A missive from our President:
Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called “Whistleblower,” represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. Then Schiff made up what I actually said by lying to Congress……
His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason…..
In addition, I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the “Whistleblower.” Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!
And
These Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, are doing great harm to our Country. They are lying & cheating like never before in our Country’s history in order to destabilize the United States of America & it’s upcoming 2020 Election. They & the Fake News Media are Dangerous & Bad!
James Risen overheard Jay Sekulow, the President’s personal lawyer who probably will have to be Rudy’s cleanup brigade, in a green room. They’ve lost control of the narrative, and they’re frightened.
“I’m going on CBS at 8,” he said. “I’m going to see the president at 10. We’ve got to get on top of this thing. I think we can, but we have got to get on top of this.”
A moment or two later, Sekulow added: “He’s going all around town, stirring things up. It’s not helpful.”
A political science professor at UMass Amherst:
https://twitter.com/profmusgrave/status/1178450990376390662
cain
That’s right, lose that narrative. It’ll be a sickness that spreads throughout the party. Everyone knows that there is blood in the water. They might have their 30% Republican base, but they still need the independents and squishy democrats. They are fucked.
NotMax
UMass gave a professorship to Captain Obvious?
oldgold
Scott Pelley:
dmsilev
Yeah, this’ll end well:
MisterForkbeard
This is in a court of law, you schmuck. So I guess we’ll just have to indict the idiot, it’s what he wants. Really though, this whole argument is just dumb. If all the complaints are lies, then they should be investigated… which is exactly what the Democrats are doing!
This does appear to be the talking point of the day. But none of them can actually say what it was that’s wrong, because… the edited summary provided by Trump backs up everything in the complaint. But I keep hearing it over and over. Chris Wallace of all people even hit back on it against Miller. It was sad.
MisterForkbeard
@dmsilev: I can’t IMAGINE why they’d be afraid of their safety. I mean, other than Trump threatening them repeatedly. And Trump’s 4chan minions trying to threaten them. And Trump’s propagandists on Fox also threatening them.
…
Wait, I get it now.
dmsilev
I know this ranks at roughly #100,000,000 on the priority list of “things that are wrong with Trump”, but
That apostrophe. It burns!
(or perhaps he thinks it’s a hyphen?)
Mary G
Jake Tapper has been eviscerating administration flacks today. That’s gonna make it harder to get on top of the narrative, because a lot of taking heads follow his lead.
MisterForkbeard
@Mary G: If Jake Tapper can do it, anyone can do it. Let’s see if others CAN follow his lead.
jl
I clicked the link and saw a pic of Sekulow. I didn’t know what he looked like. That is the guy I’ve seen on TV trying, I guess, to clean up after Giuliani.
He says stuff just as crazy and false. He seems more under control and coherent, but what he says can be more easily debunked. I just saw a youtube clip of him saying Sen Chris Murphy tried to extort Ukraine and threatened Zelensky. Wahhh???
He’s going all around town, trying to clean things up. It’s not helpful.
Butter emails!!!
He wasn’t fit 3 years ago. They voted for him anyway.
dmsilev
@MisterForkbeard: The Post had a story a couple of days ago about Trump fans doing the amateur-sleuth thing to try to figure out who the whistleblower is. Favorite detail, which should give you an idea of the kind of people involved:
cain
@Mary G:
That’s kind of fucked up.
cain
@dmsilev:
I think that was done on purpose.
geg6
@Mary G:
Though I still can’t get past Tapper getting pantsed here on BJ many years ago, he was on his best game today. If you’re lurking, Jake, good job today. Now, just keep up the good work and maybe I’ll forget all about that little incident.
piratedan
@Mary G: yeah but the asshat gave Jim Jordan an entire segment today on his show… why? Time could have been spent with a political expert from Ukraine, or even an easy to follow timeline on why there’s no FUCKING THERE, there. Or gee, maybe a different Dem Committee chair on other items that the President could be impeached on, or the glut of nepotism hires in this administration, illustrating the hypocrisy, OMG Hunter Biden went to another fucking continent to find a job and here we have at least three families in your immediate administration sucking at the government teat!
instead, we get GOP talking points for an hour… really? ty? don’t we already know what these lemmings are gonna say…. didn’t you get the morning e-mail?
MaryLou
Is anyone else as furious as I am over the re-investigation of the Hillary emails? This is real tin-pot dictator stuff. Not a joke when career civil servants have to hire $1000/hour lawyers while having their reputations and careers assaulted
by the criminals in the Trump administration.
germy
I love this AP headline:
https://www.apnews.com/1041b44f79854c55bf075537ed2dfe69
John Revolta
POTUS vs. The Whistleblower!! In a steel cage match where two men enter, one man leaves! (The other man stays in the steel cage for 15 to 20 years.)
PJ
@Butter emails!!!: Not only did Republicans vote for him three years ago, knowing he was this unstable and corrupt, but the Republican party went all in on supporting him, and is still all in on supporting him. As long as the tax cuts and right wing judges keep coming, they are fine with it. The only thing that will make Republican Senators support removing the President is if they have a real fear they will lose their seat in 2020 and maybe in 2022 (they’ll figure everyone will have forgotten their support by 2024, and they will probably be right about that). So in the next fourteen months, Democrats have to get as much evidence in front of the public as possible. That’s the only thing that will make a difference.
MisterForkbeard
@piratedan: Kay had a good bit about that in the prior thread. Why did they even invite Jim Jordan on board? They explained what was going on before the interview, and then let Jordan complain, lie, and accuse. They successfully showed he was full of shit, but at best the news wasted an hour of their viewer’s time and at worst someone came away confused that maybe the real villain here could have been Biden, or something.
Having Republicans on your show that have no respect for the truth isn’t ‘getting their side of the story’ or ‘let them explain’. It just makes things worse in every way. Everyone loses when these idiots get a platform.
Keith P.
@jl: Sekulow kind of looks like he should be VP of the Church of Scientology.
Gin & Tonic
I’m not even going to try to catch up on today’s bullshit, as I was off the net all day long. Spent all morning working on rebuilding a retaining wall, then, after lunch, since all work and no play make G&T anxious, the missus and I took advantage of the glorious late September sunshine. Visited a winery for a couple of hours (left there with a case, of course,) explored a seldom-visited little neck of shore, then picked up a big plate of fried clams just as the clam shack was getting ready to close and drove to one of our favorite spots on the water to watch the sun set. Eating fried clams from a styrofoam container and enjoying a little wine out of plastic cups there as the sun went down rivals any Michelin 3-star experience I’ve had. Life was good today, with no thoughts of anyone named Trump or Giuliani.
japa21
As to why these shows have Jordan or McCarthy or other Trump supporters on, it is important they do so. If they didn’t there would be an uproar how only side is being presented and that would be a narrative that would take hold. Peo-ple would start wondering why the media isn’t presenting the President’s side of the story.
Better to have them on as long as they do what they appear to be doing which is calling them out and actually presenting evidence of how they are wrong. On 60 Minutes McCarthy was saying that the President didn’t say anything that could be construed as pressure and Pelley pointed out specifics. My gosh, when even Chris Wallace is doing it, things are getting good.
MisterForkbeard
@Gin & Tonic:
I can summarize, if you want. It’s pretty simple:
1) Trump put out a lot of seriously crazy tweets. See the stuff in the post header.
2) There was a full-court press by the administration on Sunday shows. It didn’t work – the press mostly fought back with simple facts, aside from Chuck Todd who is generally worthless.
3) Giuliani made a fool of himself and possibly implicated some more Trump people.
4) The whistleblower is now in protective custody due to threats by Trump and Trump’s people.
5) Lots of polls showing increased impeachment support, including a few showing it up 15% even for Republicans.
Chris Johnson
@dmsilev: As long as they are not getting strangled in jail.
It is definitely worrying, though, because we don’t know exactly where the Russian agents are in government. I mean, apart from ‘the Oval Office’. Very spooky in every sense of the word, I wish the whistleblower well. They can’t all be Russian spooks, and maybe things are in enough upheaval that it puts a damper on the Russian spookery.
Also, it seems like Putin can’t really be assassinating people at random or he’d have whacked Trump already and gone with Pence. He’s definitely ditching Trump at this stage. It’s a question of whether he will offer any ‘assistance’ to Trump at all, who is basically howling for it. Trump knows exactly who he wants to murder the ‘spy’. Same people who got his buddy Epstein.
Gin & Tonic
@piratedan:
Pisses me off to no end that in all this coverage, I have yet to see an American media outlet book an actual Ukrainian, or bother to travel to Kyiv to do any reporting. There is no shortage of English-speaking Ukrainian reporters, analysts, commentators, even current or ex-governmental people who could be questioned or put on the air.
japa21
@Gin & Tonic: I’m jealous, except for the clams part.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
That does sound great, except maybe the retaining wall thing.
Spouse stood in ‘The Void” today. Perfect weather. I vacuumed.
Gin & Tonic
@japa21: The clams made the day complete.
trollhattan
@trollhattan:
Good god, a minute after writing about The Void I read this.
NotMax
@jl
Reminder.
Another Scott
@dmsilev: Ah, he must be NonWhiteHat!!11
Cheers,
Scott.
jl
@Gin & Tonic: Good point. Only thing I’ve heard on national news was CBS giving soundbites of two ex-Ukrainian saying that there was nothing to the Trumpster smears against Biden. I give them some credit for that, but it is not enough. I read about some other ex-Ukrainian official who was mixed up with Manafor who is saying ‘Oh yeah, Bidens were crooked and they shut us down’.
They should have a Ukrainian or other area expert to give some reliable background, but I haven’t seen that yet. There was an interview on the local CBS news station with an area expert who stepped through the history, but the local news joint is better than most outlets.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
It’s a faraway country and people of whom we know nothing.
Cheryl Rofer
@MisterForkbeard:
Also numbers 6), 7), 8)…
Patricia Kayden
For those of you with Democratic Representatives, please contact them about adding witness intimidation and interference to the impeachment charges.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Buckle on the literal Borscht Belt.
;)
jl
@jl: Meant to type ‘ex-Ukrainian officials’. I think both were part of Ukrainian Dept of Justice prosecutor’s ofice. One was part of corrupt team that was replaced, the other from his replacement’s team.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Ukrainian borscht is the best.
NotMax
A pleasant Rosh Hashanah to the central and mountain time zoners.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Except in Ukrainian it is “borshch” – no T.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Just this past week added a recipe for that to the Instant Pot file on the computer. Expecting it to be a soupworthy winter.
Zelma
OK, when I first read the excerpts, I thought they were a satire of what Trump might have said. You’re telling me those are his quotes? Sheeezzz.
jl
@Zelma: ” the so-called “Whistleblower,” represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. ”
Does Trump know that the ‘transcript’ (actually, write up of some notes) of the call is public?
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
I know. I’m spelling it in English. There’s no T in Russian either.
Patricia Kayden
@dmsilev: Lol! They really are the poorly educated just like Trump likes them.
Ruckus
@Keith P.:
Hey! The church of scientology isn’t that bad…..
OK they are but still, that’s a low blow. And this is from someone with 50 yrs of hate of the church of scientology. Did I say hate? I meant exposure. OK exposure begets hate whenever the church of scientology is concerned. But still…….
jl
From Paul Krugman’s twitter:
@ChrisMegerian
The president’s schedule for Thursday includes this event — “THE PRESIDENT delivers remarks and signs an Executive Order Protecting Medicare from Socialist Destruction in The Villages, FL”
https://twitter.com/ChrisMegerian/status/1178378651450183682
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: I can’t figure out how it got to be that in English.
dmsilev
@Zelma: Satire, like irony, is truly dead. It just can’t keep up with reality.
Kay
@MaryLou:
I am, MaryLou. I think it’s appalling and frightening and there should be some kind of group effort to defend them from these horrible people.
chris
@Gin & Tonic: Would borscht with a T be Yiddish? (Thinking of the Borscht Circuit)
ETA: I’ve seen that written somewhere.
ETE@ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/borscht%20circuit
JanieM
@Gin & Tonic: @chris: Ding ding!
From Wiktionary:
Etymology
1884 or 1808. Borrowed from Yiddish באָרשט (borsht), from Russian or Ukrainian борщ (boršč).
Jeffro
@jl: “SOSHULIST DESTRUCTION!!1”
That really is all they have left, I guess.
Also, doesn’t preznit tweet-rant just sound…nay, REEK…of innocence? Could we cover that angle please, national snooze media? Totally outside-the-box way for an innocent person to defend himself right? Just GO BERZERK on social media?
Gin & Tonic
@jl: Classic example. A story on CNN.com opens with these two paragraphs:
So if Ukrainian officials are declining to discuss, who is it who’s showing a “growing sense of alarm”? There are no quotes, of anyone, on the subject. The only Ukrainian directly quoted is Andriy Yermak, who’s only quoted about the Volker resignation; Petro Poroshenko, on the same subject, has only a Tweet of his quoted. Zelensky’s press secretary, Yulia Mendel, speaks perfect English, has worked for Politico, the FTFNYT, is widely known in media circles (she’s also an asshole, but that’s neither here nor there) and isn’t mentioned at all.
This is journalistic malpractice.
Kay
@MisterForkbeard:
They could set ground rules. Well, invent rules and then tell the guest prior to the show, like this:
“If you state something that is untrue in this interview I will end it immediately and have someone else ready to come on and take the rest of your allotted time”.
They are going to have to adjust. They can’t do this the same way they have for 50 years. They have to get rid of the incentive to lie. They will not stop doing this unless there are consequences and the consequence should be the loss of what they want, which is the platform. It’s not fair to viewers and readers to subject them to liars over and over and over.
Honus
If two clowns like Jay Sekulow and Rudy Guiliani are your lawyers…
What a joke. At least Nixon had Jim St Clair, who was a real lawyer.
chris
@chris: Four characters, two typos. Damn, I’m good!
Cheryl Rofer
He’s ramping it up
The responses to his tweets are much more negative than they’ve been. Not sure how indicative that is of anything…
jl
@Gin & Tonic: There is an ex-Ukrainian parlamentarian, I forget his name, who wrote a column in NYT or WaPo, who’s willing to testify before Congress and debunk smears that he manufactured evidence against Manafort and explain that the Trumpster conspiracy theories are bogus. Maybe you mentioned him and It didn’t jog my memory. Is he hard to find?
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: It means he doesn’t care how many more pipe bombers or church shooters he inspires, he’s going to spiral allthewaydown… so let’s have that be a question for the GOP elected officials who support him from now until he’s gone? What say you, national snooze media? Try and “both sides” that crap!
chris
@Gin & Tonic: Yuri Lutsenko was interviewed by Richard Engel on MSNBC. I don’t know if that really counts though?
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/ukrainian-prosecutor-whos-spoken-with-giuliani-says-he-doesnt-think-bidens-broke-the-law/
Raven Onthill
Meantime, does anyone have any thoughts on the claimed Houthi victory in Saudi Arabia? I am beginning to have the horrifying feeling that the Houthi might just be able to take on Saudi Arabia and win, despite US aid, which the Saudis don’t seem to be making good use of.
Is this a significant possibility?
Kay
Good. Just get the documents. Guiliani is a liar. No point in giving him a platform to tell the same lies he’s been telling on tv for 2 weeks.
The only true thing they’ve ever gotten out of Trump is the report of that call. Asking them questions is a waste of time and contrary to the goal of finding anything out.
MisterForkbeard
@Cheryl Rofer: The thing is, I keep hearing that the impeachment is “illegitimate” or the accusations are “fraudulent”, but they literally can’t say why.
It’s all about screaming into the media and counting on the press to roll over. But the facts in this case are so obvious the media is actually fighting back.
But the screaming has always worked before, and they cant figure out why it isnt working now. They’ll just keep escalating the volume and accusations (and we’re already at “this is literally worse than the Salem Witch Hunts” and threats to the whistleblower). It won’t be pretty where this ends up.
Gin & Tonic
@jl: Serhiy Leshchenko. He’s very easy to find – actually Chris Cuomo had a brief piece with him earlier last week.
Gin & Tonic
@chris: Lutsenko was a little less corrupt than Shokin, I’ll give him that.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s nothing. I can understand how English speakers turned Malay getah perca into “gutta-percha”, but I’m baffled that they managed to turn Malay tenggiling into “pangolin”.
Kay
And, I would add, anyone who supposedly works “for students” at Ohio State should look at the clip of Jordan lying his ass off easily and with no apparent discomfort on national tv and ask themselves if they should have believed a word he said about that scandal. If he’s not credible on this there’s no earthly reason to think he was credible on that.
I hope none of the investigators were relying on him. He’s a liar. Perhaps they should have listened to the 8 victims who say he knew.
Mary G
The whistleblower’s lawyer is correcting CBS about the federal protection – They’ve asked for it, but not received it. So his ass is hanging in the breeze.
jl
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks I’ll look for it.
@chris: Thanks. That is an interesting clip. If Lutsenko is to be believed, he didn’t have a problem with US government coming to Ukraine and investigating the great Biden caper. But, looks like Trumpsters were not interested in that. New government comes in and seems like, from the notes on the Trump-Zelensky call, the Trupsters want something like a Ukrainian indictment served up a silver platter.
sdhays
@MisterForkbeard: To be fair, I’m not quite sure why the screaming isn’t working now either.
lgerard
That’s not the story he spun to John Soloman a few months ago at Rudy’s urging
karen marie
Did you all see the 10th article of impeachment against Andrew Jackson tweeted by @jbouie? Basically, Trump’s tweets today alone warrant impeachment.
Fair Economist
@MisterForkbeard:
This.
jl
@lgerard: Yes, that is a problem. Leshchenko sounds more credible.
Another Scott
@Raven Onthill: I assume that the reporting today on Al Jazeera is correct – that the Houthis had a major victory.
I also assume that the Houthis have no interest in conquering KSA. They simply want to rule Yemen and to have KSA leave them alone. (They must realize that if they look like they’re trying to defeat MBS and the “coalition”, then the rest of the world will feel the need to jump on them with a 16 Ton weight.) They want the KSA to butt out of Yemen and will make it painful for them until they do.
But I’m no expert.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard has committed multiple crimes every day he’s been squatting in the Oval Office. One day in prison for each crime would keep him locked up for 100 years.
Gin & Tonic
@lgerard: Believing John Solomon is a pretty heavy lift.
sdhays
@karen marie: Andrew Johnson (as I’m sure you know).
Andrew Jackson, alas, was never impeached (despite deserving it).
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer: So he’s retweeting Fox guests again?
sdhays
@Raven Onthill: Why is that “horrifying”? The Saudi regime is the fountainhead of Islamic terrorism worldwide and is one of the most brutal regimes in existence today. The only thing horrifying is how close the US is to them.
lgerard
LOL
This is the guy trump wanted for his communications director.
Only the best!
karen marie
@jl: The simplest thing to do is to simply go to tape from 2015 and 2016 and republish the contemporaneous reports. It’s really not that complicated.
It infuriates me that news reporting on this contain incomplete, incorrect or confusing information.
Mart
@PJ:
One also needs to insult and legislate against every class of person who is not a straight white Christian male to maintain their love.
Kay
They all have bad lawyers. Either “have” or “are” bad lawyers.
How can they order this lackey out for this interview and not review the President’s words with him prior?
karen marie
@Gin & Tonic: If you were a Ukrainian, would you want to stick your neck out and risk “an accident”? From what I understand, Zelensky is “no comment”-ing the fuck out of it. There is no upside to answering questions that spring from the rantings of a lunatic and pushed by people with no moral scruples.
Mart
@lgerard: If I had a goatee I would be clean shaven one minute after reading that Jason Miller story.
Amir Khalid
@karen marie:
I know that’s infuriating, but given that some of the sources are not identified, not truthful, not entirely forthcoming, or some combination thereof, it’s not surprising. It will take work to sift through the contradictions and arrive at some kind of credible narrative. It’s been that way with quite a few stories coming out of Trumpland.
dmsilev
@Kay: They’ve gotten lazy about being able to lie to the media with little or no pushback, because fact-checking is apparently too hard for our talking heads. Here, however, the fact-checking is easy: the administration released a quasi-transcript of the President’s own words, and all you have to do is quote from them.
karen marie
@sdhays: Yes, thank you. All the Andrew J’s run together.
dmsilev
@lgerard: He sounds nice:
Gin & Tonic
@karen marie: I understand Zelensky keeping quiet, but there is, as I said, no lack of English-speaking Ukrainian journalists and analysts who’d be only too happy to provide either background or current commentary.
karen marie
@Amir Khalid: Except their claims are easily checked by going back to contemporaneous reports from 2015/2016.
chris
In climate news it was hot today, 72 in USian, at the southern tip of Nova Scotia. It’s not supposed to be that way but it was beautiful. Bert chased the ball and I walked the mile and a half down to Th’Guzzle where he he had a short rest. (Cape Sable light in the background.)
Then we walked back into the warm NW wind. All the way I was thinking that it’s not supposed to be this way. At this time of year the wind should hurt a little and smell like snow and maybe walrus. Yet there I was in a T-shirt with my sweater slung over my shoulder. I’m glad it was such a nice day but also sad for the future and the children I care about.
sdhays
@Gin & Tonic: How are they supposed to know about these people if they don’t attend the same cocktail parties that the millionaire “journalists” attend?
I mean, really, think these things through before asking silly questions.
Kelly
@Gin & Tonic: I went for a quiet, calm walk down by the river and saw this gal
https://imgur.com/IRXpCX4
PaulWartenberg
Being a sideline critic, when I throw the word treason around it’s hyperbole, venting by a half-informed moran who doesn’t have any way to enforce my talk with action.
trump is sitting in the White House as Loser of the Popular Vote, but when he accuses people of treason he’s in a position to actually put action to his threats. It doesn’t help that he’s talking to an audience of die-hard Far Right trumpsters who are just waiting to unleash their Second Amendment militias to defend “their” America.
We’ve been at the edge of political violence for a good while now. We’ve seen a number of mass shootings tied to Far Right believers acting out their racist rage. trump is triggering that crowd to rise up to attack his targets. We’ve seen this before too, when the Far Right media targeted abortion doctors and their gun-carrying fans acted as executioners. trump is doing the same thing.
I am dreading this month of October…
Jay
@Raven Onthill:
Read up on Egypt’s Vietnam.
Or The War Nerd’s article on how the Houthi Rebellion started as a fight against a Sawdi jihadi training madrassa that was killing their kids.
chris
@Gin & Tonic: Great minds…
danielx
Considering the number of people who would purely love to see this person dead, starting with the orange one his very own self, I’m not sure seeking federal protection was exactly the best move.
MoCA Ace
@Kay:
But think of the entertainment value when Schiff and real lawyers get their hooks into that bloviating gas bag. Also, I went all-in on popcorn futures!
Kay
@dmsilev:
The truth is they blew it when they released the report of the President’s words, and every single thing they have done and said since then is an attempt to undo that. They can’t take it back, and they need to.
Without that release they would all be lying, saying exactly the same things they are now, and they would probably get away with it. They are going forward as if it didn’t happen because that’s all they can do, other than vote to impeach him.
sdhays
@chris: I can answer that: The Sunday shows don’t exist to inform their audience about “larger context”. They exist merely to convey, in as unfiltered a way as possible, what “Washington” is thinking at the moment. And “Washington” tends to be “elected Republicans”.
Jay
chris
@danielx: WB’s lawyer says that they are asking for federal protection but it hasn’t happened yet.
chris
@sdhays: Agreed, but a boy can dream, no?
Brachiator
I just watched a clip of Jake Tapper talking to Jim Jordan about the whistleblower, Trump and Biden. Even though Tapper easily demolished Jordan’s nonsense, Jordan stuck to the GOP approved narrative, following Trump’s lead. The GOP is sticking to the lie that a beleaguered president is just trying his darndest, by golly, to help America, but the Democrats just won’t let him.
The GOP is betting hard that the average person will go along with their bullshit.
They are also betting hard that Trump won’t totally lose it and blow their attempts to defend him.
Aleta
Is there a word for this way he has of accusing others of what he is doing?
I’ve known people who suspect others of doing what they do — some seem paranoid, some have a working assumption that everyone else cheats and lies too.
T is so blatant and vocal; it sounds like confessions, but god knows what this is. HRC was going to cheat and steal the 2016 election. Biden helped his child pocket millions. W.b’er and Schiff are inaccurate and fraudulent about the conversation. ‘This person’ is a traitor. (So was Comey, he said iirc.) Big Consequences! are coming. Doing great harm to our Country. Cheating like never before in our Country’s history in order to destabilize the United States of America & its upcoming 2020 Election. Dangerous & Bad!
He can’t stop talking about himself, but it’s always lies—about success or misdirectied agency for his evil acts.
zhena gogolia
@danielx:
They haven’t given them protection. They asked for it, but it hasn’t been granted.
Kay
@MoCA Ace:
Take this scandal and remove the release of the report of Trump’s call. How would that be going? They’d be lying and there would be no way to disprove the lies.
The only thing that matters is documentation. Asking them is a waste of time. As we know- we’re listening to them lie about the report. The one and only reason it isn’t working is the report.
Kelly
@PaulWartenberg:
Since none of these folks report to the governor of their state I believe the term you’re looking for is “armed gangs”
Chetan Murthy
@Aleta:
EAIAC ?
Jay
Mary G
A Republican congressperson from Illinois who served in Iraq & Afghanistan jumps off the bus:
Good for him.
Jay
Stuck in moderation.
chris
Huh
Jay
@Kelly:
??????
Jay
Jay
Just a nother Miller move to dehumanize immigrants and refugees.
danielx
@zhena gogolia:
Under the circumstances – appealing for federal protection, presumably from agents of the DOJ, in one way or another – seriously? I’d be thinking about the prospect of feeling a needle and waking up at Gitmo. Worse yet, feeling a needle, not waking up and getting dumped out of an aircraft fifty miles out over the Atlantic from 5000 feet, Argentinian style.
I may have an overactive imagination but at this point I would put nothing past the likes of Stephen Miller, for example.
Jay
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: There is no schaden in my freude, at reading that tweet. None at all.
Kay
@chris:
Just crazy. The President had a team of sleazy lawyers working “off the books” to blackmail another country into a political prosecution of a former Vice President.
It is so far off the rails that this just treated as a normal. It really is true that it becomes business as usual. Which all those experts on collapse and authoritarian states said would happen when he was elected! But I didn’t believe. Now I believe.
TS (the original)
@japa21:
They spent years, during the Obama admin, only having republicans on their shows – not a murmur.
Chetan Murthy
@Kay:
I’m surprised it took this long — I was expecting worse than this, much, much earlier-on. So in that sense, things are going better than I feared.
Jay
Kay
Or they could just come clean and accept the consequences. That’s an option. Lots of ordinary criminals do it. The vast majority, really.
Jay
Kay
@Chetan Murthy:
Really? I was in the “institutions will save us” camp. It’s harder, I think, when you realize the cavalry isn’t coming and you thought they were. I know people overuse “disappointed” but I really am. Disappointed. I thought there were more good people. I’m still quite shocked there was only one whistleblower. I don’t know if I would be one, honestly, I’ve never been in that position but I assumed there were a lot of potential whistleblowers. Apparently not. There’s one. Well, two if you count the brave soul in the IRS who hasn’t gotten NEARLY enough attention.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
Yeah, it would be much worse were the villians competent,
But instead they rotted their brains drinking the koolaide.
Jay
Chetan Murthy
@Kay:
I live in SF, and even so, looking at the police forces all over California, I’m unsure that if push came to shove, they’d actually obey the Governor, and not the Fascist President. I’m really not sure.
Jay
@Kay:
One, came forward, representing a bunch of others, willing to go on record, but not willing to risk their jobs, pensions, health care,
Funny how that works.
The drive to the bottom has done some real damage.
And then, there are the “norms”, not actual rules, laws, penalties, more of a social contract remaining from when the US wasn’t a Plutocracy and Kaikostricy.
Roger Moore
@Aleta:
Projection. It’s a key Republican behavior.
joel hanes
@Aleta:
Is there a word
Projection.
Roger Moore
@Jay:
On the one hand, that’s good because it gives grounds for destroying the NRA. On the other hand, that’s good because the money they embezzled couldn’t be spent on electing Republicans.
Aleta
Even this may be asking too much of our infestation of people with power who don’t evaluate anything ‘on the merits.’ If ‘on the merits’ still means good vs bad, instead of short-term advantageous vs risking loss. There are people who don’t even choose a mate or partner or which person to promote on the merits of good character or fitness to serve. The GOP does not choose its candidates for office on the merits. Mining and oil companies make decisions about pollution based on a country’s environmental laws and workarounds, not to preserve the good qualities of a site’s environment.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Even if you decide to come clean, you may want a lawyer to negotiate on your behalf to try to minimize the consequences.
Kay
@Chetan Murthy:
Yeah, me neither. As it turns out. I definitely have some concerns about the now infamous “NY office” of the FBI. They don’t inspire a lot of confidence! And then there’s the attorney general…
Aleta
@Roger Moore: @joel hanes: Does projection imply he doesn’t know he is lying and manipulating; that it’s unconscious (although defensive) ?
sdhays
@chris: I’d like to dream that this will be a catalyst for changing the orientation of the Sunday shows, but I don’t believe it. It would be way too much work and I’m sure an informative program would have a higher bar to clear in terms of profitability to avoid being canceled. Official Washington would HATE it.
joel hanes
@Chetan Murthy:
I was expecting worse than this, much, much earlier-on
I think we’re beginning to learn that there was worse, almost immediately, but that it was hidden or escaped attention. I doubt we’ll ever learn about more than a small fraction of the enormities these fascists have committed.
chris
@Kay:
Welcome to the dark side.
jc
Can you even imagine Obama going on one of these insane Twitter rants that Trump unleashes every half hour? I can’t.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
True and far be it from me to dissuade people from hiring lawyers. I just get tired of the endless, endless positioning. The cleverness. The plotting and planning. They should try just telling the truth. They can say the Trump thugs threatened them. It’s entirely believable. They just tried to frame a former Vice President who is running for President. Imagine what they do to the lower tier people.
Jay
mvr
@karen marie: Shouldn’t that be Johnson?
Mai naem mobile
Trumpov has gone nuts on the Twitter machine. Definitely not stable genius. Honestly, I am s.little worried. I seriously hope there’s some plan to deal with him if he goes completely off the rails nuts and threaten to use nukes on Iran or NK. I don’t even know if there is absolutely anybody in this administration or GOP leadership that the Dems can talk to seriously and come up with something. They would probably turn it into a ‘Dems want t coup!!!’ rallying cry.
joel hanes
@Aleta:
No, it means that Trump (and many Republicans) estimate other people’s character and predict other people’s actions based on their own character and actions (and desires). They expect and predict others to do what _they_ would do in the others place — and in many cases, what they want to do or are already doing or have already done.
Thieves think all men are thieves.
Trump is incapable of understanding the distinctions between truth and falsehood, between lawful and unlawful acts: he doesn’t even see the boundary. Instead, he sorts the world into “good for me” and “bad for me”.
Most other Republicans are not so far gone, but their accusations that Democrats are lying for partisan advantage are coined from the base metal of their own self-knowledge: they know that they themselves _do_ lie for partisan advantage, and assume that everyone else is just as amoral. Similarly with grift, and graft, and cheating in elections, etc. They accuse us of cheating in elections because they know that they are cheating, and therefore we must certainly be doing so too.
This is the bitter fruit of both-siderism and the common idea that all politicians are corrupt.
joel hanes
@Mai naem mobile:
Trumpov has gone nuts on the Twitter machine
Visibly decompensating.
TS (the original)
@Jay: I so HATE that the term alien has ever been used for people from other countries. It is so dehumanising & until it started appearing in US talk I had never seen it used this way
TS (the original)
@Mai naem mobile:
I’m more worried about what he wants to do to members of the US congress. Seems he wants to lock them all up (well all the dems & maybe a few GOPers as well)
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Could NRA members not yet in post-life get together and sue these bloodsuckers and their accomplices in the NRA to recover the misappropriated funds?
OldDave
In an earlier thread one jackal mentioned the “A Noun, A Verb, 9/11” quip about Rudy Giuliani. I’d like to point out Biden was the one to first use that characterization, and that might be one reason for Rudy going after him. Like Trump, Giuliani holds a grudge.
Raven Onthill
@Jay: Thank you, those are good cites. I find Bruce Riedel also good on the subject. I like his account of the Houthi at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/12/18/who-are-the-houthis-and-why-are-we-at-war-with-them/.
@sdhays: It’s horrifying because the Houthis are devout Zaydi Shiite Muslims who hate the USA and Israel. They are, I think, potentially a more formidable enemy than Saudi Arabia.
@Another Scott: I also assume that the Houthis have no interest in conquering KSA.
I don’t see reasons to assume that. They have a thirst for justice and every reason to want revenge. If the reports are correct (a point to be cautious of) they have invaded Saudi Arabia and captured Saudi troops. That’s not a leadership cautious of international response. And why should it be? So-far, they have handily defeated the US-backed Saudi Arabia.
I see reasons to be very much concerned, but I desperately want to know more before spelling out my fears.
See you in the next open thread!
joel hanes
@TS (the original):
It has a long history in US immigration law.
I remember a black and white government PSA on TV in the earliest 1960s, an animation, that started out with the words “Aliens must register!”. I’ve tried, but I can’t find it on youtube.
And there’s this, from 1940:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aGEsrEeA90
Until science fiction went mainstream, this was a very common construction.
Kelly
https://twitter.com/itsJeffTiedrich/status/1178426143810211847
Jeff Tiedrich
@itsJeffTiedrich
at this point for everyone’s sake I hope that they’ve replaced the nuclear football with a briefcase full of those spring-loaded novelty snakes
2:47 PM · Sep 29, 2019
Cheryl Rofer
Second newspaper to call for him to resign.
jl
If this story is true, then either Trump went out and did this all by his own little self, or anyone in other departments who were in on Trump’s scheme are running away as far and as fast as possible. The link to Fox News story also says Giuliani lied about not working with any other legal counsel or interest. He has been working with two lawyers who are defending a Ukrainian oligarch and Manafort crony. And this oligarch is the source, or at least contractor paying for, the Biden smears on the Ukraine side of the deal.
Huh…. interesting….
@ElainLuriaVA
“Fox News has learned that the Pentagon, State Department, and National Security Council were ‘unanimous’ in supporting the aid to Ukraine, and that Trump acted alone in withholding the aid over the summer.”
https://twitter.com/ElaineLuriaVA/status/1178485025999904769
Elaine Luria is the Democratic Hose rep from VA 2, which probably everyone here knew except me. And found her tweet via Josh Marshall.
Chetan Murthy
@TS (the original):
When I was a kid (and our family had green cards) in the 70s/80s, I believe the term of art for us was “resident aliens”. And as I Google, I see that much literature still uses the term, and not just at US Govt sites — Investopedia uses the term, too.
It does feel a little harsh and xenophobic. But it’s also the way it’s always been.
jl
@Kelly: Use rubber sharks. Trump doesn’t like sharks. Will scare him away from the briefcase for good.
Roger Moore
@joel hanes:
Dating back at least to the Adams administration and the Alien and Sedition Acts.
jonas
Remember how when Ken Starr received a tip from Lucianne Goldberg that an anonymous second-hand source had approached her about how another then-anonymous third person claimed to have had an affair with Bill Clinton? Starr was like “I’m sorry, but this is like, what, third-hand, unconfirmed information? We simply can’t pursue such a piece of shaky, unreliable information, particularly when a presidential investigation is at stake. Ask renowned legal mind Lindsey Graham!”
Yeah. Good times.
Roger Moore
@jl:
I would recommend Giant Microbes, since Trump is a known germophobe.
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
Can’t be beet?
SFAW
@joel hanes:
Shill Barr and John Yoo have written findings saying (more or less) that “If the Preznit does it, it’s not insane. No matter what.”
Chetan Murthy
@zhena gogolia:
Gotta ask: got a recipe you could share? I’m a borscht fanatic. When I last visited NYC, the only meal I had was borscht at the B&H Dairy. And in SF, it’s pretty rare to get the good stuff. I still remember a place called KK’s on 1st Ave (in the late 90s), that had 3 different kinds of borscht, including Ukrainian borscht, which they served with half a hard-boiled egg floating in the middle.
joel hanes
@SFAW:
not insane
The slogan of the Pappoon For President campaign.
http://www.firesigntheatre.com/papoon/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5LDNJNL3K8
dww44
@MisterForkbeard: LOL. So true.
jl
@SFAW: Insane is the right word. Trump’s request for the favors regarding all the missing ‘servers’ was insane. No way Ukraine could have delivered anything to Trump’s satisfaction, other than issue a statement that ‘teh SERVERS!!’ were found buried out in the Ukrainian forests, and then stonewall for a year.. If you want to extort someone to some useful purpose, a pro tip is to not make insane demands.
Dirt on the Bidens could have been cooked up, given some corporate media news ‘legs’ and taken a while to debunk, or become one of those undying voter concerns about Biden that can never be settled in the corporate news celebs heads. So, that is not an insane demand.
But this kind of BS is best sprung a few months before the election, minus the insane demands. But, we know Trump has nerves of steel, and knows how to bide his time. Or maybe the Ukranian oligarch that Giuliani apparently has been working with can’t delay his trial that long. Hard to tell which tail is wagging what dog.
dww44
@Gin & Tonic: Like you, I was offline most of the day. However, unlike you, we are not enjoying our unremitting September sunshine, gifting us days without number of 95 plus degree weather, record setting highs, and no rain for weeks and none in the foreseeable future. We’re watering shrubs and small trees to keep them alive. Dogwoods are particularly stressed. TBH, we wouldn’t mind having a tropical storm in the forecast that would head into the Gulf and turn this way heading northwards and give us some very much wished for rain. It’s one of those systems that typically provide the relief we need.
Jay
@Raven Onthill:
Narigan and 2 other Sawdi Provinces, are Yemeni territories that were “leased” to Sawdi Bonesaw for 30 years to Sawdi Bonesaw after Yemen lost a war. They should have returned to Yemen in the 50’s.
And yes, the majority of inhabitants are Yardzi’s and Shia.
Leto
@Mary G: Only issue is 1) he still doesn’t support impeachment (constituents in his comments say this) and 2) he’s another shit bird Air Force member. We (AF) have too many of them ?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@MisterForkbeard: T
You, Trump is right because the main source is Trump and everyone knows Trump lies all the time.
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
The Immigration and Nationality Act still uses that term.
Mnemosyne
@TS (the original):
As other people have said, it’s a pretty old term in the US. I agree with the person who said that it has a different connotation now that science fiction exists — before that “alien” just meant “person from another country.” It’s a much more dehumanizing term now.
RedDirtGirl
@geg6: Damn, how did I miss that!
Uncle Cosmo
@Chetan Murthy: FWIW when I was in Prague in 1990 there was a Russian fast-food joint downtown called the Arbat. I went in & order a couple of small sandwiches (what would now be called sliders, or “polzunki” according to Google) & borshch. The latter was served in a stainless-steel bowl (authentic!) & looked like Pepto-Bismol. My heart sank … till I dipped in the spoon & found that the good stuff lay in wait for my tastebuds just below the surface. Good meal, good times.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Indeed it does. GC holders are resident aliens, long term visa holders are non-residents aliens.