I both want and don’t want tomorrow to be another big news day.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) September 27, 2019
It would be easier to listen to congressional Republicans defend the actions of POTUS if they just said “whatever he does, we don’t really care” rather than spinning these justifications.
— julianzelizer (@julianzelizer) September 27, 2019
SHADE THROWN:
"I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election."
Every American should read this whistleblower complaint. https://t.co/9Mk6kLNsIL
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 26, 2019
Hmm, that seems a little long for a re-election slogan.
You're never going to fit that on your bumper stickers. https://t.co/W3UGGZ8Jok
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) September 26, 2019
[ding] Who is Donald Trump? https://t.co/So8f2GYRtg
— shauna (@goldengateblond) September 26, 2019
At least he’s got the title of his memoir settled https://t.co/uWBUzf4RVY
— David Frum (@davidfrum) September 26, 2019
Here is the NPR/PBS/Marist poll trend on impeachment.
April: 39% support, 53% oppose
Today: 49% support, 46% oppose— Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) September 26, 2019
Interesting from Morning Consult poll:
43% for starting impeachment, 43% against. Of those "for," 59% say for impeachable offense.
But when told Trump withheld aid to Ukraine before phone call, support moves to 44 for, 41 against. Of the 44, *66%* say for impeachable offense.
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) September 26, 2019
But what of the BoBo demographic?
Speaking of overconfident takes pic.twitter.com/kUu0rdZxv5
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) September 27, 2019
"
S
U
R
P
R
I
S
E
,M
O
T
H
E
R
F
U
C
K
E
R
" pic.twitter.com/TaLm4TRc4D— Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) September 26, 2019
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
FelonyGovt
Good morning! Can’t sleep. I sort of hope this will be a quiet day.
Dopey-o
Here it is 5:00 am and I’m setting up my popcorn popper…..
Curse you, interesting times!
(And I don’t mean the FTFNYTimes.) But I do.
OzarkHillbilly
For the “Headlines I never thought I’d read” file: Referee shot in face by cannon during college football game in Maine
Talk about Blech.
ETA: oh yeah, The Mariners, who play in Division III, lost the game to Massachusetts Maritime Academy, 42-21.
satby
Had a great reunion with Qunoot yesterday and a fantastic Middle Eastern lunch at Al Bawadi on the way home from the airport. Chicago peeps, if you want authentic, it was amazingly good and won the picky Ms. Qunoot seal of approval.
(She’s not a picky eater, but she’s picky about her cultural food being represented faithfully). Back to Chicago today to go downtown.
She isn’t wearing hijab any more while not in her country, and didn’t send a picture because she wondered if I would recognize her. I spotted her immediately, of course, even in shorts and a sleeveless shirt.
Patricia Kayden
Threatening the Whistleblower is just icing on the cake. Just sonething more to add to the impeachment charges. I don’t see how his handlers are going to be able to control Trump as the impeachment process ramps up.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: “How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)”.
satby
@rikyrah: @Baud:, @FelonyGovt: Good morning ?
@OzarkHillbilly: ?
Baud
@satby:
?
satby
@Patricia Kayden: his social circle is mobsters, and he’s suggesting that one of his “friends” get rid of that problem for him. Because he thinks that eliminating one person somehow would make it all disappear.
Patricia Kayden
So Romney is the sole Republican Senator to speak out. It will be interesting to see if anyone else has a conscience in that party.
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: I reckon their consciences have an inverse correlation to Trump’s approval rating among party members in their home states.
JPL
My morning routine is all f..ked up.. Normally I read the news last but now it’s the first thing I do. blech indeed. In the famous word of SNL star, Cecily Strong, “You’re doing too much. I want one day without a CNN alert that scares the hell out of me.”
JPL
@satby: Sweet
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
“What can I say? My constituents are traitors.”
tokyokie
@Betty Cracker:
And just consider how much worse it might be if the GOP didn’t represent the “values voters.”
delk
@satby: Al Bawadi was near my mom’s house. Haven’t been since she passed away. It used to be an old fast food restaurant but they have added so many additions to it you can’t tell.
Have fun downtown! I’ll pay attention to the people taking selfies flipping off Trump Tower in case it’s you! ?
debbie
What the what is he even babbling about?
oldster
The photo of the turtle —
I would like to hear the backstory on that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden: I’m not so sure Romney has a conscious so much as a fine tuned self preservation instinct.
Kay
I read the complaint and it reads like the whistleblower is one person but he/she was chosen (or volunteered) to come forward and put forth accounts by the witnesses. Which would really scare me if I were Trump or one of the Republicans relying on smearing the whistleblower because the witnesses are right behind him/her. So if those people were to come forward, or were compelled to come forward, are they protected by the whistleblower law? Would that be how one would do this? Have a person who did not have direct first hand information come forward, protected by the law, and thus protect the witnesses behind him or her by extension when they’re then compelled to appear and testify?
Baud
@debbie: That is absolutely the last thing any Democrat would want.
Ken
@debbie: You miss one season of the show and it’s impossible to catch up with the plot lines.
The show being Fox News, not a soap opera, but the principle is the same.
Betty Cracker
There’s a fascinating article in The New Yorker about Pelosi and her decision to open the impeachment inquiry. She describes the call she received from Trump earlier this week, when he was trying to head off the impeachment announcement, and her words fairly drip with contempt:
Imagine being so evil and self-interested that you’d ignore a national emergency like gun violence for three straight years, then turn around and use the issue to try to wheedle your way out of a tight spot. Pelosi understands who she’s dealing with:
debbie
@Baud:
Right????
@Kay:
This tells me he’s out of control. His staff — supporters and advisers — knew just how badly he’d fucked up and tried to hide the evidence. His own people.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: My understanding is that (wingnut?) pranksters pretending to be Ukrainians called Adam Schiff and claimed they had nude photos of Trump. Schiff told them to contact the FBI.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: He wants the pictures and he’s pissed off the DEMs are holding out on him.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
One does not need religious credentials to judge. In fact, in my experience they hinder judgement.
Patricia Kayden
Looking forward to more hearings in the near future and especially to Giuliani being forced to answer hard questions. He’s already throwing the State Department under the bus.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
He did tell us who he was. It is why I’m still resentful of people–especially people ostensibly on our side–who refused to see it.
Patricia Kayden
@OzarkHillbilly: Utah is a pretty red state so I’m assuming he’ll win again no matter what he says about Trump. He probably has little to lose in speaking out.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
Another James O’Keefe production, no doubt.
Immanentize
@Patricia Kayden:
Giuliani will likely never appear. Attorney/client privilege doncha know….
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: Yep. Their consciences correlate to their own self-interest. Selfish as hell. The opposite of the Jesus they claim to worship,
debbie
@Baud:
He’s shown people who he was since the late 1970s, and you can see that in the 2106 vote in Manhattan. Yet the rest of the country ignored the people who knew better.
debbie
@Immanentize:
I’d like to know who paid for his trips to Ukraine, the campaign or us suckers?
rikyrah
@satby:
So glad that she made it through the airport with no problems, satby.
Quinerly
@Kay: Yesterday, I heard several security experts, ex CIA types (several minutes were spent on this theory on C Todd’s show yesterday) say the same thing. Several potential whistleblowers got together, put together/discussed the info; and it’s kinda like this guy drew the short straw & became the one to report all of it. Josh Marshall is calling him “Deep Whistle.”
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
People understand threatening someone just doing their job. That cuts through a lot of bullshyt ? ?
JPL
Seriously, what is trump tweeting about.. I don’t get it
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
Willard still has no spine
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden: There is a a sizeable proportion of Mormons who are not particularly fond of trump, and I suspect the ones who like his presidency don’t like him much either. The self preservation I speak of is not necessarily electoral.
Immanentize
@debbie:
Id like to know who is paying for the Trump campaign. Donors? Or US taxpayers.
Ken
@Patricia Kayden: And of course conversely – we can’t be that far away from Giuliani becoming another coffee guy.
“Who? Oh, that guy running around saying he’s my personal lawyer and working for the State Department? One, I never paid him a retainer, and two, he’s never been appointed to, or hired by, State. No connection to me at all.”
(Though that’s far more coherent than Trump could manage.)
JPL
@Immanentize: Giuliani said he was not acting as his atty.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: I thought Attorney/Client privilege did not apply in the commission of criminal acts.
Let Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Jesus fucking Christ – if I was tweeting like that and my wife found out, she’d barge into the bathroom, snatch the phone out of my hands and smash it into pieces on the bathroom floor – and Is deserve it (happened once on Facebook – I’d called someone’s father-in-law a dolt, and her boss was chortling at her about it because it was a shared friend).
Baud
@JPL:
Didn’t Sarah Palin coin that phrase? If he’s channeling her, then he’s not recovering from this.
rikyrah
@Kay:
There is an ‘audiobook’ reading of the whistleblower complaint. What struck me is the use of language. No word wasted. Every word meaning something. Laid out the problem immediately.
What needs to not get lost…
The number of people in on this, beginning with Race Bannon and Barr, both of whom should be impeached too.??
Ken
@JPL: Confusing an apostrophe for a hyphen? Well, now he’s doomed. The Grammar Police will be all over this, and they – do – not – let – go.
JPL
@Baud: Liddle’ with an apostrophe not a hypen..
Kay
@Quinerly:
Right, and Trump referenced that yesterday, when he threatened them. But he’s just focusing on prosecuting them. Well, executing them. I’m wondering if the whistleblower was chosen deliberately because the person who is not a direct witness has to come forward first, protected by that law, and then the direct witness(s) come later, and are protected by extension.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Ken:
Pedants can be brutal.
The most apt analogies are Javert and Ahab.
Baud
@JPL: I would have gone with an N-dash myself.
Immanentize
@JPL: @OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, just because Giuliani said he was not Trump’s attorneys, was working for free, and may have been an accomplice to crimes does not mean he won’t claim Attorney/Client privilege. Giuliani is not yet addled enough to forget that privilege is twice as strong as so-called “Executive Privilege.”
I do wish someone would shut down these witness claims of “potential executive privilege.”. There just isn’t any such thing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Pretty sure Deep Whistle (and his silent partners) was lawyered up before he even signed the complaint.
Ken
Open thread, this week’s Chris Grey Brexit Blog has been posted. Not a substitute for Tony Jay’s wit and prose, but informative.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Again, I thought Attorney/Client privilege did not apply in the commission of criminal acts., which is why Michael Cohen’s work for trump was not privileged.
ETA I should say SO MUCH of Michael Cohen’s work
Quinerly
@JPL: I love the responses on the thread. For example:
“I personally think not understanding the difference between an apostrophe and a hyphen at the presidential level is an impeachable offense”
Quinerly
Nancy Smash on Morning Joe.
Baud
Liddle’ Adam Schiff
Liddle– Adam Schiff
Liddle— Adam Schiff
Liddle: Adam Schiff
Liddle? Adam Schiff
Liddle, Adam Schiff
Liddle~Adam Schiff
Quinerly
@rikyrah: The reader on that audio book is great. Heard a snippet on Rachel last night.
Ken
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Your own nymsake was no slouch.
Baud
Hyphengate is an attempt to distract from impeachment. Don’t fall for it.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Quinerly:
She called him cowardly. ?
That will get under his craw.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Ken:
Aye, but ultimately, he turned his back on vengeance.
Betty Cracker
Trump is still claiming to be astonished that anyone could be critical of his call with Zelensky:
Meanwhile, the WSJ says Pence and Conway argued against releasing it. Hmmmmmm.
Quinerly
Sooooo, if Nancy had pulled the trigger for impeachment, say in June, where would we be?
Quinerly
This is a great interview with Nancy on MJ.
Kay
@Baud:
I can’t believe he’s still using the same dumb nicknames trick. They’re going to have to come up with something new.
He must hate that leaked video. It’s all blurry and jerky and he sounds so nasty.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
The phrase “nude pictures of President Donald Trump” made me use up all my brain bleach. Now I’ll have to add it to my shopping list.
Quinerly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: great interview. She’s always good in these one one interviews.
Patricia Kayden
@satby: I do feel anxious about the Whistleblower’s safety. He deserves a Medal of Honor for coming forward. I’m looking forward to his testimony. Democrats should call him along with others who back his claims to testify at the same hearing. That will bolster the fact that this is not a partisan attack on Trump.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly:
First you have to prove the attorney was involved in criminal acts. Not allege, prove.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Quinerly:
I like her a lot. She comes across as empathetic and cautious.
Quinerly
@Amir Khalid: “Alexa, order more brain bleach.”
(I also read there is alcohol infused popcorn, but I digress)
Immanentize
@Baud:
I thought is was Liddle’s Adam, referring to Trump’s childhood classmate, Ralphie Liddle, who had a brother named Adam…. Or something something.
Quinerly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: but do you really think she “prays for Trump everyday”?
Patricia Kayden
@Quinerly: I’ll give all kudos to Speaker Pelosi for playing her cards in a methodical manner. She waited for the perfect moment. She probably knew that Trump would give her more fodder and of course he did.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
What the fish is a Liddle?
Quinerly
@Patricia Kayden: ?
Quinerly
@Patricia Kayden: Kelly Anne Conway is accusing her of being a “woman who changed her mind.”
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Kitten update:
They are still small enough to go through the gate, but we’ve put it up anyway, blocking off the hallway so that they can run between their room and the master bedroom. They’ve mostly stayed behind it, especially when one of us is in the bedrooms with them. More importantly, it gives them a bolt hole if they manage to really upset one of the other cats. So far so good.
They slept with us last night. Maysie is a bed hog.
Pixel is still warning them off, Miles is still glaring and occasionally hissy, and Max, we had a breakthrough with Max yesterday. Maysie and Max aren’t best friends yet, but there were face bumps instead of hisses when they encountered each other. He’s not sure about Loki yet.
Patricia Kayden
@Ken: Giuliani has taped phone calls and text messages from the State Department so that’s probably not going to work. Trump and Giuliani strike me as thugs who won’t go down by themselves.
Kay
Amir Khalid
@Quinerly:
I don’t know this Alexa well enough to entrust my shopping to her.
JPL
@Baud: AHA
Immanentize
@Quinerly:
I think it is entirely possible that good Catholic Nonna prays every day for all the people given the charge of running the country. Maybe not each individually. Also, likely daily words from the Speaker: “Jesus Christ that man needs help.!”
Quinerly
@Patricia Kayden: I feel better knowing he is CIA. In related news, have you seen how those spooks are trained to drive on those New Mexico dirt roads? ?
Anne Laurie
@Patricia Kayden:
Yeah, Utah is a very Mormon state, and the name ‘Romney’ has the same weight there that ‘Kennedy’ had in Massachusetts 20 years ago. That’s why Mitt went ‘home’ there, when he failed to convince the rest of us heathens he was the Man on the White Horse (for the White House).
At least one knowledgeable tweeter said that Romney is doing this semi-almost-condemnation because (my paraphrase) he’s always wanted to live up to his father’s reputation for choosing honor over political expediency. My Spousal Unit, on the other hand, thinks it means Mitt *still* images he can run for president and win this time, as the True GOP Alternative to the parvenu currently stinking up the Oval Office. Quite possibly both opinions are correct!
Ken
@Quinerly: I think many people “pray for Trump every day.” They may throw in an infinitive phrase[*] after “Trump” but the prayer is definitely there.
[*] Risking the wrath of the Grammar Police, but I’m pretty sure that “to resign in disgrace” or “to f*ck off” is called that.
Quinerly
@Immanentize: ?
Quinerly
@Ken: ?
Quinerly
@Amir Khalid: she’s good. Very precise. Apparently has a line in straight to Bezos.
Baud
@Kay:
Absolutely. Needs something new to improve the ratings. How about “Celebrity Treason”?
Quinerly
@Amir Khalid:So I tried it out and I just said, “Alexa, order more brain bleach.” She has put a coffee mug in my cart. It says, “More Brain Bleach.”
Anne Laurie
@Quinerly:
Oh, absolutely. “Dear Lord, could you please do something about this man?”
It’s the old-school Catholic version of the Southern Lady “Bless his heart.”
satby
@rikyrah: thanks! She does out on her hijab and wear a jacket to travel, to match her I’d cards and passport, because she doesn’t want some overzealous ICE Yahoo to decide she’s trying to disguise herself. Pretty pathetic that it has come to this here.
Kay
@Baud:
I think it’s good. That he can’t adjust to a new set of facts, a worse environment. He’s treating this exactly the same as he treats everything else, and it’s different.
Quinerly
Well, well, well, what do we have here?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-27/kremlin-hopes-white-house-doesn-t-release-putin-trump-calls
clay
@JPL: Well… at least he’s not a grammar Nazi.
Quinerly
@Kay: Entire WH is caught off guard. I guess they thought this day would never come.
Quinerly
@Anne Laurie: ?
I am a child of the South. Thanks for the chuckle.
Ken
@Amir Khalid:
Google doesn’t know. It first asks if you really meant “Lidl” which is a grocery chain. Forcing it to show “liddle” gives you Trump’s tweet, some of the snarky reactions, and a few pages about “Liddle’s Syndrome” which is an inherited high blood pressure.
So to answer your question, it’s a sign of more brain cells dying in the Presidential brain.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@JPL: Cthulhu help me but I can follow the thinking of the syphilitic brain squirrels on that one. He’s seen “Li’l” and the squirrels remembered “there’s some nickname and it’s based on little and it has some little squiggle in it”.
But they don’t know it’s called an apostrophe (they are squirrels after all) and had no idea what function it serves (ditto). So they put out Liddle with a pointless apostrophe hanging off the end like a booger.
And then sent it to CNN and were outraged when it was spellchecked.
Baud
@Kay:
Also, it’s hard to believe Trump’s efforts to manipulate the election are limited to Ukraine. I hope we learn more. I want an avalanche of information to come out. Maximum damage to the GOP senators who will vote to acquit.
JPL
@Quinerly: haha That-s awesome!
JPL
@Ken: don’t make the mistake of looking in the urban dictionary like I did..
Kay
@Baud:
When the whistleblower surfaced, Rudy was actively working to expand the Biden smear to China, so that would be my guess.
They could apply a lot of pressure with tariffs/trade.
Baud
@Kay: That would be great. I’m sure the Patriot Farmers would love to learn that Trump drove them to bankruptcy in order to have leverage to coerce China to investigate Biden.
WereBear
In the midst of hearings claiming Trump and his administration are traitors and this lands like a second act reveal? While American watches the hearings and the congresscritters who sign on mounts up like a talent show?
I think that’s where we would be.
satby
@Kay: and if it comes out that the tariffs that are starting to really put the squeeze on people are being used to screw with the election, that could be a bridge to far for all but the most nutty Trumpite. Because it’s hitting red staters where it hurts.
Edit: or what Baud said better.
Kay
@Baud:
The NYTimes Clinton smear sources. It would have been front page in that paper by Thanksgiving if the whistleblower hadn’t have interrupted the sequence.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: I’ll have to try Al-Bawadi. One of the things I miss most about Detroit is middle-eastern food.
Baud
@WereBear:
I disagree. But I’m not interested in arguing over counterfactualls.
Quinerly
@WereBear: so if impeachment had started on one track, you think he would have still handled Ukraine the same way in the middle of it?
Amir Khalid
@Quinerly:
These days, it’s tough to get good help.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Does attorney/client privilege extend to Giuliani’s (alleged) conversations with DoS? Isn’t there some law about private citizens conducting diplomacy?
Baud
@Kay:
I do wonder if that’s the real reason they haven’t been able to conclude a trade deal with China.
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: so good! A bit of a hike from your place though. Maybe we should do a juice meetup!
Quinerly
@Amir Khalid: want to be creeped out? Say, “Alexa, ask The Listeners,”
Raven
Man what a week! Brother in from LA for the Notre Dame game a week ago already. Now I’m wrapping up the Louisiana trip with a 3 hr wait in the Easy Airport. I see nothing much happened while I was gone
Baud
@Raven:
Enjoying retirement?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JPL: It took me forever to get that. By “hyphen,” he means the apostrophe he stuck at the end of “liddle.” He’s probably trying to do something like Lil’. It’s like trying to decipher hieroglyphics.
hueyplong
Should we assume Nunes spouts what unfiltered Trump instructions sound like when unedited by adult human intelligence?
Gin & Tonic
@Raven: Couple of slow news days, no big. Catch much?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: I wonder who’s paying for those rallies, frex.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: I am trying to remember how exactly things went down: When the FBI seized Cohen’s records, and the prosecutors and trump’s lawyers went thru them to decide what was privileged and what wasn’t, Cohen had yet to be convicted of any crimes. In the end he plead guilty to 8 counts including “and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate (Trump) for the “principal purpose of influencing [the] election”**
I’m not sure about the ins and outs here but it certainly sounds like they knew a crime had been convicted, that Cohen had taken part in it, seized the records of it, and then got it into the prosecutions case against him, before anything had been proven in a court of law. So I am cornfused (not unusual when it comes to matters of law)
**wikipedia
Quinerly
Deep Whistle went to the CIA first: “The intelligence community whistleblower, identified as a CIA officer, initially took his allegations to the agency’s general counsel, only deciding to lodge his now-famous complaintwhen he realized that the general counsel had alerted the White House.”
TPM, NYT
Gin & Tonic
Boy, whoever runs Merriam-Webster’s social media needs a raise.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: She left out the “to die”.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
M-W has been amazing throughout the Trump era.
Quinerly
Nancy on MJ:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pelosi-barr-doj-rogue
Quinerly
@Quinerly: link to TPM
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cia-whistleblower-complaint-trump-ukraine-zelensky
Baud
@Quinerly:
Josh does good work, and I’m probably out of touch, but why embed tweets in a news story instead of just incorporating the information into the story?
Steve in the ATL
@Ken: someone paged me?
RAVEN
@Gin & Tonic: Well, I got a 60lb yellowfin on the offshore trip but everything else was Bonita and small tuna that went back in. The captain and mate worked their asses off to get us on fish but they just didn’t hit that well. That size tuna is great and we all got about 15 lbs of that to take home so it wasn’t a total bust. The boat was insane, huge and fast so that was fun. We decided to do an inshore the next day and, again, we caught a couple of big reds, sheepheads and trout. My buddies were fine with whole thing so we had a great time with not as much fish as hoped for. Yesterday we went to the WW2 museum and just did the Pacific Wing. It’s pretty stark but interesting and I filled in as a docent. Some great food and a little music and heading home.
Capri
@Kay: I think that’s why unsubscribe from the NYTimes is getting traction. From the outside they really seem to be active participants in this scheme.
RAVEN
@Baud: I’m going to try to get going with something when I get home. The last week was more of the present to myself and I just kind of fiddled around so now we’ll see what gives. The 1st is the actual official date, I’ve been on leave this month.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: We need a Rosetta stone.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
A fair point, but his primary allies Russia and Saudi Arabia he gets to talk to in person and don’t require any pushing. Ukraine is an unusual case not just because of Hunter Biden, but he believes Hillary’s hard drive full of 30,000 emails that prove she’s a criminal is hidden there. Man, I wish that was a joke.
@Baud:
Naah. The dumb fuck truly, in a ‘conservatism cannot fail’ way, believes in tariff-driven trade wars, the trade deficit, that entire line. Like racism, it’s one of the things he’s said for decades.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: A meetup would be lovely! I’m still cautious about driving around Chicago. I lived in Iowa too long.
Quinerly
If you have the stomach for it, read Rudy’s Tweets from yesterday. He was on Laura Ingraham’s show last night. Looks like he removed a few tweets I saw yesterday. I don’t tweet so really don’t follow anyone regularly. The response are hilarious. There is one guy who tweets back to him on every thread “Cousin Fucker.”
Gin & Tonic
A very good overview of the situation from a Ukrainian perspective (in English.) Davidzon has been an astute analyst and a clear writer. Interesting that he calls Trump “our first Central Asian President.”
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Nowadays a lot of news sites also add a video to the story. This annoys the heck out of me: the video needlessly uses up bandwidth and takes time to sit through, when I can get the same information much faster by just reading the text story.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: 17 years out here and every time I’m in STL it’s white knuckles all the way.
Kraux Pas
Considering his one-sided bargaining approach, it’s not hard to believe he would add “dirt on my opponents” to his already undoubtedly outlandish list of demands on trade.
artem1s
@Anne Laurie:
I agree. Mitt’s been waiting around for the GOP to come to it’s senses and appoint him VP when they finally see the light about Donny and Dense. You know he will be elbowing his way to the front of the line if ever the 25th comes into play. He’s such a clueless git.
Kay
@Capri:
I think their political coverage sucks, but I don’t object to them revealing details about the whistleblower. I think it’s news.
Of course, they’re horrible because they were all outraged when Castro “revealed” Trump donors, which is a public record, so their prior actions go against their whistleblower reveal, but still. If the base question is “should they reveal what they know about the whistleblower?” the answer for me is “yes”.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Morning to Poco and the tribe ???
Gin & Tonic
@Kay:
Why?
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m beginning to think Giuliani is secretly funded by the Democrats. Every time he runs his mouth, he makes things worse for Trump.
Kay
This was kind of nice. As I said here, we did a D straw poll at a fair for 5 nights. We did a total every night and put that up at the booth and it was kind of fun- people were engaged, talking about the candidates. Anyway, a reporter for the local paper saw the tally sheet one night when he was at the fair and he emailed and asked for the vote totals. They’re going to print them. This is an R county and we complain that they don’t cover D stuff so I was pleased. I sent a picture of the actual tally, which I added up. Biden won, Bernie second, Warren way behind those two but third, Mayor Pete and Harris w/in a couple of each other. The local paper is popular. Everyone reads it.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: Also when they get message from donors that Trump has outlived his usefulness.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA H AH
I’ve said it all along..Dolt45 isn’t noble. Don’t know how to spell noble. If he’s going down..
HE’S TAKING EEEERRRRRRRRRBODY with him.
and, that means YOU, Race Bannon.
Kay
@Gin & Tonic:
Because the whistleblower is central to the story. I don’t think he/she is promised anonymity – they’re promised something better- legal protections.
I think they planned this carefully (which I’m happy about) and they probably considered all the ramifications.
I know the messenger is terrible and not (in my view) credible as far as motives or incentives but I don’t find the thing itself offensive or out of bounds.
Leto
@OzarkHillbilly: Bit of reporting from the time (via WaPo):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mueller-began-investigating-michael-cohens-phone-and-digital-data-months-before-fbi-raid-warrants-show/2019/03/19/9e936cc2-49b5-11e9-b79a-961983b7e0cd_story.html
They didn’t have to allege, they knew. They had the documents/records to show he lied. He was lying to prosecutors, banks, everyone, and they had the receipts to prove it.
Calouste
@Patricia Kayden: Romney doesn’t have a conscience, he just sees an opportunity to run for President again.
Quinerly
@Kay: agree 100% with you.
Leto
@Kay: Personally I object to it. Remember the anonymous Op-Ed, “We are the people at the wheel controlling everything, don’t worry!”? How about any of the, “senior officials”, who are quoted? They’ll protect them, but this person? How about the high level operative we had in Russia who had to be exfiltrated in 2017, was living anonymously in DC, and was then outed… there was no reason to give details about this person except to help the administration. In both cases, whistle blower and operative, it puts them and their families at risk. And right now, you’re trusting Bill Barr’s DoJ to provide “legal protection”. Good luck with that.
Kay
@Gin & Tonic:
Unlike some here, I don’t think media have an ideological or broad agenda. I think instead that what we’re seeing is ordinary career promotion that is worse than it used to be because they are conducting these whole lucrative, individual side businesses alongside their reporting work and it doesn’t work. I think they’re conflicted. They’re all pushing books and appearances! They are individual “brands” at this point. I saw Peter Baker on cable last night and he is analyzing this whole thing in the frame of the BOOK he’s pushing, which is about impeachment. His commentary served effectively to minimize Trump’s behavior because he’s not talking about news, he’s talking about the “history” book he wrote.
They have to do something about this. These people can’t do their jobs because they have other, much more lucrative jobs on the side.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay:
No, he/she isn’t. The report is central to the story. It lays out facts and allegations which can and should be verified. His/her identity adds nothing. So it turns out to be career CIA employee John Smith – how do you or I evaluate that fact? We don’t know this person from Adam. Bill Barr we know something about, so we can make our own judgment as to whether he’s telling the truth or has other motives. This person? We know nothing about them, and after they are identified we will still know nothing about them.
p.a.
Someone made the comment that they were surprised at how fragile US institutions seem to be, compared to the CW, and I agree. Imagine the results if these people were competently evil. Not that there isn’t tremendous damage already.
In some ways, this goes back to Ford’s Nixon pardon. Some of the same aging scumbags involved, seeding new generations, assuming no consequences.
KATHY QUINERLY
@rikyrah: Tail wags, soft meows, waves back!
Related, might be the last morning here for John Lennon’s soft meows. He is so very lonesome and I have become so allergic to him. He is probably going to live with my very best gal pal and her sweet Tinker Bell kitty, starting tonight. She just moved from an apartment to a house and is settled into a great situation for years to come. I’m gearing up for more travel (will be gone 5 weeks in about 2 weeks and then 7 weeks starting the end of January). He’s all by his lonesome here now that Ivan died when I’m gone. It just doesn’t seem fair. My friend is probably a better kitty mom than I anyway. Very doting on Tinker Bell. JL will be spoiled rotten, plus he’s getting a younger girlfriend in Tinks. ????❤️
NotMax
Tuckered out from two hours (1 – 3 a.m.) of shoving furniture around in order to accommodate a surprise addition to the abode’s inventory. Need to make some delayed dinner, and a good stiff drink wouldn’t hurt either.
Kay
@Leto:
And I agree with that criticism. That they’re hypocrites who pick winners and losers in the “reveal” game and it’s fair to say that indicates bias or an agenda, particularly given their past work. I just think the whistleblower will be revealed and the whistleblower knows that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Leto:
As I understand it, in our system of law, everything is alleged until proven in a court of law. What they did in this case is show a judge a preponderance of evidence that Cohen was involved in crimes and the judge or judges signed off on the multiple warrants.
But again, that’s not proof of criminal activity. In fact the whole purpose of the search warrants was to find more evidence of criminal activity, evidence that would that would add up to “beyond a reasonable doubt.”.
Or to put it another way, maybe I is cornfused.
rikyrah
@Kay:
BWA HA HA HAHA HA AHH A
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Certain to have a chilling effect on future whistles being blown.
Kay
@rikyrah:
These people are essentially giant infants. He’s in trouble so he’s hoping everyone who can nail him DROPS DEAD.
“Then everyone died. The End”. It’s like listening to huge, ugly 3 year olds.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Dear Black Jesus……if there’s a call with China too?
Uh uh uh
DIFFERENT-CHURCH-LADY
THAT’S NOT EVEN A HYPHEN, YOU DUMB FUCK!!1!
rikyrah
@Baud:
That would be so wickedly wonderful. A great punch in their face. More salt in their wounds.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: I can’t wait to get to the part of the story where we’ve id’d the person, gone through their emails, their texts, had the president* smear them across every media platform, have the FTFNYT repeat the smears, find out that their grandfather once made a donation to Harry Truman’s campaign… I wonder if Kay has the same “I don’t mind they outed him” attitude towards, say, the mafia informants who turned on their crime syndicates and kept their anonymity? Per her reasoning here, it would have been perfectly A-OK for the FTFNYT to publish that person’s identity, regardless of the harm it did.
At this point, the Trumpov WH has to know who the person is. There can’t be that many CIA operatives who were assigned to/near the WH at this time, who then moved back to the CIA. And, again, putting your trust in Bill Barr’s DoJ to protect this person is ludicrous.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Because Twitter is a virus.
Leto
@OzarkHillbilly: I look at this way: it’s what our BJ lawyers tell us all the time about prosecutors who ask questions: They don’t ask the question unless they already know the answer. All of the subpoenas they were granted were based on enough solid evidence for the judge to grant a go ahead. Again, IANAL just like you. If I’m wrong, Kay or Imm will point out my/our flaws and set the record straight. I don’t think we should trust Where in the World is Steven San Diego, but that’s just a given. :P
Jay C
@artem1s:
True, but he may not be too far wrong in this case. Assuming that Donny Littlefingers gets the boot (G*d willing), one of the first things a President Pence would have to do is send up a nom for VP that would be acceptable to both House and Senate, i.e. a “respectable” Republican with minimal Trump-taint. (and if a Senator, one whose departure won’t flip a seat) And, sad commentary on our political structure as it may be, old Willard IS the first name that comes to mind.
Wakeshift
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Why buy the cow when we get the milk for free?
rikyrah
@Baud:
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: “very legal and very good”
God in a basket, I consider the paucity of his prose and utter bankruptcy of his cranial function to be impeachable territory. I find it offensive on every level that we went from President Obama to this leering, snuffling, imbecilic baboon, just because White America had a race-based temper tantrum. May every Trump voter, and I include my own family among them, rot in their own personal Hell for inflicting this obscenity on a suffering world.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
This person truly believed that this was a crime. Also, going to more places means less probability of it being buried.
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: OH is right.
SWMBO
@Kay: Part of their reasoning is based on the case against Jeffrey Epstein. When he died, the case against him was closed by a judge. No setting aside the favorable deal and finding out who he was protecting. The rich guys got away with it and the judge buried it for them. The case was dismissed and these women will never have their day in court.
In other words, if the whistleblower dies, they really believe that it gets dismissed and all goes away.
rikyrah
@Baud:
their shade has been consistent and brutal
Matt McIrvin
@SWMBO: …wouldn’t the Epstein equivalent here be a situation where Trump dies? (I’m actually kind of scared of that now: Trump dying is the twist most likely to make everyone try to forget any of this ever happened and avoid any further lessons, reforms or convictions. I guess it did work out differently with Warren G. Harding.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Robert Ludlum’s latest.
prostratedragon
@debbie: Please tell me we won’t be doing this in 113 years!
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Rosetta Stone. Roger’s older, smarter sister.
J R in WV
@Quinerly:
That’s almost scary smart, really. The singularity may be named Alexa, and may have already arrived. Thanks Mr Bezos!!
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Our very nearly paid-off home mortgage includes something called an escrow account, from which the home owners insurance and real estate taxes are paid, to protect the bank’s interest in the home being repairable and not being sold for back taxes. So each year the payment amount can change if either the taxes of the insurance bill amount changes.
Today I get an email from the bank with an embedded video about “your escrow account” – not a letter with the details and numbers, a video. I was one click away from filing a complaint with the CFPB about the idiocy of a bank sending me a video about my account with them. Furious, I was, and am. Morons! Sending millions of videos instead of just a letter.
What a waste! Won’t be watching their stupid video. Still pondering filing a complaint. I hear excessive bandwidth is causing global climate change!All those hot servers!!
sgrAstar
@Leto: ?
SWMBO
@Matt McIrvin: The judge in the Epstein case said that all further legal matters were closed upon his death. These bozos probably assume the same with the whistleblower. It’s not like anyone else had anything to say about this complaint. Nope. One and done. Get rid of the whistleblower and the rest will stay silent.