Compare Sen. Feinstein's response (blah, blah, replacement will get a fair hearing, blah) with Sen. Casey's (Nixonian, independent prosecutor needed). What's wrong with Feinstein?
Casey:
"This is Nixonian. Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein must immediately appoint a special prosecutor to continue the Trump/Russia investigation."
Feinstein:
"President Trump called me at 5:30 p.m. and indicated he would be removing Director Comey, saying the FBI needed a change. The next FBI director must be strong and independent and will receive a fair hearing in the Judiciary Committee."
Feinstein is the worst Democratic Senator, someone should primary her. It's quite a shame that Dan White got to have almost 30 years of such a terrible Senator as his legacy.
On the one hand, Nixonian. On the other hand, fuck Comey. I'm torn!
"Attorney General Giuliani". Sounds lovely!
Better than Attorney General Sessions.
5 gets it right.
So, now that the FBI isn't investigating the Russia thing anymore, I bet Sally Yates would make a frickin' awesome special prosecutor.
There's no chance Feinstein will avoid a primary challenge at this point. I will personally go up against her if no one else does, although frankly we'd be much better off with Minivet as senator. Or dq. Unfogged has a fairly deep bench. Halford should totally primary Feinstein. I am not drunk.
Anderson Cooper, to his credit, is kicking the shit out of Kellyanne Conway.
Delighted with 12. I would happily vote for any of you. I called Feinstein's office an hour ago. Her employee read me her statement, reminding me that she didn't have much time to put it together. I'm aghast.
I have to admit I'm surprised. I sorta thought Trump was gung-ho for Comey's trashing of Clinton ... and I do wonder whether just changing up the director of the FBI is enough to put a stop to the Trump-Russia investigation. I mean, I didn't imagine that Comey himself was in charge of that (in the FBI) -- figured some deputy someone-or-other was actually in charge of the day-to-day operation there.
Of course, if the new boss says Stop, the deputy whoever would have to stop, but still. (I'm sure I'm being naive.)
After all, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein's statement says, "I cannot defend the Director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation into Secretary Clinton's emails," Rosenstein wrote, "and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken."
Really, they want to say that? Apparently so.
A few pieces of flotsam from the wreck:
-- Trump's personal bodyguard (the one who tossed Jorge Ramos way back when) hand-delivered the letter to FBI headquarters.
-- Comey was giving a speech to FBI agents in LA, learned the news from TV monitors.
--LA new helicopters following Comey's car like it was a white Bronco.
-- Trump in letter thanks Comey for "informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation."
-- Trump said it was not "too late" to fire Comey 3 or 4 weeks ago.
-- Repub politicians getting to choose which side they are on. Most appear to be doubling down.
-- White House aides "said" they did not expect a big political deal, But of course they lie about everything.
I promise peace with Mexico by Christmas and 50 for 40 or fight - and I pledge never to impede the flow of the Mississippi River.
Objectively pro-flooding New Orleans.
50 for 40
The new ESPN documentary series?
I'm with 5 and 10. I contain multitudes.
17/19: I trust everyone saw Roger Stone's statement (yes, Roger Stone): "What Comey did to Hillary was disgraceful. I'm glad Trump fired him over it".
You read that right--Stone is very upset about Comey's mistreatment of Clinton.
Everything about 20 is amazing. Where does this go from here?
One thing I've been wondering: normally, I wouldn't think there'd be clear quid pro quo bribery in Congress these days, but what if it turned out that was part of the AHCA getting through the House? Would it be that surprising?
I sorta thought Trump was gung-ho for Comey's trashing of Clinton
He was!
But Trump is basically a crime boss. It's like that time when Tony Soprano snuffed out the life of Christopher Moltisanti, even though he loved Christopher like he was his own son.
Any flaw in the design of a system that can be exploited eventually will be. In this case it's that a fully unified party can do whatever they want until the next election, and possibly beyond if they hack the voting system sufficiently while in power. Impeachment is off the table if Republicans are united. Anything unethical or illegal done by a Republican congressman goes unpunished if Republicans are united. There's no check on the power of a party that controls the two elected branches and doesn't break ranks- only that potentially courts might slow down some actions, but courts can't do anything about corruption on their own.
30: I wouldn't find it that surprising, but I'm not sure what the exact quid pro quo is that you have in mind.
Right. Everyone is expendable except family. Except that they are expendable too if necessary.
I figure anyone and everyone who works for "Don Donald" has now been put on notice. The only one whose job is safe is Ivanka.
I can understand at least some of the WH staff being surprised by the shitstorm in that they lack the imagination to realize that Democrats aren't as pettily vindictive as they are.
Being blindsided by the blowback does seem in character for the Trump White House.
32 I wonder if the Obama administration had prosecuted Bush admin officials for law-breaking* that that might have curtailed some of the present cowardly GOP sucking up behavior.
* like all the torture** and its cover-up, remember that?
**that Trump has often said he wants to bring back.
It might have. More likely they would have impeached him when they won Congress back.
33: I'm supposed to have specifics now? Do I look like a grand jury?
I predicted (in my head.. trust me) this kind of response from Trump.
A new tweet:
Cryin' Chuck Schumer stated recently, "I do not have confidence in him (James Comey) any longer." Then acts so indignant. #draintheswamp
I think 37 is right. Was trying to imagine scenario throws her under the bus and I think it would only be if she abandoned him first.
Lest it be buried in abovementioned shitstorm, a federal grand jury has issued subpoenas to Flynn's associates.
45: Yep.
And tomorrow's only planned event (I think) on Trump's calendar: A meeting with Russia Foreign Minister Lavrov.
Producer: Wow, real subtle! Get this hack out of here. What kind of audience do you think you're writing for?
Producer: Wow, real subtle! Get this hack out of here. What kind of audience do you think you're writing for?
The Aristocrats!
37,44: Rod Rosenstein surely understands that he will be dignity wraith within days or weeks. (I mean he pretty much is now.)
37,44: Rod Rosenstein surely understands that he will be dignity wraith within days or weeks. (I mean he pretty much is now.)
Saddest response might be Susan Collins'.
"Today's announcement is likely the inevitable conclusion of Director Comey's decision last July to bypass the longstanding protocols of the Justice Department and publicly announce the reasons he had decided not to recommend an indictment of Hillary Clinton and to offer his personal views of Mrs. Clinton's actions.
Sure. Just in a very indirect way.
"Any suggestion that today's announcement is somehow an effort to stop the FBI's investigation of Russia's attempt to influence the election last fall is misplaced.
Say goodbye to your health insurance.
Is that like being a ring-wraith? Because those guys were pretty badass.
It's more like being like Chris Christie.
He hasn't faded yet. Because of Cheetos or because he started with good intentions.
This post seems to be the earliest full-blown discussion of the dignity wraith concept, although it doesn't use the term. This one seems to be the earliest use of the term.
People in charge of enforcing voter laws: Sessions, whoever Trump appoints to replace Comey
People in charge of reviewing constitutionality of voting laws: Supreme Court, nearly ready to be packed with more conservative hacks
Person in charge of the agency whose data is the basis of political representation: Just resigned.
55: Let's just do it and be legends!
The right way to get your electrolytes.
Trumpero: squeeze a bag of partially mature conservatives and out comes acolytes.
Trumpero strongly discourages squeezing the bags of conservatives by hand. Be sure to buy our classy gold-plated juicer instead.
Apparently there's been a Rudy Guiliani spotting at Trump's DC hotel. I'm thinking not, however. But perhaps I lack imagination.
I've been thinking Arpaio. But we'll see.
There's Clark from Milwaukee as well.
The Insane Sheriff Posse.
64.1 He's been floated.
This is all so crazy.
They already have a token black guy in Carson, so I'm skeptical about Clarke. But again, we'll see.
Incipient dictatorship has never been so entertaining.
So what are the odds that once Trump gets his guy in we soon see indictments of HRC and BHO because you know Trump can't let this go. And Susan Rice too.
I guess it depends who he picks, but that doesn't seem super likely to me. There's a whole bureaucracy there to obstruct that sort of thing. Not that that's necessarily a good thing on balance, but it is a thing.
67: The former Subway guy? Seems more like a House Speaker than FBI director.
I am neither the articulatest nor the soberest at the moment. Fair warning.
72: He's already missed out on Secretary of Agriculture, so I'm sure he's angling for something else.
Now it makes sense why he didn't want to fill most executive positions. He needs people to join up knowing what they are joining.
75: But who would join up to this shitshow knowing what it is?
Unless he's just straight-up trying to recruit ex-cons and so forth. Which I guess is plausible.
From neocon to excon : a history of modern conservative leadership
(But who says the cons have to be 'ex'?)
78 He did send his chief goon to hand deliver the letter to FBI HQ.
But more plausible is that he just has no idea what he's doing on either a tactical or strategic level and is just making shit up as he goes.
|| twitter seems to be down but I don't see anyone tweeting about it |>
I guess it comes down to whether the Reps in Congress back his play. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.
85 Finally Jack acts in a last minute attempt to save the republic.
85: it's back now but every tweet is about how much the author loves Trump.
Ok, only the first three words of that last sentence are true.
69- indictment of Clinton followed by leaks saying how shocked the WH is that it caused a political stir, and tweet from Trump saying how he saw all those tweets from Bernie Bros about how bad Clinton is so why are Democrats complaining about her being arrested?
Last night Guiliani denied being under consideration for FBI Director, but from same reporter (Olivia Nuzzi) "Just now: a source close to the president tells me Giuliani is 100% in consideration for the position."
What I kind of love about this, once you ignore all the confused terror about what's going to happen next, is that all that shit Comey pulled before the elections was because he was afraid that Republicans would go apeshit if he just did his job and followed the rules. So he acted unethically, screwed Clinton over, and threw the election to Trump, because he was scared of how the Republicans would treat him. And then they (nominally) fired him for doing the unethical things they wanted him to do in the first place.
Yep. That's exactly how deals wiith the devil work.
It's like that one guy said about the brave dying only once while cowards have to repeatedly disassemble at Congressional hearings before dying anyway.
all the confused terror about what's going to happen next
Sean Spicer, you mean?
92 Exactly.
45 I've seen references to grand juries plural. How many grand juries involved in the various Trump scandals are empaneled or sitting or whatever you lawyerfolk say?
Say that three times before a mirror and the ghost of William Safire will appear.
The White House press secretary has been reduced to hiding behind a hedge in order to avoid answering questions about the firing. (This is not a metaphor.)
I don't know about short term, but long term it's obvious what happens- a provision for independent prosecutors is reenacted, some future Democrat is investigated for total bullshit using this provision, bipartisan agreement to eliminate the provision, a Republican reaches new levels of corruption with no option for an independent investigation, rinse, repeat. It's trying to close the barn door after the horse is out, only it's a revolving door. Wait that's a terrible metaphor.
Just suspend disbelief and imagine for a moment that Trump is actually innocent. How grossly incompetent would he have to be to do so many highly suspicious-looking things? He's innocent, but somehow bungled his way into creating a widespread perception that he is guilty as shit? I don't think it's possible that even Donald Trump is quite that hilariously incompetent. (I know this question is like asking "could God create a rock so big that even he can't lift it?", but still.)
98: I think that's a promotion for him.
"could God create a rock so big that even he can't lift it?"
The answer to that is no.
98: at the end of the day, one of the most infuriating parts of all this will be the eight-figure advance Spicer gets for his tell-all book deal.
The Samoans have a word that encapsulates my view of the Trump administration. I don't know the word, but I'm assuming they'd have to have a word for moving their bowels.
It's a long time, and I've forgotten the verb. But if "chickenshit" gets you anywhere, it's 'taemoa'.
Birds have shit, but not in the same way as mammals because of the cloaca.
And it's not actually a swear word or a standard metaphor for something contemptible.
If Guiliani is nominated I want my representative to ask him why he put the NYC incident headquarters inside the biggest terrorist target in the city and whether it had anything to do with the fact that it was a convenient place to fuck his mistress.
Who gets nominated (and confirmed) is the whole key. The Deputy AG's statement on why Comey was fired was, in my opinion, exactly right. I know that's not why Trump fired him, but assholes doing the right thing for self-interested reasons isn't anything new.
Apparently Sessions and DAG are interviewing candidates for interim head (I presume from within the agency or maybe non-FBI DOJ).
McConnell is of course reacting like the political terrorist that we have all come to know and loathe.
However, most encouraging item of the day (but which will undoubtedly end in tears) is Senate unexpectedly short on votes for overturning a rule on methane releases. I do not know who the holdouts are.
All the shit that comes out of Congress but they can't agree on farting?
98. Wouldn't it be easier to just get the journalists arrested?
Pence is somewhere making statements. Lies of course. Claims it originated with DAG.
Hey, that's good. I've been worried about Pence successfully staying insulated from the whole mess -- if anyone gets impeached, I want it to be both of them.
White guys with short hair and block-shaped heads always like the DOJ.
GOP senators mostly going along with the grab, including Collins, but some doing less equivocation are Burr, McCain, and especially Flake.
Thanks for the endorsement, LB.
116: Yes. NYTimes also saying Pence very involved with Trump on this yesterday. If nothing else Trump has all the tools of low cunning down pat; and I'm sure he is at pains to not let Pence get too much daylight from him on anything serious.
I'm feeling oddly optimistic that this won't blow over.
I have mostly thought that the Trump/Russia investigations were something that was going to attract a lot of energy/attention on the left and never amount to much.
But firing Comey seems like a big enough deal that it will be visible even to (many of) the people who weren't paying attention.
119: I've described my blue-sky fantasy, right? Double impeachment that takes two years to complete, getting it past the 2018 wave election? Boom, President Pelosi.
I'm not saying it's likely at all, but we're out of the realm where likely things are what's going to happen. And it's possible.
117: The Boys from Brazil Columbus.
Indiana that is. So I guess a negative data point on the salutary effects of good architecture.
Time to start printing out the Pelosi in 2019 bumper stickers
121: Who knows? I am willing to believe that whatever "fire" there is to Trump/Russia is relatively small*, but his narcissism and temperamental unfitness for government have led him to blow it up into something much bigger than it was. It still feels like a race--I think he can only really govern as an autocrat. Most Republicans studying on that for the moment.
*Maybe not so much with Flynn, however.
122: Who will be the John Dean of this thing? Need some Howard Bakers etc. as well of course; but it really needs is the internal rat coming clean.
And here's a thing per the Times ...
WASHINGTON -- Days before he was fired, James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, asked the Justice Department for a significant increase in money and personnel for the bureau's investigation into Russia's interference in the presidential election, according to three officials with knowledge of his request. Mr. Comey asked for the resources during a meeting last week with Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who wrote the Justice Department's memo that was used to justify the firing of the F.B.I. director this week. Mr. Comey then briefed members of Congress on the meeting in recent days.
Also Trump first public comment on this.
When asked why Comey was fired, Trump told reporters this: "Because he was not doing a good job." He offered the succinct explanation during an appearance in the Oval Office with Henry Kissinger. It was not immediately clear why Kissinger was meeting with Trump.
God is such a fucking prick. Just fucking with us right and left.
Kissinger presumably is preparing the administration's negotiating position regarding Ukraine, a task for which he is uniquely qualified.
I have mostly thought that the Trump/Russia investigations were something that was going to attract a lot of energy/attention on the left and never amount to much.
I am willing to believe that whatever "fire" there is to Trump/Russia is relatively small
You'll never get anywhere with that attitude. The Republicans pursued the completely ludicrous Benghazi thing for years and (via the emails issue) got the presidency out of it.
130 True that and there is something here to boot.
Not to mention pursuing the completely fictional Whitewater thing for years and (via the Lewinsky scandal) succeeding in derailing Bill Clinton's second term.
I don't see how the US avoids internal political violence running up to the 2018 election.
130-133: Yes, yes, yes, won't take my own side in an argument etc. My reputation for calm reasonable both-sidesism is well-established.
I was at first a little surprised that Trump went after Blumenthal this morning with such specificity (almost all completely bullshit, but the bullshit was specific bullshit) on the Vietnam stuff, but then I recalled the Linda McMahon connection. (And remember that the McMahon's appeared to be the only material donors to the Trump Foundation.)
I've described my blue-sky fantasy, right? Double impeachment that takes two years to complete, getting it past the 2018 wave election? Boom, President Pelosi.
This is exactly how the scenario will be positioned to play out, but after Republicans lose the 2018 election but before the new congress is sworn in, lame duck Republicans in congress will rush through finalization of the impeachment so that Ryan is sworn in as president before Pelosi takes over as speaker.
"Double impeachment that takes two years to complete, getting it past the 2018 wave election? Boom, President Pelosi." @123.
Wow, you actually came up with an imaginary scenario that sounds good. I had given up nearly all hope that even in my imagination.
"Double impeachment that takes two years to complete, getting it past the 2018 wave election? Boom, President Pelosi." @123.
Wow, you actually came up with an imaginary scenario that sounds good. I had given up nearly all hope that even in my imagination.
135: "Even the liberal J P Stormcrow" is what we occasional delurkers call you in our email cabals.
134: We didn't really avoid it in the run-up to the 2016 election.
I want to see the real Rome again before the absurd workings of my inner brain replace those memories with what I saw more recently at Caesar's Palace.
It's not exactly the wrong thread for that.
Seems completely appropriate.
Pelosi would make an awesome President.
Bare Adequacy-Not Actual Fascism, 2020.
The Democrats have to win a majority of the House in 2018, or at least do well enough to convince Republicans that 2020 will be the death of them all with Trump running before anything happens. Unless you're an actual senator or FBI agent, it seems pointless to focus on anything else. That is politically. Everybody should have a hobby or job or something.
This has been your daily moment of obviousness.
The Democrats have to win a majority of the House in 2018, or at least do well enough to convince Republicans that 2020 will be the death of them all with Trump running before anything happens.
Agreed. Unfortunately, I begin to truly despair of this, because Fox News. As has become my (well, sometime) habit, I tuned into Fox News last night for 5 minutes or so, to hear just the sort of remarkable dismissal of current bad-Trump! events that's become their signature mode. Last night it was snarky eye-rolling over Democrats' claims that Comey's firing was Nixonian. 'Oh for god's sake,' said some alleged scholar of some sort, 'it's not even remotely the same: with Nixon, you had established proof of dirty tricks, with Trump, you just have hand-wavy allegations that have proven nothing whatsoever at all.'
Eh. A couple of nights ago, some guy on Fox was (again) eye-rolling over Sally Yates' testimony: "Cripe, this kind of stuff in Congress just turns everyone off from ever being part of it, it was so boring, it was like watching a turtle knit a sweater."
Hrm. At any rate. I'm beginning to feel that truly nothing the administration does matters a whit unless the media -- including those sources frequented by conservatives of whatever stripe -- cover it appropriately. Otherwise it just didn't happen.
Everybody should have a hobby or job or something.
Something you love, or are good at. Or maybe something the world needs. Who knows you might even get paid for doing it!
The arc of the universe is long but it bends toards mindfulness.
And by the way, I wish liberals would quit with the "constitutional crisis!" language.
Lastly: Ann Coulter says Comey's firing was just to distract from his lack of progress on building the wall. You gotta hand it to Coulter: she's great at generating the "Huh???"
She may be partially right about that. I think that failure looms very large in the minds of people who would actually have voted for Trump in a primary.
152: Typos are God's way of telling us who isn't really paying attention.
Little-known fact: Mitch McConnell's given name is "Vidkun."
I think 155 is correct. That stupid wall is a really important symbol for the anti-immigrant crowd. It was a signature issue for Trump in the primaries and in the general, so if he does not do it he'll disappoint a whole bunch of fairly passionate voters. He knows this and will keep trying no matter what.
158: That's the main reason to oppose the wall. If somebody wanted to build $25 billion worth of pointless infrastructure as job creation and paying union wages, it wouldn't matter any more than the bridge to nowhere or whatever.
Anyway, maybe a Democrat should run for president in 2020 on a "build a wall" platform. Paired with an otherwise reasonable immigration policy for those who have been here for years, it would be a huge improvement over what we've had before. And buying off the stupid people is a bargain even at twice $25 billion.
158: I don't know -- the last I heard/read from interviews 'on the ground' with Trump voters regarding the wall was just that he was keeping his promise, he was putting the wheels in motion, obviously it takes time to put together the actual engineering plans, there are technical issues to address, but Trump is a builder by profession, so he knows how to do that. Some guy actually said, "Trump's a workaholic, of course, so it's not like he's not down into the nitty-gritty on this."
I don't doubt that Trump's going to keep trying on the wall, but I seriously doubt the Comey thing was to distract from lack of visible progress on it! There were/are other more pressing things to distract attention from.
The Democrats have to win a majority of the House in 2018, or at least do well enough to convince Republicans that 2020 will be the death of them all with Trump running before anything happens.
This is where the special elections come in. If, by the grace of Chthulu, Ossoff and Quist win, that will set some knees a-knocking. It also significantly narrows the margins for evil like AHCA.
I'm not saying that the election of those two would spur impeachment, but I think it would start to split ranks, and probably spur some blue state Republican Senators (I saw that VA's Republican in the Senate is one of the few making non-traitorous noises).
That's not a Slate Pitch. I insist that one of you with access to political people pitch that idea. You don't need to credit me.
163 is correct AFAICT. In another year or two, his voters might start noticing that there's no wall, but he's thrown enough BS at them that they're happy to tell themselves stories about how it's in progress, no problems.
The bottom line on 163/166 is that Trumps base have self-selected to believe only grifters, and no grifter has any incentive to tell his marks an unpleasant truth.
For awhile people theorized that at some point some Alex Jones type would call Trump's BS and thereby supplant him, but A. they trust Trump more than anybody else, and B. keeping the grift going is more valuable than any plausible upside from supplanting Trump.
Forget the wall. Build the Tall Tower! https://www.google.co.uk/amp/io9.com/5942318/how-neal-stephensons-incredible-20-kilometer-high-space-tower-is-meant-to-inspire-the-future/amp
Trump should stick with the classics. A White Sea-Baltic Canal. The current one is apparently too small to be of commercial use.
150: Fox News contaminates the discourse but I don't think it drives the voting of the mushy middle that much. What you're watching explains the 27% crazification factor, but not those who swung from Obama or non-voting to Trump.
So today Trump met with Lavrov and Kislyak in the Oval Office. US media was not allowed in but Russian media was. Then he let in US media to cover him meeting with Kissinger. You cannot make this shit up.
I hope 160/162 are jokes, but I can't tell. This is not comparable to a bridge to nowhere.
And last night Spicer literally hid in the bushes to avoid answering questions about Comey.
Take this with heaps of salt, but: while surfing the Twitters or whatever, I saw a breakdown showing that (contrary to my belief) Fox's share of American eyeballs is staggering, vastly larger than the next single media source in any format. It would be great if someone could get that chart out of my brain if it's inaccurate.
174: Sure, it could be quite large as they go, but no single source has a large share on its own, right?
122: LB, have you also managed to get us to 67 Democratic senators in this fantasy wave election where only 9 Republican senators are up for reelection? Because otherwise, it would probably take a smoking gun along the lines of a Nixon-style tape with both Trump and Pence caught red-handed on it to get us the double conviction we would need in the Senate, and in today's political climate, I'm not sure even that would do it.
174: My understanding is that Fox gets the biggest share of people who get their news primarily from watching TV, but that the total number of such people has been declining for a while now.
Right. I think. No evidence that this chart even exists, now that I'm looking, so I'm going to purge the memory now.
56 is (or implies) my favorite assessment of the Trump era so far.
Man but I can't shake this sense that there are some seriously dark times around the corner. Hey, supposing a person had 24 hours to liquidate some marginally valuable items for a not-large-but-not-trivial amount of cash, how much should that person weight near-term apocalypse?
174 et al: The link in 150 shows a chart. Dig into it as much as you like.
122, 176 - eight, actually, (according to Wikipedia anyway), but in fantasyland an insane wave election where say 4 of them lost their seats, including incumbents in Nebraska, Texas, and Arizona, could encourage the remaining Senators enough to get to 67.
180 first, never mind, Wikipedia left out Alabama for whatever reason.
Sanders asked why Comey couldn't get a phone call about being fired. She said proper protocol was followed.
You know, the protocol where the person sees they are fired on TV monitors while they are giving a speech to their organization while your personal bodyguard is delivering a horse headthe official notice to FBI HQ.
181: Probably because Alabama is up in a special election in December this year. I'm assuming the wave starts then. But I'm finding it hard to imagine any Republican finding it politically advantageous to vote to put Pelosi in the White House, no matter what they expect to happen in 2020. Maybe they might go for a scenario in which they convict Trump first on the understanding that President Pence will appoint a replacement VP and wait for him or her to get confirmed before resigning.
I have a hard time imagining Alabama ousting a GOP senator even in the wavest of wave-years.
When the going gets tough the NY Times gets going on .... yet another episode of What Do Trump Voters Think Now? Doubt the President? No Way, Say Trump Voters in Georgia and Iowa.
Handel (sp?), Ossoff's opponent in GA-06 affirmatively supported the firing.
185: You are so negative. Perhaps you have not been keeping up with the promising new feature where we celebrate everything Trump's done right?
(Also, for those of you who are not around elementary-aged kids: there's a perennial classrroom management technique called "Caught Being Good!" where the teacher does for seven year olds what the NYT sees fit to do with Trump.)
In America, continued support for Trump amid questions about firings
172: Right. It's like a sideways bridge. But both have lots of cement and jobs for people who love cement.
141: Not at the scale I'm worried we're going to see next year. Things could tip towards outright voter suppression.
Things could tip towards outright voter suppression.
You mean, other than the voter suppression we already have?
I don't know, voter suppression is the current method of choice because you can give it a veneer of legality. Once your back is to the wall facing a wave election and you control all the levers of government, isn't vote counting fraud the method of choice? Easier to control exactly what happens, and lets you defend against accusers by calling them tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists.
Another good tactic is to have the Russians hack into your opponent's operation and post what ever they find to Wikileaks.
I'm worried they'll drop the veneer or find one that covers physically barring (some) people from registering and voting.
There's also charging political opponents with bogus crimes to smear them. Or worse. He hasn't tried that yet.
Unless you count shouting "Lock her up".
"Lock her up, but also fire the guy investigating her."
Speaking of outright illegality, disturbing psychological disquisition from the pencil-sharpener fellow, curtsy TJ.
The Vox explainer about the procedures and options for appointing a special prosecutor/investigation of Trump is good, helpful, and mildly depressing, But worth reading.
This WaPo correction goes up there with the thickset one*:
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to more precisely describe White House press secretary Sean Spicer's location late Tuesday night in the minutes before he briefed reporters. Spicer huddled with his staff among bushes near television sets on the White House grounds, not "in the bushes," as the story originally stated.
Emphasis added.
*Posted here years ago but did not find with a search: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Navy Capt. Robert Durand's physical build. He should have been described as muscular. This version has been corrected.
As expected, as the initial flurry of firing reactions fade more scrutiny of the "told me three times" portion of Trump's letter.
I'm reminded of the Bush-adjacent assignation of Dr. Alan Statham but am unable to locate a youtube link.
Oh, wait, I don't know how I missed this: Trump is going to send a *certified letter* to the Senate! That'll end the matter, for sure.
Sean Spicer woke up, put the WSJ editorial page under his head, so as not to wet the pillow with his dribblings, and went to sleep again; and again he had a dream that he was sitting in some bushes and a reporter was walking past the bushes.
Sean Spicer woke up, changed the newspaper to the Washington Times, lay down and went to sleep again. He fell asleep and had another dream that he was walking past some bushes and a reporter was sitting in the bushes.
At this point Sean Spicer woke up and decided not to sleep any more, but he immediately fell asleep and had a dream that he was sitting behind a reporter and some bushes were walking past.
Sean Spicer let out a yell and tossed about in bed but couldn't wake up.
An uncertified letter has the fore skin on its penis.
Full disclosure: I don't know from Judaism.
I think foreskin is supposed to be one word
Step back from the prepuce, Moby.
In conclusion, Macabees says I can stab people.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a rusty nail.
My dad has a Twitter. I shouldn't have looked. He's in full-on koolaid drinking mode.
I feel sick about it and have no idea how to approach it when I go back to NY on leave.
How deep is your pseudonymity with your own Twitter? Could you engage him that way without him knowing it's you?
218 that would just be depressing or infuriating. At least he's only retweeting shit.
I was going to request an ATM about this.
Do it. It would be interesting.
And also possibly might be helpful for you. But this is Ravenclaw, so priorities.
219 In my experience, a big part of the right wing mindset, especially for people who should know better, is an extraordinarily thin skinned resentment of perceived condescension. That is, your every utterance may well be scrutinized for evidence that you think you're smarter/better, with totally ridiculously uncharitable interpretations liberally applied. Because finding condescension is winning. Or at least, validation.
223 is right. That's part of the reason I don't give the slightest shit about not offending people like that or all of those editorials about reaching out to voters like that. I think enraging them until they explode/withdraw from politics will be better.
216: The worst thing Trump ever did was convince reprobate Boomers that they should be on Twitter, too.
Yeah I have a feeling I'm going to find it very difficult to refrain from giving them their fill of condescension.
I think enraging them until they explode/withdraw from politics will be better.
True. It's not like they bother condescending to the people they think are inferior - they just straight out make it clear that they think they are subhuman.
225: Trump's daily email has "Retweet" links built right it.
Related, can I just say that this absolutely wonderful correction is making my day http://people.com/politics/sean-spicer-hiding-among-bushes-after-comey-firing-correction/
and indeed making the day of pretty much everyone in my office. Discussion is vigorous - although there is a definite difference between being in a bush (actually within a specific bush) and being among some bushes, if someone is said to be "in the bushes", really it means "among"?
It gets confusing because if you look at the roots, sometimes what look like separate bushes are actually just different offshoots of the same bush.
This is I think why the preferred expression would be "in the shrubbery".
Here are some important tips for Sean Spicer
I think I've settled on hitting them where it hurts. If I can stick to the script I'm going to go on and on about how weak Trump is. Weak willed, weak minded, a weakling who projects weakness and makes America weak.
Also, he has to pay women to pee on him.
If the bushes are close enough to each other to allow their twigs to touch, or to close enough to allow the twigs of two bushes to touch you dorsally and ventrally at the same time, you're hiding 'in the bushes'. Otherwise, you're hiding 'between some bushes'. That is all.
If you're a real man, women pee on you for free.
IIRC Fowler has a whole rant on when you can say you're among things rather than between them.
The urine should flow from mutual love and respect, not cash.
Among the things that should make the urine flow are mutual love and respect.
The moral of the story is to stay out of the Bushes.
If only Paul Lynde were still alive.
Our new neighbors are a friendly mixed-race family with a big confederate flag in their front window.
229: Ajay is being condescending to me by not acknowledging 201. I blame Obama and Ima vote Republican from now on.
I thought I had heard that before.
Sean Spicer hiding between the Bushes.
That actually is Spicer in the picture btw.
238- That's called priming the pump. Have you heard that term before? I just thought of it a couple days ago.
Among the things that should make the urine flow are mutual love and respect.
Many people find it difficult to live up to this ideal, which makes it a perennial theme in popular music.
E.g. Dr Hook: Urine love with a beautiful woman, it's hard.
This brought back fond memories of when my bunny peed on me. I've never felt so loved! I miss you, Juniper!
But it was kind of a drag when I had to change my pants twice before going to work. Until then we thought he was a girl.
250: I guess he thought I was a girl too. I wonder if he ever discovered his error.
My cat died five years ago and I still miss him. He never peed on me, but often crapped next to the litter tray, so there's that.
241: Which races?
Hispanic and white.
I think it's general fuck-you-ism.
Unrelatedly, a former student posted on FB, beginning with: Warming: long libertarian rant following!! and then railed against mandatory health insurance for a long time, and ended with saying that health care should be socialized. Sure, why not.
Things could tip towards outright voter suppression
If by "voter suppression" you mean "prevention of voter fraud", you are going to love the latest executive order.
||
Local Mother's FB page:
Mother posts a scary link about a mother who listened to a doctor instead of trusting her gut, and her kid had some crazy-ass weird medical problem, and click-through for the suspenseful conclusion.
There is one single comment on the post:
Rub your baby with an egg and its gonna absorb the high fever and once you do get a glass of water only half and break the egg in and you'll see the yoke and the clear of the egg get cooked and you baby will break the fever down..this is an old home remi I use as my mother did all of her children. Hope he feels better.
I...I don't know where to start! what?!
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259 is like a parody of folk wisdom.
I think my day will be better if I pretend that it is, in fact, parody.
Why use light bulbs to heat chicken incubators when you already have babies around?
Rub your babby with two eggs. Better than one!
262: Rub your monitor with an egg.
223/224
Especially because it's coupled with an unwavering belief in the God-given right to shit on women/POCs/queers/liberals/nerds/anyone different in anyway.
Barry, I had some advice about drawing lines in the sand, but it has now been supplanted by the advice that you just repeat this mantra regardless of what your parents say:
It's unclear if McCabe will be able to say anything to comfort FBI agents. One veteran agent in the FBI's criminal division responded to a message from The Daily Beast this way: "Who cares, nothing matters, no one knows anything, everything sucks."
One thing that's surprised me is how quickly the American Empire has risen and appears to be falling. Other empires lasted centuries, if not millennia. We've not made it around maybe 200 years (depending on when you count the "rise" from), and we've already gotten to Caligula. There needs a drastic turnaround if we're going to keep going.
If we're going to put the rise at the Spanish-American War or therabouts, it's 100 years plus change. Post WW1, and it's not even 100 years.
Caligula was pretty early in the era of imperial Rome.
Ok, I've calculated it out. I've grouped the Roman Republic together with the Roman Empire, since Republican Rome had large colonial holdings, and gone with wikipedia dates for simplicity. So Rome is from 509 BC - 395 AD, a total of 904 years. I've gone with the Spanish-American War as the beginning of our empire, so 1898-2017 is 119 years. This means that every 7.6 Roman years = 1 American year. If Caligula's reign was 37-42 AD, dating from the beginning there were 321 more years of the Roman Empire. Using our converter and rounding to the nearest whole year, this gives us 42. By this schedule, the fall of the American Empire will happen in 2059.
Caligula was pretty early in the era of imperial Rome.
But about 2/3 of the way through the I, Claudius miniseries.
???
I have no idea what I was smoking. There were 358 more years, so we should get 47 more years. So, 2065.
I've grouped the Roman Republic together with the Roman Empire, since Republican Rome had large colonial holdings, and gone with wikipedia dates for simplicity.
But the Republic didn't have large colonial holdings from the very beginning. 509 BC sounds way too early, especially if you're only starting the American imperial period with 1898.
By my oh-so-scientific calculations, Caligula's reign was when the Roman Empire was 60% over. Agreed it's not at the ending point, but over halfway.
270- Sounds about right.
We can quibble over the dates for Rome specifically, but in general 900 years doesn't sound like a typical lifespan for an empire, ancient or modern.
And really Rome held on to a substantial empire up until at least 1204, maybe longer depending on what you count as "fallen".
276
For the modern European Empires, perhaps not. China has 5,000 years of Civilization (TM), though.
If you're going to get all pedantic about dates, we'll start the American empire in 1776. We get 1 American year = 3.8 Rome years. By using this figure, we have 94 more American years before the barbarians arrive.
For the modern European Empires, perhaps not. China has 5,000 years of Civilization (TM), though.
Not continuously on an imperial scale, though.
Hey! What are we, chopped liver?
And for another comparison, look at Mesopotamia. Thousands of years of imperial rule, but under many different empires.
There's a really stupid cartoon my son watches called "Fangbone." It's about Fangbone, a self-identified barbarian. The theme song mentions that Fangbone doesn't wear pants. Which seems wrong because barbarians were the ones who wore pants. I blame Canada and Netflix's willingness to air everything Canada films.
No one ever takes us seriously.
279
Do you mean to tell me you are questioning the official history of the Chinese state?
Ok, so, we hack off the first bit of the Roman Republic, and pick what wikipedia calls the Mid-Roman Republic period, beginning at 264 BC. If we end it at 1204 AD, that gets us 1468 years. If we go to the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, we get 1717 years. We'll date American Empire to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, so we get 215 years. So, we either get 1:6.8 America:Rome years, or 1:8.
This means we either have 53 or 44 years left.
If we want to recalibrate our Empire Calculator to a different setting, let me know which Empire and which degenerate ruler Trump most resembles.
285.1
Should be official history of the CCP, really.
Wikipedia, the arbiter of all things true, is giving me 364 (1583-1947) years for the British Empire, and 341 (1605-1946) years for the French Empire.
I haven't seen my racist uncle in years (he lives in Milwaukee), and blocked him on social media, so thankfully I have less of an issue with family politics these days. It will be awkward going to my youngest sister's wedding next month, because my cousin's husband (who will be attending), is a fairly stereotypical border patrol agent.
Buttercup, like Trump, is a stooge of the Communist Chinese.
This is a bigger problem for my dad, who sees this guy more regularly, and has to restrain himself from calling him a Nazi.
Has your dad tried calling him a vegetarian?
Say what you will about ancient China, they at least got their border wall built.
284: There are three reasons for that.
Say what you will about ancient China, they at least got their border wall built.
For all the good it did them.
290
Uh oh. Now I have to kill you.
288
I feel like we get weird causality going on here. Clearly Trump is issuing in the nuclear apocalypse that will lead to the Planet of the Apes (can we be so sure he's not a simian double agent in disguise?), so really, we can't know their start date until we know when Trump presses the big red button.
"You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! On second thought, we had it coming."
Can you imagine what it must've been like to be the reporter in this situation?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-tivos-senate-hearings-so-he-can-make-fun-of-them-later
The Wait But Why on the US presidents split them into "Shaping the Nation" (75 years, Washington to Lincoln), "Rise to Power" (75 years, Lincoln to FDR) and "World Power" (75 years, FDR to Obama). Because it was written in 2014 it didn't answer the question of what the next era will be.
Decline isn't so bad. Life gets good once you start dropping away from Top Nation status. Look at us and the Dutch.
Both the UK and France have gone from global power to just regular big countries. There's this huge excluded middle-- either the USA is fabulous and will always get even better or this poisoned society will get what it deserves and collapse. The prospect that things could get a bit worse for a generation in terms of global power doesn't apparently work for anyone.
Weltmacht oder Untergang! Is a hell of a dangerous excluded middle fallacy.
I'm actually reading an intermittently interesting book, The Rise and Fall of AMerican Growth that for a central point makes the claim that GDP misses a lot that is worth considering, and probably more as I get to the end. So far he details the ways in which many aspects of life got much better from 1920-1960, with oblique asides that the pace of improvement was exceptional, not sustainable.
Similar improvements elsewhere, of course, but it's written by a US economist.
So, now the White House line seems to be that the whole Hillary email explanation for firing Comey was a pretext, and the real reason was obstruction of a federal criminal investigation. Are they trying to get rid of the Mad King?
Which would make some sense, because not only is he crazy, and likely to kill us all, but eventually lots of people are going to realize that the consequence of removing Trump isn't Clinton, it's Pence. From a mainline Republican -- especially a pro-life single issue voter -- this is a complete win. All the tax cuts and pro-life judges, none of the world wars and dislocation from trade/immigration crackdowns.
All the tax cuts and pro-life judges, none of the world wars and dislocation from trade/immigration crackdowns.
I don't know how confident I would feel about that latter part. The Rs might feel, or be, compelled to serve their hardcore supporters' worst instincts all too self-parodyingly, in return for deposing Orange Caligula.
Oh, Pence would be much worse. Except for the getting us all killed part.
Not just the White House - the OO himself.
Does this not precisely meet the definition in 18 USC 1512(b)(3)?
All of this is pretty far through the looking glass. Very differing accounts from Trump and Comey (via people he talked to about it) of a dinner they had on Jan. 27th (so right after Yates visits on Flynn and before the firing on the 30th). Including a disagreement about who requested it.
The race is accelerating. And most Repubs still on board. No surprise they got the Voter Suppression thing going this week. Holding on to the Repub pols is the whole game now.
Of course Trump is lying, but what an incredible ass Comey is. The epitome of a self-regarding, self-righteous white guy dickhead. Fucking disaster on multiple fronts.
In the spirit of the Constitution and its framers, we should be measuring the duration of republics, not empires. The empire calculation comes later, but the big deal in 1787 was trying to break out of the cycle in which republics always fall.
The humor is not completely to my taste, but WINNERS AND LOSERS OF THE RECENT NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST does a pretty good job of capturing Halperin/Cillizza/Chuck Toddism.
Can't find the tweet now, but this afternoon some MSNBC producer (I did not recognize the name) tweeted about how assume Sarah Huckabee-Sanders had been and that Trump must surely be proud of her. (Maggie Hagerman of the Times has also been very complimentary.) Lie to us smoother, please.
The Trump administration is that scene where Charles Foster Kane tears up a room while yelling "I'm Charles Foster Kane!" except he's surrounded by the most of the people who run the government and they're all saying "Yup, you certainly are, sir."
TV series idea: Trump flees to Russia, moves into building where Snowden is his neighbor.
Until recently, I thought Britain was a good example of a once-great empire aging and then fading out gracefully, while still perhaps holding itself up as a model to the world in terms of good governance and the peaceful transfer of power, and etc. And then came the Brexit vote.
The American decline looks a lot uglier, and will no doubt involve massive levels of gun violence.
Wait, I have a new analogy (banned or not): the administration's explanation for firing Comey to end the investigation more quickly is like a drunk driver saying they were speeding because drunk driving is dangerous so it's safer to get home as quickly as you can.
Clearly Trump is issuing in the nuclear apocalypse that will lead to the Planet of the Apes (can we be so sure he's not a simian double agent in disguise?)
Finally it can be said:
CHIMPEACH THE CHIMPEROR!
Also why pick 395 CE for the end of the (Western) Roman Empire and not 410 or 476?
|| EThe Chinese are building an anti-ship ekranoplan drone! And there's film of the KM in flight!
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/9974/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-surface-skimming-anti-ship-drone-missile-hybrid
I might have have a little lie down now.
|>
320. FWIW I've never seen 395 proposed as the end date for the western Roman Empire. The standard date given is 476 (or 480 if you're a die hard fan of Julius Nepos) because that was the date after which there ceased to be recognised western emperors.
318 I'm really not sure where to start but your characterization of Britain, during empire and post-empire, as great seems to be eliding a fair bit of war crimes, torture, mass killing, illegal war, and so on. Peaceful transfer of power sure, but that's a pretty low bar to be clearing.
I read 318 as assuming that "a fair bit of war crimes, torture, mass killing, illegal war, and so on" was par for the course in actually existing empires. And certainly there were episodes of appalling mismanagement by British authorities during the transfer of power, which directly led to millions of deaths, mostly in South Asia but on a smaller scale elsewhere too.
But I thought JPJ's point was that British politics since the 70s had not been determined by backward looking sentiment, and that is true up to a point, but a passing familiarity with the English lower middle class would be sufficient to disabuse anyone of the idea that such sentiment is not there.
I simply do not know what Brexiters hope for from leaving the EU. I have asked many, on line and face to face, what they want post-Brexit Britain to look like, and they refuse to answer, simply reciting a bunch of buzz words like "independent", "brilliant", etc. Usually, if asked flat out what they would like that brilliant independence to be used for, they simply don't answer. It scares me to death, tbh.
323: in context, "a once-great empire" means a once-powerful empire.
Trump's tweets this morning are especially unhinged and that's saying something. Tapes of meeting with Comey? WTF?
Yeah, I mean, who uses actual tapes anymore? It would probably be some sort of digital recording device.
It would probably be some sort of digital recording device.
Nah, he'd demand steam power.
Just stream it to the cloud. (Probably shouldn't mention "streaming" in the context of trump recordings.)
Let me be the first to day Stanley!
Still reeling over the flat-out obstruction of justice admission. Wish it were fully emblazoned. This feels like his Sledgehammer moment - where what was previously mostly just being embarrassing/dangerous/norm-breaking crosses the line into active and and overt lawlessness, thanks to GOP silence.
332: And a hugely emboldening moment if Repubs do not respond.
So a hugely emboldening moment.
I expected at least one of those three times that Comey assured Trump he was not under investigation to be what Trump thought he saw on TV when Comey was testifying before Congress.
I'm waiting for the 18 minutes of blank podcast.
My first thought about all the comparisons to Caligula and the end of an empire is that it's alarmist. It's always easy and tempting to imagine that today is the pivotal moment on which history rests, but it's either almost never true, or always true in a very broad sense which just makes it meaningless. There have been a lot of apocalypses predicted and most of them didn't actually happen.
But on second thought, President Trump really is an unprecedented figure. He hasn't crossed the Rubicon yet but he's clearly headed in that direction. At this point I can really only imagine four outcomes of this presidency, in terms of American politics and democracy. (Leaving aside any question of nuclear or other major war, both because the uncertainty is too high to be worth putting a number on and because it can coincide with any of the following.)
1. Trump realizes what a joke he is, mends fences with Republicans, and basically becomes GWB but probably a bit better.
2. Trump becomes the biggest millstone imaginable around the necks of the Republicans in upcoming elections due to both unpopularity and incompetence, leading to a Democratic wave election not seen since, I don't know, the Great Depression or something?
3. Trump makes history as the first president impeached essentially by his own party.
4. Opinion polls indicate that one of the above should be happening but the Balkanized media keeps any opposition from gaining ground and Republicans practice gerrymandering and voter suppression well enough to hold onto power. The conventional wisdom defines democracy down.
And I'd say that's the ascending order of likelihood, i.e. 1 least likely, 4 most likely.