Trail Mix Host. Lapsed journalist, author & retired pundit happily promoting nothing but the truth for Social Security checks.
View all posts by craigcrawford
BiD, in the past, the pre dark age of trump, secretaries of state were more concerned about commies than commas.
This week we learned that Brett Kavanaugh’s history of policing women’s bodies is possibly longer and even more lurid than we imagined. Enjoy your lifetime gig, Brett! You probably have a lot in common with at least one of your coworkers.
from wapo”s editorial board: Slow down, Senate Republicans. The FBI should investigate.
[….]
If Mr. Kavanaugh is telling the truth when he denies any wrongdoing, he should welcome an orderly investigation into Ms. Ford’s claims as the best chance he has to ascend to the Supreme Court without a cloud surrounding his confirmation.
that conclusion of theirs is same argument for why IMPOTUS (if he’s done nothing wrong) should “welcome an orderly investigation” by mueller about Russian collusion in the election.
Craig,
I know it is still six weeks away from the election, but if you want to put mine up to start a book discussion, that would be fine. Might get some good recommendations out of it to bide the time.
Pompeo went up several notches in my opinion. Anyone who insists on the Oxford comma can’t be all bad.
I disagree a bit. This time, there is #metoo and there is social media support for the victim.
Despite, ‘shroom’s evil minions in Congress and the lemmings who still pray at the alter of Trumpsky at NASCAR tracks and gun shows, this woman will have large and visible support from women…all the way the ballot box in November.
[…]
According to the Wall Street Journal, entrepreneurs in New York City have launched competing “rage rooms.”
At The Rage Cage or The Wrecking Club, patrons who pay a fee, sign a waiver and don protective gear can unleash their pent-up anger, using baseball bats, sledge hammers, etc. to demolish defective electronic devices, 99-cent-store dishes and other expendable items.
In a tension-filled world where angry people hurl vases at their spouse or smash rural mailboxes, such rage rooms could be the innovation we need.
Innovation? The Journal did note that a prototypical rage room was operated in New York some 40 years ago. The owners probably tried to carry over too many practices from more conventional enterprises. (“Can’t understand why we’re going bankrupt. The ol’ extended warranty scam, er, BENEFIT… used to work like a charm.”)
Rage rooms are your chance to be the proverbial “bull in the china shop” – except that you have to wait in line, you have to wear clothes and you don’t get made into T-bone steaks afterwards. (“Conversion to steaks: bad for repeat business. I learned that at the seminar.”)
Such venues could become a nationwide trend, but investors must weigh the startup costs. So far, liability insurance is costly, and landlords demand high rent. Even the late Fred Rogers would have been leery of rage rooms moving into the area. (“Won’t you be my nei-hey, keep those ruffians away from King Friday XIII or this cardigan is going upside your head!”)
[…continues…]
,,,,,,,, take, that, Pompous
Was planning our book discussion for tomorrow Jamie, would like to make that a Friday thing. Just trying to lure in some new contributors today.
Okay. Whatever works best for you. It would be nice to have a few more voices.
The world is my rage room.
time: How Putin’s Oligarchs Got Inside the Trump Team
The message from Moscow reached Paul Manafort at a crucial moment in the U.S. presidential race, just as he was about to secure the official Republican nomination for his client, Donald Trump. Manafort’s overture had been received, the July 2016 message informed him. And Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, would be back in touch soon.
In the months before the 2016 elections, Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chairman, had tried repeatedly to reach out to Deripaska through intermediaries, according to emails revealed last year by the Washington Post and the Atlantic. The two men’s relationship went back a decade; Manafort had worked as a political consultant for Deripaska’s business interests in Eastern Europe in the mid-2000s.
The messages used coded language–apparent references to money, for instance, were sometimes rendered as “black caviar.” But the aim of the exchange seems clear. Manafort wanted to offer “private briefings” about the Trump campaign to one of Russia’s wealthiest men.
That offer has since come under the scrutiny of Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential race. His investigators want to know whether the Trump campaign had a secret back channel to the Kremlin, and Manafort has agreed to help them answer that question. As part of his guilty plea on Sept. 14 to charges stemming from the Mueller investigation, Manafort agreed to cooperate “fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly” with the special counsel.
Already Mueller’s probe has shown the range of assets Putin brought to bear on the 2016 campaign. Russian hackers stole and leaked the private emails of Trump’s opponents and worked to polarize and enrage voters by manipulating social media, according to evidence made public by Mueller. Russian diplomats wooed Trump’s advisers, who were eager for information that could hurt Hillary Clinton’s chances.
But it is oligarchs like Deripaska, wielding extraordinary wealth and global connections, who may have played the most important role in the Russian influence campaign. Putin himself has suggested as much. Onstage with Trump at a press conference in Helsinki on July 16, the Russian leader said he “can imagine” private Russian businessmen supported Trump’s bid for the presidency. “And so what?” Putin demanded. “They don’t represent the Russian state.”
In fact, their ties to the state are a lot closer than Putin let on…….
[…continues…]
.
another andy marlette masterpiece
GOPers seem quite smug their “put up or shut up” tactic is working against the Dr. Ford — guess packing the court more important to them than the midterms
So, he is still a perjurer and still vulnerable to recall and prosecution (I trust)
We need a full-court press applied to the miserable perjurer. If we can mount something in the next couple of days, we still have a good chance of keeping him off the court that guarantees our freedom. I say, attack him through his most vociferous supporters; the people who have been aware of his sins for decades but have pecuniary interests that coincide. Let’s start with Crassley
Woodward has always seemed a little slow out the chute but FEAR is so fucking good it’s stupid. I voted for @POTUS and will again but this shit in the White House rivals lions eating assholes at the game preserve. @FoxNews@nytimes@seanhannitytwitter.com/washingtonpost…
There’s a difference between being a despicable racist and of suborning perjury in the manipulation of witnesses supporting ‘shroom’s way out.
JUST IN: Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford opens the door to testifying next week.. http://hill.cm/EuaYmea
NY times:
The woman who has accused Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual assault has told the Senate Judiciary Committee, in an apparent bid to jump-start negotiations, that she “would be prepared to testify next week,” so long as senators offer “terms that are fair and which ensure her safety,” according to an email her lawyers sent to committee staff members.
In the email, obtained by The New York Times, the lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford said that testifying Monday — the timetable Republicans have set for a hearing — “is not possible and the Committee’s insistence that it occur then is arbitrary in any event.” The lawyer reiterated that it is Dr. Blasey’s “strong preference” that “a full investigation” occur before her testimony — wording that stopped short of demanding an F.B.I. probe and suggested she is open to testifying without one.
[…]
In the email, addressed to top Republican and Democratic aides on the committee, the lawyer, Debra Katz, wrote that she would like to set up a call later on Thursday to “discuss the conditions” under which Dr. Blasey would be prepared to testify.
“As you are aware, she has been receiving death threats, which have been reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and she and her family have been forced out of their home,” the email said. “She wishes to testify, provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety.”
[…continues…]
abcnews:
Michael Cohen spoke to Mueller team for hours; asked about Russia, possible collusion, pardon: Sources
By George Stephanopoulos,
ELIANA LARRAMENDIA
James Hill
Sep 20, 2018, 3:36 PM ET
President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has participated over the last month in multiple interview sessions lasting for hours with investigators from the office of special counsel, Robert Mueller, sources tell ABC News.
The special counsel’s questioning of Cohen, one of the president’s closest associates over the past decade, has focused primarily on all aspects of Trump’s dealings with Russia — including financial and business dealings and the investigation into alleged collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign and its surrogates to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Investigators were also interested in knowing, the sources say, whether Trump or any of his associates discussed the possibility of a pardon with Cohen.
Over the 16 months that Mueller has been investigating, the president has repeatedly bashed the investigation as a partisan witch hunt, insisting there has been no collusion and no obstruction of justice.
The interviews with Cohen took place in Washington, D.C., and New York City. They were also attended in part by prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.
Cohen’s participation in the meetings has been voluntary — without any guarantee of leniency from prosecutors, according to several people familiar with the situation.
ABC News has also learned that Cohen is also cooperating with a separate probe by New York state authorities into the inner workings of the Trump family charity and the Trump Organization, where Cohen served as an executive vice president and special counsel to Trump for 10 years.
The news of Cohen’s dealings with federal and state investigators comes close on the heels of another potentially perilous legal development for the president: the guilty pleas last week from Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who struck a deal with Mueller’s prosecutors in exchange for his cooperation.
As the Manafort deal was taking shape — Mueller’s team had already been talking to Cohen.
[…continues…]
Jennifer Rubin, after reviewing nutty comments by republican senators:
In sum, Republicans make the same infuriating, false assumptions over and over:
– Ford has motives to lie; Kavanaugh’s denial is completely believable.
– The Senate has no need to seek testimony from the eyewitness in the bedroom where the attack allegedly occurred.
– A vote must occur next week.
– No investigation to uncover additional witnesses or evidence can be had until it is too late.
– The real victims are Kavanaugh or the senators.
– There is no harm in jamming through the nomination even with the distinct possibility that Ford is telling the truth.
The Senate Republicans did a fine job destroying the Supreme Court confirmation process; now they are doing an equally effective job demonstrating their own cluelessness. Voters have recourse in less than seven weeks.
Jennifer does a pretty good job of cutting to the heart of the matter.
On an October afternoon before the 2016 election, a huge banner was unfurled from the Manhattan Bridge in New York City: Vladimir V. Putin against a Russian-flag background, and the unlikely word “Peacemaker” below. It was a daredevil happy birthday to the Russian president, who was turning 64.
In November, shortly after Donald J. Trump eked out a victory that Moscow had worked to assist, an even bigger banner appeared, this time on the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington: the face of President Barack Obama and “Goodbye Murderer” in big red letters.
Police never identified who had hung the banners, but there were clues. The earliest promoters of the images on Twitter were American-sounding accounts, including @LeroyLovesUSA, later exposed as Russian fakes operated from St. Petersburg to influence American voters.
The Kremlin, it appeared, had reached onto United States soil in New York and Washington. The banners may well have been intended as visual victory laps for the most effective foreign interference in an American election in history.
[…]
But to travel back to 2016 and trace the major plotlines of the Russian attack is to underscore what we now know with certainty: The Russians carried out a landmark intervention that will be examined for decades to come. Acting on the personal animus of Mr. Putin, public and private instruments of Russian power moved with daring and skill to harness the currents of American politics. Well-connected Russians worked aggressively to recruit or influence people inside the Trump campaign.
[…very very long indepth sections continue….]
OMG! I just heard some putz make a joke about RBG being sexually accosted by Abe Lincoln.
Sexist and ageist!
Old things pass away.
old 1198 never found his keys.
Ms Dallas,
I believe that particular and peculiar putz was a Congressrat from South Carolina, ralph ‘abnormal’ norman.
Democrats need to take that quote to town It’s almost as good as the former client of Kellyann Conway who said you cannot get pregnant from rape
so gooper
Coming back soon to a town near you.
Said SC jerkington pulled a pistol out and laid it on the table in a public setting. Making some kind of point, I think.
The important part of a concealed weapon is that it is concealed. Not parked loose on a table.
Dumbass goober
bet ten bucks he’s not a veteran. I mean he could be, but if he was I bet he wasn’t all that popular.
cant even tell you how many SC dumbasses I’ve seen waving a pistol around near someone who would quietly shoot them if shit turned real……
Not uncommon back yonder in the olden days in rough-house joints of olde charleston……..
I was in the band……I always knew who had a gun……
We played these joints outside the main gate of Charleston Naval Shipyard from 62 on….the sailors and marines could be rough-and-tumble, all trying to live out “Donovan’s Reef”, but you would never see a single one of them brandish a weapon……shore patrol would have beaten them senseless……but the squires of the establishment were all armed to the teeth……invisibly.
So I’m toying with the idea of changing my nickname for Grassley. I’ve typically called him ‘assley, but I’m thinking Grasshole. What do you think?
50 cents a shot of hard liquor…….There’s one light switch on the wall onstage……Tommy Holt first night we played……we had the midnight to 5 am shift, 7 nights……I could still go to high school…..Tommy says, “If there’s a fight, you flip this switch, and play something FAST…….” Our fight song of choice was “Roll Over Beethovan”. That switch turned on every light in the house. Very bright.
Haha…. Sometime in the 70’s they moved the main gate up the street and all those joints just died……
Damn it Sturg, I was reading ahead of your writing and this sentence came out as follows:
…first night we played……we had the midnight to 5 am shift, 7 nights……I could still go to high ‘C’…..
With falsetto I could nail high C like the lion sleeps tonight guy…..
My weenie’s wet, my weenie’s wet, my weenie’s wet ……
the Tokens
There was all kinds of weirdnesses back then in falsetto
Just here for the Sturgeone stories. 🙂 Oh, and a local West Michigan brewery (famous for Oberon) is pulling out of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce over their support of Bill Schuette.
Corey…….Dottir’s husband is from your neck of the woods…..god willin and the creek don’t flood you and I is destined to have a beer……or two……it’s in the cards……
“Why didn’t somebody call the FBI 36 years ago?” — Trump to Hannity tonight.
First I gotta have a brandy with Mr Flatus.
36 years?
1982
I was in Moose Jaw, 82….if they had called the FBI we’d have had some weed ……..that could have been bad…….
But we had to give it all away or trade it to get across the border anyway……we could have blamed it all on the bass player from Arizona who elected to stay in Moose Jaw with his new girlfriend…….that’s when we got Don Stanley, of Rapid City, on board…….
Only reason we hired that guy in Nashville to begin with was he had a fiddle on a mike stand……..
We toured in a van with trailer, and I had my dog……Poupon d’Fleur, half malamute, half Aussie cattle dog…..Arizona bass man was the only one of us who could not get Bach into the van by himself……Poupon did not like him.
Another disinterested bystander at a Trump rally, tonight in Vegas.
Sturge
It was about 1982 when I was growing some weed scattered out through the world. One plant in this little opening in the woods another in that one, nothin close together. But in my drunken wonderings I must have talked to someone trying to avoid jail. No they didn’t find my crop but the Missouri Hyway patrol had a plane that went out taking pictures looking for weed. That sombitch must have parked 5 min over my mothers garden. While mom grew a lot stuff in her garden it was not exactly weed free so there were parts of her garden that had ragweeds head high. They looked and they was hoping.
It did teach me a lesson, ya got to make a choice, You can be a criminal or you can be a drunk. So I chose the latter.
Jack
Franklin Graham: Attempted rape not a crime. Kavanaugh “respected” his victim by not finishing.
Ya know I’ve had a beer or two with Mr Corey, it is highly recommended. BTW maybe we should all make a trip to Michigan next summer. Not winter, I’ve seen his snow pictures
Jack
With friends like Franklin who needs enemies ?
Yeah…winter can be a downer here. Oberon Day is a thing here because it goes away every day just like summer. Franklin Graham is nowhere near the guy his dad was.
Weed was whatcha call a Cash Crop
I was in Deeeetroit dead of winter one time and it was beautiful.
Franklin Graham is definitely not his dad, and apparently not worthy to carry the name. And I thought his dad was just a televangelist with a little more cred than the Earnest Angleys of the world.
FOX just blew off live coverage of a Trump rally. That’s a first.
Pompeo cracks down, on improper use, of commas at State Department https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/19/politics/pompeo-commas-state-department/index.html
So…?
BiD, in the past, the pre dark age of trump, secretaries of state were more concerned about commies than commas.
This week we learned that Brett Kavanaugh’s history of policing women’s bodies is possibly longer and even more lurid than we imagined. Enjoy your lifetime gig, Brett! You probably have a lot in common with at least one of your coworkers.
from wapo”s editorial board:
Slow down, Senate Republicans. The FBI should investigate.
[….]
If Mr. Kavanaugh is telling the truth when he denies any wrongdoing, he should welcome an orderly investigation into Ms. Ford’s claims as the best chance he has to ascend to the Supreme Court without a cloud surrounding his confirmation.
that conclusion of theirs is same argument for why IMPOTUS (if he’s done nothing wrong) should “welcome an orderly investigation” by mueller about Russian collusion in the election.
Craig,
I know it is still six weeks away from the election, but if you want to put mine up to start a book discussion, that would be fine. Might get some good recommendations out of it to bide the time.
Pompeo went up several notches in my opinion. Anyone who insists on the Oxford comma can’t be all bad.
Kavanaugh case shows little has changed for Judiciary Committee https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/20/politics/brett-kavanaugh-sexual-assault-accusation-clarence-thomas/index.html
I disagree a bit. This time, there is #metoo and there is social media support for the victim.
Despite, ‘shroom’s evil minions in Congress and the lemmings who still pray at the alter of Trumpsky at NASCAR tracks and gun shows, this woman will have large and visible support from women…all the way the ballot box in November.
Ready To Visit A Rage Room?
by danny tyree
[…]
According to the Wall Street Journal, entrepreneurs in New York City have launched competing “rage rooms.”
At The Rage Cage or The Wrecking Club, patrons who pay a fee, sign a waiver and don protective gear can unleash their pent-up anger, using baseball bats, sledge hammers, etc. to demolish defective electronic devices, 99-cent-store dishes and other expendable items.
In a tension-filled world where angry people hurl vases at their spouse or smash rural mailboxes, such rage rooms could be the innovation we need.
Innovation? The Journal did note that a prototypical rage room was operated in New York some 40 years ago. The owners probably tried to carry over too many practices from more conventional enterprises. (“Can’t understand why we’re going bankrupt. The ol’ extended warranty scam, er, BENEFIT… used to work like a charm.”)
Rage rooms are your chance to be the proverbial “bull in the china shop” – except that you have to wait in line, you have to wear clothes and you don’t get made into T-bone steaks afterwards. (“Conversion to steaks: bad for repeat business. I learned that at the seminar.”)
Such venues could become a nationwide trend, but investors must weigh the startup costs. So far, liability insurance is costly, and landlords demand high rent. Even the late Fred Rogers would have been leery of rage rooms moving into the area. (“Won’t you be my nei-hey, keep those ruffians away from King Friday XIII or this cardigan is going upside your head!”)
[…continues…]
,,,,,,,, take, that, Pompous
Was planning our book discussion for tomorrow Jamie, would like to make that a Friday thing. Just trying to lure in some new contributors today.
Okay. Whatever works best for you. It would be nice to have a few more voices.
The world is my rage room.
time: How Putin’s Oligarchs Got Inside the Trump Team
The message from Moscow reached Paul Manafort at a crucial moment in the U.S. presidential race, just as he was about to secure the official Republican nomination for his client, Donald Trump. Manafort’s overture had been received, the July 2016 message informed him. And Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, would be back in touch soon.
In the months before the 2016 elections, Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chairman, had tried repeatedly to reach out to Deripaska through intermediaries, according to emails revealed last year by the Washington Post and the Atlantic. The two men’s relationship went back a decade; Manafort had worked as a political consultant for Deripaska’s business interests in Eastern Europe in the mid-2000s.
The messages used coded language–apparent references to money, for instance, were sometimes rendered as “black caviar.” But the aim of the exchange seems clear. Manafort wanted to offer “private briefings” about the Trump campaign to one of Russia’s wealthiest men.
That offer has since come under the scrutiny of Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential race. His investigators want to know whether the Trump campaign had a secret back channel to the Kremlin, and Manafort has agreed to help them answer that question. As part of his guilty plea on Sept. 14 to charges stemming from the Mueller investigation, Manafort agreed to cooperate “fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly” with the special counsel.
Already Mueller’s probe has shown the range of assets Putin brought to bear on the 2016 campaign. Russian hackers stole and leaked the private emails of Trump’s opponents and worked to polarize and enrage voters by manipulating social media, according to evidence made public by Mueller. Russian diplomats wooed Trump’s advisers, who were eager for information that could hurt Hillary Clinton’s chances.
But it is oligarchs like Deripaska, wielding extraordinary wealth and global connections, who may have played the most important role in the Russian influence campaign. Putin himself has suggested as much. Onstage with Trump at a press conference in Helsinki on July 16, the Russian leader said he “can imagine” private Russian businessmen supported Trump’s bid for the presidency. “And so what?” Putin demanded. “They don’t represent the Russian state.”
In fact, their ties to the state are a lot closer than Putin let on…….
[…continues…]
.
another andy marlette masterpiece
GOPers seem quite smug their “put up or shut up” tactic is working against the Dr. Ford — guess packing the court more important to them than the midterms
So, he is still a perjurer and still vulnerable to recall and prosecution (I trust)
We need a full-court press applied to the miserable perjurer. If we can mount something in the next couple of days, we still have a good chance of keeping him off the court that guarantees our freedom. I say, attack him through his most vociferous supporters; the people who have been aware of his sins for decades but have pecuniary interests that coincide. Let’s start with Crassley
Crassley……….touché
Yo
Like how you’re thinking Flatus.
Imus
@WhereMyImusAt
Sep 19
iMan could have gone a long time without a description of Trump’s dick. Add them big ole Blubber Titties and the stupid hair….that’s some freaky shit.
View details ·
Imus
@WhereMyImusAt
Sep 12
Woodward has always seemed a little slow out the chute but FEAR is so fucking good it’s stupid. I voted for @POTUS and will again but this shit in the White House rivals lions eating assholes at the game preserve. @FoxNews @nytimes @seanhannitytwitter.com/washingtonpost…
Frank Rich
Should Ford appear, it won’t hurt, either, that she’ll be up against an 85-year-old committee chairman, Chuck Grassley, who is doddering. “I’d hate to have somebody ask me what I did 35 years ago,” he said this week,apparently under the misapprehension that he was delivering a witty expression of solidarity with Kavanaugh’s memory lapse. As at least one observer pointed out on Twitter, Grassley was in the Senate 35 years ago, voting against a holiday in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King. No wonder he, like Kavanaugh, chooses to forget.
There’s a difference between being a despicable racist and of suborning perjury in the manipulation of witnesses supporting ‘shroom’s way out.
JUST IN: Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford opens the door to testifying next week.. http://hill.cm/EuaYmea
NY times:
The woman who has accused Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual assault has told the Senate Judiciary Committee, in an apparent bid to jump-start negotiations, that she “would be prepared to testify next week,” so long as senators offer “terms that are fair and which ensure her safety,” according to an email her lawyers sent to committee staff members.
In the email, obtained by The New York Times, the lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford said that testifying Monday — the timetable Republicans have set for a hearing — “is not possible and the Committee’s insistence that it occur then is arbitrary in any event.” The lawyer reiterated that it is Dr. Blasey’s “strong preference” that “a full investigation” occur before her testimony — wording that stopped short of demanding an F.B.I. probe and suggested she is open to testifying without one.
[…]
In the email, addressed to top Republican and Democratic aides on the committee, the lawyer, Debra Katz, wrote that she would like to set up a call later on Thursday to “discuss the conditions” under which Dr. Blasey would be prepared to testify.
“As you are aware, she has been receiving death threats, which have been reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and she and her family have been forced out of their home,” the email said. “She wishes to testify, provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety.”
[…continues…]
abcnews:
Michael Cohen spoke to Mueller team for hours; asked about Russia, possible collusion, pardon: Sources
By George Stephanopoulos,
ELIANA LARRAMENDIA
James Hill
Sep 20, 2018, 3:36 PM ET
President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has participated over the last month in multiple interview sessions lasting for hours with investigators from the office of special counsel, Robert Mueller, sources tell ABC News.
The special counsel’s questioning of Cohen, one of the president’s closest associates over the past decade, has focused primarily on all aspects of Trump’s dealings with Russia — including financial and business dealings and the investigation into alleged collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign and its surrogates to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Investigators were also interested in knowing, the sources say, whether Trump or any of his associates discussed the possibility of a pardon with Cohen.
Over the 16 months that Mueller has been investigating, the president has repeatedly bashed the investigation as a partisan witch hunt, insisting there has been no collusion and no obstruction of justice.
The interviews with Cohen took place in Washington, D.C., and New York City. They were also attended in part by prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.
Cohen’s participation in the meetings has been voluntary — without any guarantee of leniency from prosecutors, according to several people familiar with the situation.
ABC News has also learned that Cohen is also cooperating with a separate probe by New York state authorities into the inner workings of the Trump family charity and the Trump Organization, where Cohen served as an executive vice president and special counsel to Trump for 10 years.
The news of Cohen’s dealings with federal and state investigators comes close on the heels of another potentially perilous legal development for the president: the guilty pleas last week from Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who struck a deal with Mueller’s prosecutors in exchange for his cooperation.
As the Manafort deal was taking shape — Mueller’s team had already been talking to Cohen.
[…continues…]
Jennifer Rubin, after reviewing nutty comments by republican senators:
Jennifer does a pretty good job of cutting to the heart of the matter.
ny times: The Plot to Subvert an Election
On an October afternoon before the 2016 election, a huge banner was unfurled from the Manhattan Bridge in New York City: Vladimir V. Putin against a Russian-flag background, and the unlikely word “Peacemaker” below. It was a daredevil happy birthday to the Russian president, who was turning 64.
In November, shortly after Donald J. Trump eked out a victory that Moscow had worked to assist, an even bigger banner appeared, this time on the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington: the face of President Barack Obama and “Goodbye Murderer” in big red letters.
Police never identified who had hung the banners, but there were clues. The earliest promoters of the images on Twitter were American-sounding accounts, including @LeroyLovesUSA, later exposed as Russian fakes operated from St. Petersburg to influence American voters.
The Kremlin, it appeared, had reached onto United States soil in New York and Washington. The banners may well have been intended as visual victory laps for the most effective foreign interference in an American election in history.
[…]
But to travel back to 2016 and trace the major plotlines of the Russian attack is to underscore what we now know with certainty: The Russians carried out a landmark intervention that will be examined for decades to come. Acting on the personal animus of Mr. Putin, public and private instruments of Russian power moved with daring and skill to harness the currents of American politics. Well-connected Russians worked aggressively to recruit or influence people inside the Trump campaign.
[…very very long indepth sections continue….]
OMG! I just heard some putz make a joke about RBG being sexually accosted by Abe Lincoln.
Sexist and ageist!
Old things pass away.
old 1198 never found his keys.
Ms Dallas,
I believe that particular and peculiar putz was a Congressrat from South Carolina, ralph ‘abnormal’ norman.
Democrats need to take that quote to town It’s almost as good as the former client of Kellyann Conway who said you cannot get pregnant from rape
so gooper
Coming back soon to a town near you.
Said SC jerkington pulled a pistol out and laid it on the table in a public setting. Making some kind of point, I think.
https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/u-s-rep-ralph-norman-pulls-out-loaded-gun-in/article_ea97bda0-39d3-11e8-b120-3b253f2be91e.html
The important part of a concealed weapon is that it is concealed. Not parked loose on a table.
Dumbass goober
bet ten bucks he’s not a veteran. I mean he could be, but if he was I bet he wasn’t all that popular.
cant even tell you how many SC dumbasses I’ve seen waving a pistol around near someone who would quietly shoot them if shit turned real……
Not uncommon back yonder in the olden days in rough-house joints of olde charleston……..
I was in the band……I always knew who had a gun……
We played these joints outside the main gate of Charleston Naval Shipyard from 62 on….the sailors and marines could be rough-and-tumble, all trying to live out “Donovan’s Reef”, but you would never see a single one of them brandish a weapon……shore patrol would have beaten them senseless……but the squires of the establishment were all armed to the teeth……invisibly.
So I’m toying with the idea of changing my nickname for Grassley. I’ve typically called him ‘assley, but I’m thinking Grasshole. What do you think?
50 cents a shot of hard liquor…….There’s one light switch on the wall onstage……Tommy Holt first night we played……we had the midnight to 5 am shift, 7 nights……I could still go to high school…..Tommy says, “If there’s a fight, you flip this switch, and play something FAST…….” Our fight song of choice was “Roll Over Beethovan”. That switch turned on every light in the house. Very bright.
Haha…. Sometime in the 70’s they moved the main gate up the street and all those joints just died……
Damn it Sturg, I was reading ahead of your writing and this sentence came out as follows:
…first night we played……we had the midnight to 5 am shift, 7 nights……I could still go to high ‘C’…..
With falsetto I could nail high C like the lion sleeps tonight guy…..
My weenie’s wet, my weenie’s wet, my weenie’s wet ……
the Tokens
There was all kinds of weirdnesses back then in falsetto
adventures in high C
Del……
I dearly love the baritone sax..
https://wwmt.com/news/local/founders-brewing-pulls-membership-from-grand-rapids-chamber-of-commerce
Just here for the Sturgeone stories. 🙂 Oh, and a local West Michigan brewery (famous for Oberon) is pulling out of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce over their support of Bill Schuette.
Corey…….Dottir’s husband is from your neck of the woods…..god willin and the creek don’t flood you and I is destined to have a beer……or two……it’s in the cards……
“Why didn’t somebody call the FBI 36 years ago?” — Trump to Hannity tonight.
First I gotta have a brandy with Mr Flatus.
36 years?
1982
I was in Moose Jaw, 82….if they had called the FBI we’d have had some weed ……..that could have been bad…….
But we had to give it all away or trade it to get across the border anyway……we could have blamed it all on the bass player from Arizona who elected to stay in Moose Jaw with his new girlfriend…….that’s when we got Don Stanley, of Rapid City, on board…….
Only reason we hired that guy in Nashville to begin with was he had a fiddle on a mike stand……..
We toured in a van with trailer, and I had my dog……Poupon d’Fleur, half malamute, half Aussie cattle dog…..Arizona bass man was the only one of us who could not get Bach into the van by himself……Poupon did not like him.
Another disinterested bystander at a Trump rally, tonight in Vegas.
Sturge
It was about 1982 when I was growing some weed scattered out through the world. One plant in this little opening in the woods another in that one, nothin close together. But in my drunken wonderings I must have talked to someone trying to avoid jail. No they didn’t find my crop but the Missouri Hyway patrol had a plane that went out taking pictures looking for weed. That sombitch must have parked 5 min over my mothers garden. While mom grew a lot stuff in her garden it was not exactly weed free so there were parts of her garden that had ragweeds head high. They looked and they was hoping.
It did teach me a lesson, ya got to make a choice, You can be a criminal or you can be a drunk. So I chose the latter.
Jack
Franklin Graham: Attempted rape not a crime. Kavanaugh “respected” his victim by not finishing.
Ya know I’ve had a beer or two with Mr Corey, it is highly recommended. BTW maybe we should all make a trip to Michigan next summer. Not winter, I’ve seen his snow pictures
Jack
With friends like Franklin who needs enemies ?
Yeah…winter can be a downer here. Oberon Day is a thing here because it goes away every day just like summer. Franklin Graham is nowhere near the guy his dad was.
Weed was whatcha call a Cash Crop
I was in Deeeetroit dead of winter one time and it was beautiful.
Franklin Graham is definitely not his dad, and apparently not worthy to carry the name. And I thought his dad was just a televangelist with a little more cred than the Earnest Angleys of the world.
FOX just blew off live coverage of a Trump rally. That’s a first.
RR
Bink……..what WAS that?
…nice, right?
Here’s some Willie meets Seger, the Lesser:
…l’il bit o’ Elton John, in there, too.
Yup
Seger may be the younger but never lesser…..
One 4 LL
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