Barr feels that Giuliani is beneath him,&is sullying his parallel, quieter, partisan dirt-digging global expedition https://t.co/nthmW3lZzw pic.twitter.com/7oDacLvOym
— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) October 1, 2019
Barr has this job because he wrote an unsolicited 19-page essay on why the Mueller investigation is bullshit. https://t.co/1CPlpJdyZ1
— Je Suis Corn Pop (@agraybee) September 30, 2019
NEW: Attorney General William Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials, including in the U.K. and Italy, seeking their help in investigation of the Russia investigation. https://t.co/zmpKENTP2F by @DevlinBarrett, me, and @mattzap
— Shane Harris (@shaneharris) September 30, 2019
DOJ still won’t say what Barr was doing in his secret trip to Italy — but it looks increasingly likely that he was on a mission to investigate the origins of the FBI investigation into Trump. https://t.co/5APxBF5WkU pic.twitter.com/rcO4NfLQ91
— Eric Columbus (@EricColumbus) September 30, 2019
All this effort, time, taxpayers' funds being wasted by the Trump administration to "prove" that Russia didn't do it. Whose national interests are being served here? Certainly not ours.https://t.co/PuRmX3mLei
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 30, 2019
Can’t imagine many of these doughy 65+ guys are willing to go to jail for Trump, or don’t want to cut their time in jail. They’ll start blabbing. https://t.co/tp6thuphoX
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 30, 2019
Lawrence O’Donnell said Bill Barr & Mike Pompeo are hiring criminal defense lawyers
Well, that caps off my day with a smile
— WTFGOP? #ImpeachmentIsComing (@DogginTrump) October 1, 2019
Mary G
Lock him up!
debbie
Barr may be quieter about it than Rudi, but what he’s doing is equally illegal.
Cacti
Also too, Dem House Chairs hit Pompeo between the eyes on his refusal to cooperate with impeachment inquiry:
rikyrah
State by State poll
https://civiqs.com/results/approve_president_trump?annotations=true&uncertainty=true&zoomIn=true&utm_campaign=ticker&trendline=true&map=true
rikyrah
Impeach Barr’s crooked azz too ? ?
John Revolta
I’ve heard (from Adam probably) that the Italian Right-wing has close ties to Russia. Now, if you wanted to confer with Russians but didn’t want to go to Russia to do so…………………..it would be irresponsible not to speculate is all I’m sayin’.
rikyrah
Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) Tweeted:
CNN: State Dept inspector general has requested an urgent Hill briefing with relevant committees tomorrow related to Ukraine. The email that went to staff suggested it was urgent. A Congressional aid described the State IG’s request as “highly unusual and cryptically worded.” https://twitter.com/ShimonPro/status/1179158728031035392?s=17
Major Major Major Major
Millard Filmore
@Cacti:
His reply explaining the refusal basically came down to “I don’t like your attitude.”
debbie
@rikyrah:
The Rethugs might want to strike “nothingburger” from their talking points.
Major Major Major Major
@John Revolta: the Italian government was (until it fell apart quite recently) an alliance between:
– a far-right ethno-separatist party that had been turned into a Russian stalking horse
– a party that is essentially a running joke by a bunch of disaffected youth, founded by a techie cultist and fronted by a comedian
Sebastian
A) Fuck em.
B) Tick Tock Motherfuckers.
Aleta
@rikyrah: related:
Leto
@Mary G: I’m anxious that that’ll become a lefty chant. I know we do it here mockingly, but I’m still wary.
@debbie: Exactly. He’s been up to his jowls in criminal activity since Iran Contra.
The Dangerman
Damn, the billable hours that Trumpers are gonna run up is going to be mind boggling.
Of course, Donald won’t pay the bills, but the billings will be mind boggling.
Cacti
@Millard Filmore:
I accidentally cut off the best part of the response to Pompeo:
My only quibble is that they should have changed the “may” to “shall”.
Sebastian
@Aleta:
Those asshats (Pompeo, Barr, Mnuchin, et al) are going to realize that no one wants to go to prison for them and people are realizing that Trump&Co are no longer in control. This is how a breaking dam looks like. Hold on, this is going to be a wiiiiiiild ride.
rikyrah
Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) Tweeted:
BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: I’m told that Pompeo’s office in recent days asked State Department HR/IG if they could “discipline” officers for “failure to follow direction” if they cooperate with Congress. https://twitter.com/ScottMStedman/status/1179156540835500032?s=17
Steve in the ATL
@The Dangerman:
Every cloud has a silver lining!
kindness
It would be my hope that both Barr & Pompeo are having a very hard time trying to hire defense lawyers. Of course karma isn’t always immediate. Such is life.
sukabi
What’s particularly galling about this whole thing is that they knowRussian interference happened and is continuing BECAUSE THEY SOLICITED IT. Other than using that for cover, the only thing they can possibly get from this is obviously faked documents and more charges brought against them.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: Time to dust off those Crim Law textbooks.
Jeffro
Julia’s and Dana’s tweets are On. Point.
Now to throw those facts in GOP lawmakers’ faces at every opportunity. You listening, Dem candidates? How about you, national snooze media?
jl
@rikyrah: Thanks! Looks like something interesting happened with that impeachment poll just a few days ago. Huh…
ruemara
@Leto: Why are you worried?
Jeffro
@Major Major Major Major: (insert obligatory “what, no sharks with frickin’ laser beams?” quote here)
Quinerly
@Major Major Major Major: I just used one of my free clicks to read this about 30 mins ago. Yes, it’s the NYT but it really should be read and shared. Concrete wall vs wall painted flat black. Wanting to just take people’s land without notice or going thru the process. We have to get rid of this SOB. I despise him.
jl
Everyone is in trouble until they find the HRC email servers, the Russian hoax servers, and the missing pizza joint basement. And Trump wants to see lots of dirt on them, so he knows you got the real ones that have been buried in the woods, not some fakes.
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro: extremely obligatory, going by the reply tweets ?
Jeffro
@debbie: apropos of nothing, Mrs. Fro can’t seem to latch on to “nothingburger” and has instead thrown out “empty sandwich”, “air sandwich”, and “fake burger” at times.
Points for trying, though! LOLOL
O. Felix Culpa
Reposting from moribund thread below, the unbearable sadness of powerful white men, from today’s WaPo:
First, Kavanaugh [spit]: Brett Kavanaugh’s Washington: A smaller, colder world for a justice under a cloud
Second, Acting homeland security chief frustrated and isolated — even as he delivers what Trump wants at the border
They don’t make violins tiny enough.
ETA: LInk to the 2nd article – https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/acting-homeland-security-chief-frustrated-and-isolated–even-as-he-delivers-what-trump-wants-at-the-border/2019/10/01/b62e740c-e3ad-11e9-b403-f738899982d2_story.html?wpisrc=al_news__alert-national&wpmk=1
Jeffro
@Millard Filmore: Indeed.
Repubs need to be asked daily if that is the new standard going forward: “It’s okay to refuse a subpoena if you don’t like the attitude of the Congressperson/committee issuing it? That’s the deal now?”
Oooookay…
debbie
@Jeffro:
That is funny!
Leto
@ruemara: Because I don’t want it to become a lefty chant? It’s fucking odious when the shitbirds do it, I don’t want to see it come full circle and have Dems doing it. Again, I know we do it here in a mocking fashion (as it rightly deserves), but I can see it being done. Example 1 is last night’s Colbert show with HRC.
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: No sharks?
Edit:
Christ, what a sick and twisted SOB he is.
JPL
@rikyrah: Yeah that and the fact he wants to shoot those crossing the border in the legs seems important.
Better ask Mitch. BTW Pompeo is a big sissy.. Hillary took eleven hours of questioning and he can’t even take one.
Quinerly
Valerie Plame on Hardball.
Jeffro
@Aleta: Wow, that is encouraging (that the State officials will testify regardless of what Pompeo says or wants).
Dam’s cracking, GOP. Last one to head for the hills ain’t gonna beat the floodwaters…
Omnes Omnibus
@ruemara: I’m not Leto but I don’t think that adopting the Right’s call for the imprisonment without trial of political opponents is a good look. YMMV.
ruemara
@Leto: Interesting.
Lock all of them up. In a military prison for treason.
Chyron HR
Has… has he considered that the “origins of the FBI investigation” might be all the crimes they were committing?
Patricia Kayden
Schiff isn’t playing.
https://twitter.com/ScottMStedman/status/1179168497202388992
Good.
different-church-lady
@Aleta:
At this point you could just start re-running the early 70s Doonesbury strips in real time.
Patricia Kayden
@dmsilev: Have to say that this story shocked me. Good know Trump is a horrible human being but really? And we’re just hearing about this now.
cain
@Cacti:
Pfft. A sternly worded letter. You think Pompeo is going to care? Let’s see some threats and then following up with that threat.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Yeah, nothing to see here, just standard operating procedure, no intent to obstruct at all.
O. Felix Culpa
@Quinerly: Speaking as a local, I was hopeful when she announced, but am not impressed. We have better candidates. Don’t let the slick ad fool you.
ETA: To clarify, I’m not impressed with her candidacy in general. She may be doing fine on Hardball, but I haven’t watched it.
Hungry Joe
During (and after) Watergate, Nixon’s defenders said he should have destroyed the tapes that Congress was pressing him to turn over. Had he done so, they maintained, there wouldn’t have been enough evidence to force him out with the threat of impeachment and conviction.
Does anyone know if the info on Trump’s phone conversations with Ukraine, upgraded to Super-Duper Hush No-You-Can’t-Look Secret, are vulnerable? I know nothing about the ins and outs of this. Could Trump simply order someone to destroy them, then take the heat for that rather than what they would have revealed?
Chyron HR
@cain:
I cannot imagine how drunk I’m going to have to get on the day that Trump is acquitted in the Senate and you little brats decry the very impeachment you spent a year demanding as a “sternly worded letter”.
Jeffro
Meanwhile, Marc Thiessen’s latest hack opus is up at the WaPo: “Yes, trumpov Did Something Wrong: That Doesn’t Absolve the Biden’s”
Yes, really.
No, I’m not going to link to it.
Yes, that headline tells it all – they know we’ve got Orangemandias dead to rights.
No, they will not let go of this dumb non-angle, ever.
Jeffro
@Patricia Kayden: YES!
Wilson Heath
MAGA=Make Attorneys Get Attorneys
Quinerly
@Wilson Heath: ?
Quinerly
@O. Felix Culpa: she’s on mostly b/c of being outed. Very little about campaign. Discussed Joe Wilson’s death. I have always liked her. Haven’t followed her campaign.
Gin & Tonic
@Hungry Joe: I will start off by saying that I know zero about classified/secret/top-secret servers, but out here in the more mundane IT world, any system that holds anything approaching important data has multiple generations of backup, several audit trails, reams of system logs, different access control levels, etc. Deleting something without leaving a trail and making sure it actually disappears completely is a very hard problem. I’d suspect it’s much harder on a codeword server.
Hungry Joe
@Major Major Major Major: This sounds like a couple of nine-year-old boys building a fort out of scrap lumber and leftover shingles, and getting a little carried away as they talk about making it even better:
“We could build a trench!”
“Yeah! And fill it with snakes!”
“And ALLIGATORS!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this strikes me as a rather significant bureaucratic power play, and a huge fuck you to Pompeo
O. Felix Culpa
@Quinerly: The conversation about having been outed makes sense, especially with current speculation about the whistleblower’s identity and the possible consequences for that person if outed. Unfortunately, as a candidate, that seems to be her primary calling card. Sometimes almost to the point of the old John McCain trope – did you know he was a POW? Did you know she was outed?
Aleta
@Sebastian: It feels kind of like ice breaking up on a river. After it begins, ice dams form and then the water starts to flood up on land to get around the blocks of ice that’re stuck. River keeps flowing faster and faster and the current may get so strong you don’t know what you might see carried along.
@Major Major Major Major: Great, WH aides on the phone getting estimates from alligator wranglers and discount farms and writing down shipping quotes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: @Hungry Joe:
psycholinguist
Bill and Vlad’s excellent adventure
JGabriel
WTFGOP? #ImpeachmentIsComing via Anne Laurie @ Top:
In Italy? Must be looking for lawyers to fight extradition.
piratedan
@Omnes Omnibus: would it be okay if they served them subpoenas citing them with contempt and obstruction and THEN locked them up until compliance was forthcoming?
different-church-lady
@Hungry Joe: There’s yet another parallel: Nixon didn’t destroy the tapes because he had a misguided idea there would be things in them that would exonerate him. Same bonehead reason Trump released the transcript/notes.
moops
@Gin & Tonic:
The data will likely not get corrupted, but someone in the WH still has to access it for Congress and abide by the subpoena. Like Pompeo, they will just refuse. There are never consequences it seems. Cheney showed how it’s done, and we will never recover until someone gets locked up for failure to comply.
Jay
different-church-lady
@JGabriel: They’re not looking for criminal defense lawyers. They’re looking for criminal… defense lawyers.
Quinerly
@O. Felix Culpa: in her defense, she didn’t bring up her campaign until CM brought it up. I had it on in background so didn’t see her. I was shocked about Wilson’s death last week. Sad. I guess they had recently, quietly divorced but she was with him when he passed away. Organ failure. He was active on social media thru the summer.
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady: Better Call Saul!
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: Yeah, I would be just fine with that.
trollhattan
@Hungry Joe:
Fill the swamp! Fill the swamp! Fill the swamp! Fill the swamp! Fill the swamp! Fill the swamp!
Wankers
different-church-lady
So, Volker’s gonna testify?
I wonder if the 10 year olds of today are going to see this the same way I saw the original. At least for them the non-stop confusion will be in color.
Aleta
@John Revolta:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/a-secret-recording-raises-questions-about-ties-between-italys-far-right-and-russia/2019/07/11/c66a5432-a3e1-11e9-a767-d7ab84aef3e9_story.html
But for barr’s trip to Italy, this was reported:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/barr-went-to-rome-to-hear-a-secret-tape-from-joseph-mifsud-the-professor-who-helped-ignite-the-russia-probe
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: that clunking sound you hear is me hitting my head on the desk.
@rikyrah: That goes for *that* nugget of information as well.
JGabriel
@different-church-lady:
Heh. I think Barr & Pompeo broke bad long before they ever got into politics – they were born that way.
dmsilev
@Aleta: A brief Google search turned up backwaterreptile.com, which sells young alligators for $150 each and features the promise “Buy an Alligator with a Live Arrival Guarantee”.
I assume if you’re buying in bulk there’s a discount.
Searcher
I’m honestly thrilled at how much time and effort they are apparently spending trying to find or fabricate some sort of “evidence”.
I had kind of assumed that they thought they didn’t need evidence and that everyone on “that side” was happy with just piled higher and deeper bullshit. This is a tacit admission that evidence still matters (and they don’t got none).
Quinerly
@Aleta: I read that Daily Beast piece earlier. Didn’t really get much from it. Would Barr even recognize the professor’s voice?
Mr. Kite
I want a FOIA for the moat construction requests for quotes.
Jay
Quinerly
@Jay: ?
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa: 1,2,3…”Awwwwww….!”
japa21
Barr and Pompeo are focused on the origins of the Russian Hoax. They know they can’t directly refute the evidence but if they find something shady in it it must mean the whole thing must be thrown out, including the conclusion that the Russians interfered at all.
Let’s imagine, for just a minute, that it did all start with the Steele dossier. So what? There were enough claims in there to justify the beginning of an investigation. You don’t start an investigation because you have all the facts, you start an investigation to find out what the facts really are.
Aleta
@dmsilev: Agents are going to balk at nighttime foot patrols.
Gin & Tonic
@different-church-lady: Volker resigned from State last week; RUMINT had it that he was interested in testifying. Since he’s no longer a DoS employee, he can tell Pompeo to pound sand if he wants. He was never a Trump guy, he was a McCain guy, anyway. Actually well-respected in Ukraine
Shana
@debbie: IANAL but I’d argue that what Barr is doing is more illegal than what Rudy’s doing since he’s the Attorney General.
Gin & Tonic
@Aleta: Has Mifsud’s body turned up anywhere?
mrmoshpotato
@O. Felix Culpa: Awwww….fuck ’em.
MisterForkbeard
@Cacti: Yeah, but Atrios is sneering at “sternly worded letters”.
More seriously, that’s good. They’re threatening him with Obstruction of Congress if he doesn’t comply. Which is exactly the right thing to do.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie:
If you don’t constantly blab about it on TV, that means it’s not illegal.
-Zombie Tricky Dick
Jay
@Aleta:
Nobodys seen Mifsud in forever, it’s pretty clear that he was just a Russian FSB Agent pretending to be a Maltese Professor to influence Westerners.
Now his “lawyer” is leaking Russian disinfo.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mifsud
JanieM
@Gin & Tonic:
Especially for people who couldn’t even figure out how to work the light switches.
MoCA Ace
@Major Major Major Major:
“All I’m asking for is frickin sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads… Honestly people, throw me a frickin bone hear”
Dave
@Patricia Kayden: He really is the perfect distillation of every loudmouth drunk know nothing blowhard at the end of the bar. It’s like he’s the platonic ideal of this and your asshole drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. This is the sort of plan that is so stupid (not to mention illegal and ghoulish) that the brains first inclination upon hearing it is to just skip over it out if a sense of self preservation.
Aleta
@Quinerly: A lot of hearsay …
jl
@mrmoshpotato: Barr is more illegal than Giuliani. Barr is US Attorney General. Giuliani is just some private citizen gumshoe, self-styled defense lawyer, and self-conceived secret agent man hired by a weak minded president.
So far we have solid evidence that Giuliani’s main crime is lying his ass off on TV. Barr has public office. Barr lied too, several times, but to Congress.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
ad on a NYC subway car
I…. I think I have to call that number
oatler.
@Jeffro: How about Wish Sandwich, per “Rubber Biscuit”?
Mary G
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro: What about setting the trench on fire?
jl
@rikyrah: ‘ CNN: State Dept inspector general has requested an urgent Hill briefing with relevant committees tomorrow related to Ukraine. The email that went to staff suggested it was urgent. A Congressional aid described the State IG’s request as “highly unusual and cryptically worded.” ‘
Wonder if that is about feds going after WB.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: can’t he do it?
Steve in the ATL
@Quinerly: @O. Felix Culpa: she ask wrote a spy novel! It was good.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@moops:
Right, just shoot ’em in the face.
Miss Bianca
@Aleta: there’s a gator farm just over the mountains from me. Maybe I should call them up and get a quote!
mrmoshpotato
@jl: Buried in the woods? The network cables ran into the tree?
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: God, I love New York.
Aleta
@Miss Bianca: You could be a government contractor!
eta Or Gator Security Consultant if you pass the background and clearances
debbie
@Shana:
Knowing Rudi, I’m sure he’s implying he speaks for more than just the president, but six of one, half-dozen of the other: They both suck!
Quinerly
@Steve in the ATL: I read it. Enjoyed it.
Cheryl Rofer
Some good news
MisterForkbeard
@jl: Doubt it’s the feds going after Barr, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was letting them know that Barr was literally doing something illegal right now in Italy.
Quinerly
@Miss Bianca: I read about that gator farm when I was researching my Crestone stay.
Hungry Joe
@dmsilev: When the DHS cuts a purchase order for 8,000 alligators it’ll be from a company that donated to the Trump campaign. The grift, it never stops.
dm
@Hungry Joe: In addition to “stealing”, spies sometimes want to delete or modify things. Therefore, such secure systems are (in theory, I don’t know how true this is in practice) set up to detect and record deletion and modification, with audit logs that are also protected from modification.
That’s the theory, anyway.
Quinerly
@Aleta: strange piece. Oddly written, I thought.
chopper
@Hungry Joe:
from a florida company owned by rick scott, i reckon.
jl
@mrmoshpotato: ” Buried in the woods? The network cables ran into the tree? ”
Trying to type things out from Trump’s perspective gets weird quick.
OTOH every reactionary is smart and knows the best way to detect deviltry in a computer system is to pull the plug out of the wall and cart off every damn thing you see in the room. SASQ. QED. Stat!
Sam
@Gin & Tonic: Probably only a handful of people can really remove things, and chances are good they are contractors who would be extremely reluctant to even try without a detailed record of the request for their files. Even then they would go to their own management first.
Mary G
Womp womp:
Some Trumpy stuff, particularly “no one ever thanks me for having the patience not to kill them.”
White & Gold Purgatorian
Misery loves company. I had a crappy day myself, but it cheers me no end to hear that Barr & Pompeo are well and truly in the soup. Presumably Rudy and Donald are also losing sleep. The difference between my crappy day and theirs is the difference between honest work and corruption. Looks like I’ll have to scaffold to reach something I’d hoped to just do from a ladder, but those guys are lawyering up and worrying (at least a tiny bit) about going to jail.
dmsilev
@chopper: Would Rick Scott really sell off his own offspring like that?
Probably.
Aleta
@Quinerly: Seemed planted (I mean ‘sourced’) to me but who knows
joel hanes
@Aleta:
ice dams form
The scablands of eastern Washington state are the geological scars from the repeated formation and breaking of glacial ice dams that sealed the outflow of Glacial Lake Missoula.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_Scablands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_Lake_Missoula
Jeffro
Trumpov’s melting down again…now it’s a “FULL BLOWN COUP”, intent on overturning the 2nd Amendment (really?), denying people their religious rights (how ‘bout that??) and (all of) “their God-given rights as a Citizen* of The United States of America”
*you fucked up the plural, chief…it’s “AS CITIZENS”
Millard Filmore
@MisterForkbeard: I am pretty sure “WB” here means Whistle Blower, not William Barr.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: ?❤️?
Jeffro
@oatler.: I dunno, sometimes it feels like work trying to translate this stuff.
“ ‘Empty sandwich’? Ohhhh…you mean ‘nothingburger’!” (Takes rest of day off to recuperate). LOL
jl
@MisterForkbeard: WB meant ‘Whistle Blower’. I forgot WB can have a more sinister interpretation.
MisterForkbeard
@Millard Filmore: Oh, well THAT makes a lot more sense
jl
@Jeffro: Trump is the USA and its people! Trump is their very essence!!!!
mrmoshpotato
@jl: Oh, I know.
dmsilev
@Millard Filmore: Could be Warner Brothers. Some days, the news seems like an endless loop of Loony Tunes shorts.
joel hanes
@dmsilev:
sells young alligators for $150 each
Boy, has the price gone up.
The pet section of the Ben Franklin five-and-dime in my hometown used to sell baby alligators about four inches long for $0.50 each, back in the early 1960s.
Baby turtles, too, for those kids who wanted to experience salmonella first hand before learning a little later what a dead turtle smells like.
Elizabelle
@White & Gold Purgatorian: And worrying about disbarment, too. I suppose Trump could pardon them out of prison time, but the ABA may have some problems with their lack of ethics.
Jeffro
I still cannot believe that the best these clowns can do is…SENDING BARR AND GIULIANI THEIR OWN SELVES!
Do they pay minimum wage for henchmen over in GOP-land? No one but Barr can dig up this (BS) ‘oppo’?
Dem recruiting slogan, post 2020: “Seriously, henchmen we’ll pay you $15 an hour and ask politely to see if you want ‘Medicare For All Who Want It’ “. GAME OVER RED TEAM!
Aleta
@joel hanes: Thanks, that’s pretty cool. And this is too:
different-church-lady
@Millard Filmore: Oh my god, you don’t suppose that….
tokyokie
@Millard Filmore:
And I thought “WB” was in the logo at the start and end of old Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Jay
dmsilev
@Jeffro: L’etat, c’est moi.
There’s also the German version from the mid 20th century.
joel hanes
@MisterForkbeard:
Atrios is sneering
Pretty much a constant, these days, and regardless of his topic.
Sad to see him sour so.
Once he was great.
Jeffro
@jl: Sounds good. Someone please do grab The Football before trumpov heads to bed tonight…
dmsilev
@joel hanes: I’m sure these are organic free-range small-batch alligators.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: Wait…the German version…was that bad? It was bad, wasn’t it?
Not to sorta Godwin the thread, but frankly, Hitler had more brains (up until that last half sec!) than trumpov ever will. And thank goodness for that.
Mary G
Good long read on yahoo about the person in charge of negotiating contracts at the Pentagon:
HOOCOUDANODE that appointing a bunch of defense industry lobbyists to the Pentagon would turn out to be putting the fox in the henhouse? The amounts of money are staggering.
Elizabelle
@tokyokie: I was thinking “Water Boarding.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jay
mrmoshpotato
@Hungry Joe: All that unaccounted for money from the inauguration fund?
GATORS!
Elizabelle
@Jay: Yeah. The holding stuff to publish it in a book has to stop. You are either a daily newspaper journalist or you are not. Don’t hold out, when it could make a difference.
I think that we, as readers and subscribers, could have something to say about that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ken
@Aleta:
Harking back to that golden oldie, “perjury trap”.
Brachiator
Trump talks a lot about the deep state. It’s hiding in plain sight. It’s not forces working against Trump. It’s his abuse of office, using government officials, paid goons and allies as his personal investigative and attack force.
Amir Khalid
@Mary G:
One thing I find worrying about Amber Guyger is that she got through whatever Houston PD’s recruitment process has for psychological screening, and then kept her badge despite several uncidents of rash and intemperate behaviour on the job. She might not be the only cop in Houston who is a potential danger to innocent members of the public.
West of the Rockies
@Jeffro:
After that quote, you’re fretting over subject-verb agreement?//
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Artisan alligators!
ETA – only fed cage-free chickens.
Amir Khalid
@chopper:
And then the alligators, unaccustomed to desert conditions, would die in the heat.
Ken
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s probably too much to hope that the documents include Pompeo’s instructions to refuse to comply with Congressional requests for information – or even better, to fake evidence supporting the Ukraine story the administration is still trying to spin.
Jay
Aleta
@Jeffro: Wouldn’t a coup suggest a plot by the christian right to replace him with the more godly pence … if the chr. right actually cares about that stuff.
Ken
@different-church-lady:
Ten-year-old me didn’t really understand Watergate. I was chiefly upset that the TV stations were pre-empting my cartoons to show a bunch of old men talking.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Elizabelle: Maybe disbarment too? This just gets better and better. Although if their sentences are sufficiently long, it won’t make any damned difference if they lose their professional license.
Yes, I want to lock them up. After appropriate legal process. Because they are doing the crimes right out in the open, secure in the belief that no one will stop them. Enough!
Ken
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think the Cheney precedent would only extend to members of the executive branch shooting judges in the face. It’s never really been hashed out.
Jay
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major:
5 Star is much more than that. It acts like a running joke, but the point there is to draw support from people who treat politics as entertainment or a joke. It also does a lot of social media manipulation. That has given 5 Star quite a bit of power, which it is now using for its own purposes.
The thing about democracy is that if you get elected you have power. The road to getting elected need not be dignified or honest.
Miss Bianca
@Aleta: Background? Clearances? This the *Trump* Administration we’re talking about here!
Jay
chris
@Brachiator: Paraphrasing something heard on TV: When they talk about the Deep State they mean The Rule of Law.
Frankensteinbeck
@jl:
Yep. That’s why Barr and Pompeo are running around. They may be insane enough to believe the server and anti-Mueller evidence is real. It’s moot, because their boss does and is demanding they be found.
@Patricia Kayden:
I took it for granted that Trump’s starting position was ‘kill all brown immigrants and then look into killing all brown citizens’ and that he has been angry from day one that he doesn’t have the authority to do it. Same with locking up Hillary and Obama, which we also found out he asked the DoJ to do.
@Dave:
I have been calling Trump the Your Racist Uncle President for a long time. That is his appeal to his voters. They think that kind of person is God’s gift to the world.
Mnemosyne
@Jay:
He wasn’t elected to do it, but he embarrassed Trump on the world stage, and now Ukraine has to pay so all of the other countries that Trump is asking for favors knows that they’d better fall in line.
Ian R
@Amir Khalid: Dallas, not Houston.
Hungry Joe
@Elizabelle: Withholding info you gather as a reporter is unethical, dishonest. You’re on the clock; the paper (or whatever entity) is paying you to learn this stuff and report it — or at least, report whatever you and your editor(s) determine is worth reporting. If you want to write a book later, fine — but not using secreted away, more or less purloined goods. That info belongs to the paper, as does the story. I bet I had 2,500+ bylines, and every one of them was, and remains, property of the newspaper I worked for.
Shana
@Amir Khalid: Dallas not Houston.
Uncle Cosmo
@Gin & Tonic: I get the sinking feeling that sometime within the next 30 hours or so Volker’s domicile will be raided & ransacked by the FBI & all his files seized, & he will be frogmarched off to jail & charged with possession of (recently up-) classified material (which will be planted if nothing that fits the bill is found**) to prevent him from testifying. Fuckers.
** Hell, they’ll probably plant stuff so they won’t have to look so hard.
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
The reformed Ukrainian Military has been very sucessfully waging a “War of Inches”, pushing back the LPR and the DPR forces in strategic spots, with minimal causualties, and with out provoking a major Russian military intervention, only posturing.
The Larov Agreement, requires that Ukraine withdraw from their gains, engage in a ceasefire, and at some point in time, Russia will withdraw forces from the DPR and LPR, ( they won’t), and at sometime free elections will be held in the DPR and LPR, ( they won’t be free).
The EU and NATO have provided way more support for Ukraine, militarially and economically than the US, so this is a surrender for nothing in exchange.
One more example of the Dolt 45 Regime fulfilling Putin’s Agenda.
Uncle Cosmo
@Aleta: O/T, but – I have never understood why so many people are so often up to their asses in alligators – & no one ever seems to be up to their crotch in crocodiles. Equal opportunity for neglected members of the order Crocodilia, I say!
Sally
@Jeffro: I like “empty sandwich” better. Fake burger works well too with this fake administration.
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
Those that there are.
Uncle Cosmo
@White & Gold Purgatorian: Rudy’s already in the soup – Nonna Pelosi’s Chicken Goombah Soup.
NotMax
@Uncle Cosmo
Up to their privates in piranhas?
;)
Jay
@Uncle Cosmo:
Volker was heavially invested in making a profit off the sale of Javelin missiles to Ukraine, so there’s no need to plant evidence, just apply laws that have been ignored for decades amongst the White Collar Crowd.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/story/2019/09/28/trump-ukraine-kurt-volker-1517874
Aleta
@Uncle Cosmo: Crocodiles are wiser, must be.
Jay
Gvg
@Jay: that idea won’t occur to Trump’s minions. I am positive they don’t want to remind people such laws exist.They act like they have never heard of them.
MoCA Ace
@mrmoshpotato:
Now you are just being silly. You would cook the alligators.
MoCA Ace
@jl:
That fucker gets his essence anywhere near me and I’m moving to Canada.
Xboxershorts
Has anyone wondered why Barr went to Italy in his investigation of the Meuller report and not, say, Netherlands?
After all, it was Dutch intelligence that hacked into CozyBear/the IRA and caught Russian Intelligence red handed doing skull fuckery to America.
I have this theory why Barr’s in Italy…
Remember the Nigerian Yellow Cake receipt forgeries?
It was Italian Intel that presented these to US/Cheney.
Barr’s in Italy because he knows the Italians will lie for us if asked.