Trump, June 2017: From [Covfefe] with Love

also think the reductive take on motivations is kind of gross. Obama, for ex. (and Hillary too!) actually wanted to get shit done, they had goals and policies and principles in mind.

I think this really is the first president we've had where the *sole* motivations are power and ego

also: revenge

Ah, so everything's okay then.

Chris Christie tells @NicolleDWallace Trump's comments to Comey were "normal New York City conversation" he didn't realize was inappropriate

— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) June 7, 2017

Trying to find something of substance in Comey’s opening statement like pic.twitter.com/igLC4JPREg

— GOP (@GOP) June 7, 2017

Just locker room talk.

GOP: THIS IS ALL JUST SO FUNNY! LOOK HOW HARD WE'RE LAUGHING! HA HA HA!

Grab 'em by the pussy, stop investigating my friend ...

yes, def also revenge

xp

looking forward to whistleblowers bobbing up to the surface after six months on the floor of the potomac being called a "new york city layoff"

GOP goal is to mock the investigation into submission, smart move, everyone likes a comedian. They should call in the big guns.
http://nepascene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/gallagher-kirby-center-wilkes-barre.jpg

Gallagher loves Trump iirc

I'm sure the feeling is mutual, because of course he does.

the best melons

So do you believe there is practically nothing Trump could do to get him impeached?

it would have to be a dead girl/live boy scenario or as Morbz says "murrrrder"

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, June 7, 2017 2:42 PM (fifty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait...Morbz is Ja Rule irl??????

my friend did a review of gallagher playing a show w/the metallica/gallagher tribute band metallagher and anyway yeah i guess his show nowadays is ugly and racist

http://www.citypages.com/music/gallagher-and-metallagher-make-for-an-unholy-union-at-station-4-6641510

can't believe no one's pointed out the trump murder on 5th avenue thing yet

My fave lost tidbit from his old lawyer:

Q: Did Mr. Miller always do everything together with you when he was active in this case?

A: Not everything, but we—it’s always been our practice to make sure two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.

Q: You are meeting with your client?

A: That’s right. Our client. Hey, Trump is a leader in the field of expert—he’s an expert at interpreting things. Let’s put it that way.

Yeah this version of Comey's statements is creepy, but it's nothing compared to the unabridged transcript https://t.co/F1GqzBU474 pic.twitter.com/rYS3DL6fl8

— Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) June 7, 2017

the metallica/gallagher tribute band metallagher

Um.

I've seen two genuine Trump moments: (a) smiling at his plateful of KFC (b) acknowledging his surprise that he won in November. He ran in a why-the-hell-not way to make money for his enterprise. Like most everyone else, he didn't think he'd win.

here's the, ahem, moderate GOP response.

I like the cut of this dude's jib:

Randy David · Owner-operator at Self-Employed
IMO the loyalty piece is absolutely a pre-requisite, given the obscene leaks taking place within the intelligence community. Trump must screen EVERYONE to determine where their alliances are...unfortunately...and we can thank the Obama administration for this hyper partisan paranoia that DC is steeped in. Keep an eye on the real ball though, not Russia, but the perpetrators and leakers of the unmasking. I believe these leakers will go to jail.

Why does everyone assume Trump is not under FBI investigation? When was the last time anyone was asked that question?

trump murder on 5th avenue

need to work up a pulp paperback cover for this

the metallica/gallagher tribute band metallagher
Um.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, June 7, 2017 3:47 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

some of the same ppl also had Amish Armada, like the symbol was the Misfits skulls but with an Amish hat and beard, they all dressed Amish (music was punk/hardcore/metal) and preached about "death pods" (cars) and told people to turn off their phones, I think for awhile they were doing the thing like Pink Floyd, where they would build the Wall and then be playing behind, except they did a "barn raising" of a cardboard barn onstage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJhPJXhymSY

Alternate NRO points

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448386/james-comey-testimony-donald-trump-actions-are-questionable

The testimony paints an ugly picture of the president. Trump’s interactions with Comey are excessive and bizarre (to the point of ordering everyone out of the Oval Office before making his request that Comey drop the Flynn investigation). Comey notes that he spoke only twice to President Obama, once when the president called him to say goodbye. By contrast, he had nine private conversations with President Trump in a mere four months.

To put this in perspective, the GOP was rightly outraged when Bill Clinton met privately — once — with Loretta Lynch during the Hillary e-mail investigation. Here we have evidence of multiple meetings where the president directly tried to influence the conduct of an FBI investigation. This is far worse and far better-documented misconduct.

I still don’t believe that this adds up to a charge of criminal obstruction...but it still constitutes an intolerable abuse of power.

"Intolerable" = totally tolerable

If anything NR is going harder on Trump than they used to; six months ago it was "Trump is a fraud and a crook, exactly like Obama and Clinton, who liberals excused, but we are better than those hypocritical liberals." They seem to have conceded now that whatever their problems with Clinton, the foulness of Trump is of a different order.

good thing no one in the GOP gives a fuck what NRO thinks

at this point they're like the withered skin shed by a snake, the husk of "conservatism" left behind by the Trumpist GOP

When you consider what voters the GOP courts most these days, the vast majority don't even know what the National Review is.

much less William F. Buckley, Jr.

any guesses on how long this lawsuit will take

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/07/democrats-donald-trump-sue-conflict-of-interest-239262

But Bill Buckley was on TV, so you could probably round up some tea partiers who remember him. Knowing of the National review requires a propensity to read.

an intolerable abuse of power.

Best Pantera album.

That emoluments lawsuit is a side show compared to much other stuff, but it will at least require Trump to hire another set of lawyers to handle it. First hurdle would be courts examining the basic issue of whether the plaintiffs have standing. Nothing like this has ever been done. Or been necessary.

yeah, it will take forever

Get a decent book out of it, maybe, years hence

Never forget that young conservatives were making fun of Buckley on one of those death cruises in 2006.

To put this in perspective, the GOP was rightly outraged when Bill Clinton met privately — once — with Loretta Lynch during the Hillary e-mail investigation. Here we have evidence of multiple meetings where the president directly tried to influence the conduct of an FBI investigation. This is far worse and far better-documented misconduct.

oh man, i'm sure the GOP is going to recognize their hypocrisy now!!!!!!!11!!!!!

any second now

right there, they just recognized it

https://media.tenor.com/images/0182954ec63c31727befcb89f50018e7/tenor.gif

lol

Senator Warner from the Intel committee with a few tweets...

Today we gave our intel community leaders an opportunity to clear up reports that POTUS attempted to interfere with the Russia investigation

— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) June 7, 2017

Wittes Wittesing

https://lawfareblog.com/initial-comments-james-comeys-written-testimony

At the end:

But I will make three general observations based on this document alone.

First, Comey is describing here conduct that a society committed to the rule of law simply cannot accept in a president. We have spent a lot of time on this site over seven years now debating the marginal exertions of presidential power and their capacity for abuse. Should the president have the authority to detain people at Guantanamo? Incinerate suspected terrorists with flying robots? Use robust intelligence authorities directed at overseas non-citizens? These questions are all important, but this document is about a far more important question to the preservation of liberty in a society based on legal norms and rules: the abuse of the core functions of the presidency. It’s about whether we can trust the President—not the President in the abstract, but the particular embodiment of the presidency in the person of Donald J. Trump—to supervise the law enforcement apparatus of the United States in fashion consistent with his oath of office. I challenge anyone to read this document and come away with a confidently affirmative answer to that question.

Second, we are about to see a full-court press against Comey. I don’t know what it will look like. But the attack instinct always kicks in when a presidency is under siege. And Trump has the attack instinct in spades even when he’s not under siege. It is important to remember what the stakes are here. They are not about whether Comey was treated fairly. They are not about whether you like him. They are not about whether he handled the Clinton email investigation in the highest traditions of the FBI or the Justice Department. They are not about leaks. The stakes here are about whether what Comey is reporting in this document are true facts and, if so, what we need as a political society to do about the reality that we have a president who behaves this way and seeks to use the FBI in this fashion. It is critical, in other words, that people not change the subject or get distracted when others try to do so.

Finally, it is also critical—though probably fruitless to say—that we eschew partisanship in the conversation. Tomorrow, this document will be the discussion text when Comey faces a committee that, warts and all, has handled the Russia matter to date in a respectable and honorably bipartisan fashion. It is not too much to ask that members put aside party and respond as patriots to the fact that the former FBI director will swear an oath that these facts are true—and was fired after these interactions allegedly took place by a man who then told Lester Holt that “when I decided to just do it [fire Comey], I said to myself … this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story,” and boasted to the Russians the day after dismissing Comey that “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

The question they—and we—all face is simple: Do we care?

and the answer is... no

not those that it really matters to, anyway

we are about to see a full-court press against Comey. I don’t know what it will look like.

We shall be treated to the discovery that Comey masturbated frequently as a youth, and lied when, at the advanced age of seven, he was asked about a hatchet-mutilated cherry tree.