By PatD, a Trail Mix Contributor
The first law of tragicomedies and dramedies is the drama rises proportionally with the level of tension in the story. The comedy does the reverse. [tvtropes]
With the mystery and intrigue surrounding congressional investigations this week, the level of tension has sufficiently risen now to let in the clowns. In observation of the axiom “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don’t rule out malice” let us consider the possibility that the surveillance which scared a certain committee chairman to run for cover and cover-up is nothing but comical in nature.
Instead of evil plots, were the wire-tapped participants overheard making embarrassing comments? Were they giggling over the Grabber-in-Chief? Did they make bets on impeachment odds? Was their conversation peppered with n-words and c-words? Were they caught stuffing money in their pockets like Chuckles the clown’s “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants?”
Will it be malice or stupidity? How do you think this dramedy, this tragicomedy, plays out?
More Posts by PatD
From poor thread:
Back in the 60s, Craig. there was a huge growth in community colleges. That growth occurred in Alabama under the governorship and political control of George Corley Wallace. He devoted great resources to the development of a junior college system in Alabama. I even went to one of those for a summer. I certainly support the development of junior colleges and community colleges in rural areas to make education beyond high school more accessible, but I haven’t noticed that the availability of junior college in Alabama has led to any kind of growth in Democratic Party strength in that state or any real increase in Dem participation among non college rural whites there.
newsweek: FBI Director James Comey Tried To Reveal Russian Tampering Months Before Election
FBI Director James Comey attempted to go public as early as the summer of 2016 with information on Russia’s campaign to influence the U.S. presidential election, but Obama administration officials blocked him from doing so, two sources with knowledge of the matter tell Newsweek.
Well before the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence accused the Russian government of tampering with the U.S. election in an October 7 statement, Comey pitched the idea of writing an op-ed about the Russian campaign during a meeting in the White House’s situation room in June or July.
“He had a draft of it or an outline. He held up a piece of paper in a meeting and said, ‘I want to go forward, what do people think of this?’” says a source with knowledge of the meeting, which included Secretary of State John Kerry, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Department of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson and the national security adviser Susan Rice.
Also from prior thread:
I see that on the day the shithead governor of NJ was made Cheeto’s drug czar (which certainly has a more poignant meaning in the Cheeto administration than it ever has) two of his top aides – Kelly and Baroni- were sentenced to jail time for their roles in BridgeGate.
Justice done?
Oh my God. The West Virginia state Senate just passed a medical marijuana bill.
Published on Mar 29, 2017
Trumpcare was a disaster but it was a fantastic disaster! One of the greatest disasters! Huge!
Never was pussy grabber’s grasp on reality more clearly demonstrated then at the drug event yeserday…everyone in the room but Pussy Grabber was talking about the internal problems of drug issues in the US …prescription drug abuse and Pussy Grabber is talking about closing the borders to prevent drug abuse. The man(sic) is dangerously stupid. As aways this the fault of the goopers/
from Betty Bowers..
Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian
Page Liked · 17 hrs ·
Jesus told me: “If Melania Trump were in DC, instead of NYC, FOR ONE DAY, America would save enough for Meals on Wheels to feed 120 poor seniors FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR!” Ugh, such a scold!
she’s an illegal immigrant deport her now
With a daily drumbeat of all that is bad with this administration, is there a real danger the public will eventually tune out from fatigue? Eventually a tolerance seems to build up, almost like a “we give up, just leave me alone” syndrome. We tolerate bad food, bad education, bad tv. American exceptionalism? American accept-ionalism.
where I am I only see people getting angrier and prepared for more action no acceptance
Again this is California but I don’t see acceptance of any of things on that list.
people are organizing to mitigate the impact of gooper destruction
I work for a farmers market and we are working with gleaners to make sure no food goes to waste and raising more money to match Cal Fresh benefits (food stamps) We don’t tolerate bad food and we want to end food insecurity.
Published on Mar 29, 2017
With all that we’re seeing, the question is worth raising.
more comedy and/or tragedy
Published on Mar 30, 2017
The President has a long history of motivating and inspiring women. Just, not for the right reasons.
aging in place is working to keep meals on wheels going if necessary
The ACLU has raised a lot of money
it also helps there has been success in stopping him
As to the question of malice or stupidity, I’m going with both and adding greed to the list.
I’ve tipped over to enjoying some of the comedy in this farce of an administration. I burst out laughing when I heard Nunes explaining how the Democrats fear him because he’s effective, and how the Democrats aren’t interesting in a real investigation and he’s really the only one doing any investigating.
Travis, Democrats only fear Nunes because he’s too stupid to be chair of the intelligence committee. There is one thing he is not, and that thing is effective. The only thing he’s done that is effective is effectively shut down his committee in servitude to the branch of government it is supposed to oversee. Forking moron is what he is.
In the midst of the insanity, it’s nice to know there are small bits of grace. I mentioned our friend Bill & his wife were in Vanuatu. They are returning to Australia tomorrow, but he posted this greeting they found in their hotel room in Port Vila.
who threw who under the credibility bus?
from rawstory:
Ryan appeared Thursday on “CBS This Morning,” where he told anchor Norah O’Donnell that the House Intelligence Committee chairman had briefed him on documents showing the Trump team had been inadvertently swept up in surveillance of foreign agents.
“He had told me that — like, a whistleblower-type person had given him some information that was new that spoke to the last administration and part of this investigation,” Ryan said. “He briefs me about it, didn’t know the content of it, only knew the nature of it and that he was going to brief others.”
However, Ryan admitted he had not seen those documents, which other members of the intelligence committee have not been shown.
“He didn’t have the documents, so I didn’t,” Ryan said.
Ryan insisted he did not at any point encourage Nunes to brief the president, who Ryan doesn’t believe is under investigation himself, but he knew the committee chairman intended to discuss the documents with numerous officials.
“Oh — he was gonna brief everybody,” Ryan said. “He — I already knew he was going to go and brief. So the — what Chairman Nunes said is he just came into possession of new information that he thought was valuable to this investigation, and that he was going to go and inform people about it.”
Ryan said he wasn’t sure if Nunes ever had the documents he announced in a press conference after secretly obtaining them from an unidentified source at a clandestine meeting on the White House grounds.
“I don’t know that he’s been in possession of them yet,” Ryan said. “Let me say this: It’s very important that we allow and encourage whistleblowers to talk to Congress.”
Ryan couldn’t explain why Nunes had not shown the documents to anyone, and he didn’t say why he hadn’t requested them himself using his access to the most classified intelligence.
“Yeah, we want this information to be provided to Congress, and we’re waiting for it to be provided to Congress,” Ryan said.
showtime!
usatoday Watch live: Senate hearing on Russia interference in election
Patd,
“what Chairman Nunes said is he just came into possession of new information that he thought was valuable to this investigation, and that he was going to go and inform people about it.”
Kinda answers your “who threw who under the credibility bus” question, doesn’t it? Ryan needs to remove Nunes from the Intel Committee since his actions are completely contrary to that committee’s function. Stupid ASS.
good thing we have two chambers on Capitol Hill, 50-50 chance of a credible investigation
March 30, 2017 at 6:26 am
Oh my God. The West Virginia state Senate just passed a medical marijuana bill. – Pogo
Marijuana has been the premier cash crop of West Virginia for 40 years.
Oh, no doubt – but hey, until meth, heroin and oxys hit the streets, the police had MJ field days arresting people for possession with intent to distribute when they had anything over an ounce. Dumb as shit, but common as fleas.
Pogo – Agree. I find so much humor these days watching these people say ridiculous and easily refuted things with straight faces, like they are somehow telling us something profound. The scramble for some kind of cover is amusing.
Of course, the best cover is to make the first and best deals to squeal.
When you run into idiots who thing PG is bringing coal back, throw some of this article from today’s WaPo at them.
Coal’s coming back – when pigs fly.
And the GOP War on Women continues
Pence breaks tie in Senate on Title X funds
ny times: 2 White House Officials Helped Give Nunes Intelligence Reports
Several current American officials identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel’s Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee.
White House spokesperson declined to comment.
Mr. Cohen-Watnick is a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who was originally brought to the White House by Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser. The officials said that earlier this month, shortly after Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter about being wiretapped on the orders of President Barack Obama, Mr. Cohen-Watnick began reviewing highly classified reports detailing the intercepted communications of foreign officials.
Officials said the reports consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were trying to develop contacts within Mr. Trump’s family and inner circle in advance of his inauguration.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the intelligence, and to avoid angering Mr. Cohen-Watnick and Mr. Ellis. Officials say that Mr. Cohen-Watnick has been reviewing the reports from his fourth-floor office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the National Security Counsel is based.
…the reports consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were trying to develop contacts within Mr. Trump’s family and inner circle….
discussing how to develop contacts? so maybe some of this how-biz is a bit salacious, monetary, verging on ethical no-nos or all the above. no wonder nunes doesn’t want to show it to anyone.
Jamie, now’s the perfect time to ask the new asst to pres about what she thinks of defunding and building roadblocks re womens health care.
Clarification on TV power, etc. Yes, the digital stations put out 20% of the power of their analog forbears. The road the digital signals must travel are only one lane wide instead of five–there is no change in penetration of the signals. The basis for the switch from from analog to digital was to free-up tremendous amounts of bandwidth for other uses–primarily digital telephone and public government mobile digital services.
I have a couple of the government provided digital converters. I am able to receive all my local stations with these converters using nothing more than rabbit ears antennas. Some of the transmitters are fully thirty miles distant. Do I connect to my stations this way regularly? Hell, no. Dish network is a heckuva lot easier and provides easier reception.
Pat, last year I gave you some hints about antennae and their installation. Did you put that information to the test? If so, what parts succeeded and which failed. The technology is not terribly complex, but there are specific rules that must be followed. Among them, type of cable to include its impedance, polarity of the signal being transmitted in relation to the receiving antenna, height of the antenna relative to intervening objects, is the antenna the proper design to catch the digital signals. A rotor may well be needed.
The terms may be unfamiliar, but it’s more of a minor, potentially hazardous, construction project than a rocket launch. And it is doable despite the failures of your neighbors. Call the University asking if they can offer some support.
Republicans Are About To Sell Your Browser History. Here’s How To Protect Yourself. – The Huffington Post
https://apple.news/AQbIesHdtS2C72X8xK7LZcA
Stephen Colbert Shreds GOP For Scrapping Internet Privacy Rules – The Huffington Post
https://apple.news/AIKT71K0QRFSF3sXF0ostAw
‘Supernatural’ star Misha Collins starts campaign to buy lawmakers’ internet history – Entertainment Weekly
https://apple.news/AB_C7su0iQz-sEgeGA9xokw
🙂
Here’s How Much Internet Providers Gave Lawmakers Who Voted To Let Them Sell Your Data – The Huffington Post
https://apple.news/AZGAu1EXKRkOLRAnNDK7Jaw
The 265 members of Congress who sold you out to ISPs, and how much it cost to buy them – The Verge – http://www.theverge.com
https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale?ncid=APPLENEWS00001
flatus, thanks for explaining further and for the prior advice. I also have dish and thereby receive far more than the 2 piddlely channels which broadcast no news (nat’l or local) and which are available via antennae free to this region.
the guardian:
North Carolina lawmakers vote to end state’s so-called ‘bathroom bill’
State’s House and Senate reached new agreement that repeals HB2 but prohibits cities from introducing local laws to protect transgender people
The North Carolina House and Senate voted today to end the state’s so-called “bathroom bill”, in the hope of expanding business opportunities and attracting sporting events ahead of a Thursday deadline from the NCAA to amend the law or lose out on hosting future events.
Democratic Governor Roy Cooper is expected to sign it into law Thursday afternoon.
fun facts we learn from today’s senate hearing.
wapo:
Experts also warned that Russia, now that it has successfully deployed an Internet army, would likely look for future political targets and exploit new technologies to sow more discord in the American electoral process and more distrust among citizens of the country’s democratic institutions.
“Somewhere in their cache right now there’s tremendous amounts of information laying around they can weaponize against other Americans,” Watts warned.
The panel of experts recommended several ways to counter Russian propaganda and online smear campaigns, including changing the way cybersecurity experts are hired to bring more skilled people into the government, and getting the Department of State and Homeland Security to play a more active role in discrediting fake news and other false rumors and reports.
“The quicker they’re refuted, the faster they die on social media,” Watts said.
One technology that experts warned about in particular is virtual reality — simulated worlds in which people can interact with through a headset or helmet with people and places that seem real but aren’t. The format is becoming increasingly popular for marketing products, in gaming and even in the presentation of news. But it’s a ripe target for Russia to exercise more influence, experts warn, because in virtual reality, nothing has to be the way it is in the real world outside.
“Anybody who could set up the reality is going to have a very decided advantage in politics and other areas,” Godson said. For example, in a virtual reality environment, someone could present a politician in a negative light — r present themselves as a politician espousing Russian-influenced views or in a compromising virtual situation — and hope to influence the views of people experiencing that virtual world.
“The ability to impersonate [someone] online is the next phase that we will go through,” Burr concurred, “and I think it’s fair to say we don’t have our best and brightest focused on that yet.”
Eagle Update. DC4 now feeding and DC5 pipped today. Here’s the video
let’s hear it for the prairie dogs!
Threatened Utah prairie dogs have their day in court…and win
I doubt rubio was surprised by today’s news during the intelligence hearing that ruskie hackers were sidelining him during the 2016 primaries for comrade trump. His remarks from last October.
“I want to warn my fellow Republicans who may want to capitalize politically on these leaks. Today it is the Democrats. Tomorrow it could be us,” Rubio said in October. “As our intelligence agencies have said, these leaks are an effort by a foreign government to interfere with our electoral process and I will not indulge it.
It’s been a long day. Rick’s father passed away from a heart attack this morning. He would have celebrated his 90th birthday on May 11th… we were planning a big party for him. But he has been sick for the past couple of weeks. All he’s been saying is that he wants to go to heaven to be with his wife… he now has his wish. R.I.P Ed.
the fbi is so slow on the russian cyber war investigation, they are working on this with the same alacrity as the DB Cooper case. (That case has finally closed after 45 years with no id of the jumper.) Meanwhile flynn’s man is still in the WH and helped nunes finally unmask the lone ranger and zorro. It gives some veracity to the wee-weeleaks info. This is like an old episode of Law & Order about the russian mafia and corrupt Americans.
RR Sorry to hear about Ed.
renee, condolences to you and rick
hmmm
associated press via msn:
WASHINGTON — The White House has invited the heads of congressional intelligence committees investigating Russia’s role in the 2016 election to view materials found by the National Security Council.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer says a letter was sent to lawmakers Thursday. It comes after The New York Times reported that two White House officials helped Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House intelligence committee, view information on intelligence collections concerning President Donald Trump’s associates.
Nunes and the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Adam Schiff, sent a March 15 letter to the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency asking for information about the publishing of Americans’ names in intelligence reports that relate to the presidential candidates and their associates.
Renee, indeed, Rest in Peace, Ed
Rick and Renee, please, understand that an olde person’s desire to join his or her spouse is not a rejection of those on Earth, but a profound need for the love of one’s life. I bet Ed and wife are looking down on the orphans that he has left behind with tears in their eyes.
Be strong.
Flatus
Jamie, and you–I saw the announcements of more new grands coming and I was wondering how much I could afford to give Planned Parenthood. Then you had to tell us it was that The Eagles:
SJWNY – we had this everyday from 1972 until Nixon resigned. It was harder because we did not know as much as we do today about what was going on. Back then we had to rely on the FBI and WashPo reporters. Today we have leaks all over the place. Makes the Fountain of St. Peters Square look like dribbles. Back then we listened on our transistor radios to testimony in Congress. Today, we have more testimony before a briefing before noon than what would have been out by the end of a week after watching the hot seat in a committee hearing.
RR
Rick and Renee, Condolences on Ed’s passing. RIP
Flynn offering testimony for immunity
Do you want butter on your popcorn?
rr – I’m so sorry for your loss.
RebelliousRenee,
So sorry about your family’s loss.
So long Ed. RR, pass along TM hugs to Rick.
Renee, so sorry to hear about Rick’s dad. Please give Rick my regards.
Escaping The Lynch Mob
1. The newsmob are all braying the same wrong tune. The foreign agent lynch is not angling for a limited immunity from prosecution deal. If he were, his lawyers would not have leaked the story. The threat is calculated to get a secret pardon. However, if trump pardoned this mole, could he trust that lynch would not testify anyway ?
2. The Farkas story is a red herring that leads up the primrose path. Farkas never said anything about surveillance of any candidate.
3. Wouldn’t it be funny if lynch had actually told pence the truth, and pence was the Super Mole, picked by putin to be the veep candidate ?
4. Pray that pence has to be removed first, and soon.
RR-Rick
Thinking of you and knowing that you have many happy memories to hold on to..
xrepublican,
“Mike Pence is the bravest, warmest, kindest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life …”
Laurence Harvey defined wooden.
Ms Renee,
We’re sorry to read of your father-in-law’s death. Please give Rick hugs from us, and keep a few for yourself.
Sweetie and Xrepublican
Ms NY, Laurence Harvey ? Wow, that was back in the days of John Wooden.
Hayes, Lemon, and mr 360, should really ask about trump/russians surveilling the other ripper candidates and msm reporters/newsreaders/newseditors.
RR, Rick, big hugs from the whskyjack house hold. It has been several years since our parents passed on and we have adjusted, but every once in awhile there is some joke I would really love to share with mom. Hang in there.
Jack
“Pray that pence has to be removed first, and soon”
xr, say hello to pres. ryan