Rod Rosenstein said in a court filing submitted shortly before midnight Friday he made the decision to share the messages with the press in part to protect FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page from unfair criticism. https://t.co/0K9QjebKLt by @joshgerstein @politico
— Darren Samuelsohn (@dsamuelsohn) January 18, 2020
There is nobody within the Trump orbit who isn’t compromised. Another ‘with only the best intentions’ criminal steps forward in this week’s Friday night doc dump, per Politico:
Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized the release to the media of text messages between two highly placed FBI employees who exchanged criticism of then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Justice Department has revealed in a new court filing.
Rosenstein also said in the court filing submitted shortly before midnight Friday that he made the decision to share the messages with the press in part to protect FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page from the drip effect of incremental releases of the texts by lawmakers or others…
Strzok and Page filed separate lawsuits against the Justice Department last year, alleging that the release of their text messages violated the Privacy Act — an almost half-century-old statute that safeguards information federal agencies hold about private individuals.
Despite the litigation, until Friday it remained unclear just who at Justice gave the final OK to give about 375 Strzok-Page texts to journalists — including a POLITICO reporter — on the evening of December 12, 2017.
In a formal declaration submitted as part of the government’s defense to Strzok’s suit, Rosenstein owned up to being the one who made the call. He said he did so in part because the texts’ public release by members of Congress was inevitable in connection with testimony he was set to give to the House Judiciary Committee the following day…
Rosenstein, who stepped down from his position as Justice’s No. 2 official last May, said in his new submission that his aides initially suggested he might want to delay sending the texts to Congress until after his House testimony. But the veteran prosecutor said he concluded it would be “inappropriate” to hold them back, even briefly, for that reason…
While Rosenstein said the disclosure to the media was aimed at putting the messages in context, Strzok and Page have noted that the set of fewer than 400 texts sent to the Hill and shared with reporters that night was just a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of messages the pair exchanged on work topics as well as personal matters…
Rosenstein’s statement does not indicate whether he consulted with Page, Strzok or their attorneys to seek their views on the planned release, but he had them informed that night that the disclosure was forthcoming. The former DOJ No. 2 official said he did have one of his top aides confirm with Justice’s top privacy official that the disclosure would not run afoul of the Privacy Act…
Special Counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his senior role on the Trump-Russia probe after learning of the texts in the summer of 2017. Page, who worked on the earlier stages of the investigation, had already moved on to another assignment.
The FBI fired Strzok in 2018, while Page ultimately resigned from the agency.
In a statement published last month by the Daily Beast, Rosenstein argued the Justice Department was not responsible for the criticism Page has endured. However, without getting into detail or directly challenging Trump, the former DOJ official said some of the attacks on her had gone too far…
Sure, I gave a known character assassin a powerful metaphorical gun, along with the names & addresses of a couple of tempting victims. But you can’t blame me for the fact that he killed them! I only did it to protect them!
As I’ve said, when the history of this Administration is written, Rod Rosenstein will be the villain who protected Trump, not the hero who protected us. https://t.co/KsaVZ9U4g9
— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) January 18, 2020
debbie
Thanks to Rosenstein, we’ve been treated to watching Trump at his most presidential, humping a podium and imitating what he thinks their lovemaking sounded like. Fuckem.
Jeffro
Rod’s a complete f***ing weasel who saw that Barr was gonna stomp all over the Mueller report and decided to throw in with the Goon Squad. Neera’s right; unfortunately, however, Rosenstein will only be a minor villain compared to all the A- and B-list scumbags this administration has brought to light.
Ruckus
Is there one republican left who isn’t a complete fucking asshole who thinks that a government of the people by the people and for the people is complete and utter bullshit, that it only works for them to have power and steal money?
Dorothy A. Winsor
Repeating from below
PsiFighter37
@Ruckus: No. SATSQ
dmsilev
@Ruckus: Only the dead ones. And only a fraction of those.
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus: No.
NotMax
@Ruckus
It’s within the realm of possibility.
But if so they don’t get elected.
zhena gogolia
I just pre-ordered A Very Stable Genius. I have no intention of reading it, but I wanted to support the authors.
Patricia Kayden
JPL
@zhena gogolia: Also.. Told a friend that I was prepared to read it and she asked if I had wine. I said a few bottles left over from the holidays and she suggested that I buy more. Of course it’s possible that the most horrific parts have already been leaked.
Another Scott
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Thanks for the pointer. It’s a devastating summary, as one would expect. E.g.
Crackpot Dome, Stupid Watergate, etc., etc. These idiots thought they could do anything they wanted with the power of the Presidency, and get away with it.
The Senate needs to do its job and convict and remove him.
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
@Another Scott: Well they can do it and Mitch won’t stop em.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Rosenstein has no core, no center of his own. If he’s surrounded by and reporting to someone with integrity, he’ll have integrity. If he’s surrounded by and reporting to someone without integrity he won’t. And that’s about as good an explanation of his career arc as you’re going to find. When Obama made him a US Attorney and he had to report to AG Lynch and DAG Yates, both of whom have integrity, he behaved in a professionally appropriate manner. When he became AG Sessions deputy, the deputy of someone who not only has no integrity, but who is also not a professional, and by all reports wasn’t actually sure what he was supposed to do as attorney general other than try to keep the job by constantly responding to the President’s moods and whims, he behaved in a professionally inappropriate manner. When AG Sessions demonstrated professional ethics and integrity one time in recusing himself, Rosenstein patterned that and appointed Mueller. While Mueller was doing his thing, he patterned off of Mueller. When Sessions was replaced by Barr, who is a self righteous, hypocrite whose only guide is that what he believes to be right is universally right and therefore whatever ways and means he employs are justified by the end he seeks to achieve, Rosenstein patterned himself on Barr.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Justin Amash, apparently, though he’s now an Independent. Richard Painter, though he’s now a Democrat. Some state legislators in Iowa and Kansas, thought they’re now either independents or Democrats. Bill Weld, though he might as well be an independent or a Democrat for all the good it is doing him. Amazingly, Joe Walsh appears to be in the same space as Weld.
sab
@Ruckus: In Ohio about ten or fifteen years back we had some corruption scandals. We got rid of the offenders, who were Republicans with some integrity who agreed they had stepped over the line. So we lost Bab Taft, Jim Petro and such who had some ethics and could be embarrassed. Of course that created a vaccuum that was filled shameless hacks with lots of ambition and no scruples: John Kasich, Mary Taylor, Josh Mandel, Frank LaRose, John Husted. So here we are. The ethical but ethically challenged guys are gone. All we have left are the shameless grifters.
Don’t know if that’s true elsewhere, but I think it is true here.
We need two parties, with different policy emphasis, but with basic honor and legal standards. We don’t have that any more.
Adam L Silverman
@Patricia Kayden: The primary defense argument, that this is an attempt to overturn the 2016 results, though I think, for some reason they used overthrow, doesn’t even make constitutional sense. If that was the actual case here, then if the Senate voted to convict it would make Hillary Clinton president and Tim Kaine vice president and every executive order and appointment – judicial, boards and commissions, and political would all be immediately vacated. Which is not what a vote to convict the President in the Senate would actually produce.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: (cue “Hollow Man” by The Cult)
Agree with the take completely.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: I’m surprised some national Dem or Dems haven’t made that point publicly, addressed to GOP elected officials and voters:
”You voted for Republican values, right? Republican priorities and policy agendas? Well, you’ll still get that under President Pence. We’re just trying to remove the threat to national security here…
…unless of course there is something in particular about president* trumpov that you absolutely must have and can’t live without? Please tell us more about that when you have a moment. In the meantime, we’ll just proceed with defending the Constitution.”
geg6
@Adam L Silverman:
THIS, THIS, THIS!
Steeplejack
Short thread:
Jeffro
One thing I have been mulling over these past few weeks is the utter intractability of the modern GOP – both elected officials and voters. They simply cannot bring themselves to agree with Democrats on anything – it hurts them deep in their psyche. They have been bathed in Cleek’s Law for over two, almost three decades now.
It’s why even though impeachment and removal would lead to President Pence, they just can’t bring themselves to do it. It’s why even though trumpov’s defense of his actions is pathetic and his lawbreaking is obvious, they can’t do anything close to the right thing. Dems want X; therefore, X must be opposed with all the GOP’s might. Must be lied about, fundraised off of, subverted by goons like Hyde and Parnas and Gaetz and all the rest.
It is really all about that. They’ve been conditioned, as a subset of society, to oppose anything and everything that would be good, just, legal, etc as long as Dems are for it.
Geoboy
Fuck this guy.
mrmoshpotato
Behold! I’ll be over in the corner screaming.
Steeplejack
Read the thread within the thread (from September).
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Quite simply, Pence was a means to an end. Specifically to get white evangelicals, across all the sects and denominations, on board with the President. Now that they’re on board, Pence serves no real purpose. He stands or sits in proximity to the President and smiles with that empty headed stare or leads sycophantic praise of the President, because he thinks he’s going to inherent the remade conservative movement and Republican Party from the President. He won’t. The only real outstanding question was why did Manafort want him on the ticket? That’s what needs to be answered.
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato: If you had 144 of that guy you’d have gross stupidity.
ETA at 8:30 PM EST: Just to be clear, I am referring to Garland, not mrmoshpotato.
Ruckus
I don’t think this many people have agreed with me about anything else. Ever.
Of course it’s easy to get agreement when talking about how fucked up the shitgibbon and his party are. Shitgibbon is accepted as a correctly spelled word on my computer. So my computer even agrees with me. Damn.
I often think about the people that support him. What are they getting out of this? There is a republican office by a couple of places we go to lunch occasionally and we passed by that the other day. There is some republican attempt, if the sign in the window is accurate, to get CA governor Newsom recalled. The republican party has lost whatever was left of it’s fucking mind. I have no idea what their concept of a society is but I do not want to fucking live there. It’s hateful, racist, greedy, wasteful, unworkable and harmful to most people. And life, at least in my time was never, ever like what they want for the country. What they want is far, far worse and accomplishes nothing at all sustainable by old white farts who have no idea how to get along with anyone.
lgerard
@Adam L Silverman:
I think this is very true. In his recent book Andrew McCabe related how Rosenstien was overwrought about how he had been used as a pawn in Comey’s firing. He vacillated like Hamlet as to what to do next and whether or not to appoint a Special Counsel. He intimated to McCabe that the one person;s opinion on that subject that he would value would be Comey’s.
McCabe wanted no part in that transaction.
mrmoshpotato
@Ruckus: Well, the year was 1980, no ’68, no ’65 – 1865. Yeah.
chris
@Jeffro: At least four decades, IIRC Reagan had Carter’s solar panels removed from the roof as soon as he took office. Cleek’s law before there was a Cleek!
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Because he’s malleable and amenable to the bullshit Manafort saw coming. trump bodes no disagreement and someone was needed for the role of VP who fit that bill and dense is that guy. Dumb as a stump and easily controlled.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
A fine analysis. I really admire your clear-headed way of unpacking people and situations.
Mr. Kite
@Adam L Silverman: I had a boss like Rosenstein once. A libertarian asskissing yes-man. I will not besmirch weasels with any analogy. Hmm, that actually describes the next three levels of management as well. Didn’t last long in that job.
chris
LOL! Hieronymus Bosch does Washington today. Pence is particularly good.
Adam L Silverman
@lgerard: Despite what Republicans, conservatives, and the President’s surrogates and supporters have been saying all week, character is demonstrated by what you do when no one is looking.
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: I take it you’re talking about Garland.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: While I don’t disagree with your assessment here – I don’t want to harsh your “people are agreeing with me” buzz – I think there’s more to it than that. And I’d really like to know what the more to it is.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you.
Kent
McCain was probably the last one and honestly he wasn’t that good. At least if we are talking about Republicans with national profile and power. I’m sure there is the odd city councilwoman and state legislator somewhere who isn’t too bad.
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato: Yes, I am.
Ruckus
@sab:
I lived in OH 95-05. It was not the highlight of my homesteads. And most of that was political crap, like the voting machine crap in 2004.
As you write it’s only gotten worse since. But then so has the entire republican party. It’s like a bunch of drunken frat boys from a 4th rate state community college who are using shitty beer to wash down the crappy drugs they stole from their moms medicine cabinet.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
The Republicans don’t have any particular reason to work with the Democrats. The GOP is too busy taking its victory lap. They are getting almost everything they ever wanted, or think they are. They are in that magical place where they can fool some of the people all of the time. And they have deluded themselves into believing that they are right and good. And so, they will do as much damage as they can before the people wise up.
When the GOP controlled the House and they worked on the tax cut bill, they went out of their way to make sure that the Democrats were not involved at all. They did not care what the Democrats may have favored.
The Republicans have to go all in with Trump from now on. The Democrats have to convince enough voters to help them stop the GOP before more damage is done to the nation.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Is that type called a Moral Chameleon (in your professional world), or something else?
Too many paywalled papers/books, but for instance here:
Veteran police officers field training supervisors in ethics and integrity (Bryce Michael Mibeck, 2003)
“Moral Chameleon – whose core values may be quickly modified or abandoned to avoid accommodate[sic] others and avoid conflict.”
(Seems to date back to at least “Splitting the Difference. Compromise and Integrity in Ethics and Politics”, Martin Benjamin, 1990)
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato: I have added an update to my comment to clarify.
mrmoshpotato
@Kent: You mean John “Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran” McCain who introduced the other 49 states to Sarah Palin?
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: I think that is one of the labels you could use.
lamh36
Been a minute since i made this, gotta let it chill overnight, but had alil bit of a nibble and it taste pretty good
Homemade Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
(before and after)
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/1218678575202738177
Mary G
Adam nailed it.
@Steeplejack:
This one will leave a mark:
sab
@Brachiator: The Republican political class is all on wingnut wealthfare. They are recruited in college and stay on it for the rest of their lives. They don’t know how to earn a living otherwise, and they seem to be well paid.
What has Rick Santorum ever done outside of the Republican party? John Kasich? Brett Kavanaugh? I am sure I could list thousands of such underachievers.
Democrats have to be able to earn outside of the Party umbrella.
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato:
Obligatory:
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
These are not people who do extremely involved anything. They are crude, rude and rather open about what they think and want. It is possible of course that there is something there but they worship someone who has all the strength, intelligence, honesty and charm of a lanced boil, so I sincerely doubt there is a lot to the choice of Pence other than someone who will go along with whatever he’s told. He comes from a pretty hard right religious state and they had his number. I’m just not convinced there is any there, there.
JMG
Forty percent at a minimum of the voters in this country want an authoritarian government which upholds white supremacy and heretical “Christian” values over everyone else and if they hold power by overthrowing democracy, so much the better. That’s the reality. Lots of people don’t want to deal with it, which is why Joe Biden is popular, but those are the facts. Many many many of our countrymen would exterminate us if told to do so.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: You let your hair grow out? Looks good! Cheesecake looks nice too.
Kent
I cannot think of a single area of policy in either the executive branch or legislative branch in which the modern GOP has sought common ground with Dems on anything. Honestly, I can’t think of a single thing. Maybe pork barrel defense spending in Dem districts. But that’s it.
Healthcare, environmental protection, criminal justice, voting rights, climate change, science, education. Just nothing. Absolutely zero collaborating or meeting in the middle or seeking consensus. They just ram their shit down everyone’s throats with as much fury and energy as they can wield.
But just wait. The MOMENT a Democrat takes power there will be absolutely endless calls for seeking compromise and consensus from the GOP, aided and abetted by the mainstream media like the FNYT. Climate change and environmental protection? Invite the corporate polluters to the table and take 7 years of “consensus building” and “process” to ratchet things 1/2 way back to where they were at the start of 2016 and that will be seen as progress.
Dems need to take a lesson from the modern GOP and Trump Administration and just be comfortable wielding power rather than seeking elite mainstream approval. They are going to hate and demean and seek to undermine you at every single step. Just ignore the noise and do the right thing. The country and planet depend on it.
Ohio Mom
Chris @35: That Bosch take-off is quite wonderful. Where is it from?
Kay
Rod was tested by the Trump presidency and he failed. Happens every day. Failing the Trump character test is way more common than passing the Trump character test. He just wasn’t up to the challenge. He joins a large and ever-expanding group of flunkers.
I don’t think the people who fail the test will be remembered- I think the people who pass will.
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: I thought you might be referring to someone in the document. This is Stupid Watergate after all.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@lamh36:
That looks terrific
Baud
Last time the Dems controlled everything was 2009-10, and the passed the ACA, Dodd-Frank, the stimulus, and probably other bills with no or almost no GOP votes. And that Democratic party was more into bipartisanship than the current one. The only issue is whether we will control Congress and the White House again after the November elections (and, if so, how the Senate deals with the filibuster).
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: She is correct.
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
Any tentative names yet?
Kent
@mrmoshpotato: Like I’m saying, he wasn’t that good. The Palin thing was unforgivable.
On the other hand, I was living in Alaska during that time and honestly Palen seemed pretty reasonable and not remotely the crazy she became later. I guess they kept her well under wraps. But I had no idea how much crazy was lurking under the surface when she was just governor before she hit the national scene. She wasn’t nearly as good as Tony Knowles the Dem Governor who came before. But she was basically a placeholder who didn’t try to jam a lot of crazy GOP shit down the throats of the state like the others who have come since.
The Dangerman
I’m late to this thread (damn medicine and the need for long naps) but exactly what “unfair criticism” would have occurred if he had kept his mouth shut? Or is he just being a pompous asshole with his lips permanently attached to Trump’s nether regions?
zhena gogolia
Baud
@The Dangerman:
If you read his declaration, he says that he was about to disclose the texts to Congress and he decided to disclose them to the media at about the same time to avoid giving Congress the ability to leak them on its own terms.
Kent
@Baud: Yes. Congress is one thing. Executive action through regulation and executive order is really where the action is going to be. Look at how many Obama-era regulations just crept through the bureaucracy with zero sense of urgency, going through endless “process” until they were just finally slipping into place in year 7 or 8 of the Obama administration in time to be undermined by conservative judges and then dropped by the Trump folks. A whole lot of financial regulations from overtime laws to pension reforms to student loan reforms fell into that category. There was just zero sense of urgency. Same thing with a lot of environmental regulations. They were just getting finalized in time for Trump to cancel them. They had 8 years and had a shitload of incomplete and half-done initiatives that were solely executive branch stuff. Maybe the complacency was thinking that Clinton would finish everything. I don’t know. But when you have fleeting power you need to wield this. The GOP knows this. I don’t think we do.
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato: I was just ensuring you didn’t think I was referring to you.
zhena gogolia
@Bill Arnold:
There are tons of them — all Democrats plus Amash.
chris
@Ohio Mom: Found on twitter.
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, Marie Yovanovich, Bill Taylor, Sally Yates to start.
Baud
Fixed to reflect the cowardly “present” vote.
Kent
@zhena gogolia: and of course she is very fluent in “really not caring” https://www.vox.com/2018/6/21/17489632/melania-trump-jacket-zara-i-really-dont-care-do-u
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, thank you. I think most of us know all this. I just want the GOP – elected officials, “diner safari denziens”, and everyone in between – to have to say it. To own it. To admit that no one gives them quite the thrill that Our Worst Citizen does.
Baud
@Kent: I agree in hindsight that the regulatory agenda moved too slowly, and I think that’s because Obama really wanted permanent change through legislation (DADT repeal was a success story for that approach).
I don’t think two areas you’ll see more action on next time are regulations and judges (if we have the Senate).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So Trump’s Elite Defense team, including Ken Star, is saying impeachment is against the constitution.
I would like think this is a sign that these are all old white men going senile at the end of their lives and it’s not the so called elite in this country have always been a pack of useless morons that needs the other 99% of us to keep them from killing themselves threw shear ineptitude on a daily bases.
ziggy
Is it just me or does anyone else get that really gross ad with someone pulling something out of their ear? I’ve tried to report it to google, flag it and still can’t get rid of it. How do you get rid of this thing?! Ugh!
Steeplejack
@lamh36:
Looks great! Do you take mail orders?
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Here’s a more complete list, in bold: Police Ethics and Integrity (Milan Pagon, 2000, academia.edu free signup will get you relentless paper recommendations emails)
I still say a “moral chameleon” label for R. Rosenstein
Kent
It is the FOX news defense team. They aren’t even trying to come up with actual legitimate legal arguments to exonerate him. Because there aren’t any. All he is doing by putting Ken Star and Dersh up there is picking two of his most loyal and vocal advocates on FOX news and putting them into the national spotlight to make the same garbage arguments they make daily on FOX.
Trump doesn’t actually give a shit about the legal arguments. He just wants his people to go make a show and “own” the Dems. Honestly he is probably not wrong in his instincts. This vote is going to be tribal and a show of raw power, nothing else
If there is any justice in the universe then Dersh will never again be able to summer in Nantucket without getting harassed and ridiculed and shunned.
NotMax
@sab
Produced some “faith-based” movies (which make pabulum seem positively spicy).
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: I have the paper. I used to use it when I taught policing as part of my criminal justice course when I was an academic.
NotMax
@ziggy
Ad blockers are your friends.
;)
sab
@NotMax: I guess that is at least something.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Figured you did, i just liked that paragraph.
ziggy
@NotMax:
Thanks, I’ll go find some duct tape. :)
debbie
@Kent:
Her ego overtook her.
debbie
@mrmoshpotato:
They’ll be shrieking, “Too many words proves they have nothing!!!”
Ksmiami
@JMG: maybe they would try but it would be easy to outwit them, outgun them and outrun these fat useless aging fucks. And we could just cut off their technology, their money and their pathetic food supply- remember Athens defeated Sparta
Kent
@debbie: Yep, the bright lights of FOX news. Once they’ve seen Broadway you can’t keep them on the farm in Wasilla.
When she walked away from the governorship mid-term that was the obvious indication that she wasn’t a true believer. No one does that if they are a serious ideological warrior. Funny thing is that all the white trash reality show stuff didn’t happen until after. All the late-night brawls and drunken snowmobile insanity. I don’t remember any of it from her days as governor. Maybe they just kept it under wraps. But they were pretty normal redneck Alaskans until they caught sight of the FOX news gravy train and national media.
Ksmiami
@Kent: Republicans including diner denizens are garbage people. No one needs to listen to anything they have to say
Jinchi
This sounds disturbingly similar to the logic Comey used when he announced that he was reopening an investigation into Hillary’s emails days before the 2016 election.
TS (the original)
@zhena gogolia:
And why did they wait to write a book? Reporting what is happening when it is happening – rather than waiting to make money with their information – would be a great idea
J R in WV
@TS (the original):
Depends upon whether you are more interested in good ideas and news propagation, or MORE MONEY ~!!~
SATSQ
TS (the original)
@J R in WV: So I googled SATSQ and was directed to a BJ post in 2008 by John Cole. That seemed appropriate
CaseyL
I’m not sure where to put this, and I don’t want to sully the respite/non-political threads, but has anyone else seen the latest explosive shit Sirota took on Twitter? A long, long series of tweets all aimed at accusing Biden of wanting to cut SocSec. It’s a strange tweet thread, in that 60%-odd of it are Sirota tweets; hardly anyone else paying attention. Then some Purity Ratfuckers chime in on how Biden is an evil corporate Dem and only Bernie can save us. (And a few non-cult stalwarts who let Sirota know what they think of him, with “piece of shit” being among the nicer remarks.)
The purity of the disinformation, the venom, the sheer hatefulness on display … it’s like psychopathic performance art. Bernie & Co. really and truly are the leftish version of Trump’s malignant tribe. It’s nauseating and horrifying to behold.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
After talking to many conservative “intellectuals” I am sure the Right thinks this is the slam dunk argument that will exonerate Trump. They live in a bubble were no one is allowed to challenge the pronouncements of The Authority figure. Think and Evangelical congratulation and their pastor. I am going to bet that The Trump Elite defense team will flounder and sputter in confusion and end up resorting to name calling when the first Democratic Senator asks the obvious question. That’s what Pown the Libertard is really about; to cover the conservative don’t know what to do. In their world you are not allowed say “that doesn’t make any sense” to revealed truths.
What I am saying is, wow for people who spent their entire lives running the country, that is awfully weak and pathetic behavior and I would think this kind of ineptitude would have been obvious long before now. That ether means these people are deteriorating mentally or there is a group of people around them who been really doing to work for them so they can indulge their fantasy that they great and serious thinkers.
J R in WV
@TS (the original):
Simple Answers to Simple Questions is what I always heard, and how I was using it…
I may have learned it from Cole, tho.
TS (the original)
@J R in WV:
Cole’s question/answer related to “Why do people love to hate the New York Times” – over 10 years ago the times forgot their reason to exist.
Good to see BJ high up in the google reply list.
Aleta
@CaseyL: I didn’t see that, but I read a Reuters story that described a video of a Biden speech and a Sanders campaign newsletter misquoting what Biden said about Soc. Security.
The ‘misquoting’ that Reuters reported sounds pretty slimy. Ugh. Bad news
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden/simply-a-lie-biden-accuses-sanders-campaign-of-releasing-doctored-video-idUSKBN1ZH0MM
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: Hahahahaha ugh. To think McCain could’ve been the only keeping us from a President Sarah Palin. (shudders)
J R in WV
@TS (the original):
The Times loved Mr Adolph Hitler back in 1922, they’ve been lost politically for at least that long.
They were pretty fond of the German-American Bund back in the 1930s, until the very moment Germany declared war just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They also admired Joseph Stalin…
CaseyL
@Aleta:
Yes, some of the commentors noted it was a lie. The Sanders campaign seems really comfortable with lying.
Ruckus
@CaseyL:
Bernie & Co. really and truly are the leftish version of Trump’s malignant tribe.
This. Same BS different direction.
evodevo
@sab: Don’t forget Jean Schmidt – my g-d what a frothing teabagger
evodevo
@Kent: She has always been a member of a particularly nutso religious cult..the GOP kept it tightly under wraps
https://www.globalresearch.ca/christian-fundamentalism-permeates-the-republican-party-sarah-palin-s-links-to-the-christian-right/10167