US Politics, June 2018: This is a total goat rodeo.

You know you're hot when you can count an inanimate eagle costume among your supporters.

I didn't live through Nixon, obviously I could read about it but that wouldn't impart the same visceral sense, so: when Watergate was happening, how strong was the general level and sentiment of people agreeing that it was all a witch hunt

Xp Lol anyone whose been alive since like 1985 knows with this douchebag you keep EVERY receipt for future reference. [he still wont pay and you end up in court or writing off loss]. So lets see the player list iggles

I didn't live through Nixon, obviously I could read about it but that wouldn't impart the same visceral sense, so: when Watergate was happening, how strong was the general level and sentiment of people agreeing that it was all a witch hunt

I've not listened to all of this yet, but I think it is helpful in chronicling the era and the context http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html

GOP didn't turn on Nixon (like, at all) until the Saturday Night Massacre, and even then it was just a handful of Senators

for most of 1973 it didn't register. It took the hearings over the summer and the Saturday Night Massacre later in the year to turn the tide.

i remember the Admin and its puppets declaring "One year of Watergate is enough"

I would say things are different now, and it's going to take something much more extreme to dislodge GOP support than the firing of Sessions/Rosenstein/Mueller which at best is only going to (maybe) sway the votes of Hucklberry Butchmeup and Grassley and Corker

House GOP caucus will clearly never turn on Trump, even if a live boy/dead girl is involved

That watergate podcast is so great. All the different forgotten individual players they focus on are fascinating in their own way. I didn’t live through it but really gives you a contextualized and convincing POV of what it felt like to see each new shoe drop. It seems framed to make you compare to what’s happening now for sure but doesn’t push that angle too heavy.

"Witch-Hunt" was used in the headline of a Woodward-Bernstein story in July '73

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/19/15659314/trump-nixon-watergate

That's WH staffers being quoted anonymously. To get "the people's" sentiment you might have to check Gallup.

I can't find the thread for congressional and state-level politicking, so I'll put this here -- Roger Wicker's Senate seat is up for re-election but isn't getting any ink because he's likely a lock. One of the "Dem" candidates is the venture-capitalist husband of actress Sela Ward -- he was a Republican in California who donated $5000 to Wicker last year but then registered to vote in MS last September. Speculation is that he's just there to fuck up the candidacies of actual Dems. (Primary is today.)

yeah, obviously staffers then and now have and will always call such things a witch hunt, what I'm specifically interested in is the level to which a large swath of the general public also agreed

(and obviously I learned about it in school, but in general, a lot of history is taught in schools as if everyone was on the "right side of history" and objections were scattered and inconsequential)

My understanding, katherine, based on Woodward-Bernstein's accounts and Mary McCarthy's invaluable little book is that the case was off the radar until well past the 1972 election, nearly a year and a half after the break-in occurred.

since he won a big landslide when the story was barely 4 months old, it took awhile to turn the 'Nixon Democrats.' But nearly everyone who voted for McGovern hated him, I think it's fair to say. Middle-aged Dems had hated him since they were teenagers.

The podcast makes the point and (plays clip) of McGovern ineffectiveky trying to make hay out of it during the election (I had previously assumed it never came up) but again was really early.

There's also just so much shit going on under the surface that no one knows about for sometimes decades. Was just this morning reading about Nixon employing Anna Chennault to sabotage the Vietnam peace talks prior to the '68 election. Can't wait to see what comes oozing out of our current era 20-30 years after the fact.

in 2018 conservatives would think Trump goons doing Watergate is "Cool"

guy's a maverick. plays by his own rules. any means necessary to keep illigetimate dems out of office and save our constityoooshun

hey just a little b & e to own the libs

Was just this morning reading about Nixon employing Anna Chennault to sabotage the Vietnam peace talks prior to the '68 election

That was a big o_O moment in the Burns doc.

Also worth noting that he was, at the same time, saying that he wouldn't dream of making any public statement that might endanger the possibility of a resolution. Such pure and undiluted sociopathy.

The real crime is all the norms he violated in the process.

Norm Crosby, Norm McDonald, etc.

Was wondering why everything seemed so quiet lately. Then I realized this thread was created.

waiting for prez tweet on the end of the Miss America swimsuit competition

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/390784-mcconnell-cancels-senates-august-recess

“Due to the historic obstruction by Senate Democrats of the president’s nominees, and the goal of passing appropriations bills prior to the end of the fiscal year, the August recess has been canceled," McConnell said in a statement.

Turtle gonna Turtle

very canny of him to say "historic" rather than "unprecedented". hell, everything the Senate does goes into the historic record, so when they pass a resolution announcing that ice cream tastes good, it is "historic".

um

Letter from @LindseyGrahamSC to Dep AG Rosenstein:
1) Are you a witness in Mueller’s Investigation?
2) If not, why not?
3) If so, should you recuse yourself? pic.twitter.com/ni3rvov4dG

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) June 5, 2018

1) Are you a member of the Republican party?
2) If so, are you currently on fire?
3) If not, should you immolate yourself?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9e/ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmmC%2BC.jpg/220px-ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmmC%2BC.jpg

I truly don't understand what Graham is trying to accomplish there, or why.

He is known to have no Trumpophilia. He's not even up for reelection this time; even if he's trying to avoid a challenge from the right no one will remember this stunt in 2020.

Is the DOJ's internal integrity his "ethics in gaming journalism"?

First, "if not, why not" is a question for Mueller to answer, not Rosenstein.

Next, the big difference between Sessions and Rosenstein is that Sessions was a member of the campaign who met with Russian officials numerous times during the period under investigation and who could conceivably become a subject of the investigation, while Rosenstein was a witness to various words and actions during events of interest to the investigators, but only incidentally, just as anyone might witness a car accident without having any connection to the drivers of the vehicles, and the police might take a statement from them without their being under suspicion.

Is the idea to tar everything so that supposedly there is no such thing as an objective witness. Try to make sure taht anybody who can be thought to have seen anything is enmired in a way that they would incriminate themselves,?

we are all potential witnesses in the Mueller investigation

I've seen some things.

maybe Graham thinks he can convince Trump to invade North Korea like he keeps saying he wants him to do if he has his back on this.

Most likely some hotshot on Graham's staff dreamed up this stunt and Lindsey thought it was clever enough to gain some attention and get him talked about approvingly by FOX News, conservative radio talk hosts, and retirees in feed caps. So, he had the letter written, read it, and signed his name to it.

thanks Aimless - not least for "retirees in feed caps."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-asks-appeals-court-to-restore-his-power-to-block-critics-on-twitter

uses his time and leverage wisely, this guy

His butt, it hurts.

The Washington Post reports:

Three months after Scott Pruitt was sworn in as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, his executive scheduler emailed Dan Cathy, chairman and president of the fast food company Chick-fil-A, with an unusual request: Would Cathy meet with Pruitt to discuss “a potential business opportunity”?

A call was arranged, then canceled, and Pruitt eventually spoke with someone from the company’s legal department. Only then did he reveal the “opportunity” on his mind was a job for his wife, Marlyn. “The subject of that phone call was an expression of interest in his wife becoming a Chick-fil-A franchisee,” company representative Carrie Kurlander told The Washington Post via email.

Marlyn Pruitt never opened a restaurant. “Administrator Pruitt’s wife started, but did not complete, the Chick-fil-A franchisee application,” Kurlander said. But the revelation that Pruitt used his official position and EPA staff to try to line up work for his wife appears to open a new chapter in the ongoing saga of his questionable spending and management decisions, which so far have spawned a dozen federal probes.

Pruitt is like the guy who always tries to talk the cashier into letting him use her employee discount.

If you keep having to say it...

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/05/sarah-huckabee-sanders-im-an-honest-person-625914

lmao "America hour" at the White House lasted all of 7 minutes

Next, the big difference between Sessions and Rosenstein is that Sessions was a member of the campaign who met with Russian officials numerous times during the period under investigation and who could conceivably become a subject of the investigation, while Rosenstein was a witness to various words and actions during events of interest to the investigators, but only incidentally, just as anyone might witness a car accident without having any connection to the drivers of the vehicles, and the police might take a statement from them without their being under suspicion.

― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, June 5, 2018 7:04 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rosenstein is a witness, imo. he wrote that bullshit ass letter blaming comey's handling of hillary's case as pretext to fire him.

Trump unable to remember words to "God Bless America" at replacement event he commissioned to prove his patriotism: https://t.co/LrMPaCEnen pic.twitter.com/oCcWMX9g39

— Deadspin (@Deadspin) June 5, 2018

Who gives a swift shit