I follow a bunch of good lawyers on Twitter. One of the websites they are from is Just Security, which deals with the legal aspects of national security matters. Hence, the Flynn guilty plea and the Russian antics. They’ve got a post up with analysis of this morning’s events and documents.
With the announcement, Mueller’s team released a criminal information document, detailing what Flynn is pleading guilty to. Although there is evidence that Flynn potentially committed other crimes, it appears he is only pleading guilty to lying to FBI agents who were investigating his contacts with Russian officials as part of the larger probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. Following Flynn’s hearing, the Mueller team also released Flynn’s plea agreement and a statement of offense.
It looks like the tweet I posted earlier from a colleague was right:
Based on the plea document, we now know that on the same day (Dec. 29) that the Obama administration announced new sanctions against Russia and kicked out 35 Russian officials in response to Russian hacking, Flynn got on the phone with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and asked him not to escalate the situation. The White House repeatedly denied that this is what Flynn discussed with Kislyak.
We also know that on Dec. 22, Flynn spoke with Kislyak about a pending UN Security Resolution on Israeli settlements. He told the FBI that he did not ask the Russian ambassador to delay or defeat the vote on it, but we now know this was not true. The Obama administration resisted pressure by the Israeli government and abstained from the vote, allowing the resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction to be adopted. Trump tweeted his disapproval on Dec. 23.
From Asha Rangappa, a former special agent in the New York office of the FBI,
“I think Flynn is giving up the goods, big time.”
On a related subject,
The Flynn story broke just before 09:30 EST. The Dow opened flat. At 11:00 EST, McConnell announced he had the votes to pass the tax bill. At 11:10, the Dow crashed. Just sayin. https://t.co/HKcRNxMov1
— Sam Greene (@samagreene) December 1, 2017
Quinerly
Bloomberg reporting that Kushner is the the one who ordered Flynn to contact Russia: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-01/kushner-is-said-to-have-ordered-flynn-to-contact-russia
debbie
Help, what is Sam just sayin’?
ETA: That Wall Street hates the tax bill? I don’t think so.
lollipopguild
Be still my heart!
Ric Drywall
Oh, the Dow has totally crashed today! My money is all gone.
Mike J
@Quinerly: Trump is already throwing Jared to the wolves.
Yarrow
@Quinerly: Tick tock, motherfucker. Can’t wait to see Jared and Ivanka in their orange jumpsuits. But first, perp walks! Let’s collect the whole set!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
debbie
@Mike J:
Quite a quandary for Ivanka.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Blake Farenthold in his underwear (photo)
Quinerly
OT: too delicious not to post. Rep Blake Farenthold used $84,000 of taxpayer funds to end a dispute with his communications director…gender discrimination, sexual harassment, hostile work environment.
debbie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
And a GOOPER to boot! Halle-goddamn-lujah!
ETA: As thrilled as I am about this news, I will not click on your photo link.
ruemara
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I cannot wait for the demands that Farenthold resign
patrick II
In a split between Jared and Donald, who does Ivanka pick? Probably the one with the most potential financial gain. Maybe the success of the tax bill and the inheritance provision will decide her loyalty.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
I’ve been watching Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC all morning. She is soo sharp and a tiger to boot.
Zach
So Flynn turning means that Pence is next, right?
Yet, Trump is potentially set to sign a bill that’ll net his family upwards of a billion dollars and the families of senior administration members billions more.
opiejeanne
CNN Money thinks the market crashed because of Flynn? And not the tax bill?
Brachiator
@Quinerly:
So Jared is going to take the fall for Trump?
Gelfling 545
@ruemara: You will wait long.
Corner Stone
@patrick II: Jared can’t do anything for her. Convince him to testify that she knew nothing, had no knowledge of his actions. Then dump his ass like spoiled milk.
opiejeanne
@debbie: A pretty girl is wearing the uh underwear. He’s in his flannel duckie pajamas.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
HAHAHAHAHA! Man! That was a good one! Thanks
David Anderson
I am not a lawyer, but reading the 6 page statement of the offense (https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download) something seemed interesting to me:
3-c: “FLYNN called a senior official of the Presidential Transition Team (PTT)….”
3-H: “FLYNN spoke with senior memberS ….”
4-B: “a very senior member of the PTT directed FLYNN….”
If I am reading this right, there are three separate people/groups of people where 3-C may be a subset of 3-H and 4-B may also be a subset of 3-H…. but there is a lot of people talking and knowing what is going on here.
Jared is 4-B, so who is 3-C and 3-H?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
It’s all a coincidence!
Betty Cracker
For what it’s worth (I know), the Fox News angle:
The part about freelancing national foreign policy prior to taking office sounds arrogant enough to be true, but it doesn’t exonerate the Trump gang, which lied all the fucking time about contacts with Russia and repeatedly obstructed investigations into their activities.
dr. bloor
@opiejeanne: It most likely dropped because everyone knows yesterday’s jump was totally insane, and they were trying to pull off some profit-taking before reality set in.
The Dangerman
@Brachiator:
Pfffft. Jared still has a long life ahead of him; Trump is rounding the far turn and heading for home. Jared ain’t taking the fall for Daddy-In-law.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
And also, this is total bullshit:
Roger Moore
@patrick II:
She picks Ivanka. She’s her father’s daughter, after all.
BruceFromOhio
Portman Senate office local and DC not answered. Local vm is full, not taking any additional messages.
if they vote in the Fuck You, Poor People, More Money For Rich People Tax Lunacy Act of 2017, it will all burn to the ground slowly, painfully.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
I wonder if Jared hear’s the bus coming
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: @Mike J: @Yarrow: We now have competing reporting on this as ABC says the orders came from the President. As I wrote in the comments to the previous post: they are all going to turn on each other now.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@David Anderson: senior members means high rank: Sessions and Pence where the only ones who had higher rank then Flynn
https://ballotpedia.org/Donald_Trump_presidential_transition_team
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@BruceFromOhio: I’ve been able to get through to Collins and Corker
see my notes here
https://balloon-juice.com/2017/12/01/treasons-greetings/#comment-6657303
and here
https://balloon-juice.com/2017/12/01/treasons-greetings/#comment-6657338
patrick II
@Corner Stone:
Ivanka has three children with Kushner. But if it turns out Kushner is the guy, or at least a guy, that brings down trump, I don’t know how she stays neutral.
It’s ironic that at least some of Trumps troubles are due to Kusher’s bad advice.
Kay
I love how they keep moving the goalposts. No one will be indicated. Then we barely know those two guys who were indicted. Then anyone who is indicted or pleads guilty is a one-off…er…three-off.
I predicted this. I knew Trump HIMSELF will have to had personally visited Putin and begged him to interfere in the election or Trump and the Trumpsters will still be claiming it has nothing to do with Trump.
randy khan
@David Merry Christmas Koch:
Other than Trump, that is.
opiejeanne
@dr. bloor: That could be a part of it. The market is idiotic and responds quickly to the slightest flap of a butterfly’s wings.
I’m afraid to look at my stocks this morning. I should have sold it all and put it in a coffee can and buried it in the backyard last year.
HeleninEire
Fitzmas. It took 10 years, but it’s here now.
Roger Moore
@opiejeanne:
I think most people would categorize that as lingerie.
Adam L Silverman
@David Anderson: You sank my battleship!
Quinerly
MSNBC is reporting that it is unsure whether Trump will now attend this afternoon’s Christmas party. If he’s a no show, I think we should be asking why is the president waging a war on Christmas? This is serious. Is he anti baby Jesus??
rikyrah
“Among the transition officials who met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago [12/29] were Stephen Miller, K.T. McFarland, Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon, and Reince Priebus, a Trump spokesman said at the time.” https://t.co/MQKQH3pQnT
— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) December 1, 2017
Just One More Canuck
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: when was Flounder elected to congress?
Ruckus
@dr. bloor:
Fellow at work asked me about the Dow yesterday. Wonder what he’s going to ask next week. Should be a fun discussion.
Roger Moore
@The Dangerman:
He may not take the fall willingly, but I’m guessing somebody will be pushing him under the bus before long.
MJS
@David Merry Christmas Koch: Do you honestly expect anyone to click on that?
Brachiator
@The Dangerman:
But Jared ain’t too bright.
@patrick II:
Gee, it seems like only yesterday when Jared was being sold to us as a political mastermind with a broad portfolio.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
Someone on FB posted about a series of tweets that Flynn Jr has since deleted. He calls Trump a blowhard, says he will be taken down, says his children hate him. Blames Trump for everything his father did.
SatanicPanic
@The Dangerman: Do we know that Jared didn’t have anything to do with his own father going to jail?
ETA- would be irresponsible not to speculate
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: if we are lucky they will all tear each other apart…limb from limb. In related news, I may have found my inner TenguPhule.? Look out.
TenguPhule
@debbie:
Anyone sane does.
Granted, this still leaves Wall Street in doubt.
rikyrah
LOL
Michael Flynn, the architect of “lock her up”, is now a convicted criminal and Bob Mueller’s bitch. pic.twitter.com/Wj31OEY7Dj
— BWD ? (@IrisRimon) December 1, 2017
rk
If I were Mueller I would let a smart young female agent interview Pence. He’ll collapse without “mother”. Trump should be interviewed by a Hillary Clinton type. I hope the FBI uses psychological profiles on these worthless traitors.
debit
@ruemara: Yeah, what does Trentrunner have to say? Or Senyor Dave? Or have I missed their calls for resignation?
Ric Drywall
People, the market is down a whopping .32% as i write this. There is no crash.
debbie
@BruceFromOhio:
I always fax him.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
OOOH, I like that one!
Cheryl Rofer
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I am told that that is a fake account.
TenguPhule
@debbie: Its always projection. We don’t have a coherent foreign policy right now.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: Darn that Obama and his administration, leaving a vacuum that Trumpov & Co HAD NO CHOICE but to fill…er, does that include Kushner asking for the secret private line to the Kremlin?? Inquiring minds want to know!
TenguPhule
@Quinerly: Welcome to the Dark side.
We have cookies.
delk
My god, what have I done?
Chyron HR
@Ric Drywall:
Thanks, person we never heard of before. That puts it all in perspective.
TenguPhule
@Ric Drywall: The month is still young.
Jeffro
@HeleninEire: Flynnmas!
BlueDWarrior
@Ric Drywall: The crash wouldn’t happen this soon anyway. Like everything else, there will be irrational exuberance until the Masters of the Universe gets slapped by the cold fish of reality that their instruments of finance don’t mean shit if the proles aren’t spending money fast enough.
They keep trying to decouple the stock market from the ‘real economy’ and it keeps not working. But like I said, they always think they’ve solved the riddle of infinite growth.
Cermet
Mueller is after far bigger game; otherwise, no way he’d let this mother’fucker plead to such limited/minor charges. Trump certainly, and maybe Pence are in deep, deep trouble. The gallows awaits! :)
rikyrah
The usual Trump World tactic won’t work with Michael Flynn
12/01/17 12:48 PM—UPDATED 12/01/17 01:14 PM
By Steve Benen
Whenever the Trump-Russia scandal ensnares another member of Team Trump, the president’s team has a standard tactic it relies on instinctively: pretend not to know the guy in trouble.
……………………………
Cobb also described Flynn as someone who worked with the president for just “25 days.”
Let’s make this plain: there’s no such thing as a low-level White House National Security Advisor.
Donald Trump considered Michael Flynn as his running mate. Trump repeatedly and publicly praised Flynn last year. Trump put Flynn in a position to guide the White House’s policy on matters related to national security.
Trying to characterize Flynn as a peripheral figure, far from the president’s orbit, may be the fist play in the Trump World playbook, but in this case, it’s plainly ridiculous.
Ric Drywall
@TenguPhule:
I also expect a “correction.” But the point is, we have a post and a number of commenters above talking about a crash that didn’t happen. The Dow went down a bit then bounded back up.
Why not be accurate?
Bess
@Ruckus:
As of 11:44 PST all major indexes are down less than 0.5% which says that they’re basically unchanged when one looks at recent market history. Daily moves that large and larger (in both directions) have been common lately.
opiejeanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): My God, doesn’t he know to keep his big mouth shut? His dad possibly gave up the game to keep his stupid ass out of prison.
(I love it)
SiubhanDuinne
@Just One More Canuck:
2010. Of course.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Festivus for the rest of us.
BlueDWarrior
@Cermet: And like others have said, any plea deal is provisional until the actual plea is accepted and the sentence rendered. If Mueller doesn’t think that Flynn Sr. is putting out, he’ll send someone into the rafters and re-hang the Sword of Damocles over Flynn Sr’s head again.
MikeinAltadenaCA
The Dow dropping 250 points is not a crash, it’s barely a fart in a tornado
oldgold
The Democrats should now vociferously argue that no substantive legislation being pushed by this Whitehouse should go forward until there is additional information available to determine the degree to which our government has been subverted by a hostile foreign country
catclub
@Ric Drywall:
down almost half of what it was up yesterday. I just read about post (Tony Isola) about the stupidest financial statement:
“The markets moved today because of ________.”
Immanentize
@ruemara: snort! We may have to wait a while….
Brachiator
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
This is starting to remind me of a line from the tv series “I, Claudius.”
BlueDWarrior
@oldgold: They should say that: problem is the Republicans are basically have now been told to smash all the vaults, salt the earth, burn it all down because the meteors are on their way.
Yeah mixing a few metaphors but I think Ryan and McConnell are about to up their liqour intake in the next few months, even if this Tax Cut passes more or less as is.
bemused
@rk:
Great idea, I like the way you think.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Cheryl Rofer: Boo. Too bad. That would be fun.
opiejeanne
@Ric Drywall: Thank you. I was feeling sorry for you and was afraid to look.
Although the administration’s fucking with the sale of a certain media company has been making one of my stocks drop like a rock and I am very unhappy
HeleninEire
Going to dinner. It’s almost 8 here. I’ll check in in a few hours to read about the new indictments. But also the tweets.
Night Balloon Juice Peeps.
Yarrow
@Jeffro:
I think we’ll find that is far too narrow. It’s Muellermas. Flynn is just the first present we get to open.
Tenar Arha
@patrick II: She herself in her role opening up the Trump Organization for licensing buildings is apparently deeply implicated. I’m thinking of the Panama development that was a money laundering front. IIRC something about a building in Azerbaijan too?
So, it seems most likely she’ll protect herself & the Trump organization before any particular people.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
I expect Trump to say that he didn’t even know who Flynn was, only met him one time.
Ric Drywall
@opiejeanne: My early “lost all my money post” was meant to be sarcastic but probably lead people to believe there was a real major crash.
Corner Stone
@rk:
A black woman. Maybe a April Ryan clone.
patrick II
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Flynn Jr. blames Trump now, but a few weeks ago he was laughing at his accusers saying that they would be disappointed because he would never spend a day in jail — evidently expecting a pardon. His tune changed pretty quickly.
Immanentize
@Just One More Canuck: Maybe Senator Blutarsky helped him win a seat?
Villago Delenda Est
What happens when Donald is named as an unindicted co-conspirator? Does Sarah deny he knows Donald?
TenguPhule
@Ric Drywall:
To be more accurate, we have a post featuring a tweet mocking another story’s headline.
cckids
@patrick II:
And yet; Trump listened to him! Who the FUCK is J. Kush in the realm of knowledge of anything beyond what the hottest new club is? Even if he were a halfway bright individual, (no evidence of this), he has no training or experience in government, laws, foreign policy, etc ad infinitum. I don’t care what Kushner said/thought, this is squarely on Trump.
Corner Stone
@patrick II:
That’s why they make nannies. Give her a couple months and she’ll be engaged to an economically impervious Mid-East brazillionaire.
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est:
Only in the biblical sense.
NorthLeft12
@David Merry Christmas Koch: Why would this settlement be “taxpayer funded”?
Mr. Farenthold should be paying this on his own, shouldn’t he?
jl
There is a S-load and many tons of evidence that Flynn is cold stone 1000 percent guilty of some major crimes. And not just lying and misreporting stuff. He influenced a major national security decision will under pay to an interested foreign party. Mueller allowed him to plead guilty of lying to the FBI. Flynn must have quite a story to tell. Moby Dick level epic story.
I wonder who the white whale and Captain Ahab are. Might be the same in his version.
Yarrow
Does McConnell really have the votes? I heard they were supposed to vote at 2 pm. but that has come and gone. It’s almost 2 p.m. Central Time and no sign of the vote. Now this:
“Hoping” to vote on it today? If he has the votes, why doesn’t he hold the vote?
catclub
@BlueDWarrior:
IF I can assume the present abomination passes the Senate, the next question is if the House will try to change it, therefore going into ping-pong mode,
or pass it as is, or NOT pass it due to all the bad things in it plus a little more time for outrage to bubble up.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ric Drywall: The major crash will come eventually…from the failure of the tax bill as imagined as a boon for investors to materialize, or from the actual depression the tax bill will create.
Followed by tumbrel action.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
Sure we do. Our policy is to let Russia have its way.
Spanky
@opiejeanne:
Oh hell naw! You would have missed quite a run up this past year.
Might want to block out some time next week to go to the bank, though. Interesting times ahead.
Patricia Kayden
LOCK HIM UP! Lock all of them up!! Love seeing Patriots shouting at Flynn this morning.
jl
@Yarrow: How is that enough time to read the bill by Senate rules? Or have they just dumped every rule of order?
dmsilev
@Yarrow:
Yeah, this. The instant he really truly has 50 votes locked down, he’ll call the roll. Until that happens, they still don’t have their majority.
TenguPhule
@catclub:
Ryan intends to pass the Senate bill as is to avoid further delays in reconciliation.
TenguPhule
@jl:
Signs point towards most likely.
Roger Moore
@oldgold:
They should have been doing this since last November.
NorthLeft12
@rikyrah:
I am sure this will be modified by the conservatives and their media outlets to be; “a holdover from the Obama Administration”, and “the liberal Mr. Flynn” in a day or so.
In a week they will be calling Flynn a “Clinton/Democrat plant”.
Zach
Regarding the market: watch VTI (total US market ETF) vs. VXUS (total international market minus America ETF). This blip this morning was in American and not foreign equities. You also see VTI move up relative to VXUS in the last week as some kinda tax bill has looked more likely to pass.
So, it’s definitely a market reaction to the American economic outlook… but not a very big one and not one you can ascribe to Mike or Mitch with any confidence.
GregB
Reince rolled like a bratwurst on a grill.
catclub
@Betty Cracker: agreed.
the constantly moving goalpost of Jeff Sessions come to mind. Absolutely no contact with any Russian has evolved to “We did not explicitly collaborate with that specific Russian to steal votes in the election.”
Barbara
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Leaking details of the Conyers settlement was almost certainly going to result in additional disclosures of settlements by others.
Kathleen
@BruceFromOhio: I called around 11:30 and got staffers in DC which never happens and Columbus. Cincy line busy and Cleveland msg was mailbox full. Didn’t call Toledo today. Staffers were very nice.
Villago Delenda Est
@TenguPhule: The “Freedom Caucus”, aka the Teatards, will fuck him over on that.
BlueDWarrior
@Roger Moore: Should have been, yes. But Republican office-holders nor the base really care about general ethics anymore. They have a majority, and they are going to use it, even if they have to basically turn the Congress into a Communist Politburo.
Villago Delenda Est
@Barbara: Farenthold is already in the batter’s box. $80k settlement paid for by taxpayers.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
Give his apparent dementia, that might not be too far from the truth.
catclub
@opiejeanne:
investing it all in foreign stocks last year would have been better a solution. The Trump bump in all nations outside of the US has been pretty good, and better than the rise of US stocks in the same time period.
Barbara
@Brachiator: It’s hard to believe that Jared doesn’t have sufficient information to sink his father in law.
Kathleen
@TenguPhule: Sign me up.
jl
As I typed in previous thread, I think what happened today means that Flynn will tell a tale that makes Moby Dick look like a frikken tweet.
Edit: and I mean old school 140 character tweet.
japa21
@jl: I tweeted McCain that if he votes for this bill under these circumstances he will be admitting he lied when he said he would only vote on things that went through regular order. Once amendments started being added without any scoring or publishing of the bill it was no longer under regular order.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: @Yarrow: Sure is getting late in the day for this vote, eh? (LOL)
I wonder if it’s because things like this are getting out? GOP Eyes Post-Tax-Cut Changes To Welfare, Medicare, and Social Security
“future beneficiaries” my ass, Lil’ Marco. You’re going to take it from current ones and you know it.
Patricia Kayden
@Yarrow: So vote on this monstrosity and read the awful details “later”. That makes a whole lotta sense. And these are the same idiots who claim that the ACA was jammed through Congress.
Kathleen
But what about poor Maggie? Where shall OfTrump go and what shall she do? #Handmag’s Tale
Matt McIrvin
@Patricia Kayden: They love mocking Pelosi for saying “we’ll have to pass it to see what’s in it!”
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Corner Stone: Joy Ann Reid, for all the owners of popcorn stock.
trollhattan
Tax bill and Flynn on a single Friday–now I know what bipolar folks must feel. It’s the yin-yangiest Friday evah.
catclub
Kevin Drum:
I know: Catblogging!
Gravenstone
@Yarrow: “Plenty of time” to read what was originally a 500+ page document on roll out? Yeah Yertle, tell me another one …
LurkerNoLonger
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Yeesh. You don’t have to be ugly to be a Republican but it helps.
trollhattan
@GregB:
Did his casing pop? I love it when they do that.
Ruckus
@BlueDWarrior:
What? Are you saying there is no financial perpetual motion? How is that possible? How will mankind go on?
bluefoot
@oldgold: Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. :)
Seriously, though, a defensible argument could be made that until the legislature is sure that the executive branch is legitimate, no new legislation except what is needed to keep the country functional should be passed. But it also sets a potentially ugly precedent.
What we really need to do is clean up our entire voting process so that this can’t happen again. We might still elect a shitgibbon, but at least we’ll know he or she is honestly elected.
Suzanne
@Yarrow:
Girding my loins at the prospect.
Kathleen
@Patricia Kayden: Claire McCaskle (sp?) tweeted about hour ago they were handed amendments written by lobbyists and may not have time to review
Corner Stone
@Kathleen: MAGA Haberman is in the absolute best spot possible. She’s already a trusted insider. All that access she sold her soul for is now going to pay off, yoogely!!
All she has to do is keep buttering up butterball turkey Trump while at the same time chronicling every nutball ass thing he says or does. When Trump leaves the White House for the Big House her insiders tell-all will be full on gilted gold, baby!
trollhattan
Telling truth, and not even The Onion but NY Mag.
What a maverick.
Patricia Kayden
@Jeffro: Wow. Now my blood is boiling. So they’re going to pay for a huge transfer of wealth to the ultra wealthy while they cut aid to the needy and poor. This is literally the opposite of what their God/Jesus advocates in their Holy Book.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: Money can be created indefinitely… but that’s because money is only pretend.
Betty Cracker
@Kathleen: OfTrump — LOL!
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
It’s his home videos that will really sink him.
Ruckus
@Bess:
I fully understand. The person asking me questions doesn’t. His question was what do I think of the record Dow. A new high is big news, even if it isn’t a meaningful move, any more than the move back down to reality. He didn’t understand that all of WS is a gambling establishment. He especially didn’t understand it’s one where the house wins every time, no matter what happens to the players.
Barbara
@Patricia Kayden: Flynn will never live that down. Everywhere he goes in public there will be protesters or bystanders shouting “lock him up.”
Yarrow
Oh, this is hilarious. One year ago tomorrow.
So much winning!
jl
@Patricia Kayden:
They may be under stress. Should include a link to some soothing music.
Purcell: Z 7. Blessed is he that considereth the poor – Bolton, Perrot (live)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xut5hFAMAZU
rikyrah
@jl:
Yeah…
Oh yes…that’s the aria he’s singing…
rikyrah
@GregB:
Man, Reince walked into the office going..
“Mr. Mueller, Which piece of music do you want me to sing?”
bemused
Did trump cancel the WH Christmas party? If not, I’d love to be a fly on the wall to see how merry the crowd is.
catclub
@Kathleen:
Well of course they were.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@patrick II:
I envision that From Russia with Love video where Ivan’s has that huge, creepy smile while JKush is being led away in cuffs.
jl
Luke 22-25 might be a nice to put at the end of written contacts to Senators.
….the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
Gravenstone
@Yarrow: As someone helpfully pointed out earlier, 2 years ago today was the dinner featuring Flynn (and Stein) getting face time with Vlad Baby!
Yarrow
Patricia Kayden
@patrick II: Why did Trump put so much stock in Kushner? What was it about Kushner that made him a jack-of-all-trades in the Trump White House? Very odd. And it would be great if an unqualified son-in-law brought down an unqualified Commander-in-Chief.
Redshift
@Adam L Silverman:
Yep, we’ve reached the musical-chairs stage that all successful organized crime cases get to: some of the targets have flipped, and the rest have to nervously consider whether they like their chances enough to wait to cut a deal and risk their being no more deals to be had.
ETA clarification at end.
Yarrow
@Gravenstone: I linked that in a previous thread. So delicious! Wonder when Stein’s turn will come?
rikyrah
This is so bad. We have just gotten list of amendments to be included in bill NOT from our R colleagues, but from lobbyists downtown. None of us have seen this list, but lobbyists have it. Need I say more? Disgusting. And we probably will not even be given time to read them. pic.twitter.com/Mn0i56JeZg
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) December 1, 2017
rikyrah
Senate Republicans just voted down my amendment to make the modest middle-class tax cuts permanent, instead of a tax increase in a few years. Proof that this GOP tax bill was never about helping the middle class.
— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) December 1, 2017
Jinchi
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Are they all going to be made public?
jl
@rikyrah: I also heard lawyer pundit say the plea for very small single charge also works as ‘presidential pardon insurance’ I’d like an explanation of from a lawyer person.
catclub
@Suzanne:
So are you wrapping something around your thighs, or around your kidneys? Asking for a bible pedant.
rikyrah
99/ This, then, is the key *political*—rather than legal—debate of our moment and perhaps our time: conservatives trying to squeeze as much political value as possible out of a presidency that will end in not just disgrace but public acceptance as the worst America has ever seen.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 1, 2017
Patricia Kayden
@jl: That’s some beautiful music. Reminds me of Handel’s Messiah.
debbie
@Yarrow:
I understand the flag and four leave clover emojis, but surfing???
Jinchi
@Patricia Kayden:
I assume that Trump sees in Kushner a man whose brilliance is almost equal to his own.
toocanAnj
@Zach: Yeah, she has been amazing. And she doesn’t allow BS to go unchecked.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: is that from a 99-tweet thread??
germy
Yarrow
@debbie: It’s weird, isn’t it?
Redshift
@Patricia Kayden:
I suspect it’s that Jared is the best ass-kisser Trump has ever encountered. From what I’ve read, he’s always surrounded himself with yes-men. Once he went from his cozy family business to government, people knew they had to suck up to him to get ahead, but they still had ambitions of their own. I’m guessing Jared is the only one who always tells him exactly what he wants to hear, and never contradicts him.
Jeffro
@Jinchi:
Ok, now THAT’s going to leave a mark…
debbie
@Yarrow:
Unless he’s alluding to their coasting into power. Guess he didn’t see that looming sandbar.
Matt McIrvin
@Patricia Kayden: Trump sees his children (well, three of them) as his only reliable allies, and Kushner is married to his favorite one. It’s pre-modern dynastic stuff.
Calouste
@jl: I think the book to compare with is Crime and Punishment.
germy
If Flynn has any loyalty to the potus, won’t it evaporate with all the trash talk coming from the WH and spokespeople? They’re even attacking him on Fox.
I suppose hearing what they’re saying about him (“Hmph! He was a lying Obama appointee!”) will loosen his vocal chords even further.
David Anderson
@David Anderson: 3-C looks to be K.T. McFarland…..
germy
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
If nothing else, this has become a new Golden Age of parody videos.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Of course money can be created, all it takes is a printing press. And the willingness to absorb some inflation. Or a lot. Wealth and money are not the same things. They are of course relative and money is used as one indicator of wealth, so a lot of people confuse them.
Creating wealth, depending on how you define wealth, is a bit different. A million dollars cash or property or power (a member of the senate will make over a million each term) in that amount used to be a rather large amount of wealth, not all that long ago, in my lifetime in fact. A lot of people don’t consider that million to be much in the way of wealth anymore. I still would but then that’s because I’ve been far, far closer to the other end of the spectrum than to that as an upper limit. But wealth today has a lot higher figure in mind. And it’s wealth that people like the kocksucker brothers want.
bluehill
@Gravenstone: Hope Mueller has an interviewed scheduled with dear old Dr. Stein too.
germy
@Ruckus:
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not sure this time. It seems money talks to them too.
TenguPhule
@Kathleen: Chocolate chip or peanut butter?
Patricia Kayden
@Jinchi: Oh dear. That’s a huge insult.
Senate poised to vote on that tax bill monstrosity at any minute now. And I see that moderate Senators like Flake and Corker (who were praised by liberals for criticizing Trump) are going to vote to pass for this nonsense. Blech.
MCA1
@jl: Because POTUS doesn’t know what other charges are sitting there waiting for Mueller to drop on Flynn if he’s pardoned for the lying to the FBI offense. Like whack-a-mole. You pardon him for this little thing and then we come back with a bigger charge. You pardon him for that…etc. until we reach the point of “OK, we’ll be placing a call to the NY State Att’y General now.”
Immanentize
@Yarrow: The surfing emoji was a signal to Putin that we would provide Russia with the warm water base in Sebastopol no questions asked?
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: And physical resources are finite, and, at any given time, human labor is finite (population keeps growing, but it’s not actually exponential any more). So if you want command over an ever-increasing amount of all of those things, you’ve got to keep accumulating it from somewhere else.
Brachiator
@germy:
Shaquille O’Neal net worth, $400 million
Oprah net worth, $3 billion.
Oprah is wealthy
catclub
@David Anderson: My first instinct is to think naming someone who is no longer on the team is par for the course.
Like calling Flynn a former Obama admin official.
Was this different from the Eli Lake article that the high PTT member was Kushner?
Mnemosyne
@Ric Drywall:
I’m pretty sure the point of the post is that CNN looked at a small downturn in the market and immediately attributed to anything but the tax bill.
mad citizen
@jl: Did a google on pardons. Perhaps because unless an unconditional pardon was given, which seems unlikely, can a president give someone two Pardons? Pardons are usually for specific crimes. If a pardon was given for this one charge/crime, Mueller could do more charges, forcing another pardon, etc.
Ruckus
@jl:
IANAL but it works this way….. You get a pardon, you lose 5th amendment rights and have to answer questions. Those answers won’t hurt you, you have a pardon. But they could hurt the person who gave you the pardon, and hurt very badly. A pardon is not a get out of jail free card for the provider, if that person is guilty of some crime, especially if the pardoned person has first person involvement with the crime. Which of course all the subjects of this investigation have. It is a criminal conspiracy of the highest level, and they just got a major participant to fold. drumpf probably thinks that getting rid of Flynn got him off of any hook. It didn’t.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Bill Gates is the scion of a wealthy family, and his father is also very, very rich. Oprah is the daughter of poor people.
So, yes, Oprah is rich, but Gates is wealthy.
MisterForkbeard
@Roger Moore: Disagree. The media and republicans would have gone with “The democrats are just sore losers!” – and they still might, even after this.
MCA1
@Redshift: That’s a big part of it. Combine it with the fact that Trump has never in his entire life been in a proper professional setting with actual intelligent, worldly and sophisticated people working with/across the table from him. He ran an enterprise in which he sat in his office, made 30,000 foot decisions and left the details to others, and “ran the negotiations” which amounted to threatening not to pay contractors until they took a discount. In his second act, he was a blustery self-promoting huckster creating a “brand” of his name.
He’s never actually submitted himself to intellectual pursuits, wherein he was working on difficult subject matter or had to expand his worldview or universe. He was comfortable only around other fast-talking conmen from Queens and the like. So he doesn’t know what actual smartness and sophistication looks like, only savvy and street smarts. It’s Jared’s classmates at Harvard, not the legacy kid.
This is why he was so blindsided by how hard being President was. He’s been called not only on his bullshit but on his total ignorance about everything for the first time in his life. He actually thought he was really bright until he came into daily contact with people carrying IQ’s 40-50 points higher than his regularly.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
And Bill Gates is a lot wealthier. And the kochsucker bros are even wealthier. And who has a massive fund to give away a lot of money and who is paying a fair amount to gain a lot more?
Patricia Kayden
@catclub:
The Obama administration fired Flynn and warned Trump about hiring him. Calling him a former Obama official is a joke. That’s not going to fly as Flynn sells Trump out to Mueller. I guess the moral of this story is that you should listen to the Black guy, even if you hate his guts.
jl
@MCA1: @Ruckus:
So, Trump can’t try to pull the trick of general pardon for everything Flynn might be charged with? I’ve seen that theory of expanded presidential pardon power in news stories.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I’m pretty sure that Rock’s point is that rich white people tend to have intergenerational wealth — billionaire sons of millionaire fathers — while most Black people are self-made millionaires or even billonaires. That’s why white billionaires care more about the estate tax — they know full well that they got ahead thanks to Daddy’s wealth.
Barbara
@David Anderson: Going after McFarland is almost certainly a way to keep the damage contained to Flynn and those he hired, like McFarland. McFarland was not his supervisor. They might have spoken but it’s doubtful she “directed him” what to say. I can’t remember whether she is still in the NSC, but I assume she won’t be for much longer if Kelly or Mattis hasn’t already forced her out.
MCA1
@Mnemosyne: I think Brachiator’s point may be that they’re all wealthy under Rock’s definition. His general point stands, but Shaq and Oprah are terrible examples to use. Several hundred million dollars is more than enough to qualify as generational wealth. Shaq’s net worth generates 8 digits of interest income every year, and Oprah’s much more than that. You’ll have to have several generations doubling the offspring before that gets diluted enough that anyone needs to actually work for a living.
Now, if he’d said, I don’t know, Anthony Anderson or someone else who’s probably got a net worth between $1M and $20M, then we’d have a better distinction.
As an aside, I’ve always thought of it backwards from Rock: “wealthy” to me means high income and a net worth that allows one to envision a proper retirement and passing some significant chunk of money to heirs, and “rich” means mega-wealthy. YMMV.
Ruckus
@jl:
Sure he can give a pardon to Flynn. For every federal crime under the sun. It’s not what it gives or doesn’t give Flynn. It’s what it takes away from drumpf. With a pardon Flynn no longer has 5th amendment rights to self incrimination for those crimes he’s been pardoned for. Which in this case involves drumpf directly. He can then be forced to name names, times, dates, places, etc. Other than fear for his life from the things he talks about he’s not at any loss. Which is why minimal charges are brought first. Especially in this case. drumpf is already doing exactly like it would be expected of him. Distancing himself from Flynn. It won’t help him because there are very, very likely far more damaging charges sitting on the table. Flynn is between a rock and a hard place. A very large rock and a very hard place. It’s going to squash him regardless, what will change is how he acts, what he says and who goes down with him as to what further charges are brought against him. The pardon angle here could help Flynn but hurt drumpf massively, if drumpf plays the stupid angle. And what are the odds of that?
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin:
I think Trump sees Kushner as the son he’s never had. Even though he actually has three sons, he’s disappointed in all of them, and Kushner is the one who reminds him of himself.
WaterGirl
@Chyron HR:
I love your reply.
catclub
@Patricia Kayden:
and is exactly what Fox news is doing, Also Trump’s lawyers.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
You might be forgetting the West Wing episode where the black congressman is not voting against the lowering of the estate tax. There are starting to be wealthy black families and wealth is color blind, at least as it goes for holding on to it once it has been gained.
You are right there is not a lot of generational black wealth but there is some. Oprah is one example of new black wealth and I’d bet there are others. I personally know one black man who has done and still does quite well, better than any white folks I currently know. But then I don’t run in those circles, white or black.
Quinerly
@TenguPhule: What kind? I’m really not into sweets.?
Kathleen
@Corner Stone: I refuse believe there is not a benevolent goddess. La la la I don’t want to hear you la la la. (I abhor that woman)
Miss Bianca
@oldgold:
I second that emotion. Not sure how much actual effect it would have, but I sure would like to hear it.
jonas
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, sure. A prosecutor like Mueller doesn’t negotiate a major plea deal over bullshit like this.
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: “There’ll be plenty of time to read it”? Jesus, how I hope this nasty old reptile gets turned into turtle jerky over this.
Kathleen
@TenguPhule: Yes.
Bess
@Ruckus: @Ruckus:
No, the stock market is the vehicle for buying and selling partial ownership in thousands of publicly owned/traded companies. If one treats purchases as investments then they can, and will almost always, make money over time.
There is some risk in that prices fluctuate but you can minimize that risk by not putting yourself in the position in which you must sell. If you have to sell and the market is down you might lose some money. If you’ve held stock for a number of years it’s fairly likely that the overall price will drop lower than what you paid so what you might lose is “paper profits”.
There is some risk than an individual company might go bankrupt and its stocks become worthless, but you can minimize that risk for yourself by owning only very small amounts of any one company and instead own very small amounts of a very large number of companies.
artem1s
“I think Flynn is giving up the goods,
big timeBIG LEAGUE” /FTFYbarbequebob
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
That photo makes me think of Fatty Arbuckle, although, unlike Farenthold, Mr Arbuckle was in fact innocent.
The Lodger
@jl: As long as Blake Farenthold draws breath, the part of the White Whale is cast.
patrick II
@Patricia Kayden:
He is tall and looks good on television.
Shalimar
My take on Flynn, buried here at the end of this thread: The charge today is minor, and not the only one Flynn will eventually plead guilty to. Mueller wanted this particular charge public now to put pressure on Kushner and Trump. Flynn’s Turkish misadventures will be chronicled in court later and weren’t relevant to making a case against others.
Ruckus
@Bess:
On the books it is as you describe. In reality it is a gambling establishment. Like all gambling establishments, the customer stands a much better chance of not losing if they know the rules and the house plays by the rules. But it is still a gambling establishment for the following reasons.
1. The house, if run as a proper WS place of business, always makes money, the customer does not.
2. The house owns, to a larger degree than the customers, the entity that makes the rules.
3. The entity that makes the rules has a vested interest in the house making money, because they get a cut from the house, while they only get a cut from the house’s customer if the customer makes money.
4. You don’t control what the house sells and you are unlikely to control in any way the vast majority of the components that the house sells. (You may own/control one or more of the companies that any house sells investments in but very few do that for more than a very few companies)
What I just described is a gambling establishment. And for the vast majority of investors the house is a gambling establishment. Possibly a bit fairer than LV or Atlantic City, with a different product, but otherwise…….
Now the question is, can you make money gambling in a brokerage? Yes, yes you can. Can you make more than money than gambling in LV? Yes, yes you can, often far more. Can you lose money gambling at a brokerage? Why Yes, yes you can.
And don’t think I’m against gambling, I’ve owned 2 businesses of my own. I know someone who paid to put himself through college and law school by playing the ponies. We all gamble in many different ways just staying alive. We gamble when we get surgery. I gambled when I had laser eye surgery, in 1995.
You can defend WS in many ways, it may even be an important part of our economy but don’t tell me it isn’t gambling.
BellyCat
@Yarrow: Looking forward to the 12 days of Muellermas!
joel hanes
@jl:
Trump can’t try to pull the trick of general pardon for everything Flynn might be charged with?
Of course he can _try_. When have norms or laws or practicality ever hindered him?
He doea a lot of things that the law says he can’t (see emoluments, foreign, e.g.)
The question is whether the judiciary allows that assertion to fly.
As the Rs haven’t yet had time to completely corrupt the courts, I think the ultimate answer will be “no”.
Ilefttxwhenannlost
@cckids: like all trump trogladikes…they just tell him what he wants to hear…it’s always and only trump trump trump 24/7…the rest is just details and white noise…depicable and deplorable details but no other goal
Bess
@Ruckus:
I’m not going to try to tell you that investing in stocks is not gambling.
Your mind is closed on the subject.
Ruckus
@Bess:
In a perfect world your point would be correct. Investing in stocks is not gambling. In this world, in this atmosphere it is. The odds as I said are much better than LV. The return can be wonderful. But it’s rigged and not in the favor of small investors. If you are a large investor then sure it is great. It is not an even playing field.
You obviously either are an investor who can and does work the game or you work in the business. I’d expect you to be biased. And by the way your mind seems to be closed on the subject as well. For the gander, for the goose.
Amir Khalid
@Patricia Kayden:
As der Scheißgibbon is a moron’s idea of a president, so is der Eidam a moron’s idea of a brilliant hyperachiever.