At the risk of stating the obvious, the July 2019 US Politics Thread is horse-sh*t

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/house-takes-step-towards-impeachment-with-mueller-doc-demand

somwhat buried in a request for docs but: "House Democrats are investigating whether to impeach President Trump, according to a Friday petition for a D.C. federal judge to release grand jury information from the investigation of former special counsel Robert Mueller.

“This Committee is conducting an investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment,” the filing reads.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) sent the petition for a tailored array of information from the Mueller investigation to D.C. chief judge Beryl Howell, who will decide whether to release the protected material to Congress."

"A word you don't hear too much is the word 'England,'" Trump says while touting the benefits of Brexit.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 26, 2019

somwhat buried in a request for docs but: "House Democrats are investigating whether to impeach President Trump, according to a Friday petition for a D.C. federal judge to release grand jury information from the investigation of former special counsel Robert Mueller.

“This Committee is conducting an investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment,” the filing reads.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) sent the petition for a tailored array of information from the Mueller investigation to D.C. chief judge Beryl Howell, who will decide whether to release the protected material to Congress."

― akm, Friday, July 26, 2019 4:34 PM (twenty-one minutes ago)

I posted this upthread but I'm glad TPM ran its own story.

Called it:

/By Thursday morning, the Turning Point spokesman said, the group had identified the staffer responsible for turning Leazott’s design into a trending topic. He called the incident a last-minute oversight, the result of a quick online search to find a second high-resolution photo of the presidential seal to place behind Trump. He said the mistake was “unacceptable.”

“We did let the individual go,” the spokesman said. “I don’t think it was malicious intent but nevertheless.”/

The next two paragraphs:

Leazott doesn’t buy it. He thinks whoever was responsible had to know exactly what they were looking for. He believes the person dug up the image he created and used it intentionally.

“That’s a load of crap,” he said in response to Turning Point’s explanation. “You have to look for this. There’s no way this was an accident is all I’m saying.”

So this SCOTUS ruling just removes the injunction?

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday handed President Donald Trump a victory by letting his administration redirect $2.5 billion in money approved by Congress for the Pentagon to help build his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border even though lawmakers refused to provide funding.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-wall/u-s-supreme-court-lets-trump-use-disputed-funds-for-border-wall-idUSKCN1UL2S7

wtf? the framers very clearly reserved to Congress the right to appropriate money for the purposes it instructed the executive branch to administer, so if this was resolved on Constitutional grounds, the SCOTUS screwed the pooch. But, knowing how craven Congress has been about delegating powers to the executive in the past 50 years or more, they probably put some shitty law on the books that authorizes presidents to fuck around with the budget pretty much any way they please.

what prevents trump from declaring another national emergency and taking another 5 billion from the pentagon (which i've heard has a budget of...multiple billions of dollars) in a few months, in perpetuity?

^^^hates freedom

hating on Baltimore now

A good Twitter thread (about the Baltimore tweets, but also about how Trump's melted cheese brain "absorbs" "information"):

Trump's attack on Rep. Cummings is a straight recitation of a Fox segment. "Living conditions at the border are better than most areas in his district, the city lined with abandoned building and trash on the streets."

Left, Fox & Friends, 6:18 a.m.
Right, Trump, 7:14 a.m. pic.twitter.com/w5OniqHgW6

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) July 27, 2019

I can’t believe you just said that about melted cheese

shameful lactose intolerance itt

so much for the lactose-tolerant left

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/25/danielle-stella-republican-ilhan-omar-charged-felony-qanon-trump

This idiot has crazy eyes

i live for this stuff

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/this-appears-to-be-eric-trumps-incredibly-depressing-youtube-playlist.html

haha

My immediate takeaway is that Eric Trump's playlist, however you may feel about its contents, betrays a curiosity far surpassing that of his father.

Do you think Donald ever made a thing with his own hands (be it a restored Camaro or a crudely-rendered half-naked lady), or exhibited any interest in the process of doing so?

Happy Saturday!

i would think a man with such short fingers would steer as far clear of handicrafts as possible

I don't understand why this isn't getting more attention:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/why-were-moving-forward-impeachment/594931/

We have now filed a petition in court to obtain the grand-jury documents referenced in the special counsel’s report. In that filing, we have made clear that we will utilize our Article I powers to obtain the additional underlying evidence, as well as enforce subpoenas for key witness testimony, and broaden our investigations to include conflicts of interest and financial misconduct.

about fucking time

I don't understand why this isn't getting more attention

because our attention circuit-breakers have already flipped

and maggie haberman and chuck todd can only deal with what's directly in front of their faces

i know there's a cliche about losing cronkite, and that it's absolutely a different media era, but will no one of importance just come out and say what's obvious?

We have now filed a petition in court to obtain the grand-jury documents referenced in the special counsel’s report. In that filing, we have made clear that we will utilize our Article I powers to obtain the additional underlying evidence, as well as enforce subpoenas for key witness testimony, and broaden our investigations to include conflicts of interest and financial misconduct.

about fucking time

― Karl Malone, Sunday, July 28, 2019 5:43 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I guess by their estimation they had to wait until Mueller had testified before they took further action.
Some stuff got confirmed in that hearing but probably very little to the mythical man in the street and certainly not to the mediated customer.
But this should already be underway and should have been from the moment that the Dems could use authority to do so.
Would just seem to add to the stereotype of them being utterly wishy washy not to have this ready to run as soon as they could and not put faith in the hero on a white horse that Mueller never saw himself as. & I really wonder what level of obligation he had to feel constrained by the DOJ ruling that came down the night before the testimony. Seeemed like something he could have just ignored as easily but he'd have to have the volition to do so.
& I'm kind of surprised that somebody who had put in the work of the last couple of years wouldn't feel a wish to elucidate his findings. But I'm not that familiar with Mueller beyond the last couple of years. Sounds like that might be contrary to his character unfortunately.

Mueller strikes me as the type who has extremely sharply defined ideas of duty, right and wrong, which ideas include extreme deference to 'duly constituted authority', as it is constituted through laws, courts and legal opinions, or legally defined chains of command. All his actions have been above reproach, according to this strict, legalistic worldview, and absolutely no one's political interests were served by his investigation or report, which is an amazing feat akin to performing surgery on fleas.

Echo chamber coming

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/28/director-of-national-intelligence-dan-coats-is-expected-to-step-down-nyt.html

Tuck Choad more like

great burn by...Al Sharpton??

"If Donald Trump really thinks I'm a con man, he'd nominate me for his cabinet. But he doesn't believe that" - Al Sharpton

— Politics1.com (@Politics1com) July 29, 2019

i can think of at least one other reason that trump wouldn't nominate sharpton

lmao imagine literally any other elected official saying something like this

Just before signing the 9/11 victims compensation bill, Trump jokes with the first responders and their families that the stage may not hold all of them but that if it collapses they "are not falling very far" pic.twitter.com/h9qY3C7iHK

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 29, 2019

if the stage collapses i'm sure thousands of muslims will be celebrating in new jersey

toxic standard of shameless

During a signing ceremony for the 9/11 victim compensation fund bill, President Donald Trump — speaking to an audience filled with first responders — made reference his time “down there” at Ground Zero.

Speaking from the White House Rose Garden Monday morning, the president discussed his time at the site of the attacks. “I was down there also,” Trump said. “But I’m not considering myself a first responder. But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.”

This claim, however, has never been corroborated. And according to Snopes, Ground Zero was on lockdown by Sept. 15, and a government-issued ID badge was required to access the site.

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-oddly-boasts-about-his-time-down-there-during-9-11-but-im-not-considering-myself-a-first-responder/

by "down there" he means the financial district, and "with you" means he saw a lot of cops and firefighters as his car shuttled him through

So this new intel director

We're back to the craziness of Trump year one

it's been crazy the entire time, we've just acclimated (to a degree)

Yeah, I probe the cyanide capsule implanted in my gums a little less frequently these days but I never forget that it's there.

Josh Gottheimer is getting a primary challenge, which is good 'cause he's a piece of shit (Problem Solvers Caucus, my ass).

lmao imagine literally any other elected official saying something like this

Just before signing the 9/11 victims compensation bill, Trump jokes with the first responders and their families that the stage may not hold all of them but that if it collapses they "are not falling very far" pic.twitter.com/h9qY3C7iHK
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 29, 2019
― frogbs, Monday, July 29, 2019 11:27 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm not watching the clip but my inclination is that this wasn't meant to be a joke, simply because I actually don't think Trump is clever enough to make a joke like this, as terrifyingly low of a bar as that is.

CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES, THIS IS MY LAST RESORT 🎶 https://t.co/AJI0fDRovw

— Papa Roach (@paparoach) July 29, 2019

Man, when PAPA ROACH dunks on you...

pic.twitter.com/s3eVhtbPLi

— Guy1749 (@guy1749) July 29, 2019

at the risk of stating the obvious

starting to think this dersh guy might be problematic tbh

Anyone made it through the New Yorker thing about him yet?

preach it, sister
https://missionlocal.org/2019/07/san-francisco-supervisor-hillary-ronen-confronts-sen-ted-cruz-over-border-camps/

that seems highly cathartic