US Politics. Trump Crossing the Dnieper. Alea Iacta Est.

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, sologdin said:

what will his fellow optimates do when he arrogates the tribunicia potestas, the magistracy of the praefectura morum, or, heaven forfend, the office of dictator perpetuo rei publicae constituendae?

Fortunately, he may be as ruthless as Sulla, but nowhere near as smart or, really strategic, since he can't stop his mouth and fingers from indicting himself.

By the way, the rating of Faux Noose -- part of that surely is due to the bushes that made that network compulsory in all the armed forces's public spaces, including transport -- and also the sole network.

It's also booming in the public spaces such as the break rooms and cafeterias in a lot of police stations and court houses across the country.

Plus every goddamn moderately priced hotel - motel chain below the mason-dixon line and in the southwest shows faux noose and only faux noose in the breakfast rooms and so on.  You can't make them shut it off either, unless by luck you are the only person left there.  Also the chains blast it above the mason dixon line too, though one is able more successfully to get them to shut it off or even change to something else.

I heard last night on some public radio program -- which one, and who was speaking I didn't catch as I was actually, ah-hem, working -- that the WH is unequipped to deal with impeachment, either strategically or staff-wise.  Also that some are saying the WH's greatest liability to coming up with a plan and strategy is bedbug himself as he cannot be controlled and won't shut-up. Worse, some WH staffers have told this person's who I don't know is, is that they doubt that at this point bedbug even realises what impeachment is or how serious it is.

Broadly along these lines:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/total-panic-shell-shocked-white-house-struggles-find-impeachment-footing-n1059251

Quote

 

WASHINGTON — White House officials were scrambling Thursday to figure out how to counter the House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, with one source familiar with the situation describing a sense of “total panic” over the past week at the lack of a plan to address the new reality.

There appears to be rising “anxiety, unease, and concern” — as one person close to the White House described the mood in the West Wing — that the whistleblower’s allegations could seriously wound the president and some of those around him. “There’s not a lot of confidence that there’s no there there,” this person said.

White House officials remained unsure of how to proceed, not only because there is no apparent plan to deal with the situation, but because the allegations are so serious that the usual methods the president has used to successfully escape past controversies may not apply: “This doesn’t look like something that’s going to be overtaken by the next news cycle,” the person said.

Another person familiar with the discussions described the mood inside the White House as “shell-shocked,” with increasing wariness that, as this impeachment inquiry drags out, the likelihood increases that the president could respond erratically and become “unmanageable.”

That concern was echoed by another source, who said that some around the president anticipate he will engage in more “impulsive” behavior, with pressure expected to build on him daily during the impeachment inquiry.

That’s sparking worries that Trump could display increasingly unpredictable behavior and lash out in unexpected ways — both a presidential and a political concern in an election year.

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, Ormond said:

There are many different Amish communities, and the exact rules on what parts of modern technology they use and don't use vary from place to place. Plus it seems many Amish are a bit more lenient about such things with unmarried young people. 

I can easily think that there are Amish communities who would be against hooking up to the electric grid but who would be fine with batteries for radios and other electronic devices.

Even the Amish can’t keep the faith. Just another buffet to pick and choose from. Heretics, I say!!!

[Fragile Bird]

What aide is everyone talking about? Who was dismissed? There are no stories about the whistleblower being identified and dismissed.

[sologdin]

there’s no there there

i marvel at the learned literary allusions coming from anonymous white house staffers.

[ThinkerX]

25 minutes ago, Bonnot OG said:

You still foolishly believe there are moderate republicans? 

Do Murkowski and Collins count?  

 

[Jace, Extat]

8 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Do Murkowski and Collins count?  

 

Is Kavanaugh on the SC?

[The Mother of The Others]

There's no way my son was involved in this oil company scandal.  My son's been dead for years.  Everyone knows that.    He's not profiting from oil, he's slowly becoming oil.   - - - - the coming 2020 Biden defense before a senate inquiry committee.   

[sologdin]

manifestly silly. i love how trump voters are sufficiently credulous to draw the most cynical inferences possible from the most paranoid delusions in any set of conspiracist allegation--but when trump actually admits to wrongdoing, they shrug it off with a mix of ad hominem, genetic, tu quoque, and other fallacies.

[Zorral]

Please help me out.  When did an apostrophe become a hyphen?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Too bad a two-week recess is in effect and all these people are going home . . . how his howls -- and hyphens -- will dominate all the air waves and bands. Still, Schiff's group will stay and work all through these two weeks.

Plus:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/us/politics/clinton-trump-impeachment.html?
 

Quote

 

....But the approach [the Clinton WH's approach, which was severely disciplined and controlled, under the rule that everybody keep working at their jobs and speak not even to each other about the situation, other than those who were working for Clinton's defense) is unlikely to succeed with President Trump, someone less concerned with policy than he is with how things play in distinct, daily news cycles. He heads into what appears to be a rapidly unfurling impeachment inquiry unprepared temperamentally, and with a depleted staff, many of whom are shrugging off the seriousness of what the president faces....

A White House official said there had been “no need” for a replacement [of the attorney and team to deal with impeachment during the Mueller period], and that there were no impeachment preparations underway in the White House because so far there was no actual impeachment inquiry to prepare for.

If anything, Mr. Trump and some of his advisers have grown convinced since the Mueller investigation that the tight discipline that worked 20 years ago may not be necessary....

.... Also complicating matters, the White House Counsel’s Office and the National Security Council are implicated in the whistle blower’s complaint, which details how White House lawyers “directed” people to remove an electronic transcript of Mr. Trump’s phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine from the computer system where such transcripts are typically stored. The White House on Friday said lawyers from the National Security Council actually decided how to store the transcript....

 

Plus many other complications that they aren't dealing with or don't know how to, at least at this time.  In any case, it seems the prevailing view is that impeachment won't happen, because the Senate will block it.  And even if it does, his base will re-elect him because he is the gr8est.  However, in the last 24 hours or so, the favorable view of impeachment according to various polls has increased.  The numbers of those who favor him and re-election haven't moved -- ever. really, though his negative numbers do increase.

[Maithanet]

11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Please help me out.  When did an apostrophe become a hyphen?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Too bad a two-week recess is in effect and all these people are going home . . . how his howls -- and hyphens -- will dominate all the air waves and bands.

The House Intelligence committee is not recessing.  Which is a smart move on their part.   

[Zorral]

As I included in my post -- yay!  Probably yet another reason bedbug is demanding Schiff's resignation.  Just because he sez so.

Well I say bedbug must resign right now and everything he's done be rescinded, immediately!

[aceluby]

3 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

The trial in the Senate will be a farce unless public opinion overwhelming turns against him. The evidence and the case are irrelevant.

The evidence and case are what would change public opinion.

[Jace, Extat]

8 minutes ago, aceluby said:

The evidence and case are what would change public opinion.

Rhetoric is what will change public opinion. Facts are irrelevant in the face of superior messaging.

[The Anti-Targ]

Is it true that part of what Trump thinks about this Ukraine/Biden thing has it's genesis in a QAnon/4Chan conspiracy theory?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Do Murkowski and Collins count?  

 

Collins is either in on it and playing dumb or she's a useless rube who will never learn she's Charlie and her party is Lisa pulling the football away.

[Darth Richard II]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Collins is either in on it and playing dumb or she's a useless rube who will never learn she's Charlie and her party is Lisa pulling the football away.

Lucy. Lucy pulls the football away.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Just now, Darth Richard II said:

Lucy. Lucy pulls the football away.

Nooooooooo. I should know that.........................

I blame The Simpsons.

[Zorral]

14 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Is it true that part of what Trump thinks about this Ukraine/Biden thing has it's genesis in a QAnon/4Chan conspiracy theory?

I posted about the right wing fake news conspiracy ring and Crowdstrike and all the rest on the previous, now closed, thread.

But it's all laid out, point-by-point, all over the internet, from Vox, to the WaPo, to NYT, the Guardian, you name it.

And here is where it began --

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/25/i-wrote-about-the-bidens-and-ukraine-years-ago-then-the-right-wing-spin-machine-turned-the-story-upside-down/

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Cover up confirmed!:

Quote

Washington (CNN)The White House acknowledged Friday that administration officials directed a now-infamous Ukraine call transcript be filed in a highly classified system, confirming allegations contained in a whistleblower complaint that have roiled Washington.

In a statement provided to CNN, a senior White House official said the move to place the transcript in the system came at the direction of National Security Council attorneys.

 

"NSC lawyers directed that the classified document be handled appropriately," the senior White House official said.

 

White House officials say the transcript was already classified so it did nothing wrong by moving it to another system.

 

The admission lends further credibility to the whistleblower complaint description of how the July 25 transcript with the Ukrainian president, among others, were kept out of wider circulation by using a system for highly sensitive documents.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-transcript-white-house/index.html

 

[The Anti-Targ]

16 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I posted about the right wing fake news conspiracy ring and Crowdstrike and all the rest on the previous, now closed, thread.

But it's all laid out, point-by-point, all over the internet, from Vox, to the WaPo, to NYT, the Guardian, you name it.

And here is where it began --

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/25/i-wrote-about-the-bidens-and-ukraine-years-ago-then-the-right-wing-spin-machine-turned-the-story-upside-down/

Imagine if 4Chan and QAnon manage to do what the Muellar investigation failed to do?