Tillerson on Russian journalists/dissidents being killed: "These things happen"
— Eric Katz (@EricM_Katz) January 11, 2017
Rubio: did Putin "order the murder of countless journalists and political opponents?" Tillerson: "I would have to have more information."
— Mark MacKinnon (@markmackinnon) January 11, 2017
Tillerson: "I look forward to being fully informed…"
Rubio: "None of this classified. These people are dead."— Tim Mak (@timkmak) January 11, 2017
"I think that's a fair assumption" that Putin knew about & directed hacks of the US election – SecState nominee Rex Tillerson #SFRC hearing
— Indira Lakshmanan (@Indira_L) January 11, 2017
THIS. IS. FINE. (We are so fucked.)
“I have great respect for the news, and great respect for freedom of the press. And all of that.” — Donald Trump
— Matt Viser (@mviser) January 11, 2017
Yutsano
You know who looks the worst in all of this? The Republicans in Congress. They’re just going to lie down and let the Constitution get trampled JUST so they can get their sweet sweet tax cuts.
And at the end of the day they’ll all vote for his nominees. For the exact same reason.
lamh36
I’ll join the Rubio fan wave if he actually votes NO on Tillerson..until then..fuq Lil Marco.
Meanwhile, All that shilling @CNN did for #PEEOTUS and he shutting them out…karma’s a bitch
@Jenna_Barnes
Whoah. Trump says he won’t give @CNN a question because they are “fake news.”
Patricia Kayden
“These things happen” sounds like something a gangster would say in one of the Godfather movies.
Humboldtblue
Did he really fucking say that? I’ve been calling Trump supporters traitors since the summer when the first Russian rumors began, but fuck, they are literally handing over our government to a hostile nation.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: But did you hear his shout out to NYT? That’s why I don’t subscribe to NYT.
The Moar You Know
Donald best wait until 2020 to sign anything, because the guy has become such an obvious and massive liability that I’m starting to believe something that’s been often posited, but flat-out did not believe before: the minute he signs those cuts, he gets impeached.
lamh36
Did he really end the presser with “your fired”…
America…
you in danger girl…
Gin & Tonic
Huh. I have to check to see if Myroslava Gongadze is at Tillerson’s hearing. Maybe she can provide him with “more information.”
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Like a head?
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: Yep. And I heard his sycophants applauding him as he left. My eyes cannot roll back far enough in my head.
Humboldtblue
I’ve got sitting Senators and congressmembers tweeting and re-tweeting each other that they want to see the tax returns. This can only get more bizarre.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
for real?
Steeplejack
@lamh36:
Yep.
Yarrow
@lamh36: He did say “otherwise if they did a bad job, ‘your’re fired!'” That was in reference to his sons running his business.
He actually ended the conference with “Goodbye everyone. Goodbye.” As typical with Trump, I think it’s a tell. He’s not sure he’s coming back or going to be in this position to hold a press conference. Or maybe never will have another one.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: what’d he say?
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden: For the SoS of America to cavalierly say this is astounding, you and your boss are advocating becoming BFF’s with this guy and your response to being told he kills journalists is ‘shit happens’. Wow, just wow.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: He said the NYT didn’t print the 35 page dossier because they realized it was fake. Or something along those lines. Perhaps the NYT said why they didn’t print it and he referenced that. Something like that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
I’d like someone to add up the minutes he was on vs. aggregate number of minutes Sean Spicer, Mike Pence, and Lawyer Lady were on. I would guess he himself was on no more than 50% of the total time.
Spanky
@The Moar You Know:
Pence will be completely willing to sign them, ya know.
We’ll see what happens in the next 9 days, but I think it’s entirely possible that impeachment proceedings will start on January 23 (NEVER on a weekend!). Not yet likely, but Congress can take no action until he’s sworn in, and it’s possible (yet, again, not likely) that they’re playing their cards real close at this point.
SatanicPanic
@hovercraft: that’s horrifying. Wow.
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
Kay Adams: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed.
Michael: Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?
bemused
@Humboldtblue:
GOP or just Dems?
misterpuff
@Patricia Kayden: More like “These things will happen” once Drumpf sets up his internal police.
hovercraft
@lamh36:
Here it is.
Trump Refuses To Let CNN Reporter Ask Him A Question At Press Conference (VIDEO)
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: He said something to the effect that the NYT rightfully dismissed the latest intelligence release and pretty much praised them for doing so. I thought that was very telling since the NYT doggedly ran with the email “scandal” which so damaged Secretary Clinton.
Yarrow
Jim Acosta from CNN told Trump, “Mr. President-elect, that’s not appropriate.” Maybe our media is starting to realize that Trump is not their friend.
Wapiti
Since it’s an open thread: is there a Seattle meet-up this evening, 6:30, at The Ram at Northgate?
Calouste
@misterpuff: I suspect one of the reasons the shitgibbon is fighting with the Intelligence Agencies is because he wants to turn them into his own secret police.
misterpuff
Get ready for Signapolooza. Drumpf has four days planned to sign executive orders to overturn everything he can from the Obama Admin.
Very Well, Sire!
Major Major Major Major
Were they to impeach him right off the bat (won’t happen but while we’re playing), would democrats vote to impeach? Should they?
I would say yes and yes.
Humboldtblue
@bemused:
So far just Dems.
Jeffro
@Yarrow:
It’s been six months since he had one, so I think your last possibility (or close to it) is the most likely…
Btw folks, it seems like the Twitters are abuzz that it’d be so so sweet if PBO would resign a day early, making Joe Biden the 45th president (he deserves it!) and wrecking all the Trumpian merchandise. I say go for it, Barack!
lamh36
@KilloughCNN
Here’s the full exchange between @Acosta and @realDonaldTrump (via CNN’s Janet DiGiacomo)
hovercraft
Umm, I don’t think that this is going to end well for the shitgibbon.
Trump Ran His Own Leak Check On Intel Briefers
“And what I did is I said I won’t tell anybody,” he said. “I’m going to have a meeting and I won’t tell anybody about my meeting with intelligence, and what happened is I had my meeting, nobody knew. Not even Rhona, my executive assistant for years! She didn’t know. I didn’t tell her.”
“Nobody knew. The meeting was had, the meeting was over, they left, and immediately the word got out that I had a meeting,” he continued. “So I don’t want that. It’s very unfair to the country. It’s very unfair to our country what’s happened.”
—————————–
This will not end well.
Humboldtblue
In one of today’s threads someone mentioned John Schindler. Here’s a piece on Trump and the Russians I had not seen. It’s worth a read.
Yarrow
Wow. Jake Tapper just went over what Trump said about CNN. Then he said this: “And when Mr. Trump went after our own Jim Acosta, saying he’s fake news and he isn’t going to call for him, what I suspect we are seeing here is an attempt to discredit legitimate, responsible, attempts to report on this incoming administration with irresponsible journalism that hurts us all. So the media should keep that in mind.”
It looks like Tapper is angry that they’re getting smeared with the Buzzfeed story. Get used to it, media. Trump is not your friend.
lamh36
lamh36
hovercraft
@Calouste:
I think he’s scared of them, he knows that they are the only ones who can truly expose him and his house of cards, so he is trying to preemptively discredit them. He’s been doing it for months, so the media is always having to do both sides stories, basically giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Humboldtblue
From the twitter reaction to the presser —
Felonius Monk
@Humboldtblue: You do realize that the Schindler article is published in The Observer which is owned by Jared Kushner. Seems rather curious to me.
chopper
@Jeffro:
wrecking? it’d probably make the stuff valuable as all hell.
Humboldtblue
@Felonius Monk: I thought the same thing but his conclusions certainly seem accurate.
hovercraft
@Yarrow:
Think about the how relentless the media were about the e-mails, Matt Fucking Lauer spent 12 minutes of a 25 minute forum chasing Hillary about her e-mails. Now think back to the debacle you guys just watched, why was the story of the day not pounded relentlessly, even if he tried to filibuster them, they should have just kept at him till he gave them straight answers, the same goes for his conflicts of interests, taxes and a million other things. Todays headlines are all about peegate, that should have been the focus, and they should not have let him up till he actually answered questions. he should have been asked if he believed that MI6 and our own IC agencies are all liars, does he have more confidence in the FSB that in our own intelligence agencies. The media needs to learn how to deal with his gish gallop or they will become even more useless than they are right now.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
Uh huh
Uh huh
hovercraft
@lamh36:
In his defense, Inholfe doesn’t get out much.
Elizabelle
Interesting. Very interesting. Editorial from The Richmond Times
DisgraceDispatch. A usually rightwing editorial page, which endorsed Gary Johnson this year. (They’ve been falling all over themselves for their audacity there.)In its entirety:
Editorial – With Trump ‘bombshell,’ fake news gains new life
Wow, that’s an interesting op ed. For Richmond. More links embedded in the editorial. Including to a Fuck the NY Times piece I’ll put up next.
Humboldtblue
@hovercraft:
Here is a nice timeline stretching back to the summer regarding the slow leak of info regarding Trump and Russia
Adam L Silverman
@Felonius Monk: Schindler has made it clear, repeatedly, that he has never been given interference on what he can and cannot write and if that should happen he will move on.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: Controlling the press. Intimidating them. That’s what authoritarians do. Along with kids in government. He’s right on track.
Adam L Silverman
That law firm that’s handling the Trump business trust, I’ll just leave this here:
https://www.morganlewis.com/news/chambers-partners-names-morgan-lewis-as-russia-law-firm-of-the-year
And also, here:
https://twitter.com/TUSK81/status/819232794136055808
Humboldtblue
@Adam L Silverman:
Careful, Silverman, if something happens to people like you with your questions and fake news we’ll just have to chalk it up to “these things happen.”
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Russian law firm of the year? Of course.
schrodingers_cat
Ryan and McConnell knew about the Russian connection before the election as did Comey. Yet they did nothing to stop it. The Republicans in Congress own this.
ETA: The time to stop T was before the elections, they are not going to impeach him. They are afraid of his supporters.
O. Felix Culpa
“These things happen”? In reference to murders? Seriously? Dumb question, but is this man stupid, amoral, or just not ready for primetime?
ETA: This Trump shitshow is even worse than I anticipated, and I couldn’t sleep for weeks after the election. I’m going to listen to some food podcasts while I file paperwork to decompress. Then I’ll get back in the trenches. Vive la résistance!
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: I really want the Trump disaster to drag on long enough that it damages and takes down the GOP leadership as well. I know that means they can do a ton of damage along the way and I also don’t want them to do that damage. Not sure how both can happen.
Felonius Monk
@O. Felix Culpa:
All of them, Katie.
резидент американской области Российской Федерации
@Adam L Silverman:
Much of that sort of work involves the exchange of large bags of cash for the resolution of matters of local interest.
I’m so very certain that our new AG will eagerly pursue Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, as opposed to going after people who register poor black people to vote, or Planned Parenthood for offering reproductive health services.
We. Are. Fucked.
The fucking will last until the level of incompetence gets so extreme as to spark a short term violent reset.
Glad to see Tapper has grown a spine, but I’m guessing that his days of employment (if not life itself) are limited.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: This is Civil War 2.0. It began the day President Obama was first elected. They hate us that much, they don’t mind colluding with the enemy.
lamh36
@JStein_Vox
Trump team at the Sessions hearing just passed out a dossier citing an article about “how black Democrats stole votes”
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat: Or Congressional Republicans are okay with having an idiot in the White House who will rubberstamp every granny-starving law they pass. Kind of like George W. Bush, who was the figure head President, while Cheney ran the show.
lamh36
Aleta
Sessions hearing:
maryQ
No one would accuse The Rube-ster of being the brightest light on the tree, but the guy sure knows which way the wind blows. I find it hopeful that he feels so emboldened in this case.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: THey’re not even pretending at this point. And is this country just going to roll over and let these Russian stooges take over the government? Is this what we’ve come to? Really?
lamh36
A clear threat…
Yarrow
@lamh36: Absolutely a threat. He’ll go after the reporters and editors personally. And their families.
Miss Bianca
@maryQ: Hell, I may have to develop a little respect for Rubio after all. This wonderful world!
Corner Stone
@O. Felix Culpa:
Good God! You file paperwork to decompress? I have heard of some sick shit the last couple days, but I mean…damn!
Corner Stone
I, blessedly, could not watch the spectacle earlier. But Brian Williams of all people was completely flabbergasted by what happened and made zero attempt to hide it. And then Bill Neely in Moscow basically called Trump a fucking traitor and said hawks in Moscow loved every single bit of the event today. They were licking their chops.
rikyrah
Alleged Russian Liaison to Trump Campaign Was In News Yesterday Hyping Trump and Talking Trash
by Martin Longman
January 11, 2017 12:22 AM
There’s so much to digest in the leaked intelligence report on Donald Trump’s connections to Vladimir Putin and Russia that I feel like I’m drinking from a firehouse. I want to just throw one quick thing at you. I noticed the following excerpt about an alleged meeting in Prague between Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen and Russian operatives that was supposed to have occurred in late August or possibly the first week in September.
………………….
I was intrigued at the idea that Putin might utilize a member of the Duma to provide plausible deniability about official communications with the Trump campaign, so I looked to see what I could find about Konstantin Kosachev and whether he was active in talking up Trump and talking down Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Amazingly, I found a TASS article published just yesterday where Kosachev was quite vocally trashing Obama and crowing about the demise of the United States as a global leader and “winner” of the Cold War.
…………………….
That sounds a lot like a man who may have worked to elect Trump in order to destroy American leadership, win a lifting of crippling economic sanctions on Russia, raise the price of oil and gas, and then be at pains to deny his role in the whole affair.
It’s just one piece, but it’s a piece that deserves deep inspection by our Congress and our intelligence agencies.
Of course, Michael Cohen took to Twitter to rebut the charge that he visited Prague, but there was just one little problem with his argument.
The intelligence report first reported that the meeting with Cohen took place in an “operationally soft” country in the European Union because it was considered too “hot” to meet with him in Moscow. Only later did the report offer intelligence that the meeting had been in the Czech Republic. This will all need to be cleared up, but Cohen’s denials aren’t going to be sufficient. We need his full itinerary.
Needless to say, if the allegations in this report are true, Donald Trump cannot be our president.
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat:
This is exactly why we’re in this – the marvelous “deep bench” was afraid of the Frankenstein voters they have created, and so never moved against Trump until it was too late. Even now, they think they’ll be able to handle him without blowing up their party. They’re not correct.
hovercraft
@lamh36:
The article is by Hans von Spakovsky, so it is bullshit. Here is an excerpt from Jane Mayer on him and his evil influence.
socraticsilence
John Lewis just shamed the GOP Senate. Fuck them all, Lewis has more dignity and honor than all of them combined.
JordanRules
Booker about to testify against Sessions.
Woodrowfan
@lamh36: written by von spasky (SP) whose father was a Nazi sympathizer in WW2.
pamelabrown53
@Corner Stone: #70
Would it be possible to be more specific about Brian Williams “flabbergastedness” or link to a transcript?
IMO, there are too many documented timelines emerging for the Trump/Putin’s puppet narrative to just go away. In other words, too much reality to be overwhelmed and buried.
Doesn’t it seem like Trump is trying to obfuscate and confuse by switching fake news and conspiracy theorists will real news?
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
Lips pursed
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca: T is Mir Jafar to Putin’s Clive.
hovercraft
@socraticsilence:
Emma
@Adam L Silverman: All right now, who’s writing the scripts for this here tv show?
Corner Stone
@pamelabrown53: I don’t have a link handy but every time he threw it to a guest to describe what they just watched he read back a real quote Trump actually said during today’s event. And it was like…WTF? He praised the Kremlin? He called our IC = Nazi Germany?
Like he couldn’t believe he was reading it back verbatim.
I’m no Bri-Wi fan, but I found his lack of composure funny and remarkable.
lamh36
Sessions will be approved…as we all know…
So I’m glad to at least have Richmond, Lewis and Booker on the record…for how bad a decision this will be
@tjholmes 2m2 minutes ago
Rep. Cedric Richmond of LA is testifying now & WENT OFF on the committee for making African American witnesses go last. #Sessionshearing
lamh36
@kylegriffin1 3m3 minutes ago
Rep. Lewis’ Sessions testimony: ‘Need someone as AG who’s going to look out for all of us, not just for some of us.’
khead
@pamelabrown53:
There’s a bit of pearl clutching going on as some folks in the press are realizing they are pretty much going to be treated like the bed at the Moscow Ritz Carlton now.
Yarrow
@khead: I hope they realize sooner than later that the best thing they can do is stand up to Trump and the GOP and do their fucking jobs.
lamh36
pamelabrown53
@rikyrah: #71
As you well know, all it takes to avoid a passport stamp for a particular country is not to enter that country directly. However, I’ve read that he was visiting his son at university during that time? Can anybody clarify?
Elizabelle
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации: Tell me again who you are? Your name, before the cyrillic? Thanks. I can’t keep up. It’s enough, sometimes, with Anglo ‘nyms.
schrodingers_cat
@lamh36: They will be complicit for they have no courage.
lamh36
@existentialfish
Amazing opening statement from Cedric Richmond to the Judiciary Committee on John Lewis and Jeff Sessions.
Barbara
@pamelabrown53: Where did you read it? Maybe you can clarify.
pamelabrown53
@Corner Stone: #82
Thanks, Corner Stone.
I get the impression that Trump’s been seeing too many comparisons between himself and Nazi Germany, hence the projection.
Это курам на смех
The NYT is garbage.
? Martin
@pamelabrown53:
Since the visit was not dated, just mentioned ‘August’, it seems unlikely he was visiting his son at USC for the entire month. That does throw some question as to the eagerness of his alibi offer.
Adam L Silverman
@Humboldtblue: I wasn’t scared of the Iraqis, actually found almost all of them to be lovely folks. I wasn’t scared to go to Afghanistan, though that didn’t happen. And I haven’t been scared to go back to Iraq (I keep offering). I’m not scared of whoever the folks you’re intimating might go after me are.
The Moar You Know
@pamelabrown53: I entered a nation and avoided an entry passport stamp – not on purpose – by getting in a screaming match with a sack of crap who was trying to steal my luggage. Who also, as it turns out, was the guy stamping passports. Who did not speak English, and I did not speak French. Caused a bit of a problem on the way home but nothing major.
This was obviously a third-world shithole/warzone with no infrastructure. Do that in the Czech Republic or any Western country and you’ll likely end up shot.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Da, Tovarisch!
schrodingers_cat
@Это курам на смех: Baud?
burnspbesq
Holy moly, did Santa bring Rubio a spine for Christmas?
O. Felix Culpa
@Это курам на смех: Baud? Is that you?
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: What do you think of the Senator from Vermont and his curious silence on this entire issue of Russian interference?
pamelabrown53
@Barbara: #92
I read it in a comment thread either here or on GOS, which is why I can’t clarify. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if there is verification that meets our standards.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: It is curious, isn’t it? Very, very curious.
The Moar You Know
@burnspbesq: Santa was out of giant testicles but figured a spine would be an adequate substitute.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Elizabelle: I’ll let him answer for himself, but he’s a regular who’s in a blue metro region of a very red state. Which has 2 remarkable senators.
ETA: I know because he supplied clues when I asked him, thinking he might be the again and newly renamed former Snack Team Six reporter soylent green.
Yarrow
I behind, but just watched John Lewis. Wow, he is righteous! “It doesn’t matter how Sen. Sessions may smile, how friendly he may be, how me may speak to you. We need someone who’s going to stand up, speak up and speak out for the people that need help, the people who have been discriminated against!”
pamelabrown53
@burnspbesq: #100
Doubt if it’s a flash of spine from Rubio but more likely a bone thrown to the old Cuban nationals in Miami who helped make him a senator,
hovercraft
@Barbara: @pamelabrown53:
From Adam L Silverman last night.
Michael Cohen, the attorney for the Trump Organization referenced in the report, has already pushed back on the report’s allegation that he was a key go between. He claims to have been at USC visiting the campus with his son at the end of August 2016 and USC’s baseball program has confirmed this. John Schindler has pushed back on this, asserting that alias documents could have been used. The report that Buzzfeed posted makes this allegation about Cohen being the primary go between starting sometime in August a central component. A good deal of its credibility will rise or fall on the ability to verify this allegation.
PaulW
Dear CNN:
Wanna know why Trump called you “Fake News”?
Because you hired TRUMP PEOPLE to shill his BULLSH-T ON YOUR CHANNEL.
Congratulations. You’ve just been f-cked and pissed on by Trump.
How does it feel, CNN?
hovercraft
@Barbara: @pamelabrown53:
From Adam L Silverman last night.
Michael Cohen, the attorney for the Trump Organization referenced in the report, has already pushed back on the report’s allegation that he was a key go between. He claims to have been at USC visiting the campus with his son at the end of August 2016 and USC’s baseball program has confirmed this. John Schindler has pushed back on this, asserting that alias documents could have been used. The report that Buzzfeed posted makes this allegation about Cohen being the primary go between starting sometime in August a central component. A good deal of its credibility will rise or fall on the ability to verify this allegation.
Yarrow
@pamelabrown53: Because of the EU free travel agreement, it’s possible to enter another EU country and then go to the Czech Republic without having to show a passport. As the Intelligence people are also saying, it’s possible to have other documents provided for you for travel. Depends how well connected you are.
Edit: I see hovercraft got there first and with better info.
Miss Bianca
@pamelabrown53: Whatever is making him stand up, I’ll take it.
Bobby D
@schrodingers_cat: I think he and Jill Stein both received, at a minimum, offers of support, from Russian intelligence. Whether simply by passing along materials damaging to Clinton, or by other means. That whole RT Gala with Jill Stein, Mike Flynn, and Putin happily sitting down to share a dinner table together…that stinks to high heaven.
I think Jill Stein is a useful idiot for Putin, and wouldn’t doubt if Bernie was being played as well (though probably without his knowledge, whereas I wouldn’t trust Stein as far as I could throw her.)
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Not much. He’s got his axes to grind and he will grind them regardless of anything else going on. To a certain extent that’s a good thing. They’re not bad axes and they do need grinding. But they’re not the only ones.
Emma
@burnspbesq: Please. Remember his core constituency. He needs to tell the old Cubans that he fought against the former head of the Soviet KGB. He’ll vote for the guy in the end.
Humboldtblue
@Adam L Silverman: It was just a bad joke playing on Tillerson’s comment at the hearing.
Mnemosyne
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации:
True story: I am a peon at a Giant Evil Corporation who never travels overseas, and yet every couple of years I have to get a training about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and how to avoid violating it, because the GEC does a lot of business overseas and they take it very, very seriously.
In short, fuck these guys.
waysel
@pamelabrown53: Cohen has verification of being at his sons baseball camp on Aug 29th. That’s the only verified time/ location for the whole month, so far. Adam had some links in a FP he put up last night, IIRC.
Steeplejack (phone)
@pamelabrown53:
Trump said (vehemently) in his press conference that “his” Michael Cohen is not the Michael Cohen who was referenced in the intelligence leaks. I haven’t seen anybody follow up on that yet, or even mention it in the post-conference rehashes.
pamelabrown53
@hovercraft: #109
Thank you, so very kind! Also, @waysel.
Miss Bianca
@Steeplejack (phone): THAT IS NOT MY MICHAEL COHEN. I DON’T KNOW WHOSE MICHAEL COHEN IT COULD BE. COULD BE ANYBODY’S. RUSH TO JUDGMENT! SAD!
Adam L Silverman
@Humboldtblue: Didn’t see the hearing. Now I’m tracking.
Mnemosyne
@Bobby D:
It’s pretty obvious that Bernie was getting very bad advice from campaign manager Tad Devine. Given Devine’s connections to both Paul Manafort and Vladimir Putin, the possible motives for Devine to give that bad advice become … interesting. ?
jonas
@Miss Bianca: Could be some fat guy in his bedroom in New Jersey named Michael Cohen, amirite?
Anne Laurie
@Miss Bianca:
Hey, maybe they finally found a use for Carter Page!
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: There’s part of me that’s almost hoping – here’s the sick thing – that it comes out that Tad Devine was, in fact, in the palm of the Russians whilst he was crooning in Senator Sanders’s ear. If only so I can look at the Wilmerbros in my county’s Democratic Party and say, “so, tell me again about how the reason we lost is because the Democrats are so hopelessly corrupt and out of touch with The People, tovarischii!”
@jonas: YOU ARE CORRECT, SIR!
trollhattan
@pamelabrown53:
Li’l Marco might also have residual feelings about how Trump treated him during the campaign. Which I could 1. understand and 2. encourage the fanning of. Notice how “Lyin'” Ted Cruz has utterly swallowed his pride to go along with the program.
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca:
How can we discuss this paragon without highlighting his most famous moment in the spotlight, it turns out that he knew more than we did. Or not, we got more votes.
Yoda Dog Democrat
@Elizabelle: Just “copy” the russian. Go over to google and type “translate” and a box will pop up. Paste in the russian words and Voila! Nym acquired. Works in reverse too..
Я за один приветствовать наших новых повелителей русский!
celticdragonchick
@Adam L Silverman:
You can’t make this shit up.
Lurking Canadian
@Miss Bianca: It’s not my Michael Cohen! And anyway, my Michael Cohen wasn’t in Prague that day? Which day? any day! Ever! He’s never been in Prague! But it doesn’t matter because it’s a different Michael Cohen!
Jay Noble
Had a horrible thought on the eve of the confirmation hearings start – Doesn’t matter whether they are held or not. If for some reason it looks like there’s a possibility any of Trump’s choices are not going to be confirmed; McConnel will magically find a reason for a 4 day recess, and poof Recess Appointments for everyone! Trump and clan have repeatedly said they want to do all of their agenda right away, so a year is plenty of time. We’re screwed
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: Oh, grooaaann…how could I have forgotten?
Chris
@Yarrow:
I remember when Obama pointed out that Fox News is not news by any definition, and all the MSM circled the wagons to protect it. (For all the gratitude it got them).
Now taking odds on whether there’ll be similar wagon-circling here…
celticdragonchick
Я с нетерпением жду, чтобы работать на товарища Путина и его марионетку Дональда Трампа.
Chris
@PaulW:
A ton of mainstream media pundits and DC elites have been at this for years. They latched on to the right wing like they’re that kid in middle school who’s not one of the cool kids, but tags along with them all the time, sucks up to them constantly, laughs louder at their jokes than anyone, eagerly joins in their bullying of anybody else, and rationalizes away all the many times he’s still treated as their personal butt monkey. It’s fucking pathetic. Trump is so up-front about the way he treats them that some of them might have second thoughts, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Yoda Dog Democrat
@celticdragonchick: Я тоже, товарищ! Good times…
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
I have a relative whose entire job at the Giant Evil Corporation is to set up the standards that ensure they’re not following the FCPA and then ensure that these standards are followed. In her words, it’s basically just become impossible to do that with a straight face. How the fuck are you supposed to tell your fellow corporate drones to be careful about the presents they accept from their government friends, when up in the White House is a guy who didn’t even wait for his inauguration to start directing foreign diplomats into his hotels, casinos and other business ventures.
Steeplejack (phone)
I thought it would have been a little longer before the Rooskies took over this blog. Oh, well, pass the vodka.
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca:
Don’t beat yourself up, there have been so many unbelievable moments that we thought were unforgettable, only to find new ones every other day. Fire hose of stupidity washes old stupidity out to sea.
Tehanu
@Miss Bianca:
I’m waiting until I know whether Rubio voted in favor of the CEO of Evil anyhow, which I don’t put past him. But I did like the remark, it was effective.