"Occasionally, while on the phone with foreign heads of state, Trump has handed the receiver to his daughter, Ivanka Trump, so she can talk with the leader."https://t.co/Wcs8RChKdA
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) October 12, 2019
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead… but probably not if the secret-sharer is a senile narcissist propped up by parasites. Or, as Ivanka probably puts it, Who gave the servants *our* password, Daddeee?:
There were dozens of ears listening to President Donald Trump’s 30-minute phone call with the leader of Ukraine that is at the center of a House impeachment inquiry , and as many eyes that saw what he said.
White House staffers, working in the secure, soundproof Situation Room in the West Wing basement, listened in and chronicled the conversation . National Security Council personnel edited a memo written about the call. White House lawyers, according to a government whistleblower, directed that the memo be uploaded into a highly restricted classified computer network. And there were the staffers whose keystrokes on a computer made that happen.
They represent a universe of people, little known outside their vital circle of national security officials, who can either support or disavow the whistleblower’s account. Their roles could well become more public as the impeachment investigation unfolds and Congress seeks additional witnesses.
Some staffers involved with the call still work at the White House; others have left. But what was thought to be a routine conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy turned into anything but that, when Trump asked him to investigate Ukraine’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election and the activities of Democratic political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter…
This call, as well as others Trump has had with foreign leaders, was unusual in other ways, too. In past administrations, top foreign policy officials routinely briefed a president in person right before a call and provided written materials as well…
One individual with firsthand knowledge of how the Trump calls with foreign leaders are handled said the president “hates” such “pre-briefs” and frequently has refused to do them. Trump doesn’t like written background materials either, preferring to handle the calls himself, often in the morning from the residence. Occasionally, while on the phone with foreign heads of state, Trump has handed the receiver to his daughter, Ivanka Trump, so she can talk with the leader, according to this individual.
The person said a six-page pre-brief with attachments was once prepared for Trump before a call to a foreign leader. But that turned out to be too long, as did a single-page version. Preparing pre-brief note cards that offered about three talking points for Trump to make on a call was the norm, according to this person, who feared retribution for describing this process and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The individual said that when Trump is done with the note cards, he often rips them up and tosses them in a burn bag. Staff who handle records have had to retrieve the burn bags from the residence, put the papers out on a table and tape them back together to preserve them as official presidential records, this person said…
During the Ukraine call, several others listened in. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Keith Kellogg, national security adviser for Vice President Mike Pence, were on the call. It’s unclear if they were at the White House or listened in on “drop” lines, secure hookups top officials can use from outside the White House.Others who typically would have listened in would have been the president’s national security adviser, John Bolton, or his deputy, Charles Kupperman, who have both left the White House; the NSC’s director of Russia and Europe, who currently is Tim Morrison; the NSC’s Ukraine expert; and possibly someone from White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s office…
Down in the Situation Room, several others would have been listening. One person monitors the call to make sure the line is not interrupted. Others are tasked with documenting what is said. No audio recordings are made. The memorandum of the call, the telcon, which the White House has released, is the closest thing to a word-for-word transcript that is produced and is the official presidential record of the conversation…
The unidentified whistleblower — one of two who have come forward — said White House lawyers directed that the telcon be taken off a computer server where classified documents on foreign leader calls are normally kept. They directed it be transferred to a computer network with restricted access for documents about covert operations or other highly sensitive information. The telcon, which was classified as secret, did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.
One of the two people familiar with how foreign leader calls are handled in the Trump White House said putting a document classified only as “secret” into a server holding very highly classified information is not against any rule, but is a means of “leak prevention.”…
There are gonna be so many more official laws about security once we turf Donny Dollhands out of the Oval Office. If there’s any field in which he can legitimately claim to be a ‘genius’, it’s in demonstrating where ‘norms’ simply aren’t sufficient defense against a dedicated rule-breaker.
dimmsdale
I’ll tee this off with a question that’s been bothering me lately: given all that we know, and all that we will come to know, about authorized (and UN-authorized politicals in the talking anus’ orbit failing to perform legally mandated record-keeping, expediting illegal shenanigans, staying silent about felonious activities that betray the country’s security or defy the clear intent of the law (misprision, is that the word I’m after?)–how deep and how far-reaching will the Democratic appetite be for hearings and prosecution of ALL the offenders? MY personal appetite is boundless at this point, and I wouldn’t mind six YEARS of hearings and trials down to the least significant MAGA maggot turning public money to their own (and others’) personal gain. I’m concerned once the talking anus has wangled his medical retirement, the Democrats will fold up the tent and get back to business as usual.
cmorenc
Just barely enough voters ditched voting for a woman who was always diligently prepared and deeply knowledgeable to elect a lazy narcissistic dilettante who can’t be bothered to do even slight preparation and wings it on his gut instincts – which is full of shit.
dmsilev
@cmorenc: But, her emails!
mrmoshpotato
Did I miss Pompeo’s firing and the Russthuglican Senate confirming Porn Whisper Barbie (h/t HoarseWisperer I think) as Secretary of State?
Fucking hell! We’re gonna have to hang all these fuckers merely as a matter of national security.
sukabi
@dimmsdale: if we end up with Biden as the President, “looking forward” will be the path taken.
dimmsdale
@sukabi: Oh sweet Jesus, bite your tongue & throw some salt over your shoulder. I’m trusting he crashes and burns before the election, but hey, I’ve been wrong before.
delk
Put Hillary on TV everyday announcing that four years ago on this day President Trump did this act/thing. Have her sitting in front of a laptop so she can say that she is emailing the specifics to President Warren so she can reverse it by executive order.
Sloane Peterson's knee therapist
Meh. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Ivanka’s talking on the tele to Heads of State. Just like when she was cruising around at the G-20 she was just looking for candy. “Daddy said there’d be candy here. Do any of you have any candy?”
gene108
Secured or unsecured line? We should really know how many unsecured calls he makes each day.
We are paying for a team of White House staffers, to sift through the President’s paper trash and tape it back together
I don’t ever want Republicans to talk about wasteful government anything, since we’re paying for a bunch of, probably, college educated staffers to tape his trash back together
sukabi
@dimmsdale: that’s my hope as well, but id drumpf is dumped / or jumps before the election the ptb are going to do everything in their power to maintain the status quo…Biden is their man.
piratedan
@sukabi: I kind of feel the same, I think with either Warren or Harris, there will be sufficient incentive to burn the GOP and even members of the right wing media empire to the ground. I feel that either of them have seen the damage that has been done, both to society and discourse to leave it standing.
I would also quietly expect that there will be some very covert foreign policy payback put in play, both in ending lives and catching the finances
MattF
Gobsmack. This is not OK. That is all.
mrmoshpotato
@cmorenc: “Waaahhhh, aren’t you overprepared?” whined Chuckles Todd to the most qualified Presidential nominee in at least the past 40 years who was running against the most unqualified, traitorous nominee in US history.
MattF
Gobsmack. This is not OK.
mrmoshpotato
@dimmsdale:
Who exactly?
gene108
@dimmsdale:
Democrats can’t come after Congressional Republicans, who took laundered money from Russia.
I think that would be a hard thing to do. If Democrats running against those guys, brought up the dirty money, I think that’s fair game.
Or, if anyone in the media wants to dig through Republicans financial disclosures and campaign filing forms, we might shake enough dirt out to prosecute. Maybe.
The real issue with prosecuting everyone in the Trump Administration, besides Trump, is there’s no clear evidence what laws they actually broke. They all are sketchy and self serving, but that’s different than blatantly criminal.
The Dangerman
@mrmoshpotato:
After Daddy dies and she finds out she gets Diddly, she has a future as a 976 operator, apparently.
mrmoshpotato
@delk: A great idea, but the owners of the TV stations would just have roundtables with Gorka, David Brooks, etc discussing why she won’t just shut up and go away.
See post-election November 2016.
gene108
@dimmsdale:
So President Pence can pardon him for all Federal crimes?
I want him running, and to be so toxic that he’ll bring the rest of the Republicans down with him.
mrmoshpotato
@The Dangerman: “Talk to the most traitorous Trump trash in your area. Call now!”
Is the prison going to charge her for the calls?
ruemara
@gene108: Pretty evident collusion, conflicts of interest and at least aiding in cover ups count. And that’s not even looking at Republican Congressional members who leaked intel and interfered or blocked investigations.
patrick II
@gene108:
He has to know they are doing that, but the criminal habit of disposing of evidence is just something he can’t quit.
West of the Rockies
@sukabi:
I think that’s my chief concern with Joe (along with his verbal pratfalls and age)… I believe he mostly just wants to keep an even hand on the rudder and move the ship of state along without making any real changes, introducing no significant policy shifts, and upsetting no one’s apple cart.
I want actual progress. Oh, and some revenge and justice would be nice. YMMV.
patrick II
@gene108:
If there is enough evidence (and I would look hard) I would certainly go after congressional leadership who made it o.k. for everyone else. Leadership counts. McConnell is dirty as hell and so is Ryan, who tried to get out of town while the gettin’ was good.
hitchhiker
My favorite part of the Ukraine scandal is that it began as a standard Republican tactic that backfired because trump is so stupid.
Remember “Clinton Cash?” Or “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth?” The idea is to plant doubt. The method is to produce some crazy story, spread it around the far right, get Fox to pick it up, have fits because the mainstream media is ignoring it, watch while the mainstream media starts to poke at it, pretend there’s a coverup … and voila! The candidate is dirty. The candidate seems suspicious. The candidate has a cloud hanging over her.
In this case, they had their crazy story. (Ukraine hacked the DNC and made it look like the Russians. Hunter Biden and his dad were corrupt.)
They got to the part where Fox was giving it lots of play.
Then … stupid donald trump, who is watching Fox all day long, gets annoyed that the mainstream media isn’t picking it up. Damn them! It’s perfect! He needs Ukraine to blow on this dying fire by announcing that they’re opening an investigation. They don’t want to. Fuck them! They’re not going to get their military assistance if they don’t play along.
And none of this would be in the public record if we had not taken the House last November. Instead, we’d be watching the likes of Devin Nunes convening public hearings to discuss Hunter Biden.
hotshoe
Did Ivanka even have the security clearance to talk with foreign leaders? Don’t I remember that Kushner never did qualify for security clearance?
Can’t stop either of them, because Daddy rules … but that’s yet another thing that bugs me about how corruption and ignorance and power-madness all run together in that crime family.
J R in WV
If I were a god-botherer, I would pray for justice. Since I think that if there is a God, he has more important things to do that watch over the Earth and it’s creatures, I’m not. Just hoping really, really hard.
If we don’t get justice, if we don’t try and convict all of these corrupt Republican suckers of the Russian teat, we’re so screwed. I’m old and getting to be decrepit, so I’m not particularly afraid of my own suffering. But I did swear that oath way back when to defend the Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic.
We have sure to God got some domestic enemies of Truth, Justice and the American way to deal with here!
Cacti
It just keeps getting better:
Newly surfaced photo of Trump and Lev Parnas shows they were acquainted at least as far back as 2014.
mrmoshpotato
@West of the Rockies: Same here. Joe seems to be all “La la la, we’ll just move past this.”
Well, if that were OK, why does an attempted murder charge exist? “Sorry, you weren’t killed. We’re just going to move on.”
President Warren or Harris should bring the DOJ down on these bastards’ heads.
Martin
@gene108: There’s a secured line in the Residence. I think all of these need to have been secured for so many to have been listening in on it. They don’t hook just any phone line up to the Situation Room.
Martin
@hotshoe:
That doesn’t really even matter. She’s not elected or confirmed. She’s basically just a rando representing the US government.
chris
@West of the Rockies:
No current system of government is prepared or capable of dealing with the onrushing shitstorm that is climate change. Business the way we used to do it sure ain’t gonna help. I have no clue how to fix that but prosecuting (persecuting too!) Republicans would be good entertainment while we await the end. I really hope you guys elect someone young enough to care and angry enough to do something other than coast.
mrmoshpotato
@Martin: “Is everyone on a call?” “Hello Donald.” “Hi Daddy Vladdy!”
Cacti
@Martin:
Since she has a paid position at the White House, it actually does matter. A lot.
MattF
@Cacti: So, yeah, Trump was lying. Doesn’t mean they weren’t clients of Rudy, though. I’d guess that Rudy is in a bit more trouble now.
Cacti
@MattF:
It’s even more satisfying that the photo was found on Facebook.
debbie
@Cacti:
Man, has he aged in the past five years!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MattF:
Sucks to be him.
Another Scott
@chris: As we know, the US is less than 5% of the world population. Though we and the UK and Western Europe put much of the fossil carbon in the atmosphere that’s there now, we can’t fix the headlong rush of dumping even more up there in coming decades on our own.
We can do a lot, and help the rest of the world to do a lot, but we can do much, much more by working cooperatively with the rest of our fellow Earthlings. That probably means figuring out a way for us to help pay for the rest of the world to make a transition to non-fossil-fuel power as quickly as possible. And that’s a political problem, not a technical one…
Cheers,
Scott.
Walker
We will not do anything if we do not get the Senate. The Republicans will not let us confirm anyone.
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Trump or Parnas?
I look at something like this and I am once again astonished and depressed that 63 million US citizens looked at this shitbag and said “Yup, looks like a President.”
Patricia Kayden
Black woman shot in her home by police.
https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1183163514317410304
Sigh.
Cacti
@Walker:
True. Which is why impeachment by the House needs to be timed to inflict maximum damage on Senate Republicans when it is sent up to them for trial.
Chetan Murthy
@Patricia Kayden: This poor woman. *four* seconds. *four* seconds. I read things like this and think to myself: so glad I live in CA, where black people aren’t gunned down for nothing …. oh wait, nevermind. Sigh.
Mandalay
@Ann Laurie
An excellent point. If there’s a silver lining to the dark cloud of Trump’s presidency it’s that he has proven that our laws, rules and regulations relating to the presidency are hopelessly ineffective or missing in a gazillion different ways.
He is stress testing the system magnificently, and showing us that it leaks like a sieve.
For me the single most important reason for the Democrats to win the presidency, Senate and House is to pass a shitload of laws that would make it much harder for someone like Trump to ever become president in the first place, and to make it much easier to hold them accountable while in office. The power of the president is far too strong right now.
patrick II
@Martin: @Cacti:
Unconstrained hubris + Dunning-Kruger = Ivanka’s hope to be first woman president in the not too distant future. Which, though unbelievable, she actually does hope. The phone calls are apprenticeship for Daddy’s job. Did she sit on his lap?
There is a famous Isaac Newton quote:
Which always struck me as a keystone of being a real genius — the sense of humility knowing that we know so little. The Trump family isn’t aware of the ocean even though it is all around them, they are too busy looking down searching hard for a few gold pebbles that are the whole world to them.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I had to Google for a current picture of Parnas and, geez, both of them really have aged!
I still can’t believe most of my family voted for him… :(
Cacti
From the fine journalists at Al Jazeera:
Two more Trump/Giuliani associates purchased shell corporations holding Viktor Yanukovitch’s stolen billions.
Were also lobbying Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch to lean on the Ukraine government to unfreeze the shell corp assets.
debbie
@Chetan Murthy:
Fucking unbelievable. Not even given a chance to show her hands.
Based on recent history, I hope that neighbor keeps a close watch on his back.
West of the Rockies
@mrmoshpotato:
Well, first she’ll need to bring a refurbished DOJ down on the old, dirty DOJ, but yes!
sukabi
@West of the Rockies: same mileage as you. Needs to be big structural change and swift harsh justice for the grifting fuckers.
chris
@Another Scott:
Also the world’s loudest voice. Out here in Not-America-Fuck-Yeah we were hoping for a little more leadership and a lot less climate denialism. A very political problem indeed.
Patricia Kayden
@dmsilev: And according to Susan Sarandon, Killary was also a huge warmonger, doncha know?
Ken
Someone please tell me that there’s a fine for violating the Presidential Record-Keeping Act, and that it’s per incident.
West of the Rockies
@Patricia Kayden:
Jesus H. Christ. This has to stop.
Patricia Kayden
@Walker: Thankfully the Senate is flippable. If we have another wave election next year, Republicans will be in a precarious position if they support Trump and have to defend 12 Senate seats.
mrmoshpotato
@West of the Rockies: Well, yeah. I thought cleaning house was a given after this Soviet shitpile mobster crime family.
West of the Rockies
@Patricia Kayden:
And is it just me, or is she also a little shrill?//
Patricia Kayden
@West of the Rockies: @Chetan Murthy:
I don’t even know what to say anymore. Police officers need better training, to say the least. They don’t need to shoot unarmed people to keep us safe.
Dan B
@chris: The system that caused the 70 degree temperature drop in Colorado is a huge eddy in the jet stream. These eddies will become more common with global warming as the arctic dramatically warms. Heat domes over Greenland and Arctic air masses escaping to mid latitudes. The potato crop in Idaho and eastern Washington may have been seriously damaged. Agriculture is already being impacted and we’re only in the previews.
We went 95 percent renewable with solar PV and an electric car – kept the gas stove. The car is a dream and the rebates from Seattle City Light (sorry CA about your private utility) are great. We can do the transition but it will take extra support for low income people.
Patricia Kayden
@West of the Rockies: Shrill as hell like all other women on the left.
Mandalay
@Cacti:
Ivanka Trump’s employment in the White House is unusual:
– She is a White House employee.
– She is not paid.
– She has stated that “I will .. serve as an unpaid employee in the White House office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees”, but I don’t think she has taken any specific job position.
Jay
Cacti
@West of the Rockies:
As I watch the giant manbaby decompensate daily at pressers and hate rallies, I’m thankful that we avoided Shrillary. She was just too emotional.
Mike in NC
I recall reading an account of the time when Fat Bastard rolled up a piece of memo paper and swallowed it. Just the way the National Archives intends it.
germy
Chetan Murthy
@Patricia Kayden:
I no longer believe that that’s enough. I think we need such strict gun control, that the presumption can be that a cop always enters an environment where there are no guns present. Or, maybe if all cops are people of color …. idunno. [that seems unachievable, and even if, there are Hindu assholes, Hispanic assholes, Black assholes ….]
I’ve wondered about strict laws that make police-involved shootings a matter of the burden of proof being on the cop, etc, so that unless the cop can show that the victim was an actual perpetrator in the process of actually endangering the cop’s life [not “I was a-scared!”] the cop is guilty. Wouldn’t pass Constitutional muster.
In the end, unless we can get to where cops just don’t have guns, they’re going to keep killing people of color. And even after that, they’ll keep beating them, but at least a beatdown isn’t usually a death sentence.
Cacti
@Mandalay:
Weird.
But “subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees” would mean the Hatch Act and security clearances.
gene108
@Martin:
But does he use it or his unsecured cell phone?
I’ve read he makes a lot of calls to Hannity, Fox & Friends, other past associates, etc. on his unsecured phone.
Why would he be conscientious enough to use the secure phone for calls with other governments?
germy
Dan B
@Dan B: The jet stream eddy is moving east so Chicago may be next. The eddy drops from a couple hundred miles north of the Canadian border all the way to mid Oklahoma. This is crazy weather.
chris
@Dan B:
Yes we can! But how will that play in Coal Country?//
Another Scott
@Patricia Kayden: I’m more and more convinced that beat cops have no business carrying guns. Too many of them don’t know how and when to use them. If they get in a situation where they need guns, then they should call for SWAT.
Just “training” isn’t enough, IMHO. They need to take the guns away.
Grrr….
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
@Mandalay:
Not being paid allows Jared and Ivanka to skirt Federal nepotism laws.
West of the Rockies
@Chetan Murthy:
Having the local DA investigate police shootings is horse shit. They close ranks and protect each other.
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: I’m left wondering if there’s any sleazy Ukrainian/Russian crooks who do *not* have a grip-and-grin with Rudy or Donald.
gene108
@Dan B:
The biggest stumbling block to EV’s is for those of us, who do not have a garage, driveway, carport, etc.
I can’t own an EV, because I can’t charge it overnight at my condo complex. And there are not enough charging stations to compensate for this.
Dan B
@germy: The attack on the Kurds is already moving to genocide. The Turkish military has completely lost their democratic core.
On top of that a friend of mine is in Jeddah. We haven’t heard from her since the Iranian tanker was bombed.
Gin & Tonic
@gene108: I’m going to bet the house that the NSA is one of a half-dozen spy services that has every word he breathes on that unsecure phone.
West of the Rockies
@Another Scott:
Is it true that English bobbies do not carry sidearms?
sukabi
@Gin & Tonic: at this point I’m assuming that Guiliani and drumpf are the conduit between the Russian mob and organized crime of the white collar variety.
Amir Khalid
@Chetan Murthy:
It seems to me that too many American police forces have become infested with gangs of armed racist bullies.
Jay
germy
@Dan B: Horrible news.
Chetan Murthy
@West of the Rockies:
Agreed. It’s why I believe that any punishment-based approach will fail: nobody’s gonna punish these thugs. The only thing that’ll work is to prevent the killings from happening to begin with. Taking the guns out of cops’ hands. And the only way that’ll happen (b/c the whining would be deafening) is if there are simply no guns in the hands of the public.
Though, I do wonder about just taking the guns out of the hands of cops (as @Another Scott: suggests) and they must always call SWAT when they need firepower. I doubt the po-po would sit still for that, the little whining bitches.
Frankensteinbeck
@chris:
I’m afraid that admitting climate change is real would mean admitting liberals are right about something, and admitting liberals are right about anything got us a black president. No Republican is ever going to fall for that ever again. Hell, some of them tried to be reasonable and give the black president thing a try, and he turned out to be smart and competent and actually in charge rather than a sidekick, and he even gave them charity. Look at how we view Trump and you can vaguely imagine how scorched-earth total war furious they are.
Amir Khalid
@West of the Rockies:
Yes, and the use of guns is restricted to specialist armed units.
RAVEN
@Dan B: It hasn’t rained here in over a month. My wife and her group have busted their asses organizing the doggie parade and, even though it’s rain or shine, it’s going to be a real bummer if the forecast is accurate.
NotMax
@Mandalay
Her official job title, per the White House’s own listing of employees is (ready for it?):
“First Daughter and Senior Adviser to the President.”
As for the salary, it never once occurred to her, I’m sure, to donate it to charity or even to the Treasury. And bet your boots she gets federal gov health care.
Another Scott
@West of the Rockies: I don’t know the details but I believe that’s the case. Though it seems like they have them close by (e.g. in the trunks of their cars) when there are infamous attacks in London.
:-(
There would undoubtedly be problems in the US trying to implement such a policy quickly, but I think that it needs to be done. Crime levels are actually low in the US. It’s time that the police start acting like peace officers rather than gunslingers and proto-infrantry officers in a sea of bad guys… :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Dan B
@gene108: Seattle has a new program to deal with a lack of adquate charging stations. It takes a very progressive city, county, utilities, and governor to make this happen.
The folks who won the Nobel for Lithium Ion batteries are working on Lithium or Sodium / Silica batteries that would hold much more energy and charge in minutes. So don’t despair forever.
Dan B
@Dan B: Does your condo have regular electrical outlets in the garage? Assuming there is a garage. We charge our car overnight with standard 110 – we’re to cheap for a faster charger. The car charges to 170 miles in 10 hours but we rarely need that capacity.
debbie
@Another Scott:
They need to be un-trained to use deadly force. Since that’s probably impossible, we will have to wait for a new generation.
I remember, after Michael Brown, one of the security officers where I work (a retired cop) said she couldn’t understand these shootings. In her 20 years of service, she said she had used her gun only once, when a guy she had stopped on the highway jumped out of his car with a gun and came at her. He shot, grazed her ribs. She fell to the ground, but had the presence of mind to incapacitate him by shooting him in the thigh. Where’s that kind of training?
tokyokie
I want the Republican Party to go the way of Democrazia Cristiana.
NotMax
@gene108
Not so. Pay or no pay doesn’t come into play. Dolt 45’s DOJ ruled that the Office of the President is not an executive agency.
Jay
Nelle
The regular cops in New Zealand, where we used to live, do not carry guns. Two days after moving to the States, we saw a guy get pulled over and the trooper approached the car with his hand on his holstered gun. It was a visual shock. Then I thought, there are so many guns floating around here. No win situation.
Mike in NC
@West of the Rockies: Regular police officers in England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland do not carry firearms. They usually do in Northern Ireland (probably a throwback to The Troubles).
NotMax
@tokyokie
Going the way of the passenger pigeon works too.
;)
Dan B
@RAVEN: Sorry to hear about the forecast for the pooch parade. The dogs probably wouldn’t care much but kiddies and parents are likely to be discouraged.
RAVEN
@Dan B: All we can do is hope.
Mary G
Bob Barr went all Dominionist and here are the “Value Voters” praying for the man who has sicced murderers onto Kurdish citizens. I just can’t take another minute of these pigs.
chris
West of the Rockies
@Mike in NC:
The Troubles… I wonder if we will see a return to such violence depending upon how Brexit shakes out.
debbie
@chris:
Isn’t Russia already supporting Turkey?
prostratedragon
Rep. Bobby L. Rush rises to a band-naming challenge:
Cacti
@Mary G:
Oh it’s being brought into the light.
That’s why their cult leader is in a complete panic.
chris
@Frankensteinbeck: I know, I’m a daily reader here.
chris
@debbie: Desperate times call for desperate measures.
ETA https://twitter.com/ilangoldenberg/status/1183093927294963714
Ruckus
@debbie:
The cops know that a lot of people carry guns now. That a lot of people, including cops think that war is the only solution to a problem, and the only way to win at war is to kill their opposite first. A lot of cops are vets, who have been trained that you never know who is and who isn’t going to kill you. A lot of cops watch faux news, or actually pretty much any other TV news. I can go right now to any of the websites for LA stations and find video after video of shootings and cops getting shot at. If you look it almost seems like a war zone anywhere a cop might be. Then you have the economy that almost never really lets people get out of poverty and that and racism can make a person look like they have no other way out than use a gun. It’s bullshit, conservative bullshit, but scaring people is an effective form of propaganda, especially if they get someone to blame for their own life of mediocre nothing, while watching homes being sold for several million and cars which cost $70-80-100 thousand dollars drive around them, and people act like being poor is all your own fault and call you poor because you are walking rather than driving.
Conservatives have played this game for most/all of my 70 yrs and it has reached it’s zenith as far as deflecting attraction to the theft of our democracy and our economy. It either has to change or the world will be thrown into another world war, once again over money and power, just at a time when the world demands better for everyone. And of course we have numbnuts supposedly in charge of a job that requires a scholar in reasonable government, in which he scores no way, minus numbers, not an F but somewhere around W, even graded on a curve sent back 15 grades to start over, the worst person possible. Vlad chose well. For Vlad. Not so much for the rest of the world.
Jay
Mike in NC
@West of the Rockies: On our August cruise we visited both Dublin and Belfast, and a whole lotta people over there were freaked out over BREXIT.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t how the laws work, but I imagine hiring defense/tax lawyers is gonna cost him some dough
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jinchi
I always thought it was odd that Rudy Giuliani, in an interview with Sean Hannity, decided to declare Ivanka Trump “off limits” to the Mueller investigation. Virtually nobody had suggested that Mueller was investigating Ivanka at the time.
Jinchi
@Frankensteinbeck:
As the Iraq war debate proved, it is unacceptable to be right about a thing before a critical mass of Republican politicians has already agreed to it.
Kattails
@Mary G: What he’s praying for would pretty much mean Donnie himself discerning the level of asshole he is and self-combusting.
The seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath, gluttony, sloth. Presume to lead to other vices. You can check all boxes for Trump. Even the sloth part, his pathetic refusal to do the most basic reading and attention to detail for a job that affects millions of people. A job that he applied for, and stole, from a woman who would have put her heart and soul into it. Bastard. Any religious “leader” who remains oblivious to this needs to STFU and resign like yesterday.
TS (the original)
@Mandalay:
First time they have been a major problem – other than “those emails”. The laws, rules, regulations are fine – they are ineffective with a moron who refuses to follow any rules
psycholinguist
Might want to check out the Washington post front page. Sondland’s leaking his testimony, and it is bat shit crazy what he says was going on. Trump told him personally, through a phone call, to send that last text, and apparently Rudy was running Ukraine policy for the last 6 months or so. He, Perry, and Vogel look to be getting their stories together to point the finger at Trump. So much mutual bus throwing going on there.
chris
In Louisiana:
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump should be impeached convicted and removed from office for his stunt with Erodgan alone. Obvious harm to US security. Erodgan isn’t any better than Putin, and what he’s done to Turkey is disgusting.
What we are seeing in the Turkish ‘incursion’ ranges from disturbing to horrifying. I heard on the news that Erdogan is threatening to send Syrian refugees into Europe to destabilize their politics if they don’t acquiesce with his actions and send the money he wants.
Sondland must have seen and known some very bad stuff for him to turn, and now he’s trying to slice and dice the criminality, to find a way to slip past the patently criminal bits to get himself off the hook. Looks like he was involved with something where no matter how soon you jump ship, you’re gonna do some time, if justice is done.
EditL saw a Sondland quote someplace “There was a QUID PRO QUO, but it wasn’t corrupt” Yeesh. Sondland must be deep in shit.
TS (the original)
@psycholinguist: Link from wapo
NotMax
@Dan B
Lithium-Titanate batteries are the hot new kid on the block now, AFAIK.
FelonyGovt
@Kattails: oh yes, “sloth”. Constant golfing, tweeting, watching Fox News. Refusal to put any work whatsoever into the job. Refusal to even read, or to listen to any knowledgeable advisors, to the extent that he no longer HAS any knowledgeable advisors.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It’s really weird how Trump really is like one of his idiots voters who was instantly made president by some magical wish, likely why his base sticks to him like they do (up until the laughter at Trump’s comical stupidity and corruption get to much) Reading this sure feels like one belief that Trump and his base share their ideas of government are solely based on Micheal Bey movies.
jl
@TS (the original):
@John_Hudson
‘ SCOOP: Trump’s EU envoy who denied a “quid pro quo” in a text message now says he isn’t certain.
“It’s only true that the president said it, not that it was the truth” says a person familiar with his planned testimony. ‘
https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1183182106203172865
japa21
@chris: Edwards 50% +1 to avoid a run off.
ETA: New Orleans has barely started reporting and he will win big there.
chris
@japa21: Yes, and with 42% reporting now he’s still at 46%. Guess we’ll see.
Ken
Definite candidate for a rotating tag.
It’s also reminiscent of Raymond Smullyan’s logic puzzles: “If an insane knave says that he believes that there was no quid pro quo…”
dmsilev
@psycholinguist: From that Post story,
This is coming from a guy who gave Trump a million or so dollars for his inaugural.
Mandalay
@TS (the original):
If they are ineffective with a moron then you don’t get to insist they are fine. What you have written is nonsense.
dimmsdale
@mrmoshpotato: I meant Biden. And by ‘crash and burn’ I meant one too many gaffes, leading to a predominant impression of not-quite-with-it-ness among the electorate and, more important, our media whores (and they’re enamored of the Biden candidacy for reasons that escape me).
Wapiti
@dmsilev: His taxes can be raised by at least $1 million with no adverse effects to the country.
Mary G
@jl: He definitely needs a better spokesperson/testimony leaker. That is Twitler-level stupid, it is. But thanks for being the next person who proves the Democrats’ case for them. I can hear Adam Sciff chortling now.
TS (the original)
@chris: And still they vote against their own best interest (or they don’t vote)
latest
John Bel Edwards (D, Inc)- 45%
Ralph Abraham (R)- 25%
Eddie Rispone (R)- 28%
Secretary of State
GOP winning all state wide elections. The only YES vote is for CA NO. 3 (ACT 446 – HB 428) — Remedy for Unconstitutional Tax Paid
Do any of them pay taxes?
Aleta
How about we offer Trump a quid pro quo. He removes himself, family, administration and staff from DC + nothing is missing from any buildings/planes; we shield him from Putin by building a wall and guard towers around Mar ugh largo. Explain Putin has started to track his every location.
TS (the original)
@Mandalay: What I have written – It is IMPOSSIBLE to write any rules/regulations in relation to trump. That is why the house is working on impeachment.
NotMax
@TS (the original)
That Rispone is ahead of Abraham is more troubling, as Rispone is the one who campaigned as a Trumpaholic.
TS (the original)
@Martin:
She’s basically daughter saying hello to Daddy’s friends.
Chris T.
@gene108:
There will be, eventually. How long this takes depends on multiple factors, including political will.
I’d like to be able to drive our EV on a long trip up or down I-5 but it’s not a Tesla and there are not enough DC fast chargers yet. But we do have a garage (and solar panels, etc) at home.
chris
@TS (the original):
Amazing isn’t it? :-(
dimmsdale
@Chetan Murthy: I think cops can be dis-incented to shoot people, but it would take numerous high-profile convictions of shooter cops, and good stiff sentences, plus weeding out the most dangerous nut cases. That’ll never happen as long as cop unions go after civilian officials (including DAs) who try to bring these cops to justice, AND as long as DAs’ cases get sabotaged by lack of police cooperation. I’m absolutely pro-union, but police unions are to the rank and file as Fox News is to grandma and grandpa: fomenting hatred.
Also, post-9/11, cops sort of presumptively got hero status, deserved or not, and white people (at least the ones I know) still see them that way. In NYC we used to have a Civilian Complaint Review Board; it was toothless and 9/11 put the kibosh on it, but some sort of trial board removed from the DAs’ responsibility might (MIGHT) work.
lgerard
So Sondland is now recasting himself as a coffee boy, in contrast to the precious press reports portraying him as a wanna be Machiavelli who declared himself in charge because “the president said so”.
I can’t wait to see Rudy on Fox waving his iphone around saying he has proof that this story is totally false.
debbie
@Ruckus:
Shootings are daily occurrences out here in flyover country too.
Mandalay
@TS (the original):
Complete bullshit and nonsense.
Redshift
@Mary G: I dunno, to me that sounds more like “I’m not going to jail for this asshole” than trying to protect Trump but doing it incompetently.
Maybe he got spooked by the arrest of the Ukrainians?
Redshift
@dmsilev:
He thought he was buying status, not a subpoena.
Citizen Alan
@chris:
People keep saying this, as if white supremacy wasn’t an “interest.”
chris
@Citizen Alan: Can’t disagree with that.
rikyrah
Woman shot through the window OF HER OWN HOME by the cops in Texas
They didn’t even go to the door, pound on it, and say POLICE
ReclaimingMyTime (@MonieTalks_1) Tweeted:
Shot her through a window in her own fucking home.
They killed Tamir Rice within seconds because he had a toy gun in which bullets were never fired.
Killed Corey Jones & LEO never ID’ed himself.
Killed Botham Jean after illegally entering his home while he ate ice cream. https://twitter.com/MonieTalks_1/status/1183213728017334272?s=17
mrmoshpotato
@dimmsdale: I thought you meant Biden, but these days you can’t be sure someone isn’t referring to Dump crashing and burning from punching himself in the dick on live TV too many times.
mrmoshpotato
@Aleta: How about we offer Trump a quid pro quo.
mrmoshpotato
@mrmoshpotato: Messed up the block quote there. ^^^ Should be the other way around.
TS (the original)
@NotMax:
Might be the savior for Edwards in the run off, must be some never trumpers among those who voted for the other republican
TS (the original)
@Mandalay: Complete bullshit and nonsense.
Then start talking about which rules he is agreeing to follow. Your bullshit & nonsense IS just that.
Edit: & why on earth I ever read your replies is quite the mystery.
Lulymay
@Dan B: Thought you might be interested to know that in B.C., I just heard that the Building Code has been amended to include mandatory wiring to accommodate plug-ins to charge EVs. As well, we’re into a Federal Election right now and the current Prime Minister’s platform includes a commitment to ensure there are charging stations available every so many kilometers right across Canada. Where I do my grocery shopping, there are 4 charging spots and they are kept very busy. (That’s in the greater Vancouver area)
cain
@debbie:
I’ve heard it both ways. (sorry, Psych reference)
Mary G
sgrAstar
@sukabi: trump is a symptom, not the disease. Biden would be far better than any republican. Period. I’m not a big Biden fan, but the guy is relatively decent and not corrupt. If he’s the candidate, we have to support him for the sake of all humanity. I’m not exaggerating.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: Did Mags join them for lunch too to discuss NYT spin?
Mary G
@Mary G: Ken Vogel, too, because he’s still out to get Ukraine dirt on Biden. What a pair.
mrmoshpotato
@sgrAstar: If he’s the candidate
We haven’t even had any primaries yet. Hell, we’re not even in the election year yet. We’ll close ranks for the general, but we’re still kicking the tires so to speak.
rikyrah
@Mary G:
Can’t stand Haberman??
David Evans
@Lulymay: I think there will always be people for whom an electric car is impractical. Improving batteries will give longer range but also longer recharging times and longer queues at public charging points. For that reason we ought also to be developing hydrogen and/or biofuels.