Deep And Dirty

Nico Hines, Daily Beast:

Members of the team of Russians who secured a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner also attempted to stage a show trial of anti-Putin campaigner Bill Browder on Capitol Hill.

The trial, which would have come in the form of a congressional hearing, was scheduled for mid-June 2016 by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a long-standing Russia ally who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe. During the hearing, Rohrabacher had planned to confront Browder with a feature-length pro-Kremlin propaganda movie that viciously attacks him—as well as at least two witnesses linked to the Russian authorities, including lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
Rosie Gray, The Atlantic:

Paul Behrends, a top aide to Representative Dana Rohrabacher, has been ousted from his role as staff director for the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that Rohrabacher chairs, after stories appeared in the press highlighting his relationships with pro-Russia lobbyists.

“Paul Behrends no longer works at the committee,” a House Foreign Affairs Committee spokesperson said on Wednesday evening.

Behrends accompanied Rohrabacher on a 2016 trip to Moscow in which Rohrabacher said he received anti-Magnitsky Act materials from prosecutors. The Magnitsky Act is a 2012 bill that imposes sanctions on Russian officials associated with the 2009 death in prison of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had been investigating tax fraud. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian attorney and lobbyist who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower last year, reportedly brought up the Magintsky Act during the meeting.

Seems like Russian fuckery via Congress Critter fuckery just gets wider and deeper at every turn.

Today's Tweet

Good question, but like with everything else, we don't know what he's talking about because he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Does anyone understand what Trump is talking about here on pre-existing conditions? pic.twitter.com/hVgfzhwm9J

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 20, 2017

Luther's Return

We'll be talking about Luther for a good long time.

Keegan Micheal Key

Keith

Every time we plug a new thing into the timeline, part of this mess gets a little clearer, while others just get weirder and scarier.

A sense of urgency is in order here, though we need to remember what Coach Wooden always said: Go quickly but don't hurry.

We still need a coupla really important things tho.

First is the solid evidentiary connection between Cult45 and Russian money laundering. 

Second is a better look at just how wide and how deep the Circle of Fuckery is.

And the really big one: Just how fucked up have we allowed our election systems to get thanks to this giant bag of thieving lying Daddy State dicks?

Olbermann at GQ

Approaching Overload

Here at the end of another long fucking day.

Trump had undisclosed hour-long meeting with Putin at G-20 summit

Donald Trump Jr. Met Russian Accused of Laundering $1.4 Billion

Present at the Destruction: How Rex Tillerson Is Wrecking the State Department

(this is from a coupla weeks ago - watch Rachel's last segment from last night if you want that knot in your stomach to get worse)

Republicans divided on debt ceiling strategy

House GOP aims to shut down federal election agency

Quick Survey

We now know Ms Veselnitskaya handed off some kind of file at the meeting in Trump Tower last year.  What was in that file?

a) Kompromat on Hillary

b) Kompromat on Trump(s)

c) both

d) Dammit - I shoulda built that survival bunker when I had the chance

One thing - overload is what these assholes are trying to achieve. They need to shock the system and get us back on our heels.

Get some ideas of what you've been in favor of recently - why you voted for Bernie or Hillary or whoever. Make a list, and bullet-point those ideas so you can rebut the recent bullshit narrative that Liberals are only about blocking Trump and they don't have anything to propose and blah blah blah (Daddy State Rule 1: every accusation is a confession, and sometimes they take the shit they've been guilty of for years and project it onto their opponents)

• Voting Rights and Campaign Finance Reform
• $15 minimum wage
• College tuition help
• Move towards single payer healthcare
• Infrastructure
• Renewable energy and Climate Change

Don't get nuts - keep it to 3 or 4 and always ALWAYS ALWAYS lead with your strongest point, and weave it into a statement of your values.

"I think every adult has the right and the duty to vote. We don't keep our democracy without free and fair elections, and we have to level the playing field so everybody has the same opportunity, and nobody gets to buy the means of making his voice count for more than anybody else's."

Keith

Olbermann gets a little up in it, but he has access to lots of people who really know about this kinda shit.

It prob'ly won't get better for a while.

No Way Out

No good way anyway.

If the Repubs continue to go it alone (against the polling) on a variety of issues they've decided they need to pursue based on their arrogant assumption they can continue bamboozling the rubes, then they lose the broader popular support they have to have. Especially if they keep fuckin' up the  Healthcare thing.

If they decide to negotiate with the Dems, then they're in danger of the hardcore base assuming they've caved, and they'll lose primaries to more radical candidates, who're more likely to lose in the general.

Which makes me think they were really counting on not having to pay a political price for all their fuckery, which makes me think we have to keep pushing back hard against GOP Voter Suppression efforts in the next 15 months or so.

Today's Pix

Daddy State Illustrated

WeDon'tFuckin'Care 4.0 crapped out last night, partly because John McCain was conveniently unavailable for the scheduled vote, which made it easier for other Repubs to get their balls temporarily outa hock and acknowledge that the folks back home are close to being in open revolt.

But we ain't done, kids.

Why does McConnell now say he intends to go through with a stripped down version that does nothing but kill healthcare coverage, replacing it with (maybe) something else down the road? 

Daddy State rule 3:

Every warning about impending disaster, is a statement of intent.

They warned us that Obamacare is failing (or has failed), which is ridiculous knowing the Repubs have been working very hard to pour sugar in the gas tank for 7 years.

Imagine how well the thing would be working if the GOP would just listen to their constituents and help out a little.

Anyway, 45* all but said it straight out - when people really feel the pain, they'll come running to Daddy, begging him to do whatever it takes to make it stop hurting.

That's how the Daddy State works.

1. Create the disaster (or do nothing to prevent it)
2. Exploit the disaster

Today's Tweet

Our D.C. office building got a security robot. It drowned itself.

We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots. pic.twitter.com/rGLTAWZMjn

— Bilal Farooqui (@bilalfarooqui) July 17, 2017

Something To Watch For

I've posted some links to Logical Fallacies, hoping to keep myself up with debate tactics that're less than honest - so I can avoid using them, but to remind myself to look out for them being used against me so I can counter them.

Here's the big one that Cult45 trots out almost every time:

And then this popped up for me on Wikipedia today:

What-About-ism

Usage by Donald Trump[edit]

U.S. President Donald Trump has been accused of employing whataboutism in response to criticism leveled at him, his policies, or his support of controversial world leaders.^[80][81][82] During the 2016 presidential election, Trump was accused of using the technique to defend his support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been accused of human rights violations. When The New York Times asked about Erdoğan's treatment of journalists, teachers, and dissidents, Trump replied, "When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don't think we're a very good messenger."^[83]

When criticized or asked to defend his behavior, Trump has frequently changed the subject by criticizing Hillary Clinton, the Obama Administration,^[81] and the Affordable Care Act.^[1] When asked about Russian human rights violations, Trump has shifted focus to the U.S. itself,^[80][20] employing whataboutism tactics similar to those used by Russian President Vladimir Putin.^[19][82]

After Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough called Putin a killer, Trump responded by saying that the U.S. government was also guilty of killing people.^[20][84][85] U.S. Senator Marco Rubio also criticized Trump for his use of the technique.^[86] Gary Kasparov commented to Columbia Journalism Review on Trump's use of whataboutism: "Moral relativism, 'whataboutism,' has always been a favorite weapon of illiberal regimes. For a US president to employ it against his own country is tragic. Trump repeating Putin’s words—and nearly Stalin’s—by calling the press the enemy of the people, has repercussions around the world."^[36] In addition to Trump, other Republicans, including Dana Rohrabacher, have utilized whataboutism in response to criticism of Russia.^[87]

I followed a link from the citations on the Wikipedia page and found these on YouTube (part 2 has the What-About-ism thing):

And oh yeah - here's Olbermann from Oct 2016:

Pleasant dreams, kids.

Weaseling Away

Let me say first that I hope John McCain makes it thru this blood clot thing in good shape.

The guy's turned out to be quite the putz in numerous ways and I'd love to choke the shit out of him once in a while, but no, not really - get better, you phony old fuck.

CNN

(CNN)Sen. John McCain, 80, is recovering at his Arizona home following surgery on Friday to remove a blood clot above his left eye, according to his office. The clot was discovered during a routine physical last week, according to a statement.

Surgeons at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix "successfully removed the 5-cm blood clot during a minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision," the statement said.
An eyebrow incision is not a big deal, explained CNN Chief Medical Correspondent and practicing neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta, but the bone was opened to gain access to the brain, Gupta explained on CNN's New Day Monday.

"It's a significant operation," he said, adding that general anesthesia was used and "there was obviously an abnormality that was concerning enough for him to go through this."


Meanwhile, wouldn't it be interesting if McCain were to spend quite a bit more time in Arizona than they were expecting - considering his absence (deliberate or otherwise) could torpedo Mitch McConnell's whole plan for the GOP's Fuck-If-I-Care bill?

And let's try to remember this:

It's Rainin' Shoes

And then this - from a hearing on June 14 this year:

Natalia Veselniskaya occupying some prime real estate
This shit does not happen by accident

This thing is very wide and very deep.  It's about money, and the power that money gets you.

Once you "free" yourself from all that boring plebeian morality - when you abandon what tethers you to the Impulse Control of a working knowledge of why you do the good things and why you don't do the bad things - you replace that morality with matters having solely to do with profit and loss.

These people have no soul and no honor.

Joining Up

For a good long time, Bloody Bill Kristol has been a big factor in getting us to the point where we'd actually be ready to elect somebody as venal and dangerously empty-headed as 45*.

Just look at some of the guys who have been the beneficiaries of his most ardent cheerleading: Ronnie Rayguns, Dan (Mr Potatoe-Head) Quayle, Bush43, and Alan-Fucking Keyes.

("They are going to cull the herd, so that instead of having billions, we'll only have hundreds of millions of human beings on the face of the planet."  -Alan Keyes, warning what's behind President Obama's gun control proposal)

William Kristol is not in the running for America's Favorite Librul.

But while he has much to atone for - and I'd rather share my toothbrush with a leper than give that asshole a pass - at least he continues to line up Conservatives to push back against the hostile takeover of the GOP.

Mona Charen in NRO:

One column cannot accommodate the list of things you must believe if you trust that Donald Trump is truly the victim of a baseless witch hunt. Consider this a mere stab.

1) That Donald Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner did nothing wrong by meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian offering dirt on Clinton. The emails requesting the meeting specifically mentioned a “Russian government attorney” and added that the requested meeting concerned “very high level and sensitive information” that “is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” That doesn’t prove a willingness to collude.

2)  That concern about Paul Manafort’s extensive links with Putin’s former puppet in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, including at least $12.7 million in payments, is, to quote Manafort’s words, “silly and nonsensical.”

3) That Jared Kushner’s attempt, during the transition, to secure a back channel with the Russian government using their secure communications equipment in the Russian embassy was not alarming/inexplicable.

-and-

14) That it’s unremarkable that presidential spokeswoman Sarah Sanders refuses to say whether Russia is an adversary, a friend, or a nation about whom we should be wary.

Coupla notes:

First, it's interesting to read the comments from people who still insist on trying to deflect everything with "Yeah, but Hillary".

Second, we still don't know that those commenters aren't trolls, or even that they're all real - some could just as easily be RuskieBots.

Daddy State 101

Peter Beinart, The Atlantic:

In Paris on Thursday, Donald Trump said, “A lot of people don’t know” that “France is America’s first and oldest ally.” That may be true. But commentators noted that when Trump uses the “a lot of people don’t know” formulation, it’s usually a sign that he didn’t know himself. 

It’s called projection. And Trump does it with remarkable frequency. You may have noticed that over the last few days, Trump and his allies have begun talking a lot about the Hillary Clinton campaign’s alleged collusion with the governments of Russia and Ukraine. On Wednesday morning, for instance, Trump tweeted a quote from the conservative Washington Times that claimed, “Democrats have willfully used Moscow disinformation to influence the presidential election against Donald Trump.”

Why is Trump suddenly interested in the Democratic Party’s ties to the Russian government? Perhaps because on Monday, The New York Times broke a blockbuster story about his campaign’s ties to the Russian government.
-and-

...Freud believed people project onto others impulses that they cannot accept as their own.
1) Every accusation is a confession

2) Every boast is an admission of inadequacy

3) Every warning is a threat - a statement of intent