Donald Trump doubles down on his made up crisis, which is in crisis itself — no one truthful can support his wild claims. From coyotes to drugs and terrorists flooding across the Mexican border, this grand distraction, televised from the Oval Office, was laughable.
Meanwhile, Manafort as Trump campaign chair provided proprietary analysis to Putin’s right-hand man. Enjoy!
Stupid fuck has made it personal to him. And claims the $5.7 B is the request of law enforcement professionals. What a load of shit.
What’s up his nose?
the big sniffer
Mercifully it is over. Whataloadoffuckingbullshit.
Now waiting for the Chuck and Nancy Show.
Mexican cocaine?
Nancy P !!!!!!
You go, girl.
Now, Chuck, tee it up and drive it down the middle.
Can’t wait for the annotated address at WaPo – by Aaron Blake? It should be a hoot.
It must wait until morning; I’m retiring. Nite!
A quote from Lindsay Graham on Fox
“If we undercut the president, that’s the end of his presidency and the end of our party.”
If that ain’t a desperate attempt to stop a Republican stampede for the exits……..
Jack
I’m glad you were all entertained by the quote I posted on the previous thread, I know I was. But as usual with Trump the truth is duller and way more stupid.
Ya know I think I tuned out on presidential speeches sometime during shrubs watch. Maybe before even.
I haven’t missed them.
Jack
Like I said, SFB’s address annotated by Aaron Blake. Enjoy it.
I really do like Aaron’s annotations to stupid shit from SFB.
How about we build a wall and ask the russianz to pay for it ? I mean, they lend money to him for other erections. They can fund it, he can buy cheap commie Chinese steel (or just iron), and built by trump’s own ‘disease-spreading, drug-dealing, murderous terrorist, illegal alien’ employees, which he can then stiff.
Catastrophic day for the trump junta, with manafort’s lawyers showing us the 3d bit of evidence of collusion between trump’s campaign and the Kremlin spy agency, and veselnitskaya’s accidentally disclosed evidence that she is one of putin’s secret lawyers/spies/saboteurs in NYC.
Mr Mueller, Esq. keeps getting accidental help from the gang that can’t shoot straight.
The crisis is actually the trumpublicanazis’ Crisis of Credibility.
Impeach pence for not 25Aing the usurper-in-chief.
Lock ’em ALL up.
Speaking of the dismemberment of American residents, what about that butcher running saudi Arabia ?
Maybe a wall around Riyadh is in order. It could pay for itself.
wapo:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday left in place a lower-court order requiring an unnamed foreign-owned corporation to comply with a subpoena said to be part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The court dissolved a temporary stay that had been put in place by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. In a short order, it did not give a reason for the decision or note any dissents.
The entity that is the subject of the cloaked legal battle — known in court papers simply as a “Corporation” from “Country A” — is a foreign financial institution that was issued a subpoena by a grand jury hearing evidence in the special counsel investigation, according to two people familiar with the case.
It is thought to be the first time that an aspect of Mueller’s wide-ranging probe into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign has reached the Supreme Court.
Earlier Tuesday, the corporation’s lawyers indicated that they plan to continue fighting the subpoena, asking the Supreme Court to review the merits of the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Last year, a federal court in Washington ordered the corporation to pay a daily fine of $50,000 until it complied with the subpoena, according to court records. An appeals court panel upheld that decision last month.
In a separate redacted opinion published Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit reiterated its reasoning, writing that even though the subpoena targets a foreign entity, “there is a reasonable probability the information sought through the subpoena here concerns a commercial activity that caused a direct effect in the United States.”
The appeals court concluded that the foreign company is not immune from the reach of a U.S. grand jury.
[…]
In its ruling, the appeals court was particularly dismissive of the claims that the unidentified country’s domestic laws barred compliance with the subpoena. “We are unconvinced that Country A’s law truly prohibits the corporation from complying with the subpoena,” the court wrote.
At the Supreme Court, the case is simply titled In re Grand Jury Subpoena.
interesting critique from nytimes
Critic’s Notebook
Who Paid for the Prime-Time Wall Debate? The American Viewer
[…]
What there was not, after two days of media drama, was a convincing argument for why this needed to be a prime-time event at all. There was no news. There was no new argument. There was just a wall of sound, and the American viewing audience paid for it.
Nor was there much compelling television, unless you’re an avid maker of internet memes. This was not a friendly setting for either party.
The Oval Office, which can confer gravitas on a typical president, simply saps this atypical one. Mr. Trump comes alive playing off a crowd, like the ones he drove wild with promises that Mexico would pay for the wall. Plopped behind a desk, sniffling, reading sleepily from a TelePrompTer, he was a comedian playing an empty room.
Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer, meanwhile, shared a lectern in a hallway, side by side, one glaring as the other spoke, looking unfortunately like a cross between Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” and the twins from “The Shining.”
[continues]
abc news:
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave his role in the coming weeks, multiple sources familiar with his plans told ABC News
Rosenstein has communicated to President Donald Trump and White House officials his plan to depart the administration around the time William Barr, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, would take office following a Senate confirmation.
Sources told ABC News Rosenstein wants to ensure a smooth transition to his successor and would accommodate the needs of Barr, should he be confirmed.
Rosenstein apparently had long been thinking he would serve about two years, and there was no indication that he was being forced out at this moment by the president.
[continues]
politico:
Senators reintroduce bill to protect Mueller
Senators on the judiciary committee have re-introduced legislation Tuesday to protect special counsel Robert Mueller, pushing forward a bipartisan effort to protect Mueller’s probe into Russian collusion from interference from President Donald Trump.
The bill, reintroduced by Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), is co-sponsored by Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). It clarifies that the special counsel may only be fired by a senior Department of Justice official for good cause and gives the special counsel 10 days to request judicial review of his or her firing.
[…]
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), also introduced a similar bill last week in the House.
*
I do have to say that Chuck could use a little coaching about his appearances in front of the camera. His non-blinking glare while Nancy spoke was a bit unnatural looking – In fact, I wondered if he had just been delivered from the taxidermist.
the real reason for the oval oration – money for slush fund?
not only was a fundraiser letter sent out prior to speech, but talking heads are shaking over an inappropriate running banner at bottom of screen asking for funds during the speech.
here’s the story on letter as reported by mediaite:
Fox’s Faulkner Confronts Kellyanne on Trump Campaign Fundraising Off Oval Speech: ‘I Thought These Weren’t Political?’
[…]
….The Trump campaign’s “Official Secure the Border Fund” email referenced by Faulkner asked supporters to donate at least $5.
“We need to raise $500,000 in ONE DAY. I want to know who stood with me when it mattered most so I’ve asked my team to send me a list of EVERY AMERICAN PATRIOT who donates to the Official Secure the Border Fund,” stated the Trump-signed memo. “Please make a special contribution of $5 by 9 PM EST to our Official Secure the Border Fund to have your name sent to me after my speech.”
pogo, pic above tweeted by some wag who reversed the positions for better comparison of schumer
You know that trump is in trouble when fox news goes against him…
Trump’s Border Wall Speech Gets A Savage Instant Fact-Check Live On Fox News
What a farce! Not only was he sniffing, but it’s obvious that trump needs glasses. He was squinting throughout the entire thing. Too vain to bother… macaroni!
My favorite analysis was from Steve Schmidt… who on MSNBC last night said that trump’s speech was boring and that trump had jumped the shark ala Fonzie.
From NYT:
Trump is ready to flip.
Time to bring in Jimmy Carter and his conflict resolution team. They can do for Trump what they did for Baby Doc ease him into a comfortable dictator retirement.
Macaroni
Examples of usage (Wikipedia)
In 1773, James Boswell was on tour in Scotland with the stout and serious-minded essayist and lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson, the least dandified of Londoners. Johnson was awkward in the saddle, and Boswell ribbed him: “You are a delicate Londoner; you are a maccaroni; you can’t ride.”[6]
In Oliver Goldsmith‘s She Stoops to Conquer (1773), a misunderstanding is discovered and young Marlow finds that he has been mistaken; he cries out, “So then, all’s out, and I have been damnably imposed on. O, confound my stupid head, I shall be laughed at over the whole town. I shall be stuck up in caricatura in all the print-shops. The Dullissimo Maccaroni. To mistake this house of all others for an inn, and my father’s old friend for an innkeeper!”
The song “Yankee Doodle” from the time of the American Revolutionary War mentions a man who “stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni.” Dr. Richard Shuckburgh was a British surgeon and also the author of the song’s lyrics; the joke which he was making was that the Yankees were naive enough to believe that a feather in the hat was a sufficient mark of a macaroni. Whether or not these were alternative lyrics sung in the British army, they were enthusiastically taken up by the Yankees themselves.[7]
Flatus… not only are those wiki examples apropos…. but whenever I think of macaroni, I also think of cheese. Trump is definitely cheesy, IMO.
wapo’s daily 202 noted in it’s story The new Russia revelations are more consequential than Trump’s newsless immigration speech
which makes this story relevant also in wapo:
The Democratic leaders of seven House panels are demanding Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin delay implementing a planned easing of sanctions on businesses tied to a prominent Russian oligarch until the Treasury Department briefs committee members on the matter.
The committee chairs told Mnuchin they want the briefing to take place before Friday, as they are working against the clock if they want to stop the administration from acting on its mid-December announcement that it would roll back sanctions.
“There are a number of additional questions that we and other Members of Congress must pursue to fully assess whether the U.S. agreement and the sanctions terminations are justified,” the panel chairs wrote, complaining that the administration had intentionally announced the change in policy right before a holiday and a government shutdown, making it difficult for members to exercise their right to challenge the decision.
The Democratic leaders expressed particular alarm about the proposed easement of sanctions because of the oligarch who would benefit from the change: Oleg Deripaska, who has ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and “who has abetted the Putin Regime’s malign activity against the United States,” the lawmakers wrote.
They asked for the Treasury Department to engage in “a full discussion of all aspects of the agreement” the administration reached with Derispaska, “the sanctions termination, and the impact that these decisions would have on the U.S. effort to end Russia’s malign activities aimed at our country.”
In 2017, Congress gave itself the authority to prevent the president from reducing any Russia-related sanctions, but only if lawmakers voted to do so within a 30-day window of the administration announcing its intentions. The Trump administration announced it would lift the sanctions on the businesses in question on Dec. 19.
So far this week is progressing the same as last week and the week prior, and so back for four years, it is everything according to SFB amplified through an adoring media. I did not bother with the fundraiser, I am going to guess there was a call in phone number and possible greedy old pervert website for donations on the chryon.
I realized yesterday that I am not ready to retire. I do, still, miss doing a regular job, and not for the paycheck alone. So, I am still being affected by the furlough.
Winter weather is approaching. Bah. I follow many twitter accounts from Finland, to look and not to dream of sitting in snow and ice watching the Northern Lights. My cousins can have that stuff. Summer might be nice though.
The Schumer and Pelosi group hug is okay to show they are working together. But, again, the issue is the generation issue. They are representative of people in a generation older then me. They represent the power of the Dems, but we could use on air talent which represents the generation X, Y and Millenials, the very people affected by the shut down and who work with people who are second and third generation immigrants.
My favorite SFB line is he won’t be impeached because he is doing a good job.
petri in wapo:
My fellow Americans. (The president addresses the nation from the Oval Office, carried without comment from network to network, because … why not!)
[…]
Here is a string of numbers, cobbled bafflingly together to present an image of a nightmarish invasion. There! The crisis is real, now. Here are apparently random statistics. Your mother will become one of these statistics, as will your most cherished uncle, as will your puppy and your wife and your wife’s mother (unless you dislike her) if you do not permit the building of the wall now.
Here is a terrifying farrago of semi-facts strung together from misleading Fox News clips and things misheard in dreams. The only solution to any of these problems is to build the wall, though it has no logical connection to anything mentioned. It will solve everything. This administration is determined to do its best to undermine everything that might make someone want to come to this country. We will build a wall. We will stop the national prosperity that is drawing people to this country. We will make this place as awful as possible and as terrifying as possible. Fill it with fear and horror. Then people will turn around. Then maybe we will not even need the wall.
[…]
What is coming over the border is not people but drugs and monsters. You must remember this. “They are not sending their best,” as a wise voice said, a voice that now speaks from the Oval Office without filter or question.
Drugs are coming over the border to behead your family. I say this with no great relish. Everything bad you have ever heard is true, but it is much worse than that. A cloud of locusts is coming to devour everything you love. It is even worse than that. I am not even able to say how bad it is, because it is terrifying. Blood. Horror. Missing limbs. No, never mind, I will say it. I will continue to say it.
They are coming for you. Make no mistake. Every nightmare you have ever had is on the march and is coming for you, unless you let us build the wall. The Democrats do not want the wall to be built. You do not need evidence of this. Hear the president’s voice, and know. Drugs and the Vietnam War and every bad thing that has ever haunted you is coming.
Here is a thick nightmare cloud of misheard facts. They are coming, lumbering along, as I always said they were, though no one could see them but myself, on that escalator, years ago. They are coming and bringing every Bad Thing. Every week many drugs march across the border with murder in their eyes, and only one thing can stop them: this wall.
Build the wall. You must. It is the only way. It will take 45 minutes, be immediately effective and solve everything that is wrong in America, from poverty to tooth decay.
Thank you for your time.
I think he squints because he thinks it makes him look tough
All Republicans are liars
Kevin McCarthy is a big fat liar and delusional
Makes him look shifty to me.
Patd, that was masterful, but then I love Alexandra.
trump can’t get his wall erect, either. He should fire what’s left of his cabinet and hire Dr. Ruth.
xrep…. LOL! thanks for making me laugh so much lately…
Happy to be of service, Ms Renee.
Ok, the battle lines are drawn and the positions are clear. Who’ll blink first?
I waited all day and checked all my usual news sources and found nothing to indicate that SFB moved the needle one iota. His so called address was a complete and total bust. It appears that Nancy and Chuck may have had more viewers. Trump and republicans are not having a good week and it promises to get worse.
Oh, & Rudy sez no more Mueller questions will be answered by SFB. You think that helps? Ummm, Rudy, are you out of your mind?
Who is the more senile SFB or Rudy? Do these guys have a clue?
Craig,
Put a post in the hopper for when you need one.
There are times I really love Dana Milbank.
Dana went on.
Now we see where IMPOTUS is going with this.