Secret CIA source claims Russia rigged 2016 election

Yeah, I can see him talking his way into an indictment almost as quickly as Trump could.

In a different world, with a different President, “negotiating an end to the Mueller probe” would be a polite euphemism for “negotiating the terms of the President’s resignation.”

With Trump, though, it probably means, “I’ll give you one chance to convince Rudy that I shouldn’t throw you in the dungeon. We have dungeons, right? What, in this whole White House we don’t have a single dungeon?”

It doesn’t even begin to make sense for the President’s lawyer to “negotiate an end to the Mueller probe”. It’s totally irrational for him to say something like that. No private lawyer for a third party has any standing to even comment on the investigation much less interfere with it.

I keep seeing signs the Republicans are taking more and more overt steps to obstruct justice.

I am not optimistic that Trump is stoppable. He’s got 40% of the population and more than that percentage of elected politicians with him and willing to do anything for power, and once they get enough institutions and the rules of law locked down locked down, there’s no stopping it.

It just happened in Hungry. Once you pack the courts and get enough power to amend the Constitution, you can’t lose.

… I mean, he’s still a long way from that.

Let’s say were a long way from Pence doing that. Trump doesn’t have the brains. But Pence… Can you say Christian Caliphate?

Last I checked, we’re (and by we, I mean the Koch brothers and ALEC) are six states short of calling a constitutional convention.

Trump doesn’t need the power to actually amend the Constitution. The only constitutional check on Trump’s power is the Congress, and even the Congress is powerless as long as Trump can hold on to 1/3 of the senators. As long as 1/3 of the Senate stays loyal, Trump (or the Trumpist party in the more general case) can do whatever he wants-- including changing the rules to help insure that a loyal 1/3 remains in the Senate-- and there is nothing under the Constitution that can stop him.

Yeah. I think we’re reaching (or maybe already have) the worst time in US history since the Civil War.

If I’m Russia, I am absolutely going to fuck with the upcoming elections (Presidential or even the midterms). Make sure it’s obvious the vote was “rigged” in favor of Trump. This country will collapse in on itself, because Trump won’t be able to admit he didn’t really get 78% of the vote.

And the Courts. A ton of Trump initiatives have been shown to be illegal/Unconstitutional already.

There are almost 3,800 US Marshals, the enforcement arm of the federal court system. I wonder who would stand in their way.

lol

And apparently the Comey memos have already made their way to reporters.


Yep, this is Stupid Watergate. During Real Watergate we waited breathlessly for headlines about What Did He Know And When Did He Know It. During Stupid Watergate, we get breaking headlines like this:

At this point, we have lived with the idea of the pee tape for so long that it almost feels as if we have already seen it, or at least stills from it. A friend told me that, when she envisions the scene at the Ritz Carlton, she always pictures Trump in an undershirt and boxer shorts, with sock garters and brown shoes. Another friend, a bit abashed, said that worrying over the tape has brought him to ponder whether pee fetishists prefer clear or dark-yellow urine. A third, exacting friend said that it bothers him when people get it wrong and claim that the prostitutes peed on Trump rather than on the bed. To me, the oddest detail of all is the idea that defiling the bed after rather than before the Obamas occupied that Moscow suite—a years-late voodoo ritual—might count as taking revenge on the then President and First Lady. It is this bizarre logic that in fact seems most like Trump, with his crazed rage at perceived enemies and fixation on old offenses—chronology be damned!—and it is what might ultimately count as the true perversity here.

I mean fuck the rule of law anyway, right?

Well, yeah. American’s, or a good number of them yearn for a monarchy still. (And now we have Jay Goldberg saying Cohen will flip because he’s afraid of getting raped in prison. )


By releasing Comey’s memos to the press (all of them) House Republicans now can’t selectively leak those to make Comey look bad. Effectively the GOP has shot themselves in the other foot. Even a charter member of the “both sides” beltway punditry can see that:

https://twitter.com/chucktodd/status/987155171414331393