“All Trump has to do was read one piece of paper without contradicting himself and he couldn’t even do that.” https://t.co/EuNVd2yAtf
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) July 19, 2018
I feel like by Friday the intelligence community is going to be leaking "Jesus Christ America, do we have to draw you a map?"
— Schooley (@Rschooley) July 19, 2018
Russian state TV is more honest than American state TV (aka Fox). https://t.co/rJBqrp5Xgl
— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) July 18, 2018
“Baffled by his solicitous tone toward Mr. Putin, some people close to Mr. Trump have concluded that he feels vulnerable to Mr. Putin, even if it is in his own mind, rather than because of any damaging information possessed by the Russians.” https://t.co/V97PGQlL5y
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 18, 2018
By my count, Trump has questioned, doubted, or outright rejected the fact that Russia interfered in the 2016 election at least 13 times — 8 before taking ofc, 5 since. There's a phrase for when someone "misspeaks" so much about a subject so sore: "What he actually believes."
— Amy Zegart (@AmyZegart) July 18, 2018
To be politically incorrect, the only decisive episode on the horizon is the midterm elections. https://t.co/fY2BphbWpG https://t.co/tqSp35wMWY
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) July 18, 2018
danielx
Coming to the conclusion that Mariia Butina is like the Forrest Gump of the Trump regime. Wherever you look, there she is.
tobie
If ever a tweet proved that Haberman was an apologist for the regime, the one quoted here would be at the top of the list. Does she even read her own newspaper? T’s got many reasons to feel vulnerable to Putin and they’re not just “in his own mind.” Putin owns him.
Quinerly
So what will tomorrow bring? These Infrastructure Weeks are exhausting.
Matt McIrvin
My prediction is that, politically, this week is going to move the needle only by a tiny increment. I don’t think we’re going to see much movement in approval numbers and such: Trump supporters are committed. But the accumulation of these horrifying events does motivate the opposition to turn out, which is probably the more important thing.
Jeffro
Folks, it’s Thursday, which means we’re just one day out from another fun Document Dump Friday!
“Living Friday to Friday: The Trumpov Years*”
*and by ‘years’, let’s hope that means only two
Baud
To be fair to Trump, it’s not as if he once said “super predator” 30 years ago.
germy
What I find infuriating is all the news reports focusing on “would” vs. “wouldn’t” and pretending it was a simple case of a double negative mistake, while ignoring the Hannity interview where he repeated (egged on of course by Hannity) his opinions.
Quinerly
Has anyone posted this new Daily Beast piece on Paul Erickson?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/accused-russian-spys-boy-toy-is-a-serial-fraud-lawsuits
germy
@Jeffro:
Documents or maybe more indictments.
What a time to be alive.
I wish Molly Ivins was still around. She left us too soon.
germy
oldgold
Pretty good chance Manafort takes a deal tomorrow.
Haroldo
@danielx: Life is like a box of 7.62mm hollow points.
schrodingers_cat
Why is MAGA Mouthpiece Haberman back so soon, after flouncing off Twitter.? Summons from the boss?
Baud
@oldgold: Last night, Rachel said Manafort had exhausted all his pre-trial motions. Next step is the trial, unless he takes a deal. Meanwhile, he’s sitting in jail.
Baud
@Haroldo: You never know who you’re gonna shoot.
Roger Moore
@danielx:
Not just the Trump regime; it’s the whole damn right wing. She’s been around since Trump was just one more obnoxious birther, and there’s every reason to believe she was just continuing a long-term plan to influence our right wing. IMO, this really ought to give the lie to all the comments about how Putin’s attack on our electoral system is just retaliation for Western interference in Russia. He’s been working on influencing the American (and I assume European) right for as long as he’s been in power, and his bitching about us trying to take over Russia is just more right wing projection.
oldgold
@Baud:
Precisely so.
His trial starts next week.
On Friday, the week before a big trial, the entire system, from the Judge to your own office staff, is leaning on you, if you are going to settle, to get it done!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Unpossible Trump is a Stable Genesis Alpha Plus, Plus male who causes the furniture to orgasm just by sitting on it, not some weak, ill, mentally incurious bully who’s whole life has been a charade to hide is cowardice and latent homosexuality and so easily manipulated by others that the Russians have Trump doing their bidding on the mere suggestion of blackmail.
p.a.
Gump? or Zelig?
germy
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Matt McIrvin: It will certainly drive the Never Trump conservatives away from him just as they were starting to give Trump a second chance. So fewer but better Republicans.
JPL
@oldgold: Why not wait for a pardon from Trump?
Jeffro
By the way folks, here’s the long version of – was it Davis X Machina’s analogy? – “sparrow on a curtain rod” theory: Why Don’t We Always Vote In Our Own Self-Interest?
Take it away, Thomas Edsall:
Or to put it another way:
Yup.
Baud
@JPL: @JPL: Would you put your faith in Trump?
And if Trump issues a pardon, Manafort can be compelled to testify in the Russia probe.
clay
@tobie: Even IF Trump were only vulnerable to Putin “in his own mind”, how is that functionally different than Putin having damaging info? If Trump believes the threat is real, he’ll act the same as if it’s actually real.
germy
Age discrimination is alive and well:
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: Thomas Edsall is a Broderist at best, most of the times he is R leaning. He always concern trolls Ds no matter what the issue. His analysis is pretty worthless.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Is this really new? The heavy tilt towards Israel started during W admin.
CCL
– long time lurker surfacing for a nanosecond. Something Adam or Cheryl posted a while ago makes me think the orange one is physically terrified for his life – not just blackmail or exposure – but for his very life.
germy
@clay:
That’s just Maggie floating her “there’s no kompromat” trial balloon. She’ll be watching over the next few days to see if anyone runs with it. “It’s all in his (and your) mind!”
gene108
I am surprised no one in the media has said something to the effect of after this, Trump became Presidential.
I am just waiting for the media to try to rehash that narrative
Platonailedit
It’s obvious the rethugs have flaked out. Will the voters too?
Platonailedit
@tobie:
If anything, the courtier’s tweet confirms the thug is senile and mentally unfit.
germy
@schrodingers_cat:
CNN
kindness
I’ve looked around to see what Trump’s base says. Sites I don’t usually go but wanted to know. They are still all in on Trump. They ignore/don’t see Trump’s Russia problem. What really gets them going is just making us whine & cry. They love the roll of troll. So I’m wondering what the actual percentage of these people really are. We used to think it was 27%. Then when Trump got 40+% of the vote we thought it was higher. They are certainly beatable, but until they go down at the ballot box the MSM is going to continue to play us as sore losers & chumps and them as the winning team. Our MSM has failed us. How do we break that hold on America?
tobie
@clay: @Platonailedit: I grant you that Haberman is reporting what “some people” say. But it’s as if she looked for people who would say something exculpatory. Trump’s fear of Putin is in his head; it’s not the result “of any damaging information possessed by the Russians.” That’s the opinion she’s reporting and she felt it was important enough to highlight in a tweet.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: I get it that they are getting worse, but the problem did not start in 2016. Netanyahu has had R support for a very long time.
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The Never Trump conservatives are a tiny, elite, marginal group that are overrepresented in political media. But this is a game of inches, so every bit helps.
tobie
@kindness: One thing that hasn’t gotten much attention yet, and will likely erode Trump’s base, are the effects of the tariffs. I got a note from my garbage company yesterday that our rates would be going up since China has ceased to buy recycled plastic and garbage vendors don’t know what to do with all the plastic they’ve collected. It’s a little thing but given that many rural Americans pay a private company for garbage collection (no municipal service in the boonies) it’s one way they’ll be confronted with the trade war directly.
rikyrah
Uh huh ? ?
Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) Tweeted:
This isn’t hyperbole. Scheuer literally fantasizes here about “well-armed citizens who voted for Trump” murdering his critics, including the Obamas and “all of the mainstream media.” https://t.co/X1FzHi27zO https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1019910953834549248?s=17
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I’m kind of amazed that there isn’t more talk this morning about the Fuck You New York Times story about how Benedict Donald has known since before he got sworn in that Putin himself ordered the attack on our election. I mean, yeah, most of us know he’s always known, but now there’s fucking proof. When are Republicans going to sit the fuck up and open their eyes? This should be the biggest story on every outlet in the world right now. MSNBC has been on this, but I haven’t seen much about it anywhere else.
germy
@tobie:
My rates are going up as well. I pay for private garbage pickup and I live in a city.
And silly me, I thought all that recycled plastic would be… you know… recycled into some other plastic product here in the U.S. I thought that’s what recycling is. Rather than shipping it off to China.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Matt McIrvin: Never Trump conservatives, not Never Trump Republicans, I know a few people who consider themselves conservatives but loath Trump.
rikyrah
BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) Tweeted:
Alleged Russian agent Maria Butina spent years creating an irresistible persona to woo US conservatives.
Here’s how she did it.
https://t.co/n7dv9HJJ1U https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/1019900658168631297?s=17
Patricia Kayden
The fact that former Ambassador to Russia, McFaul, is being threatened by the Trump regime with extradition to Russia says it all about the state of our democracy. This is not normal.
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat: Immediately writing off what he has to say is a little less than open-minded. Seriously, it’s a good article (especially for those reading such info for the first time) – well worth passing along to friends and family.
Platonailedit
@Matt McIrvin:
No point in repeatedly saying trumpanzess will never desert him, which is well known. It’s high time the left stopped shaking in their boots thinking about those racist loons.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@tobie: I don’t think Trump base will erroid some much as at some point it will just implode. That base is more like a bunch of Star Wars Fan Bois. I suspect Trump kissing Putin’s butt did some harm even if the Base won’t admit it because it made their hero look weak.
MomSense
@CCL:
I don’t think we can rule anything out. The Putin regime is known for its brutality. We also need to be aware that every time he meets with or talks on the phone with Putin, he is adding to the kompromat. Every promise, comment, or statement he makes to Putin that he lies about or withholds from our side is more kompromat. Same for others in his administration and family. We know that Jared created kompromat for himself when he told Kislyev he wanted to set up communications with him that our side wouldn’t know about. That’s just one example that has gone public. I suspect many more.
That Russia has been operating in right wing circles for decades is not a surprise to me. I think that when the extent of the tangled web is revealed it will include many known as well as some surprising unknowns.
I was listening to an interview that Bob Cesca did with Malcolm Nance yesterday. Cesca asked him about Snowden and I have to say that when I made the same arguments that Snowden was turned and is a traitor/defector on this blog all those years ago, I took a lot of flack. Same for Assange and Wikileaks. There are established patterns and if you start looking at the players with those patterns in mind you will start to see how big this thing is.
The divisions on the left were assisted by Russian active measures. It didn’t start with Wilmer in 2015-16.
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: Perhaps. I have just lost patience with the both-sides-do-it but Ds are worse, variety of journalism. I have read elebenty such Edsall pieces and his conclusions are always the same. YMMV.
tobie
@germy: Interesting that even in cities residents have to pay for private garbage collection. I didn’t know that. I’ll try to check where the hold-up with recycling is: is it that recyclers in the US aren’t buying plastic garbage because there’s no demand for recycled plastic at the moment, or do we just ship our garbage to China and have them deal with it. Don’t know.
rikyrah
Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) Tweeted:
Russia attacked American elections to help REPUBLICANS.
Intelligence officials are screaming that more attacks are imminent.
Today, Republicans REFUSED TO FUND BASIC ELECTION SECURITY. https://t.co/D6x15BqSTM https://twitter.com/Mikel_Jollett/status/1019788355553280002?s=17
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: Ah I am so old that I remember when Snowden was a blog darling and toast of the LTTs*. When we were worried about metadata and dronez. Almost seems quaint now.
LTTs == Leftier than thou.
p.a.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Nah. They’LL talk themselves into pretzel shapes in supporting him unless/until there’s material evidence that affects them. Bush: body bags/foreclosure/layoff notices. These are basically the same mud people as then.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah and those of us who didn’t fall for it were called authoritarians and other stupid things.
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh ? ?
David Frum (@davidfrum) Tweeted:
And within 9 months of that briefing, quite a number of senior Russian officials suddenly died https://t.co/OwhKmcNC1O https://t.co/r3pgMoaAWG https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1019795609836871680?s=17
danielx
@kindness:
And if and when they do lose at the ballot box, the screams of “rigged elections!” and “voter fraud!” will start about one nanosecond later.
Ian G.
So I think the big picture is coming more into view: Trump either owes millions (billions?) of dollars to Russian criminals or was filmed raping a 12 year old in the “pee tape” (or both). In exchange for that tape never being released and/or his debt being erased, he needs to de facto repeal the Magnitsky Act and/or break up NATO. Seems like a simple and likely answer to the question of why Trump is so obedient to Putin.
It’s the rest of the GOP that I still can’t believe are going along with this. Maybe it’s because I was born in 1980 and my earliest political memories are of things like “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”, I figured the most serious sin a Republican could commit would be to sell out to a KGB assassin. I guess times change. After all, the Republican Party was once the party of Charles Sumner.
schrodingers_cat
I am waiting for the day when the tribune of the masses with the vacation home on Lake Champlain, gets caught in Mueller’s dragnet.
rikyrah
Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) Tweeted:
BREAKING: @RepSwalwell and I just made a motion in House Intel Committee to subpoena the American interpreter during the summit — the only witness to Trump’s meeting with Putin. This is an extraordinary remedy, but Trump’s actions necessitate it.
Republicans voted it down. https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/1019933423467679745?s=17
Platonailedit
Gin & Tonic
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): What’s missing from that story is a picture. They had 12 sources to verify. So I’m wondering about that meeting where he was told – were all the participants maybe eating, sitting at a long table? If Trump were the kind of person who’d ever actually read anything in his life, or had ever had any exposure to the faith he supposedly professes, that number, 12, would be interesting.
But he knows nothing, so never mind.
NotMax
@tobie
You may find of interest an article referenced here on July 2.
Platonailedit
Do magats play golf?
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Are covering for him or themselves?
SWMBO
Haven’t read the comments yet. About to go out the door for an appointment. I have a question for the hive mind. What was the point in meeting Putin face to face? I thought he called Putin almost as often as he called Hannity. If he could call (or Skype), what was the purpose in a face to face? Was it to elevate Putin over Kim Jung Un? Was it to hand off a thumb drive with intel or codes on it? What the actual hell was the real point of this? Trump got so much blow back from this and Putin got to smirk. Should we be looking at what the Republicans are doing while the magic show is playing (we should always be looking at what they are doing but…)? This doesn’t really make a lot of sense in some ways.
Gin & Tonic
@Patricia Kayden: He’s not being threatened with extradition. Maybe switch to the decaf this morning.
The lack of support for McFaul is worrying, but he’s not going to Moscow again in his lifetime.
danielx
NOTE: the front page article on the FNYT web site about Trump’s having been shown hard evidence of election manipulation has been pulled.
p.a.
@Gin & Tonic: Dence can explain it to him. Using pictures. Although there’s a chance someone sold Donnie the ‘original’ Last Supper once.
Leto
@Jeffro:
“”If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” – LBJ
I mean, this isn’t new and it’s been known for a long time. It’s nice that they have a semi-scientific term for it now? Bigger issue is, I don’t know how you reshape people’s thinking on the subject. How do you make people kinder? More compassionate? Idk. Continuing long-term project for humanity as a whole. I know I’ll never live to see it but I do hope one day we can get to a more Star Trek style of humanity.
Elizabelle
@danielx: Looks like the link is still good. Is this the story?
From the Start, Trump Has Muddied a Clear Message: Putin Interfered
Chyron HR
@Gin & Tonic:
He is 100% being threatened with extradition. Perhaps you meant to say, “They’re not actually going to extradite him to Russia,” in which case we’ll just have to see.
Gin & Tonic
@danielx: Still on the front page for me as of 0950 EDT. I just cleared cache and refreshed.
The Thin Black Duke
@SWMBO: Don’t overthink it. As I theorized in an earlier thread, Putin did it because he’s a thug, and thugs don’t do subtle. Putin wanted to show to the whole world that he owns Trump, and his arrogance made him miscalculate. Who’s going to play poker with a loudmouth punk that doesn’t care that you see the cards on his sleeve?
Kay
This made me laugh:
Gin & Tonic
@Chyron HR: No, he isn’t. The whole stupid “discussion” as I understand it was “you can send Mueller’s guys to Moscow to sit in while we pretend to interrogate the GRU guys, if we can send guys to the US to question McFaul.”
Of course, the response should have been “are you out of your motherfucking mind”, but that’s a different story.
Brachiator
What does “vulnerable to Putin” even mean? Was this translated from the original Russian?
And why is anyone baffled? Trump has been deferential to Putin for a long ass time.
NotMax
@The Thin Black Duke
“I don’t mind if a man has five aces. But when I know what I dealt him….”
– W.C. Fields
:)
zhena gogolia
@CCL:
Welcome and keep commenting!
I have no idea what goes through Trump’s head. I’m just certain he’s a creature of Putin.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Tell it, Sherrod. Love it.
rikyrah
John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) Tweeted:
as all this unfurls, remember:
2 years ago, current House GOP leader told colleagues, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump”
when they laughed, he added, “swear to God”
current House Speaker then said, “no leaks. this is how we know we’re a real family” https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1019922185908080640?s=17
Leto
@Platonailedit: That needs a “You may need brain bleach after viewing this” tag attached.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: God bless Sherrod. I take him at his word that he’s not running for president, but I wish he would.
as for Lieberman, the fact that he published that drivel in the Wall Street Flippin’ Journal suggests he’s not even that good at spiteful trolling anymore. His one redeeming quality was that he has AFAIK stayed pretty quiet since leaving the Senate.
Это курам на смех
@tobie: This has nothing to do with the trade war. The Chinese firms that have been processing much of our recycling stream for years are rejecting it because Americans do a piss-poor job of separating their recyclables and from keeping non-recyclable crap (i.e., garbage) out of it. This fact makes recovering useful materials uneconomical for both Chinese and other recycling processors.
The Dangerman
@rikyrah:
Civility!
schrodingers_cat
RWNJ talking point on social media if you question the Putin bear hug of the R party.
I am expecting GG and other LTT to flog it, if they haven’t done so already.
Kay
@Jeffro:
Democrats have know this forever, though. The really indestructible social programs aren’t means-tested, because you need wide benefits and wide buy-in. If Social Security was a poor people program it would be gone by now.
We have public pre-k here. It’s available to anyone in the district. The school is about 50% low income with 25% very low income- poor. It’s really popular, and part of the reason it’s popular is because middle and upper middle use it too. That helps with voting to fund it, because higher income people vote at higher rates than lower income people. It can be really dramatic- 40% turnout as opposed to 80% turnout. Extent some direct benefit to people in the middle and your program will be bulletproof :)
patrick II
Each person’s personal reality exists in their own mind. That is what is real to each of us, including Donald. More so with Donald. So, if in his mind he feels vulnerable for whatever reason (pee tape?) then he is in reality vulnerable. Stop trying to make excuses Maggie.
TS (the original)
@tobie:
She was having a self imposed week away from twitter – guess her orange faced WH source told her to start tweeting him some support.
gene108
@Jeffro:
Still gets back to race. I read something similar, where Europeans see a less fortunate countryman and think “but there for grace of God go I”, while Americans think the “black, Hispanic, etc. are lazy”.
Mike in DC
So, I see Israel has opted for the “apartheid state” option. That always goes well. Can we start adjusting our policy towards them after we take over again?
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
Were we going to war with Russia? Because Trump’s the only politician I’ve ever heard raise that, except for John McCain and he wants to go to war with everyone.
They said the same with NK. Trump couldn’t be criticized over NK because it was either Donald Trump or WAR. It’s ridiculous. It’s a made-up scenario. We have more choices than that. They’re only using it because the only think worse than Trump would be war. They have nothing else.
rikyrah
Trump admin waffles on standing up for Americans against Putin
Rachel Maddow reports on the Trump administration’s lack of any innate loyalty to Americans in its apparent consideration of handing Americans over to Vladimir Putin in a tit-for-tat ploy of false equivalency.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
Her “farewell” tweet said “With exception of breaking news and my own stories, taking a break from this platform.” The tweet in the O/P refers to one of her own bylined stories.
(Not defending her, just clarifying.)
Baud
This is funny.
https://i.redd.it/cokcyatv4wa11.jpg
rikyrah
Mueller adds counterespionage prosecutor to Butina case
Rachel Maddow reports the surprise addition of Deborah Curtis, a high ranking DoJ counterespionage prosecutor to the Mariia Butina case in which the government argued for the need to keep Butina in custody lest she flee.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: They’re all traitors. All of them. It has been so obvious for so long. Maddening sometimes that so many people refused to see it.
Baud
@Kay: It’s funny because if you tell them that they must support the NSA or they want the terrorists to win, they would go apeshit. They have become the monsters they tried to fight.
patrick II
I heard somewhere (probably NPR or MSNBC since that what I listen to) that the official transcript of the Trump/Putin left out the question and answer to Putin about whether he favored Trump (he did). Someone should sue over the records keeping act to have that put back in there. It is not a minor matter to make the record of what happened at Helsinki official fiction instead of record keeping.
There is a sense of creating a false reality for his followers that we have to live with, but should object to when the official record gets included in the right wing fantasy world.
rikyrah
Butina case raises questions on Russia’s role in Tillerson pick
Rachel Maddow highlights a portion of the charging document against accused Russian agent Mariia Butina in which there is a suggestion that Russians thought they had a say in Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of state.
rikyrah
McFaul ‘flabbergasted’ that White House would not defend him
Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador the Russia, talks with Rachel Maddow about the Trump administration’s apparent consideration of Vladimir Putin’s suggestion of blindly handing over American citizens for “questioning.”
Yarrow
@patrick II: Maggie’s connections to Trumpworld are woefully underreported.
rikyrah
Prosecuting foreign hackers carries benefits beyond a trial
David Hickton, former U.S. attorney who pioneered the tactic of indicting state actors for hacking, talks with Rachel Maddow about the value of indicting nation-state adversaries even if the chances for extradition are low.
burnspbesq
@Baud:
The fat lady is fully warmed up, in costume, and standing in the wings waiting for her cue. A hung jury is Manafort’s only hope.
Platonailedit
@Baud: Good one.
Amir Khalid
@Brachiator:
Whether you say “… he feels vulnerable to Putin” or “Putin is blackmailing him”, you’re still admitting that Putin basically controls Trump.
rikyrah
Expert: Russian hackers elusive but not untouchable
David Hickton, former U.S. attorney who pioneered the tactic of indicting state actors for hacking, talks with Rachel Maddow about how prosecutors are not powerless to address the threat of Russian hacking.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: My hunch would be that new or expanded SERVICES would be popular but that additional monetary aid would be controversial. Seeing someone else less fortunate than you using a service doesn’t make you feel your relative place or cue your feelings about relative deservingness. Knowing that the less-fortunate person is using other people’s money might. E.g. your town decides to improve a public park; generally non-poor people don’t want to bar poor people from the fixed-up park on the logic that they didn’t pay taxes to fix it.
Chyron HR
@Kay:
If sanctions aren’t lifted (or if the US is in any other way insufficiently solicitous to Putin), Russia will declare war. Therefore not giving Russia what they want means you want war. QED.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
I think a lot of us figured this since Trump and Tillerson had never crossed paths before and because of the longstanding relationship, personal and professional, between Tillerson and Putin.
Auntie Maxine calls it the Kremlin Klan and she is exactly right.
rp
@schrodingers_cat: Oh, they’ve been flogging it for a while. “How can you object to talking!” “Face to face meetings are a good thing!” “Liberals are hypocrites because they wanted Obama to talk to N.Korea and Iran!” “Russia is a nuclear superpower, so if we don’t talk to them we risk WWIII!”
The last one is an interesting tell, because people on the right like Jeanine Pirro are using it as well.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: That trope is as old as a nuclear-armed Soviet Union. If you’re not in favor of giving them everything they want, then obviously you’re in favor of nuclear war. It’s been trotted out by the USSR/RF and their fellow travelers for decades.
burnspbesq
@germy:
Defining moment, all right. Defines Israel as an apartheid state. Somewhere in Hell, P.W. Botha is smiling.
rikyrah
ICYMI:
The background on Spy Girl’s Sugar Daddy given to us by Silverman:
ewrunning
So Twitler’s tweeting this morning about meeting wirh Putin again. I have two suggestions for him. First, hold the second meeting in Moscow. Second, don’t bother to come back.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That’s why Bill Kristol told McConnell and Boehner they had to pull out all the stops to block health care reform in ’09, and they listened, especially McConnell. Specter, Snowe, Collins and Judd Gregg (the forgotten man in all the discussion of how McConnell fought Obama, IMHO) were all points of weakness in McConnell’s plan (just using the Senate because the players are easier to pinpoint), and they all caved, except Specter, and then Snowe, like Boehner after her, walked away from the mess she made with her reputation somehow in tact.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
Yep. He had never met the Secretary of Exxon, but makes him Secretary of State?
That never smelled right from the beginning. Of course, we were always in the SOMETHING AIN’T RIGHT chorus.
tobie
@NotMax: Interesting article! Thanks for the reference. I guess we should be washing what we put in the recycling bin, if China’s new rule is that recyclables can have no more than 0.5% impurities.
A Ghost To Most
@Haroldo:
Alternative ending.
Roger Moore
@Ian G.:
IMO, the blackmail aspect is highly overplayed. Yes, it’s very likely that the Russians have tons of blackmail material on Trump. There’s every indication he’s been laundering money for them for a long time, and that by itself is potent blackmail material. But everything I’ve read about the spy business says that blackmail is an unreliable way of keeping people in line. Nobody likes being blackmailed, so pushing the blackmail angle always gives the victim motivation to turn on you and try to cut a deal; after all, they now know enough about you to hope they can avoid some of the consequences from their other bad actions by changing sides.
Instead, it’s always better to try to develop an affinity with the person you’re suborning so they do things out of a desire to help you rather than fear of you. Each thing they do for you, and each thing you do for them in return, builds up a rapport and makes them more prone to help you again in the future. Basically, you want to win their loyalty rather than increase their fear. The fear is always there lurking under the surface, but you want to avoid resorting to it as much as possible.
If you look at Trump, it’s clear that he has a real affinity for authoritarian strongmen. It’s not just Putin; he also clearly admires Duerte, Erdogan, and even Kim. They represent his aspiration, and Putin has clearly won Trump’s loyalty, first by helping out his business and then by helping him win the presidency. Trump desperately wants to help Putin at least as much out of that loyalty as out of any fear.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: He is on the Russian payroll. $$$ motivate our current President more than anything else. He has been on their payroll for a long long time. P probably inherited him from Soviet bosses.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Doesn’t it feel like the non 27% crowd are finally starting to catch on to what we have known and sounding the alarm about for years now?
Enough of this information has been in the public domain that one had to work at not knowing. That is partly why I think we will find out that there are media outlets and journalists who are caught up in this conspiracy – aside from the obvious players like Hannity.
Leto
@Roger Moore: You’re also describing successful interrogation techniques. Building trust, rather than fear, compels people to talk/do what you ask.
FlipYrWhig
@Roger Moore: This sounds right to me. Trump doesn’t really understand what the president does. Trump also didn’t really understand what a businessman does. He just likes to bark orders and then find out later how someone else did something that made the order appear to pan out, because we know for damn sure he never hears about or keeps track of his bad decisions and failures. So he’s sort of role-playing an emperor or a kingpin; and AFAICT he has been since about 1978; and also AFAICT he has no idea that he’s playing at it because he thinks it works.
Platonailedit
@Roger Moore:
Trump loyalty is an oxymoron. The cowardly thug is just plain afraid of putin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and his fascination with strongmen, specifically Russians, pre-dates Putin. He was sucking up to Moscow in the 80s, IIRC, and praised the Chinese crackdown on Tiananmen protesters. I’m one who believes trump never really wanted or expected to win– not that he doesn’t love having the power and attention. He wanted to be an oligarch, a transnational global macher to whom rules and borders and laws didn’t apply.
As to blackmail. I don’t doubt they have dirt on him, and he knows it, and he does have that powerful instinct for self-preservation, but why threaten trump when it’s so easy and cheap and (I strongly suspect) amusing to simply flatter him, and watch him lap it up. One of the stories that gets underplayed is his undermining of May in favor of Johnson because BJ had “said nice things about me.” He think talks with NK, that have Pompeo screaming into his pillow, are going great because Kim sent him a “very nice” note. That word in trump’s mouth and mind fascinates me, “nice”. It reflects both the poverty of his intellect, and depths of his neediness. Be nice to me and I’m yours.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: True. The fact that provisions like elimination of preexisting conditions and expansion of eligibility to include college students apply to the entire insurance industry is the only reason the ACA survives, albeit in diminished form. Republicans know there will be a price for scrapping provisions that benefit the middle class. They may still completely kill the ACA, but they’d have done it 1/20/17 if not for those provisions.
schrodingers_cat
@Platonailedit: That is apparent from his obsequiousness.
Leto
@FlipYrWhig:
I’ve heard this described as being “an ideas person”. But I’ve also worked for a number of commanders who did this and it wasn’t the healthiest environment.
But that’s like every other RWNJ who’s swallowed the lie. You can see the grift for what it is, but they’re the true believers who’ve bought into it. Again, thank you Faux News.
TS (the original)
@ewrunning:
There HAS to be a reason that Putin is so important to him. Two bit dictator of a country with a lower economic rating that most of the NATO allies. Shame there is no longer a media to sort this out.
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Also fits with Adam’s Trump Doctrine theory: be nice to me, or else!
GeoBoy
@germy: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had advocated for the nation-state bill, hailed its passage and called it a “defining moment” in Israel’s history.” I’m sure it is, though not in the way he wishes.
oatler.
The Meathead speaks wisdom:
“We’re in a place right now where democracy is on very shaky ground, in America and all over the world, and the autocrats’ playbook is to sow confusion and insecurity and blame other people for everyone’s lot in life, and then the autocrat comes in and says: I alone can fix this. It happened in Britain with Brexit, and we know how that was funded, and it’s the same playbook with Trump,”
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/19/i-want-everyone-to-be-happy-how-rob-reiner-became-a-great-director-and-a-political-hero
SiubhanDuinne
@danielx:
Story’s still there, just under a more mealy-mouthed headline (currently “Shown Evidence of Meddling, Trump Still Raises Doubts”) than earlier.
rikyrah
Lucian Kim (@Lucian_Kim) Tweeted:
Breaking: In speech to Russian diplomats in Moscow, Putin says summit with Trump was “successful overall and led to useful agreements.” https://t.co/hK6K7CjBpf https://twitter.com/Lucian_Kim/status/1019903811018809344?s=17
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and NBC. Don’t underestimate the number of morons who thought The Apprentice was some kind of documentary about how “big business” works. “He’s a businessman, so he’ll know how to fix things.” That got Perot almost 20% of the vote and an intense if short-lived political cult of personality. Romney tried it, but couldn’t quite sell it for various reasons. You heard it again and again from trump voters, usually before or after some reference to “political correctness”, immigration or Merry Christmas.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Exactly. The thing that keeps Trump with the Russians isn’t fear; it’s that they’re giving him things he desperately wants. There’s money, of course, but also praise, what he perceives as respect, and the feeling that he’s a somebody. For somebody as pathologically needy as Trump, those psychic rewards are a huge thing. I assume this is also a big reason he likes summit talks and similar get togethers with world leaders; it reassures him that he’s somebody important and powerful.
Gelfling 545
@germy: It’s kind of worse if it’s all in his mind, isn’t it? Delusions are generally not seen as positive traits in high office.
Spanky
@schrodingers_cat:
“I believe it is peace for our time.” We tried that once, and not too long ago.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Sure would be nice to know what those agreements are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: I think it was at the NATO summit he was bragging to somebody that there were 6,000 cameras in Singapore, and there are only 1,000 at the Oscars. That’s how he views diplomacy, like the Oscars!, and that’s how he judges success.
I’d love to know who he said that to, his fellow authoritarian Erdogan, or Trudeau or Macron, whose youth and looks and good press drive him crazy
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
This is the reason they didn’t want any note takers around. It’s not necessarily that they were saying anything specific they didn’t want the rest of us to hear (though they probably were) as that it lets Putin make shit up after the fact and nobody can contradict him.
Kay
I don’t pretend to know a lot about foreign policy and I don’t have any particular love of “ambassadors” or “former ambassadors” but I don’t know how the low quality Trump hires sleep at night betraying those people like that. Just as former EMPLOYEES they deserved better treatment than Trump making some sleazy back room deal to turn them over to Putin.
EBT
@germy: It sounds more like a case of they already had an internal hire, but had to post the listing publicly for legal reasons.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think the one and only reason MEDICAID survives is it pays for so much middle class nursing home care. No one ever mentions that but it’s HUGE. Half the families in my practice would have their elderly relatives living with them if not for Medicaid.
I think of it in very practical terms. I literally picture it as a huge group of noisy and entitled middle class people standing in front of poor people, inadvertently protecting them.
I would be in the noisy and entitled group and happy to serve in my role, BTW! :)
That’s why Clinton was wrong about free college. If you want free college for poor people get some for middle class people and it’s bulletproof. When we pass a school levy it isn’t poor people who are voting for it- they’re the co-beneficiaries of middle class people voting their own self-interest.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
UH HUH
UH HUH
Princess
@rikyrah: Tillerson was recommended to Trump by Condoleeza Rice, so we were told. Condoleeza Rice was invited to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast, run by The Family and ground zero for the evangelical side of this story in 2003.
Also always worth remembering that Manafort basically kidnapped Trump to get him to choose Pence over Christie as VP.
rikyrah
@Kay:
SHOUT IT FOR THE BLEACHER SEATS.
The poster children for Medicaid should be Bill and Emily’s Grandma and Grandpa.
Not Shaniqua and Rosa Lita.
rikyrah
@Princess:
Never EVER forget that Manafort CHOSE PENCE.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: Although I do appreciate that he often has data insights like this one, I can’t forgive his willingness to elide working class status with being white.
Also, it has been my belief for some time that Corker, Rick Wilson et al. desperately want Mueller to do the dirty work of confronting Trump so they don’t have to change their essential political allegiance. In that vein, the increasing number of people who are publicly telling voters to vote for Democrats is a real sign. Not sure it’s enough.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
also a once and I believe current member of the board of Exxon
also Mr and Mrs Kushner, of the highly leveraged Kushner family, were part of that scheme, and were also big boosters of Mike Flynn
the part of me that hates Chris Christie finds that story hilarious, the part of me that wants to know who did what with, and who got what from, and also hates Lucrezia and the Son trump Wishes He’d Had, Russia finds it infuriating.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: Yes. I am hopeful we will discover the ties and reason, and get Pence out of office ahead of, or simultaneous to, Trump. Cannot have President Pence.
Hell, even red state Indiana got sick of him. He was un re-electable.
Wouldn’t it be something if we found our threads for unraveling Pence out of whatever Manafort spills, as part of a deal or as trial transcript.
Kay
I find this weirdly comforting because the thing about this spy operation is how rinky dink and ridiculous it is. They dressed this woman up like an NRA loony and on that ALONE she managed to get inside of the Republican Party.
It isn’t that the Russians were so devious and brilliant. It’s that Republicans are corrupt and moronic fraudsters. They’ll buy ANYTHING. Her first question out of the gate was “will you lift sanctions?” I mean, Jesus. It wasn’t subtle! You basically had a flashing sign over her head “I’m working for Putin”.
So. The interference won’t be at all hard to beat. We just need slightly higher quality people at the top. A smidge less dumb and/or venal and it wouldn’t have worked.
Princess
@rikyrah: I think we know exactly why now. I never quite understood that.
feebog
@Roger Moore:
That does not work in this case. Trumpov can’t cut a deal because he knows he has committed treasonous acts that will mean prison for the rest of his life. Trumpov has painted himself into a corner and Mueller is waiting for the paint to dry. IMO we are going to learn the Trump organization is underwater financially and he has borrowed millions from Russian sources that have never been fully repaid. Putin owns him financially, and Trumpov is desperate to keep that undisclosed.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Thomas Edsall. Le sigh. Long time at the Broder Post before heading to the Mags Haberman and Pinch show Vichy Times.
Elizabelle
@feebog: That’s what I think. It’s financial.
rikyrah
For months, Republicans offered Trump an escape hatch: Just admit Russian interference happened, and we won’t ask too many questions.
But the news that Trump was briefed on Putin’s involvement 18 months ago renders that position unsustainable.
My post:https://t.co/BbwC3BrC8s
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) July 19, 2018
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Princess: dumb and/or compromised enough to play along. Again, I despise Christie, but it at the very least seems that the Russians didn’t want him around, and it seems like– as opposed to Giuliani, Gingrich and a few others– he seems to back off of trump the more that’s revealed about what actually went on in 2016. I can’t remember the last time he tried to offer free legal advice, AKA begged for a White House job, through the TeeVee. Wasn’t he briefly an MSNBC contributor? I watch more than I like to admit to myself, and I haven’t seen him in a while.
Kay
@rikyrah:
The ripple effects would be huge. Take every middle class family with a elderly relative dependent on Medicaid. Now pass that cost on to the family. They’re busted. Immediately. They were barely staying above water as it is. Add that and they go under.
It’s not like they’d have a choice, either. Someone has to either provide the care or pay someone to provide the care. They’re not putting their relatives out on an ice floe. It’s actually scary to think about because people have to work, so really fragile elderly would be home alone all day. Medicaid is propping up the middle class RIGHT NOW. It’s this invisible girder but if it went…wow. They drop like a stone.
If I were a Democrat pushing Medicaid solvency I wouldn’t pose with kids – I’d hang out in nursing homes on a Sunday afternoon. The REAL Medicaid beneficiaries will be showing up around noon, to visit grandma.
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Don’t ever forget that Christie put Jared’s father in prison. I’m sure Javanka never forget it.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I think you’re missing a key point: she wasn’t their first Russian contact. She was able to get in as easily as she was because there had been other Russian operatives there before preparing the way. Russian infiltration of the NRA and other conservative groups goes way back to the early days of Putin’s rule.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: Bingo. My wife and I have done OK for ourselves, but when my FIL spent a year in a rehab facility before passing away a couple of months ago, that would have really hurt without Medicaid.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gin & Tonic: I’d bet that was how Manafort (and maybe others) drew them in. But like his FIL, I think Jared would be very easily manipulated. Where the Beast wants to be a player on the global stage, I think Jared wants to be known as a power behind the throne. I imagine a lot of condescending remarks and knowing chuckles about trump over brandy and cigars, because Jared understands the old man needs to be managed and, well, really isn’t one of us, is he?
MomSense
@feebog:
It’s never just blackmail with the mob though. Yes you get into a financial relationship. Yes you may be blackmailed. You may not like it but you aren’t going to turn on the mob without the real threat of violence hanging over you and your family. I don’t think we can count out that there is mob involvement in this situation.
MomSense
@Kay:
In addition to Medicaid, there is also the reality that the people who are feeding, clothing, bathing, and wiping peepaw’s ass are mostly recent immigrants. Having spent a lot of time in hospitals and rehab facilities (also nursing homes) lately, the trump GOP immigration and de-naturalization policies are going to affect seniors in nursing homes and drive the costs even higher.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: No, he isn’t.
I wanted to circle back to this because I remember reading an article about this:
So far, I can say the following,” Putin explained, referring to Russia providing cooperation to Mueller. “We have an existing agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, an existing treaty that dates back to 1999. The mutual assistance on criminal cases.” This treaty, he noted, is “in full effect” and “works quite efficiently.” Perhaps, Putin suggested, Mueller could use this treaty to submit an extradition request for the Russian intelligence officers that the Justice Department indicted last week for interfering in the election.
There would be “another condition,” however, Putin added. “This kind of effort should be mutual one. Then we would expect that the Americans would reciprocate.”
https://apple.news/Aut1tR_uaRkKZxgcLnL1Fvg
Putin’s “Incredible Offer” to Trump Is Even Worse Than We Feared – Vanity Fair
Putin is 100% talking about extraditing McFaul, Browder, and anyone else they can think of who they want to “question”. He’s not talking about Mueller going over and talking with Russians, and vice versa. Extradition under treaty. He said it. The fact that Trumpov and Huckabeast have not 100% unequivocally said “No! Never! Not going to happen!” Should send shudders down the spine of every US gov employee, including the military (Code of Conduct Art V). I no longer have faith that my government will come for me. I no longer have faith that my government will try to get me back in the event I fall into enemy hands. This is now my reality.
rikyrah
@Kay:
UH HUH
UH HUH
Told you…there ARE no six degrees of separation in Russia to Putin.
ALL.ROADS.LEAD.TO.PUTIN.
Leto
@Leto: and the html features failed, and there’s still no edit. I hope people get the gist.
ChowderHead
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Not doubting you, but please send link. It would be useful ammo.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Oh Kay!
BWA HA AH HA AH HA HA HA AHH A
Gelfling 545
@Kay: Ha! My thought on reading of Lieberman’s advice was “Who cares what he thinks?”.
schrodingers_cat
@Leto: Don’t worry the generals will protect us.//
Elizabelle
@ChowderHead: Here’s the link.
NY Times: From the Start, Trump Has Muddied a Clear Message: Putin Interfered
If the NY Times wanted to be more accurate, they could have said: Trump Was Informed Putin Interfered in Elections Well Before Inauguration
Mike in NC
Putin has so much dirt on the Trump crime cartel that he can ask for literally anything and it will happen.
Princess
@Kay: I feel like bankrupting the middle class by ending Medicaid would be a feature, not a bug to these people. I think they want all of us impoverished so we’ll be willing to work for nothing in a degraded environment and count ourselves lucky to have a job.
Teddys Person
@tobie: She testing out opening sentences for the book she’s writing on Trump.
rikyrah
The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) Tweeted:
Umm, guys…
Robert Mueller just submitted his list of evidence for the Paul Manafort trial and look whose name is all over the first 30 items.
Tad Devine.
Bernie Sanders’ Chief Strategist. https://t.co/EmFMp7dTVB https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1019970082812940289?s=17
Leto
@schrodingers_cat: I have faith that my fellow airmen will come for me. But if I’m captured and then moved somewhere? Held by a hostile foreign government/group? Even under GWB, I never had a doubt that my government would come for me. Now?
noncarborundum
@Baud: Funny but it givez me a sad anyway. How far we’ve fallen, and in how short a time.
schrodingers_cat
@Leto: It was more in reference to the T admin triad of generals that was going to protect us, supposedly, from the excesses of the Orange.
rikyrah
BWA HA HA HA HAH A HA HA
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@rikyrah: I lol’d when I saw that.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Whataboutism* of Rose Twitter is going to tend to infinity now.
* Time honored Soviet technique.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@rikyrah: I lol’d even harder after I saw that one, and then I said “Ewwww”
Leto
@schrodingers_cat: oh, I know! It wasn’t lost, I was tracking ya.
rikyrah
This BYTCH Here ? ?
Tess Owen (@misstessowen) Tweeted:
When asked about Trump’s comment that there were “fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville, Sec. Nielsen seemingly doubled down. “it’s not that one side was right and one side was wrong” #AspenSecurity https://twitter.com/misstessowen/status/1019974244711784453?s=17
germy
Teddys Person
@rikyrah: Not so much thought they had a say but actually did have a say in picking Tillerson
Teddys Person
@Yarrow: Yes! I just learned a few days ago that she’s buddies with Roger Stone.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
“Hysterical reaction”
I’d hardly call that more honest
Kathleen
@MomSense: I stopped reading BJ at that time for several months. I knew Snowald was actively seeking to undermine the black guy because black and all. Remember how media never vetted Snowald script and slobbered all over them just like they do Sanders, whom they also never vetted? Is there a pattern here? Why yes I believe there is.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: DING DING DING!! I can’t *wait* for *that* nugget of information to sink in with my friends who were all pooh-poohing my concern about Russian ratfucking just a few short days/weeks ago. You know…my Bernie-fluffing “Democrats are corrupt TOO” leftie friends. Heads are gonna ‘splode for sure!
germy
https://www.ozy.com/politics-and-power/2020s-shadow-democratic-primary-comes-to-ozy-fest/88019
This weekend in Central Park, NYC
rikyrah
@Miss Bianca:
When it’s all said and done…HILLARY will be only one who is clean.
J R in WV
@kindness:
When you divide the total votes for trump, 62,984,828 by the population of the US, 318,558,162, you get 0.197718456, or under 19.77%… now that’s not voting population, which seemed harder to find numbers for demographically.
But everyone doesn’t vote, even those registered to vote don’t all vote. I’m not good at recalling volumes of numbers, but remember, Hillary Clinton won the election by nearly 3 million votes. I would be very surprised if more than 27% of our population voted for Trumpette.
Teddys Person
This rabid defense of Trump only makes Republicans look so, so guilty of something. During the primary, they could have painted him as a RINO pretty easily, but no one did. The excuse that no one thought Trump would win is looking pretty flimsy now.
Edit: No one wanted him to win (excpet Putin), but they all look so scared of him.
rikyrah
Of course he always knew
Fair Economist
@tobie: For two decades our plastic trash was shipped to China, where poorly paid workers cherrypicked over it for valuable items, and the rest was dumped unsafely. China is no longer allowing that and the trash has piled up to storage limits. It has always mostly ended up in landfill as much plastic cannot be recycled at all and in general the supply vastly exceeds possible uses.
Gelfling 545
@Kay: It’s not as if Trump even has any notion of whom the guy is, in all likelihood.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Well lookie here.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: @rikyrah: I guess I didn’t even have to wait a day.
Fair Economist
@rikyrah: Yeah, we have all been suspecting Devine for years. Now the question is whether Bernie is complicit or a useful idiot.
I am relieved Mueller actually found something on Devine. At least that snake will be gone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a small thing, but you know this is just the sort of Jon Meecham/David Brooks/VSP crowd whose respect someone like Nielsen is so desperate for
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
Of course there’s mob involvement. The Russian government is functionally indistinguishable from the Russian mob. Putin is the capo di tutti capi, and he has all the resources of a nuclear-armed state at his disposal.
Teddys Person
I want out of this timeline:
Source and Video: Crooks and Liars
Teddys Person
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Elizabelle
@Fair Economist: I’m not sad to see Tad Devine or Bernie embroiled in this. I think they’re both dirty. Saint Bernard never released his tax returns.
And how nice for our media betters. They can say “both sides” all they want, even if it turns out to be 94% to 6%. Innumerate, they iz.
But best to clean house. If some Democrats go down, so it goes. We are better off without them. FWIW WRT Bernie: a lot of his ideas about economic fairness and the evils of income inequality are spot on, but he’s not the only one making that case. Hillary had lots to say about that too; she just got tuned out. Also, Elizabeth Warren, Robert Kuttner, Paul Krugman — all kinds of shrill people, most of whom are NOT likely to be embroiled in any influence scandal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and, you know, Putin said it, four days ago, out loud, on television, also, too,
is she the most pathetic since Spicey? I mean, there’s the Mooch, but he didn’t think anyone but trump was taking him seriously
Teddys Person
@Elizabelle:
I agree, but it will piss me off that the media will use Bernie as the poster child corrupt Democrat caught up in this mess and make no mention that until (and after) his presidential bid, he was/is an Independent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the dignity bonfire continues
The Thin Black Duke
@Kathleen: Chris Rock once said, “There isn’t a white man alive who would switch places with me and I’m rich.” When I first heard that brutal observation I thought Chris was wrong, but I was mistaken. The white people who support bigots like Snowden, Greenwald, Assange, Trump, the GOP and Putin have their eyes on the prize, and the prize is White Supremacy.
The Other Chuck
@Elizabelle:
In fact, since “economic inequality” is the only response he has in response to everything from racism to toenail fungus, he’s doing a hell of a job in diluting that message. People like Warren have the same message, but are actually trying to do something about it.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: Ah…with regard to this Manafort-Devine connection suddenly being drawn for us…you were saying? ; )
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
The NY Times is owned and operated by people willing to fluff leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Putin and Trump. They hire reporters who are willing to write the stories the operators want to see published. I’m not sure if it’s blackmail, financial pressure, just the family way of doing “journalism” or what.
The NYTimes is half owned by a silent partner – a Mexican billionaire named Carlos Slim. Given the political and financial economy of Mexico, I wouldn’t be surprised if Senor Slim was influenced by drug cartel money and foreign oligarchs. How silent he really is with regard to the NY Times we can’t know.
The same is true of many other mass media companies. They are owned by oligarchs who feel immune to pressure and publish as they wish. The Washington Post was bought by the richest man in the world and turned loose on the actual DC swamp, so far. Which is why Trump hates Amazon. That could change in a 30 minute phone call. Some people might resign, but jobs are hard to come by in that business right now.
H.E.Wolf
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
fewer but better Republicans.
Fair Economist
@Elizabelle: It is not just “best” to clean house, it is essential. Just think how fucked we are if the 2020 race is Trump vs. a compromised Bernie (or any other compromised Dem).
Gelfling 545
@Elizabelle: I hope so because I really don’t want to hear reporters drooling over Trump’s dodering and disgusting sexual exploits.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Hey, houses on Block Island are expensive.
The Ancient Randonneur
@rikyrah:
I wonder if Devine is one the five people the Mueller team requested immunity for? That would be an interesting turn of events.
tobie
@Elizabelle: I’ve always thought that the split in the party is not between progressives and moderates. This is Sanders’ framing because it suits his movement best. The real distinction is between pragmatic and ideological liberals. That’s where the fighting is happening. No one is trying to model the party after Heidi Heitkamp or Joe Manchin. We tolerate conservadems because that’s the best we can get in red states.
Miss Bianca
@The Ancient Randonneur: I would be willing to wager a (very) modest sum on this possibility, even tho’ I am not a gambling type of gal.
I’d be even more willing to wager if Adam came in and backed up that speculation. Then I’d consider it a sure thing. ; )
The Ancient Randonneur
@tobie: This. One of the biggest issues I have with the ideologues is that they generally have few people with leadership skills. They get plenty of points for style and inspiring messages but almost none for leadership. Absent that skill set you end up with back benchers like Bernie.
I am a firm believer in ‘Lead, follow, or get out of the way’. That’s why I am a Nancy Pelosi fanboy. She a fucking leader and I respect that.
Elizabelle
Adam has a fresh thread up. More Russians. More se x ytime. Paid for, of course.
@tobie: Great way to put it. Pragmatic v ideological.
@The Ancient Randonneur: This Nancy Pelosi fangrrrl is waving at you.
Gelfling 545
@Fair Economist: My bet is useful idiot. He has never been exactly a political powerhouse and had not had to really campaign in ages. He also shares some traits with Trump; not in his world view at all but perhaps his opinion of his importance in that world. His vanity was appealed to and that was that.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Miss Bianca:
I suspect Mr. Devine and his long-standing relationship with Manafort put that wager in the ‘little danger of not going your way’ category. But, whatever the case may be I hope this ends Tad’s political career with all Democrats. He’s a snake.
Jay
@J R in WV:
As I have posted before, Treason Tribble Трамп got just over 23% of the electorate vote. Those who were registered to vote are counted as the electorate. The “eligible” vote in the US is a harder thing to figure out than most countries, because of you know, “reasons”.
In most democracies, a neutral body of the State, registers you to vote, as soon as you come of age.
Miss Bianca
@The Ancient Randonneur: Personally, I hope it ends with our being able to bring ALL the receipts to the BernieBots and saying, “Fucking A, look at this. Turns out that ‘Crooked Hillary’ ran the ONLY CLEAN CAMPAIGN.”
God damn…I hate being able to say, “looks like the Russians know Americans better than we know ourselves.” : (
TenguPhule
@ewrunning:
Trump at the meeting: “Why is my toupee ticking?”
Kathleen
@The Thin Black Duke: This.
Matt McIrvin
@Jay: Automatic voter registration is coming, state by state. Georgia is the one that surprises me there. I think Massachusetts has a bill in progress.
Chris Johnson
@Fair Economist: That’d suggest that Joe Lieberman, Al Gore, and John Kerry are also Russia tainted, assuming Devine has been working for the Russians the whole time. Lord knows Lieberman got up to some shit.
Gore was Global Warming guy and terrible at campaigning.
Kerry completely failed. I don’t remember if he cared about anything but he was terrible at campaigning.
Sanders was Evil Billionaires guy and terrible at campaigning.
I think I see a pattern arise: Tad Devine wanted nothing more than to glom on to a politician who’s obsessed with their pet issue and no good at campaigning, and all those guys lost or fucked everything up. I think Devine’s a useful idiot specialist.
This does not mean I think climate change doesn’t exist, or that billionaires aren’t fucking the whole world up and ruining everything: I passionately believe both these issues are urgent and catastrophic. FUNNY THING though, how Devine’s influence managed to deliver enormous setbacks to every single issue that his bosses cared about. Isn’t that a funny coincidence?
schrodingers_cat
Dead thread, deleted