US Politics February 2019: This is one of the great losers of all time.

I can't believe I still have to hear those names in 2019

good morning!

and things are looking worse for FIU's former law school dean and Trump's labor secretary

Everything's been in plain sight the whole time:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0BZbhSXQAU6sxI.jpg

(From the Michael Lewis book.)

i think that exchange was in the woodward book too

BREAKING: New York state prosecutors have put together a criminal case against Manafort that they could file quickly if Trump pardons him https://t.co/tr7cPP4mqv

— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) February 22, 2019

BREAKING:

Dog shows @AOC affection pic.twitter.com/4ccalNWH9Q

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) February 22, 2019

re: the mueller report and whether or not it will be made public, this reader email to TPM makes a good point:

As you’ve written previously, it seems likely that AG Barr is going to try to do what he can for President Trump, within certain limits of professional reputation, responsibility, etc. It probably wasn’t that surprising, therefore, when he made public comments that suggested that he wouldn’t necessarily make the Mueller report (whatever there is) public in its entirety, particularly if there was information that was derogatory about uncharged individuals (e.g. President Trump or members of his family).

But what I was struck by this evening was the question of what happens if it goes the other way? What if, despite the suspicions of many of us, Mueller concludes that there really *wasn’t* any coordination or attempted coordination between the institutional Trump Campaign and Russia (and perhaps that Manafort was essentially freelancing for his own benefit)?

In that case, wouldn’t we expect the WH position to be that they would *want* the report released in its entirety? After all, the President appears to care much more about personal vindication than anything else, even if it means throwing some other “uncharged individual’ lower down on the totem pole under the bus a bit. (Or even ignoring what may be real national security equities in keeping portions of the report secret, as with the Nunes Memo.) And even making the somewhat unrealistic assumption that the President manages not to expressly communicate that desire to the AG, it would have to be blazingly obvious to the AG on his own.

But if that’s true, then it seems like there’s an implicit tell. If the report isn’t released (or immediately leaked), it’s presumably because there’s *something* derogatory about the President or his closest associates. The alternative, that the AG has decided to take a stand on principle, against the President’s wishes, when the substantive result of the Mueller investigation is to clear the President just seems too unrealistic to credit.

I assume the administration will claim total vindication no matter what.

Of course, but the reader is making a different point

tremendous

I call him, “Bernie carry the 1” because like any socialist, his math never makes sense.

Final Thoughts: https://t.co/wM69wArVin

— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) February 22, 2019

what the fuck is a Tomi Lahren and why is it being paraded in front of me?

actual moron

good replacement zing:

I call him, "Bernie carry the 1" because like any socialist, his math means you'll wind up carrying the financial burden for someone else.

'paraded in front of me' is no match for 'being rammed down my throat'

per wikipedia, "Traditionally, carry is taught in the addition of multi-digit numbers in the 2nd or late first year of elementary school."

Complete Roger Stone transcript. It's a hoot. Ideally this is what Trump inner circle will ultimately face, just another asshole who has spent his life being an asshole, suddenly forced to face facts and the law in a public forum where there is no room for bullshit:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5746261/USA-v-Stone-2-21-19-HEARING-TRANSCRIPT.pdf

#BREAKING: A Senior DOJ official tells Fox News, "Any reporting that Special Counsel Mueller's report will be delivered to the Department of Justice next week are incorrect” - via @JakeBGibson

— Sean Langille (@SeanLangille) February 22, 2019

Note: We'll actually get a far better sense of where Mueller's at tonight w/Manafort filing.

If he continues to redact big swaths (except wrt the other DOJ investigation), he's not done.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) February 22, 2019

we are actually in hell

well, yeah

i had been wondering about that persistent smell of burning flesh and screams of agony, but i just chalked it up to meateaters and the the aftereffects of the financial crisis

"If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you." - Trump, to his beleaguered toilet

the transcript makes it clear that Stone's defense is basically, being a dangerously inflammatory dickhead in public is how i make a living

^^^ yep. This is a smackdown for the ages:

After he apologized, he continued talking every single day. So what will get him to stop talking, other than a court order?

This might have been my fave:

THE COURT: ...Now you're telling me somebody else found more than one image and you chose this one, is that correct?
THE DEFENDANT: Just randomly, yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You closed your eyes and picked?
THE DEFENDANT: No, I just -- I do ten of these a day. I'm -- I'm trying to struggle with the situation.
THE COURT: Randomly does not involve the application of human intelligence.

#ELB: Breaking: North Carolina State Court Rules State Voter ID Constitutional Amendment is Void Because Enacted by a Racially Gerrymandered Legislature; Not Clear if Ruling Will Stand https://t.co/XQmoGIVlve

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) February 22, 2019

if this stands, which i can't imagine, it would overturn essentially anything the illegitimately elected general assembly tried to enact

No, no, no, you don't understand, your honor,fixisin and Obama-appointed judge are the names of my dogs!

xpost that's a pretty wild decision! :o

if this stands, which i can't imagine, it would overturn essentially anything the illegitimately elected general assembly tried to enact

― mookieproof, Friday, February 22, 2019 3:02 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fuckin what

I'm all for free and fair elections but like if a legislature sits it sits!

that said, y'know, why not?

You go to law with the legislature you have, like Chick Deney said.

(But the head spins with delicious fantasy alternate universes. If a racially biased legislature can't make laws that involve systemic racism, can we also ask about dudes making laws to control and regulate women for like 400 years...)

A little something. (SDNY office, re inaugural stuff, but also references to TrumpCo business and "insurance claims the company had filed over the years")

Breaking News: Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, gave prosecutors information about possible irregularities at the Trump family business https://t.co/zJIWeQv7vl

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 22, 2019

Irregularities? Did one turn a profit or something?

still got it

this seems a better explanation of that NC ruling: https://www.southernenvironment.org/news-and-press/press-releases/court-voids-two-constitutional-amendments

that seems like a narrower/more likely to stand version -- that an illegally constituted assembly cannot amend the constitution. but if the assembly itself was illegal, the line between what (other things) it was allowed and not allowed to do seems hazy

Classy

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/22/dianne-feinstein-sunrise-movement-green-new-deal

she fucking blows

bonus points for using the word "plurality" while looking a pre-teen in the eye, though

This Twitter thread has a version of the video that tells...a different story.

Here's the @SenFeinstein video threaded #DianneFeinstein To recap: she engaged on substance, told them she might vote "yes," and OFFERED ONE OF THEM AN INTERNSHIP. pt 1 pic.twitter.com/2Qgob2CH1V

— Tommy MMXIXtopher (@tommyxtopher) February 23, 2019

JFC she sounds like fucking Trump

she's still awful xp

unperson that's very disingenuous. are you kidding? i'll type out my dumb response if you want, but first just let me know whether or not you're kidding

one of the kids in that video you posted here, the one this guy tweeted

https://i.imgur.com/0KnY6wB.png

FEINSTEIN: "there's no way to pay for it"
SMALL CHILD:"we have tons of money going to the military. half our money, a lot of our money is going to the military"
FEINSTEIN: "well, i understand that. the United States government does a lot of things with the money. and they're important things. and you can't just go in saying 'we'll take hundreds of millions from there, and hundreds of millions from there."

"she engaged them on substance"? the small child is more informed on how our federal budget is allocated than the vast majority of adults

actually, you CAN go in there saying we'll take hundreds of millions from there, and hundreds of millions from there. Feinstein and all of her pals just voted for more than a billion in funding for protection from the invasion from Mexico. that didn't have to be spent that way. the green new deal would cost far more than that (while trying to fight a crisis that will cost FAR FAR more than that, even, if left unmitigated). there is plenty of money in the united states. it's locked up in the hands of a couple thousand billionaires who pay several million to financial advisors so that they can figure out ways to avoid paying tens of millions in taxes. what does Feinstein have to say about that? perhaps she should just fucking retire??

https://i.imgur.com/0KnY6wB.png

hay i'm capt. save a hat here to defend dianne fucking feinstein, who has a net worth of $94 million and doesn't give a shit about anything because she can just run away to her mansion at the end of the day, from children who are owning her

PLURALITY!

you, a child, may think that diane feinstein should support the green deal so that you have a chance of living in a world that isn't living hell when you're older

but what you, a child, do not know is that diane feinstein won with a plurality of the votes, by over 1 million, in fact