This is new.
So, this isn’t about the meeting in the Seychelles reported all over the place in March?
MrGrumpy: "Here’s a new article with breaking news that shows a significant expansion of potential foreign interference.
Me: This is a big story; it also raises some disturbing questions about some very odd Middle East foreign policy statements made by the President last summer.
Misguided: Isn’t this old news?
Me: No. This is new.
Misguided: Seriously, isn’t this old news? (Brings up article detailing a January, 2017 meeting in the Seychelles, when the NYT articles lead paragraph says clearly that it is interest in an August 2016 meeting that is the focus of the new story.)
Me: I like discussing articles and links, but sweet Jesus tapdancing Christ, at least read the article first??
If the Times is paywalled for you, here’s the Guardian rehashing the story from yesterday:
Sorry, I’m out of town and time is limited. Didn’t mean to offend.
“Sure, I’m guilty as hell of all sorts of shit. But not collusion! (Never mind that there’s no crime on the books named collusion.)”
We already had the coup.
It happened on November 8, 2016, when an unqualified candidate won a minority victory in a corrupted election thanks in part to foreign intervention. Any time is the right time to pour into the streets and demand that it all grinds to a halt and the country change direction. The evidence that the candidate and his goons were aided by and enthusiastically collaborating with a foreign power was pretty clear before that election, and at this point, they are so entangled there isn’t really a reason to regard the born-again alt-right Republican Party and the Putin Regime as separate entities.
Well, now I feel like shit for going to my job and playing videogames and worrying about my waistline. Of course, if you’re the only one marching down Main Street carrying a sign, it’s not super effective.
That’s one of the stressful things about the time we live in. That sense that “my fellow Americans, we cannot escape history” and we’ll wonder what to say when grandkids ask “what did you do when the Republic collapsed, grampa?” Versus the sense that, no, it’s not that bad, we’re being chicken littles, things were worse in 1968 and the institutions (e.g. press, courts) have provided adequate pushback, and anyway Mueller is still doing his thing.
Just parsing all of these events in the context of one’s own patriot-o-meter is a recipe for unending cognitive dissonance.
The fellers of '76 went to war because the British government wanted to raise their taxes and then moved a bunch of soldiers into New England. Are we mice compared to them? Maybe the absence of obnoxious Redcoats in all our pubs is an inhibiting factor.
I remember talking with my father about charity when I was a kid (don’t worry, this is going somewhere).
I was raised to believe in the altruism of charity, and that everyone should strive to do so. When asked questions like “What would you do with a million dollars?”, the first item on my list was always “Give $X to charity.” March of Dimes would ask for money at school, and I’d fork over my lunch money. I became almost a broken record.
Then we talked.
“Dan_Theman,” he said, “You’re not making a whole lot of money right now.”
I thought about my allowance, and hoped I was about to get a raise. I was quite wrong.
“Charity is a wonderful thing, but we should only give what we can afford and feel comfortable with. Giving to charity is what makes a person good or not, after all. It’s a balance of all we do.”
So should you have the opportunity to protest, not get in trouble with your job (which I assume you need), not break the bank for travel, not unduly stress yourself and your health, and not inconvenience those who depend on you, go for it. But if you don’t show up because of whatever legitimate reasons, nobody should hold that against you; you’re still a patriot and a good person. Some people WILL hold it against you, but that’s just because people can be idiots. If you don’t show up only because your butt is just sooooo comfortable on the couch, that’s another thing. However, I’m pretty sure 99.99% of us have a legitimate reason to not be marching in front of The White House right now.
What’s far more interesting to me is at what point does that threshold not matter. Lots of people dying in the streets? Yeah, @#$% showing up to work because our world is about to go down the drain. We’re not there, thankfully. Actual, literal Nazis in power and about to commit genocide against my family and friends? Go get me my gun. Again, not there. Not even remotely. But those are easy lines to draw.
For me, I’d say I’d draw the line at something which directly threatens my ability to provide for my family. Actually, I’d draw it a bit before then; at something which directly threatens the ability for my loved ones to provide for themselves or their families. That’s my “Screw it, I’m going to protest right now” line. Outside of that, I’d need to apply my filters; is it going to mess up my job, etc…
Nunberg alleging Roger Stone will be next to be indicted by Mueller:
The mid-terms are going to go well. /s
Apt:
It’s basically a public invitation for further meddling from Putin.
“I am the person responsible for watching out for that thing you did and I am going to be sitting here looking into this corner and twiddling my thumbs. Don’t do anything bad, ok?”
Here’s one of numerous op-eds fulminating on the consequences of Trump’s Sunday tweet asking the DoJ to investigate itself:
I fear all the outrage is being contained within a pundit echo chamber. What if they gave a Saturday Night Massacre and nobody showed up?
Why should this (and all the rest of the bullshit) only matter if it matters to Republicans?
Doesn’t the ‘nothing matters’ mantra become a self-fulfilling prophecy - we know the GOP not only doesn’t care but is actively involved in the dismantling of democratic norms.
I don’t know what point I’m trying to make, but if enough people keep hearing ‘nothing matters,’ then why would they bother to vote?
What infuriates me is how all the news commentators seem to have decided to become Trump’s best legal team strategists.
“What would be the red line, that would force RR to refuse the White House demands?”
“Well I’m so glad you asked: here are three demands that I am sure RR would never comply with and he would probably resign solving all the Trump Team’s problems…”
Because it only matters if the people doing this shit face consequences for it, and if Republicans maintain power, they will not. I do not believe there is any act Trump will or can take that would prove a step too far for Republicans in Congress. If they are not decisively voted out, nothing will happen to these people as a consequence of what they’re doing now.
It doesn’t matter because the people charged with making it matter have shirked their responsibilities and sold the nation out to the highest bidder.
This is why every Republican voter you know is the enemy and the cause of our predicament. Trump’s insanity is only possible when 51 of our Senators and 235 of our Representatives not only allow it but, indeed, openly welcome it, and those people are elected by Republicans nationwide time and again. And right now, it seems like a lot of them feel perfectly safe continuing on as they are.
There are hopeful signs. The special elections, the polling numbers (well, until the last month), the Congressional retirements. But if those hopeful signs don’t pan out into an enormous Congressional shakeup in the fall, then no, nothing will matter because the electorate will have announced via their votes that they don’t want it to.
Here we go. The Cohen Taxi King cohort is flipping. Tick tock, Cohen. Think hard about where you’re at now because YOU need to protect yourself from what’s coming.
He still hasn’t tried to appoint his horse to the senate. That just might get a reaction out of them.
Nah, McConnell and Incitatus would get along swimmingly.