US Politics, June 2018: This is a total goat rodeo.

Josh Marshal:

How do we react? I wrote yesterday that we can’t expect the courts to save us? That was clear with yesterday’s decisions. It’s even more overwhelmingly clear today. Litigation remains critical. But the fight for voting rights, for instance, will be won at the ballot box. Change will come through robust political coalitions — at the local and state level, building to the federal level. Everything else must follow the same path. We are on our own, left to our own devices. The history, whatever mistakes, misfortunes and interventions, is simply the terrain we now grapple with.

Coming off the brutal 2004 election, George Bush was reelected with his Republican majorities after an unexpected midterm election pick-up in 2002. There were numerous articles and even books explaining the Republicans’ “permanent majority,” a mix of wedge issues, money and geography which locked in a Republican majority something like forever. Two years later the entire Republican congressional party was shattered. Things change quickly – often dramatically and at the worst moment. I continue to believe that the Republican right is involved in an essentially defensive action, trying to lock in policy gains and anti-democratic obstacles to stave off an electorate which is growing and largely hostile to their views.

That’s an analysis, a prediction. But predictions and analyses can be wrong. We don’t know the future. As an historian, I know we don’t even really know the past. I wrote this the day after President Trump’s election: “At such a moment I come back to a thought I’ve told family members at times of stress or grief. Optimism isn’t principally an analysis of present reality. It’s an ethic. It is not based on denial or rosy thinking. It is a moral posture toward the world we find ourselves in. If everything seems great, there’s no need for optimism. The river of good news just carries you along.”

I mean, I apologize because I already know people are going to yell at me for this, but at this point I see optimism as about as rational as climate change denial

WATCH: Our interview with former @ICEgov spokesperson James Schwab was interrupted by a surprise visit from government agents.@JamieYuccas reports ➡️ https://t.co/QlDGflrdP4 pic.twitter.com/4shmAqutD8

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) June 28, 2018

holy shit

https://i.imgur.com/Vn0U7D2.gif

love the tactical sunglasses the agent on the right is wearing

Ive turned off all feeds for stories, i cannot take the endless stream of shitnews with long long tails. Cant’t play right now. Cant do it.

Yeah, I'm self-imposing a news blackout while I drink beers and get sunburnt next week and I'm not sure when/if I'll return to it tbh. Like I can feel the stress taking a physical toll, and what the hell can I even do about shit like this ffs.

Taking no position on how good it doesn't or doesn't feel to post about criminal activity on ILX, it is not a good idea to do it for your own sake and I would recommend against it.

An email thread among my housemates, including a specific phrase uttered by one of them, was a key piece of evidence in a recent J20 trial.

I know but my coping mechanisms are all out of wack

(and the one who uttered the phrase wasn't the one on trial) xp

I'd make being a vulgar and incoherent crank at public comment sessions at city hall my new hobby but I've got a job

please be the new whats up bootlickers tho

starting to get a bad feeling that everyone's gonna walk because of this Strozk thing

not legally.. but the court of public opinion consists of morons so maybe

yeah legally I don't think this will have much impact

this is being overshadowed by the SC stuff afaict

Nate Silver on the David French line about a SCOTUS pick helping GOP enthusiasm:

But let me pick a few nits with French’s claim. One questionable assertion is his idea that “a new Supreme Court pick will galvanize the entire [Republican] base for months.” That may understate how many other stories the Supreme Court pick will compete with for attention. The news cycle moves very quickly these days, and Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court last year was a major news story for only a couple of weeks. The death of Antonin Scalia and the Republican refusal to consider Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland also did not gain much traction as a news story in the 2016 campaign given how much else was going on.

Perhaps, as the exit poll data implies, the Supreme Court was an overlooked issue in 2016 that was more important to evangelical voters and other parts of the Republican base than the media assumed. But it was not necessarily a top-of-mind issue to these voters. The exit poll question specifically prompted voters to think about the Supreme Court. But when Gallup and other pollsters ask open-ended questions about what issues are most important, the Supreme Court doesn’t really register. Nor does abortion, for that matter, with issues such as immigration and the economy rating as being much more important.

Also, assuming Trump has his choice confirmed by the Senate before the midterms, the Supreme Court will arguably be more of a backward-looking issue in 2018 than it was in 2016. I say “arguably” because Kennedy probably won’t be the last justice to retire under Trump; liberals Ginsburg and Breyer are retirement risks, as is conservative Clarence Thomas. Still, in 2016, voters were deciding on an open Supreme Court seat and not just the prospect of further vacancies.

I can't imagine Ginsburg retiring under these circumstances, she will go to the grave first.

She could become incapable of continuing in the job, it does happen to people at that age.

as morbid as it is john mccain is a comparison point here, until recently he still continued in the job despite being far worse off than rbg

I wish Thomas had retied yesterday.

xp, that's true, and her clerks can (and probably do) 95% of the work for her, they can just up it to 98% or whatever.

as morbid as it is john mccain is a comparison point here, until recently he still continued in the job despite being far worse off than rbg

it is truly upsetting that he remains alive, yes

well at least he got to stick his thumb in McConnell and Trump's eye over the ACA

People were mad at the Dems for applauding McCain when he returned to the chamber post diagnosis but I wonder if he would have done that solid re:ACA had they...I don’t know say done something overtly uncivil in that context.

So after they overturn Roe, will the GOP rallying cry be "vote for us, or they'll make abortion legal again?"

probably

definitely.

Are we going to have states, then, that keep flipping between illegal and legal?

Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election! Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t Shady James Comey and the now disgraced FBI agents take and closely examine it? Why isn’t Hillary/Russia being looked at? So many questions, so much corruption!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2018

Russia says it didn't happen. also why is no one looking at Hillary/Russia. DO SOMETHING!!

rockabye sweet shady james

God even when this asshole gets only good news for him and his asshole cronies all week it's whine whine whine. never hated anyone so much in all my goddamn life.

Because I will take small pleasures as the ship sinks:

Rod Rosenstein skillfully SMACKS DOWN Rep. Jim Jordan in a cinematic way…

“There’s no way to subpoena phone calls.”

Must watch: https://t.co/rAbWDIt1k1

— Jason K. Morrell (@CNNJason) June 28, 2018

xp
agreed. he's whining cause he's still scared tho, so that's my silver lining.

Given the non stop bullshit from the GOP, I see every incentive for the FBI to be exactly what they are being accused of being and work double-time to take these assholes down.

lol

xp

in the end I think these guys will all pay for fucking with the FBI, as has historically been the case

When was a case that the FBI got back at some government asshole? I don't know my history well enough.

When was a case that the FBI got back at some government asshole? I don't know my history well enough.

Ever hear of a guy called Mark Felt?

Ha, I was about to come back to post "besides Mark Felt!"

In his case, though, how was what he did payback? Payback for what? For Nixon breaking the law? But he did it under the guise of righteousness, not revenge. Right?

motivation is irrelevant

Well, your implication was that fucking with the FBI will get you fucked. Felt didn't need that prodding. But under this congress and administration, the FBI is being actively impugned.

The whole exchange with Jordan is in here, btw:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/06/28/jim-jordan-reveals-just-how-nutty-republicans-have-become/

have you heard of J. Edgar Hoover

wow @ that CBS This Morning clip

my my but the "libertarians" on facebook sure are quiet these days

Hoover was a thug who fucked with people *before* he was fucked with. Basically the sort of person the GOP is accusing many in the FBI of behaving like now. I'm just saying that the idea that the likes of Jordan or Nunes or whomever will get theirs for messing with the FBI is unfounded, unless the FBI has some actual evidence of criminal wrongdoing or the like. In which case the FBI would be taking them down regardless of their behavior. My point was that their behavior is so crazy and beyond the pale that it's all but daring the FBI to become what they are accused of being, an aggressive, conspiratorial off the leash bunch of plotters.

eventually everyone folds for the boss or gets folded. don't like it? better change that boss. clock is ticking.

Possibly already linked -- had to take a break from this thread for some calm -- but some fun here:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-inconvenient-legal-troubles-that-lie-ahead-for-the-trump-foundation

Civil trial in October and the judge has refused to delay the date at Trump's lawyer's request, while also pretty much telling them 'you know, you all should probably settle this.' Key bits:

Most private companies keep their internal financial information secret. The Trump Organization, though, is unusually opaque. Even now, despite all of the scrutiny it has faced, there is much we don’t know about how it raises funds, spends money, and functions internally.

A series of subpoenaed e-mails and a fascinating deposition offer a glimpse into the work of a mysterious figure, Allen Weisselberg, who has handled Donald Trump’s finances for as long as he’s had any. First hired by the President’s father, Fred Trump, Weisselberg has been the one steady presence in the Trump Organization for the entire period that Donald Trump has run the company. I have spoken to many current and former Trump Organization employees who have shared the same description of the company: it is a chaotic mess, in which projects are randomly distributed to in-house staff. A lawyer might be asked to negotiate a real-estate deal, an executive might be tasked with setting up a product-licensing arrangement. While there are traditional titles, such as general counsel or senior vice-president of operations, there is no standard business hierarchy. Trump, before he became President, would tell people what they should do with no clear regard for consistency. The currency of the place was always one’s proximity to the big boss, Donald Trump, so people didn’t tell colleagues which projects they were handling, out of fear that those colleagues might undermine them. I heard, repeatedly, that there were only two people who knew about every deal the company made: Trump himself and Allen Weisselberg. However, Trump, rather famously, rarely concerned himself with details and often forgot who had received which assignments and how different deals were structured.

Weisselberg’s testimony in the trial, then, could prove revealing. He is perhaps the only non-family member who knows the inner workings of the Trump Organization. Michael Cohen will be a key figure in understanding Trump’s recent business relationships with several overseas partners suspected of potentially engaging in money laundering, corruption, and sanctions violations. (A federal criminal investigation of Cohen includes more than four million business files that will soon be turned over to investigators and are likely to shed light on the company’s operations during the ten years that Cohen was involved.) But it is only Weisselberg who can recount the essence of the Trump Organization from the beginning of Donald Trump’s involvement: in the nineteen-seventies, when the company first discriminated against African-Americans; in the eighties, when Trump appears to have been in business with the New York mafia; in the nineties, when Trump’s casino was in violation of anti-money-laundering laws; and through the aughts, as Trump developed ties to many Russian and former-Soviet oligarchs and political figures.

opposition needs to get the story going NOW and CLEAR that all appointments under trump WILL BE REVERSED and ANNULLED in the event of his removal for cause. who's doing that story?