US Politics March 2019: “I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled”

please note how much time the Watergate conspirators served.

notable that the judge (TS Ellis), ronald reagan appointee, was also the one who recently made waves for being a complete dick to the team prosecuting manafort.

Manafort, "has lived an otherwise blameless life.”

What a crock of shit. Does this judge really have the brass to say he unaware of any crimes Manafort committed, apart from the eight counts for which he was indicted and found guilty by a jury, so therefore he's practically innocent? Gee, if you eliminate all his premeditated crimes from consideration, he's a heck of a nice guy!

"Forty-seven months is nothing to sneeze at," said the judge. "That's a very heavy sentence. You have to remember we're talking about a white guy here. He's not some fucking-" [bailiff dives across, knocking microphone away]

— Splitcoil (@Splitcoil) March 8, 2019

ALL the best blameless people

My God, Martha Stewart got a year for trading on a golf course stock tip ...

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 8, 2019

Without knowing anything else about Judge Ellis, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be a shame if he found out tomorrow that he has long-undiagnosed testicular cancer.

Also, so far Reality Winner is doing more time for trying to warn us about Russian meddling than anybody is for participating in it.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 8, 2019

No one with the last name of Trump is going to spend even five minutes in jail.

While light sentences aren't going to be surprising in the slightest, I had thought that there would be one fall guy that would receive a heavy sentence for the sake of appearances. But then I'd also thought Manafort might be that guy!

Xpost you mean he's not even gonna visit those guys who sacrificed their...

Aha!

lol ken starr

Just incredible hearing @JoeLockhart describe the differences between Robert Mueller, who has run the most tight-lipped operation in recent memory, and Ken Starr, who used to address the media from the end of his driveway.

As Lockhart spoke, Starr sat right across from him... pic.twitter.com/BpwuLfMLmR

— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) March 8, 2019

Lockhart might as well have blown Ken Starr, if just to repeat the Clinton years.

NEW SCOOP: Trump cheered Kraft’s team to Super Bowl victory with founder of spa where he was bustedhttps://t.co/CqsNwdNRqB

— julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) March 8, 2019

While light sentences aren't going to be surprising in the slightest, I had thought that there would be one fall guy that would receive a heavy sentence for the sake of appearances. But then I'd also thought Manafort might be that guy

It's insane. I wasn't really expecting serious consequences for most of these guys but Manafort is a lifelong criminal and a traitor to this country, who committed crimes while IN JAIL. He forced his wife to have sex with his buddies and his daughters changed their last name because they wanted nothing to do with him. He is the exact opposite of someone who is "otherwise an upstanding person". At this point it's like, why are we even doing any of this if the person who gets the harshest sentence is gonna be Reality Winner?

Oh man

when I used to work at investment banks people came to me a lot for exceptions to, like regulatory requirements. It was either always they wanted the "good guy exception" or the "he brings a lot of money to the firm" exception.

Reality Winner better get a ticker tape parade when she gets out.

wow who would have thought that trump would consort with sexual abusers

oh right everyone

(not dismissing the scoop, just saying he’s a fucking scumbag)

I found the discussion of Manafort's sentence on Twitter last night kind of annoying, not that I disagree with the position at all but there were A LOT of people jumping all over each other to point out that ACTUALLY Manafort's sentence is Fine, the bigger problem is that the entire justice system is insanely unnecessarily punitive. which is totally true, but c'mon guys, can't we all just shit on Manafort for an evening? (have to say I'm very glad to see that's what's happening on this board).

it's true, light sentences for people like Manafort will inevitably lead to reduced sentences for non-white people caught with $5 worth of marijuana

The Miami Herald reports:

Seated at a round table littered with party favors and the paper-cutout footballs that have become tradition at his annual Super Bowl Watch Party, President Donald Trump cheered the New England Patriots and his longtime friend, team owner Robert Kraft, to victory over the Los Angeles Rams on Feb. 3.

Sometime during the party at Trump’s West Palm Beach country club, the president turned in his chair to look over his right shoulder, smiling for a photo with two women at a table behind him.

The woman who snapped the blurry Super Bowl selfie with the president was Li Yang, 45, a self-made entrepreneur from China who started a chain of Asian day spas in South Florida. Over the years, these establishments — many of which operate under the name Tokyo Day Spas — have gained a reputation for offering sexual services.

Most Christian president ever.

Oh THIS is good:

https://www.axios.com/jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-security-clearance-leak-0a312b92-4a2d-4a70-a7fa-7fb7980d5305.html

The White House this week rejected the committee's request for documents on the process for granting security clearances to staffers.

But the House Oversight Committee in early February had already obtained the leaked documents that detail the entire process, from the spring of 2017 to the spring of 2018, on how both Kushner and Trump were ultimately granted their security clearances.

Kinda brilliant to get Cipollone stonewalling on record only for it to be the case they already had the documents.

lmao at omar’s comments on obama

I personally wouldn't characterize the situation exactly that way, I think "pretty face and a smile" is a little too glib, but absolutely 100% agree that pushback against Obama's cruelest and most draconian policies is warranted and frankly I'm very grateful to see someone willing to risk being a bit too strident the other way when the vast majority of mainstream liberal discourse bends over backwards to give him a pass.

couldn't find a chelsea manning thread, so

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning has been jailed for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating Wikileaks.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning to jail Friday after a brief hearing in which Manning confirmed she has no intention of testifying. She told the judge she "will accept whatever you bring upon me."

Manning has said she objects to the secrecy of the grand jury process, and that she already revealed everything she knows at her court martial.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/chelsea-manning-jailed-for-refusing-to-testify-on-wikileaks-1.4327902

why you gotta bring us down when Paul Manafort's out here living his otherwise blameless life?

mao at omar’s comments on obama

― PaulDananVEVO (||||||||), Friday, March 8, 2019 10:45 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
for reference

Omar says the “hope and change” offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world” on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor.

“We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” Omar says. “And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

My representative!

ilhan omar i luv u

Ilhan Omar is Dr. Morbius and I claim my 5

I really admire Omar's burn it all downess.

time is a flat horseshoe

wow AOC no longer the realest Congressperson

The amount of oxygen this controversy is sucking up is kind of frustrating

friendship ended with alexandria

now ILHAN is my best friend

I see that a typical response to Omar's criticism of Obama's "mirage" is that he was

wait for it...

NOT PERFECT

not like all those other presidents the movement admires

fuck presidents

People are really weird about Obama. There was a funny moment in the Patriot Act ep about student debt where Minhaj says "Barack Obama" and the audience all cheer. Then Minhaj goes on to explain how Obama helped create the current student debt crisis by making the DoE the lender and subsidizing the debt servicing industry

it's not weird to identify how a pol serves his corporate masters

lol I meant his stans are weird, like they've never looked into a single thing he did in office

but he was a ROCK STAR

that's not really so surprising though given what he represented as the first black president, plus his whole hope + change rhetoric, plus consideration of how most Democrats feel about his predecessor and successor.

Obama is still probably the most naturally talented politicians I've ever seen, often he'll give a speech and I'll have to remind myself why I don't really like him

it's weird and sorta hilarious how Dubya has been pretty much completely written out of right-wing orthodoxy in the past couple of years. meanwhile Reagan is still lionized. and it seems like the distinction is mostly just a matter of who Trump decided to bash.

Reagan was already a sort of fictional character while he was president

exactly

he may as well have been computer generated

For the rhetoric course I teach, my students have to analyze five pieces of oratory to see how they observe Ciceronian canons of rhetoric, among which are Reagan's farewell speech from the Oval Office, Trump's inauguration, and Michelle Obama's DNC speech. I played them in class.

I felt distinct waves of discomfort during Trump's; no one wanted to discuss it much. Lots of students know Reagan by name but had never seen him; several praised how "soothing" he sounded, how hopeful (this is the Shining City on the Hill speech). After Michelle O spoke, I felt the love in the room, a sense that Something Had Been Lost.