Spent my Wednesday dealing with the sort of niggly nitpicking IRL tasks that force both halves of any long-term couple to remind themselves that their partner has many fine qualities to go with their flaws. (If you’ve got any extra, please spare a good thought for a 16-year-old rescue dog who’s going through all the indignities common to old age. His name is Zevon.) So, of course, the Friday News Dump fell on a Wednesday this week…
As the woman who uniquely tracks this, I can say this is the most active day of news since the election of 2016. Flooding out and none of it for Trump. He has it coming from all ends now.
— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) May 17, 2018
In my haste I forgot the word good. None of the news flooding out is good for Trump, AND on the back of his self-annointed Nobel Peace Prize evaporating care of the equally erratic Kim Jong Un last night.
— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) May 17, 2018
2. — Details of Trump Tower meeting point to collusion
— FBI was probing Trump-Russia much earlier than once believed
— Trump ex-secretary of state says lies are threatening democracy
— Trump calls immigrants "animals"This is just one lousy day in Trump America
— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) May 16, 2018
Trump Crime Cartel minions are whistling past the graveyard –
BREAKING: Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has informed President Donald Trump's attorneys that they have concluded that they cannot indict a sitting president, according to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani https://t.co/Mmu3SX8N2t pic.twitter.com/kcxEVFaJtr
— CNN (@CNN) May 16, 2018
If you posit that the President is simply guilty and knows he's guilty and is making rational choices on the basis of being guilty a lot of confusing evidence and actions and seemingly poor decisions get clarified quickly and neatly.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 16, 2018
interesting theme emerges: GOPs in one day buck WH on Net Neutrality, DACA, and Russia probe
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) May 16, 2018
Still Proud to Be A Democrat:
The Senate just voted to override the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules, which prevent internet providers from withholding some service in exchange for higher fees. But the override still needs to pass the House and be signed by @POTUS https://t.co/kfwIAqefcU
— Emily Flitter (@FlitterOnFraud) May 16, 2018
SFAW
I think the two missing Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), which I read about at Josh Marshall’s place, are very interesting. Who disappeared them? I really have no idea who could, but one wonders whether it was all part of the same shenanigans from Cy Vance Jr’s office.
OzarkHillbilly
I think I’ll just go back to bed. If I’m lucky I’ll wake up in 3 years and this will all be just like a bad dream.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m kind of hoping for three months.
ETA: That the maladministration is gone, not that you’re asleep for that long. On second thought, set a “due date” for January, 2019 — as long as it’s a Dem Speaker.
danielx
Sort of glad I was out of it yesterday afternoon; I likely would have been screaming out loud at the news.
syphonblue
Why the fuck is CNN reporting anything Rudy said as fact?
WereBear
This HAD to happen. The Republicans were degenerating like the Picture of Dorian Gray. With the lukewarm base enthusiasm for the Usual Primary Suspects, they had to take the picture down from the attic, and run it for President. Thanks to their own cheating and Russian interference, they won.
But they also lost. I still don’t understand how the screaming obvious had to happen, when the entire Left Blogosphere has been screaming it was going to happen, but they did: they went Screaming Obvious. The lickspittle press can’t put enough frosting on this turd; he has no inside voice. He’s the Republican Base Id personified, and they love it.
The rest of us are horrified. It’s like we finally have a diagnosis. Now, the treatment can begin.
Of course, in classic literature fashion, evil sowed the seeds of its own destruction. The Republicans built this Monster of the Id (just like the Krell in Forbidden Planet) and they chose Trump.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
SFAW
@syphonblue:
1) Squirrel!
2) Because they’re almost on a par with Fox and FTFNYT vis-a-vis Trump-fellaters
NotMax
This tragic Florida story is … bizarre.
Switching gears, some were questioning what happens during Ramadan in near-polar climes. Ramadan in Canada’s North, where the fasting day is at least 19 hours long
SFAW
@WereBear:
Although the dark part(s) of their collective psyche created the Monster, I don’t think the Krell were inherently evil. I’m not sure the same can be said about the Rethuglicans and RWNJs in general.
danielx
@WereBear:
All true, except that the Republican base thinks this is all perfectly fine. In their view, WE – we being anyone who doesn’t worship at the altar of Dear Leader – are the deluded ones. Back in the day there was a Republican congressman from my own fair state, fella named Earl Landgrebe, who became semi-famous for a line he uttered at the Watergate hearings: “Don’t confuse me with the facts”. Also noted for his statement “I’m going to stick with my President even if he and I have to be taken out of this building and shot.” This is pretty much the same mentality we’re dealing with today, except that Trumpian true believers are much more likely to say that THEY will shoot anyone who confuses them with anything they don’t want to believe.
Bruce K
I’m sorry, but at this point, if Rudy Giuliani said water was wet, I’d want independent confirmation.
p.a.
@WereBear:
I can’t help wondering if the scumbags could just have avoided attacking the press directly whether the ‘both sides’/‘everyone does it’ memes would still be the norm for the non-Fux, non-hate radio, non-Brooksian media. Lickspittle as long as they’re not attacked directly.
NotMax
Bringing new meaning to the phrase eat and run.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
JR
“A la lanterne”
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@NotMax:
Disclaimer: I’m a vaper.
Without knowing the particular device involved, I can’t be certain what caused it, but I can make an educated guess.
1. The atomizer didn’t explode.
Atomizers are just heating coils that either are wrapped around cotton or a bare coil for drip vaping.
2. The batteries in vape devices (mods) are lithium cell batteries, usually INR 18650 or larger. These can overheat and explode due to overcharging, drawing too much power, or a defective battery.
3. Electronic mods have a protection circuit that shuts the mod off before it can overheat the battery. Mechanical mods do not.
My guess is that he was using either a mechanical mod and held the button down too long, an electronic mod with a defective battery, or a mechanical mod with a defective battery.
If you vape and want to move beyond the $10 vape pens from 7/11, do your research.
rikyrah
LarryO on Michael Cohen Last night
https://youtu.be/3LiU7-5PsDA
Immanentize
@SFAW: The system that Banking reports are kept on are run by the Dept. of Commerce and the Treasury…. They are not law enforcement data bases.
?
LAO
@SFAW: Vance is a local county DA, FICEN is federal. Vance has no jurisdiction over the SARS. If the SARS were pulled by law enforcement, it would be a federal agency like the DOJ.
ETA: I see Imm beat me to it, with a better explanation. I need my coffee!
NotMax
Reads like the opening line for a really, really trashy novel, don’t it?
:)
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Sounds like a Bill Cosby business lunch.
danielx
@NotMax:
Would read better if it said “woke up the next morning with a rubber chicken in my hand”.
debbie
Did Rudi get laughed out of the building when he made that pronouncement?
SFAW
@Immanentize:
@LAO:
Thanks to both of you for the explanation.
ETA: Or, for LAO, translated into local dialect: “da bot’ of youse.”
debbie
@debbie:
Though I must say, Rudi’s statement that we’re torturing Trump is very cheering.
Baud
The DNC sent me a very long email yesterday about their plans. Anyone else get it?
SFAW
@danielx:
Sounds like a Martin Mull blues rendition.
Baud
@debbie:
Today show was reporting it as based on DOJ policy. The DOJ has said in the past that the president can’t be indicted.
SFAW
@Baud:
I did. But I replied to them, saying “Baud 2020,
motherfuckersMister Falcon!”SFAW
@debbie:
I’m wondering if it’s a ploy to try to get Mueller to say something, which they can then litigate in the lickspittle press.
Baud
@SFAW: Excellent. The time to start rigging the 2020 primary is now.
Immanentize
@Baud: This always gets so confusing. My read of the policy is that the DOJ will not (not cannot) indict a sitting President for actions taken while President. This is a bit akin to, but not the same as, if the President does it, it’s not against the law. Different because it is basically the President’s own prosector wing exercising discretion. I have always understood the DOJ rule to say a president may not be formally charged while in office (leaving open the possibility of sealed indictments.).
Mueller’s team could have said any subtle thing that Rudy worked around in his feeble gray matter
debbie
@Baud:
Not even in the case of violating the emoluments clause?
Baud
@Immanentize: Yeah the truth is probably like that.
@debbie: I don’t think that’s even a criminal violation.
Platonailedit
Guessing cnn is trying desperately to take the twitler’s media lackey role away from faux news.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Impeachment is the constitutional remedy for that.
Baud
OMG WHO WILL WALK MEGHAN DOWN THE AISLE I CAN’T WAIT TO FIND OUT!!! #ROYALSUSPENSE
MJS
@SFAW: To confuse this further (or maybe not), Ronan Farrow on Maddow last night claimed that “10s of thousands” of law enforcement professionals” have access to finCEN(?), and that they can access it for anything as mundane as seeing something in the news and wondering if the issue mentioned may have some tie in to the law enforcement professional’s jurisdiction. What those law enforcement professionals wouldn’t be able to do is to remove documentation. Maddow and Farrow then speculated on something that I was also thinking – Mueller pulled them, because he didn’t want anyone else poking around. But that doesn’t make much sense, because he didn’t pull all of them, and the one he left behind alluded to the other two.
Anyway, just wild, probably ill-informed speculation on my part. I’m auditioning for a talking head spot on cable news.
WereBear
Yes, but the founders didn’t reckon with our current situation, seems like. Let’s see how adaptable their experiment can become, because we are finally getting loud and rowdy about what is being done to us.
Matt McIrvin
Based on the pattern so far, all this should push Trump’s job approval higher than ever.
James E Powell
I keep wondering when or if the total weight of all these stories will drag Trump’s approval below the 40% line. Can he really hold on like this for two more years?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
@James E Powell:
His approval won’t be affected by the Russia investigation until there is a definitive allegation about his campaign and not just leaks. Then we’ll see.
Ken
@James E Powell: Look up “sunk cost fallacy”. Also “emotional investment”.
Booger
@NotMax: Chicken Tender is an honorable profession.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Well they did and they didn’t. They never foresaw a lying corrupt greedy philandering treasonous fart bag in the White House with a cowardly corrupt party backing his every move, but they did recognize the fact that the removal of a sitting President would be a political act and as such made a political process for that removal.
This upcoming election will tell the tale. If the GOP gets their clock cleaned, and is made to fear for their political lives, things will change. Not saying how much or even if we will like the changes.
Just one more canuck
@SFAW: or an early draft of a Peter Frampton song
Elizabelle
@WereBear: They did not foresee a “Madness of King George” scenario, no? Especially wherein the executive sees himself as monarch, and his political party has become a swamp of self-dealing courtiers. Meanwhile, you have the “free press”, with its First Amendment protection, shrieking “both sides”, because they’re a swamp of a different nature.
It is envervating to live through this. Every day, they’re termiting out the public good.
Lapassionara
@Baud: Nixon’s approval survived months of jaw-dropping revelations. It dropped when excerpts of the tapes came out, and people learned that he used curse words when he talked in private. All the expletives deleted finally disillusioned his loyal fans.
MJS
@Lapassionara: Hopefully there are tapes of Trump using kind words to describe Democrats, women, minorities, immigrants, the disable, etc. Then his approval rating will hit zero.
WereBear
Gotta read it to believe it:
The analyst suggests providing expensive drugs that only maintain the patient, not cure them. They make more money that way.
We can’t make this stuff up.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: The framers certainly envisioned a despot president. They also envisioned — because they had contemporary examples — of a despot legislature (Pennsylvania was one State like that). What they didn’t fully imagine in their bi-cameral legislative design was factional capture of both houses and the Presidency. It is truly remarkable what the Republicans have accomplished. But it is seemingly collapsing of it’s own weight because the Republican faction was built on unsustainable economic principles. Unsustainable, without slavery or similar feudal structures.
WereBear
His hardcore supporters LOVE him. These are the Fuck Your Feelings people. What is not for them to like?
Only serious public humiliation and ridicule will get them to back off. So let’s all sign up to make this White House exposed as the most outrageously corrupt in our history. Which shouldn’t be that hard… since it is.
artem1s
@WereBear:
Yep. The Alliance made the Reavers. <
Immanentize
@MJS: We hear that Everytime he goes on TV. That said if things do start turning against him (after the mod-terms, i suppose) I expect huge troves of such recordings/videos/tapes will flood the airwaves. They are out there, just being held as insurance right now.
oatler.
@Immanentize: Bloody civil war.
MJS
@Immanentize: We hear KIND words from Trump? I’m saying it’s him saying NICE things about those groups that would cause his deplorable base to abandon him.
Another Scott
@Lapassionara: Nixon’s Gallup approval was around 23% on his last day in office. (Scroll down to the graphs)
It takes a lot to get people to change their minds after they have invested in a politician…
Cheers,
Scott.
Josie
@Immanentize: Oddly enough, I find this explanation very comforting.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Interesting comment. I think the GOP could not be where it is without the GOP rightwing propaganda machine, especially Fox and Rush. The plutocrats built this. They built this idiotic and/or greedy GOP electorate.
Stealing the Supreme Court seat is one of the worst crimes. You can (in principle) vote a POTUS out, even an illegitimate one. I want Mitch McConnell to swing for that one. I suspect Obama has a LOT of regrets for not seeing them as the actual treasonous criminals they turned out to be.
WRT not wanting to pay workers: maybe today’s Republicans are rooting like hell for robot labor? The glibertarians sure are. I would like to see some of their heads on pikes.
Hmmmm. In a bad mood, apparently. Maybe a good day to stay off the ‘net.
bystander
The bank(s) who filed the Suspicious Activities Reports undoubtedly retained copies to prove their compliance with banking rules and regs. If Mnuchin is involved in disappearing them, he had no way to disappear a filing bank’s copies, except through conspiracy.
I could be corrected, but that’s my recollection of those filings. Banks are obligated to file SARS so they do not to be asked later why they didn’t comply.
Mary G
AL, sending healing thoughts to Zevon.
rikyrah
Will remind folks what Silverman wrote last night:
Seems like Auntie Maxine was onto something.
And, she never got a response back….Hmmmmmm….
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@rikyrah:
This would explain all of the anti-Maxine Waters memes that my RWNJ father keeps sharing on the Book of Faces…
OzarkHillbilly
I am shocked, shocked I tell you:
Who knew that lifting hundred pound sheets of drywall all day every day for decades on end could be detrimental to ones health? And all this time I thought all the pain I live with every day was a sign of excellent health!
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly:
I love this joint. The cover charge is a bit much, but where else could one find this level of comedy on a Thursday morning?
rikyrah
Aerial footage shows massive teacher protest in Raleigh, North Carolina, as wave of teacher revolts continues to sweep throughout the U.S. Up to 15,000 are expected to swarm the state’s capitol this morning.
Read more: https://t.co/UOdLOWLPPk
Watch live: https://t.co/K9hjDwtGiZ pic.twitter.com/Ix8vi3oh6N
— ABC News (@ABC) May 16, 2018
rikyrah
Calling people animals is sinful. Every human being has infinite dignity. Moreover, this is the same kind of language that led to the extermination of Jews (“vermin”) in Germany and of Tutsi (“cockroaches”) in Rwanda. This kind of language cannot be normalized. It is a grave sin. https://t.co/5VvURONwvh
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) May 16, 2018
rikyrah
@WereBear:
And, not even then.
But, that’s the reason why I want the pee-pee tape released. I just want to be able to throw it in their faces.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly:This is too fucking much:
STFU asshole. At the end of my day I was in so much fucking pain I could not even grip my steering wheel, was dealing with repeated waves of muscle cramping all over my body, and if Dog forbid I has been working over my head that day the first thing I did when I got home was put myself in traction, and that was IF I didn’t have go to physical therapy that day.
The absolute cluelessness of Doctors is astounding.
rikyrah
Amid report’s revelations: an informant in the Trump Russia probe
Rachel Maddow sorts through the day’s blizzard of news, including a number of scoops in a New York Times report. Among those scoops is the revelation that Carter Page and George Papdopoulos met several times with at least one government informant.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro: 10,000 unemployed comedians and here we are giving it away for free.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah:
Ummm no, just no. Evidence of fact is the current resident of the WH.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Hadn’t noticed.
Well, if it’s for the purpose of keeping your blood pressure low enough, sure. But righteous rants are generally welcome here.
Except for that Betty Cracker lady. Her righteous rants are too shrill.
[BC: I hope you know I’m kidding. I can’t get enough of you tearing the RWNJs a new asshole.]
SFAW
@Jeffro:
The way you get around that is to send Cole an e-mail, must be ALL CAPS, complaining LOUDLY about it. He generally pays special attention to stuff like that, and will give you the super-sekrit code to get around the paywall.
ETA: You can also FAX Cole your credenza, that might work.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
The statement could have come out of any white supremacist tract where they call for a race war. It is exactly what white supremacists say about brown people when they’re getting their hate on and don’t feel restricted. He’s left behind dog whistles and gone naked hardcore racism, and I bet most of white America will STILL try and excuse this and say it’s something else, because I guess it’s not the N Word.
SFAW
@Frankensteinbeck:
Even then. “They musta done something REELY BAD for him to call them that!”
bemused
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s a safe bet the doc has never worked at a manual, hard labor job on a daily basis and definitely not worked like that for decades. He probably doesn’t even have family or friends who have.
gene108
@rikyrah:
I want hedge fund billionaires to strike. Withhold their productivity for a day, week, or month and compare it to how much society would grind to a halt, if teachers went on strike, or home healthcare workers/aids in nursing homes, etc. ‘Cause I think most wouldn’t notice hedge funds no longer traded and other investors would pick up the slack.
Leto
@bystander: Not only should the banks still have copies, but the FINC database system itself can track who access these documents (like most databases can). Who accessed the documents last? They should be able to see that even if the records were deleted.
catclub
@debbie:
Is the part that Giuliani left out: “so they plan to indict him the first day he is no longer president”?
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Nazi Times is still normalizing him.
catclub
@rikyrah: only educated people would chant “Remember, remember, we vote in November”
I was amused
germy
Something I found interesting and important:
https://dailygazette.com/article/2018/05/15/carpenters-union-pushes-to-increase-female-membership
Jeffro
@SFAW:
Um…that is an interesting mental picture…we’re gonna need a bigger fax machine, methinks…
germy
McConnell May Cancel August Recess to Keep Democrats From Going Home to Campaign
Every trick in the book for this turtle.
WereBear
@germy: I am rather glad, now, that I didn’t major in journalism like I planned.
Inside the ‘dehumanizing’ cost-cutting efforts by new ownership at the Boston Herald
germy
@WereBear:
I’ve seen this happen at several local papers. Gutted out. Reduced to copy/pasting national news from dubious sources. Much less local coverage. Lots of reporters leaving the business to work in public relations, etc.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
I take it you weren’t here for the Credenza Wars, something like 5 years ago?
But her emails!!!
@germy: It’s the Boston Herald. It’s only been useful for 1. Bird cage and puppy enclosure lining, 2. Sunday coupon booklets, 3. Sports as long as I have lived in Massachusetts.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: I nearly threw up when I read that. Psychopaths, all of them.
rikyrah
BREAKING: The European Union just announced that they will fight Trump’s sanctions on Iran by activating a law that bans EU companies form complying with the US sanctions! (per @Reuters)
In other words, the EU just sided with Iran over the U.S.
That’s how far we have fallen!
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) May 17, 2018
rikyrah
That ONE SAR report on Cohen contained the 4.4 million.
There are TWO OTHERS MISSING.
How much money was on those?
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: We have to hope there are backups of the missing data. Maybe the IT people will save us.
rikyrah
ICE arrested a dreamer, revoked his DACA status, placed him in detention, and attempted to deport him, claiming he was a gang member. A federal judge just ruled that ICE was lying—brazenly, intentionally, repeatedly, and illegally. https://t.co/U2u25mzUqQ @Slate
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) May 17, 2018
ICE agents tried to extract a false confession from Ramirez, demanding that he “admit” he was in a gang. When he refused, ICE pointed to his tattoo, which said “La Paz—BCS,” his birthplace in Baja California Sur.
That, ICE said, proves you’re “definitely a gang member.”
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) May 17, 2018
rikyrah
Ethics office refers Trump Stormy Daniels disclosure to DoJ
Rachel Maddow reports on a letter from the Office of Government Ethics alerting the Department of Justice to Donald Trump’s disclosure of payments to Stormy Daniels by way of Michael Cohen on his annual report.
rikyrah
Belated Trump Stormy Daniels disclosure prompts criminal referral
Adav Noti, senior director at The Campaign Legal Center, talks with Rachel Maddow about the Office of Government Ethics’ criminal referral to the DoJ of Donald Trump’s belated disclosure of payments to Stormy Daniels through Michael Cohen.
Betty Cracker
Quick note about Amy Siskind: The enemy of my enemy is my friend, etc., but Siskind was one of the most obnoxious and destructive PUMAs out there during the 2008 election. She was in such a snit when PBO won the nomination that she endorsed McCain-Palin. She invited racist creeps into her organization — including the woman who was ejected from the DNC rules meeting while shouting about PBO being an “inadequate black male.” Siskind also seems to have used her perch at Huffington Post to dox Obama supporters and turn their personal info over to some truly sinister PUMA creeps. Just an FYI for those who may have missed all the crazy shit that went down back then.
lgerard
Canada is the new Florida
WereBear
@lgerard: Well, while a strong finish, that nation still has a ways to go before the scale tilts in their direction; when you add up all the extraordinarily demented things Florida does on a daily basis…
Humdog
I saw a meme yesterday that British Columbia is the Florida of Canada.
J R in WV
@debbie:
Now why would they do that? At this stage of things? No, this is another of those fictions that Rudy and The Donald cooked up, dreaming that passing out such a fiction would help their cause of defaming the investigation. Why investigate someone immune from prosecution after all?
This isn’t a decision prosecutors would make. It is a decision that a Judge would hand down in a set of contests prior to the beginning of a criminal trial, if such a thing was to be decided. It is such a stupid lie that it makes Rudy look bad, which isn’t hard these days.
germy
@J R in WV: This was reported as fact on last night’s CBS News.
The correspondent told Jeff Glor it was DOJ policy.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for the reminders. She’s not to be trusted.
Aleta
@WereBear: In that light, addicting them sure was profitable too.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Woman, you’ve been so busy this morning !!! Wow, what a bunch of scoop, thanks so much for sharing all that interesting news with the rest of the pack of jackals.
Just outstanding!
Andrey
@WereBear:
A bit late, perhaps, but worth noting: this is the opposite of what the actual analyst suggests. The linked article asserts that’s what the analyst suggests, but is wrong – either accidentally or intentionally misreading. I’ve read the actual analysis, and what the analyst actually suggested is to be able to cure more than one disease. The analyst says that focusing on a single cure may be financially risky, that a company that develops a cure should not rest on its laurels and should already be working on the next cure.
This is not a minor detail; it’s a completely opposite moral statement. “Cure more diseases faster”, not “stop curing diseases”.
WereBear
@Andrey: Hey, thanks so much!
The strange thing? People who are tangental to the industry? Totally unsurprised.
So there is that.
J R in WV
germy:
Well, disappointed in CBS, etc. There are a thousand ifs and elses in any policy, none of them discussed. What about crimes committed while not president? What about treason? I guess we’ll have to depend upon mid-term election success to sway Republicans? Or a stroke.
What about a Vice President? lots of room for questions about and within any DOJ “policy” – I would have to see the document defining that policy before I believe a word in the MSM at this point.
Mueller and his people are not talking about it, so this information is coming from Trump’s people, so YMMV but I’m not buying it wholesale yet at all. When we hear from Mueller, that would be different.