Germy, in the comments to Mistermix’s post, has brought breaking, though previously known, news to our attention via Senator Whitehouse:
AFTER NEW DETAILS ON KAVANAUGH INVESTIGATION SURFACE, SENATORS CALL ON FBI FOR ANSWERS ON HANDLING OF ‘TIP LINE’
4,500 tips to FBI went uninvestigated following supplemental investigation, newly released FBI letter shows
Washington, DC – Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chris Coons (D-DE), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray last evening requesting additional information on the FBI’s 2018 supplemental background investigation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The senators’ request follows a letter from the Bureau to Whitehouse and Coons revealing new details on the Kavanaugh background investigation, including that the FBI gathered over 4,500 tips in relation to the investigation without any apparent further action by FBI investigators. The Bureau also confirmed that tips from the tip line were instead provided to the Trump White House Counsel’s office, where their fate is unknown.
“The admissions in your letter corroborate and explain numerous credible accounts by individuals and firms that they had contacted the FBI with information ‘highly relevant to . . . allegations’ of sexual misconduct by Justice Kavanaugh, only to be ignored,” the senators write in their letter sent today. “If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all.”
Whitehouse and Coons initially raised the lackluster supplemental background investigation in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Director Wray in July 2019. Whitehouse observed during the hearing the clear lack of process through which the public or members of Congress could relay information to the FBI after the troubling allegations against Kavanaugh made headlines nationwide. Coons likewise pressed Wray for a clear procedure. As both senators noted, the only conduit for information potentially relevant to the allegations was a “tip line,” the product of which was apparently never pursued by the Bureau. During the hearing, Wray echoed Republican claims that the FBI conducted the investigation “by the book,” while asserting that supplemental background investigations are less rigorous than criminal and counterintelligence investigations.
On August 1, 2019, Coons and Whitehouse wrote to Wray asking for a complete picture of how the FBI handled the supplemental background investigation of Kavanaugh. They asked why the FBI failed to contact witnesses whose names were provided to the FBI as possessing “highly relevant” information; how involved the Trump White House was in narrowing the scope of the investigation; whether the FBI had used a tip line in previous background investigations to manage incoming allegations and information regarding a nominee; and more.
Nearly two years later and after repeated follow-up requests, the FBI finally responded to Whitehouse and Coons’s questions. The June 30, 2021 letter from the FBI Office of Congressional Affairs revealed new information on the Kavanaugh investigation: that Justice Kavanaugh’s nomination “was the first time that the FBI set-up a tip line for a nominee undergoing Senate confirmation,” and that tip line received “over 4,500 tips, including phone calls and electronic submissions.” The FBI apparently pursued none of these tips. Instead, by the FBI’s own account, it merely “provided all relevant tips” to Trump’s Office of White House Counsel, the very office that had constrained and directed the limited investigation.
Whitehouse, Coons, Durbin, Leahy, Blumenthal, Hirono, and Booker call on the FBI to answer a range of outstanding questions surrounding the Bureau’s use of the tip line and the relevant information it yielded. The senators press the Bureau for any records and communications related to the tip line investigation, including “all relevant tips” described in Wray’s letter that the FBI “provided . . . to the Office of White House Counsel.”
Full text of the senators’ letter yesterday is available below. Also available as PDFs are:
• Senators’ letter sent yesterday;
There’s also a long tweet thread by Senator Whitehouse:
So when Wray said they followed procedures, he meant the “procedure” of doing whatever Trump White House Counsel told them to do. That’s misleading as hell.
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 22, 2021
I explained during the Kavanaugh hearings, in comments and on the front page, that what Senator Whitehouse is now rightfully angry over today was what was in fact going on. What is amazing here isn’t that Senator Whitehouse is upset, he is and should be. What is amazing here is that he seems to not understand the process that the FBI adheres to when conducting background investigations for judicial and political nominees, which, as a senator, he should know.
As I explained at the time, background investigations conducted by the FBI for judicial and political appointments are NOT criminal investigations. They are done by special agents and investigators and analysts detailed for that duty and the client is not the DOJ, nor is it the Senate committee of jurisdiction. The client for these background investigations is the White House Counsel’s Office and the White House Counsel is in ultimate charge and provides the ultimate direction of the inquiry. Only information that the White House Counsel wants released is released to the Senate committee of jurisdiction for their review. This whole secondary/reopened investigation, just like a game of chance in a casino, was rigged for the White House by the White House through the White House Counsel and his office. The FBI was only ever going to respond to Don McGahn’s instructions and work within the parameters he gave them because that’s the process.
It is important to remember that the only reason Don McGahn was first the Trump 2016 campaign counsel and then the White House Counsel is because his real boss is Mitch McConnell. Whenever Senator McConnell needs a trusted agent – to make a Federal agency dysfunctional and break it or to babysit a temperamental candidate/president – McConnell places McGahn into that position. McGahn controlled this secondary, supplementary investigation into Kavanaugh, just as he controlled the first one, not anyone at the FBI or the DOJ. And McGahn controlled it for McConnell. My guess is McConnell was thrilled when Senator Flake came to him with this compromise proposal for a secondary FBI investigation because it allowed McConnell to play Flake for the chump he is while getting what he wanted – Kavanaugh confirmed and the ability to leverage the contentious confirmation process for political gain – all while allowing it to seem that a rigged game was really an honest process.
No one who was paying attention should be surprised at all at what happened then or at what is being reported now. Not least a Democratic senator. That seven members of the Senate Judiciary Committee do not seem to understand the process for FBI background investigations for judicial and political nominees, including who controls them, is a bit concerning. They’re right to be asking for details and Senate Judiciary Committee investigation now, but it would have been better if they all had known how the process works and been hammering this over and over and over again during the confirmation. Especially Senator Coons who is the one who cut the deal with Senator Flake for the supplemental FBI background investigation.
If these seven senators did not realize this was how the process for FBI background investigations into judicial and political nominees until today, then, quite frankly, shame on them. This process is neither a state secret that is highly classified and compartmented, nor is it rocket science. It was reported on and commented on in real time. And it was their job to know and act on that knowledge. If they knew and didn’t act then, then shame on them. If they didn’t know until now, it’s still shame on them. While I doubt it would have made much of a difference, it was their job to know and to act on that knowledge, which they didn’t. They failed then and are angry now. The time to have been angry was then, because it might have prevented failure.
The reason that Senator McConnell and his caucus have been embarrassing Democratic senators and frustrating their, as well as Democratic president’s, efforts since January 2009 is that Senator McConnell pays attention to every possible process that could be useful to him or could be used against him. Senate Democrats are not going to beat him if they are constantly surprised by how the government they are supposed to be overseeing as part of their jobs works.
DO BETTER SENATE DEMOCRATS!
Edited to add:
I realize this is most likely performative surprise. It would have been nice if there’d been some performative surprise at the time when it might have made even a little bit of difference.
Open thread!
dr. bloor
Aggravating, but it would have made zero difference even if they all knew it at the time. The fix was in, and BeerBoy was gonna get his seat on the court.
I should add that I suspect at least some of Whitehouse’s “surprise” is in the Captain Renault sense of the word. He’s a former AG and a pretty sharp guy.
Old School
I wouldn’t necessarily assume that the senators didn’t understand the process before today.
Adam L Silverman
@Old School: Based on their behavior at the time, there is no evidence that they understood it then.
MomSense
I just want to know who paid off his fucking credit card debt.
dr. bloor
@MomSense: Agreed. BK is and always has been a misogynistic, drunk, abusive asshole, but everyone already knew it and it was never going to slow him down. The financial corruption thread might have been more productive if only because there’s a paper trail somewhere, and can’t be reduced to he-said-she-said shoulder shrugging.
John Revolta
Forty-five hundred tips? WTAF??
Damien
@MomSense: Anheuser-Busch? No publicity is bad publicity
VOR
IIRC, the FBI didn’t interview key witnesses from Kavenaugh’s youthful (alleged) misdeeds. It was obvious at the time it was kabuki. My Fox News-watching friends kept insisting the FBI had done an exhaustive investigation in the, IIRC, under a week allocated for the second investigation.
CaseyL
Could any of this be of use in impeaching Kavanaugh and getting him off SCOTUS?
Adam L Silverman
@VOR: And the one guy who was part of the “PJ and Squi” crew that they did go to interview refused to talk to them.
Ryan
Once again, the Democrats bring a soup ladle to a knife fight. But there’s no excuse. It was 2018. If you didn’t know Trump was corrupt, his people were corrupt, oh and by the way, chasing down 4,500 tips in what was it, a week?
Omnes Omnibus
The performative surprise at a point when they have the power to investigate is different from when they were in the minority. I take issue with your entire premise.
PenAndKey
@MomSense: and his mortgage.
Adam L Silverman
@CaseyL: No, there will never be the required number of votes in the Senate to convict and remove him.
At best, if they can get all the tip information that the FBI turned over to Don McGahn and make it public it could be of political use. Or, rather, it could be of political use if the Democrats had ever shown any evidence they’d know how to use it effectively.
StringOnAStick
Maybe if our federal elected officials didn’t have to spend half their time drumming up ca!paint contributions, they could focus more on their actual jobs. R senators are better funded and have a network of dark money groups directing their attentions; we end up with Senators from Exxon pretending to be concerned about the environment.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: As I wrote in reply to you down below:
The facts are they failed then. Apparently because they don’t understand the most basic things about what they’re supposed to be overseeing.
Major Major Major Major
What is this, listen-to-germy-day? jk!
Open thread, I see. Well this bill sure is a dumb idea. Surprised to see the Klob’s name on it.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: That is both dumb and unconstitutional.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: And as I posted below, I disagree. Your thread and all that, but I wanted my disagreement to be mentioned here as well. I’m not going to argue over it as I don’t think I am going to convince you. As far as anyone else goes, I guess it depends on whether they agree with you that someone like Whitehouse is feckless.
raven
FOOD FIGHT!!!
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think it’s feckless. I think he’s bad at a part of his job. As are his six colleagues. They either knew this then and fucked up by doing nothing with the information, which is a failure or they didn’t know it, which explains why they didn’t do anything at the time, which is a different type of failure. Either way, it is evidence that they are bad at this.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I never gave a flying fuck about high school Kavanaugh. The debt payment stuff, the Starr involvement and weighty stuff like active, adult corruption were what floated my boat.
As always, whimpers from #MeToo about ancient allegations turned out to be stupid distractions.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: yep. Sadly, neither party is a stranger to taking such an approach to disfavored online speech.
trnc
I wonder why the word “stovepipe” keeps rattling around in my head.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: The bigger danger is that trump owns him, and can threaten him with blackmail. Trump suggested that already.
If I were Whitehouse, I would check every response he made under oath, and if there is one hint of lying under oath, refer it to the DOJ.
Adam L Silverman
@raven:
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Someone should probably do a welfare check on Popehat.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Not me. I said my piece and am done.
raven
It
was
a
joke
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: No, the bigger threat is McGahn provided McConnell and Leonard Leo with the details. Leo was working as McGahn’s special advisor on the nomination, so he likely had the information in real time. Which means that McGahn, McConell, Leo and the people that are funding Leo through his dark money networks own Kavanaugh. Or, rather, have further leverage to keep him in line as they already owned him. Moreover, they have details that potentially implicate others, which give them leverage over persons unknown. For instance, which teachers, professors, employers, friends, etc covered for Kavanaugh.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I am aware.
Hildebrand
@Omnes Omnibus: Bingo. I am so weary of these ‘the elected Democrats are hapless knaves, if only they had listened to us’ Monday Morning Quarterbacking posts. Not just here – these types of posts bloom everywhere across the internet the moment elected Democrats do anything.
I get it, our elected officials don’t always move with the grace, speed, or muscle that we, in our most idealistic moments, would like. But that doesn’t mean that they are always idiots, nor that they are completely clueless naïfs. Wading through the torrents of bullshit created by TFG’s administration is a Herculean task – which takes time, effort, and no small amount of finesse and art.
But if anyone truly thinks the politicians are such babes in the woods, they need to stop posting and get themselves hired directly by the folks who need their insight the most.
Soprano2
OT – I just saw that the MO Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the constitutional amendment authorizing the Medicaid expansion is constitutional. I have no idea what will happen next, since our R state legislature refused to finance it.
dr. bloor
@Major Major Major Major: Minnesota Nice strikes again.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You mean like forcing the Right Wing Media to defend the FBI as the unstained paladins of law and order, beyond reproach, defending America against the slobbering hordes of The Other while simultaneously denouncing the FBI as the most vile personal lapdogs of Sorous and the Deep State, hell bent on inflicting Socialized Critical Race Theory Vaccines on America?
zhena gogolia
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
So attempted rape isn’t weighty enough for you?
trollhattan
@John Revolta:
Dudes who were at keggers attended by li’l Brett comprise 4,000 of those.
Omnes Omnibus
@dr. bloor: Glad she wasn’t on the ticket.
Mike in NC
Well, no wonder Trump was so infatuated by this sniveling jerk.
piratedan
what I find leaves me the most disappointed is there is an utter lack of ruthless motherfuckers at our disposal masquerading as politicians that can apparently hang with Mitch Motherfucking McConnell. Harry Reid seemed to have the chops to do so, but so far, not many of the old guard have the chops to understand that you have to push back on these bastards.
While I have a fairly high opinion on Whitehouse, I am certainly open to the idea that way too many of our Senators still feel some kind of collegial rapport with their GOP counterparts that is most definitely not shared based on their words and actions.
Perhaps it would serve no public good to openly state that Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are sycophantic lying pieces of shit, but at this point, the apparent congeniality of the Dems is being abused much like everything else in the political process.
Uninvited Guest
I’ve always found it funny that many who comment on politics look at them through a mostly justified cynical eye but still seem to expect most if not all of what politicians say about the sausage making to be honest as opposed to performative.
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: Stop teasing me with Vizslas Silverman. My brother wants a litter with his (really pretty) female and if I had a yard I would take one. They’re great dogs.
I’m going with performance outrage. Whitehouse has been a Senator since 2007. There has to be a reason this is all coming up now.
James E Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agree with you on this, but wonder what the goal is.
piratedan
@Yutsano: perhaps they’re putting down a marker regarding other cases that are due to come up, unsure if Kavanaugh would believe that he’s above the fray to take it as a potential threat or not…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@zhena gogolia: Unfortunately bribery crimes are easier to prove than a rape that happened decades ago.
For me, I would have thought the Republicans would have done a double take on Judge McCrybaby over that rant he did during the hearing. That was a sign he runs on emotion and can’t be counted on .
James E Powell
@Hildebrand:
Yeah, I get that, but some of them are deadly accurate. See, e.g., Senator Feinstein buffing Senator Graham. Maybe we fall into a habit of seeing a pattern where there is no pattern.
ETA – And I don’t think it’s a belief that they are babes in the woods or naive, but that their priorities are not what we think they should be.
Yutsano
Since the thread be open…
I swear Alexandra Petri owes half her career to Gym Jordan at this point.
Spanky
@James E Powell: Well, it can’t help but end up dirtying Wray, so there’s that. Whether it creates enough heat to push him out remains to be seen. Also, whether this might be just the first turn of the screw.
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano:
James E Powell
@piratedan:
I will push back on this, though I do not consider you to be a bastard.
Biden knows exactly what to do and how to do it. More so than any D president since LBJ. And Speaker Pelosi is very skilled at the game. Given the nearly ungovernable composition of her caucus, I am repeatedly amazed at what she manages to get done – my own shouting from the bleachers notwithstanding.
Adam L Silverman
@Spanky: This won’t dirty up Wray. The FBI did exactly what it was supposed to do. They followed process and protocol. If Wray or the FBI had done anything different, then he would be in trouble. You don’t get in trouble if you do bad things under color of law.
Spanky
@Adam L Silverman: Sitting on 4500 tips?
Hildebrand
@James E Powell: I understand – some of our Senators are not good at their jobs, some should have retired long ago, and yep, some really aren’t that bright. But the default seems to be they are all two steps behind; always bumbling, always just not quite as bright or savvy as those standing on the sidelines.
It’s a grind – and if the smartest folks in the room never put themselves forward to help directly, well, that’s a real pain in the ass.
Ohio Mom
Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That’s what stunned me. Who throws a temper tantrum at a job interview? And still gets hired? For any job, let alone the Supreme Court?
Adam L Silverman
@Spanky: He didn’t sit on them. He provided them to the person in the chain who was supposed to receive them. That person was Don McGahn the White House Counsel. That was always going to be the outcome of whatever the FBI found. The Senate, through its committees of jurisdiction, do not run and are not the client on whose behalf background investigations for judicial and political appointees are done. The White House, through the White House Counsel and his/her office, do and are.
piratedan
@James E Powell: I was speaking to the Senate in this instance, I’ve always thought Nancy Smash had the chops to hang, haven’t seen much evidence where the Senate Dems have out-positioned McConnell… after all, we STILL do not have a vote for Infrastructure or Voting Rights and the clock is still ticking.
Steeplejack
Aw, hell, no! (Former?) Republican apparatchik Michael Steele is subbing in for Nicolle Wallace today on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House. He has been an MSNBC analyst for a while (of so-so quality), but I hope they’re not grooming him for a permanent hosting slot. Not all of the GOP slime has been washed off yet. At least he’s a never-Trumper.
Clearly a mistake to check in on MSNBC today.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: are we still doing phrasing?
JPL
@Steeplejack: Nicole was a never trumper, and former republican also. I understand why you might feel that way though.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Who knows? Yutsano doesn’t seem to be.
Jeffro
Would love a thread on the NFL telling its players and teams: get vaccinated or prepare to not get paid
Prometheus Shrugged
@James E Powell: Agreed.
I’ll add that some of the former prosecutors could have done a much better job in nailing Kavanaugh on his calendar entry of “Skis with PJ and Squi” that was a nearly perfect fit with Dr. Blasey-Ford’s recollection. They could have skewered him especially because Kavanaugh was smugly asserting that the calendar exonerated him. The Senators clearly weren’t naive, since this line of questioning about his calendar was raised (by Corey Booker). They just let him off the hook for unknown reasons. They could have simply asked point blank “can you give us any reason why this calendar entry can’t be the event recalled by Dr. Blasey-Ford?” Any answer he could possibly give would have trashed a significant portion of his arguments.
This does not make me dislike VP Harris and Sen. Whitehouse or question their competency –just wish that they could have risen to the occasion in this specific instance.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro:
Some of those players have guaranteed contracts. I’m sure the player’s association’s lawyers will see the league in court.Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Guaranteed money doesn’t cover the per game portion of the contract.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Then I will strike the comment. I sit corrected.
NotMax
@Jeffro
You mean the “incentive for owners to stifle reporting positive tests” rule?
/cynic
Dorothy A. Winsor
Open thread? My brother just called to tell me he’s now officially a Canadian citizen. I think I am too actually but I haven’t filed the paperwork. Our dad was Canadian. He eventually became an American citizen but he was still Canadian when my brother was born and I think when I was too. I’d have to check the naturalization date. He says he’s now watching the Olympics with a whole new perspective
dr. bloor
@Omnes Omnibus: Being deemed medically unable to play shouldn’t result in the loss of a game check, but I wouldn’t put it past the NFLPA to screw it up. They’re every Captain of Industry’s wet dream of what a union should be.
StringOnAStick
Perhaps the real target here is McGahn? Or maybe a giant hint to a certain aged USSC member who really should retire right the hell NOW? Maybe some other anti Kav info is percolating and we don’t know yet what it is? Lots of possibilities it seems.
Omnes Omnibus
@dr. bloor: Being medically unready because of refusing to get a vaccine. If a player blows off physical training after an injury, the team would not have the same obligation as it would if he did the rehab work and had not fully healed.
Just Chuck
Does anyone think it would have made a tardigrade’s fart of a difference if they’d brought this up then? The Republicans would still have voted to confirm if there were video evidence of him shooting up a mall.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Regarding Covid, the NFL has tried to run a tight ship. Two weeks into last season, the league had fined five head coaches $100,000 each for violations of it’s masking policy at games. The five teams were fined $250,000 each. I think coaches kept their masks on after that, but fines for various violations of Covid policy by teams and players continued all season long.
Kent
Not unless you have 2/3 of the Senate behind you. The threshold is the same as for impeaching a president.
raven
@Jeffro: So we can listen to whining about football. Great.
Jeffro
@Omnes Omnibus: many thanks!
@NotMax:
the virus doesn’t care who fakes results, and Covid (especially a team-wide outbreak) strikes me as something that’d be hard to cover up and a complete disaster if they tried.
Jeffro
@raven: just trying to provide more variety in the whining! =)
raven
@Steeplejack: He and Claire are filling in and have been all week.
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: To be fair…I was getting manipulated by an occupational therapist at the time. Plus I no haz front pager GIF magic. That GIF exists however. I have used it on Twitter more than once.
Another Scott
Meh.
Whitehouse knew and knows what was happening. He also knows how to count votes.
ScotusBlog:
I’m having trouble remembering – what branch of government and what Department houses the FBI??
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Steve in the ATL
@Geminid: I loved that they made the Denver Broncos play a game without any of their QBs because they had willfully violated all COVID protocols. It’s now often Roger Goodell gets anything right.
Sure Lurkalot
So I don’t have to re-live “what did they know and when did they know it”, I will just dream that someone has intercepted said 4500 tips, organized the data nice and pretty and the senators’ outrage is just a shot across the bough.
WaterGirl
Senator Whitehouse is surprised by nothing, except perhaps the lying to Congress by FBI Director Wray. I have never trusted Wray, and maybe it’s time for Director Wray to spend more time with his family.
In the hearings for Beer Boy, Senator Whitehouse made a public promise that he was not going to let this go, and he hasn’t.
I find it baffling that the takeaway on this should be that the Democrats need to do better.
Keith P.
The tip line was for prepping against oppo research. Obviously.
Geminid
@Steve in the ATL: After that Denver game, the Washington Football Team and others hired an extra quarterback who studied the team’s playbook and worked out separated from the coaches and the rest of the team.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Why is this
nightcase different than all othernightscases?//
debbie
@piratedan:
They were laughing at Manchin to his face. I don’t know how much more anyone needs to know to acknowledge the GOP’s utter corruption.
Hildebrand
@WaterGirl: Thank you.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for this. I was doing other stuff in my life but my spouse, who has never been a lawyer went URK!
I once in my distant past went to law school, passed the bar and briefly was a lawyer decades ago. I was busy today so I have no opinion. But back then we were naive. Rule of law and all that silliness.
Bill Arnold
@Kent:
POTUS Clinton was impeached for perjury(/obstruction of justice).
If there is clear evidence of perjury by BK (and/or of other impeachable offenses), impeachment might be politically appropriate even if conviction is blocked by Republican Senators who disrespect the Constitution.
Oh, and Sen Whitehouse has been obviously obsessed/annoyed with BK(‘s obvious unfitness) since during the hearings. I would not be surprised if there are further reveals, perhaps one or more not performative.
raven
@Geminid: Jake Fromm spent the whole season in a hotel away from the Bills as a backup.
Betty
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: That was always my fear when the sex issue came up because it was long ago and lacked eyewitnesses. His real issues got lost when the media chased the sex story and Democrats did not fight hard enough to highlight the other problems with him..
trollhattan
Canada and US having a whale of a softball game in Fukushima.
NB It is a dayglo ball ball but not technically glowing.
Yutsano
@Bill Arnold: IANAL in the slightest, but I have read the man’s opinions. As a layman, they strike me as amateur and lazy. There doesn’t seem to be any real strong analysis beyond “this is what I think” most of the time. I think he’s there because strong interests want an idiot who will toe party lines when things matter. One of those interests being Dolt45.
debbie
@Betty:
As I recall, they weren’t given much time, period.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty: Tell me what things the Democrats could pursued that would have changed the end result by even one vote.
Another Scott
Some guy named Silverman at Balloon-Juice.com (10/04/2018):
So it all came down to what the Majority was willing to do. That was my recollection as well.
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
A PSA: It’s not your grandma’s virus any longer.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think that is cool (my grandmother’s mother was Canadian.) My favorite nephew married a Canadian. Their kid is dual citizen. I think that is cool, but the American side of me is kind of sad. We phucked up and the kids want to bail.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed. And if it went down the way Adam alleges, McGahn has criminal exposure under 18 U.S.C. Section 1505, for which there are over two years left on the statute.
sab
@WaterGirl: Me too. Wray needed to do better, but he chose not to.
trollhattan
Boris complaining Brexit deal negotiated by Boris unfair to Boris.
Now that TFG is out of the job it’s easier to bask in how awful Boris and the Tories truly are.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Phrase lifted verbatim from a Visit Beautiful Fukushima brochure?
//
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: This is one of the best takes on Johnson that I have seen.
burnspbesq
@Adam L Silverman:
You’re not a lawyer, so I’ll cut you some slack, but you’re mostly wrong on this point. Take a close look at the second paragraph of Section 1505.
burnspbesq
@trollhattan:
The clock is ticking on Irish unification as of today.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
{chef’s kiss} awarded.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve in the ATL: Check your email!!!!! I emailed you on Tuesday!
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus:
Another good one:
Also too, it looks like BoJo and his minions are realizing that empty grocery store shelves are not all that good for them politically…
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: the many abortions Kavanaugh paid for?
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: Doubt it.
NotMax
@Another Scott
He was absolutely spot on. I mean, have you tried shopping for red tape lately?
//
Immanentize
@Immanentize: but maaayyybeee
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: I will spot you one.
Steve in the ATL
@Adam L Silverman: alas, that one has been down for many weeks. Try the same nym at bellsouth dot net
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
Probably bad phrasing, Adam; that actually is illegal. That’s the charge the LAPD officers who beat the crap out of Rodney King got convicted.