;)
The Commentariat -- February 18, 2019
Afternoon Update:
Philip Bump of the Washington Post explains to dummies, including Donald Trump, why Andrew McCabe's assertions about high-level DOJ officials considering an invocation of the Twenty-fifth Amendment is not an attempted "coup," as Trump & his surrogates have described what happened in May 2017. "... removing a president from office using systems included in the Constitution is, by definition, not a coup. Removing Trump from office by following the guidelines of the 25th Amendment would no more be a coup than removing him from office through impeachment or, really, than voting for another candidate in 2020. It's part of the system.... If [DAG Rod] Rosenstein asked half the Cabinet and Pence to oust Trump and they agreed, it's hard to see how the culpable party was Rosenstein. These are people chosen by Trump! His removal would be on their hands. But what's more, Trump would have a mechanism to respond. He could simply send a letter to Congress saying that he is fit for office, and he is then reinstated. Some coup. If, however, Pence and the Cabinet members still think Trump is unfit, the question would go to Congress, where two-thirds majorities in each chamber would have to agree. So that's half the Cabinet, the vice president and scores of lawmakers who would ultimately need to declare that Trump should be removed from office before it could happen." ...
... Jacob Solis of the Nevada Independent: "Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Sunday in Las Vegas that Trump administration officials have an obligation to invoke the 25th Amendment if they believe the president cannot fulfill his duties. The comment came in response to former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe telling CBS's '60 Minutes' that then-acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had considered the idea out of concern for Trump's 'capacity and about his intent at that point in time,' referring to the days after Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director. '... if they believe that Donald Trump cannot fulfill the obligations of his office, then they have a constitutional responsibility to invoke the 25th amendment,' Warren, a Democratic presidential candidate, said after a rally in Las Vegas. 'Their loyalty under law is not to him personally. It is to the Constitution of the United States and to the people of United States.'" ...
... our President is simply too unstable to carry out the duties of the highest executive office -- which include the specific duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed -- in a competent and professional manner. He is simply in the wrong place. -- William Weld, former Massachusetts governor (R) & presidential candidate ...
... Charles Pierce suggests a headline more suited than the three major papers posted to reports on Trump's Friday "national emergency" presser: "The President* is A Delusional Maniac With Sawdust Pouring Out Of Both Ears.... The man is not all there. Everybody knows it. If your uncle behaved like the president* behaved on Friday, you'd hide his car-keys, lock up the booze, and drive him to the neurologist."
Bob Mueller has a task: It's Russian interference and potential collision in the 2016 election. Southern District of New York is whatever the heck you want. -- Chris Christie, earlier this month ...
... Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Even as speculation mounts that special counsel Robert Mueller might be winding down his investigation, a parallel threat to ... Donald Trump only seems to be growing within his own Justice Department: the Southern District of New York. Manhattan-based federal prosecutors can challenge Trump in ways Mueller can't. They have jurisdiction over the president's political operation and businesses -- subjects that aren't protected by executive privilege, a tool Trump is considering invoking to block portions of Mueller's report. From a PR perspective, Trump has been unable to run the same playbook on SDNY that he's used to erode conservatives' faith in Mueller, the former George W. Bush-appointed FBI director. Legal circles are also buzzing over whether SDNY might buck DOJ guidance and seek to indict a sitting president."
... Who is the Real President*? (a) Man on left; (b) Man on right; (c) Neither of the above:
BBC: "Seven MPs have resigned from [Britain's] Labour Party in protest at Jeremy Corbyn's approach to Brexit and anti-Semitism."
*****
Real Presidents Morph:
The Damage He Has Done. Steven Erlanger & Katrin Bennhold of the New York Times: "... in the last few days of a prestigious annual security conference in Munich, the rift between Europe and the Trump administration became open, angry and concrete, diplomats and analysts say.... The most immediate danger, diplomats and intelligence officials warned, is that the trans-Atlantic fissures now risk being exploited by Russia and China.... [Trump's] distaste for multilateralism and international cooperation is a challenge to the very heart of what Europe is and needs to be in order to have an impact in the world. But beyond the Trump administration, an increasing number of Europeans say they believe that relations with the United States will never be the same again.... The most visible pushback against Washington came from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany -- who delivered an unusually passionate speech -- and from her defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen. They spoke about the dangers of unilateral actions by major partners without discussing the consequences with allies.... To show solidarity with Europe, more than 50 American lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats -- a record number -- attended the Munich Security Conference. They came, said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, 'to show Europeans that there is another branch of government which strongly supports NATO and the trans-Atlantic alliance.'" ...
... Griff Witte & Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "Amid the gloom of a security conference focused on the breakdown in transatlantic relations under President Trump, Joe Biden offered beleaguered Europeans a ray of hope this weekend. 'This too shall pass,' the former vice president promised. 'We will be back.' The comment earned Biden, a possible candidate for president in 2020, sustained applause from a crowd that clearly wanted to believe the United States will return to a more familiar role as trusted friend after two years of Trump turning on allies and cozying up to adversaries. But Europeans are not convinced that Biden, or anyone, can deliver. Even if Democrats beat Trump when he vies for reelection next year, U.S. allies say the damage will be difficult to reverse. They point to long-term trends in the United States -- especially a growing skepticism toward global engagement -- that suggest key elements of Trumpism will live on, regardless of how long he serves or who succeeds him.... or many attendees, the collapse of the liberal world order as built and sustained by the United States for the past seven decades was taken as a given. The only question is, as the title of the conference's flagship report framed it, 'Who will pick up the pieces?'" ...
Melanie Schmitz of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump demanded that Europe take back hundreds of ISIS fighters captured in Syria, in the administration's latest move that appeared likely to worsen relations between the United States and its formerly staunch allies across the Atlantic.... Trump's tweet ended in an ultimatum. 'The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them,' the president wrote.... If the United States chooses to release its own prisoners -- many of whom were radicalized in Europe and fled to Syria to join up with ISIS -- it could cause additional fracturing between longstanding allies. The government of Britain immediately issued a warning Sunday, telling Trump it would prevent the prisoners' return." --s ...
... UPDATE: Reuters: "France will for now not act on U.S. President Donald Trump's call for European allies to repatriate hundreds of Islamic State fighters from Syria, taking back militants on a 'case-by-case' basis, its justice minister said on Monday.... Germany, too, was cool toward Trump's demands, saying it could only take back Islamic State fighters if the suspects had consular access." --s
The craziest thing about the Baldwin SNL opener was that it wasn't as crazy as the original. -- Bobby Lee, in today's Comments ...
... Trump Opposes First Amendment, Humor. Again. Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "In yet another Sunday morning tweetstorm, Trump blasted the previous night's episode of SNL -- which opened with Alec Baldwin portraying the commander in chief declaring a national emergency at the southern border -- and quickly drew fire from the ACLU and Baldwin himself. As before, Trump said without evidence or much explanation that the show is a coordinated attempt by NBC at character assassination. 'Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution?' Trump said on Twitter. 'Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!'... Four minutes later, he tweeted an old standby: 'THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!'... The American Civil Liberties Union took to Trump's favorite medium Sunday to issue a five-word rebuke. 'It's called the First Amendment,' the group wrote on Twitter. Other social media users criticized Trump for challenging cornerstone constitutional protections. One political scientist noted that Trump was akin to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his intolerance for criticism.... Baldwin wrote on Twitter: 'Trump whines. The parade moves on.'" See Baldwin's performance in yesterday's Commentariat. ...
One thing that makes America great is that people can laugh at you without retribution. -- Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), in a tweet
When Obama's Justice Department tried to pressure reporters to reveal sources or obtain their records, including our colleagues at the @nytimes, we fought it vigorously. We believed those actions were outrageous and chilling to First Amendment coverage. Those were disputes over the publication of classified information. In today's case, the president is seeking 'retribution' because an actor made fun of him, not because national security was jeopardized. -- Peter Baker of the New York Times, in two tweets
Chris Wallace Whacks Stephen Miller with Facts. So Unfaaaair! Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Fox News host Chris Wallace relentlessly pushed Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller on Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency on Sunday, and nailed him particularly hard by repeatedly asking for a single example of another president who has done what Trump has done. On this week's Fox News Sunday, Wallace was all over Miller, challenging him to provide some explanation for how Trump's national emergency is a national emergency, when Trump himself essentially admitted it wasn't a national emergency. And when Miller tried to fend off the questions with talking points, Wallace peppered him with followups." Includes video.
Peter Shane of Slate: "[H]overing over all the familiar legal forms and practices [declaring a 'national emergency'] is the depressing reality that Trump, as always, is endeavoring to hollow out the constitutional system of checks and balances.... As a result, we are left with the forms and practices of normal law to try to discipline an abnormal president. He has been and will continue to be enabled by lawyers wishing to push their interpretations of presidential authority to the maximum extent consistent with the dictionary, a practice the new attorney general championed for an earlier president and will no doubt champion again." --s ...
... The Vanity Nobel Peace Prize Story Keeps Getting Sillier. Simon Denyer & Akiko Kashiwagi of the Washington Post: "Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wouldn't say Monday whether he nominated President Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating with North Korea, even though local media reports suggest that he did. Trump said Friday that Abe had personally given him 'the most beautiful copy' of a five-page nomination letter recommending him for the prize for opening talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and lowering tensions.... But Japanese media reports on Sunday suggested that Trump was telling the truth.... The Asahi Shimbun cited an unnamed government source as saying the nomination came in response to an 'unofficial' U.S. request, made after last year's summit in Singapore." See also update to yesterday's post, "The Not-So-Secret Life of Donald Trump."
The Trump Scandals, Ctd.
Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Senator Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vowed on Sunday to investigate whether the top officials at the Justice Department and the F.B.I. plotted an 'attempted bureaucratic coup' to remove President Trump from office, and said he would subpoena the former F.B.I. director and the deputy attorney general if necessary. Mr. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, was reacting to an interview in which the former F.B.I. deputy director, Andrew G. McCabe, confirmed an earlier New York Times report that the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, had suggested wearing a wire in meetings with Mr. Trump and that Justice Department officials had discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office.... He promised to have a hearing to find out 'who's telling the truth.'" ...
I don't care. I believe Putin. -- Donald Trump, re: North Korea's ICBM capabilities, to intelligence officials
... ** Scott Pelley's full "60 Minutes" interview of Andrew McCabe is here, with transcript. ...
... Lauren Evans of Splinter: "McCabe ... expanded on the previously reported story that [Deputy AG Rod] Rosenstein volunteered to wear a wire into the White House because, as he put it, 'I never get searched when I go into the White House. I could easily wear a recording device. They wouldn't know it was there.'... McCabe maintains Rosenstein was completely serious: 'And in fact, he brought it up in the next meeting we had. I never actually considered taking him up on the offer. I did discuss it with my general counsel and my leadership team back at the FBI after he brought it up the first time,' he told Pelley." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Loony Lindsey should drop the histrionics. What McCabe reveals is no "attempted bureaucratic coup." It was a suggestion -- initiated by Rod Rosenstein, a Republican DAG who is so right-wing he began his career working for Ken Starr -- to impress upon the highest federal officials that the POTUS* facts they should assess in carrying out their Constitutional duty under the Twenty-fifth Amendment. ...
... Laura Jarrett of CNN: "McCabe said Trump had been speaking in a 'derogatory way' about the Russia investigation for weeks, which they viewed as an attempt to 'publicly undermine the investigation.' He said officials were concerned by the President's 'own words.' McCabe said officials looked at the following events: Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to 'include Russia' in a memo the President requested outlining reasons to fire Comey (which Rosenstein did not do). Trump fired Comey. Trump made public comments linking his firing of Comey to the Russia investigation on NBC. Trump met in the Oval Office with Russian officials where Trump reportedly said that firing Comey relieved 'great pressure.' When asked if Rosenstein was on aboard with opening the investigations into Trump, McCabe told Pelley, 'absolutely.' McCabe's description of concerns closely track that of former FBI general counsel James Baker, who told congressional investigators last year that FBI officials were contemplating, with regard to Russia, whether Trump was 'acting at the behest of and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will.'" ...
... Allison Quinn of the Daily Beast: "Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe says he was fired from the bureau because he dared to go against President Trump -- whom he portrayed as delusional and almost 'gleeful' about firing former FBI director James Comey in an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday night.... When he was called in for an interview with Trump about possibly remaining on as the permanent FBI director in the wake of Comey's ouster, McCabe said, Trump spent a lot of time talking about himself.... 'It was a bit of a bizarre experience. I went in for my interview with the president and he began by talking to me about his electoral college results in the state of North Carolina.' He also 'talked about the support that he enjoyed from within the FBI. He estimated that 80 percent of FBI employees must have voted for him, and he asked me if I thought that was true,' McCabe said. At the end of the interview, he said, he responded to a question Trump had earlier posed to him about who he'd voted for. 'I told him that I didn't vote for him, and then that was pretty much the end of the interview."
Catherine Herridge of Fox "News": "Former top FBI lawyer James Baker, in closed-door testimony to Congress, detailed alleged discussions among senior officials at the Justice Department about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office, claiming he was told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said two Trump Cabinet officials were 'ready to support' such an effort. The testimony was delivered last fall to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Fox News has confirmed portions of the transcript. It provides additional insight into discussions that have returned to the spotlight in Washington as fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe revisits the matter during interviews promoting his forthcoming book. Baker did not identify the two Cabinet officials. But in his testimony, the lawyer said McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page came to him to relay their conversations with Rosenstein, including discussions of the 25th Amendment."
Patrick Temple-West of Politico: "House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said Sunday that there is ample evidence Donald Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia. In an interview on CNN, Schiff rejected Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr's statements from earlier this month, in which Burr said evidence shows no collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia. 'You can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence,' Schiff said, adding, 'There is a difference between seeing evidence of collusion and being able to prove a criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt.' Schiff said special counsel Robert Mueller's report on potential Russian government meddling in the 2016 election might not be the final word on the matter. 'We may also need to see the evidence behind that report,' he said."
Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian: "A director of ... Cambridge Analytica ... has been subpoenaed by the US investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. A spokesman for Brittany Kaiser, former business development director for Cambridge Analytica -- which collapsed after the Observer revealed details of its misuse of Facebook data -- confirmed that she had been subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller, and was cooperating fully with his investigation. He added that she was assisting other US congressional and legal investigations into the company's activities and had voluntarily turned over documents and data."
Scott Thistle & Kevin Miller of the Portland Press Herald: "Former Gov. Paul LePage and his staff members paid for more than 40 rooms at Washington, D.C.'s Trump International Hotel during a two-year period, spending at least $22,000 in Maine taxpayer money at a business owned by the president's family. Documents ... show that the LePage administration paid anywhere from $362 to more than $1,100 a night for rooms at the luxury hotel during trips to meet with President Trump or his inner circle, attend White House events or talk to members of Congress. Receipts ... also show the Republican governor or his administration spending hundreds of dollars on filet mignon or other expensive menu items at the restaurant in the Trump hotel.... The records ... show that taxpayers funded about $170,000 in out-of-state travel by LePage and staff members during fiscal years 2017 and 2018 and part of 2019.... In comparison, LePage's predecessor, Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, spent just over $45,000 on out-of-state travel his last two years in office, 2009 and 2010.... His total lodging tab for the two years was $9,524." --s
Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Shortly after becoming President Trump's acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney conveyed a blunt message to several Cabinet secretaries. According to a senior White House official with direct knowledge and another source briefed on the private conversations, Mulvaney told the Cabinet officials that their 'highest priority' over the next year would be deregulation.... '>We knew there was one thing we could do without legislation,' the senior official told me. When Mulvaney sits down with the president to discuss the Cabinet secretaries' performance, the official said, 'Dereg is going to be top of the list.' Trump relishes using the power of the presidency to do whatever he can without Congress."
** Timothy Gardner of Reuters [Feb. 14th]: "The Tennessee Valley Authority voted on Thursday to close two aging coal-fired power plants, including one supplied by a company led by a major supporter of President Donald Trump, who had urged the U.S.-owned utility to keep it open.... [C]losing them would save customers $320 million. The board voted 5-2 to approve the closures. The members who voted to keep them open were both appointed by Trump.... Paradise 3, which entered service in 1970, was mostly supplied with coal last year by Murray Energy, chaired by Robert Murray, a donor to Trump's presidential campaign in 2016 and a frequent attendee at events held by the administration." --s
Christal Hayes of USA Today: "Protests across the nation are planned Monday in response [to] ... Donald Trump's national emergency declaration. The protests are being planned from New York and North Dakota to California and Texas all to counter the order Trump signed Friday, which freed up billions to construct a wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico."
Presidential Race 2020. Alexander Burns of the New York Times: President "Obama has told friends and likely presidential candidates in private that he does not see it as his role to settle the 2020 nomination, and prefers to let the primary unfold as a contest of ideas. Michelle Obama, the former first lady, also has no plans to endorse a candidate, a person familiar with her thinking said.... [President Obama] has counseled more than a dozen declared or likely candidates on what he believes it will take to beat President Trump, holding private talks with leading contenders like [Senator Kamala] Harris, [Senator Cory] Booker and Senator Elizabeth Warren; underdogs like Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind.; and prominent figures who remain undecided on the race, like Eric H. Holder, his former attorney general, and Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York."
It's somewhere to the left of Che Guevara, I guess. -- David Brooks, describing the Democratic party, on PBS's "News Hour," Friday
Thanks, PBS & NYT! -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "Businesses and government agencies in the United States have been targeted in aggressive attacks by Iranian and Chinese hackers who security experts believe have been energized by President Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal last year and his trade conflicts with China. Recent Iranian attacks on American banks, businesses and government agencies have been more extensive than previously reported.... The attacks, attributed to Iran by analysts at the National Security Agency and the private security firm FireEye, prompted an emergency order by the Department of Homeland Security during the government shutdown last month. The Iranian attacks coincide with a renewed Chinese offensive geared toward stealing trade and military secrets from American military contractors and technology companies, according to nine intelligence officials, private security researchers and lawyers familiar with the attacks...."
"Digital Gangsters". David Pegg of the Guardian: "Facebook deliberately broke privacy and competition law and should urgently be subject to statutory regulation, according to a devastating parliamentary report denouncing the company and its executives as 'digital gangsters'. The final report of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee's 18-month investigation into disinformation and fake news accused Facebook of purposefully obstructing its inquiry and failing to tackle attempts by Russia to manipulate elections." --s
Hadas Gold, et al., of CNN: "UK lawmakers have accused Facebook of violating data privacy and competition laws in a report on social media disinformation that also says CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed 'contempt' toward parliament by not appearing before them. The UK Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee said in a report published Monday that a trove of internal Facebook emails it reviewed demonstrated that the social media platform had 'intentionally and knowingly' violated both data privacy and competition laws.&"
CBS News: "Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman who pleaded guilty to sending sexually explicit material to a teen, has been released from federal prison ahead of the end of his 21-month sentence. Federal records show Weiner ... is now being housed at a Residential Re-entry Management facility in Brooklyn, New York, ahead of his final release date of May 14. The records do not state when Weiner was transferred from the Massachusetts prison. Weiner, 54, was sentenced to jail time after he pleaded guilty in 2017 to sending obscene material to a 15-year old girl.... After the 15-year-old came forward with emails between herself and Weiner, prosecutors began an investigation into his laptop, which led to the discovery of a batch of emails from [Hillary] Clinton to [Weiner's former wife Huma] Abedin. Former FBI Director James Comey reopened the investigation in Clinton's emails in the final weeks before the 2016 election."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Ankit Panda of The Daily Beast: "On Jan. 23, Russian military officials held a press conference showing off what they said was a cruise missile at the center of a years-long arms control controversy between Washington and Moscow. Except the presentation was essentially a hoax, according to a classified briefing prepared by U.S. intelligence. Neither the missile, nor its launch vehicle, nor the accompanying schematics were what Russia claimed them to be. The alleged Russian misdirection came just days before the United States announced that it would withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty[.]" --s
Mat Youkee of the Guardian: "Panamanian real estate was a favourite investment of the boliburgues, Venezuelans who grew rich on the back of their political connections to the late president Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro. But in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal it has become increasingly hard to launder money through the country, cutting off a potential exit route for those looking to cut loose from Maduro's embattled regime.... Senior Panamanian sources told The Guardian that since early 2017 the US's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) had been working with the Lima Group of 12 Latin American countries and Canada to identify illegal offshore assets belonging to members of the Maduro regime.... As authorities in the US, Panama and Spain home in on the Chavistas' errant billions, those close to the regime are running out of time to secure their foreign assets.... 'As Venezuela enters "end-game" we are likely to see an acceleration in the rate at which ill-gotten funds are expatriated,' says [Pedro] Armada [a Panama City based investigator and forensic accountant]. 'The noose is tightening on the boliburgues.'" --s
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Reader Comments (18)
Just wondering how many additional hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people checked out the SNL open who otherwise would never have seen it because Fatty whined so loudly about it. If just once he’d check his ego and shut his trap and at least pretend he’s a mature adult working at a job that does not allow him time to wallow in self pity, maybe more people would take him seriously.
But he can’t. And they won’t.
The craziest thing about the Baldwin SNL opener was that it wasn't as crazy as the original.
Haven't had Brooks consult for a couple of months. Looks like I can ignore him for another month or so without missing anything.
Tax the rich? Deal with climate change? Protect minorities and free speech? Treat the internet like the utility it is? All real radical, David. Scary stuff.
As for the Guevara reference, wonder how many even know who he was? Haven't seen a t-shirt with Che's face on it in years...
Suspect David is slipping into the territory I occupy, that never-never land of age that renders contemporary celebrities entire strangers. I look at the inside page of Sunday's "Parade" and have no idea who any of the she's or he's is.
A rueful chuckle follows.
But I do remember Che.
On oh-what-to-do with the captured ISIS fighters, looks like the Pretender's administration has again been thinking one step behind. No thought at all given to the consequences of its actions, just impulsivity followed by whining when inevitable problems arise.
Foreign policy, too, conducted by a two year old.
The explosive McCabe interview shot a doozy when we learned that Trump denied our intelligence information over Putin's. Fire crackers should be going off at record speed over this. Instead we seem to be more concerned with Rosenstein and a wire. My god, here we have a U.S.president who is getting and believing information from a foreign entity who happens to be our enemy while dismissing his own intelligence reports. I am repeating myself, I know, but I find this beyond the pale.
And wouldn't you know Trump had to get his licks in about McCabe's wife who was running for a democratic seat and lost–-calling her a loser. This word for Trump apparently has enormous emotional meaning–-his calling McCain a loser because he was captured should have been enough to oust him from running, but it didn't and nothing else did either. Fred must have instilled in Donny a fear and hatred for anything that smacked as losing.
So–-I am literally itching ( I itch everywhere of late–-back, front, head and toe) to finally have an end to this charade.
How long? not long?
Coming soon...
Fatty, having deep-sixed his own declaration of a national emergency by admitting that there is no emergency, will very shortly "clarify" his remark, either via a tweety-bird dropping or through the sewage spewing pie hole of Liarbee Sanders.
"What donnie meant...when he said 'I don't have to do this', was the Rose Garden press conference, not the national emergency. Yeah. That's what he meant. Wall? Oh he certainly never meant to suggest that he didn't need wall. He needs wall. WE need wall. Everyone needs wall. Today. You're all taking his glorious statements out of context and putting words in his mouth. Fake news!"
Also coming soon (I'm betting) former White House hall monitor, John Kelly's very own kiss and tell tome designed to set the record straight on who was the adult and who were the weaselly back-stabbing pricks. Can't wait for that one.
And six weeks after mendacious harridan Liarbee leaves her current post, look for her book "Everyone Lies But Me".
And just around the corner, a new round of Benghazi-like investigations into anyone at Justice who saw the dangers in letting a Moscow controlled traitor run the country and thought it might not be a bad idea to discuss how to save the nation, Lindsey Graham, prop.
Andrew McCabe's version of events is entirely believable. With the exception of certain details, there is not much we didn't already suspect and nothing that is way off base when compared to what we already know about Fatty's behavior after slithering into the White House with a red star tattooed on his fat ass. The FBI and Justice would have been egregiously negligent in their duty if the string of events that transpired, all pointing to extremely suspicious goings on had not been at least discussed.
It would be like this: guy rents a room in a four star hotel. Within the hour, scantily dressed women parade in and out of the room, followed by a line of men. Guests on either side of the room complain about strange noises and the parade of men and women. The situation is brought to the attention of hotel security. But they shrug their shoulders and do nothing.
This is, effectively, what Lindsey Graham and company are suggesting should have happened.
Investigating what seem obvious, and dangerous, problems does not constitute a takeover of the government. It's people doing their jobs. Something R's have very little notion of.
My hope here is that Graham has his "investigation" of the investigators and during those hearings, much more damaging stuff comes out, not only about Fatty, but about his entire dirty operation and his treasonous family.
Andrew McCabe's version of events is entirely believable. With the exception of certain details, there is nothing that is way off base when compared to what we already know about Fatty's behavior after slithering into the White House with a red star tattooed on his fat ass. The FBI and Justice would have been egregiously negligent in their duty if the string of events that transpired, all pointing to extremely suspicious goings on had not been at least discussed.
It would be like this: guy rents a room in a four star hotel. Within the hour, scantily dressed women parade in and out of the room, followed by a line of men. Guests on either side of the room complain about strange noises and the parade of men and women. The situation is brought to the attention of hotel security. But they shrug their shoulders and do nothing.
This is, effectively, what Lindsey Graham and company are suggesting should have happened.
Investigating what seem obvious, and dangerous, problems does not constitute a takeover of the government. It's people doing their jobs. Something R's have very little notion of.
My hope here is that Graham has his "investigation" of the investigators and during those hearings, much more damaging stuff comes out, not only about Fatty, but about his entire dirty operation and his treasonous family.
The allegations that Rosenstein was willing to "wear a wire" sound a little bit too clandestine, like something out of a 60's crime/spy thriller.
Chances are that he, McCabe, Comey, et. al. all had smartphones, probably even government-issue iPhones.
All they needed to do was say, "Hey Siri, start recording."
Done deal.
The morphing presidents clip was pretty cool but a bit eerie in spots. The first thing you noticed in the transition from Kennedy to Johnson was that JFK looked like he was growing bat ears. A couple didn't look much like the real guy, especially Hoover. At first I thought Silent Cal was turning into Eisenhower. And thankfully, we didn't have to see Obama morph into the Orange Blob.
Not a real president anyway.
Media coverage has been awful.......
They should be screaming from the rooftops: THERE IS NO EMERGENCY!!!!
Allowing the president to get away with declaring an emergency where none exists is to countenance the establishment of a dictatorship. May Graham and McConnell rot in hell for rolling over on this.
And please stop with threatening that, if Trump gets away with this, some future Democratic president will also abuse that power.
The separation of powers was codified in the constitution for a reason. I don't want any president wielding dictatorial powers, no matter benevolent.
An American president, when presented with intelligence contrary to his own set of beliefs decides to go with fake information fed him by the Russian dictator and says "I don't care. I believe Putin".
That must make Vlad's brass knuckles click a little more brightly, wouldn't you say?
And here's what Putin has discovered about Fatty. He is so desperate to be acknowledged as a member of the Big Boys' Club, that he'll readily flaunt his insider status with Vladimir Putin as a sign that he, not those lowly intelligence officers, is on personal speaking terms with a "great" world leader. Fatty has always admired oligarchs and despots, so dropping Putin's name must seem a great way to one up these smarty-pants spies. "What do they know? Vlad calls me personally. Hmmmph."
He really is such a child. And not a very smart one at that. Putin must be constantly shaking his head at his immense good fortune at having hooked and landed such a fat, stupid fish.
On the emergency that ain't (or the emergency that is in itself the real emergency):
An element of the media coverage I've seen and read (and not much liked because I wish it were not so) is the uncertainty about whether the declaration will prevail in Congress or the courts.
We know Congress' hands are tied. Even if they pass a resolution against it, which does seems possible, the Pretender will not sign it and vote counters say there will not be enough for an override.
So....to the courts, where I have read that interpretation of the loosely written emergency powers legislation also leaves the outcome uncertain. Maybe the Pretender's lunacy will be upheld..
In light of those scenarios, I can see why news stories on the subject are circumspect.
Editorial pages and television commentary, though, should be mounting an undying din, impossible to ignore, screaming at the outrage.
Ken,
As for Our Miss Brooks, I'm guessing that his Che reference is a throwback to his college days during which the cool kids had posters of Che and Dylan and Jim Morrison on their dorm room walls while he had pictures of John Birch and William F. Buckley hanging over his bed. He's never gotten over the whole hippie--sex and drugs and rock n roll thing. Plus, he probably never got laid in school. Cool kids have to pay.
Gotta admit, Bobby Lee's observation that the real Rose Garden presser made the SNL version look like 10 minutes with Winston Churchill is hard to argue with. At least there was an orderly progression of ideas and it has the benefit of the appearance of self-awareness, something the Real Donnie Trumpy lacks in the extreme. The real thing is a complete mess. A farce.
The last two big public appearances Fatty has made come across as failed mental acuity tests. In such tests, the patient is often given a list of objects such as an orange, a shoe, a wrench, and a car and a few minutes into the test, asked to recite that list. Fatty would fail miserably. During his Me Me Me, and My Wall show at El Paso, last week, he brought up the number of attendees to his extravaganza at least six times. Each time the total was different. And different by a lot. This isn't just lying. This is really fucking disturbing.
Then the Rose Garden thing. Holy cow. He rambles on and on from one topic to the next with no connecting thread, no ability to construct logical thought processes, all presented in wordy bits that have no right being called sentences.
And yet he's still treated (especially by Fox) as if he's some kind of genius. If I read another headline to a piece proposing to outline Trump's brilliance, I'll start considering dangerous reactions. The guy is a fucking moron. He's lost it. Just listen to a clip from an interview he gave 20 or 30 years ago. At least he can put words in some kind of order. Now? When Alec Baldwin does his Fatty impersonation by saying something like "I want wall!" he's making the guy sound a lot more with it than he really is.
And this has nothing to do with his politics. If he were a resurrected FDR, I'd still call for the 25th Amendment to be invoked. Because the guy.is.nuts.
And we have an entire political party pretending otherwise so the fans of the nut won't vote them out next time around.
Because they're nuts too.
You gotta feel at least a little bad for Abe in this old Nobel kerfuffle. First of all, Diaper Donny tells him not so subtlety to recommend Dear Leader Drumpf for the prize because that Kenyan Muslim got one so whitey boy Donny deserves one too, 'cause other Trumpus will continue to feel that burn of inadequacy deep in his veins.
Abe tells some insubordinate to write it up to get Drumpf off his back, then to his horror he gets word that the presidunce* is flabbing to the cameras again about how much Abe loves his and peace on earth or something. Abe knows the man is an unstable mental patient with vindictiveness written on his balding scalp so he can't bat away the rumors, but his own cultural roots of saving face and not telling lies won't allow him to point out to everyone that of course the fucking moron doesn't deserve any peace prize as hate is his replacement for a heart.
And now, for not standing up and shouting to the heavens that Drumpf sure does deserve this year's Nobel and best year's too because he's so great with his big brain, now he knows Drumpf has set Kushner on plans to knee-cap Japan somehow for its lack of loyalty to the Dotard.
Abe's in quite the pickle.
Safari,
Abe's situation reminds me of an old SNL sketch. Laraine Newman, playing a high school cheerleader, visits a school counselor with a confidential medical question. After it's determined that she has a venereal disease, he sends her back to class. Five minutes later, the school PA announces to the entire student body that "Anyone who has had sex with Susie Smith should go to a clinic. She has a venereal disease."
Trump style confidentiality.
little mikey recreates Mark Twain's classic, "Indifference Abroad".
Here is little mikey in Poland. Listen to little mikey telling our European allies that it's time to follow the Glorious Leader Trumpado and stick it to the Iranians! (he pauses for applause...dead silence. Poor mikey.)
Here is little mikey in Munich. Listen to little mikey telling the crowd that he brings greetings from the Glorious Leader, donnie trumpy! (he pauses for applause...dead silence. Poor mikey. Again.)
Get it, mikey?
My work schedule allows precious little time to do anything but, well, work. However, at least twice a day I manage to visit Reality Chex. Aside from the wonderful news aggregate that Mrs. McCrabbie and others pull together, the comments are often just pure gold. So, thank you all. And @safari, I'm guessing it was a typo when you wrote that "the presidunce* is flabbing to the cameras again," and you meant "blabbing," but what a wonderful description of the man and his mendacity. Totally using this.