The next special election (on April 24) is a longshot — Arizona 8 is +13 R Cook PVI which means a Republican Congressional candidate should win by about 26 points on average. But the race is MUCH closer than expected, on the edge of single digits, and the Democratic candidate, Hiral Tipirneni, is a great candidate with a great work ethic, so you know what to do, dawg.
Lying Liars Lying Badly (Open Thread)
Deep down, the lumpy orange shart-stain in the White House knows he’s a worthless fraud. That’s why he shrieks like a scalded skunk at real or perceived slights. The people around Trump — slugs hauled blinking into the sunlight from the soil beneath the scraped-away bottom of the Republican barrel — are even more acutely aware of Trump’s deficiencies, but it’s their job to puff him up.
Everyone in a malignant narcissist’s orbit is conscripted into the battle to keep the narcissist’s crippling insecurities at bay. In the case of Trump, even we citizens are drafted to serve as props and scolded when we don’t go along with the ruse. Recall Kellyanne Conway bellowing in frustration, “Hashtag — he’s your president too!” on national TV — the recurrent theme of virtually all of her mainstream media appearances.
But perhaps no one’s job description is as straightforwardly about Trump-fluffery as that of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is trotted out each weekday afternoon to publicly polish the turd that is the Trump administration. It’s a tough job, and Huckabee Sanders does it poorly.
Her guiding principle on the job seems to be to find examples of Trump’s predecessors doing a thing and then paint a portrait of Trump doing something similar to that thing, and then present the following conclusion with a triumphant flourish: “See? This is TOO a normal presidency!”
But Huckabee Sanders is so very bad at it. For example, remember this iconic photo of Obama and his team monitoring the bin Laden raid?
In a tweet last night, Huckabee Sanders was trying to spin the Shitgibbon’s recent courtesy bombing in Syria as a foreign policy masterstroke, taking a shot at President Obama while simultaneously attempting to evoke the drama and import of the photo above:
Last night the President put our adversaries on notice: when he draws a red line he enforces it. (Inside the Situation Room as President is briefed on Syria – Official WH photos by Shealah Craighead) pic.twitter.com/GzOSejdqQh
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) April 15, 2018
As all of non-MAGAt Twitter immediately pointed out, the implied timeline is bogus since Pence is in Peru, but even if he weren’t, there’s nothing remotely reassuring about seeing these clowns in the Situation Room. The inept press shop probably had to crop John Kelly out because he was face-palming again.
Anyhoo, no newsflash or moral of the story here: the lying liars are lying again, and they’re doing it badly. This will be the status quo until the whole rotten crew is ejected from power, and please FSM, let that day come soon.
On to more pleasant topics: Today, I am making another birthday cake with a Shrek theme — this time, “Donkey” is the featured character. I will share the results by and by.
We’re also supposed to cook out later because the Shrek fan’s favorite entree is grilled steak, but a humongous storm is making its way across the Gulf, so I have a feeling we’ll have to move the festivities indoors.
Please feel free to discuss whatever — open thread!
Sunday Garden Chat: Pink Perfection
Inspiration for those of us still waiting on our daffodils to bloom! From “a longtime lurker”, Anne K:
Some pics of camellias-
I am in the Ca Sierra foothills about an hour east of Trollhattan–
(The snow shows up one last time for the camellias almost every year)
***********
Speaking of one last snow, the mailorder lingonberry and strawberry plants that showed up two weeks ago seem to be hanging on… for the moment… but the poor little blueberry bushes that weren’t already bare sticks have lost all their leaves. Oh, well, we’ll see how things look by Memorial Day, and then test Burpee’s supposed one-year return policy.
What’s going on in your garden(s) (planning), this week?
Spring Maintenance
Picked up a cushion for the wicker love seat, got four ferns for five bucks a piece on the bargain shelf at Lowes, planted some pansies. Tomorrow, edging the beds with sandstone rocks, and mulching.
I’m not even going to show you a picture of the backyard it’s such a god damned disaster, but we’re gonna get about 10 tons of dirt hauled to level it out.
Excellent Read: “Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency”
“Bad news, Mike. Dragging files into the waste basket doesn’t really delete them.” pic.twitter.com/ADc7HEoS06
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) April 13, 2018
Adam Davidson, disaster reporter, in the New Yorker:
… This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophecy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth. I know dozens of reporters and other investigators who have studied Donald Trump and his business and political ties. Some have been skeptical of the idea that President Trump himself knowingly colluded with Russian officials. It seems not at all Trumpian to participate in a complex plan with a long-term, uncertain payoff. Collusion is an imprecise word, but it does seem close to certain that his son Donald, Jr., and several people who worked for him colluded with people close to the Kremlin; it is up to prosecutors and then the courts to figure out if this was illegal or merely deceitful. We may have a hard time finding out what President Trump himself knew and approved.
However, I am unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look at Trump’s business who doesn’t believe that there is a high likelihood of rampant criminality…
… It has become commonplace to say that enough was known about Trump’s shady business before he was elected; his followers voted for him precisely because they liked that he was someone willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, and they also believe that all rich businesspeople have to do shady things from time to time. In this way of thinking, any new information about his corrupt past has no political salience. Those who hate Trump already think he’s a crook; those who love him don’t care.
I believe this assessment is wrong. Sure, many people have a vague sense of Trump’s shadiness, but once the full details are better known and digested, a fundamentally different narrative about Trump will become commonplace…
The narrative that will become widely understood is that Donald Trump did not sit atop a global empire. He was not an intuitive genius and tough guy who created billions of dollars of wealth through fearlessness. He had a small, sad operation, mostly run by his two oldest children and Michael Cohen, a lousy lawyer who barely keeps up the pretenses of lawyering and who now faces an avalanche of charges, from taxicab-backed bank fraud to money laundering and campaign-finance violations.
Cohen, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka monetized their willingness to sign contracts with people rejected by all sensible partners. Even in this, the Trump Organization left money on the table, taking a million dollars here, five million there, even though the service they provided—giving branding legitimacy to blatantly sketchy projects—was worth far more. It was not a company that built value over decades, accumulating assets and leveraging wealth. It burned through whatever good will and brand value it established as quickly as possible, then moved on to the next scheme…
Of course Trump is raging and furious and terrified. Prosecutors are now looking at his core. Cohen was the key intermediary between the Trump family and its partners around the world; he was chief consigliere and dealmaker throughout its period of expansion into global partnerships with sketchy oligarchs. He wasn’t a slick politico who showed up for a few months. He knows everything, he recorded much of it, and now prosecutors will know it, too. It seems inevitable that much will be made public. We don’t know when. We don’t know the precise path the next few months will take. There will be resistance and denial and counterattacks. But it seems likely that, when we look back on this week, we will see it as a turning point. We are now in the end stages of the Trump Presidency.
Cohen: I am the subject of target of a federal Investigstion
Trump: I am also bigly a subject of one or more federal investigations
Cohen: let us discuss it on our phones even though it makes our lawyers cry
Trump: legal advice is cuck
Cohen: also I am recording this— OMGSomeoneShutUpHat (@Popehat) April 14, 2018
omg this is amazing pic.twitter.com/TOlAIKvPl5
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 14, 2018
Excellent Read: “Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency”Post + Comments (201)
Well That Didn’t Take Long
Thought we could use a little happy distraction this afternoon. Scout, sigh, moved up to a 26″ collar this week (don’t worry, it’s still on the tightest grommet) and…yesterday she jumped up on me and her big ole feet were on my shoulders. That caught me by surprise. Pretty sure the day before that was not possible.
I need a favor – I’m working on something and I need a name that would work as well for a stripper as it would for a country western singer. I figured you guys have the minds I’m looking for to accomplish this task. AND, if I choose the name you come up with, I do have a lovely gift for you (no really, I do).
Other than that – open thread.
Interesting Read: “What I Learned From Briefing Robert Mueller”
— John Sipher (@john_sipher) April 13, 2018
David Priess, at Lawfareblog:
When Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Bob Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russian election interference, I found myself neither surprised that Mueller had been tapped nor shocked when he accepted the call to duty…
The challenge Mueller agreed to tackle looked deep and wide: everything from the capability and intent of foreign governments and individuals, to the use and abuse of social media, to the labyrinth of international financial transactions. It was daunting, to say the least, even with the top-notch team of specialists he then gathered. My confidence nevertheless ran high that this complicated investigation would get the comprehensive treatment it demanded and be handled with the utmost integrity.
This trust in Mueller and his investigation didn’t come out of the blue. For more than a year, while serving as a CIA officer, I was his daily intelligence briefer in his role as director of the FBI. Five, often six, days a week I delivered to him the president’s daily brief (PDB) as well as voluminous other pieces of intelligence information and analytic assessments, primarily on terrorism…
The relationship between daily intelligence briefers and their “customers,” as CIA officers for many decades have called senior policy makers, is a special one. The details of the briefing materials—including, but not limited to, information about intelligence sources and methods—and the sensitive conversations in that room remain sacred. I won’t discuss those things here, or anywhere.
But presenting complex information to Mueller, watching him digest it, answering his inevitable questions, and chatting with him and his staff on the margins of the sessions afforded me insight that I can appropriately share regarding his approach to complex problem sets—from L’Affaire Russe to Mueller’s personal style. This experience gave me confidence then about the fight against terrorism and the integrity of the Bureau under his watch, and it gives me confidence now in the work he is doing as special counsel.
What stood out to me most upon my starting the job, just months after 9/11, were Mueller’s attention to detail and his desire to understand how the CIA analysts arrived at their assessments. For a while, most of my briefings devolved into de facto intelligence hazing rituals. I discovered the hard way that when my presentation casually offered judgments lacking robust sourcing or logic, Mueller would ask me about the substantiation or argumentation until either my desperate searching through background materials could satisfy him or—more often in those first few months—I admitted that I’d have to get back to him after talking to the experts on that issue.
He wasn’t sending me down rabbit holes for the joy of doing so; he simply didn’t seem to trust analysis anchored to weak evidence or unclear reasoning. Inevitably, my follow-up on his questions resulted in either a quick nod of thanks or, particularly during the early briefings, another set of questions sending me back for more. Never did I feel that I’d been sent on a fishing expedition. Anything that initially appeared to be a tangent ended up having a purpose, usually to help him bring into focus one of the many pictures we were puzzling over…
Read the whole thing — it’s not long! — and take heart.
Interesting Read: “What I Learned From Briefing Robert Mueller”Post + Comments (38)