Exxon to run foreign policy? Where’s the freaking outrage? Certainly not at this bogus hearing, Dems even afraid of him.
Watching senators from both parties genuflect Tillerson looks like interns serving coffee. Pitiful.
Tillerson’s black eyebrows & white hair the stuff of a Marvel Comics character. Ideas? And he could slice raw meat with those cuff links.
oops, new thread… this was for prior conversation.
jack, if they are paying to disrupt the coronation, why even question that they wouldn’t practice on the senate confirmation hearings
above from young turks
Tillerson represents the worst in our history, from Dulles on down to Jim Baker, entitled men who protect privilege and profits, provoking hatrid of America. Sickening.
sorry but the fruitless frenzy over Sessions, other than launching Corey Booker’s presidential campaign, is a silly sideshow compared to putting big oil in charge of State Dept.
Does he have a taste for vicuna coats?
Between the Tillerson hearing and the Trump (News) conference, I am genuinely fearing for the country. These are dangerous men and no one really seems to be challenging them.
Agreed Jamie. You and I have been on divergent paths in recent times, but on the same page now.
Mr. Doodlesdog has a winner Jefferson Noregard Sessions — excellent
I have trouble nuancing these other personalities because Trump is such a crudely domineering pos; the others simply can’t maintain position with him as they wallow in his slimy exudation.
Noregard Sesspool?
Craig: I’m with you and Jamie 200%! It looks like the hearings are almost as big a joke as trumps press conference…although there was no pressing done by anyone 😉 What I want to know is why aren’t the Democrats and the rare few normal Republicans screaming bloody hell over these nominations? None of them are qualified for the positions they’re about to assume, which of course pairs them neatly with their soon to be boss. We’re about to end up with the most pathetic, least qualified Executive branch in US government history and nobody is yelling that the Emperor and his flunkies have no clothes!
Tillersonofabitch? Or is that sexist?
Craig: Noregard Sesspool…Perfect
jeffersonovabitch noregard cesspool. It’s a moniker with a destinktive odor about it.
jeffersonovabitch bigotguard cesspool smells more like him.
duh noose con was a red herring meant to lead your brains away from the snotorial hearings on the nomenemies.
Just a little more than 8 days left for the Admin to apprehend and charge the deadbeat manafort, bannock, hannity, and the gang for failing to register as agents of a foreign power, and for espionage, sabotage of a national election, manipulation of the financial and commodities markets, and conspiracy to do all four.
This is the administration you wanted, CC- the one that was going to send D.C. Elites a message. You got it, now celebrate it!
“Just a little more than 8 days left”
8 days to do SOMETHING besides make a nice speech before handing the government over to fascists.
…and enough of this “peaceful transition of power” bullshit. Yeah, it’s great, but not rare. The legitimacy of the election is in serious doubt, and even if Trump gamed the Electoral College successfully, he still lost the popular vote, and has NO MANDATE.
Greta Van Cess Pool looked good on Fox but not so much on MSNBC
she looks second rate and kind of a loser
A what a long day at the VA. Whew. I am home finally.
Notes:
Veterans do care about politics and current events. Televisions were tuned to the hearings and then to the circus event.
So far Sessions and Tillerson are two people I would not leave alone in a room with an open cash drawer. Both seem slimy and thoroughly disgusting and ugly people. Both seem capable of very nasty acts and not caring. Perfect for the floater.
The drumpf is sure to have something bad happen the way he is bad mouthing the intelligence agencies. But, he is too stupid to understand that they probably do have something on him but are waiting for the right moment to let it loose. If there were still pictures from the drumpfs coke parties there must be movies. And it probably has more than a line being snorked in. If he was nice and praised them it might not see daylight, but he is not and does not.
The floater does not care about the Constitution or law.
Bink, huh? You talkin to me? The admin I wanted and worked for was Jim Webb. Real populism, not this phony bunch of elite pretenders. And just as in 1980 clueless Dems ushered them in.
Yeah, I’m talking AT you, and I know who you supported, and will continue to remind your readers how you equivocated at the most crucial hour, every time you try to cozy up to some bullshit internet “resistance”.
Thanks a lot for speaking truth to power AFTER it matters, very brave of you.
BB – Any thoughts on the guy Trump wants to handle the VA?
Marco’s comment about the journalists & political opponents of Putin being dead, in response to Tillersonuvabitch’s refusal to comment on the matter, was an admirable attempt to call the guy a slimy douche.
Is this new batch of horrors gonna make us miss Cheyney? Were the days of W, the good, old days?
BiD – I just saw the name and do not have any info to go on right now. We in Ag are still waiting for a real rumour about our new secretary.
Spend a day away from things and catching up is tough. The republicans know how to cover shit. They spread many layers at once and no one can dance fast enough to get through it.
The more I think about what is going to happen this year, nay, the next three months, the more I am convinced there will be a real failure at the WH and under the dome. It might end up like how WWI started with a shot in a backwater country which cascaded from one end of Europe to the other and across to Manchuria and Japan and back across the oceans to the United States. The drumpf is going to say something which makes him lose control of the Russian republicans who then go after the Republicans who then go back into fighting mode and fail to pass the budget or the ceiling increase, which causes . . . and finally Trump is frog walked into the Capitol and brought to charges of treason and high crimes.
What if his money grubbing family decide to turn on him? They hold secrets which no one else does. They could cause all sorts of havoc and keep control of the name and empire.
Oh there is so much to think about. And. And not one of the scenerios includes his voters. No one talks about them. No one cares about them now that they have done their little role on the stage. They were insignificant then, and are so now. Not that I do not care about them, I care a lot as that is where my roots are. It is they are not the power players and never were.
Yes Bink I’ll admit to letting my hostility toward the Clinton DNC machinery cloud my judgement and I failed to stand firm against Trumpism when it counted. It was personal and I was wrong.
The magic words. I’ll stop. You had better come correct, henceforth, as long as I have internet service.
Bink, may long live your Internet service.
Internet – the bane and the boon of information. We are now the most informed civilization ever, and the most uniformed/disinformed civilization ever.
Did anyone catch that the floater is putting in a one percenter into an important role. A one percenter of the anti-vaccination crowd. But, the transition team says “uh, no”. You can put in the anti-climate fools, but this one is really going to kill people and kill a lot of people fast. Climate change takes a few years. But one measles outbreak and children are killed today and those which live are suffering for their short lives after. We will see on this one.
rus putin could create a mini-constitutional crisis here by declaring just before the presidential swearing-in ceremony that he, putin, helped trump defeat Clinton at the deadbeat’s request, in a trade for Ukraine plus a free hand in Syria and Libya.
It could be a maxi-constitutional crisis if potty-put demonstrated that pence, ryan the liar, mcconnell, and prince rebus were all in on it, and none of the deadbeat’s cabinet picks had been ratified yet.
What I’ve seen is minimal, but from what I see the Senate needs more trial lawyers. None of these idiots have a clue how to think on their feet and ask a follow up question.
And all of this comes as a surprise how?
“Oh there is so much to think about. And. And not one of the scenerios includes his voters.”
bbronc, who knows, just possible (not likely) drumpf actually meant what he said about replacing Obamacare with universal health care (and of course it will thence and forever be known as twitcare), thus benevolently repaying the peons for their devotion, simultaneously stick it to establishment gopers and relieve employers/corps/business the headache of providing employee benefits.
that “golden shower” — just another example of republican trickle down theory
🙂
fox:
During the Trump administration, the Office of the First Lady is reportedly going to be changed to the Office of the First Family. It may signal the emergence of dual administration roles for the two most important women in Trump’s life: daughter Ivanka and soon-to-be First Lady, Melania.
[….]
Melania’s partial withdrawal from campaigning coincided with First Daughter Ivanka’s rise. She announced Wednesday her leave of absence from The Trump Organization as well as from her apparel and accessories business. Her reported intention at the White House is to help level the playing field for female entrepreneurs and job creators.
new office of first family begets new acronym OFF… as in “off with their heads” shouts the red queen
We have an incoming “President” who is either a Russian stooge or American traitor: pick one. No class, no real political party affiliation, except he’s glommed onto Republicans, who have likewise glommed onto him, and maybe he is into urination and nation building.
On Sunday, we went to a lecture sponsored by the local Freethinkers: “Empathy in the Age of Trump.” Because it was sponsored by the Freethinkers, a very articulate visiting philosopher explained to us how we need to cultivate, understand and show empathy to Trump voters in our midst. That’s right, I need to venture out and beg their pardon and guidance. (We all do.)
Why? Because, and this was the professor’s analogy (and she has a newborn): Trump is disgusting like a dirty diaper. Wouldn’t that make a great book title!
However, most people agree that dirty diapers are disgusting. (Given recent “leakage” maybe Trump does not find dirty diapers disgusting. That’s for the CIA to find out, and pronto.) So, when we are disgusted by something (or someone) we can’t think rationally. We must aim for anger, not disgust. Anger allows rational thought to travel through our heads, and that allows us to communicate with Trump voters. The rest is presumably gravy, as in we’ll feel their pain and finally have Trump enlightenment.
Yes, all will be revealed when we cease to view Trump as a dirty diaper.
I just don’t think I am capable of that.
I saw bits of his “press conference” yesterday, where he lied, walked on the press, American citizens, and lied some more. And then “gifted” us with money from his hotels, money we can’t prove he’ll donate because he won’t comply with the Office of Congressional Ethics and show us his tax returns. He won’t do anything President-Elects normally do, except apparently, assume charge. He’s willing to do that.
But I need to show empathy? I need to empathize with citizens who voted for this guy? I need to cultivate them? Understand their reasoning?
I don’t think I can get past the image of a dirty diaper and now, Russian prostitutes urinating on beds. But I will hand it to Trump, he’s changing the political discourse.
Just thinking that Herman Cain chose the wrong year to run. Secretary of ….
Meanwhile, Rick Perry & Ben Carson soon join the Cabinet. If only this were a comedy sketch & not reality.
long excerpt from ny times via msn: How a Lurid, Unverified Dossier Became a Crisis for Donald Trump
The story began in September 2015, when a wealthy Republican donor who strongly opposed Mr. Trump put up the money to hire a Washington research firm run by former journalists, Fusion GPS, to compile a dossier about the real estate magnate’s past scandals and weaknesses, according to a person familiar with the effort. The person described the opposition research work on condition of anonymity, citing the volatile nature of the story and the likelihood of future legal disputes. The identity of the donor who funded the effort is unclear.
Fusion GPS, headed by a former Wall Street Journal journalist known for his dogged reporting, Glenn Simpson, most often works for business clients. But in presidential elections, the firm is sometimes hired by candidates, party organizations or donors to do political “oppo” work — shorthand for opposition research — on the side.
It is routine work and ordinarily involves creating a big, searchable database of public information: past news reports, documents from lawsuits and other relevant data. For months, Fusion GPS gathered the documents and put together the files from Mr. Trump’s past in business and entertainment, a rich target.
After Mr. Trump emerged as the presumptive Republican nominee in the spring, the Republicans no longer wanted to finance the effort. But Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton were very interested, and Fusion GPS kept doing the same deep dives into Mr. Trump’s record, but on behalf of new clients.
In June, the tenor of the effort suddenly changed. The Washington Post reported that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked, apparently by Russian government agents, and a mysterious figure calling himself “Guccifer 2.0” began to publish the stolen documents online.
Mr. Simpson hired Mr. Steele, a former British intelligence officer with whom he had worked before. Mr. Steele, in his early 50s, had served undercover in Moscow in the early 1990s and later was the top expert on Russia at the London headquarters of Britain’s spy service, MI6. When he stepped down in 2009, he started his own commercial intelligence firm, Orbis Business Intelligence.
The former journalist and the former spy, according to people who know them, had a similar dark view of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a former K.G.B. officer, and the varied tactics he and his intelligence operatives used to smear, blackmail or bribe their targets.
As a former spy who had carried out espionage inside Russia, Mr. Steele was in no position to travel to Moscow to study Mr. Trump’s connections there. Instead, he hired native Russian speakers to call informants inside Russia and made surreptitious contact with his own connections in the country as well.
Mr. Steele wrote up his findings in a series of memos, each a few pages long, that he began to deliver to Fusion GPS in June and continued at least until December. By then, the election was over, and neither Mr. Steele nor Mr. Simpson had a client to pay them, but they did not stop what they believed to be very important work. (Mr. Simpson declined to comment for this article, and Mr. Steele did not immediately reply to a request for comment.)
The memos described two different Russian operations. The first was a yearslong effort to find a way to influence Mr. Trump, perhaps because he had contacts with Russian oligarchs whom Mr. Putin wanted to keep close track of. According to Mr. Steele’s memos, it used an array of familiar Russian tactics: the gathering of “kompromat,” compromising material such as alleged tapes of Mr. Trump with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel, and proposals for business deals attractive to Mr. Trump to win his allegiance.
The goal would probably never have been to make Mr. Trump a knowing agent of Russia, but to make him a source who might provide information to friendly Russian contacts. But if Mr. Putin and his agents wanted to entangle Mr. Trump using business deals, they did not do it very successfully — Mr. Trump has said he has no major properties inside Russia.
The second Russian operation described was recent: a series of contacts with Mr. Trump’s representatives during the campaign, in part to discuss the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta. According to Mr. Steele’s sources, it involved, among other things, a late-summer meeting in Prague between Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, and Oleg Solodukhin, a Russian official who works for Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization that promotes Russia’s interests abroad.
By all accounts, Mr. Steele has an excellent reputation with American and British intelligence colleagues and had done work for the F.B.I. on the investigation of bribery at FIFA, soccer’s global governing body. Colleagues say he was acutely aware of the danger he and his associates were being fed Russian disinformation. Russian intelligence had mounted a complex hacking and leaking operation to damage Mrs. Clinton, after all, and a similar operation against Mr. Trump was an obvious possibility.
But much of what he was told, and passed on to Fusion GPS, was very difficult to check. And some of the claims that can be checked seem problematic. Mr. Cohen, for instance, said on Twitter on Tuesday night that he has never been in Prague; Mr. Solodukhin, his purported Russian contact, denied in a telephone interview that he had ever met Mr. Cohen or anyone associated with Mr. Trump. The president-elect on Wednesday cited news reports that a different Michael Cohen with no Trump ties may have visited Prague and that the two Cohens might have been mixed up in Mr. Steele’s reports.
But word of a dossier had begun to spread through political circles. Rick Wilson, a Republican political operative who was working for a “super PAC” supporting Marco Rubio, said he heard about it in July, when an investigative reporter for a major news network called him to ask what he knew. Other campaigns and super PACs were also developing more limited opposition research into Mr. Trump’s Russia ties.
By early fall, some of Mr. Steele’s memos had been given to the F.B.I. and to journalists. An MI6 official, whose job does not permit him to be quoted by name, said that in late summer or early fall, Mr. Steele also passed the reports he had prepared on Mr. Trump and Russia to British intelligence. Mr. Steele was concerned about what he was hearing about Mr. Trump, and he thought that the information should not be solely in the hands of people looking to win a political contest.
John Cleese referred to the upcoming Cabinet as a Pirate ship. I respectfully disagree, as real Pirates had a code.
OK, brilliant minds aka Trail Mixers, what exactly is the next Cabinet?
May God have mercy on our souls.
Amen.
I didn’t watch any of the fake reality shows yesterday. I was immersed in paintings of Mt. Washington done in the 1800s. Methinks I made a wise choice.
oh yeah…. just when you think things can’t get any raunchier than someone campaigning for prez talking about his “hand size”…. well…. it does….
PEEEEEEHAAAAAAW!
Craig
When someone else is doing your work for you get out of the way and let them finish.
The Never Trump folks are getting ready to spank Mr Trump. Right now it looks like Tillerson is going down in flames and the Democrats don’t have to dirty their hands in the least. Isn’t Rubio such a baby faced hit man?
Jack
As to your worry about Big Oil taking over our foreign policy. Really? As Colin Powell found out in this modern era the SOS is little more than an errand boy for the national security advisor and his staff. Suitable for delivering messages to tin pot dictators, especially those in the senate. For Clinton to have made it an important policy forum demonstrates her ability to build coalitions of like minded people with in the white house.
Also, if you need to lie to the American people who better than the SOS
Jack
Trump ‘compromising’ claims: How and why did we get here?
By Paul Wood BBC News, Washington
The significance of these allegations is that, if true, the president-elect of the United States would be vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians.
I understand the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat – or compromising material – on the next US commander in chief. At the same time a joint taskforce, which includes the CIA and the FBI, has been investigating allegations that the Russians may have sent money to Mr Trump’s organisation or his election campaign.
Claims about a Russian blackmail tape were made in one of a series of reports written by a former British intelligence agent, understood to be Christopher Steele.
[….]
And the former MI6 agent is not the only source for the claim about Russian kompromat on the president-elect. Back in August, a retired spy told me he had been informed of its existence by “the head of an East European intelligence agency”.
Later, I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file – they would not speak to me directly. I got a message back that there was “more than one tape”, “audio and video”, on “more than one date”, in “more than one place” – in the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and also in St Petersburg – and that the material was “of a sexual nature”.
Ya know given all that has come out about DT, just sex with a prostitute would be more of a reputation enhancer not a very big deal. So what would he have had to have done to be worthy of blackmail Be was caught paying for it?
Jack
Amazing only one of the appointees is officially called “Mad Dog”
Here’s what the Press Democrat has to say about trump’s press coverage
what are other local papers saying?
PD called him a liar
Tiller son’s power wouldn’t lie in being SOS……it would lie in being an oil monkey.
The office of SOS would just be an innocent bystander…..collateral damage……
There’s those kids who like to build forts in the woods, and there are those other kids who like to tear them down when they find them.
both, for the most part, seem to retain their enthusiasm for said endeavors as they grow older
Pompeo seems a grovelling brown noser in his q&a
I would place him 6th on my list
Would that Pompeo will get buried under a lava-hot cascade of scrutiny.
Andrea Mitchell won’t play hardball with anyone from Trumptown but she is happy to attack Biden
nbc circling the drain newswise has become a bunch of Trump Co asslickers
As people start to realize just what has been elected to the Presidency this is what happens in less than a month.
Craig
“Mad Dog” is what others who don’t know him call him. He may be one of the few worthy Trump appointees. Of course I favor people with 3000 book libraries that are actually read. Or as one introducer said, he doesn’t have to go to Wikipedia to look up identity of Thucydides
Tillerson has dead eyes
When examining current behavior before making a judgement I ask myself WWDJTD Since we know he would have made public the buzz feed story if it were about an opponent – I say let’s see some more
They are taking Noregard to the woodshed and for sure putting him on notice
Tillerson busted for perjury
Boy Howdy the wheels are coming off the bus and they haven’t left the garage
and now DOJ is investigating the FBI for their behavior during the election
Sturg,
while Exxon may have some ferocious demons on it’s board even the Antichrist would throw in the towel rather than deal with the bureaucrats at the State department.
Jack
76-deg on my porch. Guess I can go out and get yesterday’s mail and the morning papers.
here’s story to which kgc refers above
from huffpo: DOJ Watchdog To Review FBI Director James Comey’s Handling Of Clinton Investigation
The Justice Department’s internal watchdog will review the actions taken by FBI and DOJ officials in connection with an investigation into Hillary Clinton, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said Thursday.
Horowitz said the review was being conducted in response to requests from member of Congress, outside organizations and members of the public. It will review “allegations regarding certain actions” by the Department of Justice and the FBI “in advance of the 2016 election.”
FBI Director James Comey has faced extensive criticism for his handling of the Clinton matter.
From a press release, here are the issues the inspector general will look at:
Horowitz’s office said the review “will not substitute the [Office of the Inspector General’s] judgment for the judgments made by the FBI or the Department [of Justice] regarding the substantive merits of investigative or prosecutive decisions.”
“Tillerson busted for perjury”
kgc, I can’t find anything on tillerson being arrested for perjury. do you have a link on that?
busted in this context = caught lying
http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/01/11/trumps-secretary-state-pick-just-lied-oath-backfired-beautifully/
busted has more than one definition
Trump’s got a new fanboy another person who kills reporters the president of Turkey
/www.truthexaminer.com/2017/01/breaking-trumps-secretary-of-state-nominee-rex-tillerson-busted-in-huge-lie-during-senate-confirmation-hearing/
This must-read WaPo obit was in our local paper this morning. The subject was an amazing woman.
Wee-weeleaks continues. Yesterday’s publicity stunt called a trumpence press conference was complete with applause by his staffers (why not run a soundtrack during his pressors complete with applause, boos and laughter?) and the stinging rebuke of CNN (via Acosta). The same CNN of generous and free press time for his campaign, the same CNN with producer Noah Gray who joined trumpence’s Jason Miller on the strip club visit in vegas, the same CNN with dana bash who fancied herself as judith miller when trumpence would call her and drip info — now denied access to the top man. trump came to his publicity stunt with a table of old analog piles of paperwork for show and he did get to use his famous line ‘you’re fired’ when talking about his sons. Vaudeville never looked better.
One of the more disgusting parts of the Trump dossier – that it was done to defile a room Obama had stayed in
Donald Trump ‘hired prostitutes to defile Moscow hotel room where Obamas slept’
Mirror.co.uk · 1 day ago
bw, all the presser was missing were the june taylor dancers. .. they did do a lady lawyer walk on announcing the big act.
and away we go
‘hired prostitutes to defile Moscow hotel room where Obamas slept’
imagine the effect that would have had on the election if comey had released that investigation instead.
whether the wee-weeleaks from buzzfeed are true or not…how is it any different from pizzagate which almost had deadly consequences? trumpence was the master of fake news (flynn). kushners komputer kids (kkk) did a great job with the election. trump won by 70,000 votes in 3 battleground states to win the electoral college. Compare that to the difference in the popular vote between Clinton and trump. This is how we ended-up with trump and his band of malady makers. Many will be confirmed as cabinet members. I stand by my assessment that trump is just like durst without the smoke and drink, but bannon and company had a mastery of the digital and focused on the gammer — gammergate. now bannon is the new fbi — federal breitbart instigators. forget about comey…his days a top cop appeared to be numbered.
yep, now we’ll see replays of all those past escapades crawling out of the woodwork that were ignored prior to election.
this one from rawstory
‘He bangs Russian people’: Reporter confronts Trump with sex allegations in 2001 Howard Stern tape
as long as we are reviewing last year’s antics, look at tulsi gabbard…she wants to throw her hat in the ring and no one wants it! when I saw her visiting trumpunzel at the trump tower? memories of her and the DNC.
patd…trump does have some of the Rockettes to dance for him. Their owner dolan contributed big to trumpence.
bw, vaudeville faux show
the hill: Trump barred reporters from examining stacks of folders at press conference
President-elect Donald Trump
Donald Trump on Wednesday wouldn’t allow reporters to see piles of documents displayed at his press conference, which he and lawyers said detailed his plans to disentangle himself from his business.
“These papers are just some of the many documents I’ve signed turning over complete and total control to my sons,” Trump said during his press conference, standing next to a table stacked with manila folders.
[….]
CNN reported that the press was not allowed to take a closer look at the documents. The Associated Press similarly reported that Trump staffers blocked journalists from looking at the folders.
maybe tulsi gabbard was auditioning to dance.
tillerson will be confirmed but you can’t get that gasoline stink out of him.
Is Gabbard an anti-vaxxer — I think that job went to Robert Kennedy III or IV
It just went through my mind that Joe Biden has been droning on forever, now, with no commercial interruptions. That courtesy isn’t extended to Trump. Why? He hasn’t earned it. Asshole
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