Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Against my better judgement, I watched a little bit of Senator Kennedy’s appearance on Beat the Press this morning. He honestly believes the Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections because the Washington Examiner and the Financial Times said so. He also thinks the impeachment inquiry is a trial.
These are the people running the country and they are dumb as a stump. It’s horrifying.
Putin told Trump Ukraine was out to get him and Trump believes everything Putin says. Manafort & Giuliani did it too, on Putin's oligarch payroll. It's always been about Russia's war on Ukraine. https://t.co/M6rr7sC4gk
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) November 2, 2019
Three of President Trump’s top advisers met with him in the Oval Office in May, determined to convince him that the new Ukrainian leader was an ally deserving of U.S. support.
They had barely begun their pitch when Trump unloaded on them, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the meeting. In Trump’s mind, the officials said, Ukraine’s entire leadership had colluded with the Democrats to undermine his 2016 presidential campaign.
“They tried to take me down,” Trump railed…
So far, a dozen witnesses have testified before House lawmakers since the closed-door impeachment inquiry began a month ago. One theme that runs through almost all of their accounts is Trump’s unyielding loathing of Ukraine, which dates to his earliest days in the White House.
“We could never quite understand it,” a former senior White House official said of Trump’s view of the former Soviet republic, also saying that much of it stemmed from the president’s embrace of conspiracy theories. “There were accusations that they had somehow worked with the Clinton campaign. There were accusations they’d hurt him. He just hated Ukraine.”…
Julia Ioffe is a great reporter, and an immigrant from Russia. “Here’s Why Ukraine Pops Up in So Many U.S. Scandals”:
… One main reason for Ukraine’s outsize presence in our news cycles is money: There’s a lot of it sloshing around, and, as the ladies selling at the designer store know, it tends to find its way into all kinds of crevices.
Ukraine would like America and Europe to think of it as a promising young democracy, the good little country struggling to fend off the gravitational pull of evil Russia. There is a lot of truth in that. But it is also an oligarchy where a very small number of people control the country’s natural resources, a legacy of its Soviet past. Around each of these people is a clan vying for influence, resources, and political power. They sponsor media outlets and politicians. Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for example, has promised to fight corruption but is also closely linked with one of the country’s most powerful oligarchs.
“It’s a pay-to-play democracy, or has been in the past,” says Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who was Obama’s last assistant secretary of state for human rights, democracy, and labor. “At its most corrupt, you can get very rich, but you need permission to get very rich, so politicians and oligarchs are linked in all kinds of ways. In some ways, it’s very similar to Russia. But Ukraine is a country where you’re more likely to get rich without getting killed if you’re a Western businessman or political consultant.”
Indeed, plenty of American political operatives find there’s a lucrative market for their services in the country. Ukrainians see Americans as being really good at what in that part of the world is known as “political technology”: using data, polling, consulting to win elections. One candidate in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election, for example, made the American political consultants working on his campaign a major selling point. It didn’t work, but Ukrainians still pay top dollar for any associations with the American political elite. “It was a part of the world where there was a lot of money to be made,” says Andrew Weiss, who oversees Russia and Eurasia research at the Carnegie Endowment. “These are people getting paid in a way that is totally out of proportion to how you would be paid elsewhere.” Consider, for instance, the $12.7 million that Manafort made in just five years. Bernie Sanders’s chief 2016 strategist, Tad Devine, was handsomely compensated for work he did for Yanukovych, too. When Devine was contemplating working on the 2014 Ukrainian election, he stipulated that his rate would be $10,000 per day—not including travel…
Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Why Trump Hates UkrainePost + Comments (164)
Random stuff *I* found entertaining…
"Shannon– that is NOT a coyote — it's a husky!" pic.twitter.com/KqdKVtWgM1
— Best of Nextdoor (@bestofnextdoor) October 31, 2019
Opposite is happening here in Denver… pic.twitter.com/9vjXQhdDOi
— Bob Jones (@bob_j) October 31, 2019
— Best of Nextdoor (@bestofnextdoor) October 31, 2019
Maria Butina: “I think it's an American, very old saying that suggests that wolves have teeth, but not all animals with teeth are wolves” https://t.co/byHr87nOxZ
— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) November 1, 2019
That’s my question to you Americans!
— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) November 1, 2019
It’s an old saying from Georgia, just south of…Russia!
— GoodWitchHunting (@roxknox0608) November 1, 2019
It’s part of a question from an old American test, the LSAT.
— Will Portello (@WillPortello) November 1, 2019
As an American who researches wolf-human discourse and lore, I'm not familiar with that proverb. Kind of sounds like a version of this one, though:
"Not everything that is grey is a wolf"
However, that's a Russian proverb, not an American one. Sure it's just an honest mistake.— Michael Lukas, Interdisciplinary Ph.D. (@JoyfulSisyphean) November 1, 2019
Conan is a female dog. Trump is just a little b****. https://t.co/Dn4d4GCjkc
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) November 2, 2019
!! Rudy Giuliani butt-dialed an NBC News reporter — twice — leaving long voicemail messages in which he's heard discussing Joe Biden, business in Bahrain and his need for cash.
"The problem is we need some money," Giuliani says to unidentified man.https://t.co/GTewUkCgSS
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 25, 2019
You knew it was about time for another ‘Roody Coloodi’ (h/t Hoarse Whisperer) Giuliani arc in this soap opera… and what a twist it is, folks!
Asshat buttdials reporter.
Send tweet. https://t.co/ZUsUhSs2bf
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) October 25, 2019
— Kim Scare-elle 👻 (@kim) October 25, 2019
"I have yet to receive an intentional or unintentional call back," @richschapiro says when asked what Giuliani has said in response to questions about the butt-dial voicemails. https://t.co/zcY9UEJ0NR pic.twitter.com/jcNioyNDcy
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 25, 2019
Plausible that’s who Rudy was talking to: crank who worked for Frank Gaffney at group denounced by ADL for being a conspiracy theory-mongering hate group, former corporate lobbyist, white, male, and almost 70 years old. https://t.co/4JzQKOQ9XZ
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 26, 2019
I just assume they’ve got everyone in Congress who is suicidally loyal to Trump on tape. https://t.co/7enmKg8Rkj
— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 25, 2019
There’s a reason they call him the worlds most expensive free lawyer
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) October 25, 2019
Anyone who has cared for an aging relative in cognitive decline knows that cell phones become a point of attack for scammers. But usually the aging relative isn't the scammer.
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) October 25, 2019
Looks like we've got a trend story. pic.twitter.com/Wn1Hn1zzcU
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) October 25, 2019
You mean that guy who put his emergency operations center in the World Trade Center? https://t.co/HhIhnVsrCH
— xpostfactoid (@xpostfactoid) October 25, 2019
Ukranian 1: ANYONE ELSE YOU WANT CALL? HERE IS MY CELL PHONE. YOU CALL INTERPOL?
Giuliani: please please it was .. they were mistakes
Ukranian 2: YOU ARE WORSE CRIMINAL WE EVER MEET, AND WE LIVED IN FLORIDA
FBI Agent On Speaker Phone: guys guys stop shouting it's kinda echo-y
— HumanScumHat (@Popehat) October 25, 2019
Looking forward to the new cascade of whistleblowers from this thing. https://t.co/Q2oEiOapYc
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) October 25, 2019
NYT: William Barr’s Justice Dept has opened a criminal inquiry into the origins of ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ — the code name for the FBI’s Russia investigation https://t.co/GxcFMPT7eT
— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) October 25, 2019
… Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges…
Mr. Trump has made clear that he sees the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. That view factors into the impeachment investigation against him, as does his long obsession with the origins of the Russia inquiry. House Democrats are examining in part whether his pressure on Ukraine to open investigations into theories about the 2016 election constituted an abuse of power.
The move also creates an unusual situation in which the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into itself…
It was not clear what potential crime Mr. Durham is investigating, nor when the criminal investigation was prompted. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment…
Revelations so far about Mr. Durham’s investigation have shown that he has focused in his first months on the accusations that Mr. Trump’s conservative allies have made about the origins of the Russia inquiry in their efforts to undermine it. Mr. Durham’s efforts have prompted criticism that he and Mr. Barr are trying to deliver the president a political victory, though investigators would typically run down all aspects of a case to complete a review of it…
What Barr is doing in Europe is just a more careful version of what Giuliani is doing.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 25, 2019
dollars to donuts, this will end up being another article of impeachment https://t.co/dHs0wzrDHP
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 25, 2019
Impeachment Inquiry Open Thread: Bill Barr Drops His FigleafPost + Comments (161)
??????
“We uncorked a tiny bottle of champagne … took one gulp each and looked into each other’s eyes …. We uttered almost in unison: ‘We made America great’”
— Operative at Kremlin-directed IRA after Trump won the election, per Senate Intel reporthttps://t.co/tYmyxPIiJt— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) October 8, 2019
Sure, it’s not like anyone paying attention didn’t already know this, but you’d think verification of a long-standing, ongoing attack against America by a foreign power would get some traction in the news, yes?
… The long-pending report by the Intelligence panel concluded that Russia directed an aggressive social media campaign to hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton and help Trump in the 2016 presidential election and warns similar efforts to interfere in U.S. politics are still under way. It was a bipartisan endorsement of the finding made by U.S. intelligence agencies and often questioned by Trump.
The report, two years in the making, found that the Internet Research Agency “was overtly and almost invariably supportive of then-candidate Trump to the detriment of Secretary Clinton’s campaign.” As part of that effort, it targeted African-Americans through social media more than any other group…
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the committee’s top Democrat, warned of more interference to come in next year’s election. “There’s no doubt that bad actors will continue to try to weaponize the scale and reach of social media platforms to erode public confidence and foster chaos,” he said…
Among the findings were efforts by the Kremlin-directed IRA to convert social media into real-world actions. Operatives posing as U.S. political activists also “sought help from the Trump campaign to procure campaign materials and to organize and promote rallies.”…
The panel urged that lawmakers consider expanding to social media the existing transparency requirements for political advertising on TV or the radio. Facebook, Google and Twitter have all put together ad transparency databases, but differences between them persist and legislative vehicles, such as the “Honest Ads Act” that Warner supports, have stalled.
Senator Kamala Harris, a member of the Intelligence Committee who’s running for the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a statement that the Russian tactics were “designed to suppress the votes of black Americans in particular” and that social media companies must step up their efforts to fight disinformation. She said they need to “ensure their workforces are diverse enough to identify and understand the cultural nuances that foreign actors exploit to divide and harm Americans.”
(Yeah, I still don’t trust Burr, because he’s retreated to the ‘what could us poor Repubs do? They held a gun to our heads!’ defense. Squeak the f*ck up, at the very least, traitor-enabler.)
NOTABLE: The #1 recommendation from the committee to the Executive Branch: "Reinforce with the public the danger of attempted foreign interference in the 2020 election."https://t.co/T3KD3Y6OPC
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 8, 2019
Russiagate Open Thread: How Many Repub Senators Does the GRU Already Own?Post + Comments (166)
holy shit watch this pic.twitter.com/QSrB69WdN8
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) October 8, 2019
Late Night Open Thread: (Slightly NSFW) Like & SharePost + Comments (37)
I like this. The unified moron theory. https://t.co/WH3jQv8zry
— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 4, 2019
There is a growing body of empirical support for Marcotte’s theory:
As one of apparently only a dozen people who bothered to read the Mueller report, what struck me as the likeliest explanation for the events in the Russia section was this: Russia agents did seriously consider looping Trump, who badly wanted in, to their conspiracy.
— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) October 4, 2019
The Russians then realized Trump’s people were a nest of idiots who were *definitely* going to get caught if they were included in the real conspiracy. So they decided, wisely, to go in another direction to install this idiot, who they had confirmed as idiot, as our president.
— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) October 4, 2019
This Ukraine scandal, Trump’s attempt to get in on a real conspiracy by making his own after the Russians iced him out, just proves that their caution in including him was well-earned.
Just a theory, but I think a good one.
— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) October 4, 2019
Urkranium-1 Open Thread: The ‘Unified Morons Theory’Post + Comments (76)
Your subsidies dry up and your kids, suddenly denied youtube, form a maize-centric cult that purges all adults and outlanders. https://t.co/0HncqjOV8F
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) August 23, 2019
.
“Becaue universal background checks would be… intrusive… “
They built a prototype that can detect behaviors and character traits associated with serial killers and potential school shooters. Sadly the machine overloaded and set itself on fire after it was tested on Stephen Miller. https://t.co/FS1Jk0Zr1z
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) August 22, 2019
The government’s not going to do gun control so they’re thinking about doing Minority Report instead. https://t.co/L3zIFtU5GS
— Matt Pearce ?? (@mattdpearce) August 22, 2019
.
Somebody watched one too many Cold War thrillers…
Hi, just in case you didn't think things could get weirder, the former CEO of Overstock is on Fox saying that the feds told him he should sleep with Maria Butina pic.twitter.com/3KvkLRhYUL
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) August 22, 2019
.
Finally… minor, but still irksome:
“I’m going to stick around. Period,” John Delaney says of a presidential campaign that began not this July, or last July, but the July before that. pic.twitter.com/rzFbUOXUlU
— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) August 23, 2019
STOP TRYING TO MAKE ‘DELANY’ HAPPEN, JOHN! YOU’RE NOT GONNA HAPPEN!
Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Snippets for InsomniacsPost + Comments (74)
Adam K. Raymond, in NYMag — “How ‘Moscow Mitch’ Is Helping Democrats”:
… Wednesday marks two weeks since the KDP began selling its line of Moscow Mitch merch, headlined by a red T-shirt with the slogan “Just say nyet to Moscow Mitch.” In that time, the party, which is also selling beer koozies, shot glasses, and Cossack-style hats, has brought in $500,000 on 13,526 unique sales. Each of those is a donation to the KDP, and more than 90 percent have come from people like Weedon who have never before given to the state party.
“We knew he was underwater, but this really gave us an indication of how angry the people are,” said Nicole Erwin, communications director for the KDP. She added that the Moscow Mitch items are the largest merch campaign the party has ever done. “It blows everything else out of the water,” she said.
Erwin traced the idea for the Moscow Mitch merch back to Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony last month. The former special counsel warned of the Russian government’s continued “efforts to interfere in our election,” and McConnell, who had infamously stopped the Obama administration from making a bipartisan condemnation of Russian election interference in 2016, responded by blocking two pieces of election-security legislation in the Senate…
“We felt like the KDP was in a really unique position to hold the Senate majority leader accountable,” Erwin said. “We’ve really seen the sales take off, and we feel like it’s largely because we have this warning that we need to do something to ramp up election security. And even though bipartisan election security has been proposed, Mitch McConnell refuses to take a stand.”…
Open Thread: Moscow Mitch / Massacre MitchPost + Comments (146)
Because a commentor asked: Any (other) Jackals attending the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin this weekend?
***********
It was in August that Richard Nixon helicoptered out of the Oval Office, one step ahead of the law…
We are considering all Article I remedies to Presidential misconduct, including articles of impeachment.
We will continue our investigation.
We will hold @realDonaldTrump accountable.
This is America.
And no one is above the law.
Not even the President. pic.twitter.com/9FnZsdETYp
— House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) August 12, 2019
No, if Putin falls, Trump's reelection chances would drop dramatically. Two for one! https://t.co/8fYeaUpYHu
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) August 12, 2019
And some genuinely good news…
Ebola no longer "incurable," scientists say, after discovery of two highly effective drugs https://t.co/4g0rBD6MKR
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 13, 2019
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: High SummerPost + Comments (103)
NEW: Former president Jimmy Carter says a full investigation “would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016….He was put into office because the Russians interfered.” Does that mean he’s an illegitimate president? “Based on what I said, which I can’t retract.” pic.twitter.com/Y3UFUBIIDy
— Susan Page (@SusanPage) June 28, 2019
Former President Carter is a Baptist gentleman of a certain age, so language. But he does have a standing bias against parasitic worms…
Former Vice President Walter Mondale on President Trump: “He’s got something deep in him that is detestable.” Cites “his rhetoric, his harshness, his divisiveness,” then adds: “Doctors tell me they think they recognize symptoms of psychological problems.” At @CarterCenter panel
— Susan Page (@SusanPage) June 28, 2019
The current Oval Office Occupant, needless to say, treated these comments with his usual class and graciousness. Suck on it, Donnie, President Carter has a Nobel Peace Prize and *he* didn’t even have to go sucking up to the Swedes for it…
Most of us thank God, and God thanks Jimmy Carter.
— Jane Black (@AmethystMimosa) June 28, 2019
ETA:
Because it’s relevant here:
Jimmy Carter knows as much about election tampering, and election integrity, as anyone anywhere, through decades of monitoring more than 100 elections around the world. https://t.co/MxYjIWVy9m
This is not just amateur opining on his part. https://t.co/RFxzX5SyQx
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) June 29, 2019
Open Thread: Jimmy Carter Has No Hecks Left to GivePost + Comments (244)
Wednesday:
Three presidents have used the 9/11 war authorization for 18 years, in 14 different countries, for more than three dozen different military actions. Trump is thinking about using it for war with Iran.
Today, for the first time ever, the House repealed it. https://t.co/vr9V7HSMXD
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 19, 2019
Thursday night:
The competing theories are that 1) Trump backed away from starting a war at the last minute for some unknown reason vs. 2) there was no planned attack and Trump admin is just pretending there was one to hide the fact that their policy is trash. Neither would be surprising
— Daniel Larison (@DanielLarison) June 21, 2019
this panel should be on the screens/whiteboards/tables of every editor or producer meeting in every newsroom in the united states. pic.twitter.com/CfwkMIz0K3
— C.J. Chivers (@cjchivers) June 20, 2019
Potential Friday distraction:
In interview, former Soviet general confirms he served as adviser on Trump Tower Moscow project during 2016 campaign, consulting with Michael Cohen by phone. By @thamburger @antontroian https://t.co/KQpa4cPh9I
— Rosalind Helderman (@PostRoz) June 20, 2019
Friday Morning Open Thread: Well, *That* Was Timely…Post + Comments (139)
I'm afraid that @TenderHerbert doesn't know how to add music to tweets. But I had 15 seconds to spare and the theme from The A-Team handy ?? pic.twitter.com/qIac8xJT09
— Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) June 16, 2019
Always gobsmacked by the hubris it took to have a bunch of Bay of Pigs vets do the break-in. Yeah, some cutout Gordo no one's ever gonna put those dots together https://t.co/Erx3sXsvij
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) June 17, 2019
There was no collusion!
Ok, Russia wanted to collude, but we didn’t do it
Ok, there may have been some collusion, but not by anyone important
Actually, everyone colludes — it’s called oppo research
Collusion is actually good! https://t.co/4ThYe3gHog
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 15, 2019
I think the Democrats should incorporate this pledge from the 2016 Republican platform into their 2020 platform. pic.twitter.com/qaw54xZujb
— Steve Metz (@steven_metz) June 15, 2019
Poll: Trump impeachment support increases by 10 points https://t.co/pVSjWwGve0 pic.twitter.com/45yNzCJ7pV
— The Hill (@thehill) June 16, 2019
We are focused on removing these 8 GOP Senators in 2020:
Lindsey Graham (SC)
Cory Gardner (CO)
Martha McSally (AZ)
Thom Tillis (NC)
Susan Collins (ME)
David Perdue (GA)
Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS)
Mitch McConnell (KY)Who else should we add to the list?
— Indivisible Network ??? (@IndivisibleNet) June 16, 2019
Monday Morning Open Thread: The Struggle ContinuesPost + Comments (194)
June 9, 2016.
The day Bernie Sanders met with Obama and refused to concede the Primary Race.
The day Michael Moore met with Julian Assange.
The day of the Trump Tower Russia Meeting.— Lynn V (@lynnv378) June 9, 2019
The Planner and the Prosecutor on the trail … with a cameo from one very excited Iowan!@KamalaHarris @ewarren pic.twitter.com/ClGFTC3HE5
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) June 9, 2019
Re-elect a Woman 2020 pic.twitter.com/6jEjLa5ndV
— JD Bender (@BluthX) June 9, 2019