Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/17/justice-department-hands-trump-russia-probe-to-special-counsel?via=twitter_page

DOJ names robert mueller as special counsel to investigate trump/russia

just now from Washington Post

KIEV —A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016 exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_no-name%3Apage%2Fbreaking-news-bar&tid=a_breakingnews&utm_term=.c5d03a541565

paul ryan fighting the good fight as ever

So with Mueller on board, does that mean the House and Senate stop what they're doing?

xp holy shit lol

xpost no, they'll keep going. i expect, though, that mueller's appointment will mean that the republicans who finally started to come around on naming some sort of special counsel or committee will now backtrack and say that mueller's appointment means that everything is fine and nothing further is needed

This feels like surfacing for a breath of fresh air.

Now a long, long, frustrating wait.....

Mueller seems like a solid choice, no?

this wapo story is fucking incredible

The situation was difficult, Ryan said. Groysman, he said, had told him that Russian-backed forces were firing 30-40 shells into Ukrainian territory every day. And the prime minister described Russian tactics that include “financing our populists, financing people in our governments to undo our governments.”

Ryan said Russia’s goal was to “turn Ukraine against itself.” Groysman underlined Russia’s intentions, saying “They’re just going to roll right through us and go to the Baltics and everyone else,” according to Ryan’s summary of the prime minister’s remarks in the recording.

“Yes,” Rodgers said in agreement, noting that the Russians were funding non-government organizations across Europe as part of a wider “propaganda war.”

“Maniacal,” Ryan said. “And guess, guess who’s the only one taking a strong stand up against it? We are.”

Rodgers disagreed. “We’re not…we’re not…but, we’re not,” she said.

THIS IS HAPPENING HERE RIGHT NOW

when it's 90 degrees tomorrow, in May, in NYC, we're probably going to be telling funny jokes still

well, aside from the shelling xp

let's get that phone back in that baby-brained idiot's hands ok?

Prediction--Republicans will demand that Mueller also look into Benghazi and Hillary's emails.

— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) May 17, 2017

I thought that was like a West Wing roleplay account but apparently this Bruce is a real person

some crackpot congressman asked for those exact items, also tossed in the IRS targeting conservatives to make it better.

It's pretty certain that Trump does not know what a special counsel is. How receptive will he be to suggestions he not talk shit or tweet about the special counsel? (Answer: there's a first time for everything, but likely not very.)

yeah he's lit. Bartlett worked for Reagan, Kemp, Bush Sr., Ron fucking Paul, but now is a total libtard I guess. i used to read his blog in early Tea Party days and he was very critical of Republicans. i follow him on twitter & facebook now and he's full on burn the fucking GOP to the ground and piss on the ashes

xposts

That whole Ryan/Rodgers exchange. I knew the former was totally craven, but that is totally beyond the pale.

hey, c'mon now, let's be reasonable and not rush to judgment

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalmemo.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F07%2FPaulRyanWorkout.jpg&f=1

xpost
I wonder who taped Ryan, Rogers, and the others saying those things? The article is headlined 'Kiev' but the taping was on capitol hill after a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister. Was it Unkrainian intelligence? The whole article is surreal

god please why cant this chump pay at the polls

In May 2016, McCarthy signed up to serve as a Trump delegate at the Republican National Convention, breaking ranks with Ryan who said he still wasn’t ready to endorse the candidate. McCarthy’s relationship with Trump became so close that the president would sometimes refer to him as “my Kevin.”

Holy shit @ that wapo article

I kind of don't care about it tbh. Were the craven instincts of these assholes really in doubt for anyone who's been paying attention?

there's a transcript as well

https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/national/read-the-transcript-of-the-conversation-among-gop-leaders-obtained-by-the-post/2209/

most people don't pay attention, and those of us who do, uh, a lot of us are going insane because this shit is bananas

idgi are you guys actually shocked that GOP guys were willing to set aside their concerns/what they suspected about Trump and Russia to get him elected?

oh my stars n garters

I'm surprised there are recordings of Paul Ryan explicitly saying that yes.

it is odd that this was recorded and not leaked until now, I'll give you that

personally? i wouldn't be shocked if i found out paul ryan was literally sacrificing babies to satan. whether or not i, personally, am suffering a case of the vapors over this is not of a great deal of importance.

yeah, was going to say it's not so much that anything they said was shocking (although kind of, even for those dirtbags), but that they got themselves taped saying it. makes me wonder what else is out there

There's knowledge you accumulate by drawing your own conclusions over time, and there's knowledge you come across in a way that corroborates the former so irrefutably that it's still kind of stunning, even if you already connected the pertinent dots.

Yeah for real. We have the speaker of the house on tape talking like the fucking godfather.

Looking forward to the box set of recordings tbh

what is good about this is it will drive a wedge between Trump and Ryan/McCarthy. Trump will be pissed that they shit-talked him - laughing at him! - behind his back, *and* that their shit is leaking to the press too. Can't be trusted! Sad!

from a ways back

go against the president and they will be primaried by a red-hat loon. support the president through thick and thin and the small portion of their republican constituents who haven't drunk the kool-aid are enough to tip the margins and hand the seat to a democrat. this is a good situation imo

Yeah otm. There are myriad ways in which this kerfuffle is good even if impeachment and/or a chamberflip are long shots. It distracts, it disrupts, it hinders the GOPgenda, and makes vulnerable legislators nervous. All are things that we can be cautiously optimistic about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller

Shakey eats this shit for breakfast, man up u nellies

the closing exchange is almost literally

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vaxB4ChFTnQ/maxresdefault.jpg

The 'Putin pays' remark is clearly a joke, but the conversation is still completely fucked up. They knew all along, they knew that something was off, and they knew that the DNC hacks was obviously Russia. And they still played dumb for half a year. For fucks sake, everyone knew, the evidence was there from the beginning.

But this also complicates the GOP attempt to distance themselves from the Trump-Russia stuff, so much so that I'd almost expect a Trumpkin to have leaked it.

Good. I hope Trump suicide bombs the GOP.

Trump's approval ratings have gone into the toilet. The collective average today was -15 (during the fake ACA repeal it'd gone to like -9)

Xpost cool thanks for inviting the NSA to ILX Trees

Where's Ken Starr??

The nsa are good with metaphors xp

Trump tonight announced KFC chicken the new national bird

the nsa (or, you know, whatever intelligence agency is applicable) would have to be compiling a file on something like 60% of americans at this point if that's their standard. i don't envy them their paperwork burden. what are you going to say- don't say stupid shit like that or you might wind up president?

would have to be compiling a file on something like 60% of americans at this point ... i don't envy them their paperwork burden.

Automation[1] or automatic control, is the use of various control systems for operating equipment such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers and heat treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering and stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications and vehicles with minimal or reduced human intervention. Some processes have been completely automated.

Damn the Automation