By PatD, a Trail Mix Contributor
Latest @isikoff makes one wonder: Is Trump’s “witch hunt” crusade really about protecting Russians from his own FBI?
Wonder why @FoxNews seems so eager to protect Russians from the FBI? #FoxNews
Wonder why Rep @Jim_Jordan seems so eager to protect the Russians from the FBI?
Why wonder about the obvious?
More Posts by PatD
for those who spent the holidays away from the trail until today, please know that the above questions are not mine. they are worthy to repost and hopefully to recruit others to join in the quest, the tilting of windmills to uncover truth. all credit should go to other more credible mixer tilters like xr and fearless leader.
and bb who assured us yesterday:
As long as the clip of him and his media person spouting that “if you are attacking the FBI you are guilty” keeps playing things will be okay.
his assurance was short-lived however with his further comment and unsettling info that may explain some of the fbi bashing not just in twitville but also in critterville:
If you follow John Schindler you will have hints of how serious the Russian invasion is into the Congress. It will be a very interesting year if Mueller and other agents bring down the bastards. Follow the money. The Russian (Putin) money has flowed straight to a lot of congress critters, on both sides of the aisle, but mainly on the greedy old perverts side.
🙂
“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Awaiting the morning glory and the night skies are filled with asteroids, lunar
phasesfaces and skull faces. There are signs everywhere in the skies that we on the blue planet have a humperdoo for a US prez as he sits in his golf diapers and plays with his tweeter at his lair.Patd, I have two words for Al Franken…marc sanford. I think Franken can survive the ‘gillibranding.’
I have written to my congrussian, stevan pearce about the tax debacle and his response is always the same…the big lie.
Major changes include the doubling of the standard deduction; lower tax rates for families, small businesses, and manufactures; and overall simplification of the complex tax code.
The many families in New Mexico and across the country who have dealt with stagnant wages and a 70,000-page tax code, can now focus on saving for education and retirement.
Now that is the funniest thing this guy has said…such a comedian. Those 70,000 pages are heavy on an old body.
Any tax cuts for the middle class or cola to the pensioners in 2018 will be wiped-out by the increase in oil and gas prices (seems more planned than a surprise). Average citizens will pay for a cold winter and the cost of getting to work while the rest will be impacted by increases in food prices. State coffers will fill with oil and gas revenues while drilling in Alaska starts in earnest. The repugs and trump see this as a win instead of their pretend gifts to the average America. We will end-up paying big time for our utilities. People will only be able to travel on their cell phones as they replace auto ownership with cell phone ownership — hey it’s all they can afford!
Meanwhile, so many Americans homeless this winter, without electricity. The repugs also continue to ignore the graying of America all the while the elites continue to party on wall street and the crimea.
“I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” Trump tells NYT
Craig, I am sure Mueller loves the fact the generals have left king baby untethered at MAL to be interviewed by the NYT.
Trump admin regression-du-jour? Safety rules change today on oil drilling.
The Trump administration is overhauling how federal officials monitor safety procedures on offshore drilling operations, revising a pair of rules enacted in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill on the grounds that they are overly burdensome on industry.
An opine about a statement trump made regarding firing Mueller in that NYT interview. The photo of trump and hand atop the NYT article says so much more than his beauty speak interviews.
President Donald Trump told The New York Times in an interview published Thursday that the investigation into potential collusion between his campaign team and Moscow had strengthened his base and prompted some “great congressmen” to begin “pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is.”
But while Trump said he expected Mueller would treat him “fairly,” his remark about how the investigation had galvanized his supporters is perhaps a better indicator of why Trump may have taken firing Mueller off the table, for now, as it suggests he is aware of, and confident in, his allies’ ongoing campaign to undermine and discredit the special counsel.
One of our best investigative reporters is really on to something here …
Michael Isikoff: “In just the last few weeks, his [Mueller’s] prosecutors have begun questioning Republican National Committee staffers about the party digital operation that worked with the Trump campaign to target voters in key swing states. They are seeking to determine if the joint effort was related to the activities of Russian trolls and bots aimed at influencing the American electorate, according to two of the sources.”
Sounds as if Mueller is marching ahead at a plod.
Yep Flatus, think the tortoise might just get his catch.
Biographer claims Trump’s ‘cartoonishly ridiculous’ Times interview proves he’s scared of Bob Mueller
Patience is a virtue
SFB should be scared of Mueller
The goopers have a lot to answer for Paul Ryan should retire he knows what’s coming – he is going to spend his final days ending social security and medicare. And with great glee. I’ll bet nothing excites him like that. I have never seen him so animated. Perhaps Ken Burns should do a show about what was happening to the elderly before the Hill-Burton act. Ryan is a dumb ass twit who has no understanding of the role of government in a civil society. He is a polite version of SFB
SFB better hope that if he fucks w/ the Mueller probe at all that Dems don’t flip the house in November.
How much does SFB hate LGBTQ people? So much that he canned the HIV/AIDS White House group. What the moron does not apparently understand that straight people get HIV/AIDS. Oh wait a minute, people of color are victims too. White power to the orange idiot.
While perusing todays harvest of comments, it occurred to me that there is a certain whiff of anger emanating from the Trail Hands that was not present before the Tax Deformation Act.
I haven’t been paying attention to politics since Xmas Eve day… lots of family around and they aren’t leaving until tomorrow. I’ve been reading here to get the news… and as always… you guys (and gals) haven’t disappointed.
I’ll get back into it after the weekend.
I hate to inject realism into our proceedings, but a flip of the HoRs will not be sufficient to pry the usurper from the White House. The Senate must also change, and bigly so, as two thirds of the senators present are necessary to convict on a bill of impeachment. Considering the proclivities of joe manchin, the Dems are now 20 senators short.
However, the HoRs could fail to appropriate the funds necessary to operate the White House, the electricity and water thereof, Marine 1, the limousines, and the White House guards, etc, etc, etc. That could be a nuisance to the usurper.
“I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” Trump tells NYT
just doesn’t quite have the elegant ring of
L’Etat, c’est moi.
I am the State.
Address to the Parliament of Paris; Attr. by weatard-Antoine G, Histoire de Paris (1834), vol.6, p. 298; probably apocryphal.
or also from wiki
Toutes les fois que je donne une place vacante, je fais cent mécontents et un ingrat.
Every time that I fill a high office, I create a hundred discontented men and an ingrate.
Quoted in Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV (1751), ch.26
our trompe-l’œil prez (aka trump de evil) tweets not-so-sweet nothings from his golden throne … perhaps they sound classier in French?
Another sadness as this crappy year stumbles to an end. Sue Grafton died. She made it to “Y”. A shame as she was only 77.
Yesterday I learned that one of the Denver reporters I spent a bit of time with died a couple days ago. He was only 54.
Sigh.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/29/news/economy/presidents-first-year-economy/index.html
A long as the economy is strong (& this was a boffo holiday season in my area; customers spending money big time) won’t that be a public shield for the President? This is a man elected after Access Hollywood; after the insults to war hero/veteran John McCain; after insulting Carly Fiorino’s (& by default a large segment of women) physical attractiveness. If you have a job, a paycheck, can sleep tonight knowing that you’ll still have your house & car tomorrow you’re probably not looking to rock that boat. Politicians are politicians, nudge nudge, wink wink. What matters ….. how am I doing.
Retired Justice Dept and FBI associations such as @NAFUSAorg should step up against bogus Trump/GOP assaults aimed at protecting Russia.
Blue Bronc,
Presidents routinely get rid of others’ appointees. President Obama did it with President W’s HIV/AIDS group. Is #45 doing this in hate? Who knows, but he has the right, however we feel about it. Pretty darn sure if the next President is a Democrat she/he will be sweeping out #45’s appointees with a black-hole powered vacuum.
Enough with Twitter. Back to when the nation had brains. I’m watching the CSpan show on Emerson and then came across the Hamilton quote.
Leave it to others to discuss how far the Republic has been degraded by the lust for money and power.
Patd
One of the favorite people in my life always commented on the song “The Impossible Dream” as
sjwny, guess it was more the way it was done considering from following story “previous administrations had allowed members to serve full terms before appointing replacements”
chi trib story on pacha:
The remaining members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS were fired en masse this week.
Months after a half-dozen members resigned in protest of the Trump administration’s position on health policies, the White House dismissed the rest through a form letter.
[….]
The Washington Blade reported that termination letters were delivered without warning by way of FedEx. Gabriel Maldonado, chief executive of the LGBT and HIV/AIDS group Truevolution and a council member until this week, said he could only speculate why the final members were fired.
“Like any administration, they want their own people there,” Maldonado, an Obama appointee, told the Blade.
But Sullivan and Schoettes said that previous administrations had allowed members to serve full terms before appointing replacements. “It is important to have a rolling, transitioning body that crosses administrations that really has a set of diverse outlooks on the epidemic,” Sullivan said.
In September, Trump issued an executive order that continued PACHA and 31 other advisory bodies through fall 2019. A call for new council member nominations went out via a Dec. 1 notice posted on the federal register. The nomination period closes on Tuesday.
Sullivan said he hoped that new members will “continue to engage around the issues that the previous PACHA brought up.” Schoettes is not optimistic that the notice will attract qualified people.
“The only criteria for serving this president is loyalty,” he said. “From the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], to this body, to the FBI, there is a real problem this president has with dialogue or dissent.”
BW
Just got the notice on my Social Security. The COLA raise would have given me $30 more a month but the raise in insurance costs means I get a $6.00 cut.
the hill via msn:
Former Attorney General Eric Holder ripped President Trump for saying that he has the “absolute right” to do what he wants with the Department of Justice, calling the comments “wrong” and “dangerous.”
“Wrong/dangerous. Trump doesn’t have absolute rights with DOJ. But women and men there have ABSOLUTE duty to follow Constitution and rule of law — not a man. Career DOJ people have ABSOLUTE right to defy illegal orders. And they will. I know them,” Holder wrote in a tweet on Friday.
The comments from President Obama’s former attorney general come after Trump told The New York Times on Thursday that he could do what he wanted with the department after he was asked if he would reopen the probe into former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
“I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department. But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter,” the president told the publication.
Trump told the newspaper it was “too bad” that his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the Russia investigation, and said he had great respect for Holder protecting Obama while he was attorney general.
“I don’t want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him,” Trump said.
“When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest.”
Patd
Let us hope that L’etat Moi doesn’t give way to Apre Moi Le deluge
How much actual damage can Trump and cabinet not to mention possible replacements and cabinets do to the whole fabric of the United States?
“When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president.”
any coincidence that the twit said that about 2 men of color? was he blowing the usual dog whistle and intimating something nefarious was afoot because they’re both black?
XR, don’t think for a moment that I believe flipping the House will get SFB impeached and convicted. Absent him shooting Mueller on Fifth Avenue I don’t believe that SFB would ever be convicted in the Senate. It would be a Clinton redux, but I doubt it would boost SFB’s popularity like it ultimately did for Bill.
I’m sorry to hear of the passing of Ms Grafton.
Some of the authors I follow have written series that have become formulaic over the years. That doesn’t necessarily make them bad or boring, and I’ll still read each new offering. But I found that Ms Grafton’s stories and writing never reached that stale stage that seemed like the ideas had run short and the book was written simply because another one was due. Ms Grafton didn’t rush her books, despite clamoring fans wanting the next as soon as they finished the last. She was varsity.
It’s a shame there won’t be a Z, but Y is for Yesterday stands as a worthy end to Kinsey Milhone’s story.
patd, I see that as SFB doing his usual talking out of his ass. Stupid bastard.
Can’t stop this this sick feeling that Hillary-hating, Mueller-bashing, Trump-glorifying members of Congress are on Putin’s payroll.
Rose Marie also died
It is a fair question to ask any member of Congress attacking the Mueller investigation if they have taken any money from Russian sources.
Rose Marie elsewhere than Dick Van Dyke where she was wonderful
We are getting to the end of the year. What movies have you actually gone to a theater or on line to see? So far because we are a movie family, this is the list
Logan
Dunkirk
The greatest Showman
Darkest Hour
Mudbound
Florida Project
Of those likely to get Academy nominations I still haven’t seen
Three Billboards
The Florida Project
Call Me By Your Name
Shape of Water
Get Out
Lady Bird
Anybody care to put in their two cents worth (DAVID) on what they have seen and loved or not?
looks like a good post for tomorrow Jamie
Oh, Rose Marie too? Dang. The name recognition and overall popularity may not be the same as the end of last year, but seems like the cosmos is still throwing gut punches. Although at 94, I suppose we can safely say that Rose Marie had a full life and career.
On a related note, AMC is doing a movie tribute to actors who died in 2017. We’re just sitting down to enjoy Apollo 13, starring Bill Paxton (among a stellar cast). Next up is Thoroughly Modern Millie, a delightful film but a curious choice as tribute to Mary Tyler Moore.
Jamie – We saw Murder on the Orient Express last month, and of course The Last Jedi this week. I can’t remember anything else this year. I’m sure we went to other shows, but clearly nothing that stuck with us. I would like to check out Darkest Hour, and also The Post.
Jamie, I set up your movie query for tomorrow’s post.
craig
sounds good. I would have done it if I didn’t read that remark at 7:00 this evening but will definitely comment. There is all sorts of good You Tube stuff out there
Rose Marie, 9 decades in show business, thanks for the fun.
https://youtu.be/zuxgBdvyzok
Setting it up for tomorrow. What I love about this place is that it is human. Sure there are political groups. There are film places. There music venues. Some people wander off into Broadway.
On Trailmix, you find them all in one place. Of course this may be the definition of the liberal elite or just that we think about a whole lot of things.
Mr Pogo,
I meant no reflection on you or your legal expertise, sir. I only wrote the facts to inject some sobriety into the irrationally exuberant hopes that a few of us cherish with religious fervor. In other words, I was being a downer.