CNN says it has a source who has described Trump’s responses to two of the questions the Mueller team sent in lieu of the interview President Chickenshit Von Bonespurs refused to sit for:
President Donald Trump told special counsel Robert Mueller in writing that Roger Stone did not tell him about WikiLeaks, nor was he told about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his son, campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
One source described the President’s answers without providing any direct quotes and said the President made clear he was answering to the best of his recollection.
I don’t believe for a nanosecond that Stone would withhold such a bombshell from Trump or that Jr. would take a crap without his heinous father’s permission. So, it sounds like the orange fart cloud is betting that Stone and Don Jr. won’t rat him out, even if the feds can charge them with felonies to apply pressure to turn them.
Manhattan Mussolini’s bet seems solid to me. Stone is a partisan fanatic who has Richard Nixon’s face tattooed on his ass, and Don Jr. is a pathetic, chinless nonentity whose only source of self esteem seems to be his horrible father’s approval. As henchmen go, those two seem about as all-in as it gets, despite being a pair of coddled twits.
So, the question is, is there other evidence that contradicts these claims, evidence that wouldn’t require testimony from Stone or Jr.? Since super-genius Paul Manafort was unknowingly storing evidence of his dirty deeds in iCloud, maybe. Or maybe Trump lied in response to some other question Mueller put to him, one that can be contradicted by evidence or the testimony of less reliable toadies.
One thing we know for sure, though — Trump lied to Mueller. It was inevitable. He lies all the time. Perhaps we’ll eventually see a grilling in which various permutations of the phrase “I can’t recall” get employed over and over. At least Trump is practiced at that from his Trump U fraud testimony.
TenguPhule
The problem with Trump pleading that he’s too stupid to be capable of committing the crime is that a jury might believe him.
Roger Moore
Shorter Trump: it isn’t perjury if I had my fingers crossed.
TenguPhule
There is no crisis Trump and his minions will not exploit to cause greater damage.
MattF
@TenguPhule: No, no. Stable genius. Never lies. Not obese.
JPL
Since he has been president, Trump has not faced any consequences to his actions, and I assume that will continue. When the democrats control the house, he’ll just ignore their requests.
Corner Stone
Of course Trump lied to Mueller. But these two specific examples are the weakest of sauce. Hopefully there’s something closer to, “Trump with the cheeseburger in the Mar A Lago throne room”.
Mnemosyne
What I keep seeing from various lawyers and law-adjacent people on Twitter is that a smart prosecutor never asks a question he doesn’t already know the answer to, and Mueller seems to be a very, very smart prosecutor. Betting that you can stonewall a guy who has access to the FISA warrant process seems like a suicidal gamble to me, but I’m not a traitor to my country. ?♀️
Corner Stone
Because nothing screams “management” like removing all review, regulations and oversight. Clearcutting, anyone?
TenguPhule
Mexico isn’t happy either.
different-church-lady
My goodness. This is certain to cause… brows to furrow in concern on Capitol Hill.
TenguPhule
@JPL:
Sooner or later his head is going up on a pike. Ideally, through a court of law, but I’m finding myself less picky with each passing day.
jl
News says that The Rudes’ opening public PR campaign gambit is a ‘don’t recall’ non-denial denial, rather than a damned lie.
That is not a handling the situation strongly or bigly. Which, for the cause of justice, is a good sign.
Corner Stone
@JPL:
I sometimes see people reply with, “Well his party took a whupping in the midterms as a direct rebuke to his actions.” But with members of the Freedumb Caucus throwing sand in every gear possible it’s not like they were knocking down bowling pins every week. I look forward to D Congressional oversight but am pretty sure all requests will be ignored, refused and ultimately litigated.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
At this point all of the guilty parties have no choice but through if they want to stay alive and in one piece.
Jeffro
Looking forward to:
– “it’s okay to lie to Mueller because he is an angry, conflicted, Dem”
– “it’s okay that Trumpov lied, there was nothing wrong with seeking dirt/hacked emails/colluding with a hostile foreign power about the timing of releasing the emails”
– “everyone knows Trumpov lies, nobody cares, no harm done”
– “at least Killarree isn’t president”
from basically every wingnut in existence
HEY MEDIA, JUST ASK THE RWNJS (from Trumpov on down) ONE. SIMPLE. QUESTION: “Would it be okay if – while under investigation by the Special Counsel’s office for conspiracy against the United States, in concert with a hostile foreign power – Hillary Clinton lied to the Special Counsel?” And if not, why not?
That’s it and that’s all. Just ask that, please.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
The Hoarse Whisperer has an interesting thread on what he thinks the next phase of Trump’s narcissistic meltdown will be. Here’s a link to the Threadreader version so you don’t have to scroll through all of the tweets:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1067800768701521920.html
Short version: for a narcissist, the worst possible moment is the one where they realize that you never believed their bullshit and had their number all along. That is the realization that Donnie is about to have, regardless of how much the Republicans try to protect him.
West of the Rockies
I don’t think Trump will be incarcerated.
He will, however, grow ever less attractive, witty, charming, and important. He will become a bloated, pathetic aged loser and will know it. His power, even in his own family, will diminish. It will be an ugly way to die.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Libertarian paradise.
Ridnik Chrome
Perhaps the most fitting memorial to Nixon that could possibly exist.
TenguPhule
@West of the Rockies:
And how could we tell the difference from him now?
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Your unceasing optimism about Donald Trump’s cognitive functions never ceases to amaze me.
oldgold
Donny, Jr. made a call immediately after the Russian Trump Tower meeting to a blocked telephone number. If Mueller knows this was a call to Donny, Sr., it would be compelling, if not dispositive evidence.
jl
@Ridnik Chrome: It’s hard to put a tattoo on the very asshole itself. So, when you think about, probably the best gesture of slavish worship humanly possible.
Mnemosyne
@Jeffro:
Oh, I’m already seeing alleged “leftists” (most of whom are probably Russian bots) blaming Hillary for the CBP tear-gassing children. After all, if she hadn’t overthrown the government of Honduras and let them murder a prominent activist, Hondurans wouldn’t have so many problems!
Of course, she was no longer Secretary of State at that point, but facts never seem to slow down that particular lie.
The Moar You Know
Here’s why I suspect Muellermas is going to be a huge letdown: what is the penalty? He won’t be removed from office. The Senate will make certain of that.
Hell, if I did all this shit I’m not sure I’d facing much more than a perjury charge. Perhaps conspiracy. Yeah, it’s federal, but I’m white with no priors, I plea out and maybe get two years of piss testing and probation.
I’d love to see this election-stealing motherfucker given the business on live TV, but I’m not seeing anything coming out of Mueller’s investigations that’s going to get this orange son of a bitch hauled out in handcuffs.
Hopefully they’re going through his taxes. It still won’t get him out of office but it might lead to jail time afterwards. I dunno. I don’t really give a shit what Mueller does at this point. He can’t help us. We’re going to have to get Trump out of office and turn the Senate ourselves, and that was always the case. We have a good start to build on.
NotMax
“I was just the candidate. Nobody told me nuthin’.”
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
“I also drank a lot of coffee to keep my weight down.”
JPL
@Mnemosyne: After writing that comment maybe I should just change my nym to eeyore. Truthfully it sometimes feels like we are so close to ridding ourselves of the menace and then the rug is pulled out.
jl
@The Moar You Know: I agree with the last part of your comment. Weakening Trump and the Trumpsters in the near term is by far the most important goal. More important than strict justice for any individual. The wheels of justice can grind very slowly for any given individual, and we just have to accept that in a democracy with due process.
There has been a debate within the Dems on whether turning out their base with bold policy, or persuading misguided but salvageable GOP voters is more important in driving these criminals out of power. The midterms indicate that both are important, and the trick is to be able to do both, while still providing good honest policy proposals. Info from the Mueller investigation will help with both by revealing what a miserable fraud and liar Trump truly is.
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know: I don’t think he’ll be impeached or jailed either, which is a damned shame. But I do hope we at least find out what happened in the 2016 election, the extent of the collusion, the quid pro quo, how deep the knowledge of / participation in all these treacherous and corrupt actions goes within the Republican Party, etc. That’s valuable all by itself. We deserve to know the truth. I am not confident we’ll ever get it, but I still have hope that we will. In either case, you are correct about who has to remove this rot — us, the voters, that’s who.
The Moar You Know
@Mnemosyne: I went to high school with one, back in the eighties. We baited him into a situation where it was shown to everyone that he was full of shit and had been lying to everybody, in public.
He fractured a guy’s cheekbone and sent two other of my classmates to the hospital. Scrawny fucker. Didn’t think he could throw a punch. Probably never had before then. If he had a gun he would have killed every student in the hallway. Five of us had to ride his ass down and hold him down until the cops showed up – and the cops did have to show up because he couldn’t be let up without cuffs.
I learned something valuable about narcissists and pathological liars that day: don’t out their bullshit in public. It’s fucking dangerous.
ETA: if Trump is indeed about to have a moment where he gets pantsed in public, I hope SOMEBODY has the military on lockdown because he will do something horrific. As in “dead people as a result” horrific.
Corner Stone
@The Moar You Know:
I think that’s the best we can have hope for. The public finds out about his taxes, his deals, his funding. Some will just shrug, or not spend any time trying to parse through it. But hopefully an enterprising state AG or three decides the Trump kids deserve the two minute motherfucker.
randy khan
I think there are very good odds that Donald, Jr. (I can’t remember, is he the smart son or is it the other one?) was stupid enough to put something in writing, either via email or text (heck, possibly even in a Facebook private message, unless he actually is the smart one) indicating he’d talked to his Dad. (You know, like “Dad says we should go ahead.”)
Gin & Tonic
@The Moar You Know:
I’m so old I can remember when one of the country’s leading newspapers spent over a year researching a 14,000(?) word story outlining chapter and verse of Trump’s and his family’s tax fraud.
trollhattan
Border Patrol not necessarily hiring the best.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: That thread contains a great explanation of how an utterly shameless person is still vulnerable to shaming, which is a tough concept to explain.
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know:
That’s my big fear too.
TenguPhule
@jl:
Sorry, disagree. If Trump and McConnell and the whole rat’s nest of traitors are not held accountable, Democracy and Rule of Law are meaningless and nothing matters anymore. Might as well burn it all down. There is no more “look forward not back.” They have to pay the price or we have to admit our society is unfixably broken.
Corner Stone
@jl:
IMO, the midterms showed us that the D’s did a good job of talking to people’s fears. Healthcare, jobs, education, etc. The R’s only campaigned on adding more fear to their lives. In the abstract, voters want a check on power but I think the focus was primarily elsewhere. We also, finally, ran good candidates for their districts. Which helps, apparently.
Adam L Silverman
@Ridnik Chrome: @jl: The Nixon tattoo is actually between Stone’s shoulder blades.
Corner Stone
Mattis enjoying a death struggle wrestling match with the Dignity Wraith. He told reporters there is “No smoking gun” connecting MBS to the Kashoggi murder.
Jeffro
@Mnemosyne:
That figures. My RWNJ dad didn’t believe me when I told him there were plenty of other RWNJs who believe Clinton was president on 9/11 and/or that W had “kept us safe from terrorism”.
different-church-lady
@Adam L Silverman: Then again, so is his asshole.
jl
@TenguPhule: Strict justice of that kind, for individuals, will have to wait until GOP completely stripped of power. As happened in California during the midterms. We savaged GOP representation in the House, and went 7 for 7 in targeted state legislature seats, returning Dems super majorities in both state houses. Which means that the GOP can do exactly not one damn thing in state government.
After that, then I agree with you, public has to push back hard to any Democrat who wants to forgive and forget without serious accountability. Should be easily understood by now that is a dangerous course, since the white collar criminal conspiracy that is known as the national GOP will just take as a chance to go further faster and more furiously next time they gain power.
After that, I think whether Trump or Mcconnell have to spend jail time, or have to live in permanent hiding to avoid shouts of ‘shame!’ and ‘criminal!’.is less important. And if he can finally hire some competent flunkies, Trump should be able to escape to permanent exile in Russia, Israel, or Sauid Arabia and escape justice that way. They show more loyalty to their previously useful flunkies than Trump himself does.
Librarian
Stone, Cohen, Manafort, Don Jr., etc., are “not the most dependable of God’s creatures,” as Spencer Tracy said to Robert Ryan in Bad Day at Black Rock.
trnc
@TenguPhule: “We have to manage our forests,” said Zinke on a visit to the charred remains of Paradise while pushing for exactly zero management of said forests.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ll resurrect a Joan Riverish joke that maybe it started there but he’s had so many tucks Nixon is now between the butt cheeks.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: But Stone is all ass, from top to bottom, front to back, so in this case, your point, while technically correct, is an irrelevant detail and collectively nonsense. (Because I want to include all rotating heads in the comments sooner or later).
germy
Trump has indicated there’s a possibility he’ll pardon Manafort?
Timurid
@TenguPhule:
Events like this really disturb me… outside observers who aren’t total fools are still placing their bets on Team Trump to win and cover.
A Ghost To Most
@Ridnik Chrome: actually, on his back, but ass makes for better jokes.
Frankensteinbeck
@Timurid:
The outside observer in question has no skin in the game and is leaving office wildly unpopular, partly for catering to Trump. It appears to truly be just a middle fingers to the voters that voted him out.
jl
@germy: Why should the mafia boss ‘take that off the table’ (as Trump hisself put it).
Seems like a dollar short and a day late. I heard news that the Trump-Manfort defense collaboration was very active after Manafort signed the plea deal. Which seems odd, given the adversarial nature of our justice system.
Might delay strict justice for individuals, but evidence of such dishonesty and ruthless bad faith more damanging to Trumpsters politically, which I think is the most important thing.
Trump should have pardoned several of these people from the get-go, in the unjust cause of saving his own ass, but he is a chickenshit cowardly bully,
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Yep. You can’t shame a person like that based on what you or society expects him or her to do. You can only shame them by exposing their bad actions to daylight.
And, yes, Trump is going to lash out violently when he realizes that he’s just been exposed for what he really is. It’s going to get very ugly because Republicans have already made it clear that they are sticking with him to the bitter end and will resist any and all oversight of him. There will be (even more) blood on Mitch McConnell’s hands, but that soulless ghoul doesn’t care. All we can really do is prepare for the worst and be ready to step up to repair the damage.
The Dangerman
Mueller has a spot on his Muellermas Tree to hang Jr.’s or Sr.’s balls (if Sr.’s, the garnishing of icicles might look familiar to Stormy) ; if Jr. wants to take the fall for Dear Ol’ Dad, well, maybe he’ll get a nicer cut in the Will.
feebog
As long as McConnell is in charge Trumpov is not going to be convicted in the Senate, no matter what crimes Mueller reports to the congress. But, I think there are still voters in that 38% approval bloc that will drop off if Mueller comes up with clear and convincing evidence of collusion with the Russians. So, Trump enters the 2020 election cycle in the low to mid-30s. And then the recession hits.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Rationally, I know Trump will, at best, disappear into obscurity like Nixon did. Emotionally, I want him wearing an orange jumpsuit with a prison haircut. Ivanka too.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@germy: Can’t. Mueller included guilty pleas in California, Virginia and Jersey, apparently. Trump can’t wave state charges away.
Mike in DC
@The Moar You Know: Technically speaking the statute of limitations on federal crimes committed in 2016 doesn’t run until 2021. If Mueller has him on Russia conspiracy and obstruction, just make sure that the evidence is all preserved and hand it to career prosecutors after Trump leaves office, if he loses in 2020 . Even a self pardon is not guaranteed to make him immune.
rikyrah
BWA HA HA HA HA H AH HA HA HA
And, Bobby Three Sticks knew that he was lying….
Tee hee hee
Kay
Ah, the Kavanaugh bump. Remember that? Women would look at their sons and daughters and then they would ruthlessly throw their daughters under the bus in favor of their sons. They would have to choose.
Or, that was the theory. About women.
LuciaMia
And what I actually HAVE heard apologists say “Its just Trump being Trump.”
Ian G.
@Mnemosyne:
He’s already in that phase, hence his even more deranged than normal tweeting, like the retweets of crazy racist uncle memes about locking everyone up.
EriktheRed
“President Chickenshit Von Bonespurs”
That one’s going right up on the shelf next to “The Tangerine Troll”.
Betty Cracker
@jl: That was the exact logic behind my literary license. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a photo of Stone’s tat, so I know it’s technically on his back, but since he’s all ass, it’s also on his ass!
jl
@Kay:
” Kavanaugh bump”
I’d prefer to not see that turn of phrase again.
” Remember that? Women would look at their sons and daughters and then they would ruthlessly throw their daughters under the bus in favor of their sons. They would have to choose. ”
I haven’t thought of it that way. Put that way, one sees how stupid the GOP has become.
And actually, argument could be made that you lose both the son and the daughter. Or maybe mothers look forward to their sons appearing on TV in front of the whole country, acting like an angry drunk, talking like an angry drunk, and yearningly searching Senators for validation that drinking alcohol to black out is a normal weekly activity? I dunno. I am not a mother, so maybe not for me to judge.
Omnes Omnibus
Corsi has ordered his lawyers to sue Mueller for pros misconduct.
Another Scott
@West of the Rockies: We’ve already seen that picture. Yeah, he doesn’t have Dorian Gray’s painter to help him out…
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker:
Sorry you had to see that Betty.
jl
@jl: Anyway, point being that much of Kavaaugh’s behavior and testimony during his confirmation hearing was repellent and disgusting to a large segment of the population seems to be lost on the GOP bigshots.
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
If you’re not a millionaire, you’re dreaming. You’d be in the hole for a good long time.
John Revolta
@feebog: Frankly I think the Turtle would stick the shiv in Trump’s ribs and enjoy it, the minute that the polls told him it was safe to do so.
lumpkin
@TenguPhule:
>>>Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, said that he hoped new legislation would allow for the “thinning” of forests to help prevent wildfires.<<<
Yep, more disaster capitalism. Logging companies don't like to thin forests. It reduces their profit. They only like to clear cut and leave an environmental disaster behind. Zinke knows this and I'm sure that any legislation that he and other gops push will be clear cutting thinly disguised as thinning.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Corner Stone:
Except that’s not how Dumbass Donny’s mind works; for Trump it’s the House Republicans who screwed up the election after Trump’s brilliant campaigning. Consequences to Trump is someone beating Trump with a belt.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Jeffro: I saw a twitter link to an interview with a MAGAT where the reporter asked him “why do you think Obama wasn’t in the Oval Office on 9/11” and the MAGAT actually said “I don’t know, but I would like someone to investigate that and find out”. No shit.
jl
@lumpkin: Not nearly enough marketable timber in the Camp or Woolsey Fire areas for that to make any difference or work as any kind of deal. So would have to work a deal where they would thin and harvest in two areas a hundred miles apart. This scam has been tried in the Central Sierra where there is enough marketable timber and that scam has done nothing except produce easy profits for timber companies, while doing very little to solve fire threat.
Edit: and yes, the BS about why what was supposed to be thinning looks a lot like a clear cut would be hilarious, except for the damage done.
What could be ‘thinned’ is a certain private for-profit public utility that cannot seem to maintain its power lines, and is suspected of starting two deadly and catastrophic fires in two consecutive years in Northern California.
Immanetize
@lumpkin: Zinke’s tell was the “construct roads” part — this is what clear cutters mostly fight for — the right to create roads to get to heartwood forests so they can clear cut old growth and haul it off efficiently.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: As you know, the marketable timber in the Woolsey Fire area is zero, as it was before the fire.
rikyrah
@lumpkin:
He’ll have to get it passed through both houses in the next, what, 12 days. No way that a Democratically held House passes that shyt.
Roger Moore
@feebog:
I’ll go back to what I’ve always said about this: make him protect Trump. If there’s convincing evidence of impeachable offenses, draw up the articles of impeachment, pass them, and force McConnell to deal with them. Put Trump’s crimes on the news every day and then let the Republicans excuse them if that’s what they want to do. We can’t stop them, but the voters can let them know what they think in 2020.
Frankensteinbeck
@John Revolta:
I’m not sure I agree with this. Absolutely McConnell doesn’t like Trump and has no personal loyalty to him. What McConnell has is a fanatical partisan loyalty to Republican/White power, and an asshole desire to piss off libs as hot and pure and focused as a blowtorch.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: But a talented photographer like yourself can strategically take a few shots in sheltered bends in river canyons that make it look different.
Corner Stone
@jl:
Hmmm. That sounds vaguely familiar but I’m having a hard time placing it. By any chance does it rhyme with Pee Gee Und Eee?
The Moar You Know
@geg6: Like I said, two years of piss testing and probation. Given some of the legal talent I’ve got access to, possibly less.
Corner Stone
If Ghouliani did not exist some amazingly bad romantic novel fiction writer would have to invent him.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
And no one ever seemed to be able to say why they assume that all men are rapists, so therefore every mother knows she has to cover up her son(s) crimes. That’s a super creepy view of men, to say the least.
Ridnik Chrome
@Adam L Silverman: I knew it was too good to be true. Speaking of Tricky Dick, I seem to remember that when he got a postage stamp several years ago, someone created a sticker of prison bars that fit perfectly over the stamp.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: Thank you.
I cannot tolerate the defeatism here.
ETA: responding to your comment, here:
John Revolta
@Frankensteinbeck: Pissing off the libs is fun, sure, but it’s a side benefit. What counts is The Agenda, and as soon as Trump becomes a threat to that, out he goes.
Nobody likes Trump,* and the better you know him the more you want to shiv him.
*The Deplorables don’t like Trump, they like a fictional character based on him. Same way they like “Jack Ryan” or “Jolly Old St. Nicholas”.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
So you’re saying he shits out of his upper back?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I have a feeling that was difficult for you to type through your manic giggles.
randy khan
@John Revolta:
I don’t know whether he would enjoy it, if only because I’m not sure I’d credit him with that much human feeling, but I agree that it’s safe to say that McConnell would turn on Trump in a second if he thought it was necessary to maintain power. That’s more or less what I’ve been saying since the Mueller investigation began – the Republicans will be with Trump until it hurts them badly enough to stick with him, at which point they will pivot hard. That point may not come, but if it does, it will be really quick.
Litlebritdifrnt
@trnc: The one thing I love about my quaint little country is that we have things called TPO’s (Tree Protection Order or Tree Preservation Order) where certain trees cannot be felled for any reason. Recently there was an utter outcry in our city because some idiot counsel worker was told to fix the pavement beneath a tree (the tree roots were pushing up the pavement) and he “solved” the problem by cutting down the tree. The counsel went mad trying to apologize and eventually just admitted “sorry Joe Bloggs fucked up” and they planted a replacement tree. Trees are precious over here and I like that.
trollhattan
@jl:
PG&E are in deep shit and this judge is taking prisoners..
Time spent with the satellite image of the Camp Fire ignition point area shows transmission lines–two sets–crossing over the little town of Pulga, which itself is wooded while the power right of way before and after are clear. It’s a decent bet the fire ignited at the town itself.
It’s also obvious the fire’s path between Pulga and Paradise is not unbroken forest but rather stands of trees, brush and quite a few large bare areas. Had the town thinned their tree cover (and raked!) a lot less of it would have burned.
This area is nothing like the western Sierra Slopes one sees at 5k feet. There, timber management should consist of thinning small and dead trees, then intermittent proscribed burns, while leaving well-spaced mature, fire-resistant trees. Since that’s not profitable, good luck. In the meantime, rake!
Frankensteinbeck
@John Revolta:
The Agenda is sadism and white supremacy, and that it supports plutocrats is a side benefit. I cannot sufficiently stress this. Look at what happened when Obama became president. Look at the Stimulus. McConnell could have made it a gold mine for oligarchs, and Obama would have been fine with it as long as it helped everyone else. But McConnell lost his shit at the idea of ever having a black man be his boss, and swore publicly to burn the nation to the ground rather than let black people have it.
jl
@Corner Stone: I don’t want the blog to be sued so I use the impenetrable pseudonym ‘Peculation Greed and Explosion’. Could be anybody.
Anyway, there is hard evidence that a certain public utility knew a certain power line was failing for a full day before the Camp fire started and did jackshit nothing about it.
I am very cynical about the topic. I fell in with a group of power line workers while hiking a few years ago. They were able to explain in some detail how things that the power companies say are just impossible to do are actually fairly easy to do, you just need to be willing to plan, spend enough money on equipment and personnel, and put in the effort. But, hey, that might shave one percent (not percentage point, but percent) off the profit, so it just turns out to be impossible. Unless, say, a judge threatens to send an exec to jail if he don’t get cracking on obeying the law. Then things happen quick fast, like a miracle, really (that example was about killing birds in the Pacific NW, but the same idea).
Mandalay
“One of the great memories of all time!”
Ridnik Chrome
Tried to edit a comment and it got marked as spam and deleted. Weirdly enough, this has been happening to me on Gothamist, too.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
He’s not reacting to shame the way normal people do. Nor for the same reason. You and I have shame about something we did wrong. Nothing in his life is a reaction like that. He reacts to anything that makes him look bad, from his screwed up perspective. There isn’t actually a right or wrong in his world, there is only what makes him look bad, full stop. Everything radiates from that perspective.
jl
@trollhattan: The mayor, or maybe owner, (Pulga may be almost entirely on one privately owned lot) was notified by the utility a day before the fire started that power line was malfunctioning and sparking (note: sparking in that area and weather is a very bad thing) and they would attend to it. But nothing happened. And I think you are correct that the Pulga area was a very bad place for the fire to start. I heard the recording from the observation helicopter sent out to investigate after the first reports of the fire. I think it was less than an hour after the fire started. The observer said it was going to be real bad, and Pulga and surrounding areas needed to be evacuated immediately.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Isn’t Roger all ass though?
trollhattan
@Immanetize:
Unless the rules have changed, US Forest Service timber sales includes the feds (a.k.a. us) paying for all road building. In return, the timber companies do the cutting, hauling and selling then supposedly compensate the government with royalties on the sales. During the Reagan-Watt-Gorsuch megacut, audits showed only timber sales in mature forests in the Pacific Northwest made money, all others were a net cost to the treasury.
In a similar vein, the fee for cattle grazing on federal land is less than two bucks a month per head or cow with calf, a minuscule fraction of the market price. The myth of the Old West never goes away.
Martin
@The Moar You Know:
Yep. That’s why I think Trump will be carried out of the WH. Personality disorders aren’t someone just being a dick, they’re someone who has a distorted psyche that causes them to act like a dick. But they believe they are acting normal. Noble even. When you force them out of that space, you’re literally breaking how they see themselves as a person and it often goes very badly. It’s incumbent on the people around them to help ease that process, but everyone around Trump including his kids are too busy sniffing his ass to care about whether he destroys himself.
His entire life he was sufficiently unimportant and wealthy to avoid this reckoning, now he’s in a situation where there will at some point be a true accounting. He’s doing sufficient damage to the country due to an overwhelming lack of oversight and internal control that I see no alternative but to break him.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ruckus:
That is common in conservatives. I refer to it as the difference between guilt (internally feeling wrong) and shame (painful external disapproval). In general, conservatives are vulnerable to the latter, and feel the former little if at all. One of the things we’re seeing is a backlash because a large section of the country is burningly angry that they’ve been scared by shame from so much of the cruelty and bigotry they want to do.
Martin
@jl: It would be far cheaper to bury all of the high voltage lines in fire prone areas than it’s costing us in even one of these major blazes. The CA legislature needs to make it a law. Name it after Paradise.
germy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-leadership-elections-pelosi-seeks-to-shore-up-votes-for-speaker/2018/11/28/c9b2abf0-f30e-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html?utm_term=.b93972d99e47
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Larry Klayman, legal genius!
jl
@germy: But news says they were all OK with Hoyer, who is by far the most corporate friendly of the top Dem leadership. I find that interesting. This time the push against Pelosi from the right seems bigger and more frantic than before. I have to wonder why, and am curious about the details of deal Pelosi made with the progressives, and is there something about that scared or angered the piss out of the corporate big boys. And also seems to be split among big individual donors, some of whom put out a letter in support of Pelosi.
One thing I can think of would be Pelosi saying she’d be fine with bigger push for grass roots small donor campaigns, in hopes that progressives could continue their success on that front. Anyone have a link I’ll read it gladly.
Frankensteinbeck
@germy:
Last time it was… 62 that voted against her in the leadership vote? 65? And then, having registered their token objection to having a woman run things, they fell in line on the Speaker vote.
jl
@Frankensteinbeck: Thanks for info. I forgot that the corporate righties got more symbolic votes last time.That is reassuring. More PR froth from corporate attacks on Pelosi, less success.
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Adam L Silverman
@geg6: See my comment at 107.
Immanentize
@Frankensteinbeck:
Also, reports are Pelosi and team may have been urging some Dems to vote against her in caucus to keep their campaign promise. It seems people were photoi g their votes which is a big no no in caucus, but again allowed so some new members could prove they voted against her.
I think Nancy SMASH has this well in hand
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: Popcorn futures looking bright.
geg6
@geg6:
Oh Christ, and the lawyer is Klayman? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
feebog
@Roger Moore:
That’s what it is going to come to, because there are not 20 Republican Senators who will vote to convict should the House impeach. But you are right, there are at least some Republicans and conservative Independents who would turn against Trump if Mueller has the goods.
Gin & Tonic
@jl:
I don’t. He has a dick, she doesn’t. Simple.
piratedan
I’m not exactly sure just what the ultimate gifts of Muellermas might actually be… I think that the main reason that this has been so tediously slow are two-fold….
1) Mueller is a meticulous SOB and with THIS particular administration and the current configuration of the Senate and the House, it behooves him to have proof beyond reproach before releasing anything in this current political and media environment… after all, if the Media is wired for the GOP (as we’ve seen from CNN, MSNBC, Faux, Sinclair and the FNYT), any investigation into their doings is going to be gleaned for portents and trends that could undermine the investigation as a whole and lets be real, while the environment is a target rich one for corruption and venality, it doesn’t mean that performing as such isn’t throwing this country into a waltz of constitutional crisis. While we would like to see it sped up into a rumba (or even a foxtrot), this is not something that bodes well to be done without the consideration of all of the possible repercussions of its findings nor a tight grip on what is released, how it is framed and what it actually means….
2) I think that this started with Obstruction (bad enough in and of itself) and has spread into emoluments violations, violations of illegal finance, voter suppression and even treason. The parties that took part involve not only this administration, but GOP leadership, private entities/dark money fronts, key components of the media empires of both the NYT and Faux and they are solidly entrenched in their positions and bringing them to justice is going to be a very long slog judicially and even so, we may see some extremely curious interpretations of the law be presented as the light is shined on the cockroaches themselves. It may very well extend into the judiciary itself and I think that the Mueller investigation is also aware of this and is doing their best to ensure that when the facts are presented, the public pressure brought to bear will keep in mind the crimes that were committed against the country itself, showing the self-serving motivation that invited the betrayal.
I think its going to be long and slow as the onion is peeled away and I hope that we’re ready for the fundamental change that this country is going to have to submit to in order to aspire to be the nation that many of us want us to be.
Immanentize
@trollhattan: I’m pretty sure the Obama administration restricted road building in a number of national parks and forrests…. I remember howling
catclub
@JPL:
Why not. It worked for Dick Cheney.
jl
@Immanentize: Given the puzzling behavior of the suckers and suckees in this attempted revolt against Pelosi, it is hard to figure out what is going on, even who is the sucker and suckee.
The Ryan/Mouton faction came off as such demonstrably feckless and incompetent do-nothing know-nothing dolts, it seems like they weren’t putting much effort into even the appearance of being serous about anything real, or concerned about the damage done to any of their future efforts, which should be greeted in the future with howls of laughter.
My uninformed hunch it was never very serious, less serious than the previous effort. Maybe the Ryan/Moulton faction decided to play the corporate interests for easy money, and didn’t care that they would look like idiots in front of the whole country, and anger their constituents. I’d like to know what was really going on. The public story is not really plausible, unless these guys are true dolts.
trollhattan
@Martin:
If it looks a little something like this, then I approve!
Roger Moore
@John Revolta:
It’s not the polls McTurtle is worried about. His problem is that he’s in up to the top of his shell in Trump’s treason, so any serious investigation is likely to wind up with him in deep trouble, too.
Mandalay
A dumb question about Manafort since IANAL: If he gets prison time for both federal and state crimes, and Trump does not pardon him, what would happen? Would Manafort serve his federal sentence first, and then the moment he was free he would start serving his state sentence(s)?
jl
It goes back to the old saying, half of success is showing up. Or half of leadership, or getting the job, is showing up. The anti-Pelosi revolutionists didn’t even bother to show up, besides pulling a lot of stupid PR stunts. Big letters, big statement of big principles, big talk interviews. But that is all they ever did.
Edit: but stupid PR stunts, right after an election, might be a very low cost low effort way of pulling in easy donor money and commitments for more later.
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
Maybe part of expanding the national monuments that Trump and Zinke have since stripped away?
dww44
@feebog: I know I’m dreaming, but I’m counting on Trump not being on the ballot in 2020.
debbie
@JPL:
He’s suffered the worst consequence possible: He is not universally beloved. //
notoriousJRT
@West of the Rockies: He will become a bloated, pathetic aged loser and will know it.
I guess its the “will know it” part that has not already long-ago occurred?
catclub
@geg6: I agree. Martha Stewart went away for a good long time for lying to the FBI. And I assume she could afford very good lawyers.
jl
@dww44: The GOP is far down the road of purging anyone or any group that could support a viable alternative. It would take a mass of lunatics and craven cowards to go on such a march towards destruction and insanity and over such an electoral cliff, but if that is all that is left in the party…And gifters who think they can jump to safety at the last second.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
What the hell kind of Ph.D is Corsi anyway?
Roger Moore
@feebog:
My big hope is that they won’t just turn against Trump but also against Republicans who vote to protect him. The big goal is to open some of those people’s eyes to what the Republican party has become; impeaching Trump is just a means to that end.
Citizen Alan
@Kay:
Which my older sister did. She is far more concerned about the possibility of someone falsely accusing her two adult sons of sexual assault than the fact that her daughter has just started college and will spend the next four years ducking creeps who will try to spike her drink at frat parties.
germy
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@West of the Rockies:
That’s why I am predicting Trump will go Full Downfall, complete with a Hitler in the Bunker style rant about how America proved itself unworthy of Donald Trump and history will show Trump the most awesome president ever, except on twitter ending in Trump forcing this children to kill themselves before Trump ODs on sleeping pills.
The text of Trump’s terminal twitter rampage will be enshrined on the walls of the Library of Congress by the next Republican congress.
danielx
@West of the Rockies:
Will become?
moops
There will be no big reckoning for Trump during the course of his administration. Everything that he might be charged with will occur at the end of his term. Then the Senate will not have to be called on to impeach him. He can just be charged with several crimes committed before and during his presidency. The GOP can safely throw him under the bus at that point. The base will fume, but what can they do about it? vote Dem? Trump will fall down the memory hole while he muddles through his legal cases. The GOP’s complicity in his crimes might pick off one or two guilty parties. They might charge some GOP pols with a coverup or taking illegal campaign funds. Most likely this will hit the cast of GOP pols that were a bit too eager to retire away from the scene of the crime. Again, the GOP will be fine tossing them under the bus as well. Session’s recusal was likely because of knowledge of actual crimes, he might get charged. GOP will be fine with that, he’s an unemployed former pol. The narrative will be there is Trump and his stooges, and then the GOP, as if they are different groups.
cckids
@dww44:
At this point, I want him to be on the ballot. And I want him to get his ass handed to him. I want him to take that title away from Mondale or Dukakis. A humiliating, devastating show making it clear forever that he is a L.O.S.E.R
Please.
danielx
Love how I can always tell a BC post without even reading the byline.
Emma
@TenguPhule: Jesus H. Christ. So even if the people rise en masse and turn this country into a bright blue democracy, if Trump isn’t sent to jail we should just set the Constitution on fire and become a Mad Max society?
Aleta
Aleta
Fair Economist
@germy: There are expected to be 200 or so Republicsns in the House so if all of the nos and blank ballots vote Present Pelosi is Speaker once more.
I expect Pelosi will have as many of the supposed anti-Pelosi freshmen vote Present in the official vote to avoid pressure on them in 2020. But she will still be Speaker.
schrodingers_cat
Its not just the MSM minions who insist the Rs win no matter what, we have a fair share of commenters here that assert the same thing.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah. Personally, although I am discouraged at times, I am NOT down with the eeyores. Learned helplessness has never been my bag.
danielx
@Adam L Silverman:
Back in the day there was an episode of the John Larroquette show where one of the cast is reading John Hemingway’s (Laroquette’s character) autobiography and gasps “did you really draw a picture of Richard Nixon on your butt?”
Laroquette, at his smarmiest, responds: “it wasn’t that hard”.
Death Panel Truck
@Adam L Silverman: Or, as Ed Brayton calls him at Dispatches From The Culture Wars: “Larry Klayman, the dumbest lawyer in America not named Mat Staver.”
Redshift
@jl:
“Big statement of principles” is being generous. One of the reasons you could tell this dumb palace coup was doomed early on is that they couldn’t even articulate what they wanted, other than “something different.”
Dev Null
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Assuming that this replay of Hitler-in-the-bunker doesn’t involve the Russian Army reducing DC and NYC block by block, what’s not to like?
And nukes, too, of course.
Gravenstone
@debbie: There’s a reason PhD is occasionally known as ‘Piled higher Deeper’ referring to the depth of bullshit contained in the bearer of the title.
TenguPhule
@Emma:
If none of the crooks are held accountable they will come right back and do it again, only more extreme. We won’t have a blue democracy, we’ll be STUCK with a banana republic embroiled in a Forever Civil War.
Line has to be drawn as to where civilization stands.
jl
@Redshift: Yes, I was generous. One group did put out a statement saying that they were doing this because of ‘principles’. So I gave credit to them on the basis of being able to make a contentless bare assertion. Another group had strong principles in favor of doing bipartisan deals with the GOP because that was a principle of some kind, and they knew that was the most important thing that the country wanted.
@Dev Null: I just thought that if Trump saw money in the idea of a Trump Network, he might like that. There was a theory that was his real reason for running: lose and then go start a scam money machine Trump News Network. He could be the voice crying out in the wilderness about the US going loser, sad, a dump, a real mess, low energy. Maybe he could rev up that plan.
Sister Golden Bear
@Redshift:
Fixed it for you…
“One of the reasons you could tell this dumb palace coup was doomed early on is that they couldn’t even articulate what they wanted, other than
“something different.”someone without a vaj.”Gelfling 545
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, with his head stuck up his….ahem, it’s hard to tell.
chris
@debbie: @Gravenstone: via the wiki, Corsi got his Ph.D. in Political Science (!) from…. Harvard (!!!) in 1972. Funny because I was sure it would be something out of a Cracker Jack box.
West of the Rockies
OT, but has anyone seen the Dick Cheney bio-pic trailer yet? It played at Bohemian Rhapsody yesterday. Cheney comes across as all-too “cool” and not nearly villainous enough.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@chris: Considering some of the graduates from Harvard University that I’ve seen in the news recently, I’ve begun to question the level of scholarship that goes on at that place.
Gelfling 545
@debbie: Bovine excrement?
chris
Sigh.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I have been thinking the same thing. Harvard is giving Harvard a bad name.
SenyorDave
@jl: I always believed that TrumpTV was his long-term plan once Ailes came on board. Lose in a close race, claim foul, and then start signing up the chumps (he probably could have made it a pay channel – 10 million people at $5 month, that’s a quick $600 million per year before the get rich quick schemes and conspiracy books). With a Republican House and Senate having 100% Hillary hearings, I think he would have had a money printing press.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
I would agree, to a point. Shitgibblon is a few steps beyond his most of his followers.
VeniceRiley
There’s already enough evidence in the public domain to jail the lot of these criminals, end plenty enough to impeach trump. The Senate is signaling that Mitch’s McStrategy is to ignore it all and get through 2020.
I want to cry at what they’re doing AND they’ve done to the country and the world.
Aren’t there some white preacher megachurches in the south that we can buy off to flip blue in a few states?
Mary G
@Aleta: Wow! I’ve been bitching about our helping MBS prove he has a big dick by bombing little people back to the Stone Age in Yemen for more than two years. I’ve written to Feinstein, Harris, and even Darrell Issa many, many times. I’m sure Khashoggi’s family would rather him still be alive, but at least his death has put a spotlight on the many crimes of the baby dictator, so people can’t ignore them any more. Murphy is one of the very few politicians who’s advocated for this, and it pisses me off that somehow Bernie Sanders, who has been as apathetic and willfully ignorant of any of them, managed to get his name on the bill that is finally voted yes.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
That complaint should be good for laughs.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@chris: Well, if you can’t trust Fucker Carlson, who can ya trust? Certainly not those scientists, they’re only in it for the unlimited grant money.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
Traitors ALL ??
?BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq: Almost as good as Fox v. Franken.
Emma
@TenguPhule: no. IF we get a hold of all branches of government, we engage of major reorganization, from the top down, beginning with elections and election finances. We pass senator professor Warren’s economic bill(s). And we strip the bastards down to their last $10 million. That’s a generous amount for a family to live on. Every “penalty” goes into a special fund to finance healthcare and education.
I don’t give a rip if they spend time in jail. I want them to not ever have enough money to buy themselves a street sweeper, much less a senator.
Immanentize
@chris: @?BillinGlendaleCA:
the saying g goes: The second hardest thing in the world is to get into Harvard. The hardest thing is to fail out of Harvard. Unless you are a legacy, then forget number one.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: I agree, but all they’ve actually done is move forward with a debate on the bill. But it is progress. I think it’s a R message to Trump and they won’t actually vote for the bill. Their feathers are ruffled because Trump disrespected them.
chris
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah, I know right, but really, the EPA? How fucking sad is that?
Elizabelle
@Emma: I like your thinking.
TenguPhule
@Emma:
And then they come back or the people they’ve taught come back eventually. And we go through this all over again. And next time, we lose.
No. This is not a movie series and I’m not interested in starring in an even worse sequel because “Good was Dumb”.
ljdramone
@Ridnik Chrome: Unfortunately, Roger Stone’s Nixon tat is actually on his upper back.
Emma
@TenguPhule: and how do we send them to jail if half the judiciary is already stacked with conservatives? Do we create a temporary dictatorship and pray our designated executioners relinquish power when we say “pretty please?” This is not going to be solved by sending billionaires to country club jails!
Chris Johnson
@jl:
Stop. trying. to. get. Republican. votes.
Yikes. YIKES. Nope.
Dev Null
@chris:
a football school.
Hosting Niall Fergusson, Defender of the British Empire (and white folk’s burden more generally):
from wiki.
TenguPhule
@Emma:
What makes you think those judges aren’t going to be part of the group standing trial?
Dev Null
@Gravenstone:
I resent this!
[paws that refreshes]
On behalf of Dr. Adam, needless to say.
(sorry, tickled my sense of the absurd. Not intending disrespect to Adam or any other holders of the ticket, other than Jerome Corsi.)
Emma
@TenguPhule: because being a conservative isn’t a crime, and not every conservative is a Russian stooge. In short, being an arsewipe is not an indictable offense.
Mnemosyne
@chris:
That’s at least three years before women started being admitted to Harvard on an equal basis.
Just pointing out that the special snowflake never had to compete on a level playing field. Being a WASP with a peni$ was more important than intelligence or scholarship.
Darkrose
@jl: Yeah, funny how PG&E’s role in all of this is never mentioned by the Maladministration.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
Wife’s cousin was a PhD at Harvard, in Byzantine mosaics. So not impressed by Corsi’s PhD in Poly Sci at all. Just not at all~!!!~
Bill Arnold
@chris:
A goodly number of climate change impact analysis papers[0]) are framed with RCP4.5/RCP8.5. This is a tell that they’re utterly unfamiliar with the literature, or lawyers lying, or both. (RCP8.5 is essentially business-as-usual.)
[0] e.g. Deadly heat waves projected in the densely populated agricultural regions of South Asia (pdf: August 2, 2017) (html: via phys.org)
“Previous work has shown that a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C can be considered an upper limit on
human survivability. On the basis of an ensemble of high-resolution climate change simulations, we project that
extremes of wet-bulb temperature in South Asia are likely to approach and, in a few locations, exceed this critical
threshold by the late 21st century under the business-as-usual scenario of future greenhouse gas emissions.”
Steve in the ATL
@J R in WV: well that certainly sounds practical!
Steve in DUVAL!!!