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Nov 28, 2018
Statistical Sadness
Un-fun Fact:
In all of our history here in USAmerica Inc, there have been a total of just under 2,000 US Senators.
Black Senators = 10
Women Senators = 52
I'm thinking we should try a little harder to do a little better than that.
hat tip = @StevenTDavis
That Manafort Thing
I was thinking about this last night as the analysis and speculation grew rather frantic on MSNBC.
There's always the very real probability that 45* will do something enormously dickish as he tries to elude the headsman (duh), so Mueller has to make moves that ensure his investigation continues, and/or that his findings make their way out to us (also duh).
Anyway, the big uh-oh yesterday was the possibility that Manafort was playing the double agent, and that meant his "cooperation" was intended to get him inside the investigation so he could feed intel to Cult45, but he'd gotten a little too cute and now he's fucked cuz he's going straight to prison and what if that was part of his plan all along cuz if Mueller is hanging his whole hat on Manafort, what better way to blow it all up than showing that the star witness is so full of shit that he can't be trusted so the investigation starts to look like it really is a witch hunt and blah blah fucking blah.
emptywheel:
Now, it is true that Trump can pardon Manafort (though that probably won’t happen right away). That’s the only sane explanation for Manafort doing what he did, that he is still certain he’ll be pardoned. But many of these charges can still be charged in state court.
Just about the only explanation for Manafort’s actions are that — as I suggested — Trump was happy to have Manafort serve as a mole in Mueller’s investigation.
But Mueller’s team appears to have no doubt that Manafort was lying to them. That means they didn’t really need his testimony, at all. It also means they had no need to keep secrets — they could keep giving Manafort the impression that he was pulling a fast one over the prosecutors, all while reporting misleading information to Trump that he could use to fill out his open book test. Which increases the likelihood that Trump just submitted sworn answers to those questions full of lies.
And that “detailed sentencing submission … sett[ing] forth the nature of the defendant’s crimes and lies” that Mueller mentions in the report?
There’s your Mueller report, which will be provided in a form that Matt Whitaker won’t be able to suppress. (Reminder: Mueller included 38 pages of evidence along with Manafort’s plea agreement, which I argued showed how what Manafort and Trump did to Hillary was the same thing that Manafort had done to Yulia Tymoshenko.)
BTW - Manafort has always reminded me of those old Soviet guys in the 80s who were trying a little too hard not to look like those old Soviet guys in the 80s.
There's always the very real probability that 45* will do something enormously dickish as he tries to elude the headsman (duh), so Mueller has to make moves that ensure his investigation continues, and/or that his findings make their way out to us (also duh).
Anyway, the big uh-oh yesterday was the possibility that Manafort was playing the double agent, and that meant his "cooperation" was intended to get him inside the investigation so he could feed intel to Cult45, but he'd gotten a little too cute and now he's fucked cuz he's going straight to prison and what if that was part of his plan all along cuz if Mueller is hanging his whole hat on Manafort, what better way to blow it all up than showing that the star witness is so full of shit that he can't be trusted so the investigation starts to look like it really is a witch hunt and blah blah fucking blah.
emptywheel:
Now, it is true that Trump can pardon Manafort (though that probably won’t happen right away). That’s the only sane explanation for Manafort doing what he did, that he is still certain he’ll be pardoned. But many of these charges can still be charged in state court.
Just about the only explanation for Manafort’s actions are that — as I suggested — Trump was happy to have Manafort serve as a mole in Mueller’s investigation.
But Mueller’s team appears to have no doubt that Manafort was lying to them. That means they didn’t really need his testimony, at all. It also means they had no need to keep secrets — they could keep giving Manafort the impression that he was pulling a fast one over the prosecutors, all while reporting misleading information to Trump that he could use to fill out his open book test. Which increases the likelihood that Trump just submitted sworn answers to those questions full of lies.
And that “detailed sentencing submission … sett[ing] forth the nature of the defendant’s crimes and lies” that Mueller mentions in the report?
There’s your Mueller report, which will be provided in a form that Matt Whitaker won’t be able to suppress. (Reminder: Mueller included 38 pages of evidence along with Manafort’s plea agreement, which I argued showed how what Manafort and Trump did to Hillary was the same thing that Manafort had done to Yulia Tymoshenko.)
BTW - Manafort has always reminded me of those old Soviet guys in the 80s who were trying a little too hard not to look like those old Soviet guys in the 80s.
Today's Tweet
No lifeboats. As it is right now, the GOP has to die - along with Cult45.
Fuck bipartisanship.— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) November 28, 2018
Republicans are bad. They have bad morals and bad ideas. The goal should be to eliminate them utterly as a political movement and then allow a center-right party to move into the vacuum which has basic skills like arithmetic and not being racist.
And I'll say it again: 45* has not remade the GOP in his image - he is the perfect reflection of what the GOP has become.
Nancy MacLean explains it:
Nov 27, 2018
Connections
Overheard:
I wanna thank my government for saving me from lettuce recently.
Can we do guns now?
(hat tip = FB friend Nancy Patrella)
Something clicked in my brain: what stops bad guys with guns is a lot more good guys with salads.
BTW - I'm pretty sure that's what The Beatitudes would sound like if that Jesus guy was here preaching today.
Anyway - then I went to Beau on YouTube, and he reminded me of just how big a lie it is when the ammosexuals make their spiel about the good guy with a gun and blah blah blah.
4%
Nov 26, 2018
James Madison
The father of our Constitution, and the progenitor of American bi-lateral politics.
He was considered a prissy little booger, but he knew his shit straight up.
The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.
- and -
When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
hat tip = @JohnFugelsang
Today's Tweet
Stoopid human
"fuck you and your shitty biscuits, Janice" pic.twitter.com/L2B77thjvw— Paul Bronks (@BoringEnormous) November 26, 2018
Today's Joke
Overheard on the interweb:
Kid: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Me: I give up - why?
Kid: To get to the idiot's house.
Me: Mm-hmm. OK.
(three...two...one)
Kid: Knock knock
Me: Who's there?
Kid: The chicken
Kid: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Me: I give up - why?
Kid: To get to the idiot's house.
Me: Mm-hmm. OK.
(three...two...one)
Kid: Knock knock
Me: Who's there?
Kid: The chicken
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