Rep. Jackie Speier: "I can describe that [whistleblower] complaint as nothing short of explosive." pic.twitter.com/65G8JpCz0p
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) September 26, 2019
House Intel Chair Rep. Adam Schiff speaks after reviewing the whistleblower complaint https://t.co/aYIcGo5zvO pic.twitter.com/Eh0qU5Et4b
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 25, 2019
"The complaint itself is a five alarm concern," @RepSwalwell says on @CNNSitRoom, after reading the whistleblower's classified complaint pic.twitter.com/VVCl0NSt8x
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 25, 2019
Update: A new report indicates that discussing Biden was a precondition for the call. An advisor to President Zelensky told ABC News that it “was clear that [President Donald] Trump will only have communications if they will discuss the Biden case.” https://t.co/PkrARrZG7Y
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) September 26, 2019
Some “very smart*” people are saying, impeach now, don’t wait, if Dems investigate then Dems will lose with subpoenas, hearings and testimony. Took all I had not to throw my computer through the television.
*very smart in their own minds. We see them for what they are…
Open thread
Mary G
I am so exhausted.
TaMara (HFG)
smintheus
Yeah right, because the truth has a well known conservative bias.
TaMara (HFG)
@Mary G: The Trump millennium will do that to you.
Mary G
Get Rudy on the grill:
Aleta
posted in wrong thread
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/09/25/trump-giuliani-and-manafort-the-ukraine-scheme/
Trump, Giuliani, and Manafort: The Ukraine Scheme
by Murray Waas in the NYRB daily blog
zhena gogolia
@Mary G:
“Nobody’s ever even seen a Category 5 before!”
Aleta
Major Major Major Major
I know it’s awful that we’re in this situation and all, but I’m finding this pretty exciting so far.
Jeffro
I’m not sure why this is so complicated. Just continue to follow the facts (including this call, and calling Rudy in to testify) wherever they may lead. There is no downside for Dems here: we either impeach, convict, and remove trumpov from office or he limps into Nov 2020 (14 months from now!) utterly batshit and repulsive to a large majority of American voters.
Just hold the hearings and take the votes. No need to overthink this shit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: IANAL much less a Constitutional scholar, or parliamentarian, but bring Rudi in to closed session first with the Intel committee. Soften him up. Keep him away from booze for a few hours. Then bring him in for public question ing with Barry Berke. Or Chuck Rosenberg. Or Joyce Vance.
ETA: Again, not a lawyer, but maybe Ted Lieu and Eric Swalwell could go on a field trip, go out to the Hamptons and talk to the former Judi Nathan. No swearing in, just an informal get-to-know you session. Have a picture taken after. Nosferatu would be on the first abandoned ghost schooner back to Transylvania
laura
I am enjoying infrastructure week.
Tic tic BOOM!
zhena gogolia
@Aleta:
Ooooohhhhhh, me too!
Jeffro
@Mary G: Somehow I don’t think Sam’s two statements line up. Dems might be split on whether or not to call Rudy, but it’s the GOP lawmakers who fear a Category 5 shit show.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Can’t we just fast forward through this shitty movie to the inevitable end where Trump dies on the toilet in jail?
Mike in NC
Want to see the motherfucker impeached before Halloween.
zhena gogolia
@Aleta:
I read that to my husband just now and he said, “I want to see Raymond Burr question Trump.”
(We just watched Perry Mason.)
Japa21
Still waiting for a GOPer who has read the complaint to say something.
Princess
@Mary G: Me too, But at least today is Friday.
Ruckus
I do believe this is getting serious now.
It’s not just a political battle, it is a battle to remain anything like an actual country. If enough republicans back trump, how will that bode for any kind of future as the nation we are supposed to be even if we never really have been? I hope that this wakes up enough people to see that corrupt people who think that money is everything, so more is always better have to be restrained from being able to screw everyone and that this is the end of the republican party.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Japa21:
He of course threw in some weasel words about Democrats jumping too fast to impeachment. NY Rep Elise Stefaniak wants it made public, but she opposes impeachment
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: Rudy, will just claim Attorney Client Privilege, if he’s sober that is.
Frankensteinbeck
@Japa21:
Ben Sasse read it and said Republicans should not be quick to latch onto talking points because… I can’t remember his phrasing, but basically ‘there is some disturbing shit in here.’ For some reason that is also reason Democrats shouldn’t impeach.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
That was last week. We are up to a category eight now. Who the hell knows about tomorrow.
Mary G
chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Heh,I felt that way during Watergate. I thought it was an historic, once in a lifetime event. Guess not :-/
wenchacha
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): LIke an American Elvis.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
As long as there aren’t pictures. I’ve already seen enough of that face to give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Seeing one of him in jail, now I can go for that, but on the can? No, please, I beg, NOOOOOOOOO.
Kirk Spencer
@Mike in NC: I am honestly mixed on that. I think the man needs removed for the sake of the nation.
Which actually is the source of my concern. If he is impeached and the senate votes to ignore that and keep him in office it’s over a year prior to the election. That leaves him with the taint of victory, and a year to bloviate and obfuscate and even blither his way to, well, the potential exists that with a little help from his friends he has a second term.
So I’m hoping for about 6 months of investigation. Make it productive. Turn over all the rocks. Expose all the slime trails – follow them through every admin office and if those happen to be spouses of senators just keep following those trails. If it uncovers some Democrats just keep following the trails – it only strengthens the case (despite feeding both-siderism).
Let the Senate get a chance in March, or even May. Line them up and knock them down. Articles of impeachment on his cabinet and his judicial appointees and all the rest.
Tick tock…
Adam L Silverman
Everyone enjoying Infrastructure Week?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
reporter for The Hill, so, grain of salt and all that
ETA: here we go…
jl
‘ Some “very smart*” people are saying, impeach now, if you investigate Dems will lose with subpoenas, hearings and testimony. ‘
Not sure what that means. Tamara wants to impeach right away or does not? Does “very smart” mean very smart, or not very smart.
@Jeffro:Need to proceed quickly and forcefully but also deliberately. Two considerations I see in how to proceed. One is to present the case to the public in a simple, honest and clear way so that the majority of the voting population understands why the country needs to proceed to an impeachment even if the outcome of the trial in the Senate is in grave doubt. And be willing to respond to lies and smears quickly loudly clearly and forcefully.
And as I typed a day or so ago, it should be obvious to large majority of the voting public that Trump is weak minded, malicious completely unscrupulous, and very dangerous. Even without a conviction, a forceful and deliberate process will discredit this dangerous administration, it will put underlings and flunkies on notice that there will be consequences. Will help keep the administration under watch.
I wouldn’t worry about whether it goes to fast or too slow. And there is no reason to impeach just Trump. Impeaching Barr might be just as important to do in order to put crooked flunkies on notice.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
sounds like consciousness of presidential guilt on the part of senior White House officials…
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: These are the same morons that don’t want to invite Stormy Daniels because it will cause a scene. The whole point is to call her because it will drive the President and his surrogates, including on the Judiciary Committee, to make a scene. You want must see TV? Stormy Daniels going dominatrix on Collins, Gym Jordan, Gohmert, Gaetz, etc? She’s smarter than all of them put together.
And this is the same reason you call Rudy. You call Rudy and you let the professional majority counsel, Barry Berke, do all the questioning. He gets 30 minutes and then the GOP can go. Within 5 minutes Rudy will have committed perjury multiple times as he tries to adjust his testimony on the fly and keeps contradicting himself. Even better, they should contract with Stormy Daniels and let her question Rudy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it just. won’t. stop….
Wapiti
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Does privilege apply when the attorney is doing illegal acts for the client? In any case, maybe just quiz Rudy on what Rudy did. I think he’d have to take the Fifth.
And yeah, I’m assuming we have counsel interview him, not 5 minutes per congresscritter.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: It’s all fun and games until the Battle at the Dunker Church.
jl
There are half a dozen other administration officials who deserve impeachment. So if things go totally horrendously for GOP, and the Senate does convict (IMHO, that would be a miracle, though), or he resigns, then can move on to others. Take the easiest ones first, the ones with slam dunk evidence (cough.. Barr… cough…) Then probably Ross. I think very clear evidence both have lied about important issues repeatedly. Just go down the list.
Maybe Pence can stay. Every major Democratic candidate beats pence by around 20 to 25 points in current polling.
Edit: actually, can move on to other impeachments regardless of what happens to Trump. So, do Trump, Barr and Ross.
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Even better, this also really make the “It had nothing to do with the IC community so we had to deny the law” excuse obviously false.
They put damning evidence into a highly.secure location intended for highly classified data, just so they could keep people from seeing it.
Its both consciousness of guilt AND obvious their initial coverup was ALSO illegal.
sanjeevs
I’m going to speculate that this story is also connected.
Last week Facebook removed a number of pro-Trump Facebook pages which had built up huge followings. The pages were run from Ukraine.
https://www.newsweek.com/popular-info-facebook-donald-trump-1460983
The implication of this story is that someone in Ukraine had built up the ability to penetrate that news bubble that Trump supporters live in.
And the Ukranians may still have this ability . Its not easy to determine who runs FB pages.
Andy it actually makes perfect sense for Ukraine to do this. Russia is a threat so the logical thing to do is do as much as they can to duplicate Russia’s tactics in 2016.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The cuckolded Marine up in New Hampshire would also be a good person to interview given that his now ex-wife appears to be tied up in whatever cyber security scheme that Giuliani is involved in with a couple of Russian oligarchs who live in Florida.
clay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Is it available? I’d love to read it. Where is it?
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Exactly. He couldn’t even handle Fox’s token liberal without screaming, waving his phone, calling people idiots and morons, and threatening to sue for libel. He’ll implode in Congressional hearings.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This I do not understand. Surely the obstruction-obsessed nincompoops in the White House would never declassify the complaint if it were even moderately damning. I’m going to hope this, like the pseudo-transcript and Nunes’s reports, is another example of schemes that seemed brilliant in their head but turn out to be disasters.
joel hanes
@sanjeevs:
WaPo coverage of that same story:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/23/facebook-removes-pro-trump-i-love-america-page-that-was-run-by-ukrainians/
HRA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I sent this at the 5 pm thread down below.
It is the 2nd statement by Sasse shown to me Raoul’s reply later.
Republican Senator Ben Sasse after reading the whistleblower complaint: “Republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons to say there’s no there there when there’s obviously lots that’s very troubling there”
Mary G
Zero chance, but a lovely dream.
TaMara (HFG)
@Kirk Spencer: My thoughts are similar. Drag this on, bring in everyone, smear and tar this MOFO with all his crimes. Get his taxes. Then vote on it just before or after summer break. It’s either so bad Senate will have to vote to impeach or look weak not impeaching. Just in time for public opinion to be fired up to get rid of them all. A girl can dream.
Ken
@zhena gogolia: Perry Mason is overkill. Sure, he always managed to get someone to confess to the crime on the witness stand, but Trump blurts out his confessions every day on national TV.
TaMara (HFG)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Holy fuck that was fast.
zhena gogolia
@Ken:
True.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
my emboldening
joel hanes
@jl:
do Trump, Barr and Ross
Mnuchin
And I want the duplicitous slugs at EPA and Interior too.
Adam L Silverman
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): No. I’m watching this for the character development!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
Here’s the problem Adam, they’d enjoy it.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: Columbo!
Mary G
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Link? I’m not seeing anything in a few searches.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Bakaj and Zaid are waiting for the Acting DNI to authorize them to be read on, so they can read the complaint and properly represent their client.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Wapiti: Then he’d claim Executive Privilege.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Seems like declassification is the step before public release? and I’d be very surprised if there aren’t significant redactions. Barr’s slimy paws have been all over this, I’m sure.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: OK, fine. Then they should use the Cone of Silence for the classified hearings too.
clay
@TaMara (HFG): This is ALL happening fast, too fast to really process. After 2.5 years of dripdripdrip, it’s becoming a flood. What does it all mean? What will happen? I don’t want to get my hopes up; we’ve been let down too many times. But it feels like something is shifting.
I just want it all to be over. Let me think about something else for a goddam minute.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s been declassified. Now it just has to be posted on an outward facing unclassified server. My guess is that it’ll go up on the HPSCI website as soon as they can get it posted. The question now is how much is redacted.
jl
@joel hanes: Wherever the evidence leads. Lots of good cases out there.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yep.
Wag
@Kirk Spencer:
Agreed. Take your time and never turn the heat down. Let trump braise in the sous vide cooker for months until he falls apart at the touch of a fork.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev:
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: I guess this is prep for the DNI testifying tomorrow?
Mandalay
Well this tweet from Republican Rep. Chris Stewart earlier this evening is noteworthy, given all the swooning and jerking going on…
Nice hedge there (“…this alone…“), but I suspect that this will be the Republican approach to defending Trump on an ongoing basis: “Yeah, nah. not great, but not that bad either…“.
It doesn’t matter what gets unearthed. They will defend the indefensible unless/until their own Congressional seat is under threat.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: They decided it was going to get out, and decided to switch to finding some convoluted reading of it that makes it all innocent? Which will be conventional wisdom by the end of the week?
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: It is clear whether or not the Congresscritters who read it today saw the whole thing? I keep reading that they did and that no, the administration only put out a part of it.
jl
@clay: This stuff didn’t come out nowhere all of a sudden though. Rudi’s secret mission for the US State Department wasn’t conducted very secretly. There have been reports that he was shuttling back and forth to Ukraine as Trump’s fixer and muscle for almost a year. Exactly what it was for was not clear, some hints it was to dig up dirt on Biden, get some excuse to pardon Manafort. On the way back and forth some intriguing with Iranian dissident groups, mostly MEK. Giuliani is not a very discreet man.
Thing is the major corporate media outlets in the US consider some stories worthy of coverage and promotion and some not. Giuliani’s adventures in international mystery were in the ‘not’ category.
Matt McIrvin
If Trump shot that guy on Fifth Avenue, the main effect would be that we’d all become experts on the many obscure ways it’s technically not a crime to shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: I went to the HPSCI website and they already have a video stream set up that will live in nine hours to see the acting DNI’s testimony.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That could be cool, I hope they do a good job. I loved that book thirty-five-odd years ago…
and speaking of books/movies from my childhood: what was the name of the spoiled rich girl in Willy Wonka who was enraged when she didn’t get everything she wanted?
Jay
joel hanes
@joel hanes:
and Mulvaney has got to have done something prosecutable. Conspiracy, probably.
mrmoshpotato
Kinda OT but not really on an ‘Impeach the Motherfucker’ topic – just watched the clip where Dump tells the Ukranian president that it would be nice if he patched things up with Putin.
I’m in awe of Zelensky for not replying, “Just because you suck Putin’s asshole doesn’t mean we all do, you fascist, orange, Soviet shitpile.”
ITMFA!
Mandalay
@Adam L Silverman:
Well that’s mighty white of Rep. Stewart, suddenly eager for sunlight to shine on everything.
I wouldn’t have dreamed of looking at it without his prior approval.
TS (the original)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And the Earlier tweet of Rep. Chris Stewart
I have reviewed the whistleblower complaint made available to the House Intelligence Committee. I do not believe this alone warrants the impeachment of President Trump. This complaint should be declassified and made available to the public. (my bold)
And then he went on Fox News to pass that on to the faithful (and on all his web sites he does NOT say which party he represents – they really are cowards)
Edit: Oops: Already posted above
Adam L Silverman
@Wapiti: Crime-fraud exemption. They can separate Giuliani from his client, the President, if they need to in order to prosecute him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hoo-ah!
West of the Rockies
The 11th Hour (MSNBC) hasn’t said anything about the report being declassified and available.
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Veruca Salt.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t. Gohmert wouldn’t understand it.
Mary G
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Veruca Salt.
ETA: Curses, foiled by dmsilev and my torn tendons that took two minutes to copy/paste two words.
smike
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yep. And I read a cnn piece yesterday by Silly Cillizzzzzz….. oh sorry, I must have dozed off there. Anyway, he was ever so concerned that all other legislatin’ will now come to a standstill. And just when we were this close to getting gun legislation through the senate. /s
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: That Tweet just links to this morning’s revelation of Trumpian crimes (the call memorandum), not this evening’s promised revelation of Trumpian crimes (the whistleblower report).
lgerard
I’m starting a movement to nominate this whistleblower for the Nobel Peace Prize.
It is the only fitting conclusion to this Sad! episode of our history
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: I do not know. They did not consult with me.
Jay
@joel hanes:
@sanjeevs:
@sanjeevs:
Keep in mind the that these are “private” groups in Ukraine that are recycling IRA agitprop for:
– service to Pro-Russian Ogliarches,
– clickbait.
Some Macedonian sites made over $140k a month in ads from posting clic bait in 2016, when the median income was $640 a month.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: I saw conflicting reports in the print news media. I have not heard one Democratic member of Congress complain that they got a redacted version to read.
Mary G
@lgerard: I think Greta getting it would be better. He loses to a 16-year-old girl who pulls bigger crowds than he does.
Sebastian
@Ruckus:
not much different from any other picture him sittin on a chair lol
Jim, Foolish Literalist
from the Bwa-ha-ha files
TaMara (HFG)
@West of the Rockies: https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/whistleblower-complaint/index.html
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
If they got a redacted version, the full version must be a doozy.
The look on Schiff’s face and his tone says not redacted. Or this is far, far worse than anyone suspects.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Then I do not know any more than you do. It is possible that Congressman Stewart is wrong.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ooopsie!
Ruckus
@Sebastian:
He looks bad enough with clothes on. Pants down? No contest, a 55 gallon drum of brain bleach would not be enough.
joel hanes
@dmsilev:
Veruca Salt
It’s such a great name, because the Italian word “verruca” means “wart, and the German word verrückt means “crazy”. I think there’s a Dutch cognate that means “despicable”.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Tamara’s link just above your comment says it may be made public tomorrow.
This has been quite an Infrastructure Week, hasn’t it?
Adam L Silverman
@TaMara (HFG): The delay will be having to strike the classification markings, redacting anything that should be redacted such as personally identifying information (PII), and then scanning the thing in and posting it as a pdf.
Mary G
Schiff has the choreography down.
JR
@joel hanes: They had a pretty good single in 1994, too.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: My impression was they got an unredacted version.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: I love INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK! I LOVE THAT EVERY WEEK IS INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK!!!!!!
Jay
Sebastian
@Mary G:
I read somewhere it will be released 9am EST (or was it 7?). That’s 6am or 4am respectively for us on the Left Coast
TaMara (HFG)
@Mary G: I gotta tell you, the trump years have been hell on my diet. I’m not sure how to get through tomorrow without snacks.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: It seems like people are putting up their Infrastructure Week decorations earlier and earlier every week.
TaMara (HFG)
@Sebastian: Well, hell, could they at least wait until I have coffee and let the ducks out in the a.m.?
dmsilev
@Sebastian: DNI testimony is scheduled to start at nine Eastern, so I guess before that?
Jay
Elaine Benes
Who funded Rudy’s Oval Office-sanctioned globetrotting hunt for dirt on Biden?
These two shady Russians?
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/meet-the-florida-duo-helping-giuliani-dig-dirt-for-trump-in-ukraine
If legit, it seems rather problematic.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Mine as well.
Some in this maladministration may be doing the right thing on their own or because they want not to be in on the legal shit when it hits the fan. Self immolation not usually known for having the best outcome.
piratedan
@Adam L Silverman: well…. he IS a Republican, what seems wrong to the jackaltariat, y’know, like separating families seeking asylum, stealing money from other federal agencies to build a wall that couldn’t get approved in Congress and support for white nationalists, seems to be pretty much okee dokee to them, so perhaps they’re operating from a completely different “roster of ethics”…
West of the Rockies
@TaMara (HFG):
Thanks! Kornacki mentioned it about 2 minutes after I posted comment.
phdesmond
@chris:
i’m another twicer!
patrick II
I just saw on MSNBC that Warren has moved ahead of Biden in three new state polls. So maybe Trump has actually harmed Biden – – which may end up being the most pyrrhic political victory in American history.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@patrick II: I suspect it’s more that Warren is gaining. I’d think it’s too soon for this business to have sunk into polls
frosty
@Mary G: I *was* exhausted. Now I’m energized. This feels like when Watergate broke loose. I spent a year reading the comics page and throwing the rest of the paper away because I couldn’t bear it — much like the last 2 yrs. Once the hearings started and Dean, Butterfield, et al were in the news I read it front to back.
I’m feeling very positive for the first time in a long while.
Ruckus
Interesting email today. From the LA County registriar-recorder/county clerk.
They are trying to make it easier to vote and to get more people to vote. Simply amazing. OK not so much in CA.
They are having events around the county – a mock election showing all the ways to help get your vote in and counted – using, wait for it, paper ballots.
Having voted in OH in 2000 and 2004 and standing in the rain for 4 hrs to vote in 2004 because of Ken fucking Blackwell, it is refreshing to live in a state that actually wants everyone to vote and makes it as easy as possible and as accessible as possible.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman:
I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Kattails
OK slightly OT but I did get to go to Elizabeth Warren’s town hall in NH this evening. Well attended, prob. not a record-breaker, but I’d gotten in early enough that I could actually sit down!
Themes: she did come straight out for impeachment before anything else. Then gave homily about childhood, sick father, mom got minimum wage job which back then could actually support 3 people. She gave a shout-out to the union strikers. LOTS on support for teachers and elimination of student debt for higher education. Opening up opportunities for all. Some of this I’d heard online, but hearing her live made the mechanisms for working up Medicaid for All make more sense.
Got the big cheers for teachers, impeachment, and saving democracy, which kind of surprised me. New Englanders are not much into demonstrativeness, so when you hear a real loud cheer you pay attention.
Although a town hall, only got to 3 questions & 2 were around health insurance. She broke down how the excess wealth tax (i.e. the Stupid Money tax) could be allocated. Then went into Selfie Mode. The line formed instantly but too much chaos for me so I went shopping and then came back, got in line and waited for a mere 10-15 minute or so. Nice to be local. Anyway, I was very impressed by this whole selfie thing once I actually participated. Volunteers took your bags just before the steps and asked if your camera was ready. I’d watched from in back but she did really shake everyone’s hand and lots of hugs, then the helpers on stage took the pic and then you were off–it was disorienting for me so I can’t imagine how much more so for her. YET she made some kind of real contact in that minute or two. I’d watched her pat nearly everyone on the back as they left, meaning that although they needed to keep moving she had not actually dismissed them. As I stepped off the dais, she said something like “stay with it” and I tripped over my own tongue replying. Another young volunteer handed me back my handbag. Organization at that level this early?
How the f*cking hell she manages to stay focussed on every single person in that line for however long just boggles me. This is a small town. Washington Square? Thousands of people? handshakes, smiles, FOUR HOURS?
lgerard
Avoid the rush, get your tickets now!
Trumpstock, an event set to take place in Kingman next month, will include elected officials as well as pundits and political hopefuls, some with controversial backgrounds, for the same singular purpose: supporting President Donald Trump.
Marco “taco tricks on every corner” Gutierrez will be one of the featured speakers ( and one of the few I have ever heard of)
It may be his last appearance before he shuffles off to that metaphorical upstate farm to join Joe the Plumber and Jeff Gannon.
frosty
@joel hanes:
What, no love for Kavanaugh? The judicial branch wants in on the action, too!
Kayla Rudbek
@joel hanes: I want Wilbur Ross gone as well
Kayla Rudbek
@frosty: @frosty: yes, this as well. Kick out all the judges that the Orange Monster has appointed!
Sebastian
@Mandalay:
Until their own life is in danger.
We have reached the stage where it will become clear who protected the country and who sold it out. When this is all over, dozens will end before the firing squad.
smike
@TaMara (HFG):
I hear popcorn is good for you.
patrick II
@Ken:
Yeah, but Mason would have him under oath on the witness stand.
Redshift
@Aleta:
Murray Waas is good for this. He used to cover the Mob. (I got to meet him at the first YearlyKos/Netroots Nation, where he regaled me with tales of the days when the convention hotel/casino was Mob-run.)
Sebastian
@patrick II:
Maybe. But she was already pulling ahead.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@smike: High in fiber, keeps things moving.
Miss Bianca
@Mary G: That’s how I’d like to end this timeline.
Miss Bianca
@Frankensteinbeck: Shit, that’s what I’m wondering – how come Trump didn’t just immediately declare that this was “classified material”? Or can he only *declassify* at will, not classify at will?
frosty
@Kattails:
And here I’m thinking that my main argument against her is that she’s too old and the Presidency takes a lot of physical and mental effort …. OK then!
frosty
@smike: Popcorn’s OK, a little high in carbs though, if you’re worried about that.
If carbs are an issue but calories aren’t, Planter’s Mixed Nuts!! If both are an issue, I weep for you my friend.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty: While I have some problems with some of her positions and her age does give me pause, I saw her briefly here in town and she’s the personification of the Energizer Bunny.
Redshift
In related news, this is how even in a local election, you hang Trump around the neck of the Gooper like millstone:
That’s an email yesterday from Dan Helmer, who’s running for the VA House of Delegates against a longtime Republican incumbent in a district that has turned blue.
frosty
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Good to have a live upclose confirmation. All I see is clips on the internet and they look pretty good to me.
PS OT: Went to college in Claremont, my sophomore roommate was from Glendale, visited his folks, so I know I’ve at least crossed the border into your “70 suburbs in search of a city” town. :-)
Redshift
@Miss Bianca: I suspect that classifying something requires following an actual procedure, and that’s too much of a bother for Trump and his immediate cronies (and the competent intelligence staff aren’t going to volunteer any help.) Also, just classifying it won’t keep it out of the hands of the intel committees.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty: We’re a big city now, got a fancy pants mall and everything.
smike
@frosty:
It seems like I’ve heard something about nuts + popcorn (and maybe some caramel, or something…)
I like my popcorn with olive oil + nutritional yeast. I think I may have learned that from someone on this blog years ago. Whoever it was, thanks.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: every freaking day is infrastructure week.
Mai naem mobile
@Mike in NC: I want Trumpov impeached right at Christmas. This way all those FOX News watchers know for sure that the Dems indeed have declared war on Christmas. Also too, I get to see the whole Trumpov family look sad and defeated. Be Best!
joel hanes
@smike:
NICK: Why, that’s nothing but a two-bit ring from a Crackerback jox
ROCOCO: I’ll sell it to you for five thousand dollars.
Sebastian
@dmsilev:
I wish I remembered but I just spent 45 minutes looking for my wallet, glasses, and phone. My memory is age appropriate to say the least.
But making things easier, all I read is BJ, TPM Prime, and (please don’t judge me) Palmer Report plus all the usual peeps on Twitter. So it had to be in of those places.
Bruce K
Would it be presumptuous to call the released call transcript the political equivalent of 3.6-roentgen dosimeter readings?
Sebastian
@Bruce K:
What’s the reference?
Amir Khalid
@Sebastian:
That’s a lethal dose of radiarion.
rikyrah
@Mary G:
Turn the Dem questioning over to a staff professional.
Bruce K
@Sebastian: Sorry, I think I may have gotten too obscure. It’s a reference to the Chernobyl disaster: initially, the staff at the stricken reactor reported radiation readings of 3.6 roentgen per hour (probably derived from 1,000 milliroentgen per second), because that was the upper limit of the dosimeters they were using. They reported those readings up the line, and by the time the report reached the Politburo, everyone assumed that the numbers were accurate, describing a bad situation, not a catastrophic one. They were even discussing plans to get Reactor 4 back online and producing electricity by the end of the year.
Then the army sent in trucks with better sensors, and got a reading that was four orders of magnitude worse.
I might have overestimated how much the Chernobyl miniseries has penetrated popular culture. But the point is that the released transcript may have struck the GOP as “bad but survivable”, while the actual truth may be closer to “abandon ship, every man for himself”.
(Another fun anecdote that didn’t make it into the miniseries: the general in charge of cleanup estimated that decontamination of the surroundings could take up to seven years. The number-two guy at the Politburo told him that if it wasn’t done in seven months, they’d throw the general out of the Communist Party. The general’s response was that in that case, they might as well take his Party card right then and there, because there was no way in hell to accomplish that task in that timeframe.)
(The General wasn’t thrown out of the Party.)
VOR
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think claiming Warren is too old would be a challenge for Trump since he is at least 3 years older. But someone younger on the Dem side could use that line of attack.
But what do I know? They used it against Hillary who was two years younger than Trump.
Ken
@Adam L Silverman:
I thought they’d streamlined that process to taking a photo with your unsecured cell phone and sending it to Twitter.
(You may remember that from a few weeks ago, before it got pushed off the page by the twenty-three successively worse Trump scandals.)
dimmsdale
@Kirk Spencer: I realize this thread is as dead as Ulysses S. Grant, but I completely agree with you. Dems control the pace and velocity of the impeachment hearings, as well as the scope. The scope needs to be as wide as there are crimes committed by this administration, and exactly as long as it takes WH/Republican criminals to get tired of delay and avoid, and SHOW UP.
I will add that when a (hopefully, although way out over my skis on this) Dem Senate is elected, EVERY SINGLE ONE of the administration functionaries covered by the Presidential Records Act, who were charged with keeping their communications part of the public record, will be charged to the full extent of the law if they evaded the Act. Cabinet officers, lowly functionaries, I don’t care–these clowns are playing fast and loose with public institutions, as if they’re part of a cheap shabby local zoning bribery shop, and THEY NEED TO GO TO JAIL for evading the Act. That’s the only way such massive failures of the public trust get remedied. (‘forward not back’ my ASS.)
Uncle Cosmo
@dmsilev: Welcome to Instafracture Fall. Or Fail. And guess who’s falling, or failing…
J R in WV
@TaMara (HFG):
Absolutely. They need to go deliberate and purposeful AND slowly, to build to a crescendo that comes near the election, perhaps mid to late September? in other words, about a year from now. Make it look really dangerous for Trump to be the only candidate in sight for the Republican party…
They can get the knives sharpened and practice up that hard work with impeaching Barr and Wilbur Ross, who can go immediately. Ross is totally guilty of perjury and money laundering with his pet bank in Cyprus, an island famed for their non-existent banking regulatory structure. Much more, probably. They need to be hiring former FBI agents and treasury agents who work on human trafficking and money laundering…