The Senate has had a busy day.
First, Senators Scott (R-SC) and Rubio (R-FL) temporarily allied with a unified Democratic caucus to assemble a minimum blocking coalition to a nominee for a lifetime appointment on the 9th Circuit Court:
JUST NOW: On the Senate floor, McConnell withdrew Ryan Bounds judicial nomination from the floor vote for further consideration because @SenatorTimScott said he needed more time to review his record in light of racist views that we flagged in February. https://t.co/83MMeQQjkg
— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) July 19, 2018
And then a bit later in the afternoon, the entire Senate told the White House to get a clue that it was being trolled by Putin:
BREAKING: Senate unanimously PASSES (98-0) a resolution expressing opposition to allowing Russia to interview US diplomats and agents, a proposal offered by Putin on Monday and rejected just this afternoon by the White House.
Here's the text of the resolution: pic.twitter.com/oB6aTxnYts
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) July 19, 2018
So the Senate as a body and individual Senators in a closely divided body found ways to assert their institutional and personal prerogatives.
Baby Steps
Open thread
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Frist!
kindness
Yeay for blocking that judge. I had not seen Republicans thinking about consequences yet.
Maybe it’s a new day? (still won’t stop me from voting against them and pissing on their graves if given the opportunity)
clay
Rubio finds his spine exactly one time a year. I guess today’s as good a time as any.
MattF
I keep coming back to the old-but-good joke that Kurt Waldheim didn’t need a spine because he had an exoskeleton.
hueyplong
So which branch was weak? Did the Senate go 98-0 on Trump about Putin interviews because they knew Trump was dropping the concept anyway, or did Trump come out against because he got word that the Senate was about to humiliate him in a unanimous vote?
I assume McCain is one of the abstentions. Who is the other? Paul? Sanders?
Shana
@hueyplong: That was my question too.
rikyrah
@hueyplong:
Yeah…who are the others?
oatler.
I’m hoping the Senate gets physical. Us peasants are getting tired of doing the lifting.
NotMax
“You mean we’re allowed to do that?” //
Baud
@hueyplong:
@rikyrah:
Check here after an hour, if it’s not reported sooner.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=2&vote=00162
germy
smintheus
Meanwhile Putin plays Trump again. He’s now leaking the info that he proposed ‘secretly’ a referendum on the status of Ukraine, but promised Trump he wouldn’t make the proposal public while Trump thought it over. Not that leaking it makes the proposal public; just a little ‘hurry up’ from the big guy.
germy
Brachiator
@clay:
Kinda like a groundhog sometimes seeing its shadow.
Teddys Person
I know, not really that important in light of the party in power betraying my country. But can this guy just go the fuck away. I want life to have a reset button.
Old School
Shelby (R-AL) and McCain (R-AZ) were the abstaining members.
rikyrah
@germy:
KAPOW
Jay
@germy:
Yeah, the part that really gets me LMFAO is that the Russian FSO trolled a cartoon character of Natasha infront of the Rethugs, NRA and Christofacists fell all over themselves to trade a little light treason for sex.
TenguPhule
And soon we’re gonna have tariffs on automobiles and their parts. Yet another Obama-era success about to be shit on and thrown away. Its gonna gut hundreds of thousands of jobs in the USA directly and millions more will suffer from the result aftershocks as they ripple down the economic food chain.
Its coming folks, 2019 is going to see the economy crash and burn like the Hindenburg.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
When do I get to start saying, “I told you so” to the Bros?
https://mobile.twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1019970082812940289
rikyrah
Get him, Forever FLOTUS.
GET.HIM.
Michelle Obama arrives in Scotland for charity fundraiser https://t.co/IheejbIBgP pic.twitter.com/kgJLm1S0Vk
— STV News (@STVNews) July 17, 2018
Michelle Obama slams Trump as ‘mediocre’ at charity event in Scotland https://t.co/CLkZXk33eG
— Scotland Star (@ScotlandStar) July 19, 2018
jl
The House on the other hand:
House GOP refuses to boost funding for election security
BY MORGAN GSTALTER – 07/19/18 08:14 AM EDT
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/397805-house-gop-refuse-to-boost-funding-for-election-security
GOPers called it a ‘political shenanigan’ and said that the programs were ‘fully funded’, which I take to meant that they gave the agencies some money, and therefore that is enough and they are ‘fully funded’
NotMax
And look who introduced the resolution which was passed.
Brachiator
Trump is certainly on a Twitter roll today.
I think that the EU action is mainly wrongheaded, but Trump’s harping about “taking advantage” and “not being treated fairly” is just more of his repetitive bullshit.
Also, here, I don’t think that the average Trump dope-supporter thinks that google is suffering or needs a break.
Teddys Person
@Brachiator: The projection is strong in this one as Trump is all about taking advantage of people and not treating people fairly. He thinks this is what motivates everyone.
Calouste
@rikyrah: Calling OfPutin “mediocre” is praising him. That’s a level that is way out of his reach.
jl
@NotMax: Assuming this asinine and outrageous idea is shot down, will be grimly hilarious to read about how they dragged, cajoled, hectored Trump into dropping it.
I didn’t know, but read a news item saying that the US courts have repeatedly rejected the Russian requests for the people they want to question as based on bogus evidence.
Let alone McFaul, where the Russian claims are counterfactual and make no sense, in addition to being outrageous. But Trump doesn’t say anything, only “Trump” as reported by WH staff.
The real Trump hasn’t, as far as I know, said anything further about it because he’s pissing himself that here is yet another item on the growing list of his handler’s demands that he doesn’t have the ability or guts to fulfill.
Tracking the beliefs and actions of “Trump” as presented by WH staff, versus Trump, will be a new field of study.in the Trumpinology of this administration.
Unbelievable, but here we are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Listening to Dan Coats talk about North Korea and two things jumped out at me. 1) he says we have a verification system in place for denuclearization; 2) the sanctions regime is holding, including China and Russia. I’m the first to admit I have trouble keeping up with the firehose of news, but IIRC there is no verification system in place, he later seemed to be saying that our intelligence, i.e. spying, is our verification system. And I thought China had relaxed at least some of its restriction on exports to NORK, and there was some concern about Russian coal. Cheryl? Adam? Anybody who’s been following this more closely than I ?
TenguPhule
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Rest Assured, Dan Coats is talking horse shit. None of it is true.
NotMax
How soon until Dolt 45 calls on Sessions to investigate the “unAmerican Senate?”
Mary G
Dan Drezner brings the hammer down in the WaPo:
Even a week ago, calling Twitler treasonous was beyond the pale. A spark of light at the end of the tunnel, I hope.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oy…. un-muted this Andrea Mitchell interview with Coates in time to hear her go all Village-y about how disappointed people are with congress, the stalemate, the tone. Republicans control both houses, but stalemate. Yesterday the trump regime was open to subjecting a US ambassador to Putin’s system of justice, but tone.
jl
I also heard on the news that either House or Senate voted down hearing testimony from the interpreter.
So, on Trump, they can do symbolic resolutions, but nothing of substance. I suppose the resolutions are needed though, to limit the damage Trump is doing.
I for one want to hear the interpreter’s testimony. I’ve been imagining the unsupervised one-on-one as something out of a Bond move. Putin is the chuckling villain. He starts the meeting by taking out a laptop and the keyboard is just a giant red ‘send’ button. Putin does the whole meeting with his hand resting on the ‘send’ button.
The interpreter could tell us how Trump reacted.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Okay, maybe I heard wrong but I’d swear he said Russia was still cooperating.
germy
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mrs. Greenspan. Your tumbrel is waiting.
Their shabby coverage drives a lot of Americans’ frustration with government. It’s not Congress. It’s Republicans in Congress. That is a huge difference. They don’t make it clear, and then you hear the low info (or stubborn) set of friends saying “vote them all out.”
Time to retire that Villager.
Kelly
Republicans keep doubling down on Trump. When will this exponential growth rate collapse them into a political black hole, the wingnut event horizon?
Elizabelle
From FTF NY Times:
OK Donald. If you insist on helping Democrats with their GOTV programs.
Cue the Trump Baby Blimp. Plenty of time to make one up for Putin too.
NotMax
@jl
” No, Mr.
BondTrump, I expect you todiecomply! There’s nothing you can talk to me about that I don’t already know!”jl
@Elizabelle: It’s just about money with them and nothing else. Don’t piss off major advertisers. especially the deep pocket corporate advertisers who have nothing to sell directly to consumers, but run the endless stream of warm and fuzzy PR ads. Don’t piss off gullible Trumpsters who will buy anything. Don’t spend any more money than they have to on research. they have a one page scenario to push that has kept the money flowing for decades. Why spend a penny to change it?
Yarrow
These Infrastructure Weeks are exhausting. And we haven’t even got to document dump Friday.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Yep, yep, yep. There was no way he wasn’t involved.
jl
@NotMax: “Oh dear, Comrade Trump, my hand almost slipped. That would be very sad, very sad indeed. There may be time to ‘send’, there may be a time. I am sorry. It would be a shame to ruin our relationship right now, prematurely, eh?”
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
So, this meeting will be closer to the mid-term elections. And Trump is thinking that he will get positive results from this? The GOP leadership must be wetting themselves. Conservative political strategists are insisting that all this will blow over, but not if Trump himself keeps bringing it up.
Of course, I hope he does, because it makes him look like a total doofus.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
Mike in DC
If they can schedule that Putin visit a week or two before election day, that would be just super, thanks.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Gives Dolt 45 an excuse to make a big show out of permitting the re-opening of the dacha in Maryland.
jl
I have to wonder if Cheryl was right, when she suggested, that Putin broached the idea of the US handing over McFaul and Browder as diplomatic-speak that just expressed complete disdain for the US attempts to counter Russian interference. And Putin was astounded that Trump is such a gullible fool as to even consider it.
So, the request for almost a dozen more people was just a gleeful add-on, kind of a celebratory joke, for shits and giggles.
But that would mean Trump is infinitely stupid, infinitely ignorant and infinitely unprepared.
Gelfling 545
@germy: It’s moribund, though.
Cheryl Rofer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He is talking about our national intelligence capabilities – signals, overhead photos, and HUMINT, the first two often called National Technical Means. People in the intelligence services will often refer to these capabilities as verification, which they are for a limited audience who can read classified material. But they have limitations. The folks at the Middlebury Institute recently identified what is probably North Korea’s first uranium enrichment plant. Once they’ve worked it out, it seems fairly obvious, but it’s not the kind of thing that stands out in overhead photos.
It does appear that US intelligence had identified the plant. But for anything with a roof on it, it gets much harder to figure what’s inside.
When people in the State Department talk about verification, they are more likely to mean a process open to the world, with inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency and results published. Even under an agreement that includes IAEA inspection, the intelligence community keeps grinding along in its own way. Sometimes they will give the IAEA information that might be useful.
Treaty verification would also include statements by North Korea on their holdings, which, obviously, the intelligence community isn’t waiting for.
germy
@Elizabelle:
And here we have trump’s 2020 campaign slogan.
Mai Naem mobile
Who’s the one who didn’t vote? McCain and who else? Wondering if it was around Paul or Sanders,
Jim, Foolish Literalist
ah, that’s more what I was thinking of in terms of a verification process.
Thanks!
Cheryl Rofer
@jl:
And you can’t believe that because…?
Gelfling 545
@Calouste: Besides, he probably doesn’t know what it means. If someone explains it to him, tweets will fly!
jl
@Gelfling 545: Michelle Obama is being polite. Praising with faint damns.
jl
@Cheryl Rofer: You and ALS need to explain to us what this means, when you have some spare time:
@PressSec
In Helsinki, @POTUS agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between the two security council staffs. President Trump asked @Ambjohnbolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway.
https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1020033303351619584
What exactly does ‘ongoing working level dialogue between the two security council staffs’ mean? Don’t we do that already to try to keep WWIII at bay if somebody is hungover and slumps over onto some missile attack alert panel?
opiejeanne
@germy: This is great news for McFaul and Parker (the Congressional aide who single-handedly wrote the Magnitsky Act) but what about Bill Browder? We should be protecting him too. Putin wants him dead because of Magnitsky, the same reason he wants to “question” Parker.
Anonymous At Work
@Old School: wtf? Old/sick or what?
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: She’s so nice. Being called mediocre is sure to annoy him.
Elizabelle
@germy: I wonder if Andrea Mitchell and Dan Coats are really laughing about this. It is unhinged.
And likely to endanger their beloved Republicans. You know — the REAL Americans.
Jay
FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States -The Onion
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne: @rikyrah: I think Michelle hit the sweet spot with the word that would inflict the most pain. If she said something worse, he could call it a partisan attack.
Poor Trump, how is he supposed to fundraise on being called “mediocre”? And by poor Trump, I mean FUCK HIM.
david
@germy: 98-0. “Bipartisan support”
Yeah, when it involves a White guy they all personally know, they can act.
When it’s thousands of immigrant children that none of them know, it’s politics as usual.
Michael McFaul should be thankful for both his White Privilege AND being a member of The Club.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
It’s a two-fer. Also incorporates the sound of the word ochre.
Zinsky
@kindness: I wouldn’t piss in their ass if their guts were on fire!