US Politics, October 2019 — I guess statement you could say with thread. I made a thread. The thread was PERFECT.

that's not fair to satan xxp

love asking Trump about happiness when he's barely containing his rage

the correct gotcha question is to ask him to explain the difference between medicare and medicaid.

it won't make any difference, but that's the best one imo.

I think I linked to this before, but it's good:

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/this-guy-truly-has-no-idea-what-hes-talking-about-1838500602

This sounds promising, he's independent of Pompeo and is volunteering info to Congress. Of course who knows what he has (possibly nothing)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/02/ig-giving-an-urgent-briefing-hill-called-out-politicization-harassment-state-this-summer/

yes, i'm trying to be cautiously optimistic about it. how long have they been meeting, now? keep waiting for the news to break

@Shakey/Karl:

I posted this last night (an eternity on this thread... but yet):
__________________________________________________________________

So which Steve Linick will show up tomorrow?

The unprofessional, flighty, politically vindictive one...

State Department Inspector General Steve Linick during the financial crisis targeted a whistleblower friend of mine, a whistleblower who is one of the most honorable men I know. From what I understand Linick is unprofessional, blows with the wind, and is politically vindictive.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) October 2, 2019

or the smart, honest, serious one:

I worked with Steve Linick, the State Department’s IG who has requested an urgent briefing with Congress, in the 1990s at the USAO. Smart, honest, and not a guy to mess with.
— MoatSnakeHat (@Popehat) October 1, 2019

I think I linked to this before, but it's good:

every Big Wet President piece by Roth is good, but this one is top three to date.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/464072-trumps-approval-ticks-to-up-to-highest-level-since-december

Manu Raju
@mkraju

"Lotta head scratching out of the IG briefing on the Hill, which the State IG conveyed was “urgent.” Raskin showed us a 40-page packet of what he describes as conspiracy theories and propaganda about Ukraine/Biden/ targeting former ambassador Yovanavitch."

Single polls are almost meaningless

rmde

xp

yeah lol his aggregate polling is garbage - 538's tracker (possibly the only semi-useful thing left on the site) has him at 41.5% approval, 53.7% disapproval

speaking of Roth: new piece on Trump's last TV show, Donald J. Trump's Fabulous World Of Golf. There's a video piece at the top and a short essay below - do watch the video, ignoring some pointless recreations, for the actual clips of what Donald J. Trump included about himself in the tv show about himself that he produced.

https://deadspin.com/down-a-hole-the-missing-scenes-of-donald-j-trumps-fab-1838707638

interesting article about Trump and Pence

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-involved-pence-in-efforts-to-pressure-ukraines-leader-though-aides-say-vice-president-was-unaware-of-pursuit-of-dirt-on-bidens/2019/10/02/263aa9e2-e4a7-11e9-b403-f738899982d2_story.html

Sweet. President pelosi by november 1st.

lol

I’m into it

All these fantasies of a world with no Democrats, you'd think Rs woulda realized their longevity has always required a foil to spar with

they’ll always have brown people

Not if they can help it

seems like Jeff Mason from Reuters is the only member of the WH press corps besides Jim Acosta to effectively challenge Trump in 3 years, there should be more of that

This is so freaking bananas I don't even know where to start pic.twitter.com/iaqTcTaF7q

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) October 3, 2019

I can't even keep up with all of this, but basically Rudy fabricated a bunch of evidence and Pompeo made the IG deliver it to Congress?

seems like it

xp yes sounds like it, it's all insane

By the way, Rudy is admitting to manufacturing White House logos and sticking them on non-White House documents and pushing the real government to act on them. https://t.co/8NEfRmvTXy

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) October 3, 2019

theyre like little boys playing wargames

what a bunch of dim-witted criminals

It's like playing chess with a dude who says his moves to himself out loud in advance and accuses you of cheating

I mean the IG included memos critical of the narratives in the materials, calling them fake narratives. I would put more money that this was the IG trying to remove himself from the situation early by dumping literally everything he had without comment.

xpost

Dim witted indeed but could Giuliani be prosecuted for that?

It's more like a chess game where all the pawns have to announce whether they actually respect the rules of the game or not, before the game itself can begin.

HAs Giulianin just been trying to work up his insanity defence over zealously?

Also I was hearing yesterday that the pretty much direct effect of the Trump shakedown being timed as it was is that Ukraine has gone to a meeting with Putin in a weakened position so it looks like the Western Ukraine area that Russia invaded is going tro be forced into a Russia influenced election to determine its future. & that the reason Zelenskyy was looking for a further arms deal at that time was to strengthen his position as regards this meeting which was going to happen at some point inevitably but under what he would have expected to be different circumstances.

Have you been railroaded by the criminal justice system for a crime you (winks knowingly) didn't commit? Then call me, Rudy Giuliani, right now. I will fight for you by going on national television, every single day, and explaining in great detail how I and your collaborators helped you to commit this so-called 'crime'. It's a defense strategy so batshit crazy that it just might work! Give me a call...right now.

You're not the only one to have that idea!

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-rudy-giuliani-fake-subway-ad-20191001-w2ii4l5egzaildggt2qrtk6enm-story.html

https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/gKNs8Azhf9ARgTaesSNWuFSbuNU=/800x600/top/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/U5ITHUNMQRHINDHMKN3SMUR5HE.jpg

I thought insanity defense just reduced the amount of sentence or the way it was served by showing diminished responsibility for one's actions. Might just mean he wound up in Bellevue instead of actual prison.
& the hinge-point would be knowing that he was already sunk so trying to control the way he was dealt with.

why is so rudy so desperate for trump's approval? he's put himself in legal jeopardy and tanked what was left of his reputation. he seems pathetic.

good morning!

as has been pointed out, Trump treated him like shit for years before their alliance xp

there is definitely some kind of obsessive psychology at work here. or he is being blackmailed.

Always assume projection with this crew. Their obsession with corruption and digging up dirt is just another sign that they're all hopelessly compromised by some entity or another.

In a world where a less successful Rudy wasn't engaged in high-level acts of senility like incuriously accepting 'Ukrainian' dirt he was handed without even asking for it and proudly blabbing about it to the world, he would be sitting by the phone in his rest home eagerly waiting to fork over his bank account information to anyone willing to half-ass their way through an IRS agent impersonation.

I think w/ Rudy it has everything to do with what happened to him in NYC.

Between his exploiting'leveraging of 9/11 and gestapo "quality of life" dictates he endeared himself to an increasingly gentrifed NYC. No doubt he planned on having airports and parks named after him. It's been an ugly, precipitous fall. He's roundly reviled in his hometown, and this is his last desperate grasp at getting some of that back.

iow He saw *another* outer borough septugenarian detested by New Yorkers figure out how to make a bunch of idiots outside the city love him, why not latch onto that guy

liking that take

It makes sense

LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH! pic.twitter.com/QQYTqG4KTt

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2019

And they say that a hero could save us

Another question about US President Ronald Reagan. Who has told him it would be treason even if Schiff lied to Congress about the transcript? Or even if they were falsifying evidence, doesn’t treason mean collaborating with an enemy?

President Ronald Reagan parrots strings of phonemes he's heard other people use. A spoonful of alphabet soup which miraculously forms a word isn't a sign of sentience or intention.