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

This is the key sentence negating all but the most severe claims of executive privilege:

"The deliberative process privilege disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred.”

The shortish version is that Ukrainian politics is dominated by half a dozen extremely rich oligarchs.

phew, good thing this model isn't replicated elsewhere

(interesting piece tho, thx for posting sv)

🚨Fiona Hill describes this scene:

In a White House meeting, Sondland tells Ukrainians they will get a Trump meeting if they open the investigations Trump wants. Then, Sondland follows the Ukrainians out of the meeting to privately make clear he's talking about Hunter Biden.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 15, 2019

"just in case you're confused, we're doing crimes here"

best part of this testimony is bolton calling the ukraine efforts, "whatever drug deal sondland and giuliani are cooking up in ukraine"

pretty funny. bolton should be invited to ilx.

lol i'm still worried he's going to come out of this looking like a patriot

i love how US Senators are now delivering the news with drudge sirens

can we get a quick list of who would have to be lying/committing treason in order for trump to be telling the truth

it is thousands of people

the deep state has a deep bench iirc

don't worry, those maverickin' GOP moderates in the Senate have got Trump's back!

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/465779-trumps-gop-impeachment-firewall-holds-strong

it was assumed that trump fired bolton because they didn't agree on...anything other than that he was on fox news and was on the tv and that trump liked that, at one time.

have to wonder if bolton reporting giuliani to white house lawyers may have played a role

Bolton would still kill us all if given half the chance, but he's a politician. He's survived this long in spite of being nuts. The rest are the Keystone Kops.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) October 15, 2019

So enjoyable that Rudy got half a million dollars for "business and legal advice" from a guy who was subsequently arrested at an airport. Apparently your "legal advice" sucks, dude.

For the record, I would happily give terrible legal advice to anyone for WAY less than that.

Heck, I'd be willing to tell a criminal to flee the country for more like $200K. A bargain.

RAND PAUL: If we're going to investigate Giuliani, then we should investigate Hunter Biden.@SRuhle: Does that mean we should investigate how Kushner's family got foreign money? Ivanka's Chinese trademarks?

RP: If we want to go down the road of self-destruction, we can do that. pic.twitter.com/4jqvRepoms

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 15, 2019

party motto is now I Know You Are But What Am I

Just today, I have seen Donald Trump's son, Ron Paul's son and Mitt Romney's niece speak out forcefully about how bad it is to use family connections to advance your career.

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) October 15, 2019

that wd be George Romney's son's niece

tbf, 22% of people under the age of 30 are related to the Romneys

cf. that episode of new girl where max greenfield convincingly passed himself off as "tagg romney"

xp was that via one of those conversion ceremonies

correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't all this Hunter Biden stuff investigated years ago?

Peter Navarro, Trump's trade adviser and chief cheerleader of his China policy, has apparently been quoting staunch China hawk "Ron Vara" in his books for years. But:

1. Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro.
2. Ron Vara doesn't exist.@tebartl digs in: https://t.co/6GJb24pjmq

— Megan Cassella (@mmcassella) October 15, 2019

the stand up comedy routine trump is doing at the "values summit" is--predictably--fucking insane

ok lol

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EG8G00pX0AAh-oI?format=jpg&name=large

Aw.

Rudy Giuliani is parting ways with the personal attorney representing him so far in matters related to the impeachment inquiry. Giuliani confirmed to CNN Tuesday that his current attorney, Jon Sale, is ending his representation of the former New York City mayor shortly.

— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) October 15, 2019

correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't all this Hunter Biden stuff investigated years ago?

The Republicans ran six investigations into Benghazi. QED.

Who is doing the dumping

May be mildly relevant that Rudy Giuliani is also in the middle of a nasty public divorce. (Again. Memorieees…)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/third-time-was-not-the-charm-rudy-giulianis-latest-divorce-is-bitter-expensive-and-very-public/2019/10/14/2e028b8a-ec3c-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html

he and trump live for that stuff though. get to be in the paper, get to feel victimized--life is good.

is THIS the giant dump that was prophesized on twitter in the late stages of the campaign, that someone or something has been holding onto for all this time, finally to be expelled?

What dump? Trump poop himself again?

The legendary Rick Wilson dump

I assume all the prophecied dump dumped out and did nothing.

the Rick Wilson thing was the Steele Dossier iirc

Are we playing the oldies today?

her strongest opponent just raised $3.2 million in the last quarter

Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-Maine) approval rating is deeply underwater about a year ahead of her reelection race, according to a new poll from the left-leaning firm Public Policy Polling.

Thirty-five percent of Maine voters approve of the job Collins is doing, while 50 percent disapprove. Collins trails a generic Democratic candidate 44 percent to 41 percent in the 2020 Maine Senate race, a drop from September when she led a generic Democrat 44 percent to 38.

Perhaps now the MSNBC crowd can stop inviting Claire McCaskill to moan about her Kavanaugh vote costing her the election when it's obvious Collins' vote is hurting her too.

i still need to figure out what to do with susancollins2020.com

i still need to figure out what to do with susancollins2020.com

Go with a classic:

goatse.jpg

Lost in that Giuliani lawyer ghosting him is that said lawyer informed Rudy that he needed an attorney with more criminal expertise!

the stand up comedy routine trump is doing at the "values summit" is--predictably--fucking insane

it's hard to be surprised in 2019, but that gives me the chills. he's full-on mad king. it's remarkable how he sounds like every paranoid tyrant ever

it's also disturbing how everything he is saying is met with cheers, laughs and encouragement

the "sir" tell is a definite

stopping at any point in that value summit thing and listening to anything for four minutes betrays his degree of unhingedness
i got some sort of a monologue about beautiful soldiers carrying caskets with wailing sisters on top. it's utterly mad.

Rudy openly defying the subpoena, I guess the whole "laws don't apply to Republicans" thing is really about to get tested

Carried in by sergeant at arms

the windows are being broken from inside the house

Others have noted there was actually a third guy indicted along with those Giuliani cronies, his current whereabouts unknown. Some folks theorizing that he is taking it easy in a nice hotel room right now courtesy the FBI.

Pelosi press conference imminent.