There Is a New SCANDAL Based on Partisan Descriptions from House Intelligence Committee Members
And I know you guys want to talk about it!
Me, it strikes me that there is no “there” there. But I don’t much feel like explaining why, because what would the point be? Would I convince anyone? If you want a hint: there is a difference between opinions based on body language and facts about what someone actually said.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, trust me: you’re better off not knowing.
Anyway, I thought I’d give the rest of you a thread so you’d have a dedicated place to fly into an outrage.
Meanwhile: um, Twitter? No, no, and no.
UPDATE: If you simply must know, nk has it in comment 10.
[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]
Oh no. 3, 2, 1. Here comes vulgar crap again.
Simon Jester (ad6a15) — 5/5/2018 @ 7:16 pmIs this about whether Comey said that the lie-dar of the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not detect conscious lying even though other information he had contradicted his statements? Snorfle!
nk (dbc370) — 5/5/2018 @ 7:24 pm*
nk (dbc370) — 5/5/2018 @ 7:25 pmhethey* hadMeanwhile, one of the firms Mueller charged along with the 13 Russians showed up in court,and Mueller just lost in attempt to put off their arraignment. That defendant is already pushing for lots of discovery from Mueller’s team and will probably insist on their speedy trial rights. So, Mueller may be forced in short order to reveal a lot about his investigation via discovery and a public trial–or decide to dismiss the case against this defendant.
That’s one of the problems when you throw a foreign corporate entity into an indictment is they have no fear of taking a prosecutor to the mat and going to trial. If they get convicted, nobody goes to jail—at best the punishment is paying a fine (if the US can collect) and being barred from doing business in the US so there is no leverage for the prosecutor in forcing
pete (a65bac) — 5/5/2018 @ 7:44 pmthe house intelligence committee is mostly gaywads
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 7:45 pm(oops, got cut off) ..forcing that defendant to flip on others.
pete (a65bac) — 5/5/2018 @ 7:45 pmOK, I’m clueless.
Help?
Oh, please don’t ever ask me to follow Stormy Daniels *anywhere*. Please?
Dianna (c1b8e5) — 5/5/2018 @ 7:46 pmJudge rejects Mueller’s request for delay in Russian troll farm case
looks like herr mueller and the rosenstasi are really good at midnight raids but not so good at actual law stuff
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 7:51 pm“No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.” — Helmuth von Moltke
nk (dbc370) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:10 pmDianna, I think it’s this plot twist: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/04/house-intel-report-comey-testified-fbi-agents-saw-no-physical-indications-deception-by-flynn.html
It being Fox, you need to read past the headline to see that Comey denies it.
nk (dbc370) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:14 pmwhy won’t the rosenstasi DOJ just release the transcript then
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:19 pmI have no idea what you’re talking about, Patterico. But Twitter delenda est.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:23 pmWhich transcript?
nk (dbc370) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:30 pmall of a sudden coward-pig John McCain has a “ranch”
that’s so kooky
so he’s a rancher?
lol
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:30 pmWhich transcript?
right?
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:30 pmNever mind.
nk (dbc370) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:31 pmI had a Ranchero once.
mg (9e54f8) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:34 pmStormy screws Trump again; does cold open on SNL.
Follow that, Donald.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:40 pmso cartoon tits are the new face of the #metoo democratic party
got it
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:52 pmomg America love is dead
Colton Haynes And Jeff Leatham Reportedly Split After 6 Months Of Marriage
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:59 pmI have no idea what you’re talking about, Patterico.
But when the pair arrived at the Justice Department to review the electronic communication, officials were caught off-guard by his next move. Nunes — sitting with a copy of the document in an unopened folder directly in front of him — opted not to read it, according to four sources with knowledge of the situation.
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 9:14 pmKate McKinnon apparently played Rudy …
Dave (445e97) — 5/5/2018 @ 10:22 pmComey lies a lot
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 10:25 pmIf only he could be as truthful as Trump
Davethulhu (7e7722) — 5/5/2018 @ 10:33 pmfbi agents lol
so slutty
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 10:59 pmLet me give a cultist response: So?
Not clear to me what the big deal is. Comey gave congress information adverse to the FBI’s case. Do people think he was lying to Congress, and that Flynn DID show signs of untruthfulness?
Otherwise, I thought the narrative was that Flynn was an innocent man railroaded by false FBI testimony. If so, why would Comey go on record with information adverse to the prosecution? Why would the agents who were trying to railroad him say that he didn’t act like he was lying? That (unlike what he actually said) is a totally subjective judgment that they could have been easily falsified if the agents were out to frame Flynn (“Our agents noted clear signs of deception in their interview with Flynn…”). But rather than railroading the guy they were supposedly railroading, they instead gave a truthful account of their observations.
It sounds like a case of forgetting a detail of something he said over a year ago. Comey does not have access to the transcripts of those hearings. What motivation does he have to lie in press interviews about something he said under oath more than a year ago, after Flynn has plead guilty?
Moreover, it is an undisputed fact that Flynn DID lie. Whether the FBI agents who interviewed him found his body language incriminating seems totally irrelevant. The fact that they noted that they didn’t find his body language incriminating bolsters their credibility and fairness.
Dave (445e97) — 5/5/2018 @ 11:50 pm“No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.” — Helmuth von Moltke
nk (dbc370) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:10 pm
“Everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face.” – Mike Tyson
Pinandpuller (195419) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:01 amStormy screws Trump again; does cold open on SNL.
Follow that, Donald.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:40 pm
Did they do the Carrie prom scene? No, don’t spoil it.
Pinandpuller (195419) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:04 amomg America love is dead
Colton Haynes And Jeff Leatham Reportedly Split After 6 Months Of Marriage
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 8:59 pm
In a celebrity relationship you have to learn how to take turns.
Pinandpuller (195419) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:08 amTyson in his prime made boxers punch drunk after the first round,
mg (9e54f8) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:09 amKate McKinnon apparently played Rudy …
Dave (445e97) — 5/5/2018 @ 10:22 pm
According to you, Trump played Rudy too.
Pinandpuller (195419) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:10 amHookers and beauty pageant contestants too.
He’s Donald Trump’s kind of guy.
Dave (445e97) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:13 amDamn, i thought i was on Dave’s no fly list.
mg (9e54f8) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:20 amI saw the clip; the makeup folks did a creditable job making her look like Rudy, but her impression was pretty horrible.
I thought Melania (with hat!) and the incredulous FBI agents listening in were the highlights.
Dave (445e97) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:21 amSorry to disappoint; my stalker Col. Haiku is the only one I block.
Dave (445e97) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:23 amThe Col. is one of the reasons I love this site.
mg (9e54f8) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:34 amJM doesn’t want Trump at his funeral so how about if Trump holds a rally in Michigan instead?
Pinandpuller (195419) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:38 amJohnny the jolly rancher
mg (9e54f8) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:48 ama con man full of wind
A lost conscience long ago
Political pollution at its most toxic form
hate him
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:08 amI explained to him that I’m not gay, but he kept writing me poems about his creepy sex fantasies. I finally decided enough was enough.
Dave (445e97) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:14 am37, the South is gonna start to feel neglected.
urbanleftbehind (24e2ff) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:30 amSure thing, Dave.
mg (9e54f8) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:17 amThe south has waffle houses for neglected types
mg (9e54f8) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:19 am“The Reuters/Ipsos Core Political poll has a significant realignment this week across a number of metrics. Most pronounced is President Trump’s approval rating which currently sits at 48% with all Americans. His number with registered voters is essentially the same at 49%. Corresponding with Trump’s stronger approval rating, evaluations of his job performance across the board are stronger this week from 57% approving of his handling of the economy to 44% approving of the way he treats people like them. On the generic congressional ballot, our current poll shows a +5-point advantage for Democrats, the smallest lead we’ve seen in recent weeks.”
harkin (32652f) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:43 amteh ghey professor
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:08 amkicked out of Brit all-gurlz band
ConDave on teh grift
…and the expressways as well (this isn’t stuff from adjacent neighborhoods following targets upramp like in the Chi):
urbanleftbehind (24e2ff) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:09 amhttp://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/05/georgia-highway-sniper-idolized-parkland-suspect/584227002/
I may have missed it but I’ve never seen an approval rating based on the way any president treats people like us. That sounds like something a radical leftist snowflake would insert to try and emote a specific response or to identify an area for future attack by like-minded idiots. Hell, what president would even know people like us?
With the constant, never ending barrage from the media, education and entertainment industries the fact that Trump has a rating above 19% is a testament to the fact that some Americans can still think for themselves at all.
Rev.Hoagie (51bde3) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:10 amColonel is still blocked
Gryph (08c844) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:11 amI don’t have to read his crap
I am full of joy
protecting their eyes
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:11 am8th Grade Mean Gurlz are faithful
to pink diaries
It’s Reuters Hoagie
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:14 amALL roads lead to narrative
leftwing gimpiness
This years McCain family highlight was Meghan talking about “motorboating” on the View.
I’m a little fuzzy on the details but I think it involved Whoopi and Joy describing their weekend at the lake without a boat and Meghan leapt to a conclusion that can only burn the minds eye.
Or maybe not.
McCain should be honored as a brave pilot who paid a huge physical and mental price for our country.
steveg (a9dcab) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:16 amBut I wish he would stop himself from doing petty things like telling people he doesn’t want Donald Trump at his funeral. Some people die with class and dignity, usually forgiving trespasses and letting the poisoning things of life go before the whole of life is gone, but hey, its John McCain… if he trashes Trump in his last breath he’ll be worshipped by the media as an “honest man down to the end”
gryp blocks teh colonel
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:17 amhe doesn’t read colonel’s joy
gryp is full of schiff
“Although Deputy Director McCabe acknowledged that ‘the two people who interviewed [Flynn] didn’t think he was lying, [which] was not [a] great beginning of a false statement case,’ General Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements on December 1, 2017,” a newly unredacted part of the report reads.
The document also says top government officials had conflicting reports about why the two agents were interviewing Flynn in the first place.
The committee “received conflicting testimony” from Comey, McCabe, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord about the “primary purpose” of the interview, the report states.
The report claims that these top FBI and Justice Department officials had different answers regarding whether the agents were “investigating misleading statements to the Vice President, which the Vice President echoed publicly about the content of this calls; a possible violation of the Logan Act; or a desire top obtain more information as part of the counterintelligence investigation into General Flynn.”
The report notes that Comey testified that “the agents … discerned no physical indications of deception. They didn’t see any change in posture, in tone, in inflection, in eye contact. They saw nothing that indicated to them that he knew he was lying to them.”
McCabe also then confirmed this to the Intelligence Committee, according to the report, but added that they’d found Flynn’s statements were “inconsistent” with what they had understood to be his conversations with Kislyak.”
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/386323-house-intel-report-comey-mccabe-testified-that-the-two-agents-who
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:23 am“A federal judge has rejected special counsel Robert Mueller’s request to delay the first court hearing in a criminal case charging three Russian companies and 13 Russian citizens with using social media and other means to foment strife among Americans in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In a brief order Saturday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich offered no explanation for her decision to deny a request prosecutors made Friday to put off the scheduled Wednesday arraignment for Concord Management and Consulting, one of the three firms charged in the case.
The 13 people charged in the high-profile indictment in February are considered unlikely to ever appear in a U.S. court. The three businesses accused of facilitating the alleged Russian troll farm operation — the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management, and Concord Catering — were also expected to simply ignore the American criminal proceedings.
Last month, however, a pair of Washington-area lawyers suddenly surfaced in the case, notifying the court that they represent Concord Management. POLITICO reported at the time that the move appeared to be a bid to force Mueller’s team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information.
On Friday, Mueller’s prosecutors disclosed that Concord’s attorneys, Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly, had made a slew of discovery requests demanding nonpublic details about the case and the investigation. Prosecutors also asked a judge to postpone the formal arraignment of Concord Management set for next week.
The prosecution team sought the delay on the grounds that it’s unclear whether Concord Management formally accepted the court summons related to the case. Mueller’s prosecutors also revealed that they tried to deliver the summonses for Concord and IRA through the Russian government, without success.
“The [U.S.] government has attempted service of the summonses by delivering copies of them to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, to be delivered to the defendants,” prosecutors wrote. “That office, however, declined to accept the summonses. The government has submitted service requests to the Russian government pursuant to a mutual legal assistance treaty. To the government’s knowledge, no further steps have been taken within Russia to effectuate service.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/04/mueller-russia-interference-election-case-delay-570627
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:27 amThe FBI needs to start recording conversations.
steveg (a9dcab) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:32 amAfter seeing how Comey memorialized his recollections, if I’m on a jury, I am convicting no one ever based on an FBI agents notes and “recollections”.
What a bunch of fools. The sad thing is that Comey actually believes Hillary adheres to the rule of law… and I guess she does know how to play the law by Comey’s rules… consequences are for the little people
“Pettifoggery” by the crack legal team Mueller has assembled. Sounds about right and additionally sums up the whole investigation
steveg (a9dcab) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:35 amOh. And buffoonery is not an impeachable offense. Laughing at it is fun though and admit it… Trump is hilarious
steveg (a9dcab) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:36 am@51 McCain should be honored as a brave pilot who paid a huge physical and mental price for our country. [Para.] But I wish he would stop himself from doing petty things like telling people he doesn’t want Donald Trump at his funeral. Some people die with class and dignity, usually forgiving trespasses and letting the poisoning things of life go before the whole of life is gone, but hey, its John McCain… if he trashes Trump in his last breath he’ll be worshipped [sic] by the media as an “honest man down to the end” [Emphasis added]
A little harsh, not to mention inaccurate. Surely, anyone should have the right to express his or her desires not to have a particularly offensive and unwelcome potential attendee at that person’s own funeral. And without be labelled “petty”. Especially when that funeral will be a public affair of some note, where the offensive and unwelcome individual would (given both his station and the location of the funeral) otherwise be expected to attend, and where that offensive and unwelcome individual is not particularly noted for his sensitivities on any matter – much less something of this nature. And where is there any evidence or suggestion of evidence that McCain has any desire to pass from the stage, clutching to and declaiming “in his last breath” or otherwise that Trump is trash?
Q! (86710c) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:43 am@58 … And without being labelled “petty” … Apologies.
Q! (86710c) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:47 amMcCain is a pain and has been for nearly two decades.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:54 amWell Q!, I think McCain should be worried about making peace with God and not about who is going to attend his funeral. Somehow I don’t thing departing this world as a spiteful, hostile soul is what God wants McCain to do. I think He’s want forgiveness, love and charity to be what McCain wished for but I could be wrong. But McCain is what he is.
Rev.Hoagie (51bde3) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:10 amJuan deserves the devil not heaven.
mg (9e54f8) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:41 am@61. You bring a smile to my face, Rev. Thank you. As if you (in particular) had any insight into what God wishes on any point whatsoever . . . it’s simply too too precious a conceit. And that’s apart from your ragingly false assumptions re: McCain’s state of mind of late. (Query: do you think it generous, do you think it Christian, to indulge yourself in such assumptions?) Whatever. My sincere thanks, again, for the smile you have bestowed upon me this fine Sunday morning.
Q! (86710c) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:44 amBeware of the Preference Cascade, NeverTrumpinistas!!!
“America’s political experts got it wrong in 2016 — not because they took too few polls, but because they made the false assumption that American elections are immune to societal change.
They are, in large part, still getting things wrong, not only by failing to understand a new group of voters who put President Donald Trump in the White House but also by ignoring why they voted the way they did.
When explaining the Trump voter, the media usually offers portraits of isolated, uneducated, working-class rubes who are driven by anger, race and nationalism. To the experts and those who didn’t support Trump, it’s hard for them to see it any other way.
And while the media obsesses over the future demise of the president, they aren’t pausing to consider the strength and durability of the coalition that swept him into office.
They aren’t asking why people in the Rust Belt counties who voted for former President Barack Obama twice suddenly switched to Trump.
But they should. Because Trump was not the cause of this movement, he was the result of it. In order to fully appreciate his rise to the White House, you need focus on the people who put him there.“
https://nypost.com/2018/05/05/the-coalition-that-got-trump-elected-isnt-going-away/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:00 am… And on the seventh day, Quisling and Quimby shall mince forcefully…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:03 amI just gave my opinion, Q!. I suppose you (in particular) have the insight my opinion lacks. Please enlighten me as to what it is.
I also made no “assumptons” (ragingly false or otherwise) about McCain’s state of mind. I just interpreted what his petty, hateful and selfish remarks told about his lack of character. But as I said, I could be wrong. You think I am. And I think you are. BTW, the fact that you think insulting me somehow elevates you is really sad but understandable.
Rev.Hoagie (c5d6cf) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:04 amI can see the democrats hijacking juans funeral and making it another Welstone fundraiser.
mg (9e54f8) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:09 am@66 I just interpreted what his petty, hateful and selfish remarks told about his lack of character.
Please enlighten me. I am ignorant of what “petty, hateful and selfish” remarks they were, that McCain supposedly made in this regard. The (alleged) quote, and of course the reference — so that I may become equally “well-informed” as you pretend to be.
Q! (86710c) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:18 amOne’s final days are the traditional time to be honest with oneself, with God, and with other people. Pointing out that an important person is a corrupt narcissistic individual who seems to exemplify all the Seven Deadly Sins at once is not being petty and hateful and selfish. It’s being honest. You calling that petty and hateful and selfish says more about you than it does McCain.
Good ends attained by corrupt means or through corrupt persons end up being corrupted themselves. Though you may be close to threescore and seven, Hoagie, it seems you have yet to learn that lesson.
kishnevi (bb03e6) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:27 amSean Davis has it better than Fox. Has the redacted and unredacted versions side by side so anyone can see for themselves what was being hidden.
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/992551148035993600
Anon Y. Mous (6cc438) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:30 amThank you Kishnevi. I can always depend on you.
Rev.Hoagie (c5d6cf) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:39 amAnd now Nunes will be seeking a Contempt of Congress vote against SESSIONS. Wow.
https://saraacarter.com/nunes-congress-to-hold-ag-sessions-in-contempt/
Ed from SFV (291f4c) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:45 am@26 It was only upon reading the previously redacted passages that one could gain an understanding of the critical national security concerns that caused those passages to have been redacted.
pete (a65bac) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:46 amBetween the funeral exclusion and the Palin blast, McCain has taken petty to 11. But we have a president who takes it to 110 – it’s all meaningless.
harkin (c60926) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:52 amThe 10 Dumbest McCainisms…
10. “I was looking at the Sturgis schedule and noticed that you had a beauty pageant, so I encouraged Cindy to compete. I told her [that] with a little luck, she could be the only woman to serve as both the First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.” –on the annual Miss Buffalo Chip Pageant, which features topless (and occasionally bottomless) contestants, Sturgis, South Dakota, Aug. 4, 2008.
9. “Across this country this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners.
And the same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent.” –Bethlehem, Penn., Oct. 8, 2008 (Watch video clip)
8. “You know, I think you may have noticed that Senator Obama’s supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, I couldn’t agree with them more. I couldn’t disagree with you. I couldn’t agree with you more than the fact that Western Pennsylvania is the most patriotic, most god-loving, most, most patriotic part of America, and this is a great part of the country.” –Moon Township, Penn., Oct. 21, 2008 (Watch video clip)
7. “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should. I’ve got Greenspan’s book.” –as quoted in the Boston Globe, Dec. 17, 2007
6. “Our economy, I think, is still — the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” –Jacksonville, Fla., Sept. 15, 2008
5. “You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” –breaking into song after being asked at a VFW meeting about whether it was time to send a message to Iran, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, April 18, 2007
4. “There was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” –breaking into song after being asked at a VFW meeting about whether it was time to send a message to Iran, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, April 18, 2007
4. “There was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.
You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one.” –referring to Barack Obama during the second presidential debate, Nashville, Tennessee, Oct. 7, 2008
3. “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you. It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.” –after being asked how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own, interview with Politico, Las Cruces, N.M., Aug. 20, 2008 (Take a Google Earth tour of the McCain residences and watch Obama’s amusing ad slamming McCain)
2. “Make it a hundred…That would be fine with me.” –to a questioner who asked if he supported President Bush’s vision for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 50 years, Derry, New Hampshire, Jan. 3, 2008
1. “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c*nt.” –to his wife, Cindy, after she playfully twirled his hair and said “You’re getting a little thin up there,” as reported in the book The Real McCain by Cliff Schecte
https://www.thoughtco.com/top-dumbest-john-mccain-quotes-2734452
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:58 amThere’s nothing Christian about John or Megan McCain. But that’s okay, there’s nothing Christian about Donald Trump, either.
John Hitchcock (05d3ed) — 5/6/2018 @ 10:06 amPresident Trump i’m high on lovin you
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 10:25 amHi Stormy it’s Lisa Page
Hi Lisa how are you
I’m itchy how do you get rid of the funguses?
Oh you just get used to em after awhile I guess. Have you tried spraying some bactine all up in there?
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 10:39 am@ kish (#69), who wrote, in pertinent part (with an example I’ll omit here, but agree with):
That is a remarkable, and remarkably well crafted, set of observations. I thank you for them, and because the internet sometimes encourages sarcasm indistinguishable from sincerity, I assure you that my thanks are genuine and sincere.
No small part of my revulsion toward Donald Trump — a combination of political and moral revulsion, distinct but constantly interwoven and, alas, refreshed by the POTUS on a near-daily basis — arises from his systematic, constant corrosion of his marks’ intrinsic ethics and decency. That phenomenon is also at its worst on the internet, and for me at least, at its very worst somewhere like the comments of this blog, for it is a community in which our impressions of one another are made, renewed, and adjusted over time. I could easily list two dozen or so people whom I “know” solely through this blog — we’ve never met face to face, and our interactions occur only here, but after this many years (more than a decade, in a startling number of cases!), it’s a genuine acquaintance.
When I see someone with whom I thought I was well acquainted turn into a spitting, snarling, cursing parody of themselves — solely and always and near-daily over issues involving and usually particular to Donald J. Trump — I blame him for that, in a very personal way: He’s not just conning the country, he’s successfully conned people who were my friends, and since like all con jobs the mark must be positioned to deny he’s ever been conned, he’s destroyed relationships among previously individuals who’d previously demonstrated affectionate goodwill toward each other all over the world.
“He fights!” they marvel. “He divides!” I lament. And not over matters of public policy — tax rates or foreign relations or other subjects of government — but over hush money to porn stars, and other such indefensible crap that, nevertheless, his defenders will rush to destroy personal relationships here over.
This is not “winning.”
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:07 am(Sorry about that missed italics tag. It should have come after “Donald J. Trump,” whose history is likely to be written in italics, and not in a good way.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:09 amI also rather magnificently dangled a participle there. How about:
… he’s destroyed relationships all over the world among individuals who’d previously demonstrated affectionate goodwill toward each other.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:11 ampraise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed.
kishnevi (bb03e6) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:12 amThat’s what politics is. It’s when those DC SOBs unite together that we have to worry.
Anon Y. Mous (6cc438) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:19 amthese are the nutrition facts about fritos
as you can see fritos are a sometimes food
as such frito pie is a fun cheap way to serve guests on cinco de mayo or other cincos
you don’t need a casserole dish wikipedia’s so stupid
all you do is put out a big bowl of fritos and a crockpot of chili
i tend to start with a beanless canned chili the night before and make it my own by adding beer and simmering grated carrot into it and extra garlic and whatever
then you set out the toppings so people can make it how they like
then you spend the money you saved on foozle on extra beer
please to enjoy your summer
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:25 amSouthern Poverty Law Center
@splcenter
Most of the festivities surrounding #CincodeMayo in the US are textbook examples of cultural appropriation, relegating the history and culture of Mexican people to novelty items. Mexican culture cannot be reduced to tacos, oversized sombreros and piñatas.
__ _
House King
harkin (c60926) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:31 am@AndrewKing06
Replying to @splcenter
If celebrating Mexican culture is culture appropriation then isnt sneaking into a country illegally the ultimate cultural appropriation?
yup you nailed it Mr. harkin
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:35 amNo, mous, you’re wrong. On matters of politics as such — matters of public policy choices and governance — there’s not very much that separates me from the people here whom I used to consider friends who now describe me and other friends here as “slime” and “defectors” and “traitor” because we won’t self-moderate our own criticism of Trump to a level my former friends consider appropriate. (Which appears to be zero, actually, if I’m to judge by the level of criticism they themselves make toward Trump now.)
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:42 amWell-said Kishnevi and Beldar.
Trump is like the One Ring in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. While it may temporarily confer power, it cannot be used to do good and destroys any foolish enough to try, turning them into the very evil they claim to oppose.
All we can do is rid ourselves of it as quickly as possible, which in this case means casting Trump back into the sewer where he was forged.
Dave (445e97) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:43 amLet me ask you this, Beldar. It is becoming increasingly clear that official DC: politicians, law enforcement officers and officials, intelligence community officers and officials, illegally conspired to attempt to influence the outcome of the Presidential election. When they failed to accomplish that goal, they switched to a sham investigation of the incoming president, founded entirely on sham intelligence.
Does any of that disturb you? Or do you think that given Trump, it was justified? Our host refuses to engage that question. As do many #NeverTrumpers. They prefer to focus on the morality of a possible affair, which if it happened, occurred over a decade ago.
Tell me true. Which is more important as to the health of our republic?
Anon Y. Mous (6cc438) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:55 amthank God in his Heaven every day for the indefatigable Mr. Nunes
deputy attorney general Jeffy Sessions has brought such shame to his family i feel so sad for them
once a respected name, the Sessions name is now synonymous with weakness, cowardice and corruption
it’s time to get somebody in there that can clean up the lawless corrupt Rosenstasi Justice Department
and that person isn’t execrable coward Jeffy Sessions
it’s somebody else
somebody who isn’t weak and corrupt
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 11:56 amNow I have a hankerin’ for Fritos, but there’s none in the house. What’s happy about that?
Anon Y. Mous (6cc438) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:14 pmif you go to the store and diet dr pepper’s on sale please grab me one i pay you back
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:15 pmmous, where did the conspiracy of “politicians, law enforcement officers and officials, intelligence community officers and officials” meet? They couldn’t all fit in Andy McCabe’s office, could they?
There were certainly some people of responsibility who were acting in concert to try to accomplish various political goals, and specifically, to “influence the outcome of the Presidential election.” That is politics.
Some of it included dirty politics, and quite likely, illegal politics. Nothing the Russians ever did or presumed to do, for instance, could have had as much effect as the much smaller, more discrete conspiracy inside the Democratic National Committee to deliver that party’s nomination to Hillary Clinton no matter what and no matter who else ran, and some parts of that conspiracy were also probably illegal. But since that’s rot within a party whose nominees I’m unlikely ever to vote for anyway, and since I’m happy it resulted in the nomination of an eminently beatable candidate by them, I’m in no hurry to clean the Dems’ house for them or to see the FBI and DoJ and courts try to do that.
I’m very concerned about the fact that the Obama Administration, in a genuine conspiracy whose actors actually can be named, and whose meetings and communications can be pin-pointed, whitewashed Hillary Clinton’s national security crimes. But “conspiracy” ain’t the right word to describe opposition to Trump, nor even support of the Clintons, in the 2016 election cycle. You can’t have a effective and genuine “conspiracy” — an agreement to accomplish illegal results by use of legal means, or an agreement to use illegal means to achieve a result (either legal or not), with overt acts in furtherance thereof — among more than a handful of people as a practical matter, numbered in dozens or perhaps a couple of hundred at most.
None of this has a single thing to do with the corruption of ethical principles and destruction of preexisting goodwill that Donald Trump demands of his adherents.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:27 pmthe manifest sleaziness of the slutty men and women who serve in america’s intelligence agencies is obvious to anyone who is willing to do the analysis
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:30 pm“Teh Dangling
ConversationParticiple” Beldar and BullwinkleIt’s a still life watercolor
Of a now-mid afternoon
As the sun shines through the wooden blinds
And shadows wash the room
And we sit and spew our coffee
Couched in our humanity, like peas in a green pod
Write words that make heads nod
In the dang dangling participle
And the missed italics tag
This afternoon’s a drag
And you read your Robert Kardashian
And I my Barry Scheck
And we dance teh Texas Two-Step
Both knees are now a wreck
Please strike that, poorly phrased
Teh Judge is losing patience
Defendant grits his teeth
He knows he’ll serve some time
In the dang dangling participle
And the missed italics tag
This afternoon’s a drag
Yes, teh dog is getting fatter
On words that must be said
“Is there really equal justice?” or
“Is the justice system dead?”
And now the room is softly faded
And the wind escapes teh windbag, despite how fast you type
You’re a prophet now unto me
In the dang dangling participle
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:30 pmAnd the missed italics tag
This afternoon’s a drag
76… Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:35 pmFor with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
Listening to Di Genova on Fox News insist that “the President will not sit down for an interview because this investigation has now reached the level of bad faith, this is no longer a good faith investigation.”
I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever heard any defense lawyer or PR flack for defense lawyers (the latter being what Di Genova is effective serving as for Trump now) concede that an investigation was “in good faith.”
Patterico, how often do your opponents concede that the investigations of their clients and resulting charges are “in good faith”?
Everyone within the legal jurisdiction of the United States, including the POTUS, owes a duty to provide his truthful testimony in response to a subpoena. Of course, everyone also has a right to refuse to testify if it would tend to incriminate him of a crime. In my judgment — a political judgment, not a legal one — a POTUS who asserts the Fifth forfeits all of his political legitimacy. I will presume that he does so to conceal impeachable offenses, and will support the impeachment of any such POTUS, Republican or Democrat.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:38 pm@93
Maybe we should ask Chuck Schumer:
“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
“So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.
Schumer said that as he understands, intelligence officials are “very upset with how [Trump] has treated them and talked about them.”
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/312605-schumer-trump-being-really-dumb-by-going-after-intelligence-community
pete (a65bac) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:39 pmThere’s nothing Christian about John or Megan McCain.
I dunno, John. John McCain did turn a commission in the U.S. Navy to a dower right in a liquor distributorship. Isn’t that a little like turning water into wine?
nk (dbc370) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:39 pmhe’s a drunk like his daddy Mr. nk
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:40 pmNever trust a person who does not drink or smoke, happyfeet.
nk (dbc370) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:41 pmAd hominem in verse is still ad hominem.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:42 pmthat’s a very good aphorism butcept I do trust our president, President Donald Trump
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:43 pm#97 “POTUS who asserts the Fifth forfeits all of his political legitimacy. I will presume that he does so to conceal impeachable offenses, and will support the impeachment of any such POTUS, Republican or Democrat.”
Noted. A lawyer supports impeaching any President who asserts a constitutional right. But, doubt that view–assertion of a a constitutional right will get 67 votes in the Senate for removal.
BTW–what’s your view on a President asserting the protections of the 4th Amendment and refusing to turn over privileged documents (or any documents for that matter) without a search warrant or subpoena. Certainly one could presume that invoking that constitutional right is done to “conceal impeachable offenses.”
pete (a65bac) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:43 pmteh dog is getting fatter
probably got into the fritos
poor pupper now you’re gonna poop funny
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 12:44 pmPrediction: When even his own nominee to the SCOTUS agrees that Trump must comply with a grand jury subpoena, suddenly Trump Nation will sour on Justice Gorsuch and will probably accuse the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation of being in cahoots with Hillary Clinton.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:00 pmBeldar @97, I heard Giuliani say the same thing on CBS radio, claiming that it’s a perjury trap. That Mueller has nothing substantive on Russian collusion and is only trying to badger Trump and trap him on inconsistencies about personal matters.
nk (dbc370) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:04 pmpete (#104), you don’t have authority to re-write my words, but thank you for at least quoting them before misstating my position.
The POTUS has the same Fifth Amendment right as any citizen. He does not have immunity from political consequences from his assertion of a privilege. If ever prosecuted, his assertion of privilege may not be argued by the prosecution as a basis for an inference that he was hiding something. The public is under no such restraint, and if Trump refuses to testify, I will indeed presume, and argue to others that they should presume as well, that he’s hiding impeachable offenses. Indeed, in civil cases in which defendants assert the Fifth Amendment, courts even instruct the jurors that they’re free to draw exactly that presumption.
Bill Clinton could have taken the Fifth when asked to testify by video deposition for the Ken Starr grand jury, but didn’t, because he correctly read the politics: That act of defiance would indeed have gotten him not only impeached in the House but also convicted in the Senate.
The POTUS needs to stop acting like he’s above the law. It’s exactly that simple, pete.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:06 pmDoubtful.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:07 pm@ nk (#107): Yup. My follow-up question to Rudy would be:
To fall into a perjury trap, don’t you still have to commit perjury — that is, deliberately lie about a material matter?
So tell your client not to do that, Mr. Guiliani. (Or more precisely, to stop doing it while under oath or participating in an interview with the FBI.)
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:10 pmBeldar – When one is confronted with a plainly political subpoena, one ought to have the right and the privilege to respond politically.
Ugh. I am defending DJT again. Maybe I should have pursued a career as a Public Defender attorney?
Ed from SFV (291f4c) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:11 pm@108 “Indeed, in civil cases in which defendants assert the Fifth Amendment, courts even instruct the jurors that they’re free to draw exactly that presumption.”
That’s a nice strawman argument. If Trump were to assert the 5th, it would be in the context of a criminal investigation where that right most certainly applies. In fact, juries in criminal cases are not even allowed to be told that the defendant asserted his 5th Amendment rights—precisely because although many might draw that assertion as an admission of wrongdoing, in the eyes of the law it has no effect.
Oh, and as to “you don’t have authority to re-write my words’—grow up.
pete (a65bac) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:15 pm111. So the DoJ should, in your opinion, not comply with the subpoena Nunes intends to send them?
Kishnevi (c81531) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:18 pmThe DOJ is sleazy and corrupt Mr. Kishnevi
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:21 pmAlso @ pete (#104): I don’t understand the context of your question about the Fourth Amendment. Try asking it with a more specific fact setting, even hypothetically.
@ mous, further to my comment #94 in response to your question from 89: I didn’t mention in that comment that I’m genuinely concerned about possible abuses by the Obama DoJ of the FISA warrant process. Our host is too, as I understand his position, and we both want to see the underlying FISA warrant applications, both original and as renewed, for Carter Page, rather than relying on the description of those documents by partisan politicians. I still hope that will come in due course, but I’m not disturbed or surprised — rather, I’m encouraged — that continuing investigations on that subject aren’t generating daily leaks. The DoJ-IG’s office is indeed the proper means for investigating that, and he’s now got a secunded U.S. Attorney from far, far outside the Beltway to supplement his own investigatory powers, and provide prosecutorial authority if justified.
There’s no conceivable scenario in which any revelations from that investigation somehow justify Donald Trump continuing to lie through his teeth to the American public on a daily basis, however, about porn-star hush-money payments or anything else in his background or on-going fitness.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:21 pmKishnevi – I can’t help anyone who can’t see the plain oversight of Congress when matters of Article II, and other constitutional, jurisdiction arises.
Ed from SFV (291f4c) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:23 pm@ pete: I’m grown. You wrote, “A lawyer supports impeaching any President who asserts a constitutional right.” That’s not what I wrote, nor a fair implication from it. That is a straw man, naked and quite offensive to me because it’s so far contrary to my actual views or anything I’ve ever written.
If you want to engage in conversation, be civil. You’re on the border with me, and if you want to join the list of people I deem it no longer worth conversing with, keep insulting me or misrepresenting what I’ve written.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:25 pm107
This was the same Guiliani who said this morning he still doesn’t know all the facts?
There probably was no collusion in the election. Wheelings and dealings with investors, especially those of a Slavic persuasion, which skirted the edges of money laundering laws, and possibly gone over the edge, is a totally different thing. And notice that while we know Mueller is apparently investigating such, no one has said anything about that.
Kishnevi (c81531) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:27 pma big part of what mueller and the Rosenstasi DOJ are doing is intended to make it very difficult for President Trump to assemble a legal team
and harvardtrash DOJ lickspittle Ted Cruz knows it
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:28 pmThat’s not the whole picture, Ed from SFV. Congress is bound by its own laws. If the documents Nunes is requesting are lawfully classified, then it should take a bill duly passed and signed by the President to give Nunes the authority to see them — not merely his status as a Congressman or committee chairman. Think of it this way: What if he was asking for the location of our nuclear missile submarines under Congress’s oversight authority?
nk (dbc370) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:29 pm@ Ed from SFV: Presuming that Trump were subpoenaed before Mueller’s grand jury to testify about the topics discussed in the Trump-leaked list of Mueller’s topics, I do not at all agree that would be “plainly political.”
@ pete: If Trump asserts the Fifth, that will indeed be in the context of a criminal proceeding. I have never said that Trump has no right to assert the Fifth; I’ve said, and now repeat, the opposite of that. Assuming there’s no immunity work-around, I don’t think the POTUS could any more be held in contempt of court for asserting his Fifth Amendment rights than any other witness, subject, or target subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.
But just as jurors in a civil case aren’t bound by the strictures of the Fifth Amendment against compelled testimony while in criminal jeopardy, neither are we as members of the public — the capacity in which I’m opining now, for myself — and neither are members of Congress considering whether the POTUS is asserting the privilege to hide impeachable offenses. I’m not engaging in straw men here, I’m being exactly precise about the different forums and contexts.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:30 pmand the fascist American Bar Association, like the dirty corrupt ACLU, is applauding this quietly
the whole entire legal profession has poopies smeared on its face (smelly poopies)
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:31 pm(Pedantically precise, I’ll even concede, but that’s precisely why it bugs me when you paraphrase my position so inaccurately.)
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:32 pmwhy do you have poopies on your face?
I’m a lawyer happyfeet
oh. But still you should wash your face
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:34 pmBeldar – Fair enough.
Ed from SFV (291f4c) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:38 pmMcCain doesn’t want Trump at his funeral? That’s astonishingly arrogant. You’re not that important, John. No doubt Trump doesn’t want to go, either.
But if the President of the United States did elect to attend, you take the salute, swabbo. Besides, if the country even cares to remember in a few years, it’ll stick it to you in the end, anyway, as people smack your face applying that commemorative postage stamp.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:40 pmThat’s astonishingly arrogant.
Meghan’s coward daddy was a key part of the coup
he’s the one that delivered the urinating hooker dossier to the gestapo FBI
and the dirty coup trash, they’ve full-flexed their deep state muscles Mr. DCSCA
they’re really feeling themselves as the kids say
and now part of the nevertrump #resist agenda is to discredit the whole office of the poopmerican presidency
the presidency is the only thing that can hope to rein in the dirty corrupt Rosenstasi DOJ and the polluted military and the rest of the government scumsucks
it’s gone beyond a hatred for Mr. Trump
they want to degrade the office now
they want to make it dirty
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 1:46 pmdirty and subordinate, like a hooker with funguses
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 2:07 pmthis way even if harvardtrash Ted and ugly heidi move into the white house
they won’t really be president and first lady
just figureheads
the presidency is too dangerous anymore; it’s a threat to Rosytwat’s prerogatives
it’s a threat to traitorous lickspittle Jim Mattis
it’s a threat to self-anointed commanders in chief like Meghan’s vile and cowardly torture-turd daddy
and above all
the presidency is far too friendly to Israel
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 2:10 pm@ Ed from SFV, further to our exchange in #111, #121 & #125 above:
If some DoJ prosecutor (special counsel or not) or state prosecutor sent Trump a grand jury subpoena commanding his appearance, and directing that he bring with him all documents and tangible things relating in any way to his decision to revoke Obama’s executive order(s) setting up the DACA program, on grounds that those documents and testimony about them are relevant and material to whether he was motivated by illegal racial animus against members of particular races or religions or national origins, I would 100% agree with you that such was a “purely political” subpoena, and that Trump should refuse to comply voluntarily or even to work out some compromise short of compliance, and that Trump should instead fight to the SCOTUS to uphold an assertion of executive privilege over that subject, and documents and testimony pertaining to it.
If Trump had given a single rationale for firing Comey which had nothing to do with any ongoing investigation into Trump, and then had stuck to that, I’d say the same about a subpoena for that testimony and those documents. Indeed, if he’d refused to ever say anything about why he was firing Comey, but merely stood on the principle that all subordinate officers of the Executive Branch serve at the pleasure of the POTUS, I’d say the same thing about that.
But when he does comment, and gives multiple and mutually inconsistent stories about it — that is to say, when he affirmatively generates circumstantial evidence consistent with a guilty heart and an intent to instruct an ongoing legal investigation of that personnel decision — at that point I don’t think it’s an “obviously political” inquiry.
I think Chief Justice Roberts is writing, even as we speak, an opinion for a SCOTUS majority (more than 5/4, probably 7/2) that will condemn in fairly ringing words the use of some district judges of Trump’s campaign-trail statements and assertions as circumstantial evidence to infer a criminal intent on his part as POTUS. That’s not just letting the camel’s nose under the tent, completely disrupting the separation of powers and the checks-and-balances system; that’s inviting Godzilla to take over the tent.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 2:12 pmOnce it’s put to verse it becomes a ballad and can no longer be judged by content only by style.
Rev.Hoagie (c5d6cf) — 5/6/2018 @ 2:12 pm*as circumstantial evidence to infer an illegal intent” regarding DACA, I ought to have written in #130. It doesn’t have to be criminal, and the judges who’ve drawn inferences of illegal bias haven’t argued it was criminal. But they’re still wrong to use campaign rhetoric to draw any inference of intent on the part of a sitting public official in the performance of his office.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 2:15 pm“Slime” is the same in prose or verse, Hoagie. That’s what you called DRJ yesterday. Own it.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 2:16 pmOr better: Return to the person I thought I once knew here, and apologize for it.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 2:17 pm126, great post. My answer to that is for he to go uninvited, plant one on the grieving widow and turn junior loose on the zaftig RINOess.
urbanleftbehind (24e2ff) — 5/6/2018 @ 2:21 pmBeldar – The entire probe by Mueller, on its face in re DJT as far as I am concerned, has crossed over into pure politics. If there are legit federal interests in DJT’s actions, refer them to the appropriate USAO – as with Cohen. I’d not be sad if he really did have something on DJT.
I don’t want the confrontation of the Branches to be over which White House briefing was operative, and when. Comey had it coming eight ways from Sunday. The man has extraordinary powers conferred upon him as to hiring and firing. He is the only one enjoying such. Without underlying justifications, such as, say, a murder probe, this smells like abuse of, not the Rule of, Law.
The office of POTUS is just too damn important with unGodly responsibilities for a POTUS to be subject to something less than incredibly solid and obvious criminality. I believe at least one of the two DOJ memos which are binding upon DOJ as regards pursuing a POTUS criminally cite the crucial nature of POTUS’ duties as a reason to not pursue one criminally. And yes, I would be choking on these words if Obama or Clinton were POTUS. Gagging, even.
Ed from SFV (291f4c) — 5/6/2018 @ 2:29 pmThat’s entertainment, Ed.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:00 pmMelania is going to be attending a lot of funerals
steveg (a9dcab) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:13 pm@ Ed from SFV: I agree with you in part:
I didn’t think then, and don’t think now, that Rosenstein should have appointed a special counsel. By doing so, for one thing, he cracked the wall of secrecy that is supposed to exist within the DoJ regarding on-going criminal investigations. Now we’ve got both anti-Trump Democrats and pro-Trump Republicans trying to second-guess and micro-manage everything that anyone things, or hypothesizes, or affirmatively lies about Mueller or his team doing. (Viz, this past week, when Trump led his cult to believe that it was Mueller’s team, rather than his own, who’d leaked the list of questions.)
He also picked a figure who had previously enjoyed extremely broad and deep support on both sides of the political aisle as a disinterested law enforcement official in administrations of both political parties, failing to anticipate — as now seems blindingly obvious — that on the day of his appointment, that bipartisan support would instantly be shattered. There had never been a showing that the entire DoJ had a disabling conflict in investigating potential criminal matters arising out of the Russia investigation, but there were indeed excellent reasons to bring someone nationally unknown, but deeply seasoned in criminal investigations, from far outside the Beltway — someone like John Huber, the U.S. Attorney for Utah who’s now working along with DoJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, but with resources including grand jury and prosecutorial privileges that the IG’s office lacks. Instead, Mueller, with his high profile, became an instant foil for both sides to talk about incessantly, while Mueller himself remains (appropriately) silent. In consequence, whatever Mueller decides to prosecute or not prosecute will be more controversial because of Mueller’s participation, rather than less.
Deciding to appoint a special counsel, and then picking someone with a high-profile career mostly within the Beltway, was an error in judgment, and a political miscalculation (rather than a legal one) at that. But I don’t agree with you that Mueller’s probe has “crossed over into pure politics.” We don’t know enough about what Mueller has done or is doing or will do to be able to make that kind of judgment. And I for one haven’t yet seen anything which is clearly attributable to Mueller or his team that’s outside what I would have expected from an outside-the-Beltway U.S. Attorney like Huber (or any of four or five dozen other U.S. Attorneys out of the 192 total) would obviously have done differently, given the mix of political and legal problems that Trump has rashly created for himself and continues to aggravate daily.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:25 pm* Errata: “that anyone thinks or hypothesizes,” not “things.” Sorry.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:26 pmBeldar, did Hoagie really call DRJ “slime”?
I hope not.
But the more vulgar nonsense that goes on, the faster the race to the bottom of the ethical spittoon I see all around me these days.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:27 pmGoing to the grave bitter is fine if that’s how you choose to go out. It also says a lot about how rot sits on the soul, but like I said, it is a personal choice.
steveg (a9dcab) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:27 pmThe big news about the list of questions was that Mueller’s team is willing to negotiate with the Trump White House at all over the topics to be covered in a voluntary interview. Starr didn’t do that for Clinton; Fitzgerald didn’t do that in Plame; it’s an extraordinary courtesy entirely inconsistent with the notion that Mueller is engaged in a “witch hunt.” If it were a witch hunt, Trump would already have been served with a grand jury subpoena.
Number of times I’ve heard that pointed out by any talking head on TV yet: Zero.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:29 pmThis is for hf eyes only
I think this is the type of grudge even a great foot massage from Lindsey won’t fix. Whats your take?
steveg (a9dcab) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:30 pm#143
Trump is holding out for the Hillary treatment
steveg (a9dcab) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:31 pmhis hands are pretty darn magical Mr. g
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:32 pmhttps://www.scribd.com/document/378289370/US-v-Manafort-Full-Text-Transcript-Hearing-Motion-May-4-2018#from_embed
Transcript of Manafort court hearing
Worth reading by everyone
EPWJ (9ebbe1) — 5/6/2018 @ 3:58 pm141. I like to think I’m a little more creative than the Trump humping Schlichterites around here. Even in the race to the bottom, sometimes it’s more about the journey than it is the destination.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:01 pm@ Simon Jester (#141), alas, that word started here:
Then Hoagie wrote, in response to a comment from Jerryskids, this:
To which DRJ replied:
Which DRJ immediately followed with:
To which Hoagie responded in the very next comment (italics Beldar’s):
Now, the slime comment was not a straightforward declaratory sentence. But it’s extremely personal and identifiable to her in context. It’s similar to what Haiku wrote of me, personally and by name, when I objected to shipwreckedcrew’s assertion that I in particular, and Trump critics like me, needed to own our responsibility for the impending downfall of western civilization because we didn’t vote for Trump (IIRC that was something along the lines of “if the shoe fits”). Later in the same thread, Hoagie followed up by accusing DRJ of “run[ning] around crying ab[o]ut it day in and day out like a ten year old.”
DRJ’s response to this intensely personal venom directed at her was characteristically mild and forgiving — an expression of concern for Hoagie’s health and an observation that when her own health has contributed toward making her angry, she avoids commenting.
I’m not that tolerant. I cannot respect someone who directs that sort of rhetoric toward me, or toward DRJ, or toward a handful of other Trump critics (a growing handful, btw, since Hoagie’s similarly insulted at least six other commenters I could count within the last week). It’s over the top, and not excused by any personal circumstances.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:01 pmwhen i let go of my pearls the dizzy feeling starts right back up, and I feel a growing sense of ennui
so I’m just gonna hold on
i’ll be ok don’t worry I’ll be ok
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:06 pmLickspittle.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:11 pmFirst of all you ignorant sonofabitch I did not “call” DRJ slime. I said he was siding with the communists, Nazis, BLM, anti white racists and other slime. Not that he himself was slime. Get your facts straight and stop telling people you disagree with what they said when they didn’t.
Secondly, “Once it’s put to verse it becomes a ballad and can no longer be judged by content only by style” was meant to be a sarcastic joke or have you guys become so pompous and full of yourself you can’t laugh any more?
I have apologized here when I was wrong or off base but this time it’s you who are wrong. As you wise crackers are so fond of saying “you’re better than that”. Now you own it!
Rev.Hoagie (c5d6cf) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:12 pmLickspittle | Definition of Lickspittle by Merriam-Webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com › licks…
Definition of lickspittle. : a fawning subordinate : toady.
Urban Dictionary: lick spittle
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:14 pmhttps://www.urbandictionary.com › …
Lick-spittle. A slimy grovelling and devious person who will do anything to get ahead in their life and career including accepting an order from the boss to lick a big green…
it’s hard to get too excited about this sleazy chick they’re trying to replace Pompeo with at the CIA
she’s a CIA lifer so you know she’s corrupt and dirty and has no intention of cleaning up that sewer
but then you think about how they had a chance to clean up the gestapo FBI but instead appointed corrupt ivy league trash dildo Chris Wray
it’s just a matter of which turd is in charge it seems
so like I said
it’s hard to get excited
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:16 pmHow many times has Beldar used the word “lickspittle”?
Speaking of apologies…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:17 pm@127. Sum it up, Mr. Feet: “John, you’re a Palin the azz.”
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:20 pm> 10… < 100???
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:20 pmTime to clean up your own backyard…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:21 pm“John, you’re a Palin the azz.”
it’s worse than that though Mr. DCSCA
this depraved coward’s throwing a woman under the bus just to have a news hook to sell his book
he’s a truly execrable p.o.s.
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:22 pm@28. Did they do the Carrie prom scene? No, don’t spoil it.
No, but the ‘are you alone; what are you wearing’ lines stole the show, PP.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:24 pmpoor Carrie she thought she was the belle of the ball then they were so mean to her
it’s a lot like what cowardly torture-turd John McCain just did on Sarah Palin if you think about it
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:30 pm@159. Have Pham Quang Vinh and Nguyen Phuong Nga been disinvited, too, Mr. Feet?
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:38 pm#76
Haiku Study to shew thyself approved, instead of stripping everything of context or else you become like the swine and dogs that worship at the non-Christian Donald Trump’s feet and are deserving of no pearls of wisdom.
https://truthbeforedishonor.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/the-bible-says-dont-judge-right/
I wrote that years ago, because non-Christians, anti-Christians and uneducated Christians take it out of context in an effort to defend a person or an action that Christians are required to judge.
John Hitchcock (05d3ed) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:44 pmi don’t know who they are
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:45 pm154…she’s a CIA lifer…
CIA lifers create clever ciphers, Mr. Feet.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:46 pmIt’s not only that crap Colonel, it used to be fun to click in here. It used to be a great place to discuss the politicians and the politics of the day and opine about what was going on. Then it became 18 months of b!tchin’ about how bad that bastard is who won the last election. Every day. Every damn day! We don’t talk politics any more we get our daily lecture of neverTrump crap and if we support Trump then we too are immoral, what’s that word? Oh, yeah “lickspittles”. Well screw that. I want to talk conservative politics and policies. I want to plan for the next elections. I want to hear how to beat the leftist and the slime. I don’t want to spend another two and a half years hearing about how immoral Trump is cause he banged a whore twelve years ago. I also don’t want to be constantly insulted because I refuse to have my political life revolve around Trumps, or Beldars, or DRJ’s moral compass.
We are in a civil war and what’s going on here is not helping our side. Hell, I’m not even sure any more what our side is. I only know my side and my side has no room for leftists or any other anti American nonsense. It seems this site wants to attract the Gryphs, noels 1nd Q!’s rather than conservative contributors. I guess it would be nice to have a couple leftist trolls if half the “conservatives” weren’t going so neverTrump themselves. The half dozen of us left who aren’t neverTrumpers can’t have any political discussions without it turning into a clusterTrump because Dave interjects how Trump lied about stopping gonorrhea in Africa or something.
I think it was either ropelight or NJRob who needs a break but you need one too. I’m gonna pop Patterico off my favorites for the rest of May to give you guys a break.
Rev.Hoagie (c5d6cf) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:47 pm@164. Know the players to score the game, Mr. Feet: Vietnam’s ambassadors to the U.S. and the U.N.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:48 pmI’ve quoted you word for word, Hoagie, with complete context. I’m very content to let every reader make up his or her own mind about you, me, or DRJ (who is now, and has always been, female, and whose reading comprehension is exceptional).
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:48 pmi had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee clouds in my coffee and
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:50 pmHoagie, DRJ is one of the best people here. She was once a co-blogger. You have managed to insult a lady who is one of the most admirable–and nicest–people in Pattericodom. And a woman of very firm and definitely conservative principles. You ought to be dunked in the nearest horse trough until you came to your senses.
Kishnevi (480bf9) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:50 pmi have a friend at the UN he says Nikki Haley isn’t friendly and is actually a rude person and people go out of their way to avoid her but they respect that she works all the time
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:52 pmYou ought to be dunked in the nearest horse trough until you came to your senses.
he could die any second he can hardly breathe you guys need to pick somebody else to do your mean girl bullsh!t on
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:53 pm167. Yeoman work, Beldar. But you know as well as I that when it comes to vulgar personal attacks, Schlichterites can do no wrong and Trump critics can do nothing right.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:56 pm171. You talking about John McCain? *YAWN*
Gryph (08c844) — 5/6/2018 @ 4:58 pmTrue Mr Feets. Perhaps instead make him keep company with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, so he can see what an actual leftie politician looks like.
Kishnevi (480bf9) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:05 pmIt’s not even a thing this is manufactured outrage Mr. Kishnevi
Beldar’s trying to provoke a very very sick man into popping off with something that will get him banned
it’s very despicable and I abjure this
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:06 pm175. “Abjure?” I’m not sure you’re using that word correctly, stinkyfeet… Trying too hard by half to sound intelligent, are we?
Gryph (08c844) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:08 pmi abjure it so hard
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:09 pmOy. Don’t forget your blocking script, Gryph…
Gryph (08c844) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:10 pmHaiku, I do own — stand by — what I write. As part of that I will usually read and consider carefully anyone who asks whether I intend to stand by a particular statement.
“Lickspittle” is a wonderfully evocative term, describing a subject so in thrall to the target of his adoration that the subject would literally lick the spittle of the target. I’ve used that term frequently about public figures like Sean Hannity, whom indeed I think qualifies as “Lickspittle-in-Chief,” or at least ties with Corey Lewandowski for that. When directed to commenters here, rather than public figures, I’ve tried to be quite deliberate: When I do strive to insult, I don’t want it to be casual.
Prompted by your criticism just now, I looked to see if there are instances in which I’ve used that term for people who comment here. Here’s an example (italics mine in original):
I didn’t name the person I was quoting, but CTRL-F will quickly pinpoint that as a quote from ropelight.
I stand by it as to him. I have never thought well of ropelight, although I admit that for a long time I had a hard time remembering which outrageous Trump idolatry came from him and which came from gone (and unmourned by me) papertiger. I intended to insult him when I wrote this.
Do you wish to also so self-identify, as someone who is going to tell us that this or any POTUS “has every right to expect our faithful support”? I don’t recall you saying that, but if you adopt it, then I assure you, I’ll stand by that implied insult as well, and make it an express one.
If someone had asked me two years ago, at this point in the 2016 election cycle, whether you or Hoagie were the kind of person who’d make and stand by that kind of categorical nonsense, I’d have denied it, and I’d suggested that perhaps they’d gotten you confused with ropelight or hatefulfeet (another insulting observation; I own it, it is calculated, not casual). I’d have defended either of you against charges that you’re a closeminded lickspittle.
Now I have no idea. If I’m a deserter and a son-of-a-bitch (I’ll plead guilty to windbag; that’s a fair cop, guv, you’ve got me dead bang to rights on that), and if DRJ needs to be engaging in introspection to figure out whether she’s slime, and if Patterico and I need to accept responsibility for causing the decline of western civilization because we didn’t vote against Clinton and for Trump, then I have to ask, as our host did: What’s gotten into either of you? What got into shipwreckedcrew (another person who’d earned but has now forfeited my respect)?
I can certainly tell who you’re consumed with passion about and for, though, and it’s the twisted con-man in the White House.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:10 pmbtw i figured out a way to use up my ghost pepper sauce
i do skillet celeries with bacon grease
celeries have a way of only soaking up so much flavor, so you don’t have to be super-careful
so at the end you got your green stuff and a lot of flavor but not a lot of calories or carbs
this is good for America
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:12 pmhatefulfeet, if I had any influence at all over who got banned here, you’d have been gone two years ago.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:13 pmJust sayin’, Beldar… glass houses… stones…
Colonel Haiku (713afa) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:13 pm@170. i have a friend at the UN he says Nikki Haley isn’t friendly and is actually a rude person and people go out of their way to avoid her but they respect that she works all the time
24/7-11, Mr. Feet?!?
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:14 pmGryph, I appreciate your efforts, but the fellow is just a troll. He says things to upset people, and is fundamentally unserious and an absolute hypocrite. Good Lord, accusing anyone else of being a “provoker”?
But see, that is his (and some others’) goal here: to fling their poo around Patterico’s house to feel righteous or powerful. In their house, that’s fine. In my house, folks are potty trained. Patterico believes in much more latitude than other folks do, and that’s a positive quality.
If you block their comments, that is a good start, but the poo is still there, around which you have to step. Which is a shame; people could instead write thoughtful posts and commentary. I have learned a lot from people with whom I have disagreed here, as well as those with whom I find common cause.
I think those days are gone.
But we have a lot of the word “twat,” accusations of child molestation, discussions of “tits” and “fungus,” and calling people sonsofbitches. So there’s that.
Sadly.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:15 pmi’m aggressively no-carbing cause the bounty of summer is almost upon us!
i wanna do scalloped tomatoes so bad to mark the day dad died
and i need to do my yeller squash as soon as it’s super on-sale
but the first thing you look for is that week or two where they just give away strawberries for nothing
i’m so excited
we didn’t really have food seasons in LA
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:16 pm24/7-11, Mr. Feet?!?
the UN’s the kinda place where you notice if people actually work
it’s not the norm
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:17 pm@184. but the first thing you look for is that week or two where they just give away strawberries for nothing i’m so excited
So is our Captain.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:19 pm@185. That’s the norm in Noo Yawk, Mr. Feet: the city never sleeps.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:20 pmi’m thinking mostly doing cocktails with them since I’m in this low-carb mode
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:20 pm@188. Our Captain likes them with his ice cream; freeze him a quart.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:23 pmThat’s the norm in Noo Yawk, Mr. Feet
did you see this?
Admiral Cuomo prepares for war
the man has no dignity whatsoever his whole family is trash but I’m starting to do a hypothesis
is he trying to model his politics after Jerry Brown?
this is fertile ground for to explore
this idea that California has ideologically subjugated New York
once you start using that lens a lot of stuff kinda clicks
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:23 pmHaiku, you’re extremely close to being Laodicean. Except those who are 400 percent in Trump’s corner don’t even qualify as Laodicean. They qualify more as Baal worshipers.
John Hitchcock (05d3ed) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:26 pmwith ice cream Mr. DCSCA
once a year
here is how i do
vanilla bean ice cream specifically
with extra vanilla bean (which is expensive but it’s once a year)
i serve that with perfectly ripe papaya slices and drizzle creme de cassis on top (you can use the cheap stuff for the cassis)
i do this for my friend F
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:26 pmWould someone please tell me WHY Mueller has to talk to Trump? And why its essential for his investigation of Russian Collusion?
And also, why can’t WE the public know this – as opposed to guessing.
Finally, can we send out an Amber Alert for Jeff Sessions.
rcocean (1a839e) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:38 pmRoll on,
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:38 pmBig MamaHitchcock… teh highway is your home.WHY Mueller has to talk to Trump
it’s all that poor little wanna-be Hitler has left in his quiver
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:40 pmMcCain has always been a bitter, obnoxious personality. He had track record of screaming abuse & profanity at his Senate Colleagues. Of course, McCain never apologized, he’d just snicker about how he wasn’t “Miss Congeniality” – and it was usually Republicans.
I wonder if he’s going to tell us more about how “Trump Russia” will be worse then Watergate as he stated a year ago. Or will that go to the grave with him?
rcocean (1a839e) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:41 pmhe chose food stamp to do his eulogy lol
pathetic
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:43 pmAndrew McCarthy touches on elements of the discussion Beldar and I were having earlier. As usual, his column is well worth a read.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/mueller-probe-basis-for-criminal-investigation-should-be-revealed/
Ed from SFV (291f4c) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:43 pmhow “Trump Russia” will be worse then Watergate as he stated a year ago
he also said a handful of Russian facebook ads were an act of war
#theydidsomethingtohisbrain
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:44 pm@190. Beware the ‘New Nixon’ Mr. Feet; this one shaves the legs.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 5:57 pmI’m in Pasig, Metropolitan Manila, Philippines right now. I’m not driving, and have zero interest in driving in Manila. 14 million people, half the land mass of NYC, barely anything that even resembles a highway, road lane markings that are suggestions only, many intersections without any traffic control devices.
John Hitchcock (05d3ed) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:03 pm@ rcocean, who asked (#193):
Section 1-7.100 of the U.S. Attorneys’ Handbook contains a succinct answer to your second question (bracketed portion in original, to demonstrate that this is still true in the Trump DoJ as of six days ago):
See also section 1-7.500: Even after public “charges have been brought” in a criminal case, the DoJ is tightly limited in what it’s entitled to say to the public about the case outside the courthouse.
Both of these standing DoJ regulations bind the special counsel under 28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a).
Books, law review articles, and thousands of appellate court opinions have been written about each of the reasons summarized in section 1.7.100. The most compelling of them are the last two: The presumption of innocence upon which our criminal justice system is founded is eroded and eventually destroyed if potential defendants can be tried by the prosecution in the court of public opinion without ever having to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
TL/DR: Telling the public what’s going on inside a criminal investigation, especially before charges are brought, is against the rules. Mueller is following the rules.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:04 pm“My favorite meat is hot dog, by the way. That is my favorite meat,” – losing 2012 GOP presidential nominee and current Utah senatorial candidate Mitt Romney.
Baloney.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:04 pmFor old times sake then…
Roll on, (roll on) john hitchcock,
Take the wheel, don’t lose control
Roll on (roll on) john hitchcock ,
May there be mercy on your soul.
Well, the feel of the wheel’ll deliver you
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:06 pmTo teh next truck stop where you can grab a brew and the diesel smoke
With every stroke sings a song with a heavy note
And rambling is the life you chose,
Behind the wheel, between the doors,
And teh windshield wipers a keepin’ time,
The things that’s a runnin’ through yer mind,
Through yer mind
Roll on, (roll on) john hitchcock,
Take the wheel, don’t lose control
Roll on (roll on) john hitchcock ,
May there be mercy on your soul.
Truckin’ through the snow and the drivin’ rain,
To the forty-below in Bangor Maine,
To the hundred-and-ten in the Texas sun,
There ain’t no road that he ain’t run,
Up through the Colorado mountain tops,
Down to the desert where Tucson stops,
North to the green of Coeur D’ Alene
There ain’t no road where he ain’t been
He ain’t been
Roll on, (roll on) john hitchcock,
Take the wheel, don’t lose control
Roll on (roll on) john hitchcock ,
May there be mercy on your soul.
As for your first question: Because Trump is, at a minimum, a material witness on matters apparently under criminal investigation by the special counsel. On some of those matters — e.g., obstruction of justice — the difference between guilt and innocence depends on Trump’s subjective intentions, as to which he is the only witness who can possibly give direct evidence. (All other evidence of his intentions is by definition circumstantial.)
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:07 pm#205 was meant to be part of #202, responding to rcocean’s first question in #193.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:07 pm“WASHINGTON — The men and women President Trump has elevated to federal judgeships across the nation are having an impact on issues ranging from civil rights and campaign spending to public prayer and the death penalty.
Nearly a year after the first of them won Senate confirmation, 15 nominees have made their way to federal appeals courts, representing perhaps Trump’s most significant achievement in his 15 months as president. A dozen more are in the pipeline.
While it’s too soon to detect a definitive trend, Trump’s judges are making their presence felt through the weight of their votes and the style of their rhetoric.
Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit led the way last May and has amassed the largest body of work so far. He helped uphold Ohio’s method of lethal injection as well as a Michigan county’s practice of opening government meetings with Christian prayers.
Judge James Ho, a more recent addition to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, dissented from its refusal to reconsider a challenge to strict campaign contribution limits in Austin, Texas, that he said violate the First Amendment.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals helped block the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s attempt to stop an employer from transferring Chicago-area employees based on their race or ethnicity.
Three judges named by Trump to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals — Ralph Erickson, Steven Grasz and David Stras — joined in its refusal to reconsider a Missouri inmate’s plea to change his method of execution because a rare health condition could make lethal injection too painful. The Supreme Court nevertheless agreed to hear the case next fall.
Trump’s judges have ruled in favor of police, prison guards and a male student seeking the right to face his accuser in a sexual assault case, as well as against a naturalized citizen fighting his loss of citizenship.
The early results please conservatives and concern liberals…”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/06/trumps-judges-ruling-politics-prayer-executions-race/576848002/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:15 pmsnotty herr mueller and his 20+ effing prosecutors what have spent 250 million dollars and counting sniffing up Paul Manafort’s butt need to justify themselves
if only to their slutty wives they’ve stopped coming home to while they go all Captain Ahab on our president, President Donald Trump
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:20 pm@ Ed from SFV, who wrote (#198):
Mr. McCarthy is always worth reading, and I encourage anyone to read his essay. But I think this particularly column of his — entitled “Why All the Secrecy?” — is jaw-droppingly wrong. Hence, I’ll reprint here (in combined form) some (lightly edited) comments I left there, which is behind NRO’s paywall in their new commenting system:
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:21 pmPatterico, this set of comments is getting pretty oppressive. What we need here is some good prosecutorial humor!
Accordingly, please share with us some really funny nonpublic details from some criminal investigations in which you’ve been involved that never resulted in charges being filed publicly, okay? The juicier the better! Be sure to mention whether you almost prosecuted, but ended up not doing so because of some stupid reason like a Fourth Amendment violation, so we can all confirm that the targets really were guilty. Be sure to name names; dox ’em while you’re at it, so we can contact them directly to express our outrage. Oh, and be sure to likewise identify all of your sources by name and address, as you summarize what their testimony likely would have been at trial. After all, the public has a right to know!!!1!
@ rcocean: That’s a joke. But does it help you see the problem? Most witnesses, subjects, and targets of criminal investigations don’t want prosecutors talking in public about the investigation they’re running. Does this help you appreciate how spectacularly self-destructive Donald J. Trump is?
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:34 pmMueller’s special counsel appointment was on May 17, 2017. We’re approaching the one-year anniversary. And wouldn’t you know it? Once again this week, he didn’t appear on the Sunday talking heads show to tell us about what his investigation has and hasn’t found yet. Witch-hunt!
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:37 pmActually, Hoagie has mellowed from when he first started commenting here. One of his early comments, about the Muslims he saw on the streets of his town, the way they looked and the way they dressed and how he did not want them in his country, could have been taken almost verbatim from the second chapter of Mein Kampf — Hitler talking about the first time he saw Jews in Vienna. Most of the time, I avoid taking, or responding to, his comments seriously.
nk (dbc370) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:39 pmMr. nk tonight’s two-minute hate is on Mr. Colonel not Mr. Sammich
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:44 pmI’m letting Haiku slide because I’m sure, beyond any reasonable doubt, that he has the most horrible tequila and Corona hangover, not to mention all kinds of stomach and bowel upsets, from his cultural appropriation of the Cinco de Mayo celebrations yesterday.
nk (dbc370) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:53 pmme too
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:54 pm#205 – that’s a good guess. But after a year, we shouldn’t have to guess.
1) As for Mueller investigating whether Trump “obstructed Justice” – where is that in the the DAG’s charter to Mueller? In the redacted portions?
2) Trump hasn’t “obstructed” anything. If Mueller trying to investigate that, Trump should refuse to cooperate and get Rosenstein to shut him down. And start firing people if necessary.
We elected Trump to be President not waste his time on convoluted, “Technical” violations of obscure statues that 50% of lawyers disagree on. If Mueller thinks Trump obstructed some investigation by firing Comey, let him report the facts to Congress.
rcocean (1a839e) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:04 pmOne margarita… beef and chicken fajitas. I only drink a beer or one margarita when we have Mexican food, coffee or ice tea otherwise with my meals.
Entonces…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:18 pmEvery now and then a mimosa with Sunday brunch…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:19 pmi’ve never understood the purpose of chicken fajitas
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:19 pmBeldar. McCarthy. Octagon. Be there. Aloha. 🙂
Ed from SFV (291f4c) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:21 pmYou eat them…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:22 pmbut the beef ones are so tasty and they’re made out of beef
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:24 pmi’m ridiculously picky about fajitas though
haven’t had them since dad died
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:24 pmLast Sunday, I stopped by my favorite Greek fast food place and picked up a couple of hot dogs. I’ve had another ten since then. Two at a time, lunch or dinner. Oscar Mayer all beef franks, Mary Ann buns, relish, French’s yellow mustard, catsup, onions; and Lay’s potato chips to go with them. Must be the baseball weather.
nk (dbc370) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:30 pmOh, I don’t want to cage match with Andrew McCarthy! On anything involving federal prosecutions and federal criminal procedure and the DoJ, I’m a rank amateur and he’s a respected veteran. I had some very engaging and productive email correspondence with him some years ago, but I haven’t imposed by email upon him in a long time and don’t know if I even have that address, or if it’s still good.
I surely can’t be the only person, though, who’s gobsmacked when a former federal prosecutor writes, of on-going federal criminal investigations (some of which have already produced guilty pleas, others on-going prosecutions): “Why all the secrecy?” I could certainly answer that question comprehensively by quoting Andrew McCarthy back to Andrew McCarthy.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:30 pmi did them last memorial day but i screwed up cause I didn’t understand how you spose to heat the buns
(mom wasn’t real big on serving us hot dogs)
i made an awesome collard green relish though
so this year I’m gonna nail it
hot dog triumph!
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:32 pmhot dogs are what the cousins got cause they wouldn’t eat shrimp
love you J if you’re reading this
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:34 pmTwo Scottish nuns have just arrived in the USA by boat and one says to the other, “I hear that the occupants of this country actually eat dogs.” “Odd,” her companion replies, “but if we shall live in America, we might as well do as the Americans do.” Nodding emphatically, the mother superior points to a hot dog vendor and they both walk toward him. “Two dogs, please,” says one. The vendor is only too pleased to oblige and he wraps both hot dogs in foil. Excited, the nuns hurry over to a bench and begin to unwrap their ‘dogs.’ The mother superior is first to open hers. Staring at it for a moment, she leans over to the other nun and whispers cautiously, “What part did you get?”
nk (dbc370) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:46 pmnuns are hilarious
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:54 pm“One of his early comments, about the Muslims he saw on the streets of his town, the way they looked and the way they dressed and how he did not want them in his country, could have been taken almost verbatim from the second chapter of Mein Kampf — Hitler talking about the first time he saw Jews in Vienna.”
Too bad their behavior is not similar to the Jews of Vienna:
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=2018
harkin (c60926) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:56 pmI thought Haiku was exempted from appropriation charges, although the way he talks down about “swarthy” he must have landed a novela star.
urbanleftbehind (24e2ff) — 5/6/2018 @ 7:57 pmlet’s be honest Michael Avenatti is America’s pimp, not Robert Mueller
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:23 pmnot withstand bobby mueller’s hot-to-trot gender-bender wife
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:24 pmugh *withstanding* i mean
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:24 pmI did, ulb. The prettiest young woman in Anaheim back then. Still a knockout. I knew nk liked swarthy women when he waxed ecstatic about Huma Abedin years ago…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:34 pmugh you people are so mean on each other
y’all should get together one weekend and go shopping for patio furniture and then do an afternoon with frito pie budweiser and box wine
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:37 pmyour friendly neighborhood zuckertwat at work
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:47 pmwti broke $70
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:59 pmi got your maverick spirit right here johnnycakes
you effing dickwad
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:02 pmColumn: I detest Trump, but a ‘redneck’ fixed my Prius with zip ties
You see, she has no agency. Trump is responsible for all that she feels. Some guy fixes her car out of the kindness of his heart, and she is heartbroken.
h/t Glenn Reynolds
Anon Y. Mous (6cc438) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:22 pmok so this happened … in Tampa
yup Tampa Florida
priyanka choper-doper does bollywood all up in it with john travolta while kevin spacey looks on adoringly
there’s a lot of sh!t that goes on in this country and we’re not getting the memos
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:31 pmBeldar is dead wrong, Hoagie absolutely did not name DRJ as slime, which should be obvious to anyone responsibly competent in the English language.
And, since Beldar is clearly sufficiently competent, what accounts for his low-brow phony finger pointing under the guise of protecting the little woman? Maybe he wants a badge and a white horse to complete his Rescue Ranger outfit.
Additionally, DRJ is fully capable of defending herself (I know from personal experience), and Beldar’s skirts aren’t exactly clean when it comes to slinging mud on those he can’t grind into submission.
ropelight (03b8dc) — 5/6/2018 @ 9:39 pmIf it were a witch hunt, Trump would already have been served with a grand jury subpoena.
how does this make any sense
Herr Mueller has no case against President Trump
his goal is to stretch this out as long as possible so as to cripple what the Trump Administration can accomplis
ex-CIA/ex-military ass-pansy Michael Hayden understands the game
i also understand the game
and i have a real job i’m not even a lawyer
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 10:34 pmfun game
here is an h
pls to creatively apply it above
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 10:35 pmthis is what happens when you let dirty trash from the US Military like Robert Mueller go Full Nazi on the constitution
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 10:42 pmYou’re absolutely right that DRJ doesn’t need my, or anyone’s, protection here and that she can and does speak for herself. I’ve never said or implied otherwise.
That doesn’t change the fact that she is my friend, and beyond that, someone whom I respect and admire for her clarity of thinking and writing, and her charity of heart. She doesn’t need white knights, yet I will call out, and do my best to ridicule and combat, anyone who writes of her what Hoagie did.
But thanks, ropelight, for again confirming my opinion of your character and of your reasoning skills.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 12:06 amthis is what happens when you let dirty trash from the US Military like Robert Mueller go Full Nazi on the constitution
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/6/2018 @ 10:42 pm
He’s trying to frag his commanding officer.
Pinandpuller (011436) — 5/7/2018 @ 12:09 amHuma Abedin
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2018 @ 8:34 pm
I ain’t mad. Gently used.
Pinandpuller (011436) — 5/7/2018 @ 12:13 amOne of his early comments, about the Muslims he saw on the streets of his town, the way they looked and the way they dressed and how he did not want them in his country, could have been taken almost verbatim from the second chapter of Mein Kampf — Hitler talking about the first time he saw Jews in Vienna. Most of the time, I avoid taking, or responding to, his comments seriously.
nk (dbc370) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:39 pm
How about a *Spoiler tag, mr nk?
Pinandpuller (011436) — 5/7/2018 @ 12:18 amMueller’s special counsel appointment was on May 17, 2017. We’re approaching the one-year anniversary. And wouldn’t you know it? Once again this week, he didn’t appear on the Sunday talking heads show to tell us about what his investigation has and hasn’t found yet. Witch-hunt!
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/6/2018 @ 6:37 pm
What do you get your Special Counsel, fake diamond cuff links?
Pinandpuller (011436) — 5/7/2018 @ 12:19 amThe traditional gift for a one-year anniversary, Pin, is paper — in which case it may not be Mueller getting, but giving, the “gift,” as in: a grand jury subpoena.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 12:38 amThe traditional gift for a one-year anniversary, Pin, is paper — in which case it may not be Mueller getting, but giving, the “gift,” as in: a grand jury subpoena.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 12:38 am
He wants to make it rain.
Pinandpuller (011436) — 5/7/2018 @ 1:05 am@239. Sen. John McCain showing ‘maverick’ spirit…
But he never shows a paystub from a private sector job, Mr. Feet.
Not even a paper route as a kid. Sad.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 5/7/2018 @ 2:16 amSo if Ajit Pai shows up at that awards show to present an award or do some acerbic stand up, is he cheered or jeered? One could substitute Nikki Haley in that question but I don’t know the intra- between Bollywood and Sikkim.
urbanleftbehind (24e2ff) — 5/7/2018 @ 4:35 amHappy Monday! Ain’t it the Truth!!!
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/296154/
Colonel Haiku (45621b) — 5/7/2018 @ 6:16 am“Former Trump campaign advisor Michael Caputo condemned the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday following his closed-door testimony. His words, no doubt, resonated with every Trump aide, associate, and family member ensnared in the bogus Trump-Russia election collusion scam.
“God damn you to Hell,” Caputo told the committee—an impassioned conclusion to an emotional statement explaining the personal and financial strain the investigations have caused his family.
Caputo called out a former staffer to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is orchestrating the ongoing smear campaign against anyone in Trump’s orbit thanks to deep-pocketed Democratic activists in New York and California. And he implored the committee to “investigate the investigators.”
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team interviewed Caputo the following day, nearly one year after Mueller got his marching orders from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. So, why has Caputo now been interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the special counsel? What makes this longtime GOP consultant who worked on the Trump campaign for less than a year (and not in any central role) possibly complicit in, or a witness to, the yet-unproven crime that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election?
Caputo made the egregious error of having once worked for the Russians. In the 1990s. He told New York magazine in an interview this week that he “studied Russia in college and became a big admirer of Russian literature and ballet. I worked hard in the Cold War to defeat Russia, and after the Wall fell I grew curious about the Russian people. I wanted to see the results.” Of course, this all sounds very fishy now. It’s obvious that Caputo developed an interest in Russia in the 1980s so he could earn the coveted post of Donald Trump’s New York primary election coordinator in 2015 and then work with the Rooskies to strip Hillary Clinton of enough votes in Pennsylvania and Michigan to cost her the election in November 2016 (even though he left the campaign in June 2016).”
https://amgreatness.com/2018/05/05/the-rape-culture-of-politics-by-investigation/
Colonel Haiku (45621b) — 5/7/2018 @ 6:30 amHappyfeet says…..”Sen. John McCain showing ‘maverick’ spirit even as he battles brain cancer
ABC News 4h ago
i got your maverick spirit right here johnnycakes
you effing dickwad.
The New Republican Party. Right there. Make America Great!
noel (b4d580) — 5/7/2018 @ 6:35 am“Much of Mr. Adelson’s casino profits that go to him come from his casino in Macau, which says that obviously, maybe in a roundabout way foreign money is coming into an American political campaign. That is a great deal of money, and we need a level playing field and we need to go back to the realization… that we have to have a limit on the flow of money and corporations are not people.”
—- John McCain, in 2012
Colonel Haiku (45621b) — 5/7/2018 @ 6:43 ami love america
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/7/2018 @ 6:55 amCaputo must be several degrees of separation from “some guys” to serve his anger hot and fresh. Nonetheless, the TPTB have fulfilled Tom DeLay’s prophesy.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 5/7/2018 @ 7:09 amI think I’m set to return from my vacation imminently, so I’ll leave this for Beldar in response to No. 209 (?) above — McCarthy’s point in his article is not inconsistent with you here. In fact, the final paragraph of his article expressly acknowledges the limitations on public comment that are imposed by the DOJ guidelines and US Attorney’s Manual.
What McCarthy says at the very end is that Trump has the authority, and he should exercise that authority, to direct Rosenstein to waive the prohibitions in the regulations and require the SC to make a public statement as to the allegations or suspicions of the SC which warrant the burdening of the office of POTUS with the demand that he agree to answer questions from an inferior constitutional officer.
So he acknowledges there are restriction on what Mueller can say – something you don’t give him credit for — and he’s not suggesting that Mueller violate those restrictions. He’s saying that under the very unique circumstances here, where Mueller claims to need to interview the President to wrap up his inquiry, and where there is uncertainty with regard to exactly the nature of his interest in the President himself, given the constitutional implications of such a question and answer session — especially if Mueller is contemplating an attempt to coerce it through the Judicial Branch — then the reasons for the regulation should give way to the circumstances, and Trump should set the regulations aside. In the ordinary course they exist for the protection of persons under suspicion — in this case POTUS — so if POTUS is willing to give up that protection, why should he not?
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 5/7/2018 @ 9:05 amhappyfeet (28a91b) — 5/5/2018 @ 10:25 pm
It sounds like he lied in his testimony, and then he lied about what he had said in his testimony.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 5/7/2018 @ 9:20 amYou know, the whole confrontation Comey had with Ashcroft in the hospital room is a lie. Nobody else placed him in the room. (they just stopped fighting the lie)
But later a Congressional committee claimed typewritten notes by Mueller supported him. But Mueller wasn’t in the room.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081601358.html
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 5/7/2018 @ 9:24 am… And the horse you rode in on, swc.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 11:53 amAnyone — whether it’s someone I respect like Andy McCarthy, or someone I don’t respect, like swc — who wishes to argue that the POTUS should override the existing regulations and law must acknowledge the existing regulations and law before making that argument, in order to avoid extreme intellectual dishonesty.
McCarthy’s article (not the new one on redaction, the one linked above ludicrously entitled “Why All the Secrecy,” does not ever mention the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual or its regulations that I linked and quoted above. It does not ever mention the provisions of the special counsel regulation that directly limit the special counsel’s own access to the press and the public.
I fault Mr. McCarthy for omission. I fault swc for fantasy. In particular, swc engages in a fantasy that Donald Trump might, and should, order the DoJ to abandon its traditional secrecy regarding on-going investigations:
This is as straightforward and shameless an argument as I’ve ever seen that the POTUS is above the law. I say bullsh!t to that. The only thing which make the circumstances “very unique,” as compared to any other investigation, is that it involves the POTUS.
Moreover, the ongoing investigation involves persons other than the POTUS, whose rights are also at issue, and whom Trump doesn’t have standing to make a waiver on behalf of.
But the fantasy part of it is the assumption by both McCarthy and swc that Donald J. Trump ever actually would direct that those regulations be set aside. He assuredly does not want every wild rumor, every unsubstantiatable leade, every report from a source the FBI and DoJ consider untrustworthy, to suddenly become public as we look over Robert Mueller’s shoulder in real
time. It would be the Steele dossier times 1000.
So unless and until Trump says, “Yep, lay all the cards on the table, good and bad — I order you to do so,” then this is ridiculous posturing.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 12:07 pmPut a corl in it.
ropelight (8442a3) — 5/7/2018 @ 12:56 pmYes, exactly, ropelight, that’s what Trump wants, and that you & swc seem to want too — they want to shut Mueller down entirely, to put a cor[k] in it — not to expose anything and everything that Mueller’s found, or is in the process of finding, to full public view.
That’s why this is a surreal and ridiculous argument.
I’ll believe Trump is serious about giving this instruction to the DoJ and Mueller on the same day he releases his tax returns. He wants to put a cor[k] in that, too, and has succeeded so far, and yet, Trump Nation loves him just as unconditionally as ever.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 1:42 pmWhere is the failure to acknowledge the existing regulations by McCarthy or myself?????
Unlike you, we each spent better than 20 years working under the terms of that policy.
But lets look CLOSELY at what it says, rather than simply paraphrase it.
This is NOT an regulation like those regulatory agencies promulgate about how far from the habitat of an endangered species a development must be set back, or what the labeling requirements are for Schedule II opioid prescriptions.
This is an INTERNAL guidance policy to insure that it is consistent nationwide, when the nature of the US Attorneys Offices are that they are semi-autonomous from DOJ by virtue of the fact that the US Attorneys are Presidential Appointees.
And you know that because it contains within its terms a basis for making exceptions to the “General’ rule of non-disclosure.
Interestingly, the USAM on this subject was revised just last month. Previously there was a provision — which was relied upon by Comey to justify his July 2016 press conference, and more recently by McCabe to justify his authorization to leak info to the WSJ. It was quoted by the IG in its report on McCabe, since it applied at the time of McCabe’s leak: That report stated as follows:
That was the policy until April 2018, when 7.530 was deleted, and parts of it were included in 7.400.
As for whether POTUS — not Trump, but the institution of the Presidency as a constitutional office — is bound by internal DOJ policies, I think that’s not even an issue. He’s not. That doesn’t make Turmp “above the law”, it acknowledges that prior POTUS administrations can’t bind later POTUS administrations to policies unless the consent to being bound. Its a POLICY, not a statue.
More to say later, but right now I have to take a 17 year old with a broken thumb to the orthopedic surgeon for an eval.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 5/7/2018 @ 4:34 pmGoing back over this again on my phone.
Without question, it’s nonsense to think that the provisions of the US Attorney Manual are “laws” or “regulations”. They are policies, nothing more. They can be changed or waived by the appropriate official for any valid reason.
McCarthy’s justification is a perfectly valid reason, and it has everything to do with POTUS and nothing to do with Trump.
Shipwreckedcrew (631d7a) — 5/7/2018 @ 5:44 pm“… it has everything to do with POTUS and nothing to do with Trump.”
The fact that you can write that with a straight face is why I have nothing but contempt for you, sir, in the place of what used to be professional and personal respect.
That you cite Comey’s press conference exonerating Clinton as if it was a good thing that Hillary wasn’t held to the normal rules, a precedent that Trump should be entitled to benefit from in his attempt to stand above and outside the Rule of Law, is why I have nothing but contempt for you, sir, in the place of what used to be professional and personal respect.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 7:09 pmDo you want everything in Mueller’s files available online tonight? Or do you only want to break the rules to publicize the parts that Trump likes?
Who makes that call, when the rulebook is thrown out the window just because it’s the POTUS involved?
You? Jim Comey?
This is nonsense on stilts.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 7:12 pmWhy not, dumps everything to the daily beast the news the guardian, he picks and chooses what to disclose.
narciso (d1f714) — 5/7/2018 @ 7:17 pmWhy did it take a year AMD a half for the memos to be revealed, because they were concerned about sources and methods clearly not.
narciso (d1f714) — 5/7/2018 @ 7:21 pmAin’t it funny how #metoo – put out there to take an elected president down – has boomeranged and bit down hard on the
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/7/2018 @ 7:24 pmlow-T Democrats’ shriveled kiwis.
Haha… HA!!! https://static.pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Screen-Shot-2018-05-07-at-8.59.23-PM.png
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/7/2018 @ 7:25 pmIts is dark magic, coronello bow it turns out the fellow from hellboy and the Pittsburg were both on o’donnels illegal donation list, preset bhaara to the white courtesy phone.
narciso (d1f714) — 5/7/2018 @ 7:32 pmswc, another thing I dislike about you: You’re sloppy. I didn’t paraphrase the regs. I quoted them. I linked them. So why do you write, condescendingly, “But lets [sic] look CLOSELY at what it says, rather than simply paraphrase it.”
That’s what makes you not just unreliable, not just intellectually dishonest, but an @sshole in the process.
Our host invites you back after bad behavior. You immediately reappear and repeat your insistence that you disagree with his reasons for your vacation. You pretend that you’ve resolved to be less personal in the future. Ten minutes later, you confirm that no, you have no apology, and then you get personal again: “You’re [sic] unwillingness to contemplate the possibility that maybe you might have been in error, says a lot.”
(And what is the deal with you & apostrophes & contractions?)
Okay, you want to make this personal. I’m being very personal. I’m sorry you’re back. The fact that our host welcomes you makes me less inclined to visit and comment here. Surely some blog somewhere, one of those places where you were a Roy Moore apologist, needs your analytic and legal skills to campaign for Don Blankenship in West Virginia. You’re perfect for his campaign.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 7:49 pmswc, you’re right that I haven’t worked subject to DoJ rules, ever. So let’s explore your own personal experience.
During your 20+ years working for the DoJ, in what percent of the investigations, with or without resulting prosecutions, did you seek and obtain permission to vary from the normal secrecy policies? NOTE: This question requires a numerical answer, but I suspect it’s a very easy one (0.000%).
Mr. McCarthy likewise has 20+ years at DoJ, but he mentioned zero occasions in which he deviated from these policies. Do you know of any in which he did?
Whatever it is that you’re proposing that Trump do to lift the cloud of secrecy — I honestly have no idea what the contours or limits of that would be, or the procedural mechanisms, or the means of documenting it, and I’m pretty sure neither you nor Mr. McCarthy do either — can you point us to a prior example of that being done to accommodate another POTUS? A VPOTUS or cabinet official or other executive agency head? Was it done for Nixon? Agnew? Clinton? Bush-43? There have been a ton of sitting and/or former congress-critters investigated, some of whom were indicted & prosecuted, some of whom were convicted. Which of them got the benefit of the abrogation of secrecy that you’re proposing? If not, why not?
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/7/2018 @ 8:22 pmThe point is comey had done it multiple times, as has sally Yates they .materially misrepresented the source of the dossier sent strzok in so general fLynn could not consult an atty then leaked their own self serving tale,
narciso (d1f714) — 5/7/2018 @ 8:34 pmthe men and women of the FBI lie a lot Mr. narciso
you can’t trust anything they say
happyfeet (28a91b) — 5/7/2018 @ 8:37 pmHenceforth I dub thee “swcrank,” which is only slightly longer to write than “swc” and more apt, but still shorter than your screenname, whatever it’s supposed to mean.
swcrank, I’m really having trouble parsing this, just grammatically:
Okay, stipulated that there’s no statue, or statute either, involved here. Further stipulated that each POTUS has the full power of the Executive Branch and has no power to bind a prior one.
Where the hell did you get the idea that I, or anyone, has suggested that the POTUS is bound to comply with the procedures in the U.S. Attorneys’ manual or the special counsel regulations? McCarthy is criticizing not Trump, but the DoJ, in the personages particularly of Acting AG Rosenstein and his subordinate per 28 C.F.R. part 600, Robert Mueller. They damn sure are bound by the manual and by the regs. And they’re who would have to abrogate secrecy, in violation of the policy and regulations.
Does the POTUS have the constitutional power to instruct them otherwise? Yes. Is there any conceivable constitutional justification that he can assert which could not have been asserted by every other POTUS who’s been under investigation? No, as we’ve just stipulated above, each POTUS has the same constitutional power under Article II.
So tell us exactly how you imagine this works. Trump sends a memo to Rosenstein as Acting AG which says … what?
Draft it for us, counselor. Put up or (my strong preference) shut up.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/8/2018 @ 1:14 amSorry, got that backward — no POTUS has the power to bind a later one.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/8/2018 @ 1:15 amRev.Hoalgie…….. “We are in a civil war and what’s going on here is not helping our side. Hell, I’m not even sure any more what our side is. I only know my side and my side has no room for leftists or any other anti American nonsense. It seems this site wants to attract the Gryphs, noels 1nd Q!’s rather than conservative contributors. I guess it would be nice to have a couple leftist trolls if half the “conservatives” weren’t going so neverTrump themselves. The half dozen of us left who aren’t neverTrumpers can’t have any political discussions without it turning into a clusterTrump because Dave interjects how Trump lied about stopping gonorrhea in Africa or something.
I think it was either ropelight or NJRob who needs a break but you need one too. I’m gonna pop Patterico off my favorites for the rest of May to give you guys a break.
Good luck finding that safe-space you so desire. But, come on… you’re no snowflake. You can take a little heat.
noel (b4d580) — 5/8/2018 @ 7:32 am