parties to stick with them in coalition and the only thing all of them can agree on is that Tories are assholes and Brexit is a fucking mess.
Tony Jay
@Platonailedit:
That’s what I’m hoping for. There’s no way out of this crappy downward spiral without a vote to confirm exactly what the ‘will of the people’ is these days.
Platonailedit
@Robert (Nojay) Sneddon:
Good point.