Lynna is your curator. I don’t think this thread will run dry for a long time.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Lynna is your curator. I don’t think this thread will run dry for a long time.
You’re welcome.
I request a new picture-at-the-top.
I’m sick of that one.
Well, thank goodness Republicans are working hard to take away my health insurance, make me unable to get new insurance if I have a pre-existing condition (I do), and pay tons more if I can actually get insurance in the first place.
Oh, wait—I live in Japan. Full socialized insurance. I pay less for total coverage (yes, including dental) than Americans do. I can choose almost any doctor or clinic short of ones that specialize in cosmetic or other special treatments (and they sometimes are able to slip me in anyway, under my insurance plan). I get appointments immediately, usually don’t have to wait more than an hour at most even without an appointment, and the clinics I go to have the latest equipment, are clean and are well-staffed.
The major difference? Hospitals, insurance companies, and pharma in Japan do not make as massively huge profits as they do in the US. Boo hoo.
I can TOTALLY see why America would want to avoid socialized medicine. Except, no I can’t, it’s absurdly idiotic.
pontavedra@#3:
Yeah but we have the F-35. Which, by the way, just went up in price again.
Marcus #4
So this “F-35” thingy … does it work on STDs?
pontavedra
When the SO had his heart-attack, we paid for the ambulance.
The 5 days in CICU, 5 days in CCU, the defibrillator implant, the 4 months of rehab, the ablation, all the follow-up visits with medicos … nothing out of pocket.
We’re paying for the subsequent meds. That ain’t cheap.
pontavedra
What I mean to say is that, if we did not have socialised medical care, we would both be dead.
@3 pontavedra
I also live in Japan and everything pontavedra said is true. I recently had a battery of tests done to check my heart: blood test, urine test, chest X-ray, ECG, sonogram (echo test?), plus two visits to a heart specialist to set the tests up and then go over them (no problems with my heart, by the way). Cost? $120 and it would be the same for everyone (well, less if you’re in the lowest income bracket). The Japanese government controls medical expenses. Why can’t the US do that? “Freedom, liberty, capitalism, free market” you say? Bullshit, I say. Japan is a very materialistic society where companies love profits just as much as anyone else and where we have the freedom to go to any doctor at any time and get proper medical treatment at a reasonable cost. Do the people living in the US have that freedom? I really don’t understand how this cannot be the rallying cry for millions of Americans to overthrow the horrible financial arrangements of the health care system there.
I got sick in Australia once. So sick that my friend took me to the local clinic.
When we got there, the receptionist asked me for my health card… Ooops. “I’m so sorry, Elladan, but since you’re not a resident and don’t have a health card, we’re going to have to charge you the full maximum price for treatment.”
I girded my wallet and prepared myself for the bad news. After all, one time in the USA a doctor poked at my wrist for 30 seconds and billed me $400. This was going to hurt, but I had a good job. I’d budgeted for this sort of eventuality.
“That’ll be $20 please.” [about $10 USD]
It was at this point that I realized the ATM only spat out $50 bills so I was in dire need of small change. It was weird seeing the doctor, too, since he didn’t seem even a little bit harried and overworked.
We’re free to die horribly, while watching everything we have vanish into a cloud of smoke.
Fuck, I bet the Japanese can even do that….
Uh…. We’re free to travel to Tulsa without a passport. Probably. In theory, we usually do have that. I bet your healthcare doesn’t look so great now.
I guess a lot of us live in Japan. I do too, and last year I needed a root canal. I went online, found a dentist near my office who trained in America and spoke English. It took several trips, but he did all the work and crowned the thing. Total cost to me, about $25.
Heck my wife had some complications after our second kid, that meant tons of tests, MRIs and medication. And that was on top of a short stay in the baby ICU. I took some paternity leave off work to take care of the first kid, and everyone was back home after about two weeks. Total cost: $0 because there is no cost for kids under 12 and pregnancy stuff is part of that.
It works.
@chigau:
Yes, it works superbly. It utterly annihilates STDs, Just as long as you don’t mind losing everything else within a twenty-metre radius.
German here. I pay 100% of my (social) health insurance because my employer is a jerk (it’s the government*) and I don’t come anywhere close to US premiums.
Co pays: 5-10€ for prescription medication. Hospital stays 10€/night for I think max 20 nights a year. Basic dental work. Contraception excluded (though it’s still much cheaper than in the USA). Before I was covered under my husband’s insurance, free of extra charge, as are the kids.
*We got a two tier system with social healthcare and private healthcare where the private is kind of similar to the USA. If you’re working above 450€/month your social health insurance is a certain percentage of your income that is shared by employer and employee. State servants only have to insure 50% of their healthcare cost as the government picks up the rest of the tab, but only when you are insured via private healthcare, which offers special plans. But they would also be allowed to charge me extra for being old and fat and having a preexisting condition, so I remained in the social health insurance. But then the government says “well, your plan covers everything, you don’t need our help”.
“Flynn was warned by Trump transition officials about contacts with Russian ambassador”:
Speaking of political madness, I’d recommend Eliot Cohen’s article in The Atlantic following Tillerson’s May 3rd speech to State Department employees. I was at a meeting of EU leaders in global epidemic surveillance yesterday, and this speech had people baffled and disgusted in equal measure.
It is hard to overstate how far Europe’s opinion of the US has fallen in the past 12 months. Whereas communications with the US government were absolutely central to much of the work of several of these groups dealing with global health and humanitarian issues, now it is seen as a waste of time, since requests go unanswered or we get copies of previous Trump statements in response, some of which have absolutely no bearing on the situation at hand. Madness, indeed.
The AP has a story related to the WaPo piece but focusing on security concerns in the Obama camp during the transition:
In personnel news:
Islamophobic, homophobic, transphobic creationist Mark Green has withdrawn himself from consideration as Secretary of the Army.
It’s being reported that Trump and Bannon are blocking the removal of Nazi sympathizer and fake terrorism expert Sebastian Gorka.
The Pentagon suspended the security clearance of another WH official aligned with Flynn (the bias in the original Washington Free Beacon story is so amusingly obvious that I’m linking to it without further comment).
There’s no way they can prevent Trump entirely from making unscripted remarks or tweets, and when he does, it’s self-destructive. His comments during and following the Intrepid appearance about the Australian healthcare system and his relationship with Rupert Murdoch are perfect examples.
Tweets o’ the week.
As we’re sharing, my stories are from New Zealand…
I broke my leg about twenty years ago playing football. An ambulance took my to hospital, my leg was x-rayed (clean break completely through tibia, fractured and distorted fibula). Leg cast, taken home by family. No charge – I did have to lie on a gurney sucking nox for a couple of hours because of a multiple car pile up that happened at the same time and put me down the priority order.
My tibia did not heal and I had a titanium pin put in it in an overnight stay, again no charge. Nor any charge for physiotherapy afterwards to help me rebuild strength.
Last year a motor-cyclist killed himself driving head into my mothers car on the open road (he may have already been dead through stroke or heart attack which may be why he fell off his bike on the way to my mothers car) as she was driving to her city of birth to say farewell to her lifetime best friend with terminal cancer. Ambulance, two day stay in hospital (yay for modern cars safety systems – pre-tensioning seat-belt and airbag) – sleight fractures in a couple of ribs but not severe enough to treat. No charge.
Later that yea though my mother fractured three vertebrae (digging potatoes), experienced intense pain, after trying to cope for a few weeks not knowing what happened she was taken to hospital, spent four weeks being cared for and had myeloma diagnosed from blood tests. She has been treated for six months with chemotherapy, infusions to strengthen her bones and prodigious pain killers (morphine et al) and has just finished the – successful – chemotherapy. This was not entirely free – for a variety of reasons we’ve spent about, oh, $50 on medications (over six months) and because she had over that period three non-emergency ambulance rides (which in New Zealand are provided by the private St Johns ambulance charity) she was asked for about $300 in donations – which we happily paid.
No charge for chemo drugs, bone infusions or the hospital visits, tracking and blood tests. Nor for most of her medications EXCEPT when little problems crop up and we have to get a prescription filled in the wrong place unexpectedly – then there’s about $10 in expenses.
My girlfriend has developed early onset Parkinson’s and has, for the last year, seen specialists and been provided with a variety of drug treatments and is now on a infuser providing a dopamine agonist throughout the day. She is attended briefly at home each day by nurses to make sure the infuser is fitted properly and to adjust her medication. No charge.
When you visit your private doctor rather than public hospital or emergency room if you have no help* it costs about $60 a visit in NZ (they may or may not, according to their own practices charge you for an x-ray they may take – if so, about $20) – unless you’re a child then it’s about $20, and if you are prescribed drugs (let’s say a round of antibiotics) you’ll have to pay for that – let’s say a weeks course for bacterial pneumonia for about $15 ~ 25?
*If you have a community card (you’re on unemployment or invalid benefits) those costs will be reduced – about halved and possibly free.
Private health insurance is easily available, and if you were to buy it (to avoid waiting lists, have more choice, get private rooms when in care) you’d pay $150 ~ $300 a month for it (interestingly it’s becoming something more often offered by employers as part of peoples compensation). I believe it’s affordable because it has to be to compete with public services and because they share infrastructure.
We are taxed more than the U.S (I’m guessing between %4 ~ %6 more across median incomes) and our medical professionals earn substantially less – by and large NZ is a low wage economy.
We don’t have a military worth a damn, spending about %0.9 GDP on it (couple of frigates, a few maritime patrol planes, a dozen odd transports, a dozen odd patrol boats, couple of battalions of troops, some APC’s, no heavy armour or artillery, a company or two of special forces and some helicopters is about it) which saves us a lot of money (personally I think we need a bit more).
It’s quite funny watching immigrants from, say Europe, who think we’re paradise who come here on the strength of this sort of thing who then find out our houses cost too much, our jobs pay not much, we don’t get the big shows, we don’t have the entertainment, museums and gallery’s of other places and many other things they didn’t realise were important to them – and it costs a fortune to go anywhere (except Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, The Cooks islands and other small pacific states).
Reuters and others are linking the MacronLeaks hashtag to people in the US:
Since Russian military intelligence is suspected in the hacking/leaking, Posobiec’s bragging about his involvement could potentially be incriminating. This group has been involved with some of the worst actions on behalf of Trump and the far Right over the past several months.
Hours before the hacked Macron/faked documents appeared, articles were noting the failure of foreign attempts to influence the French election using the same techniques as in the US and UK – the memes didn’t translate and fake news didn’t catch. This part was especially funny:
Surviving sexual assault is among the “pre-existing conditions” for which insurers can potentially charge more under the AHCA. Here’s a consequence of that unspeakably deplorable policy.
Stanford is testing a new online platform for reporting sexual assault called Callisto. (Another promising aspect not mentioned in the article is that it would appear to be suited to catching the serial predators who commit the majority of assaults.)
Republicans quietly replaced their FAQ page on the AHCA, dropping the false claim about protection for people with pre-existing conditions.
Josh Marshall – “The Trumpcare Butcher Block Celebration in Photos, Annotated”
Great piece by Zeynep Tufekci with advice to the French media on how to deal with the Macron material: “Dear France: You Just Got Hacked. Don’t Make The Same Mistakes We Did.: A brief guide to the information wars.”
(Here’s the Tufekci piece in French.)
How to contribute to ousting Republicans who voted for the abomination that is the AHCA.
AFP reporting: “French authorities took a hard line Saturday on what presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron called a ‘massive’ hacking attack on his campaign, warning on the eve of the vote that anyone spreading the information could be committing a crime. …’The dissemination of such data, which have been fraudulently obtained and in all likelihood may have been mingled with false information, is liable to be classified as a criminal offence’, France’s electoral commission said in a statement.”
“Scope of Federal Probe into Fox News Broadens”:
After the article was published, Gabe Sherman tweeted “Bo Dietl told me several times he ‘never’ did PI work for Ailes, but admits it in WSJ interview,” to which Dietl incomprehensibly responded “Where did I ‘admit it’ dickhead, you are a horrible journalist. If someone was following you maybe it is bc u make up things about people.”
Oh come on. The US putting their own interests above human rights and freedom in other countries is exactly what you’ve been doing for centuries. Please, as much as I despise this administration, don’t act as if you haven’t helped and installed dictators, toppled democratically elected governments and led bloody wars for economic interests ever before.
Update to #22 – WaPo is pushing back on that claim, giving it 4 Pinocchios. I think they’re starting from a reading of the claim that’s already a simplistic straw man, and that their argument is full of holes and strangely disconnected from how these things play out in the world.
There’s now an FCC investigation into Stephen Colbert’s joke, because freeze peach.
(Apropos of nothing, I’d like to propose a temporary moratorium on penis/testicle jokes from TV comedian-commentators. They’re tired and often off-putting to me as a woman. The Daily Show alumni seem especially infected with a fondness for this genre of humor; it made Jon Stewart virtually unwatchable for me for a time. I would suggest that when the writers start to turn toward one of these jokes, they pause and think about whether or not it’s a juvenile crutch and a funnier line could be written.)
It’s basically “The AHCA doesn’t make sexual assault a preexisting condition, it merely allows states to do so.”
Even the WaPo has to admit that they struck down protections specifically designed to protect survivors, so why would you do that if not because you want to discriminate against them?
This is grotesque.
I agree, and have been saying this for weeks now (as has Rachel Maddow, who seems equally exasperated). Why do outlets persist in parroting this completely implausible WH claim?
Update to #32 – I was wondering whether this was the case. Apparently the report was overblown. The FCC automatically reviews all complaints.
@Giliell, #30
What? When, exactly, did I ever do anything even remotely related to helping and installing a dictator? I mean, my PM is a prat, but hardly a dictator. Dumbass can’t control his own ministers, never mind controlling the rest of us. I didn’t even vote for him.
You’ve baffled me.
re 32:
Your advice to writers is appropriate for your reactions as well. Exactly why is it so offensive to hear about one man pleasuring another? Think about it. I’ll listen.
I sincerely hope the FCC does a thorough investigation, due to the complaints received, to show they are responsive to the audience. WITH THE PROVISION: that they conclude that the complaints were spurious and unfounded. That Colbert said nothing offensive given the hour of the broadcast and the context of the monologue. “Take that complainers. Freeze peach applies to the late-night-comedians as well as you amateurs”, the FCC conclusion will say. [in my hopes anyway]
sigh
?
What are you talking about? You seem confused. I’m just tired of the glut of dick jokes in political comedy. I think John Oliver does a very good job, for example, but falls back on too many lazy dick jokes (most have nothing to do with sex, but that’s not relevant to my point). I’m not offended – they’re just rarely that funny and I’m tired of male comedians talking about penises so much. Also, phallocentric political comedy-commentary isn’t especially useful in this moment, in my view.
@slithey tove, #39
From another perspective, i’m confused about why that particular comment from Colbert is worthy of investigation, but comments in a similar vein that are far more explicitly sexual and political on shows like South Park, Family Guy, American Dad and others, are not. Maybe they too are investigated when the FCC is swamped with complaints about them, but I’m assuming any such investigations found no case for action, since those shows continue with that brand of humour every week.
SC @22, regarding your first link, I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, it is a truly horrible and completely predictable result of classifying victims of sexual assault as having a pre-existing condition that fewer people will report sexual assaults.
We already have a big problem, in that women especially may be reluctant to report that they were raped. Now the Republicans are trying to make it possible for states to adjust their rules for insurance companies so that pre-existing conditions do not have to be covered. A woman may be, for example, kicked off Medicaid for having a pre-existing condition (or never allowed to qualify for Medicaid) if she reports a rape.
Sometimes I don’t think the Republicans have thought this health care thing through at all. Other times I think they are just a bunch of mostly guys with no empathy and with a narrow focus on politics within their in-group.
SC @28, it sounds like authorities in France may actually prosecute people for disseminating the hacked and/or false documents.
In the USA, we have yet to see anyone pay for such acts.
@Lyanna, #42
At a town hall in Idaho yesterday, a GOP congressman claimed that ‘nobody dies because they don’t have access to healthcare’. So, I’m thinking the same as you.
Giliell @33:
Well-stated.
Republicans are making the same argument in defense of most of the preexisting-condition questions that are put to them.
Now that we’ve already heard one governor, Scott Walker, say that, yes, he would be interested in requesting a waiver from the list of of essential health care provisions that insurance companies were required to cover under Obamacare … well, we can see that a lot of red state governors would move to make insurance coverage less expensive for business owners by throwing guarantees for coverage out the window. Insurance companies will also love that because there will be no quality control and they can go back to making more money by covering fewer sick people.
mudpuddles
Apologies.
I thought you were US American and was using the general “you” as in “you the United States”.
I hope that clears it up.
In a March press briefing, Sean Spicer worked really hard to push a Trump propaganda point, namely that vicious, rapist immigrants are threatening the good citizens of the USA.
Link
Twelve white Republican men,( and one Republican man of Cuban descent), are writing the Senate version of Trumpcare. No women allowed?
Here are the guys in charge of the Senate version:
Alexander
Lee
Cotton
Gardner
Portman
Cruz
Toomey
Enzi
Hatch
McConnell
Cornyn
Thune
Barrasso
There are five Republican women in the Senate, but as far as I know two of those five oppose the Republican plan to defund Planned Parenthood as part of the health care bill. I guess that leaves only three women that all the reactionary Republican males would consider including in their discussions.
So, how do we think that Obamacare requirements to cover maternity care will fare under the all-male club?
More Kushner family corruption and conflicts of interest have made the news, this time courtesy of Jared’s sister, Nicole Kushner. Nicole seems to be promising U.S. visas to Chinese business partners in exchange for investments of $500,000 or more in a Kushner family real estate project in New Jersey:
Link
We may be discussing the negative effects of Trump’s American Health Care Act, but a lot of major newspapers failed to fully report on the negative impacts on mental health care, substance abuse, women’s health care, etc.
Major newspapers did cover some of the negative effects, but that coverage was scant:
The newspaper survey included USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.
The Department of Justice is investigating Fox. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch speaks to Trump almost daily, and he is advising Trump.
Link
Trump seems to be preparing to make another dumb mistake, one which will negatively affect funding for historically black colleges.
Link
Rachel Maddow and others covered the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency (under the dubious leadership of Scott Pruitt) deleted climate change information from the EPA’s website. Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel responded:
Link
Some interesting details related to the hacking of Macron’s campaign by the Russians:
Link
Macron and his team may have removed a lot of the bite from that Russian “Fancy Bear.”
re @51:
<blockquote
ahhh, that explains the daily tweets from 45 advertising upcoming shows on Fox Network.
Murdoch is doing the tweeting as ghostweeter for DJT. hmmm
LMAO sincerely. Not just the silly acronym (4LA)
re 55:
correction: Fox Netwerk
Excerpts from yet another review of Ivanka Trump’s terrible book. (Emphasis mine.):
Katy Waldman is a Slate staff writer.
I wouldn’t be so sure – at this point I’m almost ready to believe that making it even more difficult for women to report sexual assault was exactly what the Republicans intended. I’d say that there’s no depth of depravity to which they could sink that would surprise me any more, but its probably not wise to tempt fate.
Jia Tolentino also reviewed Ivanka Trump’s book. I laughed out loud at several points.
Lisa Bloom made some very interesting points about Trump and the book this morning on AM Joy. She talked about how the whole “Women Who Work” idea was a focused-grouped creation to help her appeal more to women. It was all part of a researched branding exercise from the start. It occurred to me that Ivanka Trump is one of the most thoroughly branded people around. It’s ironic that her brand is about personal growth and enrichment – this is her go-to in her slowly expressed, carefully calculated answers to difficult questions like she faced in Germany. I don’t think she, raised as a grifter and self-brander, has an authentic self. She’s all brand, the full personality package.
Another irony is that the woman constantly attacked for being heavily focus-grouped and tightly controlled is Hillary Clinton, Now that she’s not campaigning and able to relax more, people noted that she seemed much more authentic and natural in her appearance with Christiane Amanpour. In the next breath, many of them attacked what she said and told her to shut up and leave the public sphere because she’s so unpopular and divisive. Alas.
I have “French election” and “Yates testimony” in my datebook, which seems odd.
State of affairs.
Thank you.
As Giliell said @ #33.
(And of course even if state laws bar denial of coverage or raising rates on victims of sexual abuse – however they choose to define that in practice – that would require people to report the assault and prove to the state’s satisfaction that their health problems result from it. How do the people writing these articles think that plays out?)
Perfect contrast.
“Faites ce que vous voulez mais votez Macron.” (Love the comment.)
(“Stopper” is a new verb to me.)
I’m writing a post but it’s not finished, so…
Dear French people,
It’s class war in the US. The “populist” regime works for the very rich and the corporations. The only “populism” on the far Right is a white nationalist, patriarchal, Christian supremacy that divides the global poor and workers.
Smash fascism, resist the Russian kleptocratic capitalists, and keep fighting. We’re counting on you.
OK, Preet Bharara is funny.
(I don’t know the context here, so this may be completely off!)
Interesting. Perhaps it’s a British English-ism?
Whilst I presume the “stopper” meaning of “cork” or similar — that is, a bottle-stopper — is common, the alternative meaning of “halting” does seem, in my experience, at least in the form “show stopper” (or “non-starter”), to give USAians problems. I must admit to not understanding why, as both terms seem self-explanatory to me.
On today’s French presidential election, a number of English-language sites have pointed out the non-French nazi websites,and the bilge spewing from them, have committed several serious errors. Two examples: The use of a frog icon† (problem: “frog” is considered a derogatory term for the French by many French‡); and Using English-language captions / titles or hashtags (which does not appeal to the more isolationist-minded French). Upshot is attempts at false news memes, the recent Macron hack (quite possibly spiked with faked documents), etc., don’t appear to have had much impact.
Also, in the case of the Macron hack, the timing was totally off, as the legally-mandatory blackout period began shortly afterwards. Upshot it is it literally illegal for sites — including me making comments here at FtB — to do much more than refer to the hack in general terms.
† The artist who created the cartoon frog in question has made it very clear the use as a nazi symbol was never the intent and totally against the artist’s own opinions. Hence, I refuse to name the icon / cartoon, in support of it’s creator’s objection to the hijacking by nazis.
‡ Some French friends of mine will joking refer to themselves as “Frogs”, and obviously tongue-in-cheek references exist, such as the The Frog & Rosbif pubs.
It was a reference to the cover of L’Humanité shown in the tweet I linked to @ #65, which says “Stoppons-la” (Le Pen).
Huh?!
I just didn’t remember seeing that French verb before. I initially assumed it was borrowed from English, but then I thought of estoppel, and when I looked it up this is what Wikipedia had to say:
So we got it from French in the first place, and it does seem to be a verb that’s used.
So I guess it was just new to me. :)
Interesting tidbit, if true:
There’s still around three hours to go in the voting here in mainland France, but the turnout is — as predicted — quite low, a trend which is generally thought to favor teh le penazi. This is mostly thought to be a mixture of the “neither–nor” (ni-ni) blockheads who cannot see a difference between Le Pen and Macron, and This being a holiday weekend (tormorrow, Monday 8 May, is VE Day (le jour de la libération)). At least locally, the weather is not an issue (it’s sunny and pleasant, if a bit breezy).
This is potentially significant reporting from Carole Cadwalladr: “The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked.”
Her articles are supremely frustrating. If I were grading them on organization, I would give them a D. They lurch from one source or document to another, there’s no underlying structure, and they don’t build to a central conclusion. The relationships she’s presenting are complicated, and the way the articles are written make them seem even more so. Because of the presentation, it’s hard to evaluate the strength of the evidence for any particular connection. She needs better editors.
*makes* them seem
Of course – because every political event for the foreseeable future has to be as fucking stressful as possible. And there can’t possibly be a resounding defeat of fascists.
SC @59,
A lot of people seem to be mad at Hillary Clinton for simply continuing to exist. It’s weird. It’s also an insult to all the people that voted for her.
In other news, I really like Representative Sean Patrick Maloney’s idea. He’s a Democrat from New York who has offered to hold town halls for the constituents of his Republican peers who refuse to hold town halls.
Some of Maloney’s Republican peers are not even answering their phones. Maloney sent this message to John Faso:
This image is just so French, “Luneray: An employee of a local bistro serves coffee and croissants to electoral officials at a polling station in the Normandy town”.
Dr. Atul Gawande answered questions about Trumpcare on ABC” “This Week.”
“Congress, law enforcement officials concerned Russia is trying to discredit FBI probe”:
Jared Kushner’s family criticised for touting cash-for-visas scheme in China (Grauniad edits in {curly braces}):
There are additional events elsewhere in China scheduled over the next several days, albeit it is unclear if any Kushner will be attending.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” today. He commented on Trumpcare:
Teh le penazis are taking a snit out of teh trum-prat’s coloring-book, and denying access to some media for their election-night (that is, tonight’s) event. As a result, both (at the time of this writing) Le Monde and Libération are boycotting the event. (From the Grauniad’s live blog, French election 2017…, 17:19(quoted below) and 18:12 marks.)
Most voting stations are now closed, except those in populous areas (e.g., Paris…), which close in about 30m (at 20h00 (8pm) local time). No results or predictions can be reported until then, by law.
South Korea’s presidential election is on Tuesday.
Apparently C4 in the UK will be broadcasting an investigation into “Dr” Andrew Wakefield — the anti-vaccine quack — and his influence on / connections with teh trum-prat and dalekocracy, Trump, The Doctor [sic] & the Vaccine Scandal: Channel 4 Dispatches:
I have no idea if this will be viewable outside the UK, but except there will some reports on the broadcast report.
Orac has long reported that teh trum-prat himself is an anti-vax eejit, and hair furor is known to have met with Wakefield. Orac’s most recent post is about Wakefield’s attempts to murder the children of Somali immigrants in Minnesota, a pogom which has had some success, Thanks for the measles yet again, Andy: Antivax vultures swoop in to spread misinformation among the Minnesota Somali immigrant community.
France 24 saying Macron with 65%.
French voting stations are now closed, and the initial projections are a Macron win (Grauniad live blog, 19:01 mark):
Interestingly, the French don’t use exit polls but the initial counts to do projections (18:27 mark):
The local results for where I live are not yet available.
So glad to see that Macron won decisively. Le Pen was rejected. This is good news for those who want to keep NATO intact. Also good news for the European Union, while being bad news for Putin.
Lawyers are on the job.
LOL.
Next up, next month (11 and 18 June), are the elections for the French Parliament. President-elect Macron does not have any political party per se, meaning no clear base in the (current) Parliament, so there’s going to be another round of, as SC@76 put it, “every political event for the foreseeable future has to be as fucking stressful as possible.”
An analysis in the Grauniad some days ago, Macron is en route to the Elysée, but could find it hard to govern: “The centrist candidate’s lead appears unassailable, yet without the support of an established party it may not be enough to ensure that he can govern”.
Only loosely related, France 24 reports on an incident some days ago I wasn’t previously aware of, Eiffel Tower stunt leaves security red-faced on eve of French election: “Security was stepped up at the Eiffel Tower on Friday ahead of Sunday’s presidential election in France after Greenpeace activists scaled the Paris landmark and hung out a big political [sic] banner [carrying the French national motto, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity)].” Good for Greenpeace (disclaimer: I’ve been an active supporter of Greenpeace starting about Ronaddled Raygun’s regime)!
OMG the Eiffel Tower is gorgeous right now.
Talk about strange bedfellows. This morning CBC Radio One’s Sunday Edition presented a report by David Gutnick on how a shortage of curry chefs in the UK led some in the industry to support Brexit, despite the fact they’re mainly immigrants themselves.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/may-7-2017-the-sunday-edition-with-michael-enright-1.4097864/how-a-shortage-of-british-curry-chefs-helped-win-the-brexit-vote-1.4097868
Hunter, writing for Daily Kos had a few choice words for Tom Price and Paul Ryan, the members of team Trump who hit the morning shows today to lie to their fellow citizens.
Follow-up to comment 94.
Senator Susan Collins, who is a Republican, said a few things that are true about Trumpcare. In doing so, she basically refuted what Paul Ryan and Tom Price said on the Sunday morning talk shows.
Link
Hillary Clinton is feisty this week.
Lynna#94, I saw Price on Meet the Press which was repeated at 1 ct on MSNBC (taped AM Joy [happy first anniversary of being one the air Joy Reid] while the MTP was on NBC, and I was shopping). Wanted to hurl things at the poor computer screen. Did a bit of yelling at the lies and bullshit Price offered. Andrea Mitchell seemed totally unimpressed and semi-amused until the French Elections broke in.
Anyway, tonight ex-President Obama is receiving the Profile in Courage Award from the Kennedy Foundation. Televised on MSNBC with Chris Matthews as MC at 8-10 ET.
Hm. With Macron’s big win, Obama’s award, and Clinton’s resistance snark, I wonder if there will be tweets…
Re #74 – here’s Cadwalladr’s summary of a major point of her article.
Heh. I got it right. Locally, where I live in France, teh le penazi got c.45%. Despite this being le penazi territory (unfortunately), there are, as far as I know, no locally-elected le penazis in any of the town councils or as MPs.† Hopefully, in the upcoming (June) Parliamentary elections, that lack of fascists will continue.
† As far as I can recall, the nearest elected le penazi is c.100km away. This doesn’t the more local elected people don’t do stoooopid facist-like things; e.g., where I live was one of the places which banned the burkini last summer.
me@100, This doesn’t the more local → This doesn’t mean the more local…
Sorry, I’m having a nice French vin and cheese. It must be the cheese. Dangerous stuff, cheese, it makeese extra offerings to Typos.
As expected, they’re going to try to smear Sally Yates. Most if not all of the Republican committee members will go along with this during the hearing tomorrow, because they care nothing for the country or the people and have no shame.
Well, good to see that France apparently learned something from Brexit and Dump.
Trump and Pence are hanging out with rightwing religious fanatics that are on the fringes of evangelical christianity of various flavors. For example, Trump recently met with Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-robert-jeffress_us_590c8c44e4b0104c734e6286
Jeffress equates homosexuality with pedophilia. Trump didn’t meet with him casually, he met with him in the Oval Office.
As Steve Benen pointed out:
Video excerpts from President Obama’s speech accepting the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award can be viewed on Talking Points Memo.
A few text excerpts from the transcript are posted on the same page:
NBC is reporting that on November 10, in a meeting with Trump, President Obama personally warned Trump about hiring Mike Flynn.
Meanwhile, Trump is repeating on Twitter that the Obama administration had given Flynn a security clearance. Yes, that’s true. And then Obama fired Flynn, and then Obama warned you personally about Flynn. Get yourself up to date on the relevant facts, team Trump. WTF?
From Josh Marshall regarding people lecturing Hillary Clinton about “taking responsibility” for her defeat:
Obama Warned Trump Against Hiring Mike Flynn, Say Officials
Various organizations are creating advertisements to fight back against Republican health care legislation. One example (YouTube link) of the ads produced by Save My Care, a health care advocacy group.
In other news, Scott Pruitt continues to hobble the Environmental Protection Agency. From the New York Times:
Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department is using discredited, racist court decisions to argue in favor of Trump’s Muslim ban:
https://thinkprogress.org/racist-discredited-argument-trumps-doj-e1bfdbe03c09
A different look at the widespread and deplorable results of having Trump as president, this time from the angle of Federal Communications Committee rulings:
Media Matters link
There’s some speculation that Sinclair might hire Bill O’Reilly.
Wonkette covered the fact that Trump lied when he said he thought President Obama was joking about Mike Flynn:
Anti-protest bills would ‘attack right to speak out’ under Donald Trump:
Nothing particularly new or unexpected here, but I like the snark excerpted below, Donald Trump’s ignorance is becoming more evident with each passing day:
The author is David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize winner who was sent hair furor’s 2005 tax return summary.
The thugs are now not only refusing to meet, or running away from, their constituents, they are resorting to signing idiotic bills in unannounced and all-but-secret manner, Texas governor signs ‘sanctuary cities’ ban in ceremony held without notice:
True: “If the President was not insulated by utterly craven majorities in Congress, Yates would be testifying at impeachment hearings today.”
Tweet o’ the day.
Yates was the witness everyone who knows her was confident she would be.
(I just noticed because I was typing while there was a segment from the hearing on TV that her voice is quite similar to Elizabeth Warren’s but with a Southern accent.)
Trump is blowing his top on Twitter.
Yates was the witness everyone who knows her was confident she would be.
That kind of makes it sound like I know her or know people who know her. I just meant the people I read or saw on TV prior to her testimony.
More bad news concerning Flynn:
The problem of Flynn’s “underlying conduct”:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/sally-yates-michael-flynn-underlying-conduct-problematic
James Clapper telling it like it is:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/clapper-says-helps-russia-trump-say-russia-not-behind-hacking
Ted Cruz was so annoying and obnoxious that it was a pleasure to see Sally Yates school him:
Trump seems to be delegating all of the Commander in Chief duties to the Pentagon. From the Washington Post:
FBI Director James Comey said a bunch of stuff about Human Abedin, and about the emails she forwarded to her husband … that stuff was not true. The FBI knows that Comey lied, but hasn’t decided what to do yet.
I think Comey dramatized (lied) about Abedin’s actions because he is still trying to justify his pre-election announcement about continuing the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.
This just looks worse and worse for Comey. From Peter Elkind, writing for ProPublica:
From Josh Marshall:
As noted by the Washington Post, “None of the forwarded emails were marked classified, but a small number — a handful, one person said — contained information that was later judged to contain classified information, […]”
From Steve Benen:
Flynn never received a security clearance from the CIA, which is required to vet National Security appointees.
https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/861643841182597120/photo/1
From Ted Lieu:
The Trump tweet in question:
Ted Lieu’s legal background includes being a military prosector. He was also editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Law Journal.
Zack Ford at Think Progress also covered the fact that FBI Director James Comey misled us all … again … about Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Mormons have been condescending to Native Americans ever since they arrived in Utah. Senator Orrin Hatch is perpetuating that approach:
Think Progress link
The ACLU issued a travel warning for Texas.
Link
Oh, FFS. Sean Spicer said during the press briefing today that the White House didn’t act on the warning from Sally Yates because she is a “political opponent.”
Link
This is just awful. Trump’s ridiculous tweet about Sally Yates, (see comment 127), has resulted in dozens of rightwing media outlets following his lead to smear Yates.
Link
So, they are branding Sally Yates as a leaker of classified information. There’s absolutely no foundation for those lies.
Media Matters link.
Jimmy Kimmel responded to rightwing media’s criticism of his advocacy for good health care. The video is 12:09 minutes long.
Good episode.
Follow-up to comment 133.
Alex Jones mocked Jimmy Kimmel, and he floated a lot of lies while doing so.
Link
When I posted about Comey’s testimony last week I noted:
Just to note once again – Comey is claiming they found 12 emails which allegedly “contained classified information” out of the 40,000 they examined. The 12 were duplicates of ones they’d already seen, and in response to questioning he seemed to admit that this classified information wasn’t anything to speak of. After his summer testimony, I’m skeptical of his claims about classified material in the first place.
I’m not at all surprised to learn that his presentation during the hearing was less than accurate. In his inappropriate press conference last summer, in his public testimony before Congress that followed, and now in this latest hearing, he’s been remarkably sloppy in how he’s characterized what Clinton did and specifically the matter of classified information. Even if he’s not intentionally blowing it out of all proportion, he’s seemed happy to leave people with false impressions by referring to emails containing classified material without specifying what sort of material, whether they were properly marked, or whether they were even classified at the time they were sent or received. During the testimony last year, a Democrat on the Committee had to point out that he hadn’t noted that the markings he was describing were not proper markings. IIRC, he had to be publicly corrected by the State Department at the time, and that didn’t receive nearly as much attention as his original claims.
The media has played a role here as well. In addition to many other problems with their coverage of this, they haven’t sought to clarify these classification and handling issues with all of the interested parties or to present the issues in a way the public can understand.
Sending a letter to Congress correcting Comey’s testimony is necessary but not enough. They need to issue a clear public statement detailing the inaccuracies in his testimony and an apology to Abedin. And Comey needs to engage in some serious introspection about why in this particular case he’s so enthusiastically reckless with the truth, and always in a way that puts Clinton and her associates in a worse light.
Why is no one talking or asking about Mary McCord? Yates presumably was referring to her when she talked about the person who went with her to meet with McGahn. Rachel Maddow noted that last night (although strangely I don’t think she said her name), but then didn’t ask about McCord’s involvement or resignation during either of the interviews that followed. No one asked about it during the hearing. It’s like there’s a tacit agreement not to talk about her. Does she have some family emergency that she wants to keep private and people are respecting that? I just can’t think of any reason everyone would be so careful not to talk about her role in the investigation or her sudden departure from DoJ.
Re #127 – It’s weird that they and so many of their Republican lackeys are arguing that the leak had to have come from someone in the DoJ. The leak was well after the meetings with McGahn, we have no idea how many people he brought in on the information, and the White House leaks like a fucking sieve. There were also a number of Trump aides who wanted Flynn out.
Update to #84 – Moon Jae-in has won the South Korean presidency.
SC @135:
Fox News simply ran with Comey’s lies and with his misleading characterizations.
When they’re in power, they can really let their asshole flag fly.
Don’t expect the Senate to fix the health care bill that the House Republicans concocted.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gop-senators-signal-theyre-on-board-with-big-medicaid-cuts
Follow-up to comment 140 from SC, and comment 141.
What Orrin Hatch said:
So the FBI is now attempting, without a lot of energy, to clean up after Comey. They sent a letter to the committee.
Grr.
Trump fired Comey.
SC @144, OMG. Does Trump think this firing of Comey will clear everything up? What’s Trump’s play?
From Trump’s statement (probably his team’s statement): “Today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement.”
Politico is reporting that Sean Spicer said: “The president has accepted the recommendation of the Attorney General and the deputy Attorney General regarding the dismissal of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
So Jeff Sessions recommended that Comey be fired? No reason was given.
My overly cynical guess is that Comey’s firing is tied to him not squelching the Russia Probe.
Daily Beast link
That’s one way to kick Sally Yates testimony off the front page.
I see that Nerd (comment 146) and I are in agreement.
Also, I note that Jeff Sessions, the deputy Attorney General, Trump, and Sean Spicer all seem to be on the same page for once. That’s unusual, especially for the Trump administration. They never manage to coordinate anything well.
Also, the inclusion of, “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, […]” in such a short you’re-fired letter makes me suspicious. Did team Trump come to the conclusion that the FBI was going to produce evidence of collusion with Russia soon, and did team Trump want to throw a wrench in the works?
Rosenstein absolutely has to appoint a special prosecutor now.
I see from online comments that other people think that this action shows that Trump has been backed into a corner.
A new FBI director will have to be approved by the Senate. I hope Democrats are ready for the fight.
This action by team Trump may backfire in that more calls for an independent prosecutor may be one result.
One commenter called Trump’s move “Nixonian.”
From John Schindler:
From CNN, a couple hours ago: “Senate Russia investigators have sent a request to the Treasury Department’s criminal investigation division for any information related to President Donald Trump, his top officials and his campaign aides, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee told CNN Tuesday.”
Wow.
I’m really troubled by Rosenstein’s letter that cited Comey’s actions last summer (in relation to Hillary Clinton’s emails) as part of the cause for firing Comey.
Trump fired Comey. Trump is the guy who repeatedly praised Comey for being brave, courageous, etc. Trump gave Comey a thumbs-up hundreds of times. And now he is firing him?
It looks like Trump (or perhaps Sessions) asked Rosenstein to come up with a reason to fire Comey. The real reason(s) are obscured.
This is a sickness that is centered in Trump and that spreads to include people like Sessions. Trump fired Sally Yates. He fired Preet Bharara. It’s a pattern in which Trump fires anyone who is investigating him.
The supposed cause for the firing also is cover for Sessions, who supposedly recused himself from anything involving the Russia investigation. The causes stated in the Rosenstein letter are not believable at all. What Sessions really did here was to involve himself in firing someone who was investigating Trump and the Russian connections.
Trump sent his lackey Keith Schiller (thug, bodyguard) to deliver the you’re-fired letter.
Follow-up to comment 154.
Yes, Trump did ask for rationale to fire Comey.
Quoted text is from a report on CNN by Jeff Zeleny. The transcript is rushed and may contain a few transcription errors.
I had forgotten that Jeff Sessions had also recused himself from any matters concerning Hillary Clinton that had arisen during the campaign. Sessions recused himself in public, on tape.
So, he should not have been involved in firing Comey for his actions that involved commenting on Clinton in July and in October. (That reason for firing is not credible, but it is a separate issue that Jeff Sessions was supposed to no where near any Clinton-related matters.)
Trump relied on advise from Sessions. He said so in his I-fire-you letter. Sessions also had no right to endorse comments from Rosenstein. It’s all wrong at all levels.
Not exactly news, but I thought I’d leave this here: Alec Baldwin’s best Trump imitation.
So, Comey was definitely informed personally, nor given any way to prepare for being fired. He was in California giving a recruitment speech when the news that he was fired flashed on TV screens that were at the site of his speech. He laughed because he thought it was a joke.
That seems to me particularly cruel and stupid on the part of team Trump.
Re comment 158: Comey was definitely NOT informed personally …
He may have two events scheduled in California, one of which was canceled after he found he was “hereby terminated.”
From Josh Marshall:
Oh, look, Kellyanne Conway is back.
Link
Nice try, Kellyanne, but your bullshit is still bullshit.
From “dannydorko” posting on Twitter as @realDonaldTrump:
From Elizabeth Warren:
This explanation, that Trump was enraged, sounds likely to be true. That may be the real reason Comey was fired. (Rosenstein may have been duped.)
Yeah, that sounds like Trump. Shocking us once again with how vindictive, stupid and narcissistic our president is.
Politico link
So, yeah, Roger Stone thinks this was a great move. Plus, he has been pushing Trump to fire Comey.
There’s a whole clown car full of dunderheads advising team Trump, and/or running the White House.
Lynna @161:
Kellyanne has removed all doubt: it’s definitely a coverup.
I’m starting to wonder how long it will take for Trump to Firefox off the following speech:
There will be a protest at the White House at noon.
Lavrov jokes about Comey firing, to Tillerson’s amusement. Andrea Mitchell later said “You’ve gotta love it.” No, you really don’t.
Trump is in full abuse of power mode. This is not a sustainable situation.
McConnell is supporting the firing of Comey in the Senate, using Trump’s talking points.
Here in France, the überfacist niece of the resoundingly defeated Marine Le Pen (Macron: 66.1%, Le Pen: 33.9%), Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, is claiming she won’t run for Parliament in the upcoming elections next month. Maréchal-Le Pen is widely considered to be even more extreme than her grandfather (Marine’s father), the Holocaust-denying Jean-Marie Le Pen. Marion is currently one of two le penazi MPs. Of course, what she’s actually going to do is unclear; the le penazis are notorious liars.
Teh le penazis are apparently also feuding, with the überfacist faction unhappy at Marine’s cosmetic attempt to hide the fascism, including attempts to recruit Jewish voters (mostly by not mentioning teh le penazi antisemitism, instead harping on teh le penazi Muslim-bashing). The self-claimed not-as-facist faction apparently is blaming Marine for being an eejit with no policy and attempting to imitate teh trum-prat during the Macron–Le Pen debate (which mostly consisted of the two trading insults, Le Pen being incoherent and often lying, and Macron not being challenged). That debate is seen by most as being a disaster for Le Pen and teh le penazis, reminding and showing everyone just how toxic and incompetent she and they are.
It’s unclear what will happen in the Parliamentary elections. Predictions for teh le penazis range from c.100† to single digits; Macron, who has no party, claims he will field a candidate for every seat‡; and the two mainstream parties are trying to work out what the feck they are going to do, including when to work with the incoming-President Macron (who takes office next Sunday(?)).
Macron also has to appoint a Prime Minister (PM), but the timing here is unclear to me, as is the subsequent appointment of government ministers. June’s Parliamentary elections are critical to both this process and the subsequent ability of Macron to do anything.
† Unsurprisingly, the prediction of a high number of le penazi MPs is said to be from teh le penazis themselves; the more competent pollsters have it an order-of-magnitude less.
‡ Some pollsters are reporting Macron’s supporters will be the largest block in Parliament (albeit just barely), but with less than half of the 555 seats, with the burnt baguette’s (Fillon’s) party being the next-largest block.
(Collated from multiple sources; any errors are probably mine.)
The tricky dicky fan club gets in a rare snark, ‘Not Nixonian’: Richard Nixon Library trolls Trump over Comey firing: “FUN FACT: President Nixon never fired the Director of the FBI”. Also quoted (from Brian Klaas), “When you’re getting trolled by the Nixon library after a few months in office, your presidency isn’t going well”.
Journalist arrested for asking Trump cabinet member about healthcare bill:
Feinstein speaking now, and doing a great job setting the context of the Comey firing and its suspicious nature.
Outrageous.
Burr seems to be backing off on his earlier concerns and falling in line. Says no need for a special prosecutor.
I’m going to guess McConnell hasn’t read “The Hugenberg Lesson.” He doesn’t realize his own self-preservation is on the line.
Feinstein made a point of mentioning the in-depth briefing with Comey on March 15th from which she and Grassley emerged in a state that was variouslt described as “grim,” “rattled,” and “ashen” and couldn’t respond to any questions about what they had learned because it was all “highly sensitive.” She still didn’t go into any details today, either, but she did say Comey gave them a “comprehensive” briefing on the state of the counterintelligence/criminal investigation. So she appears to be calling attention to the fact that they know what’s what and this thing can’t be stopped in its tracks.
So Trump also met with Henry Kissinger today. Perfect.
And Kislyak’s there, too.
“Days Before He Was Fired, Comey Asked for Money for Russia Investigation”:
I was just about to post about your 180 SC – There’s the smoking gun right there. Obstruction of justice, clearly, no question about it. Their faux excuse that it was over the Hillary e-mail scandal holds no water at all.
Rosenstein was quick to fall on his sword. I wonder if he’s getting paid.
I won’t be surprised if Trump lifts the Russian sanctions by the end of the week. They are all in on getting protection from the GOP at this point, not even trying to hide it anymore.
Pictures of Trump, Lavrov, and Kislyak.
Kellyanne Conway is out and about making comments again today. From the Washington Post:
Don’t you dare question Hair Furor’s timing!
How do reporters keep themselves from laughing in her face?
Jesus, will Kissinger never die?
Comedy! More funny stuff, courtesy of Sean “Spicey” Spicer:
The semi-dark scene, with Spicey in the bushes, was described by the Washington Post. The weird interview was late last night.
From Steve Benen: “The Washington Post recently added “democracy dies in darkness” to its masthead. I had no idea that would turn out to be so literal.”
CNN is covering the White House protests on Facebook but not on TV.
LOL. Story was being reported everywhere and they were vehemently denying it.
Sorry – clarification to #187. They’re continuing to deny it.
From Josh Marshall:
Most reports say that Trump has been mulling over firing Comey for “about a week.” What was on Trump’s mind a week ago? His tweets from the evening of May 2nd give us some indication:
“BREAKING: Sen Mark Warner (D-Va) says James Comey asked to appear at Senate Intel Cmte on TUESDAY!”
Sen. Ron Wyden is calling on Sessions to resign for violating his promise to recuse.
Mike Pence spoke for about nine minutes today. He said that Comey was fired because “it was time for a fresh start.” You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s really weak, even for Pence’s calm, serious-but-stupid style of lying.
Pence also used a fuckton of keywords: “decisive” and “strong leadership” etc.
Pence also repeated several times that other authorities, like James Clapper, had said previously that there was no evidence that Trump had collaborated with the Russians. Trump had tweeted the same lie about Clapper several times.
That’s not what Clapper said.
Think Progress link
Later in his testimony, Clapper said that he could not reply to a question about Trump’s business ties to Russia: “Sen. Graham, I can’t comment on that because that impacts the investigation.”
Trump, Pence, Spicer, and other team Trump dunderheads keep repeating their misunderstanding of what Clapper said. Repetition doesn’t make it true.
We’re seeing quite a bit of negative feedback from the U.S. media about the fact that the White House press was barred from the meeting between Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, but Russian news agencies were allowed in. As SC noted, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak also attended the meeting.
More black comedy. You wouldn’t believe that plot twist if it showed up in House of Cards.
Update to comment 190:
Link
No, #190 was new – Warner has asked Comey to testify next Tuesday; I don’t think he’s responded yet.
*
“New: Trump told Rosenstein to write a memo on Comey when they met at the White House Monday.”
Hooray, one small win for the environment and for Obama-era regulations:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/05/trump-senate-methane-cra
I agree, Sen. Collins – it makes no sense whatsoever for you to continue helping this incompetent, mendacious, corrupt, autocratic buffoon to trample on our laws and destroy our democracy.
SC @195, thanks for the correction.
Wonkette live-blogged today’s press briefing, which was helmed by Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Here are a few excerpts:
David Corn is live tweeting the press briefing, which I can’t watch.
“.@SHSanders45: ‘Let’s move on’. WH calls for an end to the Trump-Russia investigations.”
Follow-up to comment 198.
“Atrocities.”
Damn. Tuesday’s testimony would be in closed session. Couldn’t they do both?
These new Quinnipiac poll numbers are shockingly bad (and as Neera Tanden points out are from before the firing of Comey!). Big drops among independents. 51% strongly disapprove of how Trump is doing his job.
Concern toll.
From John Cassidy, writing for The New Yorker:
“Inside the F.B.I., Stunned Agents Wonder About Future of Russia Inquiry”:
More response to the thuggish manner in which Comey was fired:
NBC News link
From Bill Moyers, who posted “Donald Trump Is Attempting a Coup — We Must Have a Special Prosecutor” on his blog.
*Salutes Bill Moyers*
Some of Trump’s über rightwing friends are not backing up his story as to why he fired Comey:
Right Wing Watch link
“‘Enough Was Enough’: How Festering Anger at Comey Ended in His Firing”:
This looks more like obstruction of justice by the minute. Don McGahn is…really bad at giving legal advice.
This is a good idea: provide more money to pay lawyers for undocumented immigrants who are targeted and arrested.
Link
“Source to @jaketapper: 2 reasons Comey was fired
1. Comey never provided Trump w assurance of loyalty
2. FBI’s Russia probe was accelerating.”
Flynn refused the Senate Intelligence Committee’s request for documents, and now they’ve subpoenaed them.
The Granuiad weighs in on hair furor’s latest poo-throwing antics, The Guardian view on Trump’s behaviour: tyrannical not presidential (editorial):
Ouch!
Ouch! Ouch!! Please stop! Mercy!!!
Stop! Stop!! This is no longer feeling good!!!
A minor-ish point, but note that hair furor was never referred to, directly, as “president”.
Good ratings news for MSNBC:
Link
Cheering for Rachel Maddow!
What I see here is that the ratings gorilla, Fox News, is shrinking over time and MSNBC is slowly gaining more viewers. I used to think Fox was unbeatable, now I see them as wounded, outdated, losing steam. (Whole bunch of mixed metaphors there, but you get the idea.)
Great! Students boo and turn backs on Betsy DeVos at graduation (video): “Graduating seniors at Bethune-Cookman University, a historically black college in Florida, protested Betsy DeVos’s commencement speech on Wednesday. Students loudly booed and turned their backs on the US education secretary as she was speaking. DeVos drew ire in February when she said historically black colleges were ‘pioneers’ of educational choice”.
Follow-up to @217, Betsy DeVos booed while giving commencement speech in Florida:
Molotov cocktails would be appropriate.
Comey’s farewell letter.
Rachel Maddow presented a great segment this evening that profiled Comey’s acting replacement, Andrew McCabe. We should be worried. The Maddow link is not yet up. We can add that later.
Some background material:
He said the NYT story was “B.S.” That story was not B.S. And why was McCabe talking to Priebus about an on-going investigation?
This WaPo piece – “How Trump’s anger and impatience prompted him to fire the FBI director” – accompanies the NYT one I linked to @ #211. Draws on more than 30 officials; needs to be read in full.
How strange. They added this to the beginning of the NYT story?
If he in fact told associates that, he was plainly right. No expert judgment required.
Comey had recently become more preoccupied with the collusion angle.
Comey must talk to the press and to congress, he has a duty as an American to do so. He can not let this obstruction of justice stand. He has to protect those he led until yesterday and empower them.
From my link in 223:
“Comey’s Firing Came as Investigators Stepped Up Russia Probe”:
Maddow’ segment detailing the fact the the new acting FBI director McCabe is compromised. It looks like he became part of the Trump disinformation campaign.
In other news, several reports say that Trump met with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov because Putin asked him to.
“Chaffetz requests DOJ IG expands probe to include Comey firing”: “Rep. Jason Chaffetz said Wednesday he’s asked a Department of Justice inspector general looking into the FBI’s behavior in the run-up to the 2016 election to expand its scope and include the firing of FBI Director James Comey….”
“Deputy AG Rosenstein reportedly threatened to quit over depiction of his role in Comey dismissal”:
Hee.
This is what you’re enabling, Republicans.
McCabe is appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee right now. It’s on C-SPAN. It’s an annual hearing about “global threats and national security.”
Maybe the WH forgot he’d been there. He’s super unmemorable for some reason.
Ron Wyden is asking some tough questions. He just asked Pompeo about the Yates warning and whether he knew about it or the concerns it expressed at the time, Pompeo first tried “No comment,” then switched to claiming he didn’t know what global security threat was at issue (!), then suggested he didn’t know what warning Wyden was referring to (!), and finally became belligerent and defensive.
Pompeo is a total hack.
McCabe just said it’s not accurate that the rank and file had lost support for Comey – Comey “enjoyed broad support” in the organization and still does.
Tweet o’ the day.
McCabe considers Russia-Trump probe to be “highly significant investigation,” not a small part of the overall FBI portfolio.
Angus King asked about the Russian crew being in the Oval Office yesterday. Rogers says they weren’t consulted; he wasn’t aware (until now, I guess) where the images had come from.
“Rosenstein unhappy with White House handling of Comey firing: sources”:
As SC noted in comment 235, the hearing today already turned yesterday’s press briefing by Sarah Huckabee Sanders into a lie fest. She said that rank and file FBI personnel had lost faith in Comey, McCabe just said that Comey “enjoyed broad support.”
That’s not the only part of the WH story that has fallen apart. From the Washington Post:
From Steve Benen:
Kamala Harris asked about securing Comey’s files and devices when he was fired. McCabe said that was his/their responsibility, and that he’s confident they were properly secured.
Wyden is coming back at Pompeo about his knowledge of Yates’s warnings. Pompeo is more subdued now, but evasive. Wyden says he’ll return to the subject during the closed session.
WHOA.
This is your president:
Talking Points Memo
I doubt that James Clapper would describe himself as “choking like a dog” during his testimony in a Senate hearing.
And, how stupid is Trump that he thinks reporters from Time magazine would agree with him if he showed them selected clips while he made juvenile, disparaging comments?
For the biggest laugh of the day, in an interview published today by the Economist, Trump was asked about releasing his tax returns. He said, “Oh, at some point I’ll release them. Maybe I’ll release them after I’m finished because I’m very proud of them actually.” So we can look forward to seeing them when he’s out of office. Lucky us.
Trump, once again, proves that he is stupid and insufferably narcissistic:
https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/862640442474672129
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/merriam-webster-corrects-trump-claim-prime-the-pump
2017.
He didn’t really even seem mildly uncomfortable. And Yates was pretty much the ideal.
And wtf is it with “like a dog”?
More Trumpism, from the Time magazine interview, “In a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care,” he said. “And actually it’s a very interesting subject.”
Burr and Warner are doing a press conference now. Doesn’t seem like it was much. Warner saying he still has concerns about Rosenstein and continues to call for a special prosecutor. Says he got promise from Rosenstein that he would report any efforts to quash the investigation. Burr says the Senate committee is continuing with their work – mentions Flynn subpoenas.
They seem to be losing track of the lies.
Trump saying he and Comey “had a nice dinner” and Comey told him he wasn’t under investigation (he said he asked). Made up his mind to fire Comey before and regardless of recommendation. Claims FBI under Comey was in “turmoil.”
Pete Williams talks some nonsense sometimes.
Trump in the Holt interview is pretty much bragging about how the story they’ve been telling is bullshit because he had decided to fire Comey prior to getting the recommendation and regardless of the recommendation. It was fairly predictable. The story they were trying to sell made him, in his authoritarian mind and those of his followers, look weak and not in control. He was psychologically compelled to assert his control, regardless of the legal or political harm it could and will cause. He can’t help himself. It’s another way to manipulate him that is surely known to intelligence agencies the world over. His authoritarianism, his uncontrollable need to convince himself and others that he’s dominant, is due to profound psychological weakness.
LMAO!
Um… “Developing: FBI confirms agents are executing a search warrant at the office of GOP Fundraiser/Consulting firm in Annapolis.”
erik – see here.
erik @255, if that photo has not been photoshopped, then yes, it does make Spicey look like even more of a hapless dupe.
SC @254, inevitable. Trump should do more interviews. He outs himself as an ignorant bully every time. My bet is that, despite Trump’s bragging, Comey never told him outright that he was not under investigation. Trump made that up and desperately wants to believe it.
Even if it were true, Trump’s story contains pay-for-play accusations that indict both himself and Comey. He said Comey had dinner with him, and that Comey told him he wasn’t being investigated, because Comey wanted to keep his job. In the interview, Trump seemed remarkably blasé about doing White House business that way.
SC @257, thanks. Within that same Twitter feed there are cartoons of Spicey disappearing into the bushes, ala Homer Simpson.
In other news, here is an “Oh, FFS!” moment: Trump is hiring Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach as vice chair of an “Election Integrity” commission. Kobach will get another chance to look for non-existent voter fraud, and another chance to use mythical fraud to justify restricting the voting rights of anyone who is not a Republican.
Some background on Kobach:
Link
If you ask registered voters what word first comes to mind when they think about Trump, the most common answer is “Idiot.” Idiot is closely followed by “incompetent” and “liar.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/voters-call-trump-idiot-and-liar-in-disastrous-new-poll.html
Remember that nine-minute speech that Mike Pence gave yesterday to defend and explain Trump’s firing of Comey? Pence was lying.
From Josh Marshall:
“BREAKING: Legal Shock & Awe. Source in legal community reports large number of Warrants from Eastern District of Virginia being executed By the FBI. Source reports frenzy of activity inside the EDVA, large number of agents, US Marshals. The battle has been joined. 2/2 MORE: I’m told the name of the GOP firm that was served with Warrant in Annapolis is Strategic Campaign Group.”
(I don’t really know about the sources of these reports, so grain of salt and so forth.)
From Lynna 240 (quoting Benen):
No, they are DISPLAYING “outrageous abuse,” not covering it up. Through the campaign, I kept saying (and writing) that any other candidate in the US would be disqualified by [insert whatever Trump or one of the Tang Gang said]. He and his gang have been displaying exactly this “outrageous abuse” since the beginning of the campaign.
And the sad part is, his supporters love the abuse. I just said to one of the resident right-wingers, regarding the firing of Comey, “What would your reaction be if Hillary Clinton was President and did exactly the same thing?” He blustered and started spouting off about emails. Trump is abusing the country, abusing US citizens, abusing immigrants, abusing minorities, abusing the elderly, abusing the poor and middle class, and the authoritarians lap it up. We have a sadistic President voted into office, primarily, by masochists.
erik @255:
That black footwear looks a lot like the boot Wife wore for six months after ankle and foot surgery. Still, if you have a black boot, wear black shoes.
Seconded.
From the Strategic Campaign Group’s web site:
[My emphasis]
1. So they have absolutely no scruples, no ideals, no vision — whatever you think conservative means, they will adjust to your definition. Sounds like a successful GOP group — as long as it is something liberals or progressives hate, we are for it.
2. Win at all cost. Like Nixon’s ratfuckers and plumbers.
Sen. Feinstein: “I’m calling on the attorney general and deputy attorney general to recuse themselves from involvement in choosing a special counsel. I’ve now read the Rosenstein memo three times. With each read I’m more troubled by this document.”
Some confirmation – FBI people covering the windows at Strategic Campaigns Group offices.
Oh well, it was easy to believe Spicer Bunny was so frazzled that he put on two different colored shoes this morning, so I didn’t bother to “vet” that particular tweet as it’s not really “news”. It did occur to me however that he’s supposed to be doing his Navy Guard duty this week so should have been in a navy uniform if indeed he was out and about, but I didn’t give it a second thought.
I’m sure he’s happy to be doing Navy stuff atm.
FBI agent groups are also disputing Trump’s description of Comey and of “turmoil” within the FBI:
Link
If you read the entire Politico article, you will find that some people within the FBI expressed disappointment with Comey for not prosecuting Hillary Clinton, and for Comey’s public pronouncements leading up to the presidential election. The overwhelming consensus, though, is that Trump did not have cause to fire Comey.
Here‘s the (very brief) report from WBAL.
Uh-oh, I hope Spicey is enjoying his brief stint doing Navy-related duties. He’s going to need any restorative he can get because he may not have a job when he comes back.
Link
So, just a little google searching on the principals at SCG uncovered this.
Apparently they have a history of campaign finance fraud.
The bolding is mine as those same three culprits are the principals of the Strategic Campaign Group as listed here.
The court case filings referenced in my 272.
Just to be clear – I’m not suggesting the SCG raid has anything to do with the Trump-Russia investigation. As erik notes, they seem shady, so it could be any of a number of things. Or quasi-related chicanery. No idea.
Meanwhile, I’m still clueless about what Maddow was talking about last night when she said there was news coming about Manafort and the Justice Department.
From Matt Yglesias:
Lots more where that came from. The entire article is worth reading.
I keep seeing claims of ties to Manafort and Stone, but I haven’t yet seen any real evidence.
hrmm, my comments seem to be getting eaten…
Lynna did you turn on moderation for comments with links or something? I’m trying to link a twitter thread to SC that lays out the Stone / Manafort connections to SCG.
SCG guys are saying the raid stems from claims made in the civil case with Cuccinelli, which was settled.
erik @278, I don’t have the ability to turn on or off and moderation filters. Check your links for banned words. I don’t know what else to tell you.
You may have to copy and paste a few relevant tweets into the comment box if you want the discussion to show up.
I don’t think that literal interpretation is correct. It looks like he was using hypothetical reasoning to make a point. He’s basically saying that it’s a bad idea to call China a currency manipulator. And in order to get that point across he’s inviting you to imagine (“Now think of this”) what it would be like to call China a currency manipulator. North Korea is likely just thrown in there as a hypothetical example of something important.
ahh, that’s it, the thread is from a tweeter who has the word b!tch in her name.
Anyways, SC – here’s the link, just replace the ! with an i.
https://twitter.com/b!tchyologist/status/862750960522850305
As you stated in 279, they are claiming this raid is related to a three year old civil suit that was settled. Somehow I doubt that, given how they are former business partners with both Stone and Manafort.
I’d wager this is related to laundering Russian money in to the Trump campaign.
“Trump Nixes Plan to Visit FBI Headquarters After Comey Firing: Officials”:
The investigation started last summer, fool.
Thanks. That’s a more solid connection than I’d been seeing.
Amash has signed onto the bill for an independent commission.
Satire from The New Yorker:
Digging the hole ever deeper:
Link
To quote the title of an old Doonesbury comic collection during Watergate: GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY.
SC @ 286 – A note of caution, I saw a later tweet that I can’t seem to find now that said that Manafort left BKSH in 1996, just after the merger, but that Whitfield didn’t join them until 2003. I can’t seem to find out when / if Stone left the firm.
That does make the connection seem far less direct.
“Very interesting travel ban news today: A judge ordered the defense to turn over Giuliani’s memo regarding how to make the Muslim ban legal.”
Feds have trumptapes. I am in awe of the massive self-burn of insulting the FBI as an institution just before they start serving the warrants.
Watching Maddow on a slight delay. Jeff Sessions has to resign. Trump was furious when he announced he was recusing himself, and it’s plain that they simply decided he can just violate that recusal at will, including when it comes to being an accomplice to obstructing justice. He’s faced no consequences for his perjury during his confirmation hearings, and he continues to participate in criminal conspiracies.
Matthew Miller: “One thing I learned at DOJ about Comey: he leaves a protective paper trail whenever he deems something inappropriate happened. Stay tuned.”
Laurence Tribe: “The best-sourced reporting shows that Jeff Sessions and Mike Pence were up to their eyeballs in this impeachable obstruction of justice.”
Texas is trying to do something incredibly stoooopid and dangerous, yet again, Texas House passes bill banning doctors from vaccinating new foster children:
† Yes, the vaccine does protect the child. The protected child then, in turn, contributes to the herd effect (herd immunity), helping to protect those who legitimately cannot be vaccinated (have an adverse reaction to the vaccine or other health issue precluding vaccination). Eejit.
‡ Whilst not liking the vaccine schedule — often called (or similar) — is a common anti-vaxxer trope, it does not follow that all the parents repeating that mime are committed anti-vaxxers. Without citing references, there is some evidence most(?) parents who parrot such are actually more “fence sitters” who could be persuaded to vaccinate their children: By education and making it difficult to not-vaccine; e.g., removal of exemptions, or requiring an in-person interview with a county health officer before any such exemption is granted.
(Originally found via a comment at Orac’s site.)
A sneaky way to hurt social justice: cut US Census Bureau funding:
According to Science, President Obama had recommended a 20% increase for 2017 for a total of $1.63bn, but hair furor halved that, to c.10%, or $1.5bn in total.
These large-seeming increases are normal in the run-up to the census (next in 2020), after which the total budget drops considerably. The cycle then repeats.
In addition, according to The Census Project, “Congress has provided woefully inadequate funding for the 2020 Census over the past few years as compared with previous decades.” There is a very alarming-looking graph at the link. Also, apparently, a computer project has run amuck, significantly increasing the projected cost of the 2020 census.
Back to the Grauniad’s article:
“Vice President Mike Pence Met Privately With Top Russian Cleric”:
* Incidentally, Lankford is on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“In a Private Dinner, Trump Demanded Loyalty. Comey Demurred.”:
Chuck Schumer’s outstanding letter to Rosenstein:
Dianne Feinstein is skeptical about the memo’s authorship:
Hair furor’s inability to take criticism (and apparent lack of humour) are on display for the lots of zillions time, : angry Trump attacks Colbert over late-night takedowns:
And narcissistic. It’s me, Me, ME! I improved this , comic’s ratings!! And that can ME and MY dalekocracy!!!
And, of course, lies:
ME! I’m the one responsible for his highest ratings in my imagination!! Anything else is fake news, SAD!!!
The Grauniad, Mr Colbert, and CBS all get in some snarks:
Hair furor is completely unhinged in the Time interview, President Trump Attacks in TV:
Not even can’t take criticism, won’t even listen to it — assuming he isn’t lying, which is
improbableimpossible, except in a “stuck clock” accidental sense. (And a hint of nobody knew presidenting is so hard! Golly gee, people disapprove!! Of Me!!!)MEEEE!!!!!!!! It’s all about ME!!!!1!!
Weirdly, Breitbart doesn’t seem to be mentioned. Except for Fox, as far as I noticed, only legitimate news sources are mentioned.
This is one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard. They’re actually claiming Yates’s warning that the National Security Advisor was compromised by the Kremlin and vulnerable to Russian blackmail, didn’t seem like an emergency at the time or during her Senate testimony. They did nothing at the time, still don’t see why Flynn had to go, and haven’t done anything since in terms of investigating the matter or looking at the people Flynn brought into the administration. Now they have the hack Pompeo saying the same things in Senate hearings. This is absolutely nuts.
This may not be the most appropriate thread, but there is a political-ish, albeit unstated, undercurrent… Isam [†] and the chocolate factory: Syrian refugees relaunch family business in Canada:
† Not a typo, the family’s father is named Isam…
Read the article for the rest of the story, including how the local community helped the Hadhads build a factory when the business outgrew their kitchen, The product / company’s name is “Peace by Chocolate”.
LOL.
“Sessions issues sweeping new criminal charging policy”:
If karma existed…
Tribe is saying that because Trump talked* about his private conversations with Comey publicly he can’t claim executive privilege to stop Comey from testifying about them.
* Lied, without doubt.
:)
Mika Brzezinski just scolded CNN for putting on Conway. “It’s politics porn. You’re just getting your little ratings crack, OK? But it’s disgusting.”
Trump: “The Fake Media is working overtime today!…As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!….Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”
Maggie Haberman: “There’s a reason this tweet exists. Changes are coming.”
Trump now tweeting: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
I agree with this.
One possibility I can imagine is that Trump is only partially lying about his interactions with Comey (he’s definitely lying about some of it), because he’s also shown repeatedly that he’s not capable of listening to people and understanding what they’re telling or asking him if it doesn’t comport with his delusions. He literally will not hear or comprehend their statements, and in his memory will twist them to suit his narrative. He also combines (his deluded interpretation of) what people are saying with things he’s heard on TV or elsewhere (including from his sycophants). Given this, he could even have tapes of the conversations with Comey which don’t show what he believes they do.
#313 – Exhibit A.
SC – Here you go. This looks like the real reason for the raid.
The thread is a bit hard to follow but basically SCG is definitely tied to the Mercers. For those that have not been following the bouncing ball closely, the Mercers basically financed Trump’s campaign. Rebekah Mercer was heavily involved in the transition, and they own Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm that was used to target specific voters with fake news via social media.
@315 – I meant to add that it is still speculation as we have nothing official from the FBI and probably won’t until a trial, but it’s about the most solid speculation I’ve seen about that event and seems to make sense. I want to believe it because I’d love to see the Mercers go down with this mess, so admit a certain amount of motivated reasoning.
Daniel Dale, in response to Trump’s media tweets (@ #311), points out: “Trump’s written termination letter and Spicer’s written official statement were both lies.”
A reader’s comment on the Grauniad’s article Trump threatens ex-FBI head Comey with possible ‘tapes’ of conversations (“President’s [sic] tweet suggests he had been secretly taping White House meetings, after the New York Times reported that he demanded from Comey”) had me laughing so hard the mildly deranged penguin actually looked up from eating some cheese, if only for a millisecond:
● “Wanted xxl dictators uniform please send to the big white house on Pennsylvania avenue leave behind bushes and Shawn Spicer will collect.”
Perhaps “xxl tiny dictators…” would be even better?
A few other amusing readers’s comments:
● “Hey, Donald. Do you feel that net closing in? Feeling a bit impeachy yet?”
● “On Monday, may 15th 2017 after a weekend of Trumptwats, oops, sorry, typo, Trumptweets, the markets got off to flying start as Trump stood down as the US’s 45th (not quite) president. Reports suggest a 12 year old paraplegic could have done a better job working a two day week, meanwhile celebrations around the world continued as humanities confidence in the United States people and their sanity returned. Trump is expected to be let out of the insane asylum once he promises not to use the internet for 10 years, or until he grows a set, or grows up”.
● “With Apologies to Sir Elton John:
‘It’s sad, so sad
It’s a sad, sad situation
And it’s getting more and more absurd
It’s sad, so sad bigly!'”
● “Folks! Folks! I wasn’t trying to blackmail my good friend Comey. It was just twitter banter! Losers!”
● “It’s really quite astounding to see an American president trying actively to sound Nixonian. […]”
● “Of course there are tapes. Mr Putin has to check that his puppet is doing exactly what he is told.”
● “[Shite] storm increasing in intensity. Trump ‘surrogates’ preparing their own evacuation ahead of expected tsunami. Trump voters still on board, god bless their dysfunctional souls.”
● “I wonder how many minutes gap will be on his tapes then?”
● “The man has the intellect of a banana peel.
(Apologies to any bananas reading this).”
● “If the White House says one thing, and Trump contradicts it with his later statement, is it still the media that are responsible for the fake news?
How does this work?”
The Grauniad is reporting hair furor may be canceling his proposed visit to the FBI, Trump may back out of FBI visit amid outrage over ‘disgraceful’ Comey firing (the Grauniad’s edits in {curly braces}) :
Apropos of nothing much, it occurs to me Deep Throat (Mark Felt) was FBI, with one possible reason he went against tricky dicky being because he felt slighted in being overlooked for post of FBI Director. (That is only speculation, and there are additional possible motivations.) And now hair furor has managed to upset great swaths of the FBI…
I still can’t get past this quote from #206: “One senior F.B.I. official said that the president had severely damaged his standing among agents, many of whom are conservative and supported Mr. Trump as a candidate.” His standing among FBI agents has been damaged now? They were fine with him before?
Days after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo in 2015, Trump tweeted: “Charlie Hebdo reminds me of the ‘satirical’ rag magazine Spy that was very dishonest and nasty and went bankrupt. Charlie was also broke!…If the morons who killed all of those people at Charlie Hebdo would have just waited, the magazine would have folded – no money, no success!”
Following a plane crash in Hawaii in which a passenger died, he sent out: “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived”
Can totally understand how FBI professionals would have seen him as a solid choice for president.
Le Monde has done some investigative work on the rapid diffusion of the “MacronLeaks” documents. You don’t have to read French to get the gist: “« MacronLeaks », compte offshore : l’ombre des néonazis américains.”
The article notes:
Tweet o’ the day.
The letter from Trump’s lawyers is the Dr Oz appearance of financial disclosure.
Heh. A front-page opinion column in today’s dead-tree edition of the International New York Times (ex-IHT), expands on my allusion at the end of @319 to Comey’s firing eventually backfiring on hair furor even more spectacularly than at present, In Firing Comey, Did Trump Unleash the Next Deep Throat?:
I must admit I don’t recall John Ehrlichman’s talking points memo, but what he outlined — the new director must of the FBI and — are two of the things experts, including present and former agents, warned (also @319) that whoever the acting / new FBI Director is must not do.
And, of course, Ehrlichman’s memo sounds an awful lot like hair furor’s insistence on a from Comey (see @301).
SC@323, Huh? Is there a missing link or something? What “Dr” Oz–like letter from hair furor’s lawyers?
Eric Holder’s statement on Sessions’ policy change (#307 above).
This one. (Also of note: Trump lies on his tax returns.)
“Clapper on Russia investigation: ‘I don’t know if there’s evidence of collusion or not, nor should I have’.”
Clapper also said he spoke with Comey the day of the dinner with Trump* and that Comey had told him he’d been invited to the WH and that he was “uneasy” about it because it could give the appearance of compromising his or the FBI’s independence but felt he couldn’t refuse.
* January 27th – the day after Yates told McGahn Flynn had been interviewed by the FBI.
Ok, Where’s the camera? When is someone going to come out and tell us all this has been one giant practical joke?
Trump’s law firm that swears he has no Russian financial ties? (with a few, possibly you know, thousands of exceptions)…
Are you ready for this?
They were named “Russia Law Firm of the Year” in 2016.
They have a Moscow office.
SC @328, Clapper has confirmed several times that saying he has no knowledge of collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russians is not the same as saying there was no collusion, nor is it the same as saying that there is no ongoing investigation of possible collusion. Trump simply cannot understand that. The interview with Clapper that aired today was good.
From The Hill’s take on the interview:
About that letter from Trump’s lawyers (the one Trump emphasized was “certified,” as if that made a difference, and sent to Lindsey Graham):
Link
Video is also available at the link.
So, yeah, both Trump and his “Russia Law Firm of the Year” are relying on tax returns that are still being kept a secret. Humbug. Blather. Showboating. Sound and fury with no substance.
Adam Schiff: “Mr. President, if there are ‘tapes’ relevant to the Comey firing, it’s because you made them and they should be provided to Congress.”
A number of journalists are reporting that sources are telling them that Comey is, unsurprisingly, not concerned about any putative “tapes.”
Ken Dilanian: “A source close to Comey told me this morning: ‘He hopes there are tapes. That would be perfect’.”
Congressman’s request for “tapes” and more.
*giggle*
A coalition of progressive groups, including Every Voice and End Citizens United, are paying for new ads that pressure Republican senators to back an independent investigation into Russian interference in the election, into ongoing Russian interference, and into possible collusion with members of team Trump.
USA Today link
About that threat from Trump about “tapes” of conversations with Comey: what a farce. More black comedy. Trump is trying to bully Comey. Trump is going to lose this fight. He is, currently, flailing pathetically. And, Trump is warning a potential witness in an ongoing investigation to shut up. More fodder for obstruction of justice charges against Trump.
From Steve Benen:
More delusion from Trump: Trump told NBC News that if the election were today, he’d “win by a lot more than I did on November 8th.” A national Quinnipiac poll released this week showed the president with a 36% approval rating.
Did Spicer just claim that Grassley told Trump that the notion of collusion is a hoax? Was that something public that I missed?
Spicer wouldn’t answer any questions about tapes or a recording system. Wouldn’t confirm or deny – just refused to answer at all.
Spicer just referred to “members of Congress” who have “debunked” the notion of collaboration. Who?
A summary of Trump’s most recent clusterfuck:
Preet Bharara on the refusal to comment described @ #340 above.
Lauren Duca: “The President of the United States DEMANDED LOYALTY from the director of the FBI, and it’s being treated as an anecdote.”
Spicer said (falsely) that the “tapes” tweet wasn’t a threat – Trump was merely “stating a fact.” What fact?
Here are a few excerpts from the rightwing media response to Lester Holt’s interview of Trump. The clueless rightwing pundits actually said that Holt was “disrespectful” and a “rude Negro,” etc.
From Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends:
From Brian Kilmeade (Fox & Friends):
From Breitbart:
From Infostormer:
From TruthFeed:
Conyers and Cummings also request “tapes.”
From Paul Kruygman, writing in today’s New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/opinion/judas-tax-cuts-and-the-great-betrayal.html
Excerpts from Sean Spicer’s press briefing today:
Do not question the actions of Hair Furor. Do not ask for clarification of lies told by Hair Furor’s White House. Do not even imply that Hair Furor initiated yet another clusterfuck.
Responses from retired FBI agents:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/fbi-agents-trump-comey
Trevor Noah mocked Trump’s firing of Comey and Trump’s subsequent meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak into the Oval Office. Scroll down for the video: Daily Beast link.
Trump has another big idea:
This would be no loss given that they’re exercises in public lying and propaganda. The time could be given over to discussions of policy and social problems, news of the ongoing Trump-Russia investigations, in-depth specials about Russian active measures, reports on the growing resistance movement, and coverage of the harmful effects of the Trump regime’s actions on people.
Schumer is saying Rosenstein will brief the Senate next week.
Steve Benen dissected Trump’s meeting with Kislyak and Lavrov:
Way to go, Texas Southern students.
More damage to the environment, courtesy of Trump’s version of the Environmental
ProtectionDestruction Agency:Think Progress link
Mother Jones annotated the letter from Trump’s lawyers that supposedly proved that Trump had no investments in Russia or has no financial ties with Russians.
The annotation is hilarious.
Follow-up to comment 358. I should have added that the annotation is also full of facts, and that it rips the veil away from the many misleading statements in the letter.
Annotating that letter from Trump’s lawyers creates another moment of horror mixed with horrified laughter.
How can things be this awful?
One moment from the interview of Trump by Lester Holt stands out for me: Trump tried to add gravitas to the letter by emphasizing that it was “certified” and that it was from a “tremendous law firm.”
Same.
“Stunning: @maddow, @Lawrence and @chrislhayes ranked No. 1 in cable news demo (A25-54) in each of their respective timeslots Thursday.”
“Financial-Crimes Monitor to Share Records in Trump-Russia Probe”:
“Breaking: Dep AG Rosenstein sees no need at this point for special prosecutor in #Russia probe – sources tell @evanperez @mkraju”
Hee.
More experts weigh in on the seriousness of Trump’s misconduct:
Link
Question for the weekend (all the same question, different wordings): will the GRU allow 45 to have the tapes from the Oval Office? Is Putin finished with 45 yet? Does Putin opine that it’s more destructive to the US and the Western Democracies to give 45 more time in office, or to trigger a different constitutional explosion?
Jesus. They have the mentality of an occupying force.
‘What is wrong with you?’ Michelle Obama savages Trump’s gutting of her legacy:
Feinstein: “I support @SenatorDurbin’s call for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to resign if he is unwilling to appoint a special counsel.”
“Former Trump Adviser Paul Manafort’s Bank Records Sought in Probe”:
This is what I’ve been waiting for. Fox News and republican senators are starting to turn on Trump. We all know that as Fox goes, so goes a large percentage of the republican base, and as the base goes, so go the politicians. Even the Kochs are showing signs of giving up on him.
I think, this might also be the moment a lot of republican congress people are waiting for. Don’t be surprised if we don’t have a special prosecutor and impeachment proceedings within about 2 weeks.
Preet Bharara’s stand in ain’t taking no shit.
https://twitter.com/PreetBharara/status/863222621067980800
Holy chit…
erikthebassist@371, The “republican senators are starting to turn on Trump” link is borked.
Also, the “Kochs are showing signs of giving up on [hair furor]” seems, to me, to be a generous reading; it’s more that they are unhappy the Obama prison reforms — which they apparently support to some degree† — has been rolled back by Sessions. Or, in short, a fairly routine policy disagreement (perhaps unusual in that the Kochs don’t have the more loathsome position). I stand to be corrected, but I’m not aware of any(?) other policy disagreements they have with teh trum-prat or his dalekocracy.
† From my (admittedly weak) understanding of their world-view, which is all about classically-measured public costs (i.e., money), prison reform would make sense. Prisons are expensive, so locking up huge numbers of people is obviously high-cost. (Too bad they don’t seem to carry this sort of thinking to non-classical costs, such as the damage done by pollution, AGW, and so on; all of which are “not on the balance sheet”, that is, not monetized in the classical sense).
“Five Reasons the Comey Affair Is Worse Than Watergate: A journalist who covered Nixon’s fall 45 years ago explains why the current challenge to America may be more severe—and the democratic system less capable of handling it.”
Bob Bauer on Trump’s behavior:
LOL:
Update to #s 339 and 341 – Grassley and the other committee heads have denied Trump’s and Spicer’s claims.
Did Trump tweet congratulations to his daughter Tiffany on her acceptance to Georgetown Law?
@374 – my borked link was referring to what SC later posted in 378.
On the Kochs, yeah, it’s a generous reading but if you recall, the Kochs were barely reluctant Trump supporters only after he won the nomination. They’ve never been huge fans.
Interesting thread.
wow
Trump plans to dumb down yet another department by appointing a person who is not qualified:
https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-expected-pick-for-top-usda-scientist-is-not-a-scientist
Follow-up to SC’s comment 377.
Talking Points Memo link
Trump does not see himself as the main source of the problems.
This seems like a wise decision. After Trump mischaracterized conversations with Comey, he is reluctant to testify behind closed doors.
Trump spoke at Liberty University today. He played the God card loudly, and he pushed a sort of Christian supremacy ideology:
Think Progress link
“Election Is Over, but Trump Still Can’t Seem to Get Past It”:
He has plenty to hide.
“Q: Is there a ‘there’ there?
SCHIFF: If there was no ‘there’ there, James Comey would still have a job.”
The idea of Cornyn as FBI director is ludicrous.
Sigh.
There’s a report that Chaffetz is telling colleagues he’s going to Fox News, maybe as early as July.
Bad news concerning the attempted takeover of all school boards in California by pro-charter-school candidates.
Billionaires pour millions into buying Los Angeles school board seats for the Betsy DeVos agenda.
I’m laughing so hard at the comments here.
Mick Mulvaney, head of the Trump Administrations’s Office of Management and Budget, said something stupid, lacking in compassion, and ill-informed:
Putting the lack of compassion aside, his statement about diabetes is inaccurate:
Link
A closer look at Sarah Huckabee’s past tweets about the FBI:
To follow up on #389 – In addition to all of the other absurd aspects, Cornyn is currently on the Senate Judiciary Committee. There’s no way he should be in a private meeting with Sessions, in the form of an “interview” (!) or anything else.
North Korea launched another missile. The story is still developing, so this is not confirmed, but the projectile is believed to be a ballistic missile.
Rubio never disappoints.
Vladimir Kara-Murza pointed this out at the time. It was a noticeable departure.
Preet Bharara responding to Rubio: “A radical thought — to preserve independence, remove politics/partisanship at FBI maybe a loyal partisan politician shouldn’t be in charge.”
Carter Page was on Chris Hayes the other night claiming that over the years he regularly briefed the FBI and CIA, providing them insights. Whenever he’s speaking, I think of a great Taxi episode called “The Road Not Taken” in which Tony the boxer recalls a moment early in his career when a gambling syndicate pressured him to take a dive. The guy tries putting it to him subtly, hinting at the plan, but he’s so thick and oblivious that the guy ends up spelling out “I want you to take a dive. In the third round. In the ring. Tonight.” And Tony’s still like “You want me to throw the fight?”
That’s how I imagine Page’s interactions with his would-be Russian handlers.
Portugal guy seems…unclear on the concept.
Yes! I’ve written a few comments about this. There’s something afoot.
Tweet o’ the day.
What she said.
PREACH.
Beautiful.
As been previously mentioned, one reason the hack of Macron†, and the general lack of effectiveness of fake news and its redistribution / echo chambers, in the recent French presidential election was simply the meddling kooks don’t seem to grok the French speak French. The attempted twitter-storm — which used the English-language hashtag — was analyzed, and showed the predominance of English-language kooks and French-language sanity for much of the time, #MacronLeaks Campaign Hits Resistance:
One quoted tweet, which I particularly liked, said (in translation), “Funniest part of #MacronLeaks is the US alt-right, who can’t read French, spending time on misinterpreting mundane documents.”
† Two other reasons (among many other reasons) the hack failed to gain any traction are that it was very poorly timed, occurring just before the media blackout period; and the Macron’s team manage to issue a warning before the blackout that some of the documents were very possibly forged.
(Originally spotted in Vive la différence that foiled attack on Macron: “French voters were insulated from the far right’s election meddling because they prefer to share high-quality information. And by the fact they speak French”.)
Oops! For some reason the start of @408 is the text I thought I had replaced with something like: “As been previously mentioned, one reason for the general lack of effectiveness of fake news and its redistribution / echo chambers (e.g., twitter) — and especially the hack (misleadingly called a ) of Macron — during the recent French presidental election was simply the meddling kooks didn’t seem to grok the French speak French.† …”
(It’s still too long and convoluted, but at least it makes more sense!)
The Onion, Department Of Interior Asks For Resignation Of Obama-Era Elk:
The usually-reliable — or at least that’s what the mildly deranged penguin claims — Deep Penguin Sighs reports it’s thought hair furor has been convinced the zillions of Muslims imported and hidden in the national parks by Obama are disguised as elk. And elk are also responsible hiding all the evidence — eating all the wires during a raid on teh trum-prat eyesore in their invisible black helicopters — just after hair furor sent the wiretapping tweet. However, it was the moose who ate all the fraudulently-cast ballots. Moose and elk, along with alligators, tubeworms, and tomatoes, are all probaby the same to him — all needing ketchup.
No. Trump is not the “CEO” of the country.
She says that like it is a good thing.
A mob of torch-carrying protestors marched on Charlottesville, Virginia last night. The white supremacists were led by Richard Spencer.
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/torch-wielding-protesters-gather-at-lee-park/article_201dc390-384d-11e7-bf16-fb43de0f5d38.html
The mob carried real torches, not candles.
Blatantly untrue; e.g., judges and congresscritters. Even if Haley was just talking about the executive branch, not true, career civil servants have protections. I believe the technical term is “career-appointment”, also known as “career tenure”. As I understand it, like academic tenure, it is very difficult / slow to dismiss an individual with career tenure.
Not all federal jobs are on a career tenure track. I have no idea what proportion of people, or positions, have, or on track to obtain, career tenure.
According to this article, Fighting fascism: Americans in the Spanish civil war have a lesson for today, there is apparently a growing interest in the States in the history and motivations of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, with students seeing parallels between the events of c.80 years ago and now. Whilst the historians are “wary about direct analogies to the 30s, [they argue] the Lincolns, with so little black and white in their stories, have critical lessons for Americans today.”
Follow up to SC @403 – I’ve also been following the AG succession issue closely.
Twitter is all lit up with Louise Mensch and Claude Taylor jointly “reporting” that Boente has acquired sealed indictments from a grand jury against Trump, Manafort and Flynn. They claim to have independent corroboration from two different sources, one each.
Obviously I take everything they say with a grain of salt, but there are some extenuating facts that make it at least plausible.
For one, Senators Warner and Burr were pulled into an emergency private meeting with Rosenstein and Boente on Thursday. They will also be speaking to all 100 senators next week.
It’s verified that a grand jury subpoenaed documents from business associates of Flynn.
An interesting wrinkle here is Boente, who I’ve a google alert set up for since early after the election. He would be the presiding prosecutor in the district the indictments supposedly came out of, the Eastern District of Virginia. Obama “demoted him” just before leaving office, but some are speculating he did that on purpose in order to trick Trump in to re-promoting him, knowing that Trump would tend to trust anyone that Obama appeared not to trust.
It also explains Rosenstein saying he doesn’t think a special prosecutor is needed at this time. If they are already bringing charges, why hand the investigation off to someone else?
If Rosenstein was briefed about the existing evidence as soon as he was confirmed, 3 weeks ago now, it explains his seeming to be complicit in Comey’s firing by writing the letter he did. He may have just been playing loyal soldier to keep Trump off the scent of what was really going down.
So again, LM and CT are anything but trustworthy reporters, but they have both been right, occasionally, in the past, and an examination of the existing context has me hopeful they are correct this time as well.
I just can’t with this.
Of a sort.
SNL cold open – Lester Holt interview.
For the few people who may not have seen it, here is coverage of Melissa McCarthy’s latest appearance as Sean Spicer.
A partial transcript of the SNL segment, and the complete video are available at the link.
SC @417, thanks for the correction.
In other news, former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper appeared on Sunday morning shows to express concerns over Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey:
Link
Phil Torres discussed Trump’s lack of “integrative complexity.”
A panel of experts discussed on AM Joy why the African American vote in 2016 was down when compared to the previous election. Multiple reasons were presented, but I want to focus on Republican voter-suppression efforts.
I thought the most important parts of this discussion hosted by Joy Reid focused on:
1. voter suppression efforts in various states
2. Trump’s executive order creating a voter fraud commission
3. the fact that 2016 marked the first presidential election since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.
For me, this is a hair-on-fire issue. Kris Kobach is ready to suppress the vote even more, and his tactics invariably affect voters of color, students, and disabled people disproportionately. Trump is putting the power of the presidency behind this effort.
Studies showing that voter suppression efforts likely caused the vote by people of color to decline by about 5% in 2016 were presented.
This situation is only going to get worse. We see that voter-suppression tactics, voter-ID laws, and gerrymandering of districts have already had a dire effect. Republicans count all this as a huge success … and they want to do more of the same.
I didn’t mean it as a correction – just thought it was funny. I’m quite sure they intended to menace and terrorize, and Nazis with fire is never a comforting sight, but they’re also such comical dipshits.
SC @423, it was funny. They were terrorizing mosquitoes as well.
In other news, Hunter, writing for Daily Kos presented this analysis of Sean Spicer’s predicament:
The latest from Carol Cadwalladr – “Follow the data: does a legal document link Brexit campaigns to US billionaire?” It’s a whopper.
This detail is amazing if true:
Cringeworthy.
Further to #425 – Cadwalladr on Mercer trying to kill her story and other details.
Tweet o’ the day, because it’s so twisted and tragic and telling it’s perfect for this year.
Trump is the Russian Defense Ministry’s Sean Spicer.
I honestly have no idea who Taylor is and didn’t realize he was connected to Mensch when I linked earlier. Both best safely ignored, is the way to go. (As I’ve said before, daily torrents of wild speculation will, given the odds, likely produce a few hits – or something kind of resembling them – but that doesn’t make you a credible or worthwhile source.)
Steve Bell’s cartoon in the Grauniad, On the Russian connection: Trump fires the FBI guy.
To see what the Russian text says, run this though, e.g., Generalissimo Google Translate (it’s amusing): я не русский мошенник.
(For me, there are two different translations. The one which includes the full stop (period) in the Russian text is funnier than the one which doesn’t, albeit both are good.)
Just a heads-up: Mano Singham, here at FtB, has an article about some possibly very interesting journalism / investigation, Dutch documentary on Trump’s shady business dealings:
France24 is reporting Trump to nominate Callista Gingrich as Vatican envoy:
If the claim of a threatened withdrawal is true, it’s ironic since Newt was a supporter of teh trum-prat.
As far as I am aware, the Ambassadorship to the child raping cult isn’t a position which is too important, so filling it as payback for a political debt (a common practice) needn’t be a big deal. (Which should not be read as saying I approve of the practice!) A caveat here, however, is that in the past the States has worked with the cult on some fairly loathsome actions, such as (from memory) restricting contraception and abortions. Also, in the past the cult has (attempted to?) reject Ambassadors for silly reasons, such as being gay.
Al-Jazeera has a detailed look at hair furor’s “Ambassador” to Israel, US ambassador to Israel: ‘Great advantage to Netanyahu’ (my added emboldening):
This is an example of a very bad political payback Ambassadorship (which is not to say @433 isn’t bad, only that it’s not as obviously dangerously bad). The entire article is worth reading.
EW.
Part 2 has also been available for a few days. It’s worth watching aside from any Trump connections.
“The Widening Blast Radius of the Fox News Scandal: The metastasizing Ailes affair is spilling over into the politics of New York, Virginia and the White House.”
This section at the end:
Speaking of Gabe Sherman, here’s his latest: “Women Can Wear Pants on Fox News Now, But Not Much Else Has Changed.”
Chris Murphy: “Your morning reminder that under the cloud cover of the FBI story, 13 GOP Senators are still secretly writing a bill to destroy the ACA.”
Brzezinski did say this, and it’s completely believable.
At this point, it’s like MSNBC executives are intentionally sabotaging their own network.
“De Becker rebuffed any suggestion that his terminal symbolised inequality.”
In legal news:
The Supreme Court just refused to reinstate North Carolina’s voter-suppression law. (The NC Republican-controlled legislature has reached almost pre-Civil War levels of “Fuck everyone, we’re in power and we’ll oppress anyone we want.”) “In a statement that accompanied the court’s order Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts pointed to uncertainty over an important procedural aspect of the case, disagreement over who was authorized to file an appeal on behalf of the state.”
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments about Muslim Ban 2.0 today.
This is quite a long article worth reading, albeit the basic datapoint — by far most “terrorism” within the State is committed by wingnuts — is neither new nor recent, They hate the US government, and they’re multiplying: the terrifying rise of (“While US counter-terrorism efforts remain locked on Islamist [sic] extremism, the growing threat from homegrown, rightwing extremists is even more pressing”).
One detail I’ll except is the following:
SC @ 430 – Which is why I was very careful in my wording. I don’t trust a thing LM says. She’s an attention craving liar. Claude is a lot more reliable. The morning of the SCG raid he was tweeting that something was going down long before the press caught wind of it. He also accurately predicted the existence of grand juries that had not been reported before, and hours later the news broke about the subpoenas for Flynn’s business associates’ information, so I believe he knows people on the inside.
I think for him it’s unfortunate that he associates himself with her. Again, I’m not saying they are right, I’m just hopeful they are.
That’s not correct. I linked to a local journalist covering the SCG raid @ #256. Her tweet was at 10 AM. I linked to his tweets @ #262. They began at 10:51 AM, and their claims went well beyond what has been documented to have occurred. The only reason I wasn’t more critical at the time was that the journalist, who’s still following this by the way, later tweeted this cryptic remark. He and Mensch seem to throw around a lot of legal and enforcement terms when they don’t really understand how things work, and their claims are often so general (“something’s going down”) that any development is taken as a fulfillment of their predictions. If things really develop, we’ll learn it soon enough from real journalists anyway, and they’re wrong about so much that they endlessly build up expectations of imminent takedowns, which isn’t helpful to anyone.
I’m prickly about it at the moment because I’ve seen too many people on Twitter responding to reports from David Cay Johnston’s organization and professional reporters with statements like “It’s good to see the media catching up with Twitter” and “Great work. You should be following Mensch/Taylor/Khan.” It’s ridiculous.
Some context for the stated expectation of quickly picking a new FBI director.
John Dean: “Be surprised if Comey did not write memos after every contact he has had with Trump. He’ll be a witness if (when?) there’s an impeachment.”
SC @427, Sheesh! The argument from rightwing in the UK is that there is no substance to Cadwalladr’s criticism, that the criticism stems solely from hurt feelings about being defeated. That sounds so much like Trump claiming that the entire investigation of all things Russia-Trump stems solely from the Democrats having hurt feelings over losing the election. The rightwing manages to sound childish, peevish, and ill-informed no matter in what country they reside.
“JUST IN: Dep AG Rod Rosenstein will brief all 100 Senators RE: Comey’s firing on Thursday, May 18th at 2:30 P.M”
There are also reports Comey will testify, day and time TBA.
Trump sent a video message to members of the Republican National Committee. Among other things, Trump, in reference to the 2018 midterms, told them: “We can pick up a lot of seats, especially if it all keeps going like it is now.”
Maybe he was making a veiled reference to his and Kobach’s renewed efforts to restrict the voting rights of likely Democratic Party voters?
Nah. It’s more likely that he doesn’t believe his own disapproval rating (56%), nor the even worse disapproval ratings of many Congress critters. Trump thinks he is winning even when he is not.
This surreal fun fact is actually true – the event is tomorrow and Wednesday.
“We look forward to meeting with governors from around the country to discuss policy. Our focus every day is on more jobs, higher pay, safer streets, and better schools for the people of Missouri…” says the spokesman for Missouri’s governor. See #367 for the bill Missouri Republicans just sent to his desk a few days ago.
Tomorrow Ryan Lizza will be publishing excerpts of his interview with Sally Yates. Tomorrow night, Anderson Cooper will air his interview with her.
During his press briefing today, Sean Spicer continued to decline to answer yes or no when asked if the White House staff or Trump himself taped conversations with James Comey (or any other visitors).
Such weirdness. Do they think that if they stick their heads in the sand the issue will go away?
The ACLU has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Justice Department and with the FBI for records related to the firing of Comey.
“White House interference with any FBI investigation is incompatible with democratic safeguards, and that’s especially the case when the investigation involves the President or his associates,” the director of the group’s National Security Project, Hina Shamsi, said in a statement. “Political meddling with law enforcement investigations is a recipe for abuse of power.”
She added: “It’s impossible to know the truth right now because the Trump administration has issued shifting explanations, each of which is increasingly troubling.”
Lynna @454:
Naah. It’s just like the Russia/election investigation. Trump claims to have talked to people who told him that there is nothing to inveestigate and that it is all made up. Faux News runs with it. The right-wing media tells all of their sycophants that it has been investigated and found to be baseless so any further investigation would be politically based and wasting money. When Spicer says that “I was very clear that the President would have nothing further on that last week,” he is flat out saying that it is already settled and that anyone continuing to question it is doing it because of politics or ‘fake news.’
This is a tried-and-true RWA tactic. It has been used before and will continue to be used. How many times have we heard something along the lines of, oh, congress investigated that, so it is a dead issue?
Comment eated. Trying again.
Lynna @454:
Naah. It’s just like the Russia/election investigation. Trump claims to have talked to people who told him that there is nothing to inveestigate and that it is all made up. Faux News runs with it. The right-wing media tells all of their sycophants that it has been investigated and found to be baseless so any further investigation would be politically based and wasting money. When Spicer says that “I was very clear that the President would have nothing further on that last week,” he is flat out saying that it is already settled and that anyone continuing to question it is doing it because of politics or ‘fake news.’
This is a tried-and-true RWA tactic. It has been used before and will continue to be used. How many times have we heard something along the lines of, oh, congress investigated that, so it is a dead issue?
Trump spoke at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service today. In addition to speaking, Trump also tossed a campaign hat into the audience. The hat he tossed is identified on his campaign site as the “Official USA 45th Presidential Hat – White.”
Right Wing Watch link
Classy, am I right?
John Oliver commented on Trump firing Comey:
Link
Instead of “alternative facts,” we now have “fake but accurate””
Vox link
How was Trump’s one-page tax “plan” born?
The quoted text is from Politico.
From Jordan Weissman, writing for Slate:
“Trump sharing highly classified information with Russia shows his extreme hubris”:
MSNBC says they haven’t confirmed.
Here’s the original WaPo report – “Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador.”
From the report:
In fact, it made no mention of Kislak.
*Kislyak*
NYT now reporting the same thing.
None of the statements coming from the WH constitute a real denial of what the story actually reports.
Tweet o’ the day.
Ted Lieu: “Dear @realDonaldTrump: WaPo followed your advice & looked into the leaking of highly classified information. Turns out the leaker is you.”
SC @ 446 – Thank you for correcting my understanding of the timeline. I wasn’t aware of any reporting prior to him raising alarm bells. I hadn’t paid attention to the time stamps on your two links. That does indeed change my perspective.
FTR, I am not in the LM\kahn et al camp in any way whatsoever. I’m more of a fan / follower of Abramson, Khendzior and others with legit journalism and legal creds.
All McMaster did is repeat the written statements. Again, they’re not responding to the content of the article. McMaster also seemed angry and perhaps at the end of his tether.
Oh, I know. I didn’t mean to imply that you were. Amazingly (or perhaps not), Mensch has been going after Kendzior, who’s a scholar with a great deal of relevant area knowledge. It’s another aspect that’s roused my anger. Kendzior has been classy and discouraged people from piling on Mensch in her defense, but it’s aggravating. People spend years learning how to be scholars and doing research, developing their craft as journalists, and practicing as lawyers, and these people come along and trash their (our) knowledge and expertise. I love the crowdsourcing of information and insights, but people like Mensch simulate democratic/anarchic journalism in a really harmful way.
CNN is now reporting that the State Department was unaware that the WH had organized the statement from Tillerson. I suspect they tried to get McMaster to say more (lie) and he refused. I don’t think he knows what to do.
(Are CNN and MSNBC like down the hall from each other? Dershowitz just went from one to the other in about 30 minutes.)
BuzzFeed WH correspondent: “WH comms staffers just put the TVs on super loud after we could hear yelling coming from room w/ Bannon, Spicer, Sanders.”
Ha.
Further to #475: “Can now hear yelling coming from room where officials are.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF? So who on the Senate Intelligence Committee was briefed and who wasn’t? How were ordinary members briefed but not Warner?
It’s tangential, but…isn’t it the case (it might not actually be – I could be misremembering) that they’ve led people to believe the always-questionable suggestion that the intelligence about the laptops came from the disastrous Yemen raid?
@473 – I agree wholeheartedly SC. Kendzior is brilliant and people on the left’s sucking up to LM is maddening.
As an aside, this clip from Kendzior makes me want to stand up and cheer!
Pelosi just said in her CNN town hall that she doesn’t “subscribe” to the call for impeachment. WTF….
“Of course.”
TY Daily Show
Lawfare:
Sure, why not?
Reuters and WSJ have also confirmed.
Follow-up to SC’s comments 472 and 474.
Josh Marshall commented on the statement made by General McMaster:
From Yochi Dreazen, writing for Vox:
Spotted via Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science, Trump thinks that exercising too much uses up the body’s energy (Washington Post edits in {curly braces}):
Some readers’s comments at Bad Science and the Washington Post:
● “Perhaps he could give up eating then, just to prove the point.”
● “More insightful life coaching wisdom from the fathead in the White House, the guy who believes reality is whatever you say it is.”
● “The only [sic] short circuit in Trump’s ‘battery theory’ of exercise is this: It’s a rechargeable battery, and the best ways to recharge it are (a) moderate to vigorous exercise and (b) even more important, access to health care.
● “Like all of Trumps other observations, these fall far short of fact and do not even register on the useful scale.”
● There are several comparisons to Gen Jack D Ripper’s “precious bodily fluids” (Dr Strangelove…), albeit as one commenter noted, “Jack Ripper appears sane in comparison to the POTUS.”
● “He probably thinks his brain has too.” Another commentator noted, “[…] If his idea was true of brain cells, he would have run out of them a long time ago.” There are quite a lot of other snarks on this theme, e.g., “Trump has definitely spent his mental faculties into the un-rechargeable zone.”
The mildly deranged penguin suggests sending hair furor the tweet “Ваше распределение силы тяжести было превышено. Вскоре вы будете выброшены с планеты.” (Generalissimo Google Translation of “Your gravity allocation has been exceeded. You will ejected from the planet soon.”) Deliberately keep short to assist his understanding.
Trump is tweeting again. Essentially, he’s saying he did it; he has the “absolute right” to do it; fuck the IC, allies, and the US. Oh – and the problem is…the leakers. He started a tweet about 10 minutes ago – “I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community…..” – which remains unfinished.
LOL.
Readers’s comments on this column in the Granuiad, Bragging about our intel to Russia? Trump is too needy to be president [sic], are claiming hair furor very recently babbled This is teh trum-prat, who lies all the time (except by accident, similar to a stuck clock), so I see that more as yet another undermining of teh Wacko House’s other lies.
The column itself is interesting:
Most of the column, which I’ve redacted from the above excerpt, is trying to argue “even the bozo-in-chief isn’t stupid enough to think it’s OK to hand out information like presidential M&Ms to anyone who walks into the Oval Office.” Not that he didn’t do it, but that whatever he did do, it was, as per the column’s premise, to feed his own inner eejit.
Art from last night, by Robin Bell.
Here’s video of Bell’s projections on Trump’s hotel last night.
This week:
– McMaster is scheduled to do a press briefing in about 10 minutes. Don’t know if that will happen.
– Today, the New Yorker publishes excerpts from Ryan Lizza’s extended interview with Sally Yates.
– Tonight, CNN airs Anderson Cooper’s interview with Sally Yates (8 PM E).
– Thursday at 2:30, Rosenstein briefs the entire Senate in a closed session.
– Friday is the deadline for the DoJ to turn over Giuliani’s memo re the Muslim ban to the plaintiffs (ACLU and others).
– Monday(ish), the CBO will release its new AHCA score.
– Comey testimony?
Rachel Maddow last night listed the various ongoing investigations. Another shoe or major bombshell could drop on any of those at any moment. Or on this latest development.
McConnell.
Greg Miller, co-author of WaPo report: “We had lengthy interactions w/ White House all day yesterday. McMaster never said it was false until after it was published.”
McMaster is scheduled to do a press briefing in about 10 minutes. Don’t know if that will happen.
I think I was confusing the time with Trump’s phone call with the king of Jordan. The press briefing is at 1:30, just after Trump’s joint appearance with Erdogan.
“BREAKING: European official to AP: Country might stop sharing intel with US if Trump gave classified info to Russian diplomats.”