Rudy Giuliani appeared on Laura Ingraham’s show again last night, this time reading texts from State Department official Kurt Volker from his phone to prove that he (Rudy) wasn’t freelancing in Ukraine:
Giuliani has been reduced to pushing Alex Jones-style conspiracy theories about the FBI and George Soros pic.twitter.com/GHPnfPDjef
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2019
I don’t know anything about Volker except that, unlike Giuliani, he has a reputation as a serious person in the foreign policy arena. If that’s accurate, it would be surprising if Volker dispatched Giuliani to investigate a crackpot conspiracy theory that Ukraine — on behalf of Hillary Clinton, George Soros and the DNC — framed Putin for interfering in the 2016 election.
The whistleblower’s complaint alleges that Volker and others were running interference with the Ukrainians to mitigate the damage caused by demands arising out of Giuliani’s and Trump’s insane pro-Putin, anti-Clinton/DNC/Soros fixation. Maybe Volker sent Giuliani on a snipe hunt to keep him occupied? It would explain Giuliani’s indignant reaction now.
Anyway, in a Twitter thread, Anders Åslund, an economist and author of “Russia’s Crony Capitalism,” describes what he believes happened in Ukraine. To sum up, Åslund says that in a bid to keep his job as prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko acquiesced to the Giuliani/Trump demand to allege wrongdoing by the Bidens and US Ambassador Yovanovitch. Lutsenko later rescinded those claims, but he got fired anyway:
The point is that Lutsenko’s strange lies about VP Biden & US Ambassador Yovanovitch were PLANTED by Giuliani. Lutsenko tried to leverage his relationship with Giuliani (=Trump) in order to stay on as prosecutor general…
The essence of the Giuliani-Lutsenko story is that Giuliani persuaded a corrupt prosecutor general in Ukraine to lie about prominent US citizens to the political benefit of Trump & his own pecuniary benefit…
Obviously, Giuliani operated at the instruction of Trump. What crimes did they commit?
The big lessons [Zelensky] needs to draw from his unfortunate encounters with Trump are that Trump always lies & stands on Putin’s side against Ukraine, Europe & the US. Zelenskyy has little choice but to act with all US forces BUT Trump with a maximum of transparency.
The ultimate verdict is that the Giuliani conspiracy in Ukraine is not only criminal but also more sophisticated than one could have expected. Presumably the Trump gang operates in a similar fashion in other favorite parts of the world, such as Israel & Saudi Arabia.
And China. In short, we’re going to need a bigger boat.
Mike in DC
I really want them to subpoena transcripts of Trump’s phone calls with Putin.
Baud
Is Volker going to testify?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mike in DC: Trump will eat those transcripts before he lets them go to Congress.
On second thought, maybe not. He released the Ukrainian call summary. He’s so crazy that he’s completely unpredictable.
oldster
I’m laughing here. Why did I never think of “do not go gently/under that good bus”?
Pure genius.
But rage, rage, and say, “it wasn’t us!”
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Seems like he’d be on the list. Ambassador Yovanovitch also.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
If he’s a serious person and not a Trump flunkie, he won’t refuse to answer questions.
Spanky
Fixticated.
The Dangerman
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Nah; Trump could release a video of himself servicing Putin and he isn’t getting convicted (Devin Nunes: “Hey, as long as he washes his hands, I’m OK with it”)
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: He’s a career State Department man, although he’s been in the private sector for a while. He is serious, but generally more associated with Republican administrations and organizations than Democratic ones. Marie Yovanovich is completely a career Foreign Service officer, generally as apolitical as most of those tend to be.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
The thing I’m wondering about is what Giuliani is going to do once it Dawn’s on him that Donald Tяump doesn’t give any more shits about him than he does about anybody else.
Gin & Tonic
I posted this late in the downstairs thread, but a good background piece from a Ukrainian perspective (in English) about this whole imbroglio.
germy
Makes sense.
Spanky
We’ve all watched as Jennifer Rubin has come out more and more against the Trump crime cartel. Today she has what looks for all the world like a beat sweetener on the Massachusetts AG, Maura Healey.
Final paragraph:
I’m one of those who assumed she’d go back to the Republican side once Trump was gone. This piece makes me wonder, though.
Chyron HR
@germy:
NO LIDDLE’ NO LIDDLE’ YOU’RE THE HYPHEN
rp
Hey, li’l BJ buddies. (wait, that doesn’t sound right)
MobiusKlein
I am still boggled that diplomatic instructions are sent by SMS.
Would not pass infosec or sarbanes oxley at work.
MattF
Giuliani assumes he’s an independent actor. That’s… a dangerous assumption
Dorothy A. Winsor
Trump has tweeted at least 10 times so far this morning, not counting the crap he retweets. I like this one best.
Quinerly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: WH is truly blindsided by this impeachment.
Leto
If this is “America’s Mayor”, well we’re all screwed.
@germy: The fact that there’s a spelling error and two grammatical errors just goes to show: STABLE GENIUS! Do you remember the Hitler bunker scene from, “Downfall”? It’s been parodied a million time, including a pretty darn funny Air Force one, but I feel like we might be entering that territory. Or we’re close to it. On the one hand the fate of our country is at stake, on the other we get these non-sensical tweets from the Tango Terror. As soon as they figure out how to bridge the multiple realities, I’m checking in on some of the others.
Betty Cracker
@Spanky: Of all the Never Trumpers, Rubin’s conversion seems the most sincere to me. She’s done some tut-tutting about left policy moves, but no more than a garden-variety centrist Dem, IMO. She’s generally less obnoxious about that than Tom Nichols, Richard Painter, Max Boot, et al, IMO.
cmorenc
Meanwhile, over on Fox News website the lead headline is: “Ukranian official appears to cast doubt on quid pro quo claim, whistleblower’s account“. Of course, said Ukrainian official was “unnamed”.
Fox News must be running a scientific test putting its audience into a centrifuge to see how fast and long they can be spun before blacking out or throwing up in their tinfoil MAGA-suits.
schrodingers_cat
Meanwhile in Modi’s India, a rape victim is jailed without bail because the man she accused is a powerful BJP politician. Acche Din! (Good Days, Modi’s campaign slogan in 2014)
Mary G
I bet every time Rudy shows a text from anyone in the administration, that person’s lawyer chortle and buys a new car.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: She is pretty good on women’s issues and also immigration. Unlike that horrid Frum.
TS (the original)
@germy: Despite the weird – I don’t think I have ever heard another President attack members of congress or their political opponents in this bullying, lying, childish way that trump does over and over. He is a child in the school playground pointing and yelling at children he does not like – and with that I am probably insulting the children.
Leto
@MobiusKlein: Considering from all reporting that Trumpov still uses two unsecure phones, and Javanka is still conducting official government business via personal email accounts… this isn’t surprising in the least. If the top three dipshits are doing this, you can count on the rest of the criminals doing at least this bad, if not worse. Don’t forget the Presidential Records Act that we know he’s destroying. Whoever the Dem president is, they need to create a team dedicated to recovering as much of the paper trail as they can to document the corruption that took place. I also can’t wait for Trumpov to somehow try to claim, “executive privilege” once he’s left office. ?
M31
Ok so now add “what is a hyphen” to the list of things Donald Trump doesn’t know
“WE’RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER LIST”
feebog
@Betty Cracker:
OTH, you just know Ric Wilson will turn right back into a Republican cheerleader at the earliest opportunity.
M31
Also, “where does apostrophe go and what is it for”
Jay C
@germy:
I noticed the the lede here has been buried deeper than Jimmy Hoffa: not just that The President Of The United States – in a tweet bitching about about CNN’s “editing” of his stupid childishly-insulting tweet about Adam Schiff – misspelled “describing”, and misstated “hyphen” for “apostrophe” – but that he even bothered to waste the time of The President Of The United States grousing about a stupid childishly-insulting tweet. Priorities, I guess….
oldgold
I just reread the WB’s complaint. Damn, it is well written. The WB did more in 9 pages than Mueller accomplished in 448 pages.
TS (the original)
Trump calls for Schiff’s resignation,
Well the “sick man – is definitely not Adam Schiff – and the president* does not have the power to fire a member of congress.
Just Chuck
We’re gonna need a bigger prison.
TaMara (HFG)
That’s doesn’t seem ominous at all…
Spanky
@Jay C: My bet is that Jimmy Hoffa isn’t all that deep.
MattF
@feebog: Wilson had a career as a hired gun for Republican thugs, and has never really disavowed anything. OTOH, he’s entertaining and his perspective is light-years away from anyone else’s. And he really does despise Donald Trump.
rikyrah
Audio: Listen to a reading of the I.C. whistleblower complaint
https://soundcloud.com/penguin-audio/the-whistle-blower-complaint-released-by-the-house-intelligence-committee-9262019
Spanky
@TaMara (HFG): Or “please don’t throw me in the briar patch”?
We really have no idea what is in their phone calls, but if Putin’s real goal is to weaken the US and sow confusion, those phone calls may just do it. I’m sure they would show how Putin is able to control Trump.
Betty Cracker
This seems somewhat significant:
rikyrah
I think all of this is hilarious…
UNDER THE BUS, RUDY!
UNDER.THE.BUS.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@The Dangerman: EWWWW. And Amir’s already used all the brain bleach.
PPCLI
@TaMara (HFG): that message is for exactly one man, and it reads “ we keep complete transcripts and tape recordings of all conversations between Putin and any head of state. There is a particular head of state who would find them very embarrassing, especially right now. Act accordingly.“
laura
@TaMara (HFG): sounds like an order to an owned asset who has a ham head and will do any/everything to please his owner.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: @MattF: Wilson likes to talk about all the R congress critters who call and tell him how much they hate trump. Mike Murphy was making tweets (I first wrote headlines, like the foolish old luddite I am) with the anonymous, of course, R Senator who told him trump would lose 30 members of that esteemed caucus in a secret vote. Then Jeff Flake (R, ret’d, Uncanny Valley) came out and said, not true, it’d be more like 35. To all of them, especially would-be tough guys Wilson and Murphy: Why are you covering for these scumbags who are consciously betraying their oaths of office and putting the Republic at risk to protect the ridiculous but still dangerous demagogue?
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Uh, I got this far:
Really? This person doesn’t quite understand what’s going on here.
Spanky
@Spanky: Can’t edit my own comment, dammit!
@PPCLI: and @laura: say pretty much what my “OTOH” would have been. WH response bears watching.
Gelfling 545
@Betty Cracker: I believe that some of these people if they try to go back to their party will find it’s not where they left it on pretty much anything, not just Trump.
Kay
I’m so encouraged that not everyone is corrupt with the appearance of the whistleblower that I’m not letting these horrible sleazy Trump people get to me today.
I was losing hope that anyone decent was left in or around that White House.
I just wanted a fighting chance. Now when they roll out the China or Saudi shit (and they will) we have a heads up.
Sasha
“Last night, I remembered a Furry Freak Bros strip where the boys pick up a hippie hitch-hiker, and down the road a stretch they get pulled over by the Highway Patrol. They’ve got a whole trunk full of weed, so Fat Freddy is sweating as he politely makes nice with the cop, smiling and being all cooperative, when the hippie in the back seat starts screaming and calling the cop a fascist pig– And all that was triggered by watching Giuliani on tv last night.” – Larry Hama
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
They never cared, BC. They wanted the money…they could care less. Let them get charged.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: She is a neocon. They found a home in the GOP following the Vietnam War, but they aren’t typical Republicans. Tax cuts, anti-abortion fanaticism, and the like don’t really interest them. Foreign policy and defense spending are their things. Trump is shitting all over their baby, and that is why a lot of the Never Trumpers come from that world.
TL;DR. I still don’t trust any of them.
Shalimar
@feebog: Wilson would be running Republican campaigns right now if being a Trump sycophant wasn’t a pre-requisite for all of them. He will go back to his normal profession as soon as they will have him. His hatred is purely for Trump.
Spanky
WaPo top headline:
The final straw does not “almost single-handedly” break the camel’s back.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TaMara (HFG): I keep thinking how Willard told us that the Soviet Union was our greatest geopolitical threat, in 2012, and everyone laughed at him, because Soviet Union in 2012. And when Putin invaded Ukraine, and the revelations about Russian interference, and all the Villagers said, Ah you silly liberals mocked the heroic Willard when he predicted all this!
and now, as trump’s fealty to Putin becomes ever more obvious, Willard says he’s troubled, and many of those same Villagers say that’s courage, and all agree that to call Willard a coward is simply beyond the pale!
eric
@Kay: it may also be the case that the sources are doing the right thing too and knowingly went to this particular person because there is a strategic advantage in this person being Deep Whistler.
JanieM
@TS (the original):
Maybe someone has already said it, but we can add “that he even wasted the time of The President of the United States” writing “a stupid childishly-insulting tweet” in the first place!
Also, thanks everyone for a lot of laugh-inducing comments on a Friday morning.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
IN other news:
The judge is, hold on to your wigs and keys kids, a trump appointee, donor and campaign volunteer.
Miss Bianca
@Sasha: I remember that exact comic. Plus, the hippie had a dog that viciously attacked the officer, as I recall.
Kay
@Gelfling 545:
My husband thinks the GOP backed Romney’s dissent. They need a high profile rep for the “decent wing” so they sacrifice a “safe” member knowing Romney is untouchable in that state, thereby hanging on to some share of Republicans who find Trumpists repellent. Like a kind of whistleblower, with 30 GOP Senators behind him but not willing to be the public face.
Those voters can remain Republicans and keep their dignity. Romney hangs onto that cohort and keeps them in the R column.
Leto
@laura: that’s what it sounded like to me.
Spanky
Ha! I was going to warn anyone with a limited number of WaPo clicks not to waste one on the unbelievably stupid crap in the “Post Pundit 2020 Power Ranking”, but at the end I realized it was by Meghan McArdle.
Consistent, that one is.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I resisted mocking Trump’s writing because he’s probably dyslexic. I could sympathize with a better dyslexic president. S/he could represent dyslexic folks and talk about how dyslexic does NOT equal stupid. But Trump is too terrible. He wore my principles down.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: It was an interesting article overall, but I agree the author misses the big picture on that point, maybe in a way that is understandable for a citizen of a country that is used to seeing his own nation getting stomped and shoved around by larger, more powerful countries. That would tend to make a person extra cynical. I don’t doubt for a second that US presidents of every party routinely bully smaller countries in a non-altruistic way. What I do not believe is that it’s normal for a president to leverage US foreign policy to subvert domestic elections.
Kay
@eric:
Oh, I don’t have any problems with their plan. I earnestly hope they have a good one. I’m 100% pulling for all of them.
I was impressed how they took two routes- they knew the crooked Trumpsters would block the DOJ route so they added the congress route. Be smart! Please. I hope.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Remember, this is a perspective from Ukraine (yes, I know the author is in the US now) where, for much of its independence, even video of you taking a paper bag with cash in it wasn’t necessarily an offense.
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: the gift that will keep on giving to the Republicans for decades and decades to come. Fuck #moscowmitch, forever.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agreed. To me, the presence of such a large bloc of cowards makes the party seem more contemptible, not less.
PersistentIllusion
@feebog: Wilson has already indicated, in his twitter feed, that he will return to ardent R status once the Tangerine Tantrum is gone.
MattF
@Kay: There’s movement under the blanket. Rumors about Paul Ryan as well. However, it’s a known fact that Romney/Ryan is not a winning combination.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
How can they be?
I’m totally convinced that the call was the LEAST CRIMINAL thing that they had to offer.
Leto
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I have one word for you: covfefe. All bets were off at that point. Although I do take your point. Also I make it point not to mock people’s spelling because 1) I’m not a grammar Nazi and it’s such a childish internet thing to do and 2) like you said, they may have a learning disability.
But for this particular sack of puss, nope. If you’re going to claim stable genius, and repeatedly talk about your education, be prepared.
RedDirtGirl
@germy: And in this tweet he misspelled “describing”.
Frankie three sticks
@Spanky: but it is always the one everybody oh’s and aw’s over
RedDirtGirl
@Betty Cracker: Richard Painter sounds like a cartoon character to me. Hard to take him seriously.
Quinerly
@rikyrah: lulled themselves into a false sense of security. Mueller was perceived as a dud. They thought the Dems were weak, that Pelosi would never pull the trigger.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Besides, Trump is much less popular with Mormons than Evangelicals, because Mormons are much less hypocritical. I mean, they’re still a hate cult, but they do take their ‘look squeaky clean in public’ rule seriously. They have to take Trump because he comes with the Republican Party that lets them get their hate on, but they don’t like him.
Leto
@feebog: @PersistentIllusion: Honestly they all will. They’re appalled that Wussillini is screaming at the top of his lungs all the quiet parts, and is setting the party on fire. But if they nominate Mittens, or the Granny Starver, they’ll be right back to good little jackboots, advocating for “fiscal responsibility” and “we need to throw a couple of cruise missiles at X to show them we mean business!” Leopard, spots, and all that.
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Can’t they take it to another judge?
Omnes Omnibus
@Quinerly: The thing is, the Mueller report is like a paint by numbers kit for criminal indictments.
Spanky
@rikyrah: Always tactical, never strategic. And really not that bright.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: @Gin & Tonic:
I get that. But I would think that putting pressure to advance US POLICY INTERESTS could be more easily distinguished from putting pressure TO HELP IN HIS REELECTION campaign.
psycholinguist
I’m still just stupefied that the media seems to accept as normal the idea that we have the president’s personal lawyer running around conducting foreign policy. Why not, for example, ask a few republican senators if they think it is appropriate for the president’s personal lawyer to conduct foreign policy on behalf of the US? Why not ask him if he has security clearance, if his phone is secure, if he is required to retain all documents under the official records act, etc. It just feels like we’re blowing by this incredibly strange situation. There is an answer to WHY Rudy is being used in this role, but nobody seems to be asking the question.
mrmoshpotato
@Quinerly: Is abuse of American English an impeachable offense? I’m so damn sick of his ‘We had the most beautiful, luxurious, classy, tremendous bigly conversation ever!’ crap.
If similar garbage was written by a kid, you’d steer them clear of such ridiculousness.
catclub
@Spanky: exept the stealth, according to TPM, includes going first to the IC General Counsel, who told the White House about the complaint, and then, being stifled, going to the IG with a whistleblower complaint.
I think Trump will skate on this because, as the complaint says, various white house officials decided to up-classify this to protect TRump,
and Trump can deny knowledge of the effort.
Kay
@MattF:
Right, but it’s akin to how the D’s allow some D’s from Right wing districts to abandon ship on the Green New Deal or whatever.
They’re hanging onto that bloc of voters. “I cannot in good conscience support this far Left agenda”. Okay, you’re excused!
Millard Filmore
@Spanky: I took that as instructions from Russia to Trump: destroy those tapes (or files).
Quinerly
@Omnes Omnibus: yes. But nothing was done after it dropped. Hence, my question up thread. Where would we be if Pelosi started impeachment, say in June? Would the Ukraine stuff even had come out? Would Trump have handled the July call to Ukraine Pres the same way? Personally, I think Pelosi was correct with the “self impeachment” characterization. Had to get to a point of something so straightforward, no twists, no turns, no “dossiers.”
Frankensteinbeck
One thing disturbs me more and more as I think about it. Trump is so stupid and deranged that he believes there is a hard drive in Ukraine to be recovered that contains 30,000 emails proving that Hillary and the Democrats made up the whole Russian interference thing. Just… think about that.
catclub
@zhena gogolia: yeah, transactional is fine if it is for the interests of the US. For the interests of oneself, or one political party is not ok. Somehow Israel and Bibi Netanyahu are springing to mind.
Wakeshift
@TaMara (HFG):
Kremlin hoping the transcripts don’t get released almost sounds like reverse psychology. Not very subtle, I know. But consider the subject…
ETA: and everyone got there first and said it better. I’ll just climb back in my hole and keep reading.
Betty Cracker
@psycholinguist: I’m hopeful that’ll come up by and by — maybe after Giuliani is grilled on Capitol Hill. Some reporters are on it already, but most of them have to be spoon-fed.
germy
@Jay C:
Repatriated
@zhena gogolia: Exactly. The normal and desirable pathway is to boost one’s re-election by getting favorable foreign policy outcomes, not personal campaign favors.
Edit: Catclub typed faster…
Kelly
My Rep. Kurt Schrader has dropped his cautious wait see stand about the impeachment inquiry and joined the rest of the Oregon Democrats in support of the inquiry. I’m sure my Monday phone call to his office pushed him off the fence. It’s his usual behavior, wait and see until the the issue has been settled without him then join the winning side.
Quinerly
@Frankensteinbeck: I was reading all the Rudy stuff yesterday. WH folks have said in private to reporters that this is all Rudy. Rudy has him convinced about the server and that the emails are in Ukraine.
Leto
@Frankensteinbeck: he stared directly into the sun, without proper glasses, for last years solar eclipse. He still believes that the emails were “bleached”. We’re essentially dealing with a shittier, less funny Derek Zoolander.
PJ
@Betty Cracker: It’s normal for Republicans. Nixon did it in 1968, promising the South Vietnamese President he would double down on the war if they withdrew from peace talks with North Vietnam, and Reagan did it in 1980 when he promised the Iranians weapons if they would wait until he was inaugurated to release the hostages. It’s true they weren’t President at the time they made those promises and subverted US foreign policy, but it’s one reason they were elected in the first place, so I think it counts. They just weren’t as stupid, or obvious about it, as Trump.
mrmoshpotato
@Just Chuck:
Offering to foot the bill for decades of prison time? :)
Jamie
@Leto:
…a shittier, less funny Derek Zoolander.
Oh my god. That’s perfect.
Omnes Omnibus
@Quinerly: Like Baud, I am not particularly interested in counterfactuals. My take is that the House leadership was slow-walking the impeachment process because they did not have the numbers (for various reasons – some principled, some not) until this thing dropped. This was a game-changer. It is simple, comparatively straightforward, and obviously bad. They got the numbers all at once and here we are.
Repatriated
@Kay: Romney versus Warren won’t end well for them…
Frankensteinbeck
@Quinerly:
But that’s so fucking bizarre. Trump KNOWS Hillary didn’t make it up. He knows from personal conversation with Putin. This is an ongoing thing he has had no chance to forget about. It’s an active part of his life. It takes a truly special level of stupidity to also believe an absurd conspiracy theory that proof this is a frame-up is hidden in Russia.
MattF
@Frankensteinbeck: Also, there’s the rumors of a Soros connection.
Trump has become the ranty grampa who watches FOX all day and really believes all that stuff. I doubt, though, that he believes Steve Doocy is his real friend.
Leto
@Kelly: “I too supported not wearing white after Labor Day!” – General Schrader, Leader of the Rear Guard
Quinerly
Michael Cohen wants in on the action. Lanny says Cohen is the second coming of John Dean.
Former Trump attorney “Michael Cohen is ready to testify before Congress about the president’s call with the President of Ukraine.
That’s what his lawyer, Lanny Davis, told the nationally syndicated Rick Ungar Show today. Davis says that Cohen is available to break the “Trump code” and offer his knowledge of how Trump uses language to cover criminal activity to get at the true meaning of the president’s Ukraine call.”
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Trump should write (have ghostwritten) a book titled If I Did it.
That would truly make this the worst timeline.
MattF
@Quinerly: Translation: “My client does not expect to get a pardon.”
rikyrah
@Frankensteinbeck:
UH UH UH
He’s not stupid and deranged on this.
THIS?
Is all about Vladimir.
Putin wants those sanctions GONE!
The sanctions put in place because it’s the United States Government’s OFFICIAL position that RUSSIA interfered in the 2016 Election.
Get the blame shifted to UKRAINE and thus, gives Dolt45 the cover to LIFT THE SANCTIONS…and slam Ukraine in the process- a twofer.
Quinerly
@Frankensteinbeck: Trump is delusional. It’s hard for even me to accept that sometime. I go back to all the enablers around him, the true believers, that people voted for him. I wake up some mornings and think it is all a crazy dream. I think we are getting to a point of a complete break down. Hopefully on camera. Strait jacket kind of stuff.
Quinerly
@MattF: “and we want a book deal.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@RedDirtGirl: Painter doesn’t open his mouth when he talks, so his speech is always through his teeth.
Leto
@MattF: Idk, didn’t Douche get an 11 out of 10 on Trumov’s Fox and Friends rating? That ranking he did a few months ago? I mean, he’s no special advisor Hannity, but he’s a solid, “Oh shit, I might have committed a bit of treason; can you cover for me?” type douche.
Quinerly
@Omnes Omnibus: yep.
“peak impeachment”
khead
@Frankensteinbeck:
All it takes is to be a Fox-addled grandpa.
misterpuff
@Chyron HR: Liddle’ Hands.
Gin & Tonic
Can I just step back for a moment and say that for those who have closely followed Soviet and post-Soviet issues for some time, these last few years are like the Twilight Zone on acid. The Republican Party, the party of Kirkpatrick and Wolfowitz and the Committee on the Present Danger, in thrall to an ex-KGB thug? The NRA laundering money for Russia? Ukraine on the US news every day, and now central to a potential impeachment of the President? If you’d predicted any of this in the 1980’s you’d still be in a rubber room now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@misterpuff: Liddle’ Hands.
Twitter, make it so. Let it ring throughout the tubes.
Leto
@rikyrah: I honestly hope that once Warren or Harris take office, that one of the first things they do is reapply the sanctions to Deripaska and his #moscowmitch aluminum factory. Sorry Kentucky, no rubles for you!
Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian
Betty, I love, nay LURVE your “do not go gentle under that good bus” headlines.
Leto
@Frankensteinbeck: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is how you know Trumpov is addled: “liddle’“ was already applied to Rubio. He’s now recycling dumbass “nicknames”. I can’t wait for him to accuse Buttigeg’s parents of the Castro assassination attempt, or call Harris, “Pocahontas”, because of her Indian heritage.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
inorite?
Not to mention we stopped teaching Russian in high school and in lots of universities because it was so irrelevant.
psycholinguist
@Quinerly: Cohen needs to keep his ass in jail. The “fake” ambiguity of non literal language is a well researched phenomena, and plenty of psycholinguists have described how Trump uses it to create deniability, however implausible that deniability might be. An example from the Comey days, seems almost quaint at this point:
https://www.salon.com/2017/06/23/was-trumps-hope-comeys-command-we-asked-a-language-expert_partner/
mrmoshpotato
@Spanky: Spanky, everyone knows it’s a single straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Are those my eyes rolling away?
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
They should do a reboot of this.
Kay
@Repatriated:
Romney is smart and he’s not delusional. I watched that kind of fawning documentary about his race with Obama and there’s this part where he’s looking at Florida numbers and he knows he is going to lose. All these people are revolving around him jumping up and down and cheerleading but he doesn’t lie to himself. He knows. All by himself. He’s like the realist in a pack of futile hopers :)
FlipYrWhig
@Quinerly: I feel like Trump, because he doesn’t use computers, is an easy mark for this sort of thing. He probably figures “Rudy had a cybersecurity company, that means he knows all about the computer, I trust him.”
Aleta
* Rep. Adam Schiff fraudulently read to Congress, with millions of people watching, a version of my conversation with the President of Ukraine that doesn’t exist. He was supposedly reading the exact transcribed version of the call, but he completely changed the words to make it…
* …sound horrible, and me sound guilty. HE WAS DESPERATE AND HE GOT CAUGHT. Adam Schiff therefore lied to Congress and attempted to defraud the American Public. He has been doing this for two years. I am calling for him to immediately resign from Congress based on this fraud!
*
* “IT WAS A PERFECT CONVERSATION WITH UKRAINE PRESIDENT!”
* The Democrats are now to be known as the DO NOTHING PARTY!
* If that perfect phone call with the President of Ukraine Isn’t considered appropriate, then no future President can EVER again speak to another foreign leader!
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
Except the server DOES NOT EXIST and even by the standards of a senile narcissist Trump should know that. Trump wasn’t launching a public campaign to shift blame. He was secretly demanding a nonexistent item that proves that something Trump is actively doing isn’t happening. This isn’t a Putin plan, because if you’re even slightly rational you know this can’t work. He’s not even demanding it be faked. It can’t be faked. The dufus thinks it’s real. To use a very close metaphor, this is the person who committed a stabbing and is holding the bloody knife pressuring somebody who wasn’t there to give him the (not ‘a’) smoking gun that proves he’s innocent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: My son Barron, he’s ten, he knows all about the Cyber
hueyplong
@Leto: I have a vision in my head of the opening scene of the Trump movie, in which a fat, wheezing, dying Trump lies in bed and whispers “covfefe” as the snow globe rolls off an edge and shatters.
For the rest of the movie a reporter from the NYT interviews trump-supporting “independents” in diners in an unsuccessful attempt to flesh out the meaning of his last word.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Isn’t that Melania’s son? ;)
Quinerly
@Frankensteinbeck: reporter on MSNBC right then (didn’t catch his name) again is insistent that this is all Rudy. Rudy truly believes Ukraine helped HRC, has the emails. Rudy has convinced Trump of this. Two batshit crazy old men who need to be put somewhere. Insane, delusional.
The Lodger
@Frankensteinbeck: Tell Trump and Giuliani the server’s buried somewhere near a nuclear plant they’re not currently using, and offer them a couple of shovels.
PJ
@Gin & Tonic: Superficially, you are right about the through-the-looking-glass appearances of the GOP’s embrace of Russian control over US politics. Because of the global power struggle between the US and the USSR, Republicans talked about supporting or defending freedom as much as or more than Democrats (who were obviously softies because they cared about filigrees like human rights). But in foreign policy, Republicans would always support an authoritarian over a democrat (you never know what a democrat might do to their wallet), and the bottom line about the party has always been to make the rich richer and eliminate government regulation of business. Ideologically, the GOP has never given a rat’s ass about freedom, and I would argue that conservatives in general are afraid of freedom (when the Berlin Wall was coming down, Thatcher called Gorbachev, urging him to send in tanks to put down the East Germans).
Putin is an authoritarian (a big plus), and as long as Russian influence serves to keep the GOP in power, and keep making the rich richer, Russian influence over the US, including controlling the President and humiliating the US in front of the world, is seen as a good thing for Republicans. There is no other way to interpret their behavior.
The Republicans are like the right-wing French in the 1930’s who preferred to be ruled by Nazis than to have to share their wealth and power with socialists. They are willing to destroy this country as long as their own personal wealth and power is assured.
Quinerly
@FlipYrWhig: very good point.
“Rudy made money off 9/11. He’s brilliant.”
Kelly
@Omnes Omnibus: Last week I crossed over to “dammit get impeachment started already”. Today I’m worried the final impeachment vote will be too soon and be old news by Nov 2020. I want dozens of public committee hearing lasting until next fall.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: /backseat of the presidential limo as it pulls away from trump tower/ Hey Melanie, have you ever noticed the security guard at the Tiffany in the lobby looks a lot like Barron? That’s weird, nice, but weird…. wait a minute….
Betty Mittler is tweeting at you, you will look like little girl if you do not tweet back
Kellyanne, gimme my mean phone!
Leto
@Baud: Eh, it’ll be like the Red Dawn reboot where North Korea somehow manages to do it, except they’ll use like Venezuela this time. And everyone will say, “I really need to cancel my Starz subscription.”
MisterForkbeard
@Aleta: I know I should be used to this by now, but the level of lies and idiocy coming from those tweets would be embarrassing to a 10 year old.
The fact that it’s the President makes me want to weep. And simultaneously smack his supporters.
Gin & Tonic
@PJ:
Thanks. That’s what I always aim for in my comments here, superficiality.
Chyron HR
@misterpuff:
Little’ hands are the devil’s hyphens.
Leto
@Kelly: the Impeachment Inquiry will last longer than both Nixon’s and Clinton’s due to the WH stonewalling, the Trumpov appointed judges, the two stolen SC seats, and the overwhelming number of potential riders to the impeachment articles. This is going to take a while.
Frankensteinbeck
@PJ:
There is another very obvious way to interpret their behavior. This isn’t about making the rich richer. This is about white supremacy. The average Trump supporter does not give a shit about making the rich richer except that they’re allies against the n-loving liberals. And there is fulsome evidence that society gets more racist, not less, as it goes up economic levels. Republicans, elected and voters, only care that Russia helps them maintain the power of white men to hurt everyone else as they choose.
eric
@Gin & Tonic: Mission Accomplished!
ETA ;)
Another Scott
Timely post. Thanks.
I’ve believed for a long time that his actions wrt Ukraine showed that Donnie was in Putin’s pocket. It was clear to me since he demanded that the GOP platform water down its statement of support for the country in 2016. (And that’s before we get to all the money laundering in Donnie’s properties around the world…)
It’s not about Manafort, it’s about Putin. Manafort was just a (huge) conduit for Putin’s actions in the USA and in the US Government.
Cheers,
Scott.
PJ
@Gin & Tonic: Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I agree that the “who cares?” reaction of Republicans to everything Trump does to lower the power and status of the US, and in particular his relationship with Putin, is shocking for those of us who grew up during the Cold War and were exposed to Republican rhetoric, but, to me, it also seems completely consistent with actual Republican values, at least in my lifetime.
catclub
@Gin & Tonic:
Funnelling Russian money into political campaigns. I hope this part gets ripped wide open.
mrmoshpotato
@Repatriated:
Mittens will win in a landslide which is great news for John McCain.
rikyrah
@Frankensteinbeck:
truth
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Gin & Tonic: I get the cultural and political milieu of the article’s author (I took Russian as my foreign language in HS and college, my first instructor was Ukrainian, and I’ve remained an interested if casual student of that region’s history and current events in the decades since). It is, as you said, a good background piece from a specifically Ukrainian perspective; thanks for sharing it.
However, I was thrown by the same statement from the article that zhena gogolia excerpted. Davidzon writes, “…this is also the sort of conditional transaction that every American president engages in to secure policy goals”. That’s where he misses it, badly (by then stating that he finds this being considered an impeachable offense to be “honestly stupefying”).
What Trump did obviously had nothing to do with “securing policy goals”, it was, at heart, exactly what the Watergate affair was about – an attempt to illegally get dirt on a political rival. Not a “conditional transaction” (aka, quid pro quo) for some geopolitical policy goal in the region, but a quid pro quo holding out American gov’t help for Ukraine in return for the Ukraine gov’t coming up with something to hang on Biden in order to help Trump personally in his 2020 re-election campaign. It’s that simple, polling seems to indicate the American public is largely seeing it that way, and it’s why this story has legs enough to finally ITMFA.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’m thinking fondly of the scene in “Life of Brian” where the various competing revolutionary factions turn on each other and completely forget their mission, leaving a pile of revolutionary bodies on the floor.
Any other good images for me to ponder in my Schadenfreudic Meditation session today?
@Aleta:
I did enjoy that opening statement where he paraphrased the conversation to make Trump sound even more like a wannabe mob boss than he usually does. But I was a little startled to think about that dramatization being the official opening of a very serious inquiry.
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think that was true in 2016. I wonder if Trump realizes the kid is three years older, now?
I think I saw a picture of the kid and he is starting to look like a hulking youth.
PJ
@Frankensteinbeck: I wasn’t talking about Trump supporters (whom I agree seem to be mostly driven by racism, among other disorders), but the people who control the GOP, the Koches and Murdochs and Adelsons. They’ve used racism to maintain power since the 1960’s, but I don’t think that is their primary goal, I think their primary goal is get richer and more powerful.
Kelly
@Leto:
The Trumpista genuses will probably keep adding offenses to the list right up until the end.
JPL
@catclub: Unless a John Dean type of character testifies against the president.
Frankensteinbeck
@PJ:
They are racist as all Hell. The Kochs certainly are, they’re Birchers. So is Adelson, but his racism is anti-Muslim. It’s quite easy for them to pursue both their greed and their racism at the same time, so in a way it’s moot. How can you know which is bigger when they’re not in competition?
Dave
@Quinerly: It’s pretty simple. Take two aging incredibly cynical narcissists, immensen external pressure, and stew them in a propaganda bubble (one that is now tailored towards individual one no less. How special is that?) and pretty quickly they believe it all no matter how batshit.
germy
Another Scott
@Kay: Yup. Rmoney is triangulating, along with the rest of the GOP. “What’s in it for me and my family so that we can fulfill the White Horse Prophecy??!”
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
PJ
@Frankensteinbeck: True.
Another Scott
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Donnie never
makesadmits mistakes. That personality trait has nothing to do with dyslexia. He always doubles-down when called on anything incorrect. Mock away, IMHO.Cheers,
Scott.
germy
Shows where the real power is:
Quinerly
@mrmoshpotato: sadly, I’m seeing Mittens supporters in my circle of FB friends. They didn’t support him in 2012 but they long for a “normal president.” Oddly, they are women over 60.
gvg
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think it helps if there are other GOP politicians think they are not alone, which is frightening to almost anyone. It might help them find each other and discus how to respond. Remember democracy works by consensus of many being in fairly close agreement, not by authority of some big shot. Power is supposed to come from collective actions. We decry the stupidity of far left purity ponies not seeing the need to stick together and thus getting nothing. Those unhappy republicans can each pick their own response to Trump, alone, and accomplish nothing except losing re election. That would only make any others like that less likely to fight back. Where as if they find each other and act together, they might even put real checks on Trump and maybe get re elected because an effective rebel looks better to voters than a loser.
I am not sure this can happen, but I think it might. Also might be a easier intermediate step than approaching the Democratic caucus and saying I was wrong.
The most useful thing they could do is overthrow McConnel.
Quinerly
@germy: must read Vanity Fair piece from yesterday.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
From odious, Obama-bashing Republican-apologist Ron Fournier’s smarmy, Republican-apologist protégé
NeenerNeener
@Spanky: I saw a tweet from S. E. “Sippy” Cupp supporting impeachment as well. I thought she was a ride-or-die republican.
I’ve also always thought that Trump meant to say “Veritable Genius” instead of “Stable Genius”, and of course f*cked it up.
mrmoshpotato
@Frankensteinbeck:
Pesky facts haven’t bothered them or their idiot base before!
See Comet Pizza, basement, child sex ring.
Quinerly
@Dave: simple. Still hard to for me to comprehend that he was elected.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
The guy who shot up Comet Pizza didn’t know the story wasn’t real. Trump knows there’s no secret server because he was a co-conspirator in the original crime.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck:
It’s about both.
Quinerly
@Chyron HR: I love this.
glory b
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I understand the speech thing is due to a stroke.
Leto
@Kelly: “JFC, will you stop committing crimes for just one minute?!?!” – Every Congressional committee
@mrmoshpotato: again, the main stared directly into the sun.
germy
Frankensteinbeck
@mrmoshpotato:
And for the base, this conspiracy theory is merely dumb wishful thinking. For Rudy, this conspiracy theory is merely ‘I want it to be true, so it must be true.’ There is no way Putin believes it, which disproves Riykah’s theory that Putin pushed Trump to this. For Trump, who marinates in the fact that Putin is helping him, secretly (rather than publicly, narcissists can convince themselves of anything while they’re pushing it in public) trying to get the evidence that the Russian connection is a frame job is… that’s next level, well beyond even Rudy’s deranged ranting.
Quinerly
New TPM piece up about Rudy madness.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/in-bid-for-biden-dirt-giuliani-dove-deep-into-ukrainian-political-muck
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Michael Lewis also reported that anecdote in his book The Fifth Risk.
Aleta
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I know what you mean.
Then there’s the Geraldo argument: acting like a fringe mobster fast-talking someone into a deal is one of the sweet, endearing things about friend Donnie.
video
Betty Cracker
@germy: “Giant iPad texts,” lol! Well played, Senator Harris.
germy
@Betty Cracker: Rudy held up an iPad on Fox to show his texts. I guess he figured it was better than waving his little smartphone around.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: That was an excellent book and so timely. How are you feeling?
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s why I think it’s okay to drag out the impeachment hearing beyond the fall. They need to move the numbers a little more and make the republican senators sweat.
mrmoshpotato
@Quinerly:
They could’ve had Hillary. :)
cain
@Spanky:
What exactly is there to go back to?
Not fiscally conservative – high deficit in every administration
No Family values – some candidates are rape apologists or rapists themselves
They lie
They cheat
No convictions on any principles other than money – conservatism is an empty shell
There is no conservative principle they have not broken
It’s the own the libs party, not a conservatve party
MattF
@Baud: But being a full member of the Inner Party requires accepting the mutability of the past. I wish I was joking here, but I’m not.
Frankensteinbeck
@cain:
Yes, that’s what people assumed she’d go back to.
Redshift
@NeenerNeener:
I think she is a die-hard Republican, but a Trump opportunist. Since she’s annoying but not stupid, that may mean she thinks that as bad as impeachment would be, sticking with Trump though it would be worse.
mad citizen
@MisterForkbeard: Of all the comments here today, you summed up my basic thoughts that I have all of the time. Lies, sheer idiocy. And no forgiveness ever for anyone who voted for the dude.
Last week I picked up a book from the McSweeneys people at Subtext Books in St Paul, “Small Blows Against Encroaching Totalitarianism Volume 2”. A small book of short essays about the situation, published Jan 2019. Unfortunately out of stock today https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/small-blows-against-encroaching-totalitarianism-vol-2?taxon_id=3
Anyway, it’s a cathartic short read. Some new information for me was when he developed Trump Tower, an old building was torn down, and there were some architecural artworks of some value worth preserving. There was even a deal/promise made to preserve said artworks and deliver them to the NYC museum. Of course in the end he didn’t want to pay for actually preserving the pieces, and they were destroyed, with spokesman John Barron telling the museum they didn’t have value.
Here is the piece, “Destroy, He Said” by Richard Howard and David Alexander: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/destroy-he-said
cain
@Betty Cracker:
That said, I’ve really enjoyed Tom Nichol’s feed. He doesn’t pretend to be anything other than Tom Nichols and I find myself smirking a lot when reading his feed, but more than that I’ve found that I have some of the same interests (not related to politics). As long as you don’t put him in some box, it’s usually fine. He’s still conservative, but at least he’s a principled one and he’s truly a patriotic one. He knows the Republican party needs to burn.
Redshift
@cain: Cleek’s Law
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: The creators of the story knew it wasn’t true too, and yet they pushed it all over the net.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Thanks for asking. I’m on good pain meds, so apart from the awkwardness of having to do everything one-handed, I’m feeling okay. Don’t know if you saw my middle-of-the-night update, so at risk of boring the jackal readership I’ll repeat it here:
And I agree with you about the Michael Lewis book. Excellent, in that I-can’t-believe-the-horror-the-Trump-administration-is-unleashing kind of way. But very well researched and meticulously laid out.
germy
News conference right now with Nancy Pelosi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kui2KNai5M
cain
@feebog:
He’s a much better Never Trumper than a Republican cheerleader. He seems to enjoy tussling with Republican shills.
Immanentize
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: I agree. To say this is about leveraging policy support is completely disingenuous.
KIRK: Now look, Krako, we’re taking over the whole ball of wax. You co-operate with us and maybe we’ll cut you in for a piece of the action.
SPOCK: A miniscule. A very small piece.
KRAKO: How much is that?
KIRK: That’s, er. We’ll figure it out later.
KRAKO: I thought you guys had laws. No interference.
KIRK: Who’s interfering? We’re taking over. Check?
SPOCK: Right.
(small piece of) A Piece of the Action
James E Powell
@Frankensteinbeck:
I was in Cleveland this summer and walked among the Trumpistas in the white flight suburbs. This was the universal view. As one person put it (this is almost verbatim) “The Russians would never put a N! in charge of anything, let alone their country.”
NB – Among the Trumpistas, it is considered a fact beyond argument that Obama was a disastrous president who ruined a country that was doing just fine till he came along.
rikyrah
@germy:
The Zombie Eyed Granny Killer trying to make a comeback…
Phuck him.
Immanentize
@catclub:
My son, the Immp, makes huge mock of anyone who says “the cyber.”
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Glad to hear it and hopefully you won’t need surgery.
Another Scott
@Quinerly: +1.
I argued for a long time that nothing much was going to happen until the fall. I think Nancy was brilliant to let him keep going more and more extreme on his “Article II says I can do anything I want” stuff. It’s clear to just about anyone that isn’t a RWNJ (or scared of their own shadow) that his actions wrt the Ukraine aid and Biden are so far over the line that they have to start the official process now.
I agree that Donnie would have clamped down even more about any cooperation with the Congress if an official process had started earlier. I expect them to do so now, to the extent that they’re competent enough to try…
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If Trump is ever convicted as a Russian asset, every one of these appointed judges need to be not only removed from their positions as a potential national security threat, but also investigated to make sure they aren’t.
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne:
As I had hoped for you — perhaps a non-surgery ending!
ETA — or what JPL said.
Frankensteinbeck
@James E Powell:
As difficult as it is to imagine, what we see when we look at Trump, they see when they look at Obama, and they were just as hurt and disgusted and offended. It explains McConnell’s behavior perfectly.
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: Remember the tape:
Don’t confuse what he says with what he thinks (for certain values of “thinks”).
He lies about everything to everyone, to increase his self-esteem and rope people into his law-breaking. His own personal internal narrative is something different.
Cheers,
Scott.
Repatriated
@Kay: But he may be the only one they have with both sufficient stature and distance from the dumpster fire, and I don’t doubt he’ll feel obliged to step up. Perhaps their best option out nothing but bad options though, and uniquely vulnerable on Warren’s core issues.
Fester Addams
I do too know how to use an apotsr^h^h^h^h^h aptrt^h^h^h^h apostopy^h^h^h^h^h^h hyphen.
Gelfling 545
@Leto: To me this doesn’t present as what I have been accustomed to seeing in dyslexic students. It strikes me more as impatience, indifference to form and an ego big enough to assume that everybody should acknowledge whatever he does to be correct. Dyslexia doesn’t, for example, lead to calling an apostrophe a hyphen.
Yarrow
@germy: It’s perplexing to me how people conveniently forget what Paul Ryan did and knows. He was the Chair of the Republican National Convention in 2016 when they changed their platform on Ukraine. He was fine with the Russian ambassador Kislyak being at the convention. And let’s not forget that Ryan was the one who shut up McCarthy when McCarthy said he thought Putin paid Trump, insisting on “no leaks” and “this is how we know we’re a real family here.”
About that last conversation. What were they discussing? Why, Ukraine, of course! Go have a look at the transcript.
Frankensteinbeck
@Another Scott:
But that is exactly the thing here. This isn’t ‘what he says’ in any conventional narcissist sense. This was a secret negotiation. Nor is the framing of the discussion an attempt to convince the Ukrainian president that the hard drive exists. He is secretly requesting an item to be found for him. That means he thinks it exists.
JaySinWA
I said it earlier in jest, but Giuliani may actually be Q. At least in his own mind.
Leto
@germy:
All of them, Kamala. All of them.
@Immanentize: Dad??? Yup, I too giggle every time. No shame! ?
@SiubhanDuinne: so far, that’s really good news! I’m glad you have some good pain meds, even if they don’t make you sleepy.
Kay
@germy:
Harris would be so much fun as a nominee.
cain
@Repatriated:
Please proceed, Governor.
joel hanes
@rikyrah:
How can they be?
Trump is ethically blind, and really sees nothing wrong in that
phone conversationextortion.And he has dismissed anyone who might try to tell him otherwise.
Leto
@Gelfling 545: It’s an indictment against private education. If this is the “best money can buy”, well time to close shop boys and girls. We can use those buildings for art spaces, homeless sheltering… literally thousand of useful things other than what they’re currently doing/producing.
@Frankensteinbeck: Except McConnell was doing his, “destroy norms/institutions” before Obama was elected. Obama’s election simply gave him the excuse to let his freak flag really fly.
cain
@rikyrah:
Ands give out more pardons than Santa Claus gives presents.
MisterForkbeard
@mad citizen: Hey, I’ll forgive people that voted for Trump and acknowledge they were wrong. I still think they were massive idiots, but I’ll forgive them and move on with my life. I’ll especially lose the moral outrage.
I have family members who STILL like Trump quite a bit. That, I’m not forgiving. They saw what he’s done (to the country, to children, to farmers and everyone else) and still support it. That makes them knowingly evil, and there’s nothing to forgive there. We know what they are, now.
Zinsky
I’m not sure how this shitshow ends, but I can guarantee you one thing: Trump will pardon Paul Manafort before he leaves the White House. Absolutely guaranteed. Manafort has shit on Trump that could earn him the gas chamber ….
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: I’m very tempted to buy her “Dude Gotta Go” shirt. I love her personality.
I’d be happy with any of our other candidates as the nominee and I think Warren’s going to get it, but Kamala’s my favorite. :)
Yarrow
@germy: I think this could be Harris’s moment to shine. Her questions to Barr during his confirmation hearing have been replayed and shared all over the place over the last few days. She was a prosecutor and will bring that background and mindset to the current moment. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her go up in the polls.
artem1s
@germy:
so ZEGS is going to claim he ‘saved’ America from Dump then? Right? so he’s running for the WH in 2024 then. Good to know we get a rerun of the 2012 Malarkey debates. Warren and Harris both will wipe the floor with his spineless ass.
Redshift
With the story that it was Trump himself who thought releasing the transcript of the call with Zelensky would exonerate him, it occurred to me today how much all of this is a result of Trump getting rid of anyone who told him no, and reverting back to his lifelong pattern of surrounding himself with yes-men. We were are (correctly) horrified at the idea of “Trump unleashed,” and while it has been horrible in areas like immigration, it also means that there’s no one to tell him no when he’s doing something stupid and self-destructive.
It also reveals the lie of the “noble” (anonymous) administration officials who assured us they were saving the country by staying in the administration and restraining him from doing worse. If they hadn’t, his delusions might have resulted in him self-destructing much sooner and prevented far more harm than the minimal brakes they put on him.
Immanentize
@Yarrow: I do hope that is how it plays out. She has always been my first choice, but I can see why she is stalled. If it has to be a three way race, I would much prefer Biden and two women.
Betty Cracker
LOL!
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
Does that mean Trump has lost Putin?
MisterForkbeard
@Yarrow: She needs the opportunity and attention from the media to make it work, though.
She’s been making incisive statements about Trump and enforcement, impeachment, and investigation for some time. She’s also been doing it with Barr and is still talking about investigating Kavanaugh. It hasn’t gotten her much yet.
Agree that she has a moment here she can use, but before that can happen people actually need to see it.
Yarrow
@Immanentize: I agree. I see why she has stalled but if this moment propels her forward and she takes out someone like Wilmer I’d be thrilled.
The tweet after the one above by her is this one:
She knows Pompeo isn’t to be trusted. Good for her for calling him out.
MisterForkbeard
@Immanentize: @Betty Cracker: So, Tulsi has concluded that Trump’s crimes are so obvious that can’t continue to oppose investigation and punishment without looking like the plant she is? That’s nice.
Quinerly
@mrmoshpotato: they were Bernie supporters. Strange times.
Yarrow
@Immanentize: LOL. That was my exact thought. Is Putin throwing Trump under the bus. We all knew it would happen eventually. Look for more dirt on Trump to come out.
Redshift
@Leto:
Yeah, I remember reading an article about a McConnell exhibit/museum back in KY (maybe this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McConnell_Center), which noted that the exhibit on his career was all about elections he’s won and such, absolutely nothing about any legislative accomplishments or doing anything for the people he represents. He’s never cared about anything but power; the only change with Trump is that he no longer has to pretend to.
Immanentize
@MisterForkbeard: Tulsi does need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
prostratedragon
@Quinerly: Mueller report:
Whistleblower report:
Another Scott
@SiubhanDuinne: Great on the no-surgery-at-this-time thing. Best of luck with the healing, and keep us updated.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@Quinerly: “Normal president” = white man.
Redshift
@Yarrow: There was a story yesterday with Russian officials saying they hope his conversations with Putin aren’t released, because that would be really bad for diplomacy and stuff. Can’t judge the tone from text, of course, but it could certainly be read as “don’t look in there, wink, wink”.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Good news.
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: Even for those of us who haven’t been following it closely, just having been alive in the 70’s and 80’s and seeing how the GOP and their hangers on always approached anything related to the (then) USSR, it’s so damned jarring. It’s like opposite
day week month yeardecadeBaud
@Betty Cracker:
I hope no one finds her.
Kay
@MisterForkbeard:
Warren’s my favorite but I want Harris instead of Biden. In that slot. I feel like Democrats would love that race. Okay, basically I want the two men gone. If it can be arranged, using rigging if necessary.
I feel like Harris started out gunning for Biden (I support) and then shifted! No. Go back! That was a good plan.
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: He’s telling Zelensky that he better
makefind a server that has Hillary’s e-mails, or he’s not getting the $400M. He wants Zelensky to fabricate reasonably convincing (for some values of “reasonably convincing”) evidence to get the Congress off his back and distract everyone from Manafort and all the rest. Donnie doesn’t care that it’s ridiculous or that it doesn’t presently exist, he just has to have something to “Look a Squirrel!1” at for the FTFNYT and his minions.I don’t know what Donnie believes or not, but he’s telling Zelensky to make something or else.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: She’s could do that now, if she wanted. Biden’s a bit vulnerable. She can’t go after him for the Hunter Biden stuff because that would be abominable (and basically do to him what Bernie did to Hillary), but she can still hit him on being really friendly with the republicans that EVEN NOW are protecting Trump, etc.
I think she’d do well in the center-left lane beating on Biden. Harris is still pretty lefty, but she’s also seen as a non-dangerous choice by TPTB. She makes a very good Biden alternative.
Yarrow
@Redshift: I read that as a warning to Trump. “We have recordings of all your calls with Putin. Shame if some of them were to be released.”
Kay
@MisterForkbeard:
Take Biden out (not kill him, just so we’re clear) and what happens? It’s better. Harris jumps in that slot, Warren beats Bernie and we’re all set.
mrmoshpotato
@Quinerly:
Even after he’d lost the nomination and then lost lost the nomination, ie. the convention?
mrmoshpotato
@MisterForkbeard: Haha, my thoughts exactly.
topclimber
Hey I haven’t read every comment to know if my random thought has already been shared about Rudy’s Ukraine server fixation, but I am racing to not be the absolute last contributor to an overripe thread (again!)
Random thought: is Rudy still talking to his FBI buds from the NY office? Probably where he gets this stuff.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
I am totally astonished.
Kay
@MisterForkbeard:
She does.
topclimber
@zhena gogolia: Thanks!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
: @James E Powell:
These people also want to believe that Bill Clinton was president until 2008 as well as being a Republican, Obama took office in 2009 and there was never a President GW Bush. Remember how the Right was so convinced that Bill Clinton was going to take Obama to the task in the 2011 Democratic convention?
As others have pointed out the hard right views reality like some kind of LARP.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
When I read that monster document, I realized the Mueller is STILL a Republican, and wrote that bastard purposefully to be as opaque and hard to understand as he possibly could, while still meeting the standards of law and truth. No wonder he testified like a zombee corpse, he didn’t have anything to say.
Paint by numbers is a great description of what they produced. All correct, accurate, but still unreadable and barely comprehendible. Mueller is a rat bastard, just like all the other despicable minions in the white house.
Redshift
@Yarrow: That would make sense. Also part of the general effort to cause chaos.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
You think that Gulliani isn’t all in? That he’s capable of actual thought and thinking about how this might play out? First off if he was he would have done this long ago. He has an ego nearly as big as trumps, with as much reason for it. It might dawn on him as the bailiff is walking him out of the courtroom in handcuffs, but I doubt it.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: “Nice bastard presidency you got here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it from us revealing how much of our bitch you are.”
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: I would be perfectly fine with that scenario.
I was very skeptical of Warren up until 3 or so months ago. But she really has shown that she can MAKE the media cover her, and she’s very good at pushing back on ridiculous framings. She’s got it – she can win.
This is actually my chief problem with Harris. I like her, her policies, her personality, everything. But she has problems getting attention, and while she’s constantly pushes back against stupid questions and framing she’s not as effective at it. Better at the two-minute response, much worse at the 10 second rebuttal. It’s the lawyer in her, I think. If Harris can’t get better she shouldn’t be the general nominee, but she’s got time to improve. And hopefully take over Biden’s lane in the process.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: The troll demo has its orders. Skies just got extremely cloudy around Pennsylvania Avenue and turned a peculiar color.
Redshift
@Another Scott: He also wants that server to exist (or be created) because it would put election interference in Ukraine instead of Russia, and support his blatantly corrupt support of Putin over our own intelligence services (or at least muddy the waters about it.)
mrmoshpotato
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The Bush-Belly Sneetches
Immanentize
@Kay: @MisterForkbeard:
I am hesitant to raise this, but I have heard it from more than one of my African American friends both in the South and the Southwest — One of Kamala Harris’ challenges with improving her standing with the Black community is the fact that she is married to a white guy. It is horrible, I know, but this is a very touchy subject in the Black community — particularly, perhaps regarding Black men marrying white women — but it seems to be a real barrier to her improving her vote representation vis a vis Biden in that community.
Ruckus
@MattF:
donnie exposed the entire conservative side for what it is.
Ruthless idiots trying to steal everything not tied down.
The only real difference is that trump has no concept of not saying the bad parts out loud. He shouts out the bad parts at the top of his lungs and at the drop of a tweet. They elected (through thievery) if not the biggest idiot among themselves, a very close runner up and now they are having to live through the entire world seeing who they are.
joel hanes
@Another Scott:
He wants Zelensky to fabricate … evidence
Repeated, and emphasis added, because this is crucial.
It would be bad enough if Trump had been asking for an actual investigation into the Bidens, but he wasn’t — the investigation had already been conducted, and found no misconduct.
But Trump is comprehensively dishonest, and assumed that of course Zelensky would be willing to gin up some plausible bullshit, because Trump would have done so without a thought were he in Zelensky’s position.
The man-baby is morally blind.
Jinchi
@Kay:
Because Trump’s people won’t start the scandal machine against the next Democrat in line??
There is nothing but down side to letting Republicans dictate who the Democratic nominee is. This attack on Biden is utter BS and should be treated as such by every other candidate in the field.
I’m sure the moderators will attempt to drum up some fireworks at the next debate, but I expect the candidates will be smart enough to point the finger right back at the corruption of Trump and the Republican party.
(Except for Tulsi. This could be her ticket to getting a gig as a Fox News Democrat.)
Spanky
@Leto: But Mama, that’s where the fun is.
Kay
@Jinchi:
Not because of Trump. I think Biden is a weaker candidate for reasons unrelated to Trump and I agree with you that anyone else would also get this treatment. This opinion predated the Trump attack.
This annoys people but it really is true in my experience. Democrats need to be inspired, positively, to come out. They don’t come out to stop things. Bush or Trump. They come out to start them. We can rally an anti-Trump electorate but it won’t be enough. They just don’t respond to mitigating harm.
mrmoshpotato
@joel hanes:
Supposes he could have morals if he wanted.
Jinchi
@Kay:
I agree 100%. I think Biden is the weakest of our major candidates in the general election, because I don’t think he really inspires people.
i’d be happy for him to quit, just not because of Rudy’s paranoid nonsense.
Ruckus
@Leto:
This.
trump has been a laughing stock for his entire life. The rich kid who doesn’t have a clue. And he could have stayed that till his last day, if he had a clue, or actually enough money to buy a clue. But it is what it is and dyslexia nor senility nor dementia are the basic problem here. Those are symptoms.
trump and the republican goals for the country and most of it’s occupants are the problem.
Quinerly
@mrmoshpotato: yes
Ruckus
@Quinerly:
A lot of people on both sides thought that. Which is exactly what she was going for. Impeachment is a political answer to an apolitical situation. And it has to be used as one or it doesn’t work.
Kay
The Bernie people are convinced that Democrats hate Hillary Clinton, although Clinton beat Sanders.
It’s the craziest thing. To expressly reject this HUGE group of voters in a primary is insane.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
If it were written by a kid you might be able to teach them. This 73 yr old child is not teachable, never has been as an adult.
Quinerly
Great headline “Man Obsessed With Hillary Clinton’s Private Server Hid Documents On A Secret System.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-secret-system_n_5d8cd295e4b0e9e76048ee32?fhe&fbclid=IwAR3zxk0p7to6crFwpS-VoXEFQ4mKb1I4Ieo2OuyDsksISCjuSkBl71TOOZU
Kay
@Jinchi:
Harris and Warren have an advantage in that they haven’t been in DC for 30 or 40 years, so they can credibly run as somewhat new faces and they’re harder to attack.
Uncle Cosmo
@Betty Cracker: Macht nichts, she’ll always be Quisli Gabbardova to me, and is cordially invited to FOADIAF.
Matt McIrvin
@James E Powell: Not only that, it’s an article of faith among the very online left that Obama was a terrible, basically right-wing President and that most Democrats agree with this assessment. It leads to some very strange analyses of the primary field. Biden’s one great strength is that he knows this is nonsense.
Spanky
Joe Wilson, ex-husband of Valerie Plame has died.
rikyrah
@germy:
Are we supposed to feel bad for Mother?
NOT
Ruckus
@PJ:
Perfect take on the entire republican party, from the tippy top to the bottom.
jl
@Kay: Sanders has met with Clinton too. Obviously they are all rotten! Who can we trust.
There is a lot of worry among the lefto-o-sphere people that Warren will hurt herself with the most committed progressives by communicating with anyone to right of Sanders. But a lot of evidence that only moderate overlap between Warren and Sanders supporters. Warren continues to move up in the polls.
Immanentize
@Ruckus:
I agree but I will go in a slightly different direction. I said months ago the it was foolish to start formal impeachment proceedings before this Fall — it would distract our Presidential candidates, it had no real chance of success in the Senate, it was too early in case it dropped fast and — most importantly — there were not even enough DEMOCRATIC members who supported impeachment to pass it if sent to the floor….
Also, impeachment is a big effin deal. It does overturn an election, displaces a president, etc. So looking at confusing past acts to base such a move on really required significant public support.
But this is different. The alternative to impeachment is always the next election. If a President is making policy really thwarting the will of the people, s/he will be voted out. If it is a fair election. But this current scandal means that Trump wasn’t willing to allow a fair election. He was cheating about the next election. So, he took (is taking!) the reasonable alternative to impeachment off the table. Even if the most voters oppose him, he is cheating, making up dirt, trying to smear his opponents with lies, and using foreigners to do it. In this circumstance — regardless of all the reasons why impeachment was seen by many as a necessity previously — now it is an imperative because our only alternative — an election – has been compromised.
Leto
@Ruckus: I said this upthread, but if this is the best private education money can buy… why the hell do we have private schools? Here’s your sterling example. Went to “the best” schools and can barely hold a coherent thought. Rage spittles twitter hot takes and his public speaking… I’m sure we can make better use of the buildings than the current racket they’re operating.
Immanentize
@Spanky:
Who had him killed?
Seriously, that is quite sad. He always seemed like a fair minded fellow. I hope this doesn’t change her election plans.
dogwood
@Kay:
Going after Biden right now is a stupid political move. It didn’t help her when she was on the rise after the first debate. I’m really baffled by the white base of the party’s disregard for the support Biden has among the AA community. That exchange with Biden that the ultra liberal white folks loved didn’t play all that well to the larger audience.
Leto
@rikyrah: Here you go. Mother has some ‘slainin’ To do:
NEWS: Boys hold down 6th-grade girl and cut off her ‘ugly’ dreadlocks at Christian school where Karen Pence teaches
J R in WV
@germy:
Might have been a very long time since Mother kissed Mikey Pence. Good !
Hm, although, come to think of it, may be that he doesn’t like kissing her anyways.
Matt McIrvin
@Quinerly: Nostalgia for Mitt Romney was the immediate reaction of the over-50, NPR-fan, independent-voter tech guys I know to the election of Trump.
Immanentize
@dogwood:
The facts don’t support your claim — Harris surged after the bussing dispute, Biden dropped. It was the first brick removed in the Biden inevitability wall.
Barbara
@Leto: Not that I think Trump has ever been the stable genius he claims to be or that private schools greatly elevate one’s actual learning, but looking at old videos of him discussing various things makes it clear that his cognitive abilities have declined, especially his efforts at verbal explanation.
J R in WV
@Baud:
Yeah, that’s true. But, do you really think Trump remembers that? Way back in 2016? He still thinks Barron is 10, after all… ;-)
Matt McIrvin
@Gin & Tonic: But the right-wing propaganda about Russia was always couched in theological terms: they were Godless Communists and the Godlessness was really the important thing. Tell the hypothetical 80s person that Russia cast off official Communism and the despot started working with right-wing Christians to persecute gays and Muslims, and the rest becomes a lot more understandable.
Leto
@Barbara: Agreed. He was more coherent in his younger days. But he’s always been a horrible racist POS, so nope, no slack cut now for his cognitive decline, when he’s doing his utmost to hurt the most vulnerable among us (POC, LGBTQ, immigrants, children, etc…) Fuck. Him.
glory b
@Immanentize: Tou’re right, it’s not as big of a deal as black men marrying white women, but I’m sure she would do better with the black community if she had a black husband.
I’ll also mention this: I think the resistance to Warren is bigger than a lot of her fans think. A number of us think that she needs to account for her time as a republican. As in, she stayed in the party some time after the Southern Strategy was uncovered and she has never addressed it.
I’ve said this before too, she came out saying the vote was rigged for Bernie, and many of us also felt that this was not only false, she basically hand-waved away a lot of hard work by Women of color. She’s never walked that one back either.
I know she got a standing ovation at the She Votes thing, but I don’t think it matters. The talking heads were exclaiming over a poll that put her at 13% with black voters. That’s still pretty pitiful, and I’m unsure of how this shakes out if we have one candidate as the choice of a majority of white Dems, and another (Biden) the choice of the black and brown ones.
I love Kamala, I’m a member of her sorority, but she didn’t have a plan after taking on Biden. Busing, really? After, of course the main question was whether she would go back to mandatory federally enforced busing, and she said she was against it. Biden pointed out that he had the same position, so what was her point? She didn’t have an answer, and sunk in the polls.
J R in WV
@mad citizen:
More info about that shameful episode in Trumps shameful career: He hired illegal immigrants, Poles, to do that work, which also involved the demolition workers working in a stew of asbestos powder, as the building being destroyed was built when spray-on asbestos was heavily used. They had no safety equipment, and mostly lived in the wreckage even while not working.
Pretty swell guy, huh? This is IIRC, I’m not going to look it up to be sure I’m remembering perfectly. The statues were, according to the pictures, beautiful, and of value just on that account. But beauty means nothing to Trump.
dogwood
@Kay:
The great advantage Obama had in 2008 was the fact that Republicans hadn’t had a few years to define him. They were sure Hillary would be the nominee so they kept quiet as he weakened her through the long primary process. He survived birtherism and Rev. Wright because he was able to define himself during the primary process. Since she came on the scene Warren has be somewhat defined by the Republican spin machine. I hope she can beat Trump, but I do think Harris could have had an easier road if she had a campaign that recognized her overall charm, humor and obvious smarts were assets that voters gravitate to. She’s the one voters don’t really know.
misterpuff
@hueyplong: Citiz Insane
glory b
@dogwood: Yep.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: You keep advocating that Harris run as a centrist. Do you think that she is running to the left of her real positions? If so, I don’t see it that way.
MCA1
@Baud: I didn’t remember that miniseries at all so went and read the wiki you linked to. Good lord, ABC should re-run that sucker right now. Sounds, um, rather prescient?
“…Amerika implied that American apathy and an unwillingness to defend freedom on the part of many citizens made the Soviet takeover rather easy. At one point, a key Soviet official observes that their plans for conquering the United States succeeded far beyond their wildest dreams, because once the nation had been defeated, the U.S. turned inward, not caring about national issues, seeking only to retain a piece of the prosperity that had once been theirs.”
dogwood
@Immanentize:
Yes, she hurt Biden and had a brief surge, but it was Warren (who stayed out of it) who benefited in the long run. And in this ridiculously long election season it’s the long game that matters the most. Harris’s campaign simply isn’t as well-run as Warren’s.
Kay
@dogwood:
Biden depresses the hell out of me. Whether it’s him telling donors he won’t CUT their taxes (which he apparently thinks is a bold move, although Trump just cut their taxes) or going into boring asides about how he loves David Brooks, I don’t know who he is talking to. Who is this for? Who responds to a David Brooks anecdote?
It was always like this, too. I went to a Biden rally in Toledo Ohio in 2012. He could not have had a more friendly crowd because local Democrats and labor unions CREATED it. They brought attendees in from 60 miles away. STILL half of them wandered off 15 minutes into his speech because it sucked.
The Vice President doesn’t matter that much. Obama carried Biden, not the other way around.
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV: I do not agree with your take at all.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: I consider it entirely plausible Barr told Mueller to wrap it up.
Chyron HR
@glory b:
So, what, “This time it’s OUR turn to burn down the country out of spite”?
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
This is exactly right. And what I’ve been saying for a while, this is a political act, like voting, except that voting can be screwed with, easier. As we’ve seen recently and probably many times that we haven’t seen it and it’s still happened.
Impeachment is a last resort for when every norm has gone wrong. It’s the safety switch of a democracy, to be used in an emergency. It’s the big red button on the battle board that has a safety cover, so it’s not accidentally tripped. But it’s time. And Nancy is that safety cover. And knows her job exceedingly well.
Leto
@glory b: So, I have some questions regarding this:
When was this formally “uncovered”, and more importantly, when was this taught at-large (Southern Strat)? I ask this because I think, outside of this bubble here, if you were to ask an average Dem voter, “Hey, what’s the “Southern Strategy” as it relates to voting patterns in the South during Nixon’s 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns?” You’re not going to get the answer you’re looking for.
That’s a lie. She has. The other times you’ve brought this up, people have said the same thing while putting in links showing just that. So again, that’s a lie.
So you’re dismissing the same hard working WOC that you were just exalting? Why was Warren better received than Kamala, or Biden, at the same event? Please, explain that. Also that 13%? Yup, she has work to do. All the candidates have work to do. There’s still a ton of time between now and next summer.
I’m always glad that I’m never going to run for office because one time I voted for a Republican, on the national level, and up until 2008 I wasn’t really politically “aware”, and I didn’t really learn about the Southern Strategy until around 2010.
rikyrah
@Leto:
Oh, I saw that. And, it didn’t surprise me in the least.
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
The 10 second rebuttal is the twitter in us. In a reasoned world we wouldn’t even consider the 10 second rebuttal to be important. Because often shortening everything to 10 seconds isn’t good enough. Entertaining, a delightful concept to behold, but in the end not all that practical in a slow moving process such as politics, especially at the top, where a dramatic amount of lives and yes, sometimes money can be at stake at any given time.
IOW I like that she doesn’t always jump right in with an answer. Harris gives things a moment to gel before jumping in. Now that said, Warren is very good at that 10 second answer, very good. But I put this into a difference in style, not in substance. Also Harris works in a world that often looks at a person of color differently, especially a woman of color and has been doing this all of her adult life. If she reacted in 10 seconds, what do you think the view of her would be by the press? I don’t think she would have gotten anywhere like she has with that style. It’s wrong of course, but that is part of the reality of this and of her world.
catclub
@Kay:
Of course, Obama validated Brooks as someone he invited in to listen to. gaaah. No surprise that Biden would mention him.
Another Scott
@glory b:
WASHINGTON — Senator Elizabeth Warren walked back her explosive comments that the Democratic primary process in 2016 was “rigged,” telling a local newspaper in Massachusetts this week that the process was “fair.”
The change in her view of the Democratic primary came six days after she shocked Democrats by unexpectedly wading into the party’s civil war and validating former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile’s allegations that Hillary Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters controlled party operations before Clinton was the nominee.
Warren told the Springfield Republican on Wednesday there was “some bias” within the DNC when the ultimate nominee, Clinton, and Bernie Sanders were battling for the party’s nomination. But she also said “the overall 2016 primary process was fair and Hillary made history.”
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
dogwood
@Kay:I understand your sensibilities here. My disagreement was with your desire to see Harris go back on the offensive vis-a-vis Biden. Given that Trump’s impeachment is directly tied to illegal efforts to get a foreign power to manufacture dirt on Biden, any candidate who decides that now is the time to pile on looks like a cynical opportunist. I don’t think Biden will be the nominee, but once he’s out of the race, defending his honor and reputation as a decent man and a fine public servant will play very well with the millions of American voters who genuinely like the guy.
J R in WV
@Fester Addams:
So good. The very best. I showed it to wife, she of the broken ribs, and she laughed hard. Not TOO hard, just enough. She is a former professional writer and the community grammarian. And that is how he spels, also too!!!
Thanks!!
I always did love Uncle Fester.
Leto
@Another Scott: This has been pointed out multiple times, to no effect. Also her points 2 & 3 basically cancel each other out. But whatever arguments people gotta make /shrug
rikyrah
@glory b:
I keep on going back to one of my favorite folks that I follow on Twitter – Marcus Johnson. A political scientist by trade. He has been saying for awhile now that until someone breaks Biden’s hold on Black voters in the South, don’t bother him. I keep on looking at the polls for Warren in those Southern states and still nothing. For her to be competitive with Biden, she needs at least 40% with Black voters.
This isn’t 2008.
This is more like 2016, when Bernie won Iowa and NH and got clobbered in the South by Hillary, because of Black voters who did not move.
Ruckus
@joel hanes:
He is for sure, but I think it’s even worse than this sounds. He has no morals. None. OK that’s not true, he has one, trump is always first, top of the heap, because. And it’s that word, because, that’s doing all the work here.
trump is a deficit human. Like his red hat wearing supporters, he is a deficit human. Try to name any positives about him, you can’t. He is only and all deficit. A deficit human. We all have some deficits, that should be obvious to anyone with any observational skills whatsoever. trump is all deficits, he has no positives whatsoever.
rikyrah
You wanna know what’s going around the Black Twittersphere with regards to Warren?
This.
I, personally, can’t stand Charlemagne- the host, but, this interview gets a lot of pursed lips from people that look like me.
rikyrah
Warren also got in President Obama’s pockets, talking about his earnings Post-Presidency.
Stay out of a Black Man’s pockets. …don’t think people have forgotten that.
Frankensteinbeck
@Another Scott:
But it doesn’t read anything like that, the way he talks about it doesn’t sound anything like that, it doesn’t support why he would release the transcript, and it doesn’t fit with Rudy Whose Last Name I Hate Trying To Spell’s known role in the situation. All the evidence points that he thinks Biden’s son was guilty and that the server exists, and what he’s demanding is the proof. Among other things, releasing the transcript at least makes “I’m a dipshit” sense if you take it for granted that he’s asking for real proof of real corruption.
Ben Cisco
@glory b: Hey, a fellow member of the Divine 9 – greetings!
I think that the whole bit about her being married to a white guy is overblown, especially given who’s ahead at this early moment in the race.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
Why could it not have been a decision that he made?
Morals are ideals, nothing more. None of us are born with morals, we learn, we develop them, either on our own or as part of a group. But they are nothing more than ideals, not an inborn/inbred characteristic. That he has none is not in question, that he never developed any is all on him and those who raised him. And even those who raised him are not totally at fault, some grow up in the worst circumstances and have morals. Often people without morals hate that in someone, that they grow up in worse circumstances and still have morals, can be/are good people. People like trump grow up in great circumstances and grow up without any morals at all. It’s all on him. He may even have an illness that makes it get worse as he gets older. He still started this was long, long ago. It’s all on him.
Noskilz
Ep. 84: Emergency Whistleblower Complaint Podcast claims that the Ukrainian government asked the State Department to set up a meeting with Guiliani because it was concerned about his criticism of it in the US media and hoped to defuse the situation. If this is accurate, it might explain some or all of the texts Guiliani has been waving around, where there could well be a meeting or proposed meeting the State Department was trying to arrange so the Ukrainians could get a word in edgewise, without particularly altering that he’s been spending the last few years off on his own crazy adventure without the State Department’s blessing.
Just One More Canuck
@Immanentize: or Assad?
Leto
@rikyrah: I’m glad that most of the people in the thread are endorsing Bernie and Yang. That makes me purse my lips.
Edit: ooo, further down there’s even some pretty good swipes at Hillary! Bravo!
cain
@Immanentize:
Can relate. My gf is black, and she had issues with me when I said I identify as white (it was a misunderstanding, I clearly identify as an Indian) – but absolutely there are issues. She would never date a white man because she is literally sees it as a team thing. She has no problems dating non-whites, but not a white man. Black twitter also talks a bit about this.
Quinerly
Has anyone posted about Amb Joe Wilson’s death at age 69? He and Valerie Plame divorced earlier this year. Incredibly sad to me.
James E Powell
@Baud:
I remember that drek. The whole concept was completely stupid. I had to argue with my dullard right-wing relatives who insisted it could happen, it could happen.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck:
Ghouliani
Renie
@RedDirtGirl: In July 2015 Painter was diagnosed with shingles and Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2, which left his face partially paralyzed. No need to make fun of the way he speaks.
cain
@Leto:
I would say that black activists WOC might have a different idea than your regular black voter. A different political calculus. I assume that these activists are people of influence, donor class, and the like than your regular voter. It’s kind of like how people who read political blogs and are politically active are different than your regular voter, IMHO.
Duane
@Immanentize: This country can’t have a free and fair election with Trumpov as President. He cheated in 2016 and has been caught cheating and trying to cover it up now. He said publicly he’d accept help from other nations in the upcoming election. He’s the biggest threat this country has.
mad citizen
@J R in WV: You recall correctly–the piece I linked to told the facts, and here it is from another source:
“The Polish workers had no safety equipment, no hard hats, no goggles. They didn’t have masks, even though there was asbestos in the old Bonwit Teller building,” said David Cay Johnston, author of “The Making of Donald Trump.” “They didn’t have power equipment. They took down the old 12-story Bonwit Teller building by hand with sledgehammers.
They earned little money for their labor, not even the paltry $4-an-hour wages they were owed. A federal judge found Trump and his associates conspired to cheat the workers. Trump settled the case years later, but the agreement is sealed.
Marco Rubio, February 25, 2016: You are the only person on this stage that has ever been fined for hiring people to work on your projects illegally. You hired some workers from Poland.
Trump: I am the only one on the stage that has hired people. You haven’t hired anybody.
https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2016/09/29/the-history-of-trump-tower
Leto
@cain: Granted, but I’ve been told by both gloryb and rikyrah that it was the hard working WOC activist who went out and did the hard work campaigning for HRC, not to mention Obama. But those same women, who were in that room, I’m now supposed to ignore. They just need to get their messaging straight: do I pay attention to those women, or ignore them? And the thread that rikyrah linked was a wankfest to both Bernie and Yang, with some good HRC bullshit thrown in.
But we still have plenty of time between now and the first ballot cast. I do hope that the Berners and Yangers support whoever the Democratic Party selects, even though nether group has Dems in it.
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: Ok.
I’ve thought that Donnie is brain damaged for a long time. But I’ve been away and haven’t studied the latest thing closely. Perhaps I’m giving him too much “credit” here… :-/
Thanks.
[eta:] Of course, it’s not really a transcript, it’s a massaged version of what was said (and leaves a bunch of stuff out). But still…
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize: For me it’s Warren, Harris, Biden. In that order. : )
@Betty Cracker: Damn, what finally got through to Tulsi??
Miss Bianca
@prostratedragon: Love it. Stealing that analogy for future use.
J R in WV
@Leto:
Yes, they all do at that school. Isn’t that assault with a deadly weapon? If it was a pointy pair of scissors definitely. Why aren’t the students in Juvie holding? Why aren’t the staff in adult holding for failure to protect their charge, that solitary black girl who was assaulted??
Why isn’t Betsy de Vos working day and night to protect students in these high-class independent schools from actual physical assault in their schools?? At least that insane cop who arrested a little girl throwing a tantrum in FLA got fired.
Good friend was a special ed trainer in one of the larger county school systems. The first thing they taught teachers was how to grab a kid biting someone by the jaw so that they had to let go… there’s a nerve they can squeeze to force the jaw open to release the teacher being bitten. No one going to jail, these are mainstreamed special ed students, and she taught other teachers non-violent self defense tools to keep harm to a minimum.
Susan is a braver person than I am taking that up as a career. She’s actually dropped back to being a regular 3rd grade teacher, recently, she said “Enough is enough, I’m getting too old for this special ed work!” An angel walking among us she is!
But no one appears to have done anything to protect this little girl from the racist bullies in that “Christian” school..!!!
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, maybe my problem is how disappointed I am in how the report has been handled AFTER Mueller “finished” it. And of course, he was working in a straitjacket created by Republican appointees not that interested in punishing the newly “elected” R president. Or maybe we just disagree a lot.
JWR
@Frankensteinbeck:
Giu911ani. (Or however Duncan Black used to spell it.)