Yes - It's A Big Fuckin' Deal

It'd please me to no end if I was using that to describe Biden's BBB plan getting over the hurdles and finding its way into law.

But unfortunately, we'll have to wait for President Manchin to get the fuck outa the way before we can pop the cork on that one.

What I'm talking about here is the growing evidence of just how close we came to losing the republic on Jan6. (and make no mistake, we're still in a very precarious position - the jury is still out on that one)

But let's take a closer look at what Mike Pence was (and still is) up to - cuz it's a big fuckin' deal.

WaPo: (pay wall)

It has become a ubiquitous question in our politics: How close did Donald Trump come to pulling off an actual coup?

Efforts to grapple with this have been trapped largely in the zone of wild speculation. But guess what: We may actually get a real answer to it soon enough.

Key to this is the figure who has been portrayed as a hero of this sordid tale, because he refused to use his position as vice president to interrupt the count of electors in Congress: Mike Pence.

This remains poorly understood, but the Jan. 6 select committee is not just looking at the mob attack. It will also create a detailed account of how close we came to the unthinkable — to the procedural overthrow of a legitimately elected incoming government.

The true contours of this emerge from a New York Times excavation of the role of John Eastman, the lawyer who wrote the Trump coup memo. It outlined how Pence supposedly could exercise unilateral power (that he did not have) over the process to refuse to count President-elect Joe Biden’s electors, throwing the election to Trump.

Buried in that piece is an important revelation: Pence apparently went further than previously known in probing whether he could execute a version of Eastman’s scheme.

The select committee will be fleshing this out, Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the committee, suggested in an interview.

“It’s an important part of the historical record to determine how close Trump actually came to achieving his scheme of getting Pence to declare unilateral power to reject electoral college votes,” Raskin told me.

The meeting

Eastman met with Pence and Trump a few days before Jan. 6, the Times reports. Eastman tells the Times he suggested to Pence and his chief counsel, Greg Jacob that Pence could merely delay counting the electors.

This would kick things back to the states, where GOP legislators could send rogue electors for Trump in defiance of the popular vote and Pence could then refuse to count the real electors, triggering a contingent election in the House decided for Trump by state delegations.

Some of this is known from the new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Post. But the Times adds new texture from Eastman. He says although Pence appeared resistant to the idea, he and Jacob did take it seriously:

Mr. Eastman recalled getting in touch with Mr. Pence’s legal counsel Mr. Jacob the next day about whether Mr. Pence could delay the certification.

“I think Jacob was looking for a way for he and Pence to be convinced to take the action that we were requesting, and so I think he continued to meet with me and push back on the arguments and hear my counters, what have you, to try and see whether they could reconcile themselves to what the president had asked,” Mr. Eastman said.

Pence ultimately declared that he did not have this unilateral power. But the point is that, if Eastman is correct, Pence and Jacob sought to be convinced otherwise. It’s possible Pence simply went through these motions to placate Trump. But the Jan. 6 committee will have to find out the full truth.

Indeed, note that the committee’s August demand for documents from executive branch agencies includes a demand for any and all documents and communications relating to Jacob, including ones concerning “the constitutional process for certifying the electoral vote.”

That very well may illuminate just how far Pence was willing to go in entertaining the coup scheme. As Kyle Cheney notes, any day now Trump will likely announce legal efforts to block the release of such documents. These new revelations illustrate the stakes there as well.

All of this bodes badly for what’s to come.

We badly need reform

As Raskin points out, whatever Pence’s intentions, we have already learned from the Eastman memo, and from other ways Trump tried to subvert the count of electors, that this process is full of serious vulnerabilities that could well be exploited by future bad actors who are willing to go through with it.

And it’s becoming clearer that other Republicans might indeed be willing. Among other bad signs, many GOP candidates are running on an open vow to subvert future losses, and Trump and his loyalists are working to purge Republicans who stood up against his schemes.

“We know that there are now huge numbers of Republican politicians,” Raskin told me, who would “do precisely what Trump was asking Pence to do.” Raskin points out that many Republicans did urge Pence to go through with it.

And so, the news that Pence may have seriously probed whether he could execute this plot can be seen as a harbinger of more to come. Illuminating this could help build the case for reform.

“The structural weaknesses exposed by this episode are a looming danger for the republic,” Raskin said. “We need to act within the electoral college paradigm to do whatever we can to make sure the vice-presidential role remains an administrative and ministerial one.”

That would require reform of the Electoral Count Act. And so, it’s likely the committee will recommend that and other reforms to cut off the path to such schemes in the future. But whatever reforms it does recommend, nailing down how close we came to the worst can only build public support for them.

Mike Pence is a good little Nazi. He does all kinds of shitty things - always willing to consider doing even shittier things - while always trying to make sure it's all "legal".

He's the worst kind of political viper. He was looking hard at becoming Trump's Martin Bormann.

Today's Cops

Here's an idea: Whenever there's a lawsuit that results from cops getting frisky and overzealous, and there's a negotiated settlement because it's obvious the cops were on the wrong side of the fucking law - let's take the money out of the cops' pension fund instead of foisting that shit on the taxpayers.

Watch how fast the cops themselves start to make changes to that behavior.

WaPo:

‘Watch the show, folks’:
Va. trooper no longer employed after playing to camera in violent stop of Black driver

A Virginia State Police trooper who is seen in a viral video telling a Black driver “you are going to get your a-- whooped” before violently removing the man from his car in 2019 is no longer with the agency, a spokeswoman said.

VSP Communications Director Corinne Geller said her agency was prohibited from releasing additional details, but an attorney for the driver said he was told in talks held during settlement of a lawsuit over the incident that Charles Hewitt was fired for cause in February, months after the video became public.

Joshua Erlich, the attorney, said the federal lawsuit claiming Derrick Thompson had been assaulted and had his constitutional rights violated by the trooper was settled this month for $20,000, with no admission of wrongdoing by the state. The Virginia Attorney General’s Office confirmed a settlement but did not characterize the deal or offer any other comment. A working phone number could not be located for Hewitt.

"Mr. Thompson filed this case because Trooper Hewitt's behavior was unconscionable, and Mr. Thompson is happy with the outcome," Erlich said. "He thought he deserved — and received — monetary compensation. And although the VSP did not admit to any wrongdoing, Mr. Thompson is heartened Trooper Hewitt is no longer on the street and thinks Virginia is safer for it."

The video, which Erlich first posted on Twitter last summer, has been retweeted thousands of times and was featured widely in news reports, begins after Thompson, 29, of Woodbridge was pulled over on the Beltway in Fairfax County in April 2019 for an expired inspection decal. A trooper who initiated the stop said she could smell marijuana wafting from Thompson’s car, but Erlich said no drugs were found in the vehicle.

Hewitt was one of three troopers at the scene and did all of the talking in the video.

Thompson filmed the encounter with his cellphone. The video shows him sitting behind the wheel of his car claiming that he was not a threat and that a request for him to get out of his vehicle was unlawful. For much of the video, he has his hands raised in the air and he passively resists Hewitt.

At one point, Hewitt leans toward Thompson and yells: “Take a look at me. I am a f---ing specimen right here, buddy. You have gotten on my last nerve, all right?”

Thompson tells Hewitt he has his hands up.

Hewitt then tells him: “You are going to get your a-- whooped.” He then goes on to say: “I’m going to give you one more chance. You can bring that with you — I’ll let you film the whole thing.”

After some more discussion, Hewitt tells Thompson he is being placed under arrest, looks into the camera and says, “Watch the show, folks.”

Hewitt then forcefully removes Thompson from the car, takes him to the ground and arrests him. Thompson pleaded guilty to misdemeanor obstruction of justice last year in Fairfax County General District Court.

Geller declined to comment on the video, but Col. Gary T. Settle, the Virginia State Police superintendent, said shortly after it became public that Hewitt’s conduct was inappropriate. A previous internal investigation into his use of force had cleared him of any wrongdoing, and Fairfax County prosecutors declined to press charges against him.

“The conduct displayed by Trooper Hewitt during the course of the traffic stop is not in agreement with the established standards of conduct required of a Virginia trooper,” Settle said in a July statement. “Nor is it characteristic of the service provided daily across the Commonwealth of Virginia by Virginia State Police personnel.”

Today's Beau

On Gov Cuomo, and learning about not being a dick - almost literally.

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

What you're really asking is: "How can I get away with it?"

BTW, if Cuomo did anything for which he deserves to burn, then let that fucker burn.

And here's the consent thing Beau mentioned:

How To Prevent Rape

1. Don’t put drugs in a woman’s drink
2. When you see a woman walking by herself, leave her alone
3. If you pull over to help a woman whose car has broken down, always remember not to rape her
4. If a woman steps into an elevator with you, don’t rape her
5. Should you encounter a woman who’s asleep or otherwise unconscious, the safest thing to do is not rape her
6. Don’t break into a woman’s house, and don’t pounce on a woman in the parking garage, so as not to rape her
7. Remember, some women will go alone to the laundry room or storage lockers - avoid raping them
8. Buddy System - often, a friend is all you need to help you not rape
9. Be honest - state your intentions so the woman doesn’t get the mistaken idea that you won’t try to rape her
10. Always carry a Rape Whistle. If you’re about to commit rape, blow the whistle and wait for somebody to come and stomp your punk ass ’til there’s nothing left but a greasy spot on the pavement

Where We Are

Politicians in general, and Repubs in particular these days, are always trying to set up situations where they win no matter what, and the other side loses no matter what.

If Dems say, "OK, we won't go with an impeachment trial and just leave it to the courts", the Repubs will come back with "No no no - you can't go after a political opponent in criminal court - you liberals were all up in arms when we were saying Hillary should be brought up on charges and blah blah blah."

Brian Tyler Cohen:

And we can just kinda blow it off as "Oh well - it's politics - whaddaya gonna do?"

But the shit that assholes like Rand Paul are trying to pull is the classic No-Win Bind that gets autocrats off the hook. It's a trap that abusers try to to set for people all the time, and is, in itself an abuse of power.

Theramin Trees - The Double Bind

Always remember those little life lessons our favorite sportsball coaches tried to illustrate for us.

The Incredible Shrinking Trump

Tom Ridge has always been a "moderate". He's not crazy right and he's not the old-style liberal Republican.

Generally well right of center, but not a wingnut.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette:

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, the first homeland security secretary, criticized the deployment of federal agents in Portland, Ore., as mayors throughout the country call on the Trump administration to keep agents out of their cities.

The administration has deployed agents with tactical gear to confront protesters in downtown Portland, Ore., and plans to send agents to Democratic-led cities, such as Philadelphia. The administration revealed Monday that it plans to send 150 Homeland Security Investigations special agents to Chicago for 60 days.

"The department was established to protect America from the ever-present threat of global terrorism. It was not established to be the president’s personal militia," Ridge, a Republican, said in an interview with Sirius XM radio. He was alluding to the department's creation after the 9/11 attacks.

Ridge said he would “welcome the opportunity to work with any federal agency to reduce crime or lawlessness in the cities" if he were governor. But "it would be a cold day in hell before I would consent to an uninvited, unilateral intervention into one of my cities," he added, specifically calling out how the federal authorities were unwelcome in Portland.

“And I wish the president would take a more collaborative approach toward fighting this lawlessness than the unilateral approach he’s taken,” he added.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, more than a dozen mayors called the administration's intention to deploy federal forces against protesters an "abuse of power."

The letter -- signed by the mayors of Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, Tucson, Sacramento, Phoenix and Kansas City, Missouri on Monday -- calls on the administration to withdraw federal forces from the cities where they are currently deployed and halt plans to send them elsewhere.

"The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a national uprising and reckoning," the letter said. "The majority of the protests have been peaceful and aimed at improving our communities. Where this is not the case, it still does not justify the use of federal forces. Unilaterally deploying these paramilitary-type forces into our cities is wholly inconsistent with our system of democracy and our most basic values."

The protests in Portland began after Floyd's death in police custody. Demonstrators have also called for justice in the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain and other Black people.

Wolf has said the crackdown in Portland, Ore. — which has included personnel from the U.S. Marshals and tactical agents from Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in addition to the Federal Protective Service, which was already stationed in Portland — was specific to the Pacific Northwest city, distancing his department from President Donald Trump’s commitment this week to send agents to other major cities, from Oakland to New York.

“Violent anarchists in Portland versus normal city criminal activity behavior by gangs and criminal element, those are two different things,” Wolf said, adding that the department had recorded 43 arrests in the protests. “What we have in Portland is very different than what we see in other cities.”

Portland, Ore.’s governor, the mayor and the protesters have all said that the homeland security agents and U.S. Marshals had only increased tensions in the city.

“We didn’t ask for these troops in our city. We don’t want these troops in our city, and the tactics they’re using are very un-American,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said, adding that the agents were forcing demonstrators into vans without probable cause. “There’s some really serious constitutional issues here.”

Wheeler added that many of those detained had not been charged, but rather released after questioning. “We have people who have come back and said, ‘I feel like I was kidnapped.’”

Federal authorities, however, said state and local officials had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism and violence against federal officers and the U.S. courthouse in Portland

“We stand ready,” Wolf said. “I’m ready to pull my officers out of there if the violence stops. Portland is unique. There’s no other city like it right now where we see this violence at federal courthouses.”

But while the homeland security officials said the deployment of tactical agents who have frequently deployed tear gas and at times forced protesters into unmarked vehicles was needed to combat “violent criminals,” some of the demonstrators included mothers locked in arms outside the courthouse. While some have thrown rocks and bottles at federal officers, others in the crowd have demonstrated peacefully.

Citing a law codified by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 that allows the secretary to protect federal property, Wolf also defended agents who have been accused of placing protesters in unmarked vans without telling them where they are going.

But the law Wolf cited, 40 U.S. Code 1315, says homeland security officials have the right to “conduct investigations” away from federal property. Pressed about the level of probable cause needed to detain someone away from the courthouse in Portland, Wolf referred to Richard Cline, the deputy director of the Federal Protective Service. Cline described the detaining of one individual, whom he did not name, who was put into a van so agents could bring him to a safe place for questioning.

The officials did not address other accounts from demonstrators of being detained, put into unmarked vehicles and not being told where they were going.

President Donald Trump’s administration faces multiple lawsuits questioning its authority to use broad policing powers in cities. One filed Tuesday says federal agents are violating protesters’ 10th Amendment rights by engaging in police activities designated to local and state governments. The legal action was filed by the Portland-based Western States Center, which helps organize and promote the rights of communities of color and low-income people.

Gil Kerlikowske, a Customs and Border Protection chief in the Obama administration, said the department was not meeting a standard of probable cause with the detainments.

“They need the same probable cause that any police officer should have to stop somebody. It’s beyond a reasonable suspicion that this person has actually committed crime,” Kerlikowske said. “You’re not seeing that in Portland.”

Coming To A Head

I'm reminded of the scene in Gandhi when the government of South Africa is struggling to "control" the population.

(paraphrasing):

"They can fire me from me job. They can arrest me. They can torture me. They can beat me to death. At which time they'll have my dead broken body. But they will never have my obedience."

45* is doing what that kind of dishonorable asshole always does - he's occupying Smarmspace, looking for the part where "it doesn't say specifically that I can't do it, so that's what I'm gonna do."

WaPo:

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and President Trump were engaged in an escalating contest over control of Washington streets when the email from a military planner set off new alarms in the mayor’s office.

The official was seeking guidance Wednesday afternoon for the U.S. Northern Command in determining “route restrictions” for the “movement of tactical vehicles” and “military forces” from Fort Belvoir, Va., into the city to assist in “Civil Disturbance Operations.”

To Bowser’s aides, the request smacked of an imminent escalation in the federal force Trump had marshaled to quell the large street demonstrations over police brutality near the White House — the centerpiece of his bid to project the image of a strong leader who would establish “law and order” where local leaders had failed across the nation. Days earlier, Trump had falsely accused Bowser (D) in a tweet of refusing to allow D.C. police to assist in crowd control in Lafayette Square.

“The last time they asked us about that was in preparation to move tanks to the city for the Fourth of July” celebration last summer, said one D.C. government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private request. “We don’t want it to happen.”

- and -

During a news conference Thursday, Bowser said she was alarmed by the growing presence of federal security authorities in the city and declared she wants federal “troops from out of state” kept out of the District. She also expressed concern that the Trump administration's move to extend security barriers beyond the White House perimeter to encircle Lafayette Square, closing it to the public, could become permanent.

“Keep in mind that’s the people’s house,” she said. “It’s a sad commentary that the [White] House and its inhabitants have to be walled off.”

There's a bad feeling of "crossing the Rubicon" in all of this. Caesar entering the city at the head of his army signals the collapse of the republic.

Nancy Bangs

The Washington Post, Opinion
Speaker of The House, Nancy Pelosi:

For more than 200 years, our republic has endured, not only because of the wisdom of our Founders and the brilliance of our Constitution, but because of the generations of patriotic Americans who have had the courage to risk their lives to defend it.

But, tragically, the American people have watched President Trump and Republicans in Congress dismantle the Constitution that we cherish.

The House impeachment managers, led by Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), presented to the Senate and the public an incontrovertible truth that the president himself has admitted: President Trump abused the power of his office to pressure a foreign power to help him cheat in an American election. And when he was caught, the president launched an unprecedented coverup to block Congress from holding him accountable. The president’s actions undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections and violated the Constitution.

The Democrats in the Senate under the leadership of Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) patriotically voted unanimously to honor the oath to support and defend the Constitution. They, along with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), deserve our gratitude for their moral courage.

The president’s lawyers all but concede his misconduct. Their argument was only that Congress and the American people have no right to stop him from using his power to cheat in our elections. With their vote, Senate Republicans embraced this darkest vision of power: that if the president believes his reelection is good for the country, he can then use any means necessary to win, with no accountability or consequences.

For weeks, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Republican-controlled Senate have made themselves accomplices to the president’s wrongdoing by suppressing additional evidence and rejecting the most basic elements of a fair judicial process. In declaring their loyalty to the president over our Constitution, Republicans have made a farce of the old boast that the U.S. Senate is the greatest deliberative body in the world. And they have joined the president in normalizing lawlessness and rejecting the checks and balances of our Constitution.

The House of Representatives voted to impeach the president because our institution believes in the sanctity of our oath and the urgency of protecting our republic. One chamber of Congress held the president accountable. President Trump is impeached forever, disgraced in history for his abuse of power and contempt for our Constitution. He will go down in history as the first president to be impeached with the support of a majority of Americans, and the first to ever face a bipartisan vote to convict him in the Senate.

Our Founders put safeguards in the Constitution to protect against a rogue president. They never imagined that they would at the same time have a rogue leader in the Senate who would cowardly abandon his duty to uphold the Constitution.

Sadly, because of the Republican Senate’s betrayal of the Constitution, the president remains an ongoing threat to American democracy. He continues to insist that he is above accountability and that he can corrupt the elections again, if he wants to.

The People’s House will continue to defend democracy for the American people. We will uphold and protect the checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution, both in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion to preserve our republic “if we can keep it,” to quote Benjamin Franklin.

And we will always insist on this truth: that, in America, no one is above the law.

Read more:
Dana Milbank: This vulgar man has squandered our decency

Greg Sargent: Here’s a new abuse of power by Trump that should alarm you

Jonathan Turley: Mitt Romney is exactly what the Framers wanted in a senator

Catherine Rampell: Worried Trump might weaponize the presidency? He already has, many times.

Today's Tweet

Knowing full well that normal people see them as fools when they do it, they make shit up rather than admit they may have been wrong about something.

And that's one of the main points for The Daddy State - there is no Right or Wrong. There is only power for its own sake.

The power to change history - to change the meaning of words - to dictate how we perceive events in the real world - all in service to the power of those few who're in charge of The Daddy State.

So they went from it was about Socialism to- if you don't like it you can leave to -Donald Trump is the real victim here. Just when you think it can't digress further into stupidity, they send Eric Trump on Fox to claim that 95% of America is behind Trump on this message. pic.twitter.com/YYyjwndvyg

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) July 17, 2019

Congressman Copperhead

Sorry not sorry - Tom Garrett's a dick.

Rachael Bade, Alex Isenstadt and Kyle Cheney, Politico:

Virginia Rep. Tom Garrett and his wife turned the congressman’s staff into personal servants, multiple former employees to the freshman Republican told POLITICO — assigning them tasks from grocery shopping to fetching the congressman’s clothes to caring for their pet dog, all during work hours.
POLITICO has spoken with four former staffers who detailed a deeply dysfunctional office in which the congressman and his wife, Flanna, often demanded that staff run personal errands outside their typical congressional duties. The couple called on staff to pick up groceries, chauffeur Garrett’s daughters to and from his Virginia district, and fetch clothes that the congressman forgot at his Washington apartment. They were even expected to watch and clean up after Sophie, their Jack Russell-Pomeranian mix, the aides said.

The staffers said they feared that if they refused Garrett‘s or his wife’s orders — both were known for explosive tempers — they would struggle to advance in their careers. It wasn't just full-time staff: many of the allegedly inappropriate requests were made of interns, the former aides said.

- and -

A spokesman for Garrett, Matt Missen, declined to address a detailed list of complaints about the office.

“We see no reason to respond to anonymous, unfounded allegations primarily targeting Congressman Garrett’s wife, made by POLITICO’s ‘unnamed’ sources,” he said. “It is easy to spread untruths and even easier to exaggerate and imply wrongdoing when none exists.”

That's a fairly lengthy "no comment", Mr Missen.

And then - I guess continuing in "no comment mode":

Missen said there is “no ethics investigation” into the office and that “to ensure that all staff follow the rules, Congressman Garrett has had lawyers from the House Ethics Committee meet with him and his staff (to include district staff via telephone) to brief everyone on the ethics rules pertaining to congressmen and staff, and to answer any questions.”

That's classic.

First, the non-denial denial, covered in a thick creamy layer of passive language.

But second - holy crap. Both Mr Garrett and Mrs Garrett assigned public employees tasks that have nothing to do with conducting the public's business - obviously in violation of ethics rules, if not strictly illegal - and the solution Garrett hits on is to get the Ethics Office lawyers to come in and explain to the staffers that what the staffers did was wrong.

Chutzpah, level: Supreme High Master Asshole.

And BTW, can you say "waste fraud and abuse", motherfucker?

Make A Start

Jim Jeffries, with a perspective that sounds almost universal - or should.

"I thought I was a pretty good guy, what with all the not-raping I've done..."

Near Quote

(paraphrasing a tweet)

45*'s lawyer to Bob Mueller: 

"OK, you can give him the speeding ticket, but you're not allowed to look any further, even though the stench of rotting flesh kinda makes it obvious there's a dead body in the trunk."

Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer in WaPo:

My view was: Collusion? I just don’t see it. But I’m open to empirical evidence. Show me.

The evidence is now shown. This is not hearsay, not fake news, not unsourced leaks. This is an email chain released by Donald Trump Jr. himself. A British go-between writes that there’s a Russian government effort to help Trump Sr. win the election, and as part of that effort he proposes a meeting with a “Russian government attorney” possessing damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Moreover, the Kremlin is willing to share troves of incriminating documents from the Crown Prosecutor. (Error: Britain has a Crown Prosecutor. Russia has a Prosecutor General.)

Donald Jr. emails back. “I love it.” Fatal words.

Once you’ve said “I’m in,” it makes no difference that the meeting was a bust, that the intermediary brought no such goods. What matters is what Donald Jr. thought going into the meeting, as well as Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, who were forwarded the correspondence, invited to the meeting, and attended.

“It was literally just a wasted 20 minutes, which was a shame,” Donald Jr. told Sean Hannity. A shame? On the contrary, a stroke of luck. Had the lawyer real stuff to deliver, Donald Jr. and the others would be in far deeper legal trouble. It turned out to be incompetent collusion, amateur collusion, comically failed collusion. That does not erase the fact that three top Trump campaign officials were ready to play.

It may turn out that they did later collaborate more fruitfully. We don’t know. But even if nothing else is found, the evidence is damning.

You don't have to rob the liquor store. 

Conspiring to rob the liquor store is a crime and you go to jail.

Lining It Out

Dunno about the rest of y'all, but I'll have to hear the 45*/Russia timeline several more times and several more ways and from several more people before I can get my think soupy brain wrapped around just what a ginormous shitball this thing is becoming.

Ezra Klein at Vox:

I think I've said before that I was in front of our crappy little black-n-white portable TV in the kitchen of my parents' house all thru the summer of 1973 - like my ass was bolted to the chair.

Watergate moved pretty slow compared with this shit.  And we kinda had some time to kick back for few minutes each day and cogitate on "what the fuck just happened here!?!"

We don't have that luxury now.  And it makes me wonder what all we're going to miss as we rush thru, trying to get it to just fucking stop already.

This is gonna hurt pretty bad for a while.

It Gets Worse

The ever-widening Circle Of Fuckery is about to include Kellyanne Conway and possibly Chris Kobach as well.

Peter Stone and Greg Gordon at McClatchy:

By Election Day, an automated Kremlin cyberattack of unprecedented scale and sophistication had delivered critical and phony news about the Democratic presidential nominee to the Twitter and Facebook accounts of millions of voters. Some investigators suspect the Russians targeted voters in swing states, even in key precincts.

--and--

One source familiar with Justice's criminal probe said investigators doubt Russian operatives controlling the so-called robotic cyber commands that fetched and distributed fake news stories could have independently "known where to specifically target … to which high-impact states and districts in those states."

All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is confidential.

Top Democrats on the committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election have signaled the same.

Schiff said he wants the House panel to determine whether Trump aides helped Russia time its cyberattacks or target certain voters and whether there was “any exchange of information, any financial support funneled to organizations that were doing this kind of work.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article160803619.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article160803619.html#storylink=cpy

Don and Jared

Don Jr can go to prison for violations of a whole raft of shit - espionage, treason, campaign restrictions, etc.

Jared might go for about the same reasons, but his function now is to take the hit in order to provide plausible deniability for 45*, which serves to shield the rest of cult45*.

But at the very least, those two jokers.

One thing - the Circle Of Fuckery widens almost daily.  So remember that the first point in this kinda shit is to make sure everybody's guilty so nobody can be held accountable.

And also too, there is no honor in anyone involved in this, so let's not count on Bob Mueller's Witness Whisperers to produce a good ol'-fashioned John Dean. We'd best be expectin' we'll hafta do this the hard way.

It's Called Treason, Mike

WaPo is making no bones about it - they put it in print as a declarative statement, without moderating it:

National security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions that were being imposed by the Obama administration in late December to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election.

Flynn on Wednesday denied that he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak. Asked in an interview whether he had ever done so, he twice said, “No.”

On Thursday, Flynn, through his spokesman, backed away from the denial. The spokesman said Flynn “indicated that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”

"...couldn't be certain..." The Reagan defense - I don't recall.

We have transcripts, General. You called the Russians half a dozen times just to chat? About what, baseball? You were gonna drop by for coffee sometime? You're a lyin' sack o' shit, pal.

So now we get to watch another dance as Flynn and Pence duke it out - either Pence lied in public or Flynn lied to Pence.

But if we're picking survivors, my money's on Pence. He has some cover because he's worked in the DC network and prob'ly still has a few chips out there. Plus, he has to be sucking up bigly to whoever's plotting Trump's demise (a strictly political demise that is).  But he has to win it all or he'll lose it all. His career was deeply comatose until they picked him for Veep. So he's POTUS or he's our new Ambassador to Gambia under President Ryan, or he lands in a slot on the Wingnut Welfare rolls.

Flynn - aside from being a total fucking loon - is a political orphan. So that knife fight gets really messy and Flynn disappears for a while - until he pops up in a consulting gig for Paul Manafort or some such.

It's not a swamp - it's a sewer. And the shit runs wide and deep.

He Doesn't Know Anything

This gang is a rolling clusterfuck in a burning dumpster.

Wilfred Chan at Fusion

Donald Trump is angry he was not briefed on the executive order he signed granting unprecedented powers to adviser-puppet-master Steve Bannon, the alleged domestic abuser and Satan-praising, Islamophobicformer editor of “alt-right” outlet Breitbart, according to a new report.

From The New York Times:(For) the moment, Mr. Bannon remains the president’s dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump’s anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council, a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban.

Credited as the mastermind behind some of Trump’s most extreme policies, including the Muslim ban, Bannon has told allies he has a limited window to ram through as much of his agenda as possible, the Timesadded.

This could explain the flurry of slapdash executive orders in the last few weeks. It also means it’s possible Trump didn’t even read what he was signing when he made Bannon a permanent member of the national security council on January 28 while downgrading the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence to optional attendees.

Commerce Marches On

From WaPo today:

A new law in Michigan will prohibit local governments from banning, regulating or imposing fees on the use of plastic bags and other containers. You read that correctly: It’s not a ban on plastic bags — it’s a ban on banning plastic bags.

--and--

Bans and restrictions on the use of plastic bags are widespread in other parts of the country and around the world. The rationale is simple: Plastic bags are infamous non-biodegradable sources of pollution — although they will eventually break down into tiny pieces, scientists believe this process can take hundreds of years, or even up to a century, in landfills.

--and--

The new Michigan law was met with praise from the Michigan Restaurant Association for this reason.

“With many of our members owning and operating locations across the state, preventing a patchwork approach of additional regulations is imperative to avoid added complexities as it related to day-to-day business operations,” said Robert O’Meara, the association’s vice president of government affairs, in a statement.

Threaten the Cookie Cutter Cost-vs-Profit Structure, and the Rent Collectors will punish you.

And what was that about a powerful remote Central Government imposing its will on the noble local folk?

On Swamps And Alligators

It's hard to miss Gingrich's deft use of the passive voice. He is a master at getting the listener to think he's just talking about stuff in very general non-threatening terms, and that he's far above any of the mundane power-grubbing shenanigans that go on down there in the swamp.

And that's what Trump needs him for - Newt's role is to teach the Trumpkinites all the Media Relations tricks they need to normalize the shit storm.

The point that really stands out for me: Gingrich saying Trump can use a very broad application of the Presidential Pardon in order to get around the fact that he plans on ordering people to do things that're obviously illegal.

Let that one percolate for just a bit.

The bearer has done what was done in the name of the king and for the good of the state. --Richelieu

I guess when Newton Leroy Gingrich read The Three Musketeers, he concluded that Cardinal Richelieu was the good guy(?)

We are so fucked.

Oops

Once upon a time, you could count on your marketing department to be able to "prove" any conclusion management had already reached.

When the board at BP needed to feel reassured that the company could avoid being tagged as a major contributor to the death of an entire geographical region and the resultant slow implosion of several local economies, they went to their marketing geniuses and we got all those great commercials on TV about "Disaster? What disaster? Everything's great here."  It doesn't matter what's really going on because you're "controlling" the message, so nobody's going to see the real problems because Big Oil owns a majority stake in the politicians in the Gulf States and the money they're able to spend on media makes it easier for people (who desperately need to believe it's all OK) to believe it's all OK, in spite of some small voices to the contrary.

Variations on that little scenario have played out quite often over the years.

Things have been changing a bit though.  Social Media is the way to go now.  You can save many millions of dollars (paying me a few hundred K instead) by putting up a Facebook page and letting Twitter carry your message virally to millions more consumers than TV or even that old-fashioned Inter Tubes thing could ever imagine.

But "control" is an illusion, and what frequently happens on Social Media proves it.  What you get might be very much the opposite of what you were probably expecting and/or hoping for, and it can come as a very rude surprise when you start to understand that you can't cherry pick the feedback.

Mitch McConnell found that out not too long ago (eg).  And now the New York Police Dept is finding out too.  NYPD decided they were in need of a little PR boost, and believing (as all authoritarian organizations do) that the undeserving masses must surely be grateful to us  - or at least respect us for our abilities to crush their puny skulls at the slightest provocation - they went along with the Social Media suggestion by asking their fans to tweet their favorites pictures of the noble NYPD in action.

Here's a quick sampling of what came in by the thousands before they could shut the account down - prob'ly not quite what they had in mind: