Slouching Towards Oblivion

Friday, December 06, 2019

Bulletin

BREAKING NEWS:
The guy who said he'd have no trouble rushing, unarmed, into a school during an active shooter situation has run away from the NATO summit meeting because someone hurt his feelings.

Thursday, December 05, 2019

To Put It Simply

From the House Intelligence Committee's report on their investigation of 45*:

Like ol' Doc Maddow said: All you have to do is look at the heading at the top of each part of Section 1.
  • The President’s Request for a Political Favor 
  • The President Removed Anti-Corruption Champion Ambassador Yovanovitch 
  • The President’s Hand-Picked Agents Began the Scheme 
  • The President Froze Vital Military Assistance 
  • The President Conditioned a White House Meeting on Investigations 
  • The President’s Agents Pursued a “Drug Deal” 
  • The President Pressed President Zelensky to Do a Political Favor 
  • The President’s Representatives Ratcheted up Pressure on the Ukrainian President 
  • Ukrainians Inquired about the President’s Hold on Security Assistance 
  • The President’s Security Assistance Hold Became Public 
  • The President’s Scheme Unraveled 
  • The President’s Chief of Staff Confirmed Aid was Conditioned on Investigations
45* knew what he was doing was illegal. He made sure to couch everything he said on the July 25 phone call in the kind of coded language that clouds the meaning of the words for anyone outside looking in, while allowing the target listener to get the message loud and clear.

And it's no stretch at all to surmise that one of Rudy's errands in Kiyv was to pre-interpret what Zelensky would hear so there'd be no misunderstanding between the two men, while maintaining plausible deniability of a quid pro quo.

Repubs love to scramble the timeline and to fuzzy up the Ukrainian names, knowing we don't pay enough attention to keep any of it straight.

So they know they can float some bullshit like "POTUS was only trying to get a handle on the history of Ukrainian corruption blah blah blah" - and we won't notice (eg) when they say Biden wanted the Ukrainian AG fired because he was investigating Hunter's bogus involvement in Barisma, when the truth is that the crooked AG was fired and that meant a new (more honest) guy came in to vet and investigate Barisma, and the new guy cleared the deal.

There's still a potential problem with Hunter Biden and how maybe his seat on the board constituted a conflict, but remember, Obama's ethics guys were voracious about making sure there was as little problem as possible. 8 years - no real scandals - no indictments - no pleas - no prison time.

Anyway, to make it even simpler:

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Today's Pix

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Today's Today

Today is Bummernacht - the last day Frank Zappa refused to die, marking the beginning of the 3 weeks of Zappadan, which culminates on December 21st - Frank's birthday and the Winter Solstice.


Happy Zappadan - expect miracles

Today's Tweet



Something, something...30-foot wall...something, something...32-foot ladder.

Billion of dollars have been committed to build 45*'s little vanity project - zero new wall built.

Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada, Bupkis. Maggie's Drawers. Nuthin'.

Where's my fuckin' money, GOP?

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

Today's Quote

President Trump in London: “I think it’s a good thing to get along with Russia. I campaigned on it. I went to a lot of big stadiums and people liked it.”

Calling The Bluff

Cult45 is really starting to thrash about, grasping at straws.


At first this little game of 45*'s where he sits off to the side and just bitches about everything, and then the Dems try to accommodate him - it looked at first like they were appeasing - like they were making the same mistake Obama made by trying to be reasonable when the GOP had no fucking intention of doing anything but moving the goal posts ever further towards their side.

But lately, it seems different. Like they're baiting him. They seem to be accommodating, but they're not giving anything up in return - just calling him on it when he throws his little tantrums.

WaPo, Dana Milbank:

Friends have likened White House counsel Pat Cipollone to a pit bull. Now, he’s the proverbial dog that caught the car.

For months, the Trump White House and its congressional chorus have clamored for Democrats to allow President Trump’s counsel to be present at impeachment proceedings.

Trump and his supporters have shared that the impeachment resolution is unfairbecause it “doesn’t allow POTUS’ counsel to be present to question witnesses.”

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley complained that “we can’t question witnesses; we can’t have a conversation with those who are in front of the committees." A White House official briefing reporters lamented the president’s inability “to have counsel present.”

GOP Reps. Lee Zeldin (N.Y.), Steve Scalise (La.), Michael McCaul (Texas), Tom Cole (Okla.) and many others have howled that Trump should have counsel present.

And so it came to pass that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) last week sent a letter to Trump inviting him and his counsel to participate in this week’s first impeachment hearing before the panel and to gauge their interest in questioning the witnesses.

Trump’s reply? “We do not intend to participate in your Wednesday hearing,” Cipollone wrote Sunday night.

In sending the White House’s regrets, Cipollone tossed in a maybe-next-time formulation: “We may consider participating in future Judiciary Committee proceedings if you afford the Administration the ability to do so meaningfully.”

How good of them!

This is the White House that can’t take “yes” for an answer.

Trump and his allies complained about secret proceedings. The proceedings were made public.

They complained that there was no formal impeachment resolution. A formal resolution was passed.

They complained that deposition transcripts weren’t released. The transcripts were released.

And still, no cooperation.

They complained that Democrats should hurry up and “move on” from impeachment. But as Democrats work to wrap up impeachment quickly, Rep. Doug Collins (Ga.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, complained Sunday that “we’re rushing this.”

Now, we have the president’s lawyer complaining that Trump “was allowed absolutely no participation” — and yet refusing to participate when invited. It’s a bit like the administration blocking senior officials from testifying and then complaining that those who did testify lacked “first-hand” experience.

But if Cipollone is plagued by inconsistencies, he is blessed with a surfeit of adjectives and adverbs, which he deployed in great number in his reply to Nadler. It wasn’t just the impeachment inquiry but a “purported,” “baseless” and “highly partisan” one, with an “irretrievably broken process” characterized by “profound,” “unprecedented,” “historical,” “basic,” “arbitrary,” “fundamental,” “extremely troubling,” “false,” “rudimentary” and “unfair” elements.

Unfairest of all, Trump had “so little time to prepare” for the hearing, Cipollone carped, above a large, thick Trumpian signature.

Maybe he could have spent less time on Twitter?

If the president had a better defense, it stands to reason, his lawyer wouldn’t need such an adjectival arsenal. If we had a healthier political climate, Republicans would acknowledge Trump’s wrongdoing and propose, in lieu of impeachment, a bipartisan, bicameral resolution of censure.

Instead, they are in the ridiculous position of arguing that Trump and his representatives did absolutely nothing wrong, and of doing all they can to delegitimize Congress’s impeachment powers.

Thus did we have Collins on "Fox News Sunday," maintaining that “there’s nothing here that the president did wrong” and “nothing improper.” The improprieties were everybody else’s: Adam Schiff’s “motives” and “veracity,” Nadler’s “crazy” letters, something about the witness “ratio” at hearings and host Chris Wallace’s flawed premises.

“You’re pretty wound up, I’ve got to say,” Wallace observed.

Better wound up than unwound, as Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) showed himself to be. A week after he embraced Russian propaganda over U.S. intelligence on Wallace’s show, Kennedy went one step further in advancing Russia’s attempt to frame Ukraine for its 2016 election interference, telling NBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday that Ukraine’s then-president “actively worked for Secretary Clinton.”

That’s exactly the sort of Russian disinformation that intelligence officials, in a recent briefing, pleaded with senators not to spread. “I wasn’t briefed,” Kennedy said.

Nor was he briefed, apparently, on the invitation for Trump and his counsel to participate in the impeachment hearing.

“His lawyer can't even be there,” the senator complained. “Have they allowed him to have his lawyer present? No.” Kennedy, brushing aside the unhelpful fact that Trump hasn’t allowed his advisers to testify or to provide documents to the inquiry, further claimed that Trump hasn’t been given a chance to clear himself.

Such claims can’t withstand the light of day. And this is why Trump won’t honor the invitation to participate or even the subpoenas demanding it: He can’t tell his side of the story because there isn’t one.

Today's Tweet



Suggested followups to ask the congressman:
Where did you get your information?
Can you post your documentation to our website please?

Monday, December 02, 2019

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

"Fifty years from now, if we don't start holding the people in the White House accountable, we won't be talking about impeachment, because we won't have a presidency."


Sunday, December 01, 2019

Today's Tweet



DumFux with guns.

Yesterday was the 334th day in 2019, and marked the 397th mass shooting.

We really are the stoopid country.