Michael Cohen, Pres Trump’s former personal attorney, reaches new plea deal with Mueller this morning. Expected to enter guilty plea for false statements to Congress coupled with dozens of hours of testimony potentially damaging to Pres Trump–Special Counsel values testimony.
— GeorgeStephanopoulos (@GStephanopoulos) November 29, 2018
Let’s see what else shakes loose today and tomorrow.
Update 1 Here is the information that Cohen is pleading guilty to (hosted by Lawfare)
cain
Funny how Congress doesn’t mind they have been lied to.
rikyrah
Paulie Walnuts…Corsi…Assange…Spy Girl…now Cohen…
good week
p.a.
Costanza redux: It’s not a lie if you believe it.
Dev Null
good times indeed!
Gin & Tonic
To add to the lulz, a douchebag named Randy Credico, a minor planet in the orbit of Roger Stone, got drunk and went on the Twitter machine last night. Since he’s deleted the tweets and maybe his account, here’s a screen cap for your entertainment.
NotMax
Wonder if the archivists of each chamber possess the authority to go back and put asterisks and appropriate notations in the records in such cases.
rikyrah
Her family is also strong anti-gay
She is a fraud
Tulsi Gabbard was pro-Russia bombing Syrian villagers
She is not progressive, she is a charlatan. https://t.co/IOHlabT7cb
— ??????? ???????? ⚡️ (@Patrickesque) November 28, 2018
Yarrow
LOLOLOL. Wonder if Trump got a heads up about this happening and that’s why he left the Christmas tree lighting ceremony early, looking like he’d crapped his pants?
@Gin & Tonic: The meltdown of all of these traitors is delicious to watch.
dmsilev
Tick…Tick….Tick….
Dev Null
Anyone else having problems with stackpathcdn?
I’ve been seeing wait times of multiple seconds for at least the past 12 hours (ie, since I first noticed), and possibly longer.
Jerzy Russian
Nothing to see here, fellow citizens. Who among us hasn’t had their long-time personal attorney involved a variety of shady and/or questionable deals? Besides, he was trapped into perjury by being asked questions under oath. This is all normal.
I am trying to learn to speak Stupid. I often ask for translations from Stupid here, so I figured I should just go ahead and learn it myself. How am I doing so far?
OzarkHillbilly
@Jerzy Russian: You’ve got a long way to go before you reach the level of a trumpista.
Dev Null
@Jerzy Russian:
Personally, I think you should throw in references to Crooked Hillary and “17 Angry Dems” and a brief note that Javanka’s private email server is nothing at all like Crooked Hillary’s classified emails …
… but that’s a matter of personal taste, I s’pose.
Patricia Kayden
@dmsilev: The shoes keep a dropping. Trump sure knows the best people.
Elizabelle
And Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt raided today. Allegedly for the Panama Papers. And what else?
Love that it happens the morning all the “elites” are heading to Argentina for the G-20.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Jerzy Russian
@Gin & Tonic:
You mean an ASSteroid, based on the orbital properties and location.
Chyron HR
@rikyrah:
Progressive is whatever Bernie “white working class lives are what REALLY matter” Sanders says it is.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: The man who moves a mountain starts with a single stone.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: Can’t figure out why Argentina. Isn’t their GDP less than New Jersey’s these days?
Elizabelle
I think we’ve hit the beginning of the end. I speak of the Deutsche Bank raid. It’s got huge possibilities, even if the stated purpose is the Panama Papers.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: (1) I guess they need the business. (2) Has been used before as retirement locale for last century’s Nazis. Check out the weather and culture, boys.
Jerzy Russian
@Dev Null:
17 Angry Dems? I had not heard that one before, although lately my memory is such that I can hide my own Easter eggs. Maybe I should try another language Navajo? That probably be easier to learn.
Yarrow
I remember awhile ago The Hoarse Whisperer on Twitter, who seems to understand how narcissists work and how it affects those around them, had a thread talking about Cohen. He said that once the spell breaks, those who were under the spell of the narcissist often can’t believe what the narcissist got them to do. And they’re angry.
He felt Cohen was a perfect example of that because you could sort of watch the meltdown happen. First all the denials from Cohen, then the begging and pleading to Trump to help him, then the threats, and yet Trump never stepped in to help Cohen. So at some point the spell broke and Cohen was ready to turn on Trump. The HW felt at that point Cohen was incredibly dangerous to Trump because he’d want to make Trump pay.
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA AH HA HA
JPL
@Elizabelle: I hope you are right, because the republicans in the Senate will only impeach if trumps polls fall tremendously.
Elizabelle
@JPL: Those Republicans, many of whom are millionaires themselves, and answer only to millionaires and up?
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
rikyrah
Once again,
I will ask that a FrontPager take on the topic of the sadistic sexual predator in Florida, his sweetheart deal, and the current Secretary of Labor.
It’s a repulsive story..will make your skin crawl…
Check the Miami Herald Twitter feed.
Jerzy Russian
@OzarkHillbilly: I do need my brain for my current work, such as it is.
On a serious note, I have always had a hard time moving from the “knows a few words” stage to being the actually functional stage. This I am envious of all of the multi-lingual people out there.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Their courts will take jurisdiction over matters outside of their borders.
ETA: never mind, thought you were asking about something else.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: It is truly disgusting. It’s a big enough story the Today Show did a segment on it today.
Two horrible sexual predator stories in the news today: that one and another Les Moonves story. Rich, powerful men are not to be trusted.
SFAW
@JPL:
That’s a Necessary condition, but not a Sufficient one.
However, I have a feeling that the 27-percent rule does not apply to Shitgibbon — I figure there are 35-plus percent of hardcore racists and/or morons in this country. The 27-percent rule only relates to the insane, irrespective of their racism, fascism, moronitude, or assholishness.
I’ll be giving a lecture on this topic at More (a/k/a Morse) Science High School, it’s scheduled for 2/29/19.
Tony J
@Patricia Kayden:
I haven’t heard this many shoes dropping since the last night of Riverdance
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Can’t move quickly enough, though. Unfortunately.
SFAW
@Yarrow:
Not even Cole?
different-church-lady
@Yarrow: Yes: for me the very moment I figured out I was under a spell felt like a key had just turned in a lock, and in that instant I was free of it forever.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
So, although “Tick tock, motherfuckers” will never get old, I speculated a couple of days that maybe the sense of anticipation was getting beyond ticking and tocking, and moving into “Tell-Tale Heart” territory. So I give you the first quote:
It’s not a long story, I need to space this out.
rikyrah
@Tony J:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
A Ghost To Most
Gin & Tonic
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Like The New Yorker did with Ulysses?
Yarrow
@SFAW: Let’s ask Cole how rich he is.
@different-church-lady: That’s how The Hoarse Whisperer described it. It’s a process but at some point a switch flips and the person sees everything differently. And often they can’t believe what they were doing and putting up with.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Gin & Tonic: I missed that. What exactly did they do with Ulysses?
Betty Cracker
Huh, this additional info from CNBC is interesting:
Here’s what Cohen said at that appearance:
Apparently the attempts to develop a Moscow property were ongoing until the summer of 2016:
Well, that opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities, doesn’t it?
Yarrow
@Tony J: LOL. Been saying that when things start happening they’ll happen quickly. Some speculation that Mueller’s team had been waiting for the Senate election in MS to be over so there was no possible question of the investigation interfering with the election. That happened Tuesday and BAM!
Schlemazel
@cain:
unless it is a ballplayer who lied about juicing
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Yarrow: It has been said many times that Republicanism is a cult. I’ve unfortunately had first hand experience with friends and family lost to a religious cult, and read a lot online from former members of that cult and their thought processes during and after.
The waking-up moment is exactly as you are describing, and filled with a lot of anger. But to get to that point you have to get through anger at yourself for believing in these people and giving so much of your life and money to them. You have to be willing to admit bad things about yourself, and accept them. It’s a really big hurdle for people to get to that point, which is a major reason why people stay in the cults so long and ignore evidence as long as they can.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jerzy Russian: I once was on the level of “knows enough words and grammer of Spanish that can navigate south of the border while traveling alone.” Since then I met and married my wife who is fluent in Spanish, Catalan and English with a solid grounding in French. It is kind of embarrassing to be fumbling thru it while her face registers 7 levels of frustration.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle:
From your lips to the FSM’s ears.
I love the smell of RICO in the morning!
Wild Cat
@Gin & Tonic: Credico is another associate of Amy Goodman. Add him to Assange, Jill Stein, ad nauseum.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: It’s gonna be funny when it comes out that he was in Prague in August 2016.
Also, note Trump’s kids are mentioned. Traitor tots going down.
Betty Cracker
Rep. Swalwell doesn’t mince words about this development:
Yarrow
@Wild Cat: Horseshoe theory. If we think Russia and others aren’t playing both sides we’re being woefully naive.
Hey, speaking of which, how ’bout that Tad Devine!
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
TRAITOR TOTS?
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
so stolen
OzarkHillbilly
@Yarrow: @different-church-lady: For me it was the moment I came to the realization that there was nothing I could do to fix it. Finally I could give up trying to.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: I think it’s public domain by now. I stole it from someone a year or so ago. Love it.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
me too…. :) :)
Yarrow
@Jeffro: @rikyrah: Me three! Let’s RICO the RNC. Hey, where’s Reince Priebus? Tick tock…
Gin & Tonic
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: They used to have a section of the magazine that previewed events around town in the coming week or two (movies, concerts, theater, opera) in a typeface and size typically used for baseball box scores (agate?). There’d be a one- or two-sentence review or preview of the event. So there was a very long-running off-Broadway show called The Fantasticks. After some years of having the same capsule review, which every reader knew by heart, they started excerpting(?), serializing(?) Ulysses in that tiny space, about two sentences at a time. Place that in the category of very inside joke, I guess.
I don’t think they finished, but I’m not sure.
Jay C
@Yarrow:
Not sure it would stack up in pure dollar terms, but I’d guess that John’s RE holdings are probably on a firmer financial footing than Donald Trump’s.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
We live in hope.
Der Müller Gottes mahlt langsam, aber mahlt außerordentlich klein.
oldgold
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I think it has gotten very old.
Jerzy Russian
@OzarkHillbilly:
My wife is fluent in three languages, with English being her third. I am at the toddler level in her second language, where I know the words for common food items and certain barnyard and zoo animals. I can also say simple phrases like “I feel sick” or “I need to poo”.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic:
Does anybody ever actually finish Ulysses?
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: OK, a bit more detail at this link (scroll down). Apparently they got through the first chapter.
MP
@Amir Khalid: Some people say German isn’t a pretty language. As Exhibit A in my counterargument, I would present this phrase.
Dev Null
@Jerzy Russian:
Surely you know about “Conflicted Bob Mueller and his 17 Angry Dems”?
Yah, me too… one of the few wins in getting old.
So I hear. /snark
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: My roommate in college not only finished it, he joined a reading group that was subjecting themselves to Finnegans Wake.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@oldgold: Nah, and neither will Amir’s German quote at #61 about Mueller grinding slowly but exceedingly fine. With bilingual pun yet!
germy
Trump had nice things to say about Epstein in an old interview.
If you ask him now, he’d probably say “Never heard of the guy. I think he was a pal of Bill Clinton’s.”
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: More on money laundering. Great thread.
Betty Cracker
germy
Thread:
Yarrow
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: It’s always a good sign when a troll haz a sad.
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
LAO
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker:
The summer, eh? Wasn’t the R convention in July? The one where the only change to the platform made by the T team was in favor of Russia?
OzarkHillbilly
@Jerzy Russian: My wife grew up in Franco’s Spain, speaking both Majorcan (a dialect of Catalan) and Spanish, but it was forbidden to teach any language but Spanish (in grammar school I assume, she learned French in HS). So she while she can speak Majorcan fluently, and she is able to work it out while reading it is almost impossible for her to write.
LAO
I wonder what Trump wrote in his written answers to Mueller about Russian deals?
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: No. way.
Yarrow
@LAO: Chris Hayes needs to look at his guest list before he goes throwing stones. Gah.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Did he? Or did he just say he did? Inquiring minds want to know.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: I remember when that happened. Jaw-dropping. But also hilarious watching Manafort stumble so badly. As usual our complicit media just shrugged.
A full scale investigation into our media organizations is also necessary to get us out of this mess. They’re as compromised as anyone.
different-church-lady
@OzarkHillbilly: Even Joyce had a hard time doing it.
Yarrow
@LAO: I wonder if Trump knows what he wrote in his his written answers to Mueller.
LAO
@Yarrow: True — but the timing of this guilty plea suggests Trump’s defense team has stuck to the original story line.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Thank you for the money laundering thread.
And I agree with you about our complicit media. For one thing, consolidated media ownership in the US has to go. Break up big, lying media. It’s got a bigger mission than infotainment.
(I kind of think all the focus on AOC is like poltico-ing up the Kardashians. Are WE clamoring for all AOC all the time? Maybe not.)
LAO
I think this thread by PopeHat gets it right:
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: It is sad to see some leftie Indian journalists whose credentials are otherwise impeccable fall for Assange and Wikileaks as the great savior of democracy. Ideological blinders are not just RWNJ weakness.
oldgold
@Yarrow:
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Do you think you could find that Hoarse Whisperer thread on narcissism? I can look too. I think it appeared here a few times. (Mnemosyne is also interested in narcissists.)
OzarkHillbilly
@different-church-lady: I think I lasted 3 pages.
Schlemazel
@Yarrow:
as best as he can recall he left those answers blank
Elizabelle
@LAO: PopeHat’s changed his/her twitter handle to OKMaybeItsRICOHat.
Napalm in the morning. RICO for Christmas season.
Amir Khalid
The references to “Individual 1” in that document remind me of the references to “Malaysian Official 1” in the 1MDB case. And we all know what happened to that guy.
Platonailedit
Finally, some journalism about these scummy pedophile thugs, who of whom went on become the totus.
David Evans
@MP: Yes. Also Einstein
Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist Er nicht.
ant the text of Brahms’s German Requiem – though there I may be influenced by the music.
LAO
@Elizabelle: I actually laughed out loud when I saw that.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: Here’s a short two tweet thread on Cohen:
If you go to the top of the HW’s Twitter feed he has a pinned tweet that is the first in a long thread about narcissists.
I know Mnem has read his twitter feed, as she’s mentioned it.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Thank you.
LAO
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: The New Yorker doesn’t have just a librarian. It doesn’t have just librarians. It has a pair of head librarians.
smintheus
I have a theory about why Manafort is maintaining his seemingly crazy cooperation/coordination agreement with Trump. He knows that a pardon wouldn’t keep him out of jail because he’s subject to prosecution in state courts, and things he has done during the Mueller investigation have added further crimes that Trump can’t protect him from.
I suspect that Manafort is looking to play Trump in order to get leniency from Mueller. He may have little enough to offer Mueller that Mueller doesn’t already know; his bargaining position clearly is weak. But if Trump commits further crimes while coordinating with Manafort – obstruction of justice, witness tampering, what have you – and Manafort can prove it, Manafort’s bargaining position gets a lot stronger. The cover up with Manafort could be the thing that cooks Trump’s goose, as the evidence of a crime most easily proven and most easily made public (even without necessarily the willingness of the Attorney General to make it public). The AG can’t easily block Mueller from making public his evidence about Manafort’s crimes.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Yep. The far left and far right are much closer together than people generally think.
@oldgold: You do you.
@LAO: I get a kick out of Popehat’s name changes. New ones all the time. Looooove the smell of RICO in the morning. Hey, hey Reince Priebus, man in charge of the RNC during all of these happenings. Will be so good to see you again. Heading into court.
LAO
Yarrow
@Platonailedit: We’re going to find out eventually that child sex trafficking is at the heart of a lot of what has happened here. Pizzagate was pure projection.
Kay
ooh. Good. Developments.
Cohen doesn’t seem as horrible as the rest of the Trumpsters to me. I like his hangdog expressive face. He seems more like a real person.
Maybe I could testify at his sentencing and OPINE on how I think he’s rehab-able :)
There’s hope for him. He MAY have a redeeming quality or two. He could potentially become law-abiding and productive, I think.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: One note troll has gotten old and boring.
(agreeing with your assessment of oldgold)
Amir Khalid
@Yarrow:
I suspect his lawyers didn’t dare tell him, because they were afraid he would brag about it somewhere public and wind up, well, not helping things.
The Dangerman
A little help. I’ve lost track of who is guilty of shit in Trump’s orbit; I think it will be easier to keep track of who’s innocent. I mean, the Adults (I’m guessing Baron’s clean, but will need an army of therapists for the rest of his life).
bemused
@Yarrow:
I remember that as well and thought at the time that Manafort was a very poor liar. Yet, he thought he could get away with lying to the Mueller team. The lying liars are all hubris.
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
Bold Jim vexes quick wafting zephyrs.
D.V. Pike flung J.Q. Schwartz my box.
OK, that’s all I got.
different-church-lady
@The Dangerman: All of them, Katie.
SFAW
@The Dangerman:
All of them.
None of them.
Glad I could help.
bemused
@LAO:
The odds of trump sticking to that story line are slim to none.
different-church-lady
@Yarrow: I guess the question is, can an entire country have a moment like that?
Yarrow
@Kay: Michael Cohen.
Also, one of the guys in the background is a Deutche Bank guy. Michael Cohen has hangdog looks because he’s dumb and caught. He’s still a guilty traitor. Traitors will pay.
@schrodingers_cat: ?
SFAW
@Yarrow:
Well, crayon doodles are not really fonts of information.
SFAW
@Yarrow:
My only “complaint” (so to speak) re: “Tick tock” is that the bell ain’t tolling fast enough for all those motherfuckers. Not your fault or problem, obviously. And I will keep using it whenever appropriate.
germy
@Kay:
I heard some tapes of him leaving threatening messages on people’s phones. He may be a real person, but not a nice one.
If he hadn’t gotten caught, he’d still be leaving threatening messages.
germy
Yarrow
@different-church-lady: People will say no, but I’m optimistic. When the truth comes out, and it is starting to and will continue to, people will see. We need to do a lot of cleaning house to make our country work again, though.
@Amir Khalid: Agreed. Trump can’t keep his mouth shut. @LAO: Hysterical. The walls are closing in and he can’t hide. I need more popcorn!
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Cohen was a sucker. Now he’s woke. I think most can be sympathetic with such a person because there is always a touch of “There but for the grace of God go I.”
bemused
@germy:
I’d guess that a large part of Cohen’s “regret” is huge anger that he is the one charged with felonies while trump is still walking around free.
Yarrow
@SFAW: When it happens it’s going to happen fast. It’s starting now and things are going to get crazier. It won’t be long now, although just given the timing of things I think Nancy Smash will be Speaker before everything falls apart for Trump. Just as extra security because Ryan is a traitor.
PaulWartenberg
and
we
still
haven’t
gotten
to
the
FUN
STUFF
with
donnie jr
and jared
laura
@rikyrah: What Rikyrah said!
Unaccountable Power and Entitlement and pssy fever.
Epstein, Trump, Clinton, Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, and…………….?
Kick over every rotted log.
Demand that the Labor Secretarty Acosta resign today.
I want to puke after reading the Miami Herald.
lollipopguild
@Jay C: John’s “richness” is the fact that he is a warm loving cranky honest falible human being. As a human being John is light years ahead of trump.
germy
@bemused:
Yes. He’s outraged, not woke.
OzarkHillbilly
@The Dangerman:
None of them.
SFAW
@Yarrow:
Or McCarthy, if Sith Moulton has his way.
lollipopguild
@OzarkHillbilly: Cohen was a “criminal lawyer” who was/is a criminal as well as a lawyer. Trump wanted a lawyer just like himself.
JMG
Cohen was a low rent slimeball who lived on the fringes of New York’s high rent slimeball community. Folks like him have been around the city since Peter Stuyvesant was and have been taking falls for centuries. At least he had the good sense not to count on Trump to rescue him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: IIRC Cohen grew up in a family with fringe connections to OC, saw a lot of easy money being made with no heavy lifting. Stumbling into trump’s orbit must have seemed like coming home, and whatever weird charisma trump seems to have for broken people made Cohen believe he was one of the family, almost a son, almost a Jared! And now he finds out he’s not even a Lewandowski or a Keith Schiller
@schrodingers_cat: I’ve been busy the last few weeks and haven’t read too many threads. Is he still saying Nancy Pelosi will cost us the mid-terms?
Elizabelle
@SFAW: Please don’t even joke about that. Not funny. At all.
danjos
Witches are made of wood and lighter than ducks?
Dumbest administration ever, they keep pleading guilty to witch hunts.
jonas
Back during the campaign and early in Trump’s term as the extent of his corruption and election rigging was becoming clear, Josh Marshall at TPM made a remarkably prescient prediction: that Michael Cohen would be the lynchpin to everything. The money laundering, the email hacks/collusion, the pornstar payoffs/campaign finance violations. Cohen was at the center of Trumpworld and knows where the bodies are buried and has been laying out a detailed roadmap for Mueller to follow for the past six months. The cherry on top of all of this would be if Cohen admitted that he had met with Russians in Prague, as alleged in the Steele dossier. He’s always strenuously denied this, but there has been reporting that Mueller has other evidence of the meeting. So we’ll see.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No he is always here to second guess whatever it is that Mueller is doing at the moment.
germy
trump reserves the word “weak” for people he hates and fears the most.
bemused
@germy:
Yup, he is only woke to the fact that he was too dumb to imagine he/they getting caught and that trump would make him the fall guy in a nanosecond.
Yarrow
@SFAW: That’s not going to happen. Sheesh. Nancy Smash is way, way, way smarter than those idiots.
Spanky
@different-church-lady: I’m pretty sure his editor didn’t.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Noted, but no promises.
But, really, has anyone asked Moulton what, to me, is a key question: “If your insurrection looks like it will result in Speaker McCarthy, will you revise your stance?” If he says “No,” that’s a problem, and I don’t quite trust him enough to believe he’ll 100-percent-no-bullshit say “Yes.” Maybe I’m not giving him enough credit, but I’ve seen too many “friends” kill the goose because they weren’t getting enough golden eggs.
I truly hope I am concerned over nothing.
MP
@David Evans: I am familiar with the Einstein quote, but I haven’t read the Brahms’ text. Thanks for recommending – I’ll take a look at that.
SFAW
@Yarrow:
Yes, I know she’s smarter. I’m concerned that Moulton and his fellow travelers think it’s a holy cause, etc., rather than a negotiating tactic.
Yarrow
@SFAW: Nancy is plenty smart enough to maneuver around him. He thinks he’s way smarter than he is. I think it’s a media-manufactured “controversy” to generate “Dems in disarray” headlines.
Yarrow
@SFAW: Almost no one in Congress thinks something is a holy cause. Maybe one of those guys would but the rest will easily be persuaded by the carrots of committee positions or other goodies or the sticks of being banished to a low level committee. They all want to be in power and if they vote for McCarthy the opposite party will have more power. They may be making noise now but they’re not stupid. No one is challenging Nancy so it’s her or McCarthy. McCarthy won’t give them or any Dems choice committee positions.The rest of the Dems will slaughter them if they vote to make him Speaker.
Martin
@SFAW: Especially Cole. He knows where that fucking mustard went and has been covering it up ever since…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t know who Rantt Media, is, but…
per the NYT, the investigation is related to the Panama Papers, which had a lot of details about Russian oligarchs
joel hanes
@Roger Moore:
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
Aha! One I hadn’t seen before.
I use
Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.
randy khan
@Gin & Tonic:
I never knew that – what a great little joke. And The Fantasticks is still running, so if they’d kept it up, they might have gotten to the end of the book by now.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I went to rehab and got back to find all the jackals excited. I hope the treason hits the fan really soon. I’m too old to wait around.
SFAW
@Yarrow:
Intellectually, I know you’re right, and I’m not losing any sleep over this.
But I’m kind of annoyed that Moulton and some of his collaborators still seem to be pushing this.
Kelly
@Jerzy Russian: I can make sense of signs and other simple text in most languages that share our alphabet. Then I visited Jerusalem and found Hebrew and Arabic completely incomprehensible. Fortunately English is commonplace.
Jeffro
@germy:
and “boring” for people who nail him: Obama’s pre-midterms speech, NYT article on his family’s long-running illegal tax avoidance, etc
Mike in DC
The Russian conspiracy hypothesis in a nutshell:
1. Trump’s campaign and the Russians entered into an implicit/explicit quid pro quo agreement: Russian help and financial inducements in exchange for some foreign policy favors once in office. Both parties took affirmative actions in furtherance of the conspiracy.
2. Trump was aware of the deal
3. Because he was aware of the deal, Trump took extraordinary steps to try to stop, impede and obstruct the criminal investigation of the conspiracy.
We are ever closer to confirmation of 1. If 1 is confirmed, 2 is virtually guaranteed to be confirmed as well, and 3 will be obvious.
Mary G
Love the title of this article by the WaPo factchecker: A tour through the tumbleweeds of Trump’s thoughts on the Fed
Almost their entire front web page is bad news for Twitler. One article talks about average life expectancy in America dropping for the first time since WWI, which is a result of drug overdoses and suicides, but the president isn’t innocent of exacerbating them.
randy khan
@The Dangerman:
Tiffany’s probably clean. Probably, not definitely.
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Couldn’t the Saudis erase that debt with one penstroke?
geg6
@randy khan:
Barron. I don’t think Barron will be going to prison. But who knows, with his mad cyber skillz?
rikyrah
Gin & Tonic
Seeing reports that Trump has called off his planned meeting with Putin at the G20 because of the ongoing situation with the Ukrainian ships and sailors. Honestly thought he’d fold.
Also seeing that Ukraine’s security services have released audio of Russian aircraft, ships and controllers communicating at the time of the incident, that makes it clear this was aggression on Russia’s part. No links because everything so far is in a combination of Ukrainian and Russian.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Gin & Tonic: Hmm, this guy is implying Donny Dumbass is a pedophile. So is this what Pizzagate was really about?
Credible evidence that Trump is a child molester might be beyond the pale for even the Republicans.
Robert Sneddon
@MP:
German love poetry sounds like a declaration of war with no quarter.
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic: Awww, too bad. I’m sure Donnie was looking forward to chatting with his bestest buddy Vlad. Well, I guess that just makes more time to chat with the Saudi Murder Prince.
Served
The feds are currently raiding the office of a long-time Chicago alderman who represented Trump in his dealings with the city.
https://twitter.com/lynnsweet/status/1068183197412982784
Lynn Sweet
Verified account
@lynnsweet
14m14 minutes ago
More Lynn Sweet Retweeted Chicago Sun-Times
City Hall power Burke, who sits on millions of campaign dollars, represented @realDonaldTrump in Chicago real estate dealings. Up for re-election in February and for first time in ages, has a potential fight. And now this…..
Spanky
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
No, that’s what the real “pee tape” is about.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SFAW:
You’ve seen his house?
MattF
@Gin & Tonic: Showing love for murderers is part of Trump’s behavioral repertoire, but I’m guessing that the NatSec team made a collective frowny face about a Trump/Putin meeting.
Kelly
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
fixed that for ya
Jeffro
The dam really is breaking…raids all over…people flipping right and left…and this:
Donald Trump appeals to men secretly insecure about their masculinity:
LOLOLOLOLOLOL
In a major American newspaper, no less. Run while you still can, Donnie…grab your ‘go bag’ and just GO!
Tazj
@Gin & Tonic: Pictures of a shirtless Randy Credico have been all over Twitter this morning. I really think they would have gotten more clicks (though not one from me) with the headline about Trump, and no pictures.
Nancy better watch out and Dems in disarray, meanwhile Paul Ryan doubts the bizzare election results in California.
Martin
@OzarkHillbilly:
We’re all suckers. Most of us are reasonably well attuned to spotting a person who is lying to us because we see the tells from someone struggling with their inner guilt. Narcissists lie with such conviction and confidence that we get caught out believing them. If you are a person who is swayed by confidence, then you miss the tell entirely. I’ve known pathological liars and it’s pretty easy to buy into their lies. When you realize you were duped, you’re pissed. A bit at them, but as much at yourself for not having the independence of thought and skepticism to avoid getting taken in. We all like to believe we are good at judging the character of others and here’s a situation where you blow it entirely, and it stings. It rattles your own self-confidence, and you’re mad because you put your trust in this person who gave zero trust back to you.
That’s the thing about Michael Avenatti that sounds an alarm for me – his unwavering confidence. It’s probably just his personality, but I now take that as a tell that someone is bullshitting me. I have a hard time trusting extremely confident people.
Schlemazel
@Kelly:
Closer
rikyrah
@Served:
that.is.HUGE.
You just don’t know how powerful Burke is.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
My understanding is that there are two pools of information and charges being developed – one pool is purely federal, and the other consists of violations of New York law that isn’t entangled with the federal stuff.
The process has included extensive cooperation with the New York AG, which may already have a stack of sealed indictments naming Trump and his children.
This is Mueller’s insurance policy against premature pardons; time done at Attica is a lot less fun than time done in a pleasant federal lockup.
Kelly
@Schlemazel: True
Martin
@Tazj:
The California election system is pretty simple if Ryan would take 10 minutes to understand it. We now allow unrestricted mail-in voting. Ballots can be postmarked as late as election day, and can be dropped off at any polling place. Unlike the usual electronic machines most counties use, the mail-in ballots need to be scanned and processed and that takes time. Additionally, we’ve added same-day voter registration which allows a provisional ballot to be filed. Finally, a few months ago we passed a law that says that for a ballot which is contested, the voter needs to be consulted to obtain the true intent of the vote, which also takes time. As a result our deadline for certifying the election is a month after the election.
On election night there were 3.5 million mail-in ballots that were received that day. There was an additional 1 million provisional ballots. I know that in my district, the Republican observer contested just about every signature of Democratic mail-in ballots. So GOP ballots were getting counted but Dem ballots needed to contact the voter and ask if that was their ballot. That’s why so many ballots are still being counted.
The GOP understand the CA system extremely well. They are exploiting it to their advantage. That’s fine, that’s why the checks are there. But to then claim you don’t understand it – that’s bullshit.
And our process will likely get faster. Some of these laws were passed just months ago and Registrar of Voters didn’t really have time to implement efficient systems.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah: Alas, She also called Trump Saudi Arabia’s Bitch and won her primary.
Gravenstone
@LAO: Michael, about that bus we threw you under earlier? Here’s a whole fleet of them for you to be ground beneath.
Kraux Pas
@Robert Sneddon:
Well, if you’re into that sort of thing…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
One of the last old bulls from the Daley Machine, isn’t he? He must be older than dirt
Gravenstone
@The Dangerman:
Start with :”Everyone”, then work backwards. You’re right that it’s much shorter that way.
O. Felix Culpa
@Robert Sneddon: Sorry, no. Have you ever read Rilke, zum Beispiel? German isn’t as mellifluous as French, but it still has beautiful lyric poetry to offer.
#GermanLiteratureMajor
Yarrow
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It was actually child sex trafficking, as I said above. But yes, it’s always projection.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ed Burke. Democrat. Alderman for 49 years. His father held the seat previously. Looks a bit like Dick Cheney.
Nevah heard of him before, but I am not from Chicago. Rikyrah can keep us informed.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I seem to recall that Republicans loved them some Roy Moore, so no, pedophilia is not a deal breaker for them.
O. Felix Culpa
@Elizabelle: Burke is a long-time machine pol and powerful guy. A big fish on the Chicago scene, so this news is a very big deal. (Former Chicagoan)
J R in WV
Given that the whole set of Republicans appear to be unable to not project their own flaws onto others, I also believe pedophilia and child abuse of the worst kind will appear at some point in this legal Shakespearean saga.
Money laundering may be the tool used to open up the box of horrible secrets, but the box is full of horror.
I think Barron and Tiffany are the two trumps who are not guilty of any crimes, Barron because he’s so young and Tiffany because her mom kept her thousands of miles from her dad. Plus she is relatively young also, and appears to be pretty smart scholastically. Hope she’s learning about how to be a better person from the headlines!
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
Too late.
Look up Epstein.
Dev Null
@SFAW:
If I weren’t so lazy I’d check online for origin, but … condition contrary to fact. Here are a few more, probably from an entirely different source:
“Glue the sheep to the dark blue background”
“It’s easy to tell the depth of a well”
“These days a chicken leg is a rare dish”
“Joe brought a young girl”
“The juice of lemons makes fine punch”
J R in WV
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
So that photo of The Donald, little Ivanka, and the rutting parrots didn’t do it for you? ‘Cause it did it for me, along with the pix in bed, in the convertible, etc, etc.
Just do a google image search for Donald Ivanka Parrots, the photos will do it for you.
Dev Null
@SFAW: +1
Ladyraxterinok
@Elizabelle: State and local police raid chancery of Galveston-Houston archdioce searching for and seizing files on priests reported for sex abuse but whose cases were handled ‘in house.’
Reported yesterday by Wm Lindsay at his blog bilgrimage.blogspot.com with link to video from Houston tv station reporting raid.
Wm states this raid is especially important because the cardinal of this diocese is head of the US bishops council.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
Why do you suppose I believe what I said? Duh, dude… That’s been a thing since before the primaries started.
Ladyraxterinok
@Jerzy Russian: Benjamin Lee Whorf claimed that Navaho is the only language in which one can discuss quantum machanics! Otherwise you have to use higher math.
I freaked out when we read that in my jr yr course on the psych of language and thought. I’d had a hard soph yr of physics and wondered if learning Navaho would have helped.
(It may have been Hopi, not Navaho. Course was in 59-60, v looong time ago!)
Gelfling 545
@oldgold: So you’ve said. What does get old really fast is bitching about something that does you no harm at all.
Gelfling 545
@germy: I think the “paper of record” has become the paper of rank misogyny.
Dev Null
@J R in WV: There have been so many stories about underage sex trafficking in connection with Trump Model Management, and so many connections to known pedophiles, that I find it hard to believe that they’re all fiction. e.g. this diary at dKos, which has links to other diaries.
Then there’s Jane Doe, who was going to go public just before the 2016 election … but got cold feet and pulled the plug minutes before a news conference was to go live (hosted by Lisa Bloom). And I’ve heard references to a child (Maria, I think) who just “disappeared”.
Knowing what we now know about Trump, underage sex trafficking doesn’t seem fantastical.
All that said, I’m not aware of objective evidence …
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: I can’t help think that all the pearl clutching over Pelosi becoming speaker is because she is a far more interesting and sympathetic figure than Glassy Eyed Granny Starver could ever be.
Ladyraxterinok
@Robert Sneddon: You do realize that correctly spoken French is super nasal?
Ladyraxterinok
@O. Felix Culpa: Agree. German language and lit degrees. Taught German poetry courses several yrs. (Retired in 04.)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Dev Null:
I remember all the stuff about Trump models, that model is code for “14 years old” the story that Trump would host sex parties with models and his own daughter was model and was amazed the MSM simply didn’t care. Then again, if Roger Stone was behind the scenes working the media…
But if Cohen or the like start talking about underage girls at sex parties in court, that does change things.
This all reminds of me of when one of my cousins wanted to do modeling and the whole family was “WTF? NO!”
SFAW
@Dev Null:
You kind of missed the point.
Each of the sentences I typed uses all the letters of the alphabet
Rand Careaga
@Robert Sneddon:
Exhibit A for the defense: Kindertotenlieder, performed by Christa Ludwig about sixty years ago.