US Politics, March 2018: Why do people leave the White House for good?

i dunno why trump needs lawyers at all tbh, it's not like he pays any attention to them

plus he did nothing wrong, obv

I honestly don't get the line that's drawn here. I can't let my client testify because it'll soil my reputation? Like that hasn't happened already?

― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Thursday, March 22, 2018 11:16 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it's "i can't let my client testify because it means we're likely to lose and i don't like losing"

I honestly don't get the line that's drawn here. I can't let my client testify because it'll soil my reputation? Like that hasn't happened already?

― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Thursday, March 22, 2018 11:16 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it's "i can't let my client testify because it means we're likely to lose and i don't like losing"

xp these countless frivolous lawsuits don't file themselves, you know

more like the bucky dent
https://sullybaseball.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/img_1749.jpg?w=585

All good lawyer names up there with Ty Cobb

BREAKING: trump appoints kenny powers as new legal counsel

Bob, I love you, but you investigate like a dickhead.

lol

can I wear the mask from scream while I cross examine you from behind

I honestly don't get the line that's drawn here. I can't let my client testify because it'll soil my reputation? Like that hasn't happened already?

― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Thursday, March 22, 2018 11:16 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it's "i can't let my client testify because it means we're likely to lose and i don't like losing"

― gbx, Thursday, March 22, 2018 4:22 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's "I can't let my client testify because it's not in his legal interest, and as attorney I am the director of the legal strategy and permitted if not obligated to resign if my client insists upon not following my advice."

counsel can’t knowingly allow client to lie on the stand. which is why you don’t want to know from your client what you don’t to know. fortunately for Dowd, his client is the smartest guy in the room and would never inadvertently admit guilty acts.
― by the light of the burning Citroën, Thursday, March 22, 2018 4:42 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A bit more complicated than that, e.g., http://www.newyorklegalethics.com/simon-on-new-rules-rule-3-3a3-through-rule-3-3d/, but the suspicion that he will testify falsely is likely the bottom-line subtext of the advice not to testify and the withdrawal upon rejection of the advice.

I LOLed, 4 stars out of 5:

Can't help but think that if Ben Carson had been on the Titanic, he'd have yelled from a lifeboat "SORRY, MY WIFE DIDN'T ORDER ENOUGH LIFEBOATS."

— elizabeth (@Elizasoul80) March 21, 2018

he would've yelled dozily muttered, as if just waking from a nap

Fixed, but otherwise OTM.

Ah, morale.

Trump says that he himself is super popular, but he doesn't know if that'll help Republicans in 2018: "They say a lot of it's not transferable."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 22, 2018

that's what he says to the ladies

If he cremates himself and mails a little bit to each one that should do the trick. He should get a jump on it.

He's going to be the most popular president ever not elected again.

MADISON - Dealing a setback to Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans, a judge ruled Thursday the governor must call special elections to fill two vacant seats in the Legislature.

Walker declined to call those elections after two GOP lawmakers stepped down to join his administration in December.

His plan would have left the seats vacant for more than a year. Voters in those areas took him to court with the help of a group headed by Eric Holder, the first attorney general under Democratic President Barack Obama.

that's very good news. that particular legislative move, doing nothing, aka "the Garland maneuver", enrages me more than anything else.

it's a particularly awful combo of undemocratic, cynicism, cowardice, and (sometimes) effectiveness

Hey, even better:

Trump says that "they say" that whenever you see Trump's poll numbers, "add nine" and you'll get the correct number.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 22, 2018

pretty sad that even in his fantasy world he can't crack 50

the most hilarious part of that is it would still leave him with less than 50% approval

oops xpost

He's been using that math his entire adult life in reference to his micropenis.

Ten and a half inches of Teflon Dong.

Corey Robin on Yam-induced amnesia:

Donald Trump is making America great again — not by his own hand but through the labor of his critics, who posit a more perfect union less as an aspiration for the future than as the accomplished fact of a reimagined past....

Confronting the indecent Nixon, (Philip) Roth imagines a better McCarthy. Confronting the indecent Trump, he imagines a better Nixon. At no point does he recognize that he’s been fighting the same monster all along — and losing. Overwhelmed by the monster he’s currently facing, sure that it is different from the monster no longer in view, Roth loses sight of the surrounding terrain. He doesn’t see how the rehabilitation of the last monster allows the front line to move rightward, the new monster to get closer to the territory being defended. That may not be a problem for Roth, reader of Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again.” (Though even Beckett concluded with the injunction to “fail better.”) It is a problem for us, followers of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

https://harpers.org/archive/2018/04/forget-about-it/

Oh now THIS is funny.

This was an interesting exchange. Being interviewed by a guy whose central claim is that there is an anti-conservative free speech crisis on college campuses, Trump casually rejects the premise, says the issue is "highly overblown," limited to a small number of campuses. pic.twitter.com/agDTBtPCjT

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 22, 2018

Trump seemed to take the premise that it's hard to be a pro-Trump conservative on campus as a challenge to the idea that he is very popular.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 22, 2018

He's popular on "real campuses."

You know, the ones in real places. Where real Americans go to school.

As opposed to fake places, populated by fake Americans.

How do you know which ones are real and which ones are fake?

The ones where Trump is popular are real. The ones where he isn't popular aren't real. Because he's super popular!

Simple! Only brainless libs don't understand.

only campuses overrun by blacks and foreigners don't like the Trump

I'm starting to wonder if Trump and anyone who still gives a fraction of a fuck about what Trump says have mastered complex developmental skills such as object permanence. The Venn diagram of people who respond with a 'fuck yeah!' when Trump barfs out strings of random words and people who believe that peekaboo is an act of witchcraft is almost certainly a perfect circle.

This is the 5th largest point drop in Dow history
The Dow has dropped 724 points, or 2.9%, on trade war fears. It's the 5th largest point drop in history.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq have sunk about 2.5% each.

The first and second-worst single-day point declines came just last month. It fell 1,175.21 on February 5 and 1,032.89 on February 8.

Trump announced tariffs of about $50 billion worth of Chinese imports on Thursday afternoon. It's not clear which products will be hit, but the action is aimed at curbing China's troubling theft of US intellectual property.

the action is aimed at curbing China's troubling theft of US intellectual property

Which they will totally stop, now that Mr. Tough Guy is getting all tough and whatnot.

The US just needed a strong leader. FINALLY. #MAGA

thank goodness we have whoever that writer is to tell us what the tariffs are "aimed" at, otherwise we might think they were symbolic posturing intended to shore trump's image up as a hard-man of global politics

Someone should tell him China owns the "#" symbol, and that every time you use it they make a few pennies.

now witness the power of this fully operational narcissist

When I was gathering info for story on Trump thinking he doesn’t need anyone else anymore, one current adviser told me Trump is starting to see the White House as Trump Org https://t.co/hU6X5ZDPIl

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 22, 2018

Dowd apparently resigned in part because diGenova's coming on was an ego bruise raised conflict issues given that he reps (presumed cooperators) Clovis and Corallo.

Prince too. It's possible the representations are walled off within the husband-and-wife firm, assuming that's possible, but I don't believe anyone has represented that they are.

Seems poorly timed. Isn't Friday usually when these pennies drop?

I do kinda hope he engineers things such that he's all alone when he inevitability chokes on a hot dog or an errant quarter that someone would've otherwise slapped out of his hand before he was able to cram it into his mouth.

mcmasters is out. bolton is in.

the mcmaster

well goodnight USA, it was good while it lasted

At least congress to an extent did the complete opposite of what Devos wanted with this latest budget.

*rolls eyes*

One wise source just messaged that this is the final scene of The Godfather 1

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 22, 2018

More like III

Jake Tapper said as much to her, and she said 'no, I, all the renouncing of Satan.'

happier times

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/posteverything/201406/Images/BoltonBush.jpg&w=480

I know this whole thin has been upsetting from the get-go, but I find this to be genuinely, existentially frightening.

*thing*